Archive March 2017

I’ve Fallen and I can’t get up

When I started running one of the things that concerned me was dying while running, literally.  Dropping over from a heart attack, zombie bite, whatever.

while a junior wife sounds tempting”

So one of the things I did was get a RoadID from roadid.com so that if I did expire someone would be able to ID the body and let my wife know.  I’m wearing two charms on it, #NOTARUNNER and 10K which is my current furthest race distance.

Another thing I did was install Automate on my android phone.  Automate is a block based programming application that lets you do a lot of super cool things with an android phone.  Some things do require root of course.

One of the things I was able to do was set up an panic button so to speak.  If I press my power button 3 times in 5 seconds it sends my wife an emergency text with my current GPS coordinates.  Technically it’s the fact that the screen comes on and turns off 3 times in 5 seconds which is what pushing the power button repeatedly does.     It works fine as we’ve had a handful of false triggers due to accidental pushes.  Each time she calls me and verifies I’m not dying somewhere.   If I don’t answer then she’ll pull up the Garmin Livetrack and see if I’m not moving.  Or ping me on Google’s Trusted Contacts app which if I don’t deny the request for my location then something bad is likely happening.

It’s these kinds of things that make running by yourself regardless of the circumstances safer.  Whether a health issue, tripping and smashing your head on the street, getting your throat torn out by a zombie, hit by a drunk or just stupid or texting while driving driver etc, these are all (okay most of them) valid reasons that you might need help quickly and be in a position where maybe just spam clicking your power button is the only option you have.

Now that I primarily run with someone it’s not as big a concern but I still have solo days so having that peace of mind helps.

Other things I’ve set up is to have texts read to me while I’m running, just SMS though so texts from iphone users which use MMS for everythign don’t work.

And I’ve added the ability that calls from unknown numbers, i.e. not in my contacts list, go straight to voicemail, not even a ring on my phone.  I get a jacked up amount of bullshit calls a day from random callers for everything from helping my credit score to getting a second wife.   And while a junior wife sounds tempting, it’s not really something I’m going to interview on the phone for.

Hand Holding

I’ve added a couple of hand helds to my inventory and have been using one lately.   On 2+ hour runs my arms, especially my left one has been bothering me so I thought adding hand helds would help in conditioning my arms to be bent at an L shape for hours on end.   And it lets me not use my belt which can be annoying if I have anything more than keys and my phone on it.

having the most cushion you can get will make it more comfortable for all concerned.”

The jury is still out on if I care for the handhelds.   For trail runs they restrict my ability to catch myself on a fall or use trees as hand holds when the trails get really technical.   Also since I carry my phone with me so that my wife can track me using Garmin Live Track it puts my phone at risk; if I have to catch myself the phone is going to take the hit first.

I read a study that had data that indicated hand held water is the least efficient way to carry water if you carry water at all.   A vest is best followed by a belt or pack and then hand helds.   This is due to the fact that it takes more energy/effort when your water is at the end of levers, aka your arms, as opposed to just riding passively at your back or waist.

This coming weekend is my first 10K race on Saturday and I think I’m going to wear my Hoka Clifton 3’s.   The last few runs I’ve used my Nimbus 19’s, Topo Terraventures and Clifton 3’s with a mix of distances, 11 miles to 3 miles, and road to trails and my left knee on the outside has been bothering me.  Nothing ‘major’ but enough to make me shorten my stride and slow down my pace.  But I think having the most cushion you can get will make it more comfortable for all concerned.

Tomorrow is an hour run at zed 3 pacing, for me that’s going to be around an 10:30 to 11:00 mile pace.   We’ll see how the knee fares with that, I’ll be using some compression sleeves on my calves to see if it makes a difference.

I have noticed that compression sleeves have helped me with calf pain when I run with slower runners; yes Virginia there are slower runners than me.

Last long run I used some DIY Huma chia gels.  Even making my own I’m just not a fan of chia based gels.   It was chia seeds ground to a flour in a spice grinder, a mix of complex sugars, tart cherry juice and strawberry puree.  With some sea salt and salt substitute for sodium and potassium.  But in general I find the gels to be barely tolerable at best and downright eww at worst.

