TOUR DE BLAST 2009

In preparation for RAMROD a few weeks from now, I drove down to Mt. St. Helens this past weekend and rode 27 miles up the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway, then turned around and coasted to the bottom. What a blast! This was the appropriately named Tour de Blast -- designed as a challenging climb with stunning views of Mt. St. Helens' crater.

Following the advice of my good friend Lesley, I only rode the "intermediate" version of the route which amounted to a 54 mile round trip and a high point of 3800 feet. Here is a picture of my speed, elevation change, and heart rate over those 54 miles:

(click to enlarge, and again to zoom)



Basic data overview:

Miles: 53.94
Time: 3:45:02
Avg Speed: 14.4 mph
Top Speed: 39.3 mph
Calories: 4,541
Climb (ft): +4,106 / -4,110
Avg HR: 161

I felt pretty good during the ride, though a little tired over the last 10 miles or so. I honestly under-prepared for this event because I figured "Hell, it's only 54 miles..." but I probably should have done a better job of fueling. I felt especially good on the climbs -- even the 10 straight miles of a 6% grade!! I felt good enough that the next day I managed a gentle 30-mile spin, however I am taking today OFF. OFF days are important.

NODM 2009

In December 2002, Larry Little rode the bus from his home in Port Angeles to the neighboring town of Sequim 15 miles to the east, got off the bus, and ran home on the newly connected Olympic Discovery Trail. During the run, he thought "there is no better place for a marathon than along this beautiful trail." He called his friends together that night to share the idea and the rest is history.

The North Olympic Discovery Marathon and Half Marathon are run on a unique point-to-point course that incorporates the Olympic Discovery Trail with stunning views of the Olympic Mountains and a five mile finishing stretch along the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

I ran my second marathon a few days ago. It was on a beautiful course and the support at the NODM was incredible. I would recommend this little "boutique" marathon to anyone considering the insanity of running 26.2 miles. Save the date: June 6, 2010.




My sophomore marathon effort was a huge personal disappointment. I basically repeated much of the same agony as my disastrous first marathon in Vancouver last year. I have tons of excuses for my poor performance this time around but I'm not going to bother stating them. I'm just not a runner. Plain and simple. In fact, I might not run again. Ever. Seriously. I mean it this time.

On the good side of things, I did manage some minor improvements over last year:

• My nutrition was better! I did not have an energy bonk nor did I experience *extreme* cramping (only *major* cramping)

• I literally "ran" the whole way, except for the brisk walking through the various water stops; at no point did I capitulate to my pain and walk through my tears of agony and frustration

• I ran a conservative first half (2:03 instead of 1:52 like last year), which delayed the inevitable onset of my late-race meltdown

The NODM is quite small, with about 300 marathoners. It was a strange feeling to be "racing" in an event which felt about the same size as some of the group training runs I've done in the past. I loved not having to jostle for position at the start line and spend an entire mile running sideways to avoid the crowd. Big plus for the boutique!

So, here are some of the embarrassing data points:

• I finished 26th in my age group! Sadly, there were only 32 people in my age group.

• I finished 140th out of all men! Sadly, there were only 193 men.

• I finished 206th overall -- my highest overall finish ever! Sadly, there were only 310 runners.

Perhaps the most comical embarrassment occurred 20 yards from the finish line, when I was passed by a 5-foot tall elderly Asian woman. As she passed me, I read the following script on the back of her shirt: "Go Grandma Lee!". And I heard her grandchildren cheering wildly as she loped down the lane to the finish line. Meanwhile, I tried not to trip over what little remained of my depleted ego.

Sigh.

OK, here's the numbers:

Distance: 26.55 miles (according to my GPS watch)
Time: 4:28:43
Avg Pace: 10:07
Max Heart Rate: 195
Avg Heart Rate: 169 (<-- TOO HIGH!!!)

Check out this chart of my average page per mile (in the blue columns) and my average heart rate throughout the marathon (click on image to enlarge):



As my muscle soreness fades and my ego rebuilds and the shameful memory of Grandma Lee retreats into simple comedy, I tease myself with the possibility of giving this running thing another shot. But not for awhile.

Next up: RAMROD!!!!

THE 7 HILLS OF KIRKLAND
aka
THE 14 HILLS OF KIRKLAND

Yesterday my friend Chris and I did a 100-mile bike ride in east King County. It was an organized event in support of a charitable organization called KITH, which provides low-income housing solutions for people in need. The ride itself is called the "7 Hills of Kirkland" and the classic route takes you on an approximately 40-mile course with about 3k feet of vertical. The event also includes a metric century option plus a standard century, the latter of which includes 14 hills and about 7k feet of vertical. Of course we chose this last option.

It was a gorgeous day and the scenery was spectacular; at all moments we were blessed with views of Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, pastoral farmland, or forested, twisty roads.

The final count, according to my (apparently faulty) GPS:

91.60 miles
6:59:08 total elapsed time
13.1 mph average speed
7,275 calories burned
148 average heart rate

I'm not sure how I lost about 8 miles worth of data; my guess is that I was riding so fast that the satellites couldn't find me quickly enough. Or something.


