Shorts Weather Has Come To Northern California

Get out your sunglasses folks, I'm wearing shorts!

Yes, after a really long patch of wintery weather, spring weather has arrived in Northern California.  Today called for 9 miles of General Aerobic (I know what you're thinking, the it was Colonel Aerobic last time you checked--well he's been promoted.

General Aerobic is Pfitzinger's term for pretty much easy running 15-20% slower that goal marathon pace. 

Out to Paradise Lake I go just daring the sun to darken my mighty white legs.

Had a nice run around the lake.  The trail is an out and back on the right (east) side of the lake.  It works out to a 9.35 mile run--perfect.

I enjoyed the trail today, even managed to keep my feet mostly dry.  No snow on the trail anymore, but there are still some very ambitious puddles (think 30-40 feet long and covereing the width of the trail). 

I did pick up a little friend on the run.  When I got in the car to head home, I looked down to find a tick taking a bite out of crime on my leg.  Fortunately, it hadn't had a chance to get embedded yeet, so I was able to pull it off with relative ease.  (Note to self--add tick repellant to the running gear).  I think it saw my bright white legs and thought it was the promised land. 

Welcome to the Freak Show

Climb Aboard Explorers! 

Today I officially started my marathon training program.  Yes, I know you're envious--18 weeks of lactate threshold increasing, V02max building, endurance escalating, limit pushing fun.  My plan--largely based on Pfitzinger's 18/55 plan which is 18 weeks building weekly mileage to 55 miles. 

To be fair, the plan is also authored by Scott Douglas, but everyone just refers to it as a Pfitzinger plan, or Pfitz for short.  Sorry Scott.

Today's workout--an 8 mile run with 4 miles at Lactate Threshold pace.  For me that works out to a pace between 8:53 and 9:10 (Heart rate 148 - 165).  So, I set the alarm for 5:30 and away we go with a zoom!

I couldn't sneak out the door without waking the dogs, so they got to come for the first mile and a half.  Then I dropped them off and went out for more.  I pushed up near LT pace, but because it was uphill, my HR was already there so two miles of LT.  After that, I realized that I needed to add a little to my route, so I explored some new ground.  I found a trail that went along the Magalia Reservoir--this turned out to be a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride of a trail, so I had to go a little slower for the two miles of trail.  Finished up with two more at LT pace. 

Viola!  First day of training in the books.  To bolster my legendary fame and running prowess, I am counting the half marathon training as part of my total training bragging rights for the marathon.  That puts me at 318 miles down, approximately 800 to go.

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

We have had a solid three weeks of rain here in sunny, northern California.  The official stats for my town record us at 20 days of rain in March with 16.27 inches!  That's enough to discourage even the most resilient of souls. 

Don't get me wrong, I like the rain.  I even like running in the rain in the winter, as long as I am prepared for it:

• hat with a bill to keep the rain out of my eyes
• wool socks (I love my green smartwools)
• a decent outer layer up top

The problem with that many rain days is that it starts to wear on you over time.  I was doing pretty well--either braving the rain or squeezing runs in between rainstorms--until daylight saving time hit.  Since I am an early runner, I was enjoying the extra light in the mornings.  Then all of a sudden, daylight savings add this insult to injury.  It's darker and I really don't feel like getting out of bed an hour earlier. 

Saturday, I had just about had it.  A growing sense of cabin fever began to really get to me.  So, I geared up and went out for a medium-long run.  When I left it was cloudy but not raining.  The rain came about 3 miles into the run.  A sprinkle, then a downpour.  No problem for me, I'm dressed and ready.  The downpour lets up and to more of a sprinkle followed by another downpour.

I was running an out & back course and about a half mile before my turn-around point, the rain starts to turn to hail.  To misquote the country song:  "If you're going through hail, keep on moving!"  I enjoy the crunchy feel of hail under my feet.   I decide to make this run a half-marathon distance so I tack on a little more before making my turn. 

As I'm running in the rain, hail, wind, and fog I begin thinking that this run is perfect for preparing for the San Francisco Marathon.  It's always windy going across the Golden Gate Bridge.  It's usually foggy.  This is the exact type of training I need.  Add to it this route is a pretty fair facsimile of the course elevation profile, and I am having a great training run--building mental toughness.

Two more miles of rain and then it suddenly cleared up.  The clouds even turned from dark grey to light grey with some hints of yellow.  I finished the run after sunset, with my headlamp on, but felt pretty good.

The sun is out today, I guess Annie was right.

Spring, Snow and Mountain Lions

Today was my first run of Spring! 

Unfortunately, "Spring" in Northern California this year looks a lot like torrential rain turning to snow at higher elevations.  I was looking forward to a nice trail run this morning, so I headed out to Paradise Lake.  The trail there is a nice rolling trail that follows the shoreline of our beautiful lake.  It is a 9.3 mile out and back trail.

Today, it was about 90% covered in snow and the rest was puddles.  I dressed for rain and off I went.  Nothing fast or fancy through the snow and mud, but just a nice natural pace, mostly 10-11min/miles. 

On the far part of the trail, I started to see some traccks in the snow.  Mountain Lion tracks to be exact.  At first it was one solitary cat with BIG feet...3-4" across.  I lost his track, but later picked up a smaller adult cat's print with a cub along side.  Momma and cub, I'm guessing.

What do you think the lions think of me running by in the rain?  FAST FOOD.

Actually, I'm not that fast. 

Unicycle Cross-Training

My brother Jeff called yesterday.  Jeff has been one of those inspirational big brothers.  He has run the St. Loius Marathon, done the Sears Tower Climb a couple of times (he's training to do it again).  Way back in my first semester of college, he taught me how to juggle as a helpful procrastination method. 

