Twilight 2017

The last Saturday in April got me up early to run the Twilight 5K. If I run a race the previous year, then I'm more likely to pay a visit the following year as a way to see how I've been doing. I PR'd this race last year at 21:40 and I was hopeful of having a good run.

Race conditions were sunny with temps near 70 degrees Fahrenheit-- warm and sticky for the 8:30 AM start. I wore my red Athens Road Runners short-sleeved top and Brooks two-in-one shorts, along with my Adidas Supernova Sequence 8 stability shoes. I'm still a really big fan of these shoes. They're very soft and comfortable, and I ran well in them during the Give Thanks 8K last Thanksgiving.

There was a course change for 2017 and it began with a downhill start. I did try to get toward the front for the start so as to avoid other traffic, and flew out of the gate. 3:11 for my first half-mile split. I should have been alarmed, but I felt pretty good at the start. What I didn't remember is my fastest splits were very close to 3:30, and that was when I'd go to the track for 800 repeats.

But I kept on going. Maybe I felt like my training was going to get me there. I just remember not feeling as cautious as I should have.

I know a running friend locally who is much faster than I am. Seeing him out ahead of me a little bit, I decided to keep him within sight and let him be a rabbit. Yeah, that didn't last long. My next two splits were closer to the norm at 3:24 and 3:22. My friend had scooted away and I hadn't even made it to the hills on the back side yet. I even pulled over for about 10 seconds to catch my breath because I just couldn't go anymore at that point. I always try to keep going no matter how bad it must look, but my heart rate was way up there, I'd gone out too fast and now it was time to pay for my mistake.

Making it back onto the course and around the last two corners, I saw my boss from Fleet Feet, who gave me some good encouragement in the home stretch when I thought I didn't have anything left. My watch had 21:43 when I crossed the finish line, which differed from the actual finish time of 21:55. Took me the rest of the day to figure out why. I'd stopped my Garmin when I stopped running, which is a bad habit I've formed even out on my training runs.

The amazing part was still to come-- I placed second in my age group despite running about 15 seconds slower than in 2016, when I finished off the podium. Here is the proof:

It still qualifies as a Shiny Metal Object. 

Strange thing is that I didn't want the free beer and breakfast after the race. My tune changed after swallowing two bottles of water. I drank a yummy Terrapin Sound Czech (a light pilsner) but still skipped the free food. Just wasn't hungry.

No real changes to the training-- 25 miles this week after an eight-miler on a cool Saturday morning.

Not Running

We runners see lots of inspiration. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, even a simple search on Google Images will turn up a wide array of tips on getting out the door and fighting inertia.

It’s a battle I fight every day, as well. But today I’m up against something different. I’m telling myself not to run.

I did 5x800 Saturday and then rested Sunday as is my custom. After church Sunday I seem to have eaten some food that did not agree with me and I spent a couple days with a stomachache, then feeling that all-around soreness you feel when you’re on the back end of being sick. I prudently skipped my Monday run, knowing I wasn’t too far off of making my weekly and monthly goals.

Then Tuesday morning I woke up at 4:45 with a stomach that felt like it was bowling a perfect game. Made it a rough morning. I probably could’ve made it through a four-miler, but it’s everybody’s nightmare to be caught out there with no place to go. So I scratched today’s run as well.

Part of it is that while I love to run, I don’t want it to take up too much time in my life. I don’t want to become subservient to my running habits—I want to give myself permission to skip a day or two as the situation dictates.

The challenge here is that skipping Monday and Tuesday make it harder to meet my weekly (20) and monthly (95) mileage goals. So while I can be OK with skipping a few days due to illness, it seems I’m not fully able to let go of my weekly goal streak (24 weeks) or my monthly streak that sits at four.

I have to admit that the best thing out of all this was the sleep. I stayed home from work Monday and slept an extra three hours, which is better than staying home from school and watching game shows like Press Your Luck when I was a kid. Kind of felt like I was playing hooky from school.

It turns out running is easy. Not running is hard.

519

          So here in Georgia we had one last cold snap last week when low temps fell into the mid-20s. Balmy for some, pretty chilly for us.

  

         What it meant for me is that I got out my Smartwool socks for the first (any probably only) time this season. There’s a fair amount of yellow color to these socks and it showed through so that when I bent down to begin my prerun stretch I noticed something:

I managed to blow a hole in the forefoot of the right shoe.