My preferred supplements are still the Stinger waffles and the Stinger chews.  I’m probably never going to be a high fat low carb non-runner in spite of my normal diet consisting of high protein, moderate fat and low carbs.

One month give or take and I’ll do my first half marathon.  I don’t see me not finishing.  I would like to finish in in a 2:30 or less but we’ll see how it goes.   Remember I’m carrying 120lbs more than the average runner’s weight, it takes a lot of energy to move that much mass and the energy costs aren’t linear.

 

A hard one

Sunday was another long, for a #notarunner, day and it wasn’t good.  Easily the worst/hardest run I’ve had in spite of running the exact same distance and format a week previously on that week’s long run.

you should strive for though is to not just let the body win.  Screw that.”

Your basic 10 walk, 60 minute run, 10 minute walk, 60 minute run, cool down, at least basic to the Garmin half marathon level 1 heart zone based training plan.

Without a time machine to go back and try alternatives I’ve found the Garmin plans to work for me, at least I keep moving forward in ability.  My current ‘running wife’ as I’ve been informed she is called has slowed my progress down a bit the last month or two but she’s pretty much caught up with me at this point and we can advance together so it’s fine.

But this last long run was just awful.  There is obvious causation, one I have a cold/flu.

Two I decided to not do add any carbs to my diet the day before the run, I’m by nature of my desire to lose weight always carb empty on any given day. I usually try to swap a few hundred calories of fats/proteins for carbs the night before a race or extra long run but not this time to see the impact.

The only carbs I had was a stinger waffle right before the run started and some homemade chia gu, essentially the same thing as the Huma gu’s just a lot cheaper at the turn around point.

Three I’m running at a 6 month calorie deficit. This has resulted in the lost of roughly 20% of my starting body weight in total and the conversion of less dense fat for higher density muscle.  Never a bad thing really.

Four is a lack of sleep period, much less ‘good’ sleep which I don’t know what that means anymore.

And lucky number 5 is work stress where I’m wrestling with the option of staying and working in a situation I don’t care to be in but leaving the people I work with by going to some unknown situation where things might be better, might be worse.

I don’t know which factor(s) contributed the most but at the turn around point I felt pretty bad, the second hour run was maybe a 45-50 minute run at best.  The rest was walking.  I walked up hills that I’ve powered up every time in the past.   The cool down period was a major effort of will just to keep walking to the car.

When I got home I just covered a chair in some towels and collapsed on it for a good 30-45 minutes before I had the enthusiasm to get up and shower.  Never done that before.  I can’t stand being in sweaty damp clothes if I’m not actively doing something to make those clothes sweaty and damp.

So yeah, not a great run.

The whoooole point of this story is to if you’re #notarunner like myself know that there are going to be some bad days.  There may be reasons, there may not be reasons, it could external factors or internal factors but regardless you’re going to have off days.

And those are the days where you get to choose who’s the boss of you.  Your failing body or your great brain.   And sometimes it’s a compromise “Okay body, we just push through these last 10 minutes and then we walk it on home.  Pansy.”

What you should strive for though is to not just let the body win.  Screw that nose.  Compromise if you have to, but never give in completely.  In the duality that is the mental and physicality of you, the mental part should be in the driver seat even if it sometimes means you get into a fender bender from time to time because you didn’t listen to the squeaking brakes.

And yes Virginia you should listen to the brakes, but that doesn’t mean you have to always pay attention to them.

Topo graphy

I wore my Topo Ultrafly’s today, took them for a around the block run and they’re just too small.   I wear a size 12.5 to 13 depending on the brand and at 13’s the Ultrafly’s were killing my toes.

Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass being as big as I am, not literally, well not usually.”

The Topo Ultrafly shoes definitely run small.   But that means I have to jump to a size 14 if I want to try them because no one makes half sizes after 12’s.

I was looking at the Altra Paradigm 2.0’s as well but again the same issue.  Everyone says size up a half size.  Well when you’re a 13 that means going up to a 14.