This is the elevation graph:







This is the satellite image of our route:





This is the map of our route:




And here's me after stuffing my face with strawberry shortcake at the finish in Marina Park:



Considering my longest previous bike ride ever was about 60 miles, and occurred several months ago, I'm fairly happy with how my body held up yesterday. I basically ate and drank non-stop during the ride, which is what you have to do during a 7-hour endurance event!

MORE ON HEART RATE AND HILLS....

I finally have some quantifiable proof of my improved fitness!

Last October, while training for a fall half marathon, I made note of my heart rate activity during a half-hour hill workout. I blogged about it back then, and pointed out that my heart rate seemed to recover quickly on the downhill portion of each hill interval. That was exciting news.

Earlier this week, I repeated this same workout on the same hill in exactly the same manner. I was pleased with how I felt during the workout, but I'm even more pleased to see my HR data improve a bit. Compare the final triad of numbers with the final triad from a few months ago. Here is this week's data:

Here is last fall's data:



My HR numbers are clearly lower towards the end of the recent workout, which to me indicates improved fitness. I'd like to see this improvement translate into an improved performance in an actual race. We'll see.

THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS

Last night I stumbled across an excerpted portion of a speech by E.O. Wilson, the famous biologist, while I was reading a recent issue of Science News.

In the speech, Wilson draws a distinction between the "physical environment" (e.g. our atmosphere) and the "living environment" (e.g. the animals), while pointing out that recent attention to conservation and energy issues has focused almost exclusively on the former, while neglecting the latter. I'm not sure I buy this artificial distinction between the two environments, but I can also tell you that I'd never start an argument with E.O. Wilson.

What was most memorable about his speech, however, was the following commentary:

The 21st century, I believe, is going to be noted as the century of the environment. The immediate future can be usefully conceived as a bottleneck, of still-rapid population growth and high per capita investment and consumption. Science and technology, combined with a lack of self-understanding and the Paleolithic obstinacy that led to our ruinous environmental practices, have brought us to where we are today.… You can remember it best by thinking of us as being a Star Wars civilization: We have Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions and God-like technology. That’s the source of all of our problems.

Brilliant! We are a Star Wars civilization, whose infantile emotions combined with old world rules and superman powers makes us truly destructive. Well put, Wilson.

COMFORTABLY HARD

One of the important components of an overall training strategy for a runner is the "tempo run". The tempo run is basically the opposite of the "long slow run". The tempo run is designed to challenge your metabolic system to become more efficient at using oxygen, by taking you to the threshold of exhaustion but not going over that threshold. There is a minimum amount of sustained time which is required for the tempo workout to be effective -- about 20 minutes.

The standard tempo workout consists of a 15 minute warmup, a 20 minute tempo-pace run (at about an 8 out of 10 on the effort scale), followed by a 15 minute cooldown. The "8 out of 10" is also characterized as "comfortably hard", meaning you are pushing your pace a bit, but not quite going all out. Basically, you need to run as hard as you can reasonably sustain for 20 minutes without being totally wiped out -- maybe about 80% of the effort you would give if you were running a 5k race.

As your fitness improves, you gradually increase the 20 minute tempo period. In a full-on marathon training cycle, ideally you should be hammering out a 10-mile stretch of tempo effort at least twice during a long training run. I'm not quite there.

I've never focused much on tempo training, because I've been so concerned about my endurance per se. I've been way more concerned about being able to stay on my feet for 3 or 4 hours (or more), and never worried too much about my speed. In fact, during the explicit "tempo" workouts I've done, I've chased people who are too fast for me and I've become extremely frustrated. Recently, however, I've had some good tempo experiences and I'm convinced I need to focus more on this aspect of my training!

For my tempo runs, I usually just run around Greenlake (with a warmup and cooldown of course). The inner path of Greenlake is about 2.8 miles. It takes me just a little more than 20 minutes to run this circuit. By running the same distance every time I do a tempo workout, I can guage my improvement. If my overall time is lower than the last (assuming the same level of perceived effort), then I may conclude that my lactate threshold has improved.

Here is a sampling of a few tempo runs I've done in the past few months.

Back in July of 2008, just a few weeks after my disastrous first marathon, I tried to get back in the saddle and train seriously for a fall or winter marathon. It looks like I had a fair amount of residual fitness, because my splits were relatively fast for me (avg = 7:54), but it also looks like I ran out of steam:



After a summer of complacency, however, I slowed down. By the middle of September I couldn't even keep a 3-mile tempo run under 8 minutes per mile (though at least in this instance my splits were pretty even):



A week later I improved a bit, and was especially happy with my even first two splits, but disappointed that I apparently had more in the tank because I went way faster in the third mile; I should be more even:



I basically repeated this same pattern three months later -- just a couple weeks ago. I ran the first 2 miles at about an 8 minute pace, then bumped it down to 7:32. Weird. But I felt good!



And then finally this week I felt like I really did the tempo workout properly. My splits were more even, and more importantly I felt like I really ran the entire circuit at a "comfortably hard" pace. I was breathing hard, but could still mutter short sentences:



For my next few tempo runs, I'm going to set 7:20 as my baseline pace and just try to sustain that. Gradually, I'll turn it into a 25 minute workout, then a 30 minute workout, and beyond.

BACK TO NORMAL

Ahhh, now *this* is the Seattle that we all know and love: