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The Ten Week Plan

11 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by in Boulder Marathon, Running

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Shuffling toward the finish line

I appreciate all the virtual high-fives from everyone last weekend for completing my marathon goal. I made certain to post all the race photos that cast me in the best light. Now for thoughts on training for a marathon in just ten weeks. To be clear, I don’t recommend a ten week plan, but I have a few observations from my experience that you might find useful as part of a more traditional training approach.

*** On Dieting ***

For those of you consumed by thoughts of losing weight, I’ll share my experience. I gained 20 pounds in 2020 out of emotional stress, one too many glasses of Malbec each night, and my own cooking. A weekly Mr. Gattis Sampler pizza figured in there somewhere too. I didn’t intentionally begin a diet in January, but I changed my habits nonetheless.

I returned home in January to my wife’s cooking and stopped drinking. I lost 15 pounds in 3 months. I call this an unintentional diet because my wife doesn’t cook much meat, especially red meat, and I wasn’t looking to stop drinking but she wasn’t and she’s a team player. I was only running on weekends at that point. I maintained that routine throughout the summer with very light drinking, until August when my melancholy demanded progress. I did try to diet then but it didn’t work out.

I thought I needed to lose more than those 15 pounds to run a marathon, I was thinking another 20 to 25 pounds because I’ve run marathons well in the past at 175 pounds. Weight does matter in distance running if you want to run fast. What I learned in my ten weeks was that I could run comfortably at 193 pounds, which was my weight last Sunday, so it was okay that I only lost another 4 pounds.

My goal was to complete a marathon, not run fast. I can tell you that my experience was just as satisfying in this run as in all past marathons. By the way, after burning through 4000 calories in those four and a half hours, I weighed 189 when I got home.

*** Motivation ***

The catalyst that precipitated my focus was serving as crew chief to my son-in-law’s 100 Kilometer alpine trail ultra. It was too much for me to gather in the forest with all those elite, perfect, runners’ bodies.

It’s one thing to watch a game on TV or from the stands. It’s another to be on the field in the middle of the spectacle. I fantasize about competing in the Olympics on many of my runs and when I’m standing amidst Michelangelo’s running Davids, I believe I’m living my dream. When you sign up for these extreme events, they let you literally stand right next to these beautifully exposed runners’ bodies. I forget that I’m fat and I feel like I belong there.

I don’t mind saying this because my wife knows I married her for her dancer’s legs, and because she still dances, that I mostly love the women runners’ legs, shaved and with such smooth curves of power. And I’m not too embarrassed to admit that I covet some of the men’s forms too. I want that for myself.

My motivation sounds vain now that I’ve written it, but doesn’t something like running a marathon have to be? You show me an elite athlete and I’ll show you a narcissist. Non-runners think of marathoners as masochists but no, they’re just in love with their own bodies. I noticed last Sunday that many of the men have taken to shaving their legs too.

*** Training ***

I’d been running weekends so I wasn’t starting from scratch. After committing to my plan though, I was disillusioned because I had to mostly train indoors on the elliptical the first two weeks, due to extremely poor air quality from the forest fires. Ironically, that probably worked in my favor. It kept me from exceeding my limits at the start. I did push myself hard, going for upwards of two hours on the elliptical. But there is zero impact on those machines and my body wasn’t nearly as sore or exhausted and I was able to easily recover for the next day. I think the elliptical helped to mitigate the potential negative impact of training too hard, too fast. Take what you want from that but in my experience, it’s not unusual to over exert yourself and then lose days for recovery time.

And, because I was concerned the elliptical wasn’t enough, I spent cycles on calisthenics and a little bit of weight lifting. I’m always too tired to do that after a run but had the energy training indoors and developed a good routine with squats, leg raises and planks. I lost absolutely zero weight the first four weeks, but people were complimenting me on my apparent weight loss. Best I can tell is that a daily two-minute plank toned up my abdomen enough that I gained two notches on my belt. I’d never done planks with any regularity before and had no idea at how effective they were. It did take me four weeks to go from one to two minutes. The lesson there, beyond the specific value of planks, is the benefit of strength training.

When I finally got outdoors, the new body tone helped considerably with my running, but I still had to learn how to run slow. I would often run Saturdays on an extremely hilly course and could run upwards of 8 miles. Then I’d try running on a flat course Sunday and find myself walking after a single mile. I figured I wasn’t able to recover properly because of my age.

Wearing a watch with a heart rate monitor helped me to solve the mystery. The hills forced me to run slow and I was running way too fast on the flat course. I had to learn how to run slow. It’s harder than you’d think. I found the heart rate monitor to be a better tool than monitoring my pace. Maybe this is only interesting to me, but every time I refocus efforts on running, it’s like I have to relearn how to run. Don’t assume you know what you’re doing.