Not sure what the ratio might be but my pointer toes are longer than my big toe and my middle toe is as long as my big toe.  Both the pointer and middle toe were either hitting the end of the shoe on impact or pushoff on both feet or just getting compressed down due to lack of height of toebox.

In either case it meant I had to box them up and take them back to the store.  I really wanted to like them, I took their almost identical twins, the terraventures out this morning on the trails and did somewhere between 3 and 4 miles without any problems at all in the same size 13’s.

After some rummaging around and trying on alternatives I swapped the ultrafly’s out for some current model Hoka Cliftons.   I’d tried some last year and the marshmallow cushioning was just too offputting for me as a new #notarunner.  I felt with each step I was going to turn an ankle.

These new Clifton’s are not nearly as mushy and honestly feel a lot like my Nimbus 18/19’s.

But I really want a splayable toe box which means the Altra’s or the Topo’s.   My Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s are as mentioned the most comfortable shoes I’ve worn ever.   They’re just not 50K shoes.  I’ll  use them for shorter trail runs without any problem.

I don’t think the Terraventure’s are going to be a 50K shoe for me either. We’ll see how they do with some more miles on them but I’m still looking.

In a road shoe as well I have the same problem.   The Nimbus 18/19 are not a marathon shoe for me I don’t believe.   My longest run to date is 11 miles and I think maybe a half is about as far as I want to take those shoes.

But I have whatever miles are left on my 19’s and a spare pair of 18’s as an emergency backup solution.   And now these Clifton’s.   How they work out remains to be seen, they’re not honestly wide enough for me to be a 50K shoe either I don’t think, not without some serious breaking in, but they may be okay as a trainer.

Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass to being as big as I am, not literally, usually.  But things like finding shoes that fit or even clothes, I fall into a weird size where my waist size and inseam are unusual.   Apparently people with my inseam size are much fatter than me or people with my waist size are taller than me.   Not that that’s always the case now.  I’ve lost enough weight that I’m starting to look like a shar pei puppy from the right angles and need a whole new wardrobe.  But do I buy for the ‘me now’ size or the ‘me I wanna get to so I can run further faster’ size?

Shoe fly…

Asics Nimbus 19 update – I’m not finding the shoe to be very durable.  I’ll be surprised if I get 250 miles out of it to be 100% frank.   Comfort wise for my feet they’re good shoes.  I’ve run my longest distance so far, 11 miles, in them without issue.  But the the tread, what there is, is wearing off where I push off on the forefoot on both shoes.   The lining is pilling up in the heel area where my blister resist patches don’t cover.

the better the cushion the better the pushin’ is something I’ll have to keep in mind.”

And this is with maybe 120 miles on them.  My 18’s got 300 miles before I wore the heels out of them.  I wasn’t using any blister patches on those or even just your basic duct tape or gorilla tape patch.

Granted I’m a super clydesdale but still I expect more I guess from a ‘premium’ shoe that runs $150 dollars release price.

In my search for a 50K trail shoe I picked up some Topo Terraventure’s.   I haven’t run in them yet but they fit better than my Leadville 3’s and my Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s.

I ran 4 miles today on trails in the Altra’s and they felt decent but I don’t think they’re 50K shoes for me.   They’re super comfortable though.  If they don’t work out as trail shoes then I’ll make them every day shoes, they’re that comfortable.

I also picked up a pair of Topo Ultrafly shoes.  The Topo shoes have some very good reviews and both felt pretty good to me.

I’m still looking for a marathon distance road shoe.  I’m not sure the Ultrafly is it but the Nimbus 19 and 18’s are not.    I have a pair of 18’s I picked up cheap as spares for interval and tempo training runs but getting something for the weekly long runs which keep getting longer is needed.  To go the distance the old adage the better the cushion the better the pushin’ is something I’ll have to keep in mind.

Ridiculously that gives me 3 pairs of road shoes and 3 pairs of trail shoes.  Which is crazy talk for #notarunner.   In my 20’s I ran literally in the same shoes I wore every day.  Just basic generic ‘tennies’.   With a $10 timex digital watch with a stop watch feature.   Distance was based on half mile marker posts on the trail or the cross streets.

