Race Review: Sleigh Bell Trot 5K

Nov 23, 2011 by Greg Fowler

Had a last minute addition to the race schedule – The Sleigh Bell Trot at Saluda Shoals Park in Irmo, SC.   This is a pretty cool concept for a race – run at night under the holiday light displays.    Two years ago, my son, wife and I all did this race and had a miserable time mainly due to lousy weather – cold and drizzly.

So, this year, when my son wanted to run it again, I was a bit hesitant. The rest of the family wanted to see the lights, though,  and I wanted to keep my son motivated to run, so I signed us up.

We caught a break with the weather.  It was actually a balmy 70 degrees!  Not bad for November 22.  I was hoping for about 60 degrees, but I can’t really complain.  It was much better than 40 and drizzle.

I had one main goal for the race, break 23:00 again.  I had set my personal best 5K back in May with a 22:48 and I was hoping that I could be in that neighborhood again.  My secondary goal was to beat my teenage son.  On paper, he is the 5K champ of the house, with a personal best under 21:00, but he hasn’t beat me head to head because of the timing of the races we have competed in together.  If we were to go head to head during the middle of cross country season, he beats me hands down, but that didn’t happen. Cross country has been over for almost a month, though, and his training has been pretty light since then.  So that, along with too much Xbox on his part, meant I had a slight chance.

So, how’d we do?  Unfortunately, the youngest runner in the house did not have his best race.  He allowed the old man to catch him about the 1 mile mark, then pull away by mile 2.   The old man ended up setting his PR in a 5K with a 22:37.   Not too bad for not doing any speed work recently.  You can see the entire results here.

So, I accomplished my goals, but I didn’t rub it in to my son about losing to the old man.  I really wanted him to have a better race.  Maybe a loss to Dad will get him motivated again.

That will probably conclude my fall racing season.  The new training I’m working on recommends not racing for a few months while building a better aerobic base.  So, I may not race again until February.   I’ll keep you posted.

POFIFOTO & Happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

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Change of (Training) Plans

Nov 16, 2011 by Greg Fowler

Nick Faldo.  Ever heard of him?  Nick was one of the best, if not the best, golfers in the world in the late 80’s and early ’90s.  Before Nick was the best in the world, he was mediocre in the early ’80’s.  Oh, he was good enough to win some tournaments, but he was not satisfied with his game, so he went back to square one.  He teamed up with a little known teacher named David Leadbetter, and together they rebuilt Nick’s golf game from the ground up. Nick dominated golf for a period of years, winning 6 major tournaments.

So, what does this have to do with my running?  In my last post, I hinted at not being totally satisfied with my Governor’s Cup performance, despite setting a personal best in a half marathon. Well, next week, I was planning on starting my 16 week training schedule to get ready for the Columbia, SC Marathon in March 2012.  My plan was to follow the schedule in my Run Less Run Faster
book that I have used primarily over the last two years to guide my training.   The Run Less Run Faster system is called the 3 plus 2 program.  This training system works and has allowed me to complete a marathon and a few half marathons despite fighting foot injuries.  To briefly summarize this program, you have 3 quality runs a week (a speed work run, a tempo run, and a long slow run) combined with two cross training aerobic workouts.  Your workout intensities are based on your current 5K ability.  This system allows your body to recover between runs while maintaining aerobic fitness with the cross training.  I have a recumbent exercise  bike that I use for the majority of my cross training. Like, I said,  this program works, but to be honest, I was dreading the exercise bike again.  Even with TV in the room, 45 minutes on the bike twice a week is boring.

So, what to do?   Back to square one, like Nick Faldo.  For this training cycle, I am abandoning Run Less Run Faster and going to use a training method called heart rate monitor training.  In this training, I will abandon speed work, which gets the heart rate high, and instead run while keeping my heart rate under 140 beats per minute?  Why?  According to what I have been researching, this keeps my body in the aerobic zone, burning fat as a fuel, instead of glycogen (sugars).  Since people have much more fat stored in their bodies than glycogen, as my body learns to burn fat as its primary fuel source,  I should be able to run faster for longer.  I will work on building this aerobic base over the next three months, and then add speed work to the mix the last month before the marathon.

This training will have a couple of other benefits, too.  First, it is new to me, so I am excited about trying something different.  This will help with motivation.  Second, the slower pace of the training will be easier on my body.  I hope this helps my nagging foot problems to clear up.

There’s a bunch of science behind this training but I won’t go into it here. Instead here are the links to a few of the sites that convinced me to try this:

Natural Running Center

Freedom’s Run Training

Mark Allen Online

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

 

 

 

 

POFIFOTO!