          These were my Saucony Ride 3 shoes that I got in June of 2013 when we lived in Tuscaloosa. The wife and I went to one of the outdoorsy-type stores to get her some sandals, and I my eyes lit up when I found the Rides on sale for about $30 in a size 9. That is a deal you just can’t pass up.

            This was the end of an era when many shoes were larger and foamier, and as a result bulkier. The Ride 3 had EVA foam in the midsole and progrid cushioning. The Runner’s World write up shows them being pretty stiff and having a 15-millimeter heel-to-toe differential. That feels about right. Of course now their shoes have a drop of 8 mm, the shelf isn’t as high, and they’ve got the supersoft Everun foam in there so that you feel like you’ve got a pillow on each foot.

           

forefoot treads are pretty well done for

            My first run with the new kicks was on June 26, 2013 when I headed out for a sweaty seven-miler and did five miles at 8:15 pace. The last ride (see what I did there?) was a neighborhood four-miler on a cool January morning a few months ago. They got some desert work when I went to see my folks in El Paso last summer, giving me my first real taste of summer running in the southwest.

the sockliners are out, as I used Green Superfeet
inserts in these neutral shoes

            I ran in them for almost four years and 519 pain-free miles overall. Then they just start to come apart. Pffft. If you can’t judge a football recruiting class until three or four years down the road, maybe it’s OK to wait a similar length of time to review a shoe.     

            They did right by me. Great shoes. Seriously.

Hoka Arahi

One of the best things about working in a specialty running shop is that occasionally the shoe companies will float shoes to store employees as a way to help us articulate how awesome the shoes are to our customers.

I picked up a pair of Hoka One One Arahi seed shoes at the running store a few weeks back. I was pretty excited, since my current experience with the Hoka Infinite (their first actual stability model) is outstanding.

The word on the Arahis is largely positive—very lightweight and responsive. It’s a stability shoe, but a closer relative to say, the Brooks Ravenna than the Adrenaline. One difference is the Arahi has developed a new concept by providing stability through use of a “J-Frame,” wrapping the heel from the outside (lateral side) around the back and up to the midfoot on the medial side.

 

So I took off on my favorite five-mile time trial route in my brand new wheels. This route is sidewalk nearly the whole way with very little traffic coming out onto the busy morning road. It’s mostly downhill for the first half, but the fun ends when I turn uphill and into the theater parking lot. I do a brief circle around and then cover the same ground on the way back. I use it as a way to track my fitness level.

The first few miles were as uneventful as you’d ever want them to be. I always say the highest compliment you can give a pair of shoes is that you barely notice you’re wearing them. That’s what I felt for the first little bit, until I felt a burning sensation on the balls of both feet. I’d never felt that in any other pair of shoes and it was the last thing I was expecting.

This feeling was more about discomfort than actual pain. It didn’t get any worse so I was able to keep doing my thing. The run itself was a good one. The only Strava segment I have is about 0.6 and a slight uphill and ends at a traffic light which then begins another climb. I run quite often, just not where a lot of other runners go, so there aren’t a lot of comparisons with others.

I took the Arahis out again on Wednesday of last week and the same thing happened a few miles in—this feeling that my feet were on fire. I’d taken off in a new pair of Adrenaline 16s a few months back and felt that the toe box was a little narrow at first, but then I got used to them and of course they’re wonderful. That’s what I was thinking would happen on my second trip in the Arahis. No dice. I am still hopeful that it’ll be different.

Otherwise I’ll have to look at options. Arahis are stability shoes so I don’t want to use inserts. Perhaps a second pair of socks or even a little body glide-type lubricant. Heat means friction, which in turn means movement. I do have plenty of lace left over so another choice could be to minimize said movement by using that last pair of eyelets.

I have fresh rubber and I will come up with a solution in order to make them perfect.

Holt 5K T-Shirt

So I've finally come to the conclusion that I have too many race t-shirts. This is a big thing for someone like me who has a bit of a hoarder streak. I don't have 19 cats or every issue of Runner's World. I don't even race a whole lot.

This is the front of the shirt, with the houndstooth ribbon
paying tribute to the Tuscaloosa tornado April 27. 
Definitely a dark day, and certainly one I'll never forget.

But I do have shirts from races I ran in North Central Kansas nine years ago, and many more going forward from the time I was a midwesterner, which ended in 2009. I just don't have it in me to let go of them. Perhaps I'll set them aside and have a quilt made. Just send the shirts in and the company makes it for you. Their ads are in the back of the running mags.


One of these shirts is from the Nucor-Holt 5K, which I've written about here and here. This one comes from the 2011 effort, when I let a guy pass me right at the end.


I have my own thoughts on why there aren't any sponsors, but I won't share them here. I'm just starting to cycle out some old race shirts and wanted to share the stories behind them.

Back of the race shirt.

As far as actual road work, things are going very well. 18 consecutive weeks of 20+ miles. I haven't lost any weight mainly because my diet sucks, but I still like where I'm at when I step on the scale. 

I ran an back on Saturday in the light rain, making 26 miles for the week. I'm at 68 for the month, 27 miles away from my monthly goal of 95 and already more than the 58 I ran in February 2016. 

Good stuff-- I'm pleased with it.

19,032

I saw a story in the Washington Post earlier this week about the end of the longest running streak in history. Englishman Ron Hill concluded his streak with a one-miler last Saturday, January 28. Health concerns forced him to the sideline. The 19,032 refers to the number of consecutive days he's laced up his shoes and headed out-- every day since December 21, 1964.

Every day. Didn't miss one. He didn't skip a day because he stayed up all night drinking. He's run 115 marathons, and chose to keep the streak alive after each and every one of them by running at least a mile the next day. 

That... is dedication.

There is so much meat in this story that I don't really know where to start explaining how amazing the numbers really are. Health problems such a car accident that led to a broken sternum, plus bunion surgery that called for short runs and two canes. He powered through it all and didn't miss a single beat for fifty-two years.

Rain? Cold? Didn't matter. Even if he just didn't feel like it, which I'd guess happened a lot, he got himself out there and did his road work for the day. 

I am truly amazed at the level of commitment Hill showed. 20+ miles a week is a victory for me. I'll crank out an occasional seven-miler, but it's unusual if I run anything besides a 4 or a 5. 

Hill ran his final marathon at age 57, a 3:12 at Boston in 1996. His mileage isn't reported, but needless to say it's a big number. And it's no less amazing.

I consciously choose to not be a streaker, even when Runner's World has those summer or holiday streak things they do. I don't want the streak to control my life and dictate what I do. Don't misunderstand, I love, *love* to run, and I love writing about it, but I try to keep running in its place. 

Besides, I manage my time so poorly already.

Anyhow, the new record holder is a gentleman in suburban Los Angeles, California who has run every day for a lousy 47 1/2 years. He apparently puts more stock in logging his miles, as the Post reports he's run over 190,000 miles. Injuries also seem to be a part of his life as well, as he's kept the streak alive through dings such as ten broken bones, two knee surgeries, and more. Assuming running caused the injuries, it would seem to cast streaking in a poor light.

I've upped my goal to 95 miles per week in 2017, and I booked 106 miles in January. My running year is off to a good start!

1055

Last year I set a goal of running 90 miles each month. January and February set me behind, so it took me a little bit to get used to it and to understand the commitment level required. Otherwise I usually made it. The months I was north of the 90 I was far enough over goal to cover some of the months when I was short.

Starting 58 miles behind after two months put me far enough in the red to where I came up 25 miles short. 1,055 was the total mileage for the year. If I'd paid closer attention to the numbers, I'd have made it because who wants to miss a running goal by not running one more mile every other week? 

I'm starting to trend up again too. I had back and calf troubles last year that limited me to 684 miles. My annual record was in 2013 when I ran 1,183, followed by 2014's 1,072 miles that included the Publix Marathon in Atlanta. 

I just can't be disappointed by my effort in 2016 though. I ran in El Paso, across the Potomac River in Washington DC, and I met my goal of two runs on a recent trip. I've been over 20 weekly miles for eleven consecutive weeks (a standing short-term goal), and I set PRs at 5K and 8K distances. 

So it was a fantastic year. No complaints. 

This year I've raised the bar a little by making 95 miles per month the goal. Captain Math tells us that makes 1,140 for the year. I've even moved that very slightly to 1,150 as the mileage goal for 2017. I didn't do a lot of long runs last year which slowed me down, so by running longer on occasion and by staying aware of my short-term and long-term goals I should have no trouble. 

Monday was a holiday, so I went out for an 8 in the light Georgia rain, followed by today's four-miler before work.

2017 is off to a good start!