But now shoes that are perfectly acceptable for 5k’s are questionable for 10k’s and really need to be re-examined for longer distances.

How times have changed.

Long one…

Today was the longest run yet for us.  Two and a half hours broken up into a 10,60,10,60,10 session.   10 minute walks, 60 minute runs.   The idea being of course to get us used to beatnig our feet on the pavement for hours at a time.

I can eat anything and I mean almost anything to be polite or on request”

It’s all well and good, even necessary based on conventional training wisdom, to do HIIT and tempo and fartleks for speed and VO2 max and lactate acidifying and all that but to prepare your body for running distance requires running distance.  Shorter length and time segments do not simulate the pounding you take over the long haul.

We covered 11 miles in our 2 hour 30 minute session.  Not very impressive but then again… #NOTARUNNER.  This session was also a Z2 heart rate zone session and my average BPM was barely 117.  Not quite full training for me. But when you run with someone you run with someone.  This is something I’ve already covered.

My current running partner has matched me for speed but I have 6+ months on her in terms of training so conditioning she still working on.   She’s come a long way in the 3ish months she’s been training, far faster and longer than myself.    She pushes herself hard, possibly too hard to keep up with me showing an order of magnitude greater spirit and dedication than I have myself.

Our first half is coming up in roughly 7 weeks, April 28th.   I’ll be okay if we finish in 2.5 hours.  Hell I’ll be okay if we finish in under 3h.   I may have mentioned (once or twice) but I’m not built like a runner and at the moment with 270lbs I’m pushing a little more weight up those hills than your average actual runner.   So honestly just finishing each new length race as I do them for the first time is a step in the right direction for me.

Today for nutrition I tried Gu’s Stroopwafel, the chocolate one and I was very not impressed.  It wasn’t bad but it was even more bland than the Stinger Waffles if that’s possible.   I won’t be purchasing a box.

I also tried Gu’s Chocolate Fudge gel.  Not a fan and I’m not sure if it was the distance or the gel but right around the 10 mile mark I started feeling slightly nauseous.  It also could have been lack of caffeine.   But overall the Gu chocolate was like eating the cheapest uncooked brownie fudge batter, the  2 for a $1 kind.    I can eat anything and I mean almost anything to be polite or on request that doesn’t mean I don’t have preferences.

My strong preference is still the Stinger Chews followed by Stinger Waffles in commercial solid nutrition.   Runner up is Clif Bloks.

I’m going to be taking a look at Topo shoes in a couple of weeks when one of the FLSS’s gets a shipment in.   Both the road and trail shoes.   I wore my Altra Lone Peak 2.5’s yesterday for about an hour walking and the 0 drop does really promote toe/mid foot striking which I need to try to shift to.   The Altra’s are very comfortable, probably the most comfortable shoe I have in terms of feel.   But an hour of walking in 0 drop left my calves just starting to take notice of the lack of heel.

The Topo’s at 3 to 5mm drop are a reasonable alternative to 0 drop I think and they have some pretty good reviews.   They’re foot shaped like the Altras which means they might possibly fit me.

When I was at one of the FLSS’s one of the worker/runners there who’s a ultrarunner and does 350 miles of trails a month was wearing Topo’s and was pretty enthusiast about them.   Since I still haven’t found ‘my’ shoe I’m willing to investigate further.   Once I find ‘my’ shoes I’m buying 20 pairs of them as one thing I’ve learned is every year the shoe companies change each shoe up and the changes mean you may be looking for another ‘your’ shoe as a result.

 

Hitting the dusty trail…

I think my training schedule is going to get in the of making running fun.  The trail run we did on Sunday was really enjoyable for a number of reasons; it brought back memories of woods running when I was a kid, of my glory days of stalking my friends and strangers in the woods for the purposes of shooting them with paintballs, of running back with a flag or trailing a flag runner to defend them.   Good times, goooood times.

getting lost, huddling naked for warmth, wolves”

But… I’m training for my first half marathon in April with a second one in May.   By random chance my training finishes the week before my first half.  Timing is purely coincidental.   We’re at the point where short runs are still taking an hour and the long runs are upwards of 2.5 hours.   So fitting in trail runs without impacting that schedule or over-training is going to be tricky.

