Ryan

September’s Monthly Update

/ Miscellaneous / 2 minutes of reading

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

September was a mixed month. I started out great having recovered well from an injury running the first seven days. On the eighth day I had a great workout but then tore my calf in the cool down period two miles from home. Hopped and limped home for two full miles. I was just 10 days out from my big goal race of the year – not good. Had five days with no running and then little slow two milers to feel out the calf. Race day was, in my opinion, a poor performance of where I should have been and I was not yet at 100%.

I finished the month out strong while slowing getting back to 100% Last day of the month was an outstanding workout. I did a ten by one minute interval session – the intervals averaged a 5:32 pace!

I only ran on 22 days for a total of 125 miles and 15 hours and 20 minutes of running at an average pace of 7:23 per mile.

Looking forward to one more race this season if I can get enough people together for a 5K team event on November 1st. Otherwise, I’ll settle into late Oct as a “take it easy” month before hitting another base building phase to prepare for an amazing 2016.

Bouncing back from a bad race

/ Training / 5 minutes of reading

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

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I know I’m still as fit as when I ran 17:15 without the perfect race, if not fitter

Those of you who know me probably know I don’t often run back to back bad races. When I have a bad race, it usually is followed by a very good race. Sometimes, after a bad race, I surprise myself with what I do next.

After having a rough day at Al’s Run, someone emailed me asking about this. Essentially, the question was how do I keep focus and keep training hard after a bad race?

That’s a good question. I see some people go into a downward spiral after a bad race. Personally, I can’t remember many instances where I went into such a spiral. I typically bounce back pretty well after a bad effort. But why?

I think there are a few reasons and I’d like to break them down in the hopes that I can help someone else bounce back from a race.

1) You’re as good as your best race: One of my past coaches, I believe Coach Hall at UW-Stout, once told me after I had a bad race you’re as good as your best race, not as bad as your worst race. Good races are the true indication of your fitness, bad races usually are a result of something else. You can’t race beyond your fitness but you can race short of your fitness for many reasons.

This is about keeping your confidence. It’s easy when you have a bad race to lose confidence but you shouldn’t. You’re still as fast as your best race. If you ran an 18:00 5K a month ago and you ran a 19:00 5K today, unless something drastic happened in the past month, you’re still capable of at least close to 18:00. Believe in that and you can bounce back to 18:00 or even better.

2) Know what went wrong and fix what you have control over: When I have a bad race and write the report on it, I’m not shy about going through the race just how I do in my mind. That includes asking myself what went wrong. I’ve been told I’m just making excuses when I do that but, to me, it’s not about making excuses. It’s about understanding the reasons so I can accept what I didn’t have control over and fix what I did have control over.

For example, in my Al’s Run report, I mentioned three things. The wind, the confusion and frustration with my registration mix-up and the oncoming head cold. Next time out, no matter what happens with my registration or anything else like that, I’m going to try to keep calm and not waste any more energy than necessary or let it take me out of my focus. If people around me are sick, I’m not going to quarantine myself but I’ll take every precaution reasonable to avoid getting sick myself. As for the wind, I’ll adjust as well as I can and accept that I can’t control everything.

3) Use it as motivation: Thinking back to my junior year of high school, I had a horrible race at the Conference cross country meet. I went out harder than I should have and faded to a finish well short of where I should have been. My bad race probably cost our team a conference title and definitely cost me an all-conference honor.

A week later, at the Sectional meet, I had one of the best races of my life. After barely hanging on to a top 20 finish at Conference, I finished 7th or 8th in a race with I believe all the teams from our conference plus many more teams, several of which were very good teams. I was a part of our team going from finishing second at Conference to a surprise second place finish at Sectionals, beating I believe two teams ranked in the top 10 of the state and qualifying for the State meet.

How did I make such a dramatic turnaround? After taking some time to be furious at myself for the stupid mistake I made, I refocused. I wanted to make it up to myself and my teammates. I didn’t get myself nervous with "I have to…" kind of statements but I did everything I could to ensure I would have the best race possible. I kept a level head in the preparation but made sure I did everything as perfectly as possible. Then, once the race started and I made sure I didn’t get out too fast in the first half mile, I channeled the frustration of the prior week into the determination to do everything in my power to help my teammates. I felt like I could have run through a brick wall in that race. I was so focused, so determined to do my absolute best, that nothing was going to get in my way.

To me, that’s the biggest key to bouncing back after a bad race. Keep a level head in your preparation for the next race, keeping that frustration there not as motivation to do something stupid but as motivation to get all your preparations right. On race day, keep it around early on to again do everything right. Then, when it’s time to let loose and run your hardest, let it drive you.

I know some would say you should think positive and not hold on to those negative feelings but I think, channeled properly, that frustration from a bad race can be an excellent motivator. Don’t be afraid to use it.

