Run for the Heroes

Over the past few weeks, I have been talking, meeting and running with people from the Columbus Road Runners. Over the course of our conversations, whenever long-distance and ultra running came into our discussions, there have been three names brought up.

One of them, John Teeples is currently running across the state of Georgia. Across ... the entire state. 270+ miles from Fort Benning to Tybie Island. Being sort of Forest Gumpian like I am, I had to learn more. From the CRR's and his website www.runfortheheroes.com I found out that the deal is, he's helping out the House of Heroes organization by running for veteran's on Memorial Day weekend.

I was floored! So with little time to get the okay from my chain-of-command, I worked at finding out what I could do to be involved. I had helped the HOH's back in September of last year and thought that it was a great group of people.

I asked for and got the clearance from both of my superiors; my military bosses and Household-6! I would start the first leg of the journey with John and his group and travel from Fort Benning about 16 miles.

On Tuesday, I got to talk with John and he told me that it would be about 17 miles, and that they were going to stop at the Four Winds Resturant for breakfast. Better known around these parts as the "Ranger Burger," it's a down home place to get great food at a low price. What I would soon learn from ultra-marathoners is that eating and running come hand in hand, and not as separate entities. Again, I was floored at his invitation, as we had just introduced ourselves. He was completely down to earth and a cool guy ... who just happened to have won the Pinhoti 100 mile Endurance trail race!

On Wednesday and Thursday I found myself nursing a possible case of shin splints, but it's on the front of my lower right leg instead of to the side a bit. Using RICE, I prepared for battle knowing that there was no way I was not going to do this great feat. John wrote on his blog Thursday, "...I have also been somewhat apprehensive about what the next 270 miles holds. The mystery of the next 270 miles is what makes this run so interesting. The unknown is what makes it exciting." I said to myself, I'm completely nervous about just doing 17 miles on this run.

At 0345 I found myself at the New Infantry Museum with what were about to become my new friends for the next few miles! The rains came through and we sought shelter on the steps before Iron Mike, which is a statue of an infantryman giving the signal for others to, "Follow Me!". After John gave an interview, he said a few words about the importance of Memorial Day and honoring the veterans. Then, in front of Iron Mike, we sang the national anthem. About 12 of us were going to start out with John and take him down to Cussetta.

At just after 4 AM we were on our way, with a Military Police escort and a news camera crew filming from a convertible VW Beetle, through the gates and onto main post Fort Benning. We went right by the headquarters and the second Iron Mike statue, then down through the golf course. At about 4 miles, we stopped so some people could make a pit stop, then out we went onto the main road. Dixie Road is usually off limits to runners, so this was the first time I have ever been seen by a cop on Dixie Road and not been told to leave.

We all rotated around our small group of people, telling stories and hearing about how they came to learn about this event and come out to motivate. It was really quite a neat feeling to be in a group of runners who all want to be there, instead of in the Army where some of the people are there running because they have to. The atmosphere was light, and we just all cruised along. Past Kelley Hill, by the Air Assault and Pre-Ranger course, then a turn down past the Sniper School and Ranger Training Brigade.

Just before we ran out of road, and the asphalt turned into trail, the sun came up. It was a beautiful morning and soon we regrouped with the road crew. Several members said their goodbye's and after a few photo shots, they were off to where they had pre-staged their cars. Then it was just John, Ron? and I who jumped the guardrail and took off for the last three miles to Ranger Burger.

It was during that time that I was able to really talk with John and find out why he went into ultra running. I sometimes feel like a freak that I have this uncanny desire to run super long distances ... yet I can. It is really unique to me to find somebody that has set themselves up with a similar set of goals and is as easy going to talk to as John. All three of us chatted as we ran up the hills until arriving at the Four Winds.

The road crew was all there, and we got greeted by Mrs. Cox, who took our orders immediately. After breakfast, the runners were off again and I had to bid a farewell to them at that point. The time for me to get into work was now fast approaching. It is such a great thing to see the amount of support there was for his efforts, the veterans and the House of Heroes. It was Johns' son who drove me back to my car.

Thank You and God Speed on your Journey.