Not to mention I’m going to be training for a stupid full marathon over the summer months which run from hot to OMFG hot around these here parts.   The marathon training though is a necessity as we’re more than likely barring injury or death going to do an Ultra in October.

Not sure how much time that’s going to leave for trail running between now and then.

Gear wise I’m still loving my UD Jurek FKT vest.   Barring tailoring a custom vest myself it’s about as close as I’m going to get to what’s right for me at the moment of the available options.   I need something possible lighter with just a single water bottle pouch on the back for the shorter runs where I don’t need a bladder’s worth of water.

I like my Amphipod belt but it can be distracting as with a water bottle it tends to slip down and I have to hitch it back up, a vest would resolve that.    Or possibly craft myself something like a Nathan Peak, one of the type that holds the bottle at a slant at the back.

After getting thornbit in our second outing I’m going to have to consider wearing tights when going back out.   I was wearing some calf compression sleeves for that purpose but the thorns nailed me above those.  Enough that wearing pants is annoying.

It was enjoyable talking about getting lost, huddling naked for warmth, wolves and the like even while passing and getting passed by other wanderers.   Lack of experience with the area,  on top of the issue of trails aren’t copiously marked did have us running at almost random rather than the route we’d picked out but honestly if you’re running you’re running so if it’s the right route or not  all that matters is you’re out there.

And that’s the biggest thing to running and notrunning is that you get out and do it.

 

But its a training day…

One of my main goals with notrunning is that if it’s a training day then I run.  No excuses.

And measurements are pretty important to guys.”

Obviously life can get in the way of this, things do happen.  But for me in the last 8 months or so, I’ve only broken this rule twice.  Once due to injury, an ankle pain was bad enough I pushed one training day off till the next schedule.  And the other I’d had major dental surgery that morning and had to work a 40 hour day immediately after getting out of surgery for the closing of an M&A where we bought TiVo.

But for me and honestly I imagine for most people letting a day slide makes the next time easier.  And the next easier.   It’s much like dieting.  You have a bite of cake.  So the second bite is easier and before you know it you’re 2000 calories up and the next day you weigh yourself and you’re up 2lbs so obviously the dieting isn’t working so why bother.

One of the big benefits to me is the numbers game.  I export all my numbers to SmashRun.com.  It makes it super easy to see my real world improvement from week to week and month to month.   I can see my average pace times go down over time.  I can see my PR’s keep getting pushed down by new ones.  So numbers and data are all there for the measuring. And measurements are pretty important to guys.

I think that for me that kind of carrot on my treadmill is a big incentive to keep putting on my shoes and heading out.   And that obvious very visible improvement justifies making sure that every training day, I get out and run.

Even if like today, I end up doing a 15k training session that ends in me doing my first trail race and run immediately after it.  So it was a 19K day for me, one quarter of which was getting off the paved road and running over rocks and dirt and up and down stupidly steep inclines for the first time since my paintball glory days back in the 80’s and 90’s.

Tick Tock?

I’m not sure but I may give up on the Wahoo TickrX heart belt I have.  I got it on sale during the xmas rush back in December for about the same cost as a standard Garmin/Polar and it’s just been a bit of a PITA to use.

I prefer having some sexy robotic english woman telling me how I’m doing”

First complaint, the brain of the unit is what holds the strap on.  Unlike say a Garmin or Polar the brain doesn’t snap onto the belt and the belt straps onto you, with the Tickr the brain is the buckle basically that holds the strap on you.

Trying to adjust it after it’s on it pops undone on me all the time.  Granted once it’s on and set I’ve never had it come off during a run but I’m not sure why they went the way they did with it.  Unless they wanted to force you to unsnap the brain so you don’t accidentally leave it connected and drain the battery.

Second complaint with my preferred running phone of choice, a Galaxy Note 4, the LE BT is iffy at best.   With the wahoo utility it connects every time, all the time.  But with any running app, MapMyRun, EndoMondo, Sporttractive blah blah blah sometimes I get readings with BT, sometimes not.   It could be the BT on the Note 4 but I have no problem pairing up and using any other device, my car radio, my Bose Sports, my X3’s they all pair instantly and stay connected without any issue.

