Thunderreport: A Bit Disappointed

As you can tell by this post's title and accompanying picture*, yesterday's San Francisco half marathon didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped. But it wasn't a total failure. Basically, there's good news and bad news (and good news):

The good news: I finished without walking, which was my stated goal for the race.

The bad news: I was slow. Very slow. As in, possibly the slowest finisher to run continuously. My final time was 2:29:05.

The good news: I gave myself a nice high first time, upon which I should be able to improve throughout the year.

(The other good news: The inimitable Lil' Thunder clocked in at roughly 2:03.)

Here's the report: Normally, my report would start on the morning of the race, but the first important events happened on Saturday. For whatever reason, my sleep schedule was a bit off, and on Saturday afternoon, I took a nap. When I got up (and joined Lil' Thunder for a disappointing meal at the highly recommended Zuppa), my back started bothering me for the first time in months. I must have slept in an awkward position, and it was the kind of back pain that really jolts you if you move in the wrong direction. A bad omen.

With the alarm set for 5:30, I turned in at about 10:45, hoping for a solid 6.5 hours of sleep. But it was not to be. My back had me tossing and turning (and - once I finally fell asleep - waking up repeatedly) all night. Despite this, I felt pretty refreshed in the morning. Unfortunately, the back was no better.

Due to an overabundence of caution, the Thunders rolled up to the start line a little more than an hour before the gun. We killed the hour by doing what we do best - making fun of people. For some reason, runners are a goofy bunch, so they are usually easy targets. No coffee, though, which was a major negative, as it was fricken freezing. We waited, shivering, for the race to start. LT promised that she'd stick with me for the beginning of the race. The gun went off, and she zipped out of sight.

The start was horrendous. It was freezing cold, and we had been standing still for at least 15 minutes just waiting. Plus, I had been totally unable to loosen up my back. As we started our way up to normal speed, I felt roughly 95 years old. Every joint felt like it was made of concrete, my back was sending jolting pains through my body every fourth or fifth step, and all of the sudden my bladder was inexplicably full. After a quick sprint into the woods to fix my only easily-correctable problem, I rejoined the slowpokes and started banking the miles.

From the very start, I realized that Jimmy the Greek was full of sh*t. I was not gonna hit 2:16. The first miles were well over 11:00, and though my legs weren't fully warmed up until at least the 4th mile, I knew that I wouldn't be shaving off enough time to hit 2:16. I settled back to hoping for my actual (logical) goal of 2:24 or so. My back pains, however, continued until about the 5th mile. More importantly, I just didn't have "it" yesterday. When I was finally warm, I ran a few sub-11:00 miles (whoopdedoo), but it was way more of an effort than it should have been.

An aside about the course: our route was about perfect. The first 7 miles were through Golden Gate park. Very scenic, largely flat or even downhill, and certainly the only time I've run past a bison paddock. Then, runners are spit out of the park and onto the Great Highway, running along the Pacific for 3 miles south and then back. The out-and-back nature of that portion allowed me to spot Lil' Thunder bouncing cheerfully back toward the finish line, seemingly unaware of the 11+ miles of torture that she had already delivered to her legs.

I think that the fact that the faster runners were just feet away made me try to run faster. I was also passing some runners (OK, some chubby old ladies), which gave me some motivation to try and improve on my relative standing. This energy burst continued until about the 9th mile, when it magically disappeared.

Once I hit mile 10, I just wanted to finish. I had no energy left, and the temptation of walking was great. But my one goal was to keep running, and I did. These miles went very slowly, as the times indicate. As I was passing the 12 mile marker, I took inventory. I felt like total crap, but I went though my body parts one by one, and realized that nothing was feeling too bad. My knees were both a little sore, my back was worn out, my feet were tender, and my calf wasn't feeling normal. But nothing was really yelling at me. My quads and hamstrings felt fine. I was just low on energy. So I tried to increase my pace a bit, and lo and behold, it wasn't that bad. So I decided to push through the last 1.1 mile with all I had.