My Weelky Plan

Always needing to have goals, my training week looks like:
Mon: Rest or X-training
Tues: Hill Max HR test. Evening - easy run. (4-5 mi)
Wed: Steady State run (9-10 mi)
Thurs: Easy (6-8 mi)
Fri: (0430 AM) 16+ miles with John Teeples, a GA ultramarathon runner who is running across GA over Memorial Day weekend to benefit House of Heroes. Read more at: Run for the Heroes. I would try to do the whole darn thing if I didn't have family obligations and have to take care of students on Friday. (If I'm not able to attend, then easy or x-training)
Sat: Recovery run, if I was able to do the 16 miles. (Long run of 16+ other wise.)
Sun: Easy run of half distance of Saturday run.

Whoops ... I already broke my plan: Tonight I did 4.5 miles on the trail (34 minutes). That's cross training, right? The weather was awesome, with the humidity of last week suddenly disappearing this morning, I had no choice but to take advantage of the run!

Elf Fun Run Fundraiser 5K - RR

Fort Benning, GA

15 May 2009

My latest race was another fundraiser event. This time for the Fort Benning Santa's Castle, an organization that helps provide toys for Soldier families. For me, I was getting particularly nervous about this race. I wanted to prove to myself that my last 5K was not a fluke. Something that had been eating me up some.

When my youngest cat jumped on my pillow about a half hour before my alarm was to go off, I was wide awake, and immediately started prep for the run. First stop, the Runner's World threads. I started tea and put down a banana while I skimmed the net. I got myself, my race bag and my Gatorade ready. I took a big cup of coffee and woke up my new training partner, Carmin (the Garmin) as I headed out the door.

I arrived to the area and began my warm-up run. Storms had brought a good amount of rain Friday night, so the gravel track at Stewart Field had become packed down and a few of the corners were slightly flooded. After completing one loop and seeing the exact area that they were setting up at, I stopped to get my bib number.

I ran into a buddy and we would talk off and on throughout the pre-race time. He was going through a bunch of military courses after going over to the Officer side of the Army. While attending a school offered in the same building where I instruct he had seen the flier for this event. It pays to advertise!

The race was set up with Christmas themed decorations and Christmas music was blaring on the loadspeaker. There was a cut out white tree, and all the workers had on bright "Elf" green shirts. The workers here were very cheerful!

The turn out was good despite the stormy skies looming overhead. With the amount of military units arriving from nearby billets, I estimated about 400 would be racing the 5K. I beat the majority of people arriving, and got in and out of pacet pick-up quickly. It was there that I talked briefly with the race director and found out that we would be doing only 1 mile on the track, and the other 2.11 miles on the streets. We would end up making a huge figure 8 around the area.

I "towed the line" at the front and traded stories with other guys. I got a couple of interrested remarks on the WDW DisneyRunning.com shirt and one guy told me he was looking at doing the martahon this January. The race director kept coming over and giving us the time left until the race began. As he announced "two minutes," a few more people started to push up on the line. I held my ground and got ready ... it was going to be tight at the begining.

The race director came over to the front and gave us 20 seconds. We got ready and the front line leaned over some. "Get Ready, Get Set," and the horn went off!

At three steps out there was a little "Rubbin's Racing" on my right side as we established position for the very first turn. By the second turn I knew that I had blazed out of the gates a bit too fast. I was going to keep pushing to maintain my position, which I estimated to be about 6th at this point. It was tough to keep doing the math on my position due to so many people wearing the white race shirt.

Around Stewart Field we went, and I had two others get passed me, but I kept one within close range. The humidity was making my breathing feel tight. The last few days we have had about 70-75% humidity, but today it was 100%. The lungs were fighting back. At one mile we were turning off the track and heading up towards the Airborne School jump towers. 1st Mile - 5:42

The next mile and a half was a slowing rising uphill. I could feel myself losing some steam, and I was in a back and forth battle with two Afican-American Soldiers. 2nd Mile - 6:09. The hill got steeper. At the top of the hill which was on a turn, I tried a 10 step surge. The second Soldier countered my move and was still right beside me. I tried to draft the first one in hopes of staying with them until the last sprint. They both had been in races before, as everytime I tried a surge, they kept with me. On the next straight away, they both got ahead of me and started their pushes.

