An elite running club based in Carrboro, NC
Oh Woe! Anybody have some useful tricks for overcoming plantar fascitis? I’ve gotten new shoes (yesterday) and picked up some Superfeet at Victor’s suggestion, but I am open to experimentation at this point if anyone know good remedies for this. I’ve had it before and it usually works itself out, but this spell is lasting longer than usual.
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Greetings all, from Addis Ababa! What a relief it is to be back here again and out of the polluted air of Cairo. It is hard to run at altitude, but I think it’s even harder to run in the chaotic Egyptian metropolis. I was dragging myself out of bed at 5 am just to be able to breathe on the streets of Cairo, wondering what it was about running that I had ever liked. There are no soft surfaces in Cairo, the cars move along recklessly, and there is almost no greenery. And what greenery exists is all in private clubs or gardens. The largest of these has an annual membership fee of US$1000. Can you imagine living in a city where you had to pay that kind of money just to go into a park?
Since arriving here on Saturday, my mindset has completely changed. Running here is natural and part of the rhythm of life. Again, I go for a run first thing in the morning (though here it’s more like 6:15), and set off into the hills behind where I will stay for the week. The climbing is steep at times, but it is also possible to zig and zag one’s way up the slopes. During my first run, a slender, agile Ethiopian young man joined me and we began a pleasant conversation. Gudisa claims he’s 16 (though he looks older); he has PRs at altitude of 15:01 in the 5k and 31 and change in the 10k.
About 10 minutes into our run together, he started using one of those lines I often hear: “I have an American friend. Do you know….” This always annoys me because it’s expected that I would know every American who ever comes to Addis. But then he said the name; turns out he was a cross country runner at Swarthmore, my alma mater. We did not overlap at school, but he started the year after I graduated, and so I met him in alumni races and knew of him because I keep track of Swarthmore running. I almost tripped when he said that. It’s a funny coincidence.
In any case, he has joined me each morning since for my runs; we head off together up into the hills or to nearby forested areas. He tells me stories about people who have gotten eaten by hyenas in these hills and takes me to breathtaking views. We see loads of other runners also enjoying the morning air. It’s nice to not have to pay attention to where I am going, since he knows the area very well I can just focus on trying to keep up. He darts up the slopes, and has this incredible second gear that he likes to end the runs with. I am either way too old, or way too slow.
But there is also a sad side to this story. Gudisa is an orphan; his parents died in a car crash three years ago, leaving him and three sisters behind. Two of the sisters were adopted by an NGO and the third has been sponsored to go to Italy with an adoptive family, but Gudisa lives in a two-person rented apartment. His school fees are paid by the NGO and he dreams of better opportunities, mostly hoping that running will give him a future. He washes dishes in the hotel I am staying in in exchange for dinners twice a week. I think he does well in running competitions against other school kids and has won medals, but there are many 15 minute 5k guys her, even at the high school level.
Here’s a picture of Gudisa.
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Greetings from Cairo everyone! I am looking forward to being back in Carrboro soon (July 18) after a short visit to Addis Ababa , but in the meantime, I thought this recent article from the New York Times was very interesting. Here’s my favorite quote from it:
“These athletes have hearts that make cardiologists gasp in awe, hearts that are among the biggest ever seen in healthy people. They are enormous, elongated, torpedo-shaped hearts, twice the mass of a normal heart, that draw blood in like a suction pump and push it out like a piston.”
I am a sorry I missed the Olympic Trials fun, but I did check the results periodically online. Looks like there were some interesting races and some expected and unexpected outcomes.
The air quality here in Cairo is lousy, especially at this time of year, so I have been finding it difficult to run. I will be looking to get back into it in a real way soon.
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Greetings from the sprawling city of Cairo! I have been relegated to running on the treadmill here as it is impossible to do so in the streets. If you have ever been to this city, you’ll understand. Crossing the street walking is hard enough! It’s like a real life version of frogger, which you can imagine is slightly more harrowing than a computer game. Alas, the treadmill’s not my favorite, but I think I will stick to it for a few more days. There is something awful about having your pace be dictated by a brainless machine. You can never slow down or surge, unless you play with the speed and tilt, which I am way too lazy to do.