What do you think?

I know there are some aspects I didn’t cover here. I’d like to hear your thoughts. What do you do to bounce back from a bad race? Do you use the ideas I mentioned above? Do you do something else?

Al’s Run 2015

/ Race Reports / 4 minutes of reading

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

I was the first of Team Hillrunner to arrive but I always like to be early for races – I get anxious if I am not. As always, I also have a lot of nervous energy before a race and usually pace around like a caged animal. So this time I made sure that I drank water, used the facilities and then meditated. I concentrated on my breathing to relax myself. Eventually, three of our team members showed up; Josh Jackett, Gerald Cameron and Dave Dehart. We chatted and I pinned the bib on my Team Hillrunner shirt. I was still worried a bit about my recent tear to my calf muscle as I was not 100% and would have to monitor that closely so I wouldn’t get carted to my car and hurt the team.

Eventually Ryan Hill came by and we all chatted some more while waiting four our other two teammates Peter and Mike Diamond. When they arrived, we decided to get out there for a warm-up but they opted out due to recent training issues. The warm-up was uneventful but we shared some light conversation and were cheered on by some cheerleaders along the course.

We headed back to our meeting location for final race prep (drink more water and again hit the facilities – just to be sure.) I did some light stretching of the injured calf in hopes of preventing a re-injury. We then headed out to the starting line.

We each worked our way up to a place we felt most appropriate for our skill level but saw some people that clearly didn’t belong there – but hey – that happens at most races. They started the countdown and then we were off and running.

I was checking my pace on my Garmin to be sure I didn’t get out to fast. I wanted to get miles one and two in 6:15s, then miles three and four in 6:10s and mile 5 in whatever I had left. Based on my recent 5K I should have been fairly ready to accomplish that goal. Hit the first mile mark in 6:15 and was exactly where I wanted to be and I was feeling good. The swirling winds didn’t affect me at this point. I felt like I was slowing during mile two so I checked my Garmin – sure enough – SLOW! I kept trying to get myself up that long hill but kept losing speed – there seemed to be more headwind than the first mile. Sure enough – hit mile two in 13:00 even. That was a major let down. I lost 30 seconds and knew that would be nearly impossible to make back up. I also felt a light bit of pain in my injured calf – now I need to be very measured and very mindful.

I knew I could pick up several seconds during the steep downhill during the third mile so I tried to push myself to get back on pace for a 6:10 mile. I was careful but fast in the steep downhill worried about my calf. Sadly, I was slow yet again this time hitting a 6:15 mile. Now I am 35 seconds off pace. I begin to also strategize on finding runners from the Performance Running Outfitters Team to pass as many of them as I can.

Mile four can be a tough mile I fought hard not to fade and looked for someone to try and draft – but the end of the fourth mile really got me – a 6:28 mile. Now I am 51 seconds off pace and felt crushed but knew I had to fight for the team. Somewhere in the last half mile Double (Dave Dehart) caught me gave some encouragement and passed me. I tried to fight to keep up with him but slowly lost some ground. I focused on not getting passed by others and tried to pass as many people as possible. As I rounded the last turn before the finish line Coach Hill was yelling encouragement and telling me that every second counted – this is where I went for broke. Pushed hard and passed several runners.

I was disappointed in my performance because I was hoping to PR and get in under 31 minutes. My final time was 31:59.2 – 60 seconds slower than I wanted to be. Now I was worried about the team as I was the fourth man – and I was so much slower than I should have been.

In retrospect though – coming off of two injuries I did fairly well. I managed 81st out of 2,560 runners and took third in my age group of 88 guys. So I am walking away with some hardware once again. The team did ok especially considering we were missing so many people.

We all had fun and are looking forward to next year!

Personal and team race report: 2015 Al’s Run – battling adversity

/ Race Reports, Team HillRunner.com / 10 minutes of reading

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

Al’s Run is, of course, always the big Team HillRunner.com event of the year. This is the 13th year we’ve entered a team under the HillRunner.com banner. As always, I’m very touched and honored by the great group of runners who agree to run under the HillRunner.com banner.

This year was a struggle from the start, though. Due to injuries and other issues, a handful of recent Team HillRunner.com members were unable to make the race this year. While this hurt the team’s depth, I still felt we were fielding a solid team. Unfortunately, we had another runner bow out after registering due to not being race ready. Before I go any further, first let me wish all those who couldn’t run this year well on your recovery efforts. I hope to see you at Al’s Run next year not just to solidify our compeitive pursuits but because it’s always sad for me to see team members missing.