Now it was just a struggle for me to stay in the fight. 3rd Mile - 6:33. Everyone started going for the finish and I held off the guy behind me. Finally I got into the chute and they collected up my bib slip. Being a smaller race set-up, there were no chips and timing was done by volunteers manually entering in the data. At the end of the chute, we recieved raffle tickets.

My best guess is that I was 9th overall. This race only had 3 divisions, top 3 male, female and 18 or under. (The top 18 and younger was the same girl who came in 8th overall during the Celebrity Classic 10K 4 weeks ago.) As far as the raffle, I was off by 2 numbers from winning a pair of $80 sunglasses from US Cavalry, a military and adventure store.

The post-race food consisted of Banana's, Orange's and Krispy Kream Donuts! Again, for a local, thrown together race, it was put together pretty well ... except for port-a-johns. :)

Lessons Learned: If you factor in the long rising hill, the humidity and the fact that my legs felt "wooden" from 1 mile on, then I guess this race does validate my performance from one month ago. Maybe.

Bottom line: 5K race in 19:11.

Goals Recap for April '09

• Complete a marathon (COMPLETE)
• 1st marathon: 11 Jan, 09 (Walt Disney World, FL) (COMPLETE)
• 2nd marathon: 25 Jan, (Callaway gardens, GA) (COMPLETE)
• 3rd marathon: TBD

• Compete in my 2nd Half-marathon.
• Next scheduled is the WDW Half (Donald) in JAN 2010 (Part of the Goofy Challenge)
• Would like a HM during the fall of 2009

• Improve on the 5K races.
• 14 Feb 09 - 5K: 20:28
• 11 Apr 09 - Run For Reina 5K in PCB, FL: 18:02
• 15 May 09 - Elf Fun Run Fundraiser, Fort Benning, GA: Goal, Sub-18
• I'm going to pull out all the stops on this almost "super"-flat course.
• 2# Aug 09 Country's BBQ Midnight Express5K: Goal: Sub 18:30 (some hills)
• 2008 Course PR: 20:38
• Run a 1 mile or 5K as a family!

• Improve on the 10 K races.
• 14 MAR 09 - ShamRock 'n Roll, ATL: 42:55
• 18 APR 09 - Celebrity Classic River Run in Columbus, GA: 39:14
• OCT 09 Oktoberfest X-C 10K: Goal, Sub 41:00 (Trail)
• 2008 Course PR: 45:48

• Log approximately 1500 miles for the year.
• April was a great, high mileage month. I am now finishing a cycle down week due to the effort I put forth most of the month.
• End of week mileage, April 5th: 33.8 / Long - 10+ miles
• EoWM, April 12th: 45.3 / Long - 15.4 miles
• EoWM, April 19th: 52.7 / Long - 8 miles (after a 10K)
• EoWM, April 26th: 60.3 / Long - 24 miles
• End of Month April: 191 miles
• 2009 Year to Date: 514 miles

• Compete in my first ultra-marathon and find more trail runs.
• Doing a group trail run tomorrow instead of traveling to the 34 mile trail race in SC. I need to complete more training before taking on the 50K+ trails.

• Maintain or Improve my current weight and fitness..
• Taking the end of Week 6 test of the Hundred Push-Ups Challenge every two weeks.
• I perform as many push-up correctly with no rest for 2 minutes.
• The Army Physical Fitness Test only scores for 2 minutes.
• Last test: 75 push-ups

• Working on getting Household-6 to join me for the WDW Half or FULL since I'm in for the Goofy Challenge, January 2010.

By The Numbers

For some reason, all runners at some point get obsesive over numbers. Times, splits, miles, meters, pace ... and so on. I'm somewhere in the middle ground, where I have collected enough evidence that I could be convicted in the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder courts.

In the search for reason behind unreal progress, I offer up the last three weeks of workouts before nailing down two important Personal Record. (Yes, an admittedly boring, geeky post.) Most information is being referenced off my RunnersWorld.com training log, with flesh out info from my thread posts on RW.com, and also my log on dailymile.com.