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Greetings all, from Singapore!
I thought I was the unlucky one trying to slog out runs in the heat and humidity here until I checked the weather back home in Carrboro this weekend. Holy cow! I hope Brent passed on his long run (which by now at least is shorter), delaying it a few days until the worst heat passes. I tried one myself this morning and only lasted about 97 minutes. My attempt involved slowing considerably by the end of my run as the temperature climbed to around 82 with 90+% humidity at 9am.
I think I drank about 1 gallon of water and still felt dehydrated. These are the days I wish I were a camel.
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It’s been that kind of spring. Two good races but mostly falling behind in workouts and in races. Today with Brent was another one of those days; I fear I was not much help to him in his marathon preparation this time… And yet I have not doubted my motivation to continue doing what I can in this sport, and I continue to look ahead to the fall.
In any case, I am off on another bout of travels starting Friday. My itinerary this time is insane. I go to Washington for meetings Friday and then a weekend with friends there. Then it’s off to Singapore with Shuwen to visit the inlaws. June 18 I fly to Cairo, with its searing summer heat. The following week I am off to Sweden to present a paper, and then back to Cairo for a little while, before concluding with a stop to work with my colleagues in Addis Ababa. I will finally return sometime around July 18-20.
I wonder how my running will hold up along the way. Maybe it will be good to step back a bit and prepare to run the fall, refreshed and just happy to be in Carrboro. See you all then, and bet of luck with your summer runs!
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It’s been a crazy couple of weeks; lots of people have complimented me on my run up in Boston. That has partly validated the difficult spring I have had with research, training, and getting healthy.
So it was also good to come back to earth a bit yesterday doing a tempo run with Brent and Devin. We went out to the unpaved part of the Tobacco Trail, down in Wake County. The trail was lightly sloping up and down, the breeze was strong, and I did everything I could to stay with those two…staying with Devin about 3 miles, and with Brent for a little less than 5.
We have some really talented runners in this club, and I need to try to get back up to speed.
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So I really obsessed about my running long long before Workout Log made our job easier. I thought I would go back to my old spreadsheets and update them post Boston, to see what the numbers can tell me. Here is my mileage chart since I returned from my 2-year stint with the Peace Corps in 2004. The red dots correspond to when I ran marathon races.
Below are the averages for the 15-week span leading up to each of those four marathons, and the times I ran:
Chicago I (53.1; 2:27:43)
Chicago II (57.3; 2:20:33)
New York Olympic Trials (74.3; 2:31:30)
Boston (65.4; 2:20:57)
What does this tell me? The answer is not much. I significantly increased my work load prior to the Trials, and then ran poorly. It’s also true, however, that I really went after it in that race. A more conservative approach probably would have landed me somewhere near 2:20 or just under it. I think my Boston performance is probably the best of the 4, considering I was sick going into it.
What do others think? By the way, that’s a hint to comment.
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Wow! What a race! I now have a lot of debts to friends and strangers following yesterday’s event. I think the greatest thing about this marathon is the way the towns and cities from the start - in Hopkinton - all the way to the finish - in central Boston - turn out in support of runners.
For me the day started with a ride out to the start from Kit Wells, a friend of a friend’s (who was a teammate at Swarthmore and also ran, setting a PR - look for Jeff Doyon in the results) that I have gotten to know since my run in New York. That provided a major lift, as the public buses start leaving downtown Boston at 7 am, for a 10 am race start! This way we only left Somerville (where I was staying, and a good 45 minutes from the center by public transportation) at 7:45 am. I had a full night’s rest and much less stress that way.
The start is really in a small town, called Hopkinton, that once a year is overrun with runners. What a zoo! I had an elite start, another blessing, so could relax in a church adjacent the starting line up until 9:45 am. I jogged a bit (5 minutes), stretched, and fueled up in there. I did a lot more quiet prep work before this race, because I was so sheltered. The trials pre-race were a bit insane with alot of pressure and nervous energy. Here I could just melt away into the background and do my own thing. I even thought to put on sun screen.