About 6 years ago he gave me one of his old unicycles (a classic Schwinn 24") and told me I had to learn.  After about 5 years of mostly letting it collect dust, last spring I finally took to learning it in earnest.  I spent a lot of time at the local tennis courts.  Tennis courts are great for unicycle practice because they are nice and flat and have chain-link fence surrounding them, which is ideal beacuse you have something to hang on to.  After a good bit of work, I managed to graduate to being an official level 1 unicycler who can:

• mount unicycle unassisted
• ride 50 meters
• dismount gracefully with unicycle in front

Six years to get to level 1--that's the equivalent of spending six years in first grade.

Back to yesterday's call.  Usually he calls to rub in how my neice or nephew are doing laps around my unicycle ability--my nephew is working on level 2.  Even my brother's six year-old neighbor is learning.  My brother's latest stunt is riding 2+ miles on his unicycle. 

So, the conversation progresses and he challenges me to get after progressing to the next level.  I give what I think is the ultimate excuse: "I'm training for a marathon."  He responds, "Then unicycle as cross-training."

Ok, he got me there.  So, once a week on one of my "rest of XT" days, I'm gonna work on the uni!

Elitist Prigs

One of the things I like most best about running is the general sense of camaraderie that runners have with each other.  This is best found when you end up near another runner and there is an immediate connection.

These vary from light:
     "Nice day for a run."  
     "Good job."
to the the more involved:
       "What are you training for?"
       "How long have you been running?"
In fact, there is nothing that helps a workout go by than a nice conversation along the way.

In our online world, there is also a great source of encouragement to be found in the various running forums.  These are all over, with some of the more popular being offered by running magazines such as Runner's World and Running Times or on the multitude of online tracking programs such as Running Ahead and Map My Run.  Since a lot of my running is solitary, I have received a lot of encouragement from folks on forums.  In fact, one forum in particular had a great community of people all training for half marathons--what an encouraging group of people!

However, I have found that not all is well online.  The big difference is that in person, most people tend to try to be nice.  Online, on the other hand, people seem pretty free to be total jerks. 

This was highlighted recently as I started to make the transition from half marathon training to full marathon training.  Unlike the really friendly folks in the HM realm, there is a high incidence of what I like to call Elitist Prigs on the full marathon side.  These are the guys that think if you aren't running a 2:30 marathon that you might as well call the mortuary.  Also, apparently these guys were born with at least 5 marathons under their belt.  They are just brutal when it comes to responding to first time marathoners.

My solution--find the turtle rooms (it must be the Terrapin in me).  This is the place where people are running 4-5+ hour marathons.  These awesome folks are humble and helpful.  Plus, they probably work harder at their marathons than the speedy experts do.

What is it about going online that requires some to load up their flame-throwers and unleash all their fiery vengeance?

Running and Reading

Whew!  It's been a few days since my last post.  I have been trying to catch up from the Half Marathon last week.  I am also trying not to become that guy who obsesses completely over running. 

But I am also at a bit of a decision point.  I am in between two training cycles.  I successfully completed my Half Marathon (yeah, I know it doesn't need to be capitalized, but to me it's capital letter worthy)--no major injuries, met my goal, yada, yada, yada.  I am now getting ready to transition into training for the San Francisco Marathon.  The only problem is that I have yet to pick a training plan.

Enter the reading.  Right now I am pretty much reading anything I can find on the topic of marathon training plans.  What I am finding is that while there are are lot of free half marathon plans online, full marathon plans tend to require an investment.  First stop--the local library--to my dismay, they only have one book on running, The Idiots Guide to Running by Bill Rodgers.  Nothing wrong with Bill Rodgers, but this book is written more for the entry level runner and not real specific to marathon training. 

Next stop, my favorite local used book store, Books of Paradise.   These guys are getting ready to close their brick and mortar store and transition to just online sales, so on my first visit, they are selling everything for 60% off.  They only two books on running:  Galloway's Book on Running, by Jeff Galloway and The Complete Book of Running, by James Fixx.  I read Jim Fixx way back in the day, so I opt for Galloway.  A few days later, I find out via Facebook that the bookstore is having a "every book is $1 sale," so I figure I might as well pick up Fixx for a buck. 

While I'd like to give a little respect to the dead, the Fixx book is not really turning out to be helpful on the specifics of marathon training.  Galloway, on the other hand, has a thorough plan for training for marathons and differentiates between goals of finishing and various time goals--now we are getting somewhere.

In my internet browsing on the topic, I keep reading about Pfitzinger's marathon training plans (and some insane workouts on the way), so I decide that to be thorough, I ought to pick up a copy of Advanced Marathoning.  The local Barnes and Noble didn't have it, but Amazon.com to the rescue--the book will be delivered by my friends at UPS any minute now (What can Brown do for me?  Bring my book!).

I used a hybrid Galloway/F.I.R.S.T. plan for my half marathon trianing--mainly because I only had 10 weeks to move from 5K fitness to the half marathon.  But there are some very appealing things to me in Galloway's plan.  I especially like that he has you do long runs of at least your race length, if not longer.  For the HM, this meant I worked up to 16 miles--compared to some plans that have you peak out at 10-11 miles.

However, for the marathon, I am wanting to put in a larger base of weekly miles and the Galloway marathon plan for a 4 hour marathon only builds weekly mileage into the mid-40's.  Enter Pfitzinger.  I am strongly considering what is commonly called the Pfitz 18/55.  It is an 18 week program that builds up to 55-mile weeks. 

I realize that I am a novice, not an advanced marathoner, but I also realize that I am venturing into a world that I know nothing about, so I thought I'd like to get some race-specific info as I launch into this. 

The best part, I get to build on my previous training cycle and count the miles toward my marathon goal:  241 miles down, approximately 700 to go!