On March 15th I completed the ShamRock 'n Roll Race 10K in a new PR setting 42:55. I knew I was capable of more, but I had not "broke the code" on this race. It was a good race, but I was looking to achieve more. My training weeks start on Mondays and end on Sundays. During these weeks, Sunday was my long run day. (I now perform most of my long runs on Saturdays, with Sundays being a recovery run day.)

10K -4 weeks out: (Mar 16 - Mar 22) - 32.9 logged miles.
I was still in the low to mid 30's for weekly miles (mpw) during this week. For work reasons, I had no logged miles Mon-Wed.
Thurs-Sat: 3 easy runs at various paces. 8.5 miles, 2.5 miles (Army formation run) and 10 miles.
Sun: Hill Run ... I hit a very hilly route and ran back trails for 12 miles. Some of hills on this run are monsters, and I beleive help to build up my legs.

10K -3 (Mar 23-Mar 29) - 39.5 logged miles.
Heavy work requirement were again keeping me busy, but I started my week with an evening trail run on Tuesday.
Tues: Trail 4.4 miles @ tempo pace
Wed: Intervals, 400's x 7. Active recovery (jog-run)
Thurs: 10 miles at tempo pace ... I just listened to the legs, and the times came naturally!
Sat: Easy 6.3 miles. I logged "7:50 is a bit quicker than my recommended 8:00 to 8:30 easy run pace." I now know that statement is wrong, but I was working with the data I had at the time.
Sun: atempt for 20, but the route was flooded so I ended up with 15.3 miles within my new long run pace band.

10K -2 (Mar 30-Apr 5) - 33.8 logged miles
Tues: Intervals, 400's x 8. I landed most of these repeats inside my training pace band. equal distance active recoveries.
Wed: Easy 3.5 in the morning, Trails for 6.2 miles at tempo pace in the evening.
Fri: 8.8 miles at a easy pace.
Sun: 10.5 miles. I was going for 20 once again, but the skies started rumbling and I had to turn around gettin drenched during the last 2 miles.

10K -1 (Apr 6-Apr 12) - 45.3 logged miles
Mon: Army PT short sprints and stair sprints; 8 miles on the trails in the evening.
Tues: Repeats, 800's x 5. Shorter active recoveries made the diference in this evening workout.
Wed: Hills for 3 easy pace miles.
Fri: 7.7 easy miles to get acclimatized for the 5k in Panama City Beach.
Sat: 3.1+ mile warmup; Run for Reina 5K - Scored an insanly quick PR.
Sun: 15.4 mile long run. I was hurting a bit at the end of this.

10K week(Apr 13-Apr 19) - 52.7 logged miles.
Mon: rest and ...
Tues: 3.5 mile easy Army run (good for recovery)
Wed: 4 mile ruck run on the hills. It's an Army thing, but it really builds up the legs.
Wed evening: 5 mile trail run.
Thurs: 9.4 mile run.
Fri: 3.5 mile easy Army run.
Sat: 2 mile warm up; Celebrity Classic River Run 10K - Another ludacris PR.
Sat evening: 10 miles at long run pace.
Sun: 9 miles easy (recovery pace)

So, by the numbers, my workouts in the weeks closing up my new PR's. Can 4 weeks make a difference? I do think that the interval training helped some, as the conditioning on the body was targeted to help durring the shorter races. Those runs that I think helped me the most are in bold font.

But I feel that the majority of my improvment has come from having to slow down because of a minor hip injury after my second marathon in January. That rest and recovery period, and the build up after it alowed me to "break-out" off the plateau I was on and achieve new records.

Happy Training!

Until The Wheels Fall Off

Over the last week I have been asked about what training or factors do I believe have helped me jump my personal records (PR's) so quickly. It was only March when I barely broke 43:00 on a 10K course, and now I blazed a sub-40 with a 3 minute drop on a course with similar hills. As for the 5K I went from 20:28 to 17:58 on an almost unbelievably flat course. What gives?