I turned off the Great Highway, back into the park, and realized that this would take whatever energy was left. The only significant uphill on the course was from about mile 12.5 to mile 13.0. About halfway up, I planted my right foot, and a shot of pain seared the entire back of my body. My knee buckled, and I almost bit it right there. But I regained my balance, and kept working my way up the hill. At the top, I saw Lil' Thunder cheering. She assured me that it was all downhill from there, which it was. I coasted in at 2:29:05. It took almost everything out of me. I'm disappointed, and a bit embarrassed, by the time. But hey, I met my main goal. Here are the splits:


Mile 1 11:53 11:53 (pee break)
Mile 2 11:28 23:21
Mile 3 11:28 34:50
Mile 4 11:06 45:57
Mile 5 11:10 57:07 (another pee break - yes, I know)
Mile 6 10:39 1:07:46
Mile 7 10:57 1:18:43
Mile 8 10:56 1:29:40
Mile 9 11:14 1:40:54
Mile 10 11:26 1:52:20
Mile 11 11:57 2:04:18
Mile 12 11:55 2:16:14
Mile 13.1 12:51 2:29:05 (11:41/mile)

Overall Avg 11:23/mile


Sigh. Now what?

Well, I actually think I'm right on track. Had it been a good day, I probably could have run about 2:24 or 2:25. And the fact is that I just haven't trained all that much. Well under 3 months of training, after over a year of no running. My next race will be May 12 in Oakland. That means that I will have a full 3 months of training (on top of where I am right now). As I mentioned earlier, my mileage will be increased. I'll also add in speedwork, to help increase my tempo. As of today, my stated goal for that race will be a more realistic 2:19. That said, I'm hoping to increase my pace enough to try for a sub 2:15 run. Anyhow, the only thing I can do is get better. And I will.







*Note: the above picture is not of Big Thunder, but actually of Mary Decker following her disastrous fall at the hands of Zola Budd in the 3,000 meter race in the 1984 Olympics. Duh.

TGS Presents: Great Moments in Wikipedia

The Big Two (like Stephen Colbert) are great fans of Wikipedia. Where else can you learn about pretty much everything in one place? We love whiling away the hours clicking through the links.

Of course, a big part of what makes Wikipedia great is that anyone can edit the entries. There is a small volunteer army of Wikipedians who spend seemingly endless amounts of time writing and editing. With over 1.6 million English articles, however, some entries slip through the cracks, and random one-liners catch you off guard. Still other times, you come across legitimate information, or even entire entries, that unintentionally entertain. When you stumble across one of these humorous gems, you've experienced a Great Moment in Wikipedia.

And so, TGS is proud to present the first three in a recurring series of GMWs.

• Karrine Steffens: Ms. Steffens has already lived a remarkable life in her 27 years on this mortal coil. The former main squeeze of Bill Maher and Bobby Brown (quite a resume) made her name as a hip hop dancer. But its how she made her nickname (and the nickname itself) that truly makes this entry a Great Moment in Wikipedia.
• The Mermaid Problem: Has anyone ever heard of this? Its just ... well, its ... I mean, I never really ... well, ... just wow. That's a Great Moment in Wikipedia.
• Stuart Scott: I admit that this one is a blatant ripoff from the comments at Deadspin.com, but it is just too good to pass up. Check out Stu's interests at the bottom of the first paragraph. Booyah!

******************************************

More Friday bullet points for yo bad self:

• An update to Wednesdays Thunderupdate (making it a Thunderupdateupdate?): The weight loss tally is now at 14.5 pounds. Holla!
• Dave Law will be hitting the sandy beaches of Miami this weekend for the big game. Expect (and demand) pictures next week!
• Big and Lil' Thunder will be dining tonight on what is unquestionably the best pizza in San Francisco. Be jealous!
• Its funny cuz its true!
• Classic!

Thunderupdate: 05 in '07

[As promised...]



[Which reminds me - few things have made me prouder than learning that the Spike gained a reader when the young man (I presume it was a man) Googled the phrase "rocky and apollo running all gay on the beach."]

[Spikeditors note: BT has foolishly vowed to complete 6 half marathons during 2007.]

First of all, my apologies to those readers who are enjoying Dave Law's real estate blog.

Well, I haven't done the best job of updating the fans of my running, but rest assured I'm still plugging away. The first thing to mention is the change in the title. Unfortunately, my quest for 06 in '07 is not to be. I've scaled back to 05 in '07, which admittedly doesn't quite have the charm of its predecessor. The change has nothing to do with lack of drive or commitment to achieving my original goals. Simply put, there is not an available half marathon every weekend (without flying all over the country), and the scheduling doesn't work to get 6 in with realistic down time between races. So I've scaled back to 05 in '07, with the caveat that I will do 06 in 12 months by having the early February San Francisco half be my first and last race of my running year.

Which brings me to my current status: the first half marathon is this Sunday (rough map of the course via the very handy Gmaps Pedometer is here). It seems to be a very flat course, which is good news for me. I think I'm ready to go.

The training has gone pretty well. Very few missed runs, and noticeable improvement literally every week. I know that my speed is improving a bit (though I'm still extremely slow comparatively - I'd say the ratio of runners that pass me to runners that I pass is 12:1, literally). Perhaps the best sign is that on Sunday I ran 7.9 miles, and it wasn't all that difficult. The legs never got too tired (nor sore the next day) and I wasn't completely drained at the end. Unthinkable a mere month or two ago.

Training notes:

Longest run - 10.4 miles. There are different schools of thought on how long to run in preparation for half marathons. Most novice programs top out at 10. In the past, I've topped out as low as 9 and run the race without dying, so I'm not too worried. However, as I continue to progress, I'm going to build my long runs into the 12-15 mile zone, so that the race itself is more about my time, rather than just finishing. That said, the stated goal for my first race was to finish comfortably. And I think I should.

Weight - Still very high. Throughout November and December, when I started training, I ate whatever I felt like. I did my usual holiday gorging, and on January 1, I stepped on the scale. When the shock wore off, I got down to being more serious about eating. No real gimmicks, just trying to stay below 2,000 calories a day, while eating a fair amount of vegetables and avoiding too much white flour and sugar. I'm happy to say that its working. As of last Friday, I'm down 10.5 lbs from January 1. However, while this sounds like a good accomplishment, its not all that impressive. My weight on January 1 was my heaviest ever. It was like I was just saturated. So the first few pounds just flew off as a result of eating like a human being. However, I'm hoping to continue losing on a slow and steady basis. My goal is to lose 48 more lbs. Wow. I'm fat.

Injuries - In my last Thunderupdate, I said this: "during sunday's run, I tweaked my right calf, though it seems to be fine now. Let's hope it doesn't linger." Well, it has done just that - lingered. It never was bad enough to make me stop running, but it hasn't felt normal normal either. I've been doing some extra stretching of it throughout the day, which seems to help. I don't foresee it being too much of a problem.

Outlook - I'm right about where I hoped to be at this point. I'm going to finish the run, though it will be tough. I will be embarrassed by my time, but that's ok. In the coming months, I'm going to continue to lose weight, but I'm also going to increase the intensity of my training. I'm going to start running four days a week, and upping my mileage. I will also include some interval training and hills, which should increase my speed.

Here's a handy chart:

Miles per week: January - 15+, Upcoming months - about 19-25

Miles per month: January - 68.6, Upcoming months - 85-110

Days running: January - 3 per week, Upcoming months - 4+ per week

Average miles per run: January - 5.7, Upcoming months - 5-6.5




My Prediction: Big Thunder rolls across the finish line this Sunday in 2:16.