The ANT+ always works, my Fenix 3HR always picks it up and EndoMondo when it’s set to listen as an ANT+ always works.   Problem is EndoMondo in a recent update took away the ability to modify the voice prompts which is all I was using it for.   I don’t care to pay a monthly fee for voice prompts.

Sportractive, my running app of preference doesn’t do ANT+.

I tried MapMyRun today with my garmin and it worked out okay using ANT+ but not BT LE.   It has the basic voice prompts and I can live with that.   I prefer having some sexy robotic english woman telling me how I’m doing than be constantly flipping through the data fields on my watch.   I do use the DF’s on my Fenix to confirm pace but things like elapsed time, elapsed distance, heart rate I prefer whispered into my ear as I run.   In large part because if the light is dim my old eyes have trouble reading tiny text on my watch face during a run.

Bottom line if I’m stuck with ANT+ being reliable and useful then I might as well just use my Garmin brain stuck on a Polar sensor belt (the garmin belt started giving bad readings after about 3 months of use) and not have to deal with the weird design on using the brain to connect the strap together.

Yes I do end up giving up the metrics the TickrX provided but honestly they’re mostly a curiosity for me, not something driving my notrunning.  I did like the double tap the chest to change to the next song ala some kind of Star Trek communicator-esque action.

Solo PR

Went out this morning and ran a 5k for time and then some extra for endurance.   I set a new PR beating my last PR time by 1:21 and I didn’t really feel like I was pushing it.  My new 5K is 33:26.  Not earthshaking although some would argue when I run the earth does shake but each month brings some incremental improvement.

And while tight and narrow is good in some areas”

As long as I’m seeing improvement then I’m doing something right.  Right?

I could feel the pace obviously but running solo recreationally is not the same as running as a pack in a pay to play race.  So I believe I could shave another full minute off that to be honest in a race situation and with some proper preparation.  I run a calorie deficit 99 days out of a 100 and on top of that a low carb intake so my energy stores at any given time are not what yours probably are.

But all my planned 5k’s till about November I’m running with slower runners so it’ll be awhile before I can set an ‘official’ PR for a 5k. So I’ll have to deal with GPS based or lap based on a measured track PR’s.

Tomorrow I have a 2 hour ish training run and then a trail run of 4K right afterwards.  The trail run is a organized race.  I’d thought about doing the 8K trail run but was talked out of it.   The talk made sense, the 8K is two laps of the 4K so why bother?  The purpose of the run is to get a taste of trail running, not see the same scenery twice.

This was a last minute race, I’d chalked it off since the race description didn’t mention a T-Shirt much less a medal but yesterday they posted a picture of the medal on facebook which while I’m not on facebook one of my running friends is so he sent it over.

I’m going to be running in Leadville V3’s tomorrow on the trail.  As a card carring member of the bigfoot club I have very few options in shoes.   The Leadvilles are one of the few options that come specifically in a 13 4E.   And thus I have some.

I bought some Vazee Summits online since they were so cheap on the hope they’d work but they were impossibly narrow.   And while tight and narrow is good in some areas, in shoes it’s just not a great thing for me.

The Leadvilles are nice and light but the heel cup feels shallow to me compared to the Nimbus 18 and 19’s.

I’ve already put a pair of Engo blister resist heel patches in them.   I’m going to be putting them in all my shoes actually.  I believe for me they just make sense to increase the life of my shoes and decrease the risk of blisters.

Another thing I’m trying is Leuko cloth tape.  This stuff is far superior to the standard cloth athletic tape.  It sticks like… glue?   It’s slicker than athletic tape so there’s less friction which equals less skin movement.

If you weren’t aware blisters aren’t caused by friction per se, it’s caused by forces being applied to the skin that creates shearing action which causes the layers to break apart.  The skin layers separating is obviously not a great thing and as with any violent action to the human body, bodily fluids are released and thus you have those watery liquid filled puffy blisters.

And running with blisters sucks as anyone who’s had them knows.