To further complicate things, my personal registration got messed up somewhere along the way. I was given the wrong bib (I believe it was a walker bib which means it didn’t even have a timing chip) when I picked up our team packet a week before race day. I reported this to the people there and one of the individuals told me she didn’t have a replacement bib on hand but could either leave one at the registration table on the day of the race or overnight one to me. Due to everything I have going on race morning, I requested it be overnighted to me. My understanding was that it would be issued Monday and I’d have it by Tuesday. When it didn’t arrive, I called Wednesday morning and was assured it should be arriving that evening. When it didn’t arrive by Thursday evening, I called again and left a voicemail. Friday morning, I got a call and was told to go to the registration table and request a replacement bib. Great but two problems. First, that’s what I was trying to avoid because I’m just too busy on race morning. Second, last time a team member had to do this, he never showed up as a member of our team. I pointed this out to the person who called me and she assured me I would be counted as a member of the team. So, on race morning, I asked the guys I carpooled in with to take team packets to our meeting spot and I headed straight to the registration table.

This is when the pre-race fun began. I went to the "problem solver" table and told them of my situation. First, I was told that I did receive a bib. Right here, it says you received bib number 15. One problem. I never received it. They didn’t want to believe me so argument #1 started. Finally, they either believed that I never received it or just gave up and issued me a new bib number. Then I asked if they could ensure that this bib number get properly added to our team. Argument #2: you can’t be added to a team on race day. You need to register with a team. I did! You guys screwed up my registration! After another argument, they took down the team information and repeatedly ensured me that I would be included as a member of the team.

Then it was off to our meeting spot to catch up with the rest of the team. As I arrived, I saw that the crew was there except for Peter and our one new recruit for this year’s race, Peter’s son Mike. I pinned my newly issued bib on my singlet, hoping to no end that I would actually be included as a member of the team but not counting on it based on past experience. I then chatted with the guys while going through my usual pre-race routine. Just before warmup time, as I was preparing to leave Peter and Mike’s race packets behind, they arrived. I said hi to Peter, we caught up quickly, then I introduced myself to Mike and we had a quick chat. Then it was warmup time.

As usual, we warmed up down Wisconsin Avenue, over the opening portion of the course. At one point, I swung off to drop a gear bag at my car. As I rejoined the team, I just kept thinking how cool it was to see the line of blue HillRunner.com singlets going down the road. That will never get old and it will always give me chills. I rejoined the group and we continued on our warmup.

On the way back, I again stopped at the car to change to my race gear. Then I ran by myself back to the starting area. After a few strides and a bit of loosening, I went inside and found the team and we headed out to the starting area together. A little more warming up, then we were lining up. In a classic Double move, he saw someone who shouldn’t be toeing the line of a large race like this and shouted something like "Alright, big guys in pairs, small guys in bunches!" You could hear a pin drop in the moments after that but the "big guy" didn’t take the hint and ended up toeing the line.

As the race started, I got out well. Quick but comfortable. The wind was a little tricky, generally a tailwind but at every intersection swirling around the buildings and creating cross winds and even headwinds. The gradual downhill almost to the mile marker, though, left me feeling like I was just in cruise control while going pretty quickly. I found myself in a gap so, when the crowd stayed to the left as I knew we were approaching a quick jog to the right, I went to the right. I wasn’t in position to pick up a draft anyway so I might as well take the shortest line. Nothing much happened from then through the mile mark, which I hit in about 5:31. I was targeting something around 5:30 so I was feeling good about this.

I know my best races at Al’s Run always consist of a relatively slow mile 2 as we climb from the river toward the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan. I’ve learned to not fight this slowdown. When I do, I end up running poorly. So I didn’t push when we started climbing, actually just before the mile mark. Nobody was getting away from me, though. There were some swapping of positions but nothing major. By the second half of mile 2, I had my mark. Two Marquette uniforms put a PRO guy out the back and he was struggling to hold on. I knew he was my next victim and I was working on gradually bringing him in. I was closing in at the 2 mile mark, which I hit in about 11:32 for a 6:01 second mile. Not spectacular but within range of what I wanted.

Early in mile 3, we ran past a spot with a particularly strong gust of headwind and the PRO guy as well as the second Marquette guy both did not handle that gust well. It also hit me hard but not as hard as them. Shortly after that gust, I made the double pass. PRO guy was a little back of the Marquette guy but fought to stay with me. As I was approaching Marquette guy, I actually thought for a split second I could rub PRO guy off using Marquette guy but I’m not that kind of runner. I left room for both of us to get past without incident (or I hope I did at least, I was trying to). Near the end of mile 3, we head down Lafayette Hill. I always let loose on this downhill. In doing so this time, I gained on the Marquette guy ahead of me. Surprisingly, though, someone caught me. As we leveled off and cruised through the 3 mile mark in about 17:24, a disappointing 5:52 mile, I held with him and thought we might be able to work on two Marquette jerseys ahead.

