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Race report: 2014 UW-Stout Jamie Block Alumni Meet

September 3, 2014 / Race Reports / 7 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

First, I realize the blog has been a little silent recently. I just got overwhelmed with things going on. From end of summer vacations to commitments to runners I’m coaching and various other things, I just didn’t have the time. The blog should return to its normal schedule next week.

It’s always fun to go back to my old hangout and see how well I can hang with the guys who are running the same routes and, in at least some cases, the same meets I once ran now over 15 years ago. This year, I had a little extra bonus of talking with the team at my old high school the day before.

As for the race, though, it was a little different than in prior years. The high school where we usually run is undergoing some construction so the meet got moved this year to the Red Cedar Trail and Riverside Park, along the shores of the Red Cedar River. Initially, I thought this would make the course much faster. In retrospect, though, I think it only made the course slightly faster. The trail was wet from recent rain and anyone who has run on wet crushed limestone trails knows how slippery they can get. We were also running upstream so, while it wasn’t too noticeable, there was generally an incline throughout the first 3 miles. In addition, the last mile through the park was much like the high school course. A grassy, uneven surface that saps your energy while slowing you down. All of this isn’t an excuse for a bad time or anything like that, just an explanation of why you might see a faster overall pace at a longer race in two weeks. That’s normal for the high school course and I’m not going to be surprised if that’s how it works out for this course also.

Given the point to point nature of this course, we had to get to the start somehow. I joined a few fellow alumni in walking part of the way while reminiscing about our times in Menomonie, before a couple of us started running with about 2 miles to go. We noted the slippery spots but I was thinking some of them, especially the wooden bridges, were things we would just have to deal with. No getting around them, we’d just have to do our best to keep our feet under us.

After the usual pre-race ritual, we were off. Given the narrow trail we were starting on, I lined up near the back. This is an unusual starting position for me but it makes sense given the strength and depth of the team. I knew going in I didn’t have a chance of competing against anyone on the current team except maybe a few freshmen. Last year, I had a good race and beat a single freshman. So I lined up between the freshmen and my fellow alumni.

At the start, it didn’t take long to get moving. I settled into a rhythm in front of the alumni pack with a few freshmen around. Once the initial pace settled, I found myself moving up a bit and closing in on a pack that I assumed was most or all freshmen. I worked my way through that group while offering a few words of encouragement, then set my eye on the next pack. I slowly gained on them through the first mile and, when I heard a coach recording 5:37 for them, figured I ran about 5:40. Shortly after, I caught one guy falling off the back of the pack and encouraged him to try to hang with the pack. Then I caught the 3 remaining guys and made some comment amounting to who wants to go after the next pack. One of the guys had an entertaining comment that I can’t recall exactly but could be summarized as "no" and I just wanted to say I’m twice your age, if I can go after those guys you can suck it up and go with. Instead, I just took the lead and kept the pace honest. I was hoping for some shared work but, for about the next mile, I was in the lead. We cruised through the 2 mile and I heard one of the guys say 11:20 so that was another 5:40 mile for me.

Somewhere in mile 3, I don’t know if I began fading or the guys started moving more but two took over the lead and I sat with the third, right behind the two leaders. I hung there for a while, occasionally feeling good enough to pull even with the leaders but often just sitting behind. That was the start. Then it became occasionally falling behind a step before battling back. As long as they were not accelerating, I was going to do all I could to stay with them as long as I could. I never know when I might catch a second wind and be able to push them through the finish.

Then the coach who was out recording splits cruised through on his bike at about 2.5 miles. He told the guys, if you’re feeling good, it’s time to move. The guy who had a comment for me earlier said something summing up to he’s not feeling good but all three of those guys pulled away from me right after the coach went by and that was it for me. I battled to stay with them but could only watch them pull away. Through the 3 mile mark, there were a couple members of the women’s team saying 16-something. That means, even as those guys dropped me, I must have picked up the pace to go sub-5:40.

Just after the 3 mile mark, we turned off the trail and into the park. Wow. The moment I took my first step off the trail, I knew it was going to be a battle. The grass was long and wet, the footing uneven. It just sapped any energy I had left from my legs. In addition, it wasn’t level at all. There were these little rises and drops throughout the park that just messed with you. With the wet grass, I couldn’t really let myself go on the drops and the rises just sapped more energy. That mile, I was still looking at the guys ahead of me but really just trying to survive.