*** The Grandpa Runner ***

Even after I learned to run slow, some days my heart would race, forcing me to walk. Best I can tell, I think it was the temperature from really hot days. I freaked out enough though to buy a more accurate heart rate monitor – the type with a chest strap and technically an ECG or electrocardiograph. I don’t mind admitting that I was concerned about having a heart attack in my marathon. Something about getting older. I became a grandfather a few weeks earlier.

My concerns were partly warranted because I have a condition called tachycardia Arrhythmia where my heart just randomly switches from the primary node to a secondary node to generate my heart beat. And that second node beats a ton faster than the first. I initially suspected that might be what was behind my heart occasionally racing from 135 bpm to 170 bpm on my runs.

When a cardiologist explained this to me at 25, he said the symptoms might disappear in my 50s. I think he was right because I’ve had a couple of ECGs since then and I know the condition has disappeared for my normal resting heart rate. But at 25 the symptoms went away at a slightly elevated heart rate and reappeared again at a yet higher heart rate, as diagnosed on a treadmill. I wondered if it wasn’t still happening now while running.

I have more to study yet on my heart rate monitor to know that I’m reading it correctly. Actually, I did read up on it and I know I’ll have to share the file with my doctor to understand it properly. An ECG chart is different from what I’m displaying above and it’s complicated. But rising body heat or running over four hours will start to raise my heart rate to where slowing down my pace isn’t good enough and I have to walk for a minute or so to recover. That’s fine. The above chart shows my heart rate held really steady throughout the marathon, under 140 bpm, but then started to shoot up past 170 in the last six miles, even though I wasn’t accelerating my pace. My max heart rate is defined as 160.

My point in sharing the heart rate details with you is partly because I think it’s some cool running tech, but also to stress that I’m not cavalier about my health. I get the sense sometimes that people think I train and run too hard and am not careful enough considering my age. I took measures to monitor my heart rate and shamelessly walked when I saw it was too high. I felt strong enough to continue running but I wasn’t so vain as to risk my health. It probably only added five minutes to my overall time and didn’t take away from my sense of accomplishment. And I know what I don’t know, so I’ll be sharing my data with a doctor for expert analysis. I’m 59. I hope to be 60 some day and to still be running marathons.

Ellie’s Run

03 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Ellie Rose, Running

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Karen and I were empty nesters for a week.  We know now how it feels. What to expect.  Now that Ellie is back, I know what to expect on our joint training plan too.  Three miles was too much for the first day.  Ellie was able to run two miles, running the first mile non-stop.  This will be a game of inches.

team shirts

Ellie’s camp counselor Emily, pinged photos to me every day that she was away at Coeur d’Alene.  That’s where this pic above comes from.  This pic below is what Ellie posted to her Instagram.  It says everything to me on what she found beautiful in the forests of Idaho.

lake at dawn

Unfortunately I have to travel on the 4th and 5th for work, so we won’t run again until Wednesday.  Ellie has dance practice though during that time so she’ll get in a bit of a workout.  Summer training has officially started.

Grand Lake

09 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Colorado Trail, Running

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north inlet trailThe last thing I remember Friday night was looking up at the stars, undiluted from urban light sources, high in the Rocky Mountains outside Grand Lake.  Sleeping cowboy style, I dodged fallin’ stars aimed straight at me.  I finally tucked inside my tent after midnight once the temperature dropped.  Rob and I camped out here to hike a 25 mile segment of the Continental Divide Trail.  The accuracy of CDT maps are specious as my Garmin captured 29.5 miles.  Fortunately the weather was cool, between 40° and 60° so that our water lasted through those final four unplanned miles.

Grand Lake sits at the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, and is also part of the headwaters to the Colorado River.  A quaint mountain town with wooden boardwalks and expensive but good restaurants, it’s worth a stop if you’re near Rocky Mountain National Park, or the Winter Park ski resort.  Grand Lake anchors the southern end of Trail Ridge Road.  Rob and I ate surprisingly good Mexican food at El Pacifico.  After two large margaritas, I was seeing stars.

Flat Top MountainThe 25 (29.5) miles would complete my 90 mile running week, for a total 510 miles of my massive mileage Boulder Marathon training plan.  I run 20 miles today to begin my 100 mile week – the final week before I begin my taper.  I can still report no muscle strains or injuries.  Keeping my fingers crossed.  I’ll start some strength training and work on my pace once I cut my miles by half.