Into mile 4, this is typically my "drop the hammer" mile. It’s a mile that can be very demoralizing if you’re not in the zone along here as you’re running a flat, relatively straight mile, staring at the east side of downtown Milwaukee the whole way. If you’re struggling, it can crush you. I like to attack, partly to keep my mind in the right place and partly because I know passing someone along here can help crush their spirit and prevent them from coming back on you. This time, though, the guy who caught up to me going down Lafayette Hill began edging ahead of me. I tried going with but just couldn’t. I did my best to focus in on this mile, ignore the city skyline off in the distance and just focus on the guys ahead of me. I did that well but I just couldn’t get my legs going. I didn’t pass anyone in this mile, which is the first time in probably at least a few years that has happened.

I finally got myself to the 4 mile mark but can’t remember the split. I think it was a low 23, probably around 5:50 again. At this point, I just told myself give it all I have. The guys ahead of me were pulling away but I could tell there were guys close behind. I was going to do all I could to have enough of a gap on them to be safe in the kick. This final mile has several turns. Right, left, right, left, left, finish. I did all I could to prevent myself from looking over my shoulder on any of those turns. I didn’t want to show any sign of weakness. Right, left. No looking back. Guys ahead are pulling away. Right. They are already going left. Have to gap the guys behind me. Left. Don’t look back, don’t look back. Go, almost in. Left. I see the finish line. I can’t see the clock, though. This year, the speakers are above the finish line and the clocks are off to the side. I can’t see them until the time is ticking past 28:40. One of the photographers is directly in line with my shortest path to the finish. Playing chicken with him. Eventually, he takes a couple steps to the side and I pass by without incident. Is anybody coming on me? I don’t know, I’m not even thinking of looking back. Drive through, every second counts.

I end up crossing the line in 28:52. 25th place overall. Not what I was hoping for but far from a disaster. Given the fact that I let myself waste energy by getting more worked up about my registration mix-up than I should have, combined with the fact that I was coming down with a cold, I’m not going to complain.

I then backtrack to catch my teammates. First, Cameron coming in just under 31 minutes. Then Double and right behind him Ed about a minute behind Cameron. I walk around the last turn and see Josh coming. I give him some words of encouragement. In retrospect, I should have been telling him the finish is just around the next corner so he knew he was close. We have two more runners coming. So I can catch everyone shortly after our last runner is in, I begin walking back toward the finish line, frequently looking over my shoulder to watch for the blue uniforms coming. Somehow I almost missed Peter as he went by but he called out and told me Mike was right behind. I hung around for Mike, gave him some words of encouragement, then went back around the corner to find my teammates. Unfortunately, we missed Peter and Mike but the rest of us chatted a bit, then went out to my place for a little (or not so little) unhealthy food and healthy war story swapping.

Final results for Team HillRunner.com:

25) Ryan Hill, 28:52.0 (2nd 35-39)

53) Gerald Cameron, 30:52.0 (2nd 40-44)

78) Dave Dehart, 31:55.5

81) Edward Pankow, 31:59.2 (3rd 40-44)

238) Josh Jackett, 36:46.0

324) Peter Diamond, 38:13.4

867) Mike Diamond, 44:32.1

For the record, there were 2,560 finishers listed in the run and total participation, run and walk combined, was reported to be over 16,000. Very solid results all around.

Also check out our cleaning house in the middle-aged male age groups. Nice job guys!

It took them two days to get some team scoring issues worked out but I believe the final result is in and, battling all the adversity we faced, we still hung tough for a top 5 team finish with an overall team time (top 5) of 2:40:24.9.

Mindfulness training

/ Training / 2 minutes of reading

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

This is going to be a short post. I’m busy getting myself and Team HillRunner.com ready for Al’s Run and with a few other projects. I do have a longer post in the works but it’s not ready for today. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready for next week. It’s one I’m excited about.

This week, though, I came across this interesting article about mindfulness training.

While I haven’t always thought of it in this term, I’ve always been a fan of what is described there. The idea as I view it essentially boils down to being in the moment and remaining calm no matter what is going on. On race day, this means be fully aware of what’s happening right now and being ready to respond thoughtfully, not reflexively, to what goes on. If someone passes you, do you surge to get back ahead, do you try to go with them and attempt the pass later or do you let them go with the hopes you can pass them back later or the understanding that you just can’t hold that pace?

Of course, practicing listening to your body will help you naturally be more mindful on race day. Listening to your body is part of being mindful but it’s also more. It’s learning to not overreact, to remain calm no matter what happens. It’s remaining positive even in the face of a setback.

So practice being mindful, then put it to practice in your next race. I’m planning to put it to practice Saturday.

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