The day started off cool and overcast, in the low 50s, which was a little warm but pretty close to perfect. Throughout the race, though, the sun came out and temperatures rose to close to 60, and I saw many a sun-burned runner at the finish line. Not me! The other weather factor was a light headwind (5-10 mph), which was actually cooling so not something to really complain about.
The first half of the course is mostly downhill, and I did everything I could to stick to my pre-race plan of going out conservatively. I was really holding back, but it’s just too easy to roll down the gentle slopes at the start, especially in the first 10k. That explains the fast first half, though the effort was nowhere near what I was putting out in New York last fall when I went through the half in 1:08. This first half even felt easier than the first half in Chicago when I ran a PR, which was about 1:09:30. I went through in about 1:08:30 yesterday. After the first 10k, I kind of settled into a steady 5:15 pace on the gentler rollling downhills, which felt comfortable.
Just before the half, passing by Wellesley College, the wall of sound is deafening. I thought my mono head was going to burst out of my skull at that point. Girls were holding up signs that say: “Kiss me I’m single” but I decided not to stop.
From 13 to 16 is mostly more downhill, with a really big downhill at 16 after which I started catching people. I took out the little hammer I had in my pocket over those hills, determined to make the effort in this race honest. I was a bit surprised at my pace running through 16, and decided it was time to start racing anyway, mono or no mono. There was this deep ache in my head though all along as I ratcheted up the intensity. My brain actually felt like it was moving around in my skull, which was a little scary…
Heartbreak hill (around mile 20) is not such a heartbreak if you play it safe in the first half, and I kind of rolled up that section of the course and the two hills preceding it. I probably expended too much effort and should have held back a bit more than I did, since this effort came back to bite me in the closing miles. At that point though, I was just going after it.
At the top of heartbreak I saw an old teammate from Swarthmore riding his bike along a road parallel to the course, cheering his lungs out. He would ride ahead, jump off his bike, and run up to the fence, before getting back on his bike and following again. He continued that until the crowds got too thick, around mile 24. Talk about some support. Rory, that was terrific!
That’s not to neglect all the others too who cheered me on. There were large groups of people chanting my name, other people who just happened to recognize me somehow, Shu Wen of course, and random supporters - Bostonians who just love the marathon. What a fabulous way to come out for a marathon!
As I mentioned above, the early pace started to catch up with me a bit in the final 3-4 miles. I slowed into the finishing stretch. At that point I was mostly running alone and the finish line seemed miles away. I just focused on maintaining what I could. I think I passed about 6-7 people in the second half as I moved up, but the guy who finished 14th flew past me with just over 2 miles to go and that just confirmed that this race was not going to be a perfect finish.
But wow, 2:20:57 in Boston is not what I expected. I did not really have a plan going into the race except that I wanted to go out in 5:35-5:40 or so. You can see how well I did sticking to that!
Here’s a photo from Let’s Run, coming up the first of the three big hills in Newton.
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I am not sure why this question has been on my mind lately, but it is. Perhaps it is the continual haunting feeling I have since Ryan Shay collapsed in the marathon trials next to me five months ago. Or maybe it’s the fact that I read about yet another mysterious case of a young runner dying during a marathon in a NY Times article today:
Or maybe it is the fact that I have been so sore since running the Coach Bubba race and then following it up with a hard week of training. That soreness is fading now and should be gone by week’s end when I run in the Gate River Run, but I always ask myself at these times whether maybe I might just be pushing a little too hard.
The trouble is, of course, that bad things happen to runners even when they are not being taxed. Sure, the Little Rock case is one in which the guy was clearly taxed and tired, but Ryan Shay was extremely fit and should not have collapsed 5.5 miles into a marathon that had actually not gone out too fast. For every case of a person pushing too hard, there’s probably a case of a person’s body just giving out mysteriously. And then there are countless cases of people pushing really hard, even too hard, and then turning out ok anyway (is not that what happened to me in NYC in November?).
So what is smart running? How do we know when we are being crazy, or simply too hard on ourselves? How do we learn to know what finesse training really is?
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