I have been solidly training for races since May of 2008. My goal race was the January '09 WDW marathon, but I competed in other races leading up to that event. The problem with my training for the marathon was that I was going off training data from a race that was getting old quickly. I believe now that during the last three months of training for the marathon that I was overdoing my long runs and not getting enough quality rest. I felt my best after my taper week before the marathon when I was able to heal up.

My first marathon went well. Then, with a mix of training and taper, I accomplished my second marathon 2 weeks later. That didn't go quite so well. My time got worse and my hip was aggravated and I was not allowed to recover correctly in the hours immediately following the event.

My training after that suffered and I didn't start totaling real mileage numbers until 2 weeks later. Then I did a 5k on a track and shaved a meager 10 seconds of my PR time. It was a hard run, but it wasn't my hardest. I started to goal myself and I completely reworked my training plan. I personally put my plan together, adjusting the calendar, miles and paces from several sources. During this time, I also did the Army Physical Fitness Test, of which I raised my score to within a few points shy of a perfect 300. My time in the 2 mile run went down from 13:30ish in September to 12:24 on the 19 of February. It was a bit soft of a race as I didn't have to redline to hold my competition. I simply equated the improved time to the fact that my long mileage had returned into the half-marathon range.

I started some speed work in March, but it isn't until the 3rd week that I really got a good grasp of what I really needed to program into the speed work. It was at that time when my mileage crept back over the 30 miles per week mark and I began to add both an interval / repeat day and a tempo day, separated by an easy / recovery day. The first 2 weeks of repeats (400's) were pretty solid, and just a bit on the fast side, but still close to the range that they should be in. I then moved to 800's. The first week of these was rough as getting my pace gauged was tough, but I moved into the next week and was able to pull off good intervals with less active recovery.

So when I look back at the factors that helped me get quicker in a short amount of time, I contribute it first to rest and recovery. Had I not hurt myself and started to train my long slow runs as long slow runs and my recoveries and recoveries, than I might not have ever gotten a chance to heal up to start the speed work. The second was adding the right amount of speedwork for the right distances at the right time. The first group of 400's my have been to fast by a few seconds, but since the times I was training for were based off of numbers that I could exceed, than my speedwork needed to be faster. The third is staying on a good diet to support my training needs. I eat more naturally and avoid soda, high-fructose corn syrip, pure sugar and most fast food. I'm not a vegetarian, but I also eat very little beef. Most of my protein comes from poultry, dairy, seafood or soy products. Most of my breads are high-fiber, non-bleached flour or wheat flour. Finally fourth ... the mental game; racing smart and getting focused on the mission after the start has been sounded.

I train without a Garmin so I don't have heart rate info and have to judge my pace a lot by feel. I want a Garmin and I've scheduled myself a budget to get one, but there are days I ask myself, why? Running is natural, and if I can't listen to my own body and run like an animal, than what's the point. But I know that for accurate training, I need to have a way to measure progress. When I began my 800's, the times where erratic. My first one was, of course, too fast. I got the others down and most of them were in the right range, but it was a steep learning curve. Then I went the next week for my next group of 800's. These were steadier, solid repeats which I was very happy about.

On my tempo runs, there were a lot of days that these were done on trails with hills that the pace time didn't matter quite as much as the effort, as I find comfort in running the trails ... and my pace often picks up.

When I went down to Panama City Beach and signed up for the 5K, I was serious about breaking my PR. I acclimated myself the day prior by running 7+ miles during the same time of day on the Friday before the race. I "recon'ed" the course and did a warm up run through the course, working all the turns, game planning my race. I lined up on the front, which I've never done before. In doing so I chated with people that looked like they should blaze right by me. Through that experience a lesson that I'd heard before finally sunk in; it all depends on who shows up to race that day. One guy was faster, but some where not, and I kept ahead of them. It was exactly the same for the 10K. The guy on my left was a blaze and the guy on my right was never able to stay with me past my initial push, although he looked the part. I will always line up in the front of a local race from now on.

I ran good, and I tried to race better, but it wasn't the day for me to be in first. But I'll take 6th overall ... twice in a row.

Next up, what did my training plan look like from March until now? By the numbers.