The final mile was a half mile loop around the park, run twice. Near the end of my first lap, someone was coming on me hard. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me I was being lapped. I just figured, if he passes me that hard, I have no response. I got passed just before the split between going out for the second lap and going into the finish line. I saw the guy who passed me split to the finish line as I was heading out to my second lap. Then it occurred to me. People were cheering for Patrick. That’s Patrick Jenkins, top man on the team and reigning WIAC champion. Hey, I was hurting at that point. My mind wasn’t the sharpest. Anyway, that made me feel less bad about being almost a half mile behind him.

Nothing much happened in the last half mile. I kept watching the guys ahead, hoping someone would fade, but more realistically thinking I need to keep pushing to keep from getting passed or at least make anyone who is going to try to pass earn it. I succeeded in preventing any passes and, as I look at the results, realize I didn’t have much to worry about. As I rounded that final turn toward the finish line, I saw the clock just past 23 minutes. The last number I saw was 23:07.

Final results had me 30th overall, 6th on the alumni team and first alumni runner to have graduated before 2013, in 23:08. Yes, my last mile was 6+ minutes. It was just a tough mile. Again, I won’t be one bit surprised if I have a faster average pace at Al’s Run but this race has always been about competing and not worrying about time. I felt like I competed well. Last year, I was only able to beat one freshman and, after he ran with me for much of the race, I was able to pull away from him late. This year, I was able to get in front of 7 freshmen. I feel like I’m at least as fit as last year, possibly slightly more fit, and I ran the best race possible out there. It will probably be my only race this year outside of the top 25 and surely the only race I’m not in the top half of the overall field but that’s the nature of the competition, not a reflection on how I ran.

This leaves me feeling confident in my position as I head into Al’s Run.

Pain tolerance, sleep and nonlocal fatigue

August 19, 2014 / Roundups / 4 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I came across some interesting topics in the past week. Here are three of my favorites:

Pain tolerance

I remember for some time hearing about how runners are tough. We can withstand more pain than the average person. The question I always had was whether this was simple correlation or there was some causation involved. Do people who are more tolerant to pain choose running or does running increase our pain tolerance?

Recent research has suggested that running does increase our pain tolerance. Then, the question became through what mechanisms? Does experiencing low levels of discomfort and/or pain in our legs toughen our legs up or does something change in our central nervous systems that allows us to withstand more pain throughout our bodies?

Well, this suggests it’s the latter:

But the volunteers in the exercise group displayed substantially greater ability to withstand pain. Their pain thresholds had not changed; they began to feel pain at the same point they had before. But their tolerance had risen. They continued with the unpleasant gripping activity much longer than before. Those volunteers whose fitness had increased the most also showed the greatest increase in pain tolerance.

Pain thresholds and tolerances were tested using peopleâs arms, Mr. Jones pointed out, while the exercisers trained primarily their legs. Because the changes in pain response were evident in the exercisersâ upper bodies, the findings intimate that âsomething occurring in the brain was probably responsible for the changeâ in pain thresholds, Mr. Jones said.

Interesting.

Sleep

There has been a lot of talk at various places recently about sleep. Talk of people needing less than they think, getting too much and so on. Personally, I never bought into it. I know that, personally, I don’t function well on less than 8 hours a night and, if I can get 9 or more, I often feel a significant boost the next day.

This article suggests I’m on to something.

After Stanford University basketball players spent five to seven weeks sleeping at least 10 hours a night (when they had been sleeping six to nine hours), their performance shot up like theyâd doped. They had faster sprint times and shooting accuracy. They also felt their overall physical and mental well-being improved during games and practice.

So what of all the 7 vs. 8 or more talk? Well, it came from a study that may not have been so well designed:

"It is important to understand that this 7 vs. 8 hours finding was not a carefully controlled study but is an association found retrospectivelyâ¦this pertains only to longevity," Veasey wrote. Itâs entirely possible that illness caused people surveyed to sleep longer, not the other way around.

I mentioned correlation vs. causation in reference to the pain tolerance study. Well, here it is again. The "7 hours is better" line is based on correlation. They didn’t show that 7 hours causes better health or longevity.

Many of us live extremely busy lives. Running is one of many things we need to fit into the day. I’m not going to tell you how much to sleep. However, we put our bodies through a lot. If you have the option to turn in a little earlier or sleep in a little later, take advantage of it.

Remember, sleep is critical to recovery and recovery is a critical part of training. As much as possible, don’t skimp on sleep.

Nonlocal fatigue

Finally, an interesting question to ponder. Does fatigue in our arms affect how our legs can perform? Does fatigue in our legs affect how our arms can perform?

According to this, the answers seem to be yes and no.

Anyway, the basic result was this: Whether you fatigue an arm or a leg, the opposite leg will be tired in a subsequent bout of exercise. Conversely, whether you fatigue an arm or leg, the opposite arm will not be tired in a subsequent bout of exercise. So the arms and legs (or at least the elbow flexors and knee extensors) appear to behave differently with respect to nonlocal fatigue. Why would this be? The short answer is the researchers don’t know.

In short, fatigue in an arm or leg affects the opposite leg. Fatigue in an arm or leg does not affect the opposite arm. Now, there is at least one other study that contradicts the "opposite arm" part of that result so don’t get too excited yet. Also, this finds the result but doesn’t find the reasoning behind the result so we don’t know why our legs fatigue when our arms are exercised.

However, I think this is useful information to be aware of. If nothing else, I think it’s interesting.

Training capacity: other considerations

August 14, 2014 / Training / 4 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Over the past two weeks, I went over how to define training capacity and how to find your training capacity, as well as what to do when you’ve found it.

This is the part 3 of a 3 part series on training capacity:

1) What is training capacity?

2) How to find your training capacity and what to do when you have found it?

3) Other training capacity considerations.

This week, in the final post in this series on training capacity, I want to discuss other considerations. Mainly:

1) Physical AND mental

2) Outside stresses

3) Your training capacity can and WILL change (don’t forget to address age)

4) Sometimes you’ll miss – adjust and move on

Training capacity is determined by physical AND mental capacity

We often think of the physical aspect. My body is breaking down, I must have gone beyond my capacity. My body is holding up, I’m doing fine.

That’s not all there is, though. How is your motivation? It doesn’t help at all if your body is holding up fine but you’re dragging mentally. I’ve seen it numerous times and you probably have seen it at least occasionally also if you think about it. A runner is running well, all is going right. Then, for apparently no reason to the outside world, the runner disappears. When the runner reappears, you find out there were no physical problems. Instead, the runner just lost interest.

Just as with physical capacity, our mental capacity plays a critical role. Just as with physical capacity, you can do things to increase your mental capacity but your starting point is no reflection on you as a runner. Some of us are easily highly motivated and will push through a grueling workload, others don’t have that motivation and need ways to keep things fresh and fun. Where you fall in that spectrum might affect your ultimate potential at the edges but it doesn’t have to predetermine your life as a runner.

Outside stresses play an important role

Are you facing an especially stressful time in your work or home life? This will affect your training capacity. If you don’t account for that, you will pay the price. Don’t be afraid to cut back some when stresses outside of running build up.

Running is a great release for many of us when we face stressful times but training at your capacity is also a stressor of its own type. Your body is only capable of handling so much stress at any given time. When one stress increases, another has to be decreased. The good news is that, when your outside stresses fade back down, you can increase your training load again.

Your training capacity can and WILL change

Our training capacities are always changing. As we gain fitness, we’re becoming more capable of handling a larger training load. If we lose fitness, our training capacity decreases. As we age, our training capacity is affected

To account for this, always pay attention to how you’re feeling and continue to reassess where your current capacity is. When you are gaining fitness and your capacity is on the rise, though, don’t be constantly increasing the load. It’s too easy to go too far if you do that. I like the idea of adjusting your load upward about once every 3-4 weeks.

If your training capacity is decreasing, though, make the adjustments immediately. As I’ve already mentioned, you’re better off at 90% of capacity than at 110% of capacity.

As much as we don’t want it to happen, as we age, our training capacity also changes. For most runners, the best way to handle this is to adjust the amount of time between hard days or, as I’ve seen work well, to take one of the weekly hard days and lessen the intensity of it.

Sometimes you’ll miss – adjust and move on

Hitting your right training capacity is a tough balance. Plus, with your capacity always changing as mentioned above, sometimes you won’t adjust right as the change happens. It happens to all of us. When it happens, don’t make a big deal of it. Instead, find your way back to equilibrium, pay attention to find that right balance again and understand what changed and why so you can keep watching for the same or similar things to happen again and adjust before problems creep up next time.

Team HillRunner.com: 2014 Al’s Run important dates

August 12, 2014 / Team HillRunner.com / 2 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Teammates,

The time has come again! Most of you probably have already heard through some form of communication that team registration is open. We already have a strong team of 6 members registered. I’d love to see that hit at least 10 by the close of registration. Please see the important dates below so you register in time.

As usual, I will be inviting all team members to my house after the race. It’s a great chance to socialize with your teammates away from the race course.

Important Dates:

Tuesday, August 19th: I will again be offering a free singlet or t-shirt to everyone who runs on the team. This year, I will be adding long sleeve t-shirts. I would like to place the order on this date. Get registered and let me know what you would like by this date to make sure I have what you want.

Wednesday, August 27th: Our deadline for getting 10 runners on the team. It doesn’t look like I have to submit the team so we can still add runners to the team after this date but, if you want the HillRunner.com winged foot on the back of your shirt, you and at least 9 others need to be registered by 4pm on this date.

Saturday, September 13th: Race day!

Race report: 2014 Hank Aaron State Trail 5K

August 12, 2014 / Race Reports / 5 minutes of reading

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Every year, I tell myself I’m not going back to this race. Every year, it draws me back in. This year, I was going back and forth when Ed offered me a free entry if I run on the Potawatomi team. So I was back.

This course always frustrates me. I know by now it’s just a slow course and I’m running for place, not time. The field is also deep. Over the past several years, at my best I would struggle to get in the top 10. In recent years, top 20 or 25 would be the best I could hope for. So my goal was set. Top 25 finish and see if I could win my age group. I finished a close second in the age group last year.

As Ed and I warmed up, we realized how warm and humid it was. It hasn’t been a warm and humid summer but, on this day, a simple 1.5 miles of easy running left me soaked in sweat. Still, we all face the same conditions. I just had to get out there and battle on. We also noticed that it looked like there would be a course change. There were cones suggesting we’d be coming off a bridge that the course never before ran across. I wasn’t quite sure how this meant but I figured this change couldn’t make the course more challenging so I was welcoming the change.

The start line was pretty narrow so I lined up right behind the PRO team. I knew they would get out well so I wouldn’t get held up. This worked out well as they all got out as well as my legs were going to allow me to get out.

Around the first turn and down the long stretch toward the east, I just settled into a solid but somewhat relaxed first mile pace. I felt like I should be going faster but my legs just didn’t want to and I didn’t want to start struggling so early so I didn’t try to fight it.

Shortly after turning on to the southbound stretch, I found myself pacing the second pack. I kept the effort up but not quite redlining it. Next thing I know, someone is pulling up on my left shoulder and I hear a familiar voice greeting me. I look over and it’s Tim. I figured he’d be there so I wasn’t surprised to see him. This is good for me. I have someone to run with. Kind of like Al’s Run last year, my plan became to let him go a bit in the first half, then try to bring him back in during the second half. Maybe we could work together through that second half to pick off runners who were fading.

My legs still didn’t feel responsive so I let Tim go and just tried to remain within reach. Tim worked his way up through a few people falling off the lead pack and I just hung back a bit, picking off those same people a little later. Things stayed pretty much the same through the mile mark and into mile 2.

After we turned around on Canal Street, we went down a gradual slope and I tried to use that to get my legs moving a little more. I had some success with that but not a ton. I did bring Tim back a little but he still had a nice gap on me. Around a turn we went back into an industrial area and into the shade of a factory after another turn. That shade sure felt nice but it didn’t last long before we hit the trail and crossed the river. Again, I was gaining some on Tim but my legs weren’t totally happy about the pace and I think I let myself back off a bit, which allowed Tim to build the gap back up.

A little after the 2 mile mark, we had a hard right, crossed a bridge, then a hard left and we were running back toward Miller Park and the finish line in its parking lots. I told myself this is it, about 3/4 of a mile to go. I passed a couple of guys and tried with all I had to close on Tim but I think he was also picking it up and, if anything, pulling away from me a bit over the last 1/4 to 1/2 mile.

At the 3 mile mark, one of the guys I just passed came back on me. I think he was the first person to pass me since Tim passed me in the first mile. He said something like "I know you can go faster" and I wanted to just puke on him. He obviously doesn’t know who I am, I’m already going as fast as I can. I tried with everything I had to go faster but I just couldn’t. As I approached the finish line, I saw the clock ticking through the 17:50s. I thought I got to the finish line at 17:58 or 17:59 and about in 24th or 25th place.

It turns out my final time was actually 18:01. But time means nothing at this race. I finished 25th overall and 1st in the 35-39 age group. That’s what counts. Ed and I also helped Potawatomi move up from a 10th place team finish last year to 3rd place this year.

Team HillRunner.com had a solid showing out there also. Three members who are currently signed up for Team HillRunner.com (sign up!) were there and finished 23rd, 25th, 50th.

All in all, it was a good rust buster for me. I need a couple recent races behind me before I’m really ready to race a good 5K. This was my first race in 2 months so I wasn’t expecting greatness. I could feel that I wasn’t quite able to redline the way you need to for a good 5K. That will come back with another race or two. In the meantime, this was a good tune-up race for the fall season.