 

 

 

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2011 Governor’s Cup Recap

Nov 9, 2011 by Greg Fowler

If you read my Governor’s Cup preview, you know that I would be chased by a penguin, and that my goal of breaking 1:45 was looking bleak, due to a foot injury.  Well, I’m happy to report that the penguin had a great race – he started last and managed to pass around 500 people.  I’m even happier to report that I was not one of those 500!  I managed to stay in front of the penguin by a couple of minutes, and I also managed to break my goal of 1:45 by 8 seconds, for a 1:44:52 finish.

Course & Conditions

I’ll get back to my trials in a minute, but first I’ll talk about the course and conditions. You can find my elevation map of the 2010 course in my preview post.  This years course made a slight detour in the middle due to some road construction.  One friend commented he thought the re-route was tougher.  I don’t really remember the old route well enough to say.  It did seem awfully hilly.

Weather-wise, I think the penguin ordered in the weather.  After a week of perfect weather, a cold front blew through the day before and brought much cooler temps and a lot of northerly wind – brrr!  The temperature at race time was around 40 degrees and windy and not expected to warm up too quickly.  This is a pretty shady run, once you get off Millwood Avenue around mile 2 1/2, so it was cooler than I like it. More on that later.

Unexpected Wrinkle

I felt good before the race.  The tendonitis in my right foot was on the wane, and I had managed a couple of runs during the week without problems.  As I warmed up by doing some laps around the Capitol building,  I turned on my Timex GPS watch to get it ready.  Normally, the watch takes 2-3 minutes to find a signal.  On this day, however, it never found a signal (a first).  Two key feature I use on the watch are automatics splits and overall pace, but with no GPS, this would not happen.  I would have to go back to old school, hitting the splits button myself after each mile marker and trying to keep a rough average of my pace in my head.

Race Time

At 8:00am, the starter sent us off.  The first mile is mostly downhill and I hit it on a 7:28 pace.  Too fast, but I expected that and slowed down a bit for the 2nd mile uphill climb.  I settled into a good pace.  The first 5-6 miles were uneventful as we worked our way down to Lake Katherine.  My biggest complaint about the race setup came around mile 2 1/2 where the first water station was not setup.  The coolers were there but no people or cups.  I don’t know if that was intentional this year, but this had been a water spot the last two years and I was counting on it.  This station was setup on on way back, around the mile 10 mark.  So, the first water station finally came around mile 4, I think, and I decided to take a GU gel at this point.  My strategy going in was to take a gel between miles 4 and 5 and then around mile 9. Since you need to take these with water, I figured this was the time.

Around mile 6,  I felt the first warning signs that this might be a painful last hour.  My quads starting protesting, and we had not even started the climb back!  At this point, I was under an 8:00/mile pace, but with a lot of big hill climbs to come and legs already complaining, I was a bit worried about beating my goal.  Remember the weather conditions?  I don’t like being cold, so  I opted to go with my long running pants and long sleeve tech t-shirt with a short sleeve shirt over it.  This was probably a mistake.  I was too hot, my heart rate was too high and I was sweating too much.  Not a good combo for the 2nd half of a half.

Second Half: No Pain No Gain

Most everyone comments on the brutal  Blossom Street hill finish of the Governor’s Cup.  While that may be the knock out blow, the setup punch is the Kilbourne Road hill from mile 8 to 9.  My mile split for that hill was 8:40, and I was about ready to pack it in and slow down, but I just concentrated on small quick strides and took my other GU gel.  I was just trying stay mentally focused on getting to Devine Street, where we’d get about a 2 1/2 mile flat to downhill break toward and through Five Points.  With no GPS giving me pace and my math skills getting fuzzy with the splits average due to a tiring brain, I figured to have any chance of meeting my goal, I needed to really pick up the pace at mile 11.  This is a downhill section of Devine Street, and I managed to hit 7:47 on that split.  I tried to maintain that to the bottom of the Blossom St. hill.

Finally, I reached The Hill – a little more than half mile to go. I remember looking at my watch and trying to figure out if I was on track, but the previous 1.5 mile surge had taken its toll, and I was not doing well.  I knew I was close, so I just hit the hill as hard as I could, which at this point was not punch.  Just don’t stop, I told myself.

One of the cruel twists to the Governor’s Cup, is the turn off Blossom Street on to Sumter Street.  You are thinking to yourself “I did it!” but you look up and see Sumter Street is still up hill until it crosses Greene Street!  In this spot, a spectator yelled encouragement to me. “Almost there, keep it up!” I wanted to smile and say “Thanks!” but I was just trying not to throw up.

Suck it Up!

As I approached Greene Street, the crowd was getting heavier, forming the last 1/10th mile or so chute to the finish. I was just telling myself “nice try, but you are not going to make it today” when I was finally close enough to see the official clock over the finish line.  I was still under 1:45 at 1:44:40! Twenty seconds to go!  Shocked that I still had a shot at my goal, I dug deep and found once last  kick and passed over the chip mat in 1:44:52.  Someone hung a medal around my neck and another handed me a bottle of water.  I was thinking, “Thanks, but please get out of my way! I’ve got to keep moving and try (again) not to puke!”  I managed to make it past the refreshment tent and walk up Sumter a ways to recover and not puke.  I’ll save that for a 5K (2012 goal).

As I wandered back toward the finish line, I heard the race announcer calling out the Penguin’s finish!  Wow, that is impressive – under 1:50!.  I went over and told Dean congratulations.  I doubt he remembers this.  He looked worse than I felt.

Lessons Learned

So, I accomplished my goal and set a PR in the Half Marathon. I am not 100% satisfied, though (character flaw which I’ll discuss in future posts).  I wanted to beat an 8:00/pace, too.  I did beat the 1:45, but according to Cool Running’s Pace calculator, that is 8:01/mile.  1:44:52 is an 8:00/mile pace.  Argg.  I wanted my PR pace to start with a 7, as in 7:59.  Oh, well.  I did not leave anything on the course.

So, what did I learn?  Two main things.  First, maybe I should carry one hand held water bottle to make sure I have a some water at the right times.

Second, I need to just accept being cold and not overdress.  I think the long sleeve shirt was the right move, but I should have gone with shorts, not long pants.

Thanks for reading this far.  To see the overall results, click here.

POFIFOTO!

 

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Way to Go Wildcats Cross Country Teams!

Nov 6, 2011 by Greg Fowler

On November 5th, the Lexington High School Cross Country teams came oh so close to a sweep in the 4A division of the South Carolina State Cross Country Championships.

Congratulations to the boys team for their 3rd consecutive championship.  With an impressive total of only 34 points, they finished head of 2nd place Stratford (76 points) and Wando (141 points).

Roland Hakes of Dutch Fork finished first indivdually, with a time of 15:10!  Wow!

The Lexington Girls team scored 95 points but finished 2nd to Wando High’s 68 points.

Here is a link to more coverage at SCRunners.com: http://sc.milesplit.com/meets/95878 and The State newspaper: http://www.thestate.com/2011/11/05/2036348/lexington-cross-country-boys-win.html#storylink=addthis

They Wildcat boys were also recently ranked 5th in the nation: http://www.xcnation.com/championshiprankings#!__championshiprankings/page-3

Congratulations, Wildcats!  It has been a pleasure watching you this year.  I’m already looking forward to 2012!

POFIFOTO!

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Governor’s Cup 2011 Preview: Running with a Penguin & PR Down the Drain?

Oct 30, 2011 by Greg Fowler

Next Saturday, November 5, is the Governor’s Cup Road Race Half Marathon in Columbia, SC.  The race starts at 8:00 am in front of the State House and finishes at the University of South Carolina Horse Shoe.  This will be my 3rd time running this race and is one of my favorite events.

Below you can see the elevation map from the course.  This is from my GPS watch during the 2010 race.  This 2011 race has been re-routed slightly near the middle due to a sinkhole.  You can see the course is pretty hilly.  Basically, you work your way to the bottom near the half way point and them work your way back up.  That last steep hill at the end is Blossom Street, a killer last 1/2 mile!  My favorite part starts about mile 10 at the top of Devine Street.  From there it is a  nice 2.5 mile run downhill to the area of Columbia known as 5 Points.  Gives you a nice break before that last climb up Blossom.

 

 

Running with a Penguin

My friend Dean Schuster plans to run in the 2012 Antarctica Marathon and is raising money for penguin conservation.  To help raise awareness and money, Dean is running this year’s Governor’s Cup in a full penguin suit.  Yes, I’m serious.  Please check out his site, RunningWithPenguins.com and consider making a donation.

PR Down the Drain?

Taper is another running term that means to ease off the training before a big race so your body recovers and is ready for the big day.  If you Google “Running Taper” you will find links to many sites advising on how to taper properly for a big race.  I’m not 100% sure which one is best, but I do know what is NOT best: Injuring your foot 2 weeks before a race and not being able to run for a week.  Last Sunday, I went for an easy 4 mile trail run.  I wore my Vibram Five Fingers and felt great.  Later that night, though, I started experiencing pain in the top of my foot, about where the Five Fingers strap comes across.

The pain became worse over the next day and a half, and I went to the doc to make sure I didn’t have a stress fracture.  Doc didn’t think so and went with a tendonitis diagnosis.  After almost a week of prescription anti-inflammatory pills, ice/heat, bike, and rest, I was finally able to run 6 days later – a 4 mile test.  The foot held up OK and felt decent the next day.   Will it hold up well enough for 13.1 miles to beat my 8:00/mile pace goal?  We’ll see.

POFIFOTO!

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