We got some decent running in Saturday on the trail.  This section of the Continental Divide Trail is a loop that begins and ends at the North Inlet Trailhead outside Grand Lake.  It’s contained within the southwest corner of Rocky Mountain National Park, so permits are needed for camping.  We stealth camped, setting up our tents shortly after dusk to avoid the Park Rangers.  We encountered a number of group backpackers who camped along the trail.  One father was trekking his kids on a 3 day outing, targeting 8 mile days with their heavy packs.  There is a Big Meadow trail that shortcuts the CDT, forming a slightly shorter 24 or 25 mile loop.  Sporting light packs, we ran about two miles worth of the big loop.  The coolest part was running across the alpine tundra among the rock cairns above 12,000 feet.

burn zoneAnother cool section of trail was this burn area on the northern part of the loop.  Would have been hot without shade but we benefitted from partial clouds and 60° temperatures.  I’m happy mixing up hiking with my running.  I count the miles toward my training plan because hiking with Rob at high altitude is little different than running.  We maintained a 3 mph pace for essentially a 50K ultra.  Ascending above tree line had my cardio going.  I imagine I burned well over 3000 calories over the ten hour hike.  Once I finish my coffee this morning, I’ll set out on a 20 miler on the LoBo Trail to begin my 100 mile week.

13 Weeks

27 Saturday Jun 2015

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BB KickBeginning this past week, I have shifted gears from speed to distance.  Speed being a relative term, my focus on interval training paid off in the 2015 Bolder Boulder as I ran a personal best.  I even displayed a strong kick in Folsom Stadium, pictured here.  I feel this was my best success at improving speed since I got back into road races six years ago.  That said, I’ve dropped to 28th place on the Shoes & Brews 800 meter beer board.  So it’s time to give up on speed and turn my focus to miles.  This plan will prepare me for my next scheduled race – the Boulder Marathon in September.

I’ve established a 13 week mileage plan that begins with 60 miles per week and reaches 100 miles before tapering back down to 60.  I hit my first 60 mile target today with a 12 mile run on Betasso Trail.  This is a good plan considering that I am starting out already in really good shape.  And because running extensive distance like this is a proven method to prepare for a marathon.  Running 26.2 miles after training this arduously will be almost a non-event.  There will be no nervousness at the starting line after completing this training plan.

If there’s any weakness to this plan, it’s that I’ve never run more than 70 miles in a single week – in my life.  And I find that the wheels tend to start falling off if I run any further than 45 miles in a single week.  Honestly, 35 miles is my sweet spot.  The challenge then will be avoiding injury. I won’t hesitate to scale back the miles given sufficient pain. I’m no hero. And I’m not stupid. Can’t run if I can’t run. But I’m actually quite interested in my ability to manage these training challenges. I’ve learned tons in terms of stretching and exercises to mitigate muscle overuse injuries. Ironically, I learned much of this from my cancer physical therapy last year. My Physical Therapist, Jennifer Davia, taught me the importance of adductor and abductor exercises to keep the muscles in balance that connect the hip to the knee.  The focus of that physical therapy was to be on pelvic floor recovery, but I leveraged Jennifer’s knowledge of running injuries and have performed these routines since last summer with good results.

My next concern is with recovery.  Even if healthy, will I have the energy to run the next day?  This week, the answer has been no.  It’s possible I’m not acclimated to the heat.  Colorado went from a cold spring of 70° days to 90° days literally overnight.  I haven’t been timing myself but I’ve been dragging with these back-to-back, 8 mile runs.  I expect to have trouble recovering after my longer weekend runs but am a bit surprised I can’t recover better after 8 milers.  Hoping it’s the heat.  I should probably start to consider supplements.  I do take supplements that focus on electrolytes (sodium, potassium and magnesium) but have never experimented much with muscle-related supplements.  Not sure I want to but might have to keep an open mind.

My final concern regards having the time for this.  I don’t generally run every day because, between work and personal obligations, who has the time?  I have to commute to the Denver Tech Center twice next week, so I’ll need to adapt for that.  I’m disciplined enough to average 5 days per week, but there are even times I’m too busy to run on the weekend.  I’ve always made concerted efforts to dedicate myself when training for marathons.  Running 26 miles is just too painful unprepared.  I do have some hiking and backpacking planned for this summer.  I’ll count mountain hiking miles as running miles.  I think that’s fair since I typically find myself pushing my aerobic threshold as hard hiking as I do running.

My training plan consists of two week segments.  The first two weeks will target 60 miles per week.  Then 70, then 80, 90 and finally 100.  That will consume 10 full weeks.  Then I taper down to 80, then 60, and then whatever I decide to run the week of the marathon for a total of 13 weeks since signing up last weekend.  I’ll keep my daily runs at 8 miles for 4 weeks, and then only add 2 miles per week to 10, then 1 mile to 11 and another mile to 12.  I add the bulk of the distance increases to my weekend runs.  I won’t have time to run longer during the week.  And I strongly believe in the need to work myself up to 20 mile runs to condition my body for 26 miles.  This might also play into my ability to avoid injury by keeping my daily runs manageable.  I believe I have the experience to pull this off.  But “it’s not the years darling, it’s the miles.”