Drake Relays on the Roads Half Marathon

Cruising into week 17 on the training plan and things seem to be going pretty well. I have been pretty bike heavy and not running as much so I took on a couple of races recently to get some timing back and get my mindset back into racing mode. On Saturday I ran in the Drake Relays on the Roads Half Marathon and I really got a lot out of the experience. First, I really enjoyed the run. We had an 85 degree day on Friday and by Friday night storms rolled in and the high forecasted for the race were 40s and 50s. So I told myself before I hit the sack on Friday that I would be ready to run no matter what the conditions. Race morning was chilly but really not that bad considering. It did rain briefly a couple of minutes before the start but I don't think it bothered anyone. I really didn't know where I was at pace-wise for a race like this so my goal was more general than it might typically be. I was shooting for a 1:30 to 1:35 but I wasn't going to kill myself to get it. I wanted to try and stay relaxed concentrate on form. Up until now my longest run week was 33 miles at the beginning of March and besides that I have rarely made it out of the teens for weekly run mileage and my longest run was a 10 miler during that 33 mile week. So I was anticipating a reasonably difficult time once I got closer to that 10 mile mark. The first 4 miles felt ok and I was right on my race pace and felt extremely relaxed. The first half of the race is mostly flat and one stretch where the elevation drops relatively quickly. I had only glanced at the course map briefly but assumed that the elevation change back up would be just as quick. Around mile 5 started a slow ascent that took several miles and was gradual. That really took quite a bit out of me because my quads were a little tight because of a heavy bike week. I powered through knowing that when we leveled off I would be fine but I know my pace took a bit of a hit during that stretch. Once things leveled off I felt a lot better and settled in comfortably. Around mile 11 I started to feel it a little bit but I decided to try and hold my pace and suffer a little bit but not too much. I held my pace and finished just a few minutes off my goal time and more importantly I can take the experience and use it to prepare for Ironman Kansas in June.

The most difficult thing for me at this point is that it would be really easy to look at my training and my results and the results of friends that ran and try to tinker with it too much. I know that I can run the half a lot faster and I could certainly up my running mileage and my overall training time to try and improve that much more before that first race but in the end I am not training for a half marathon. I am training for an Ironman and getting too caught up in these other races and where I rank next to other competitors could easily derail what I am trying to do at Ironman Wisconsin in September. I am exactly where I need to be at this point in the season.

What is Realistic?

What is a realistic time that a typical athlete can aspire to in an Ironman Triathlon? When it comes to Hawaii it seems like the 1st place finishers and a handful of other pros are finishing between 8 hours 10 minutes and 8 hours and 30 minutes. I think the top women pros are finishing around an hour later. So where does that leave me? Sure most people would say, “How can you tell when you have never run an Ironman?” While that is certainly true, what I am really looking for is a time that a typically athlete can shoot for and realistically attain? Sure the number is ultra-subjective and not really good for much, but what a number like that does is provide a little perspective. For example, when I was in high school I read a book by Ron Daws where he outlines training plans for runners of different competitive levels(phenomenal book). In that book he breaks down, by distance, realistic times that a healthy person can run given a great deal of patience and hard work. The one distance that jumped out at me was the mile, where he stated that a male that works hard in training and avoids injury could realistically run a mile in 4 minutes 27 seconds. So my question is, what is an attainable time in the Ironman? Not for the pro athlete but the everyman like myself? There are days where I think that I am going to really struggle to finish and there are other days when I think that I could run under 10 hours. Why can’t I run it that fast? Why can’t I run it faster? Sure I am in my mid-thirties but I still feel pretty good and I am working out hard. Maybe I could? To quote Steve Prefontaine from the movie Without Limits, “l won't know that till l get there, and I’ll figure it out then.”

Hyper-Mentally Speaking

That is the way I feel on the treadmill-Hyper mental. If you have ever run on a treadmill you know what I am talking about…or maybe you don’t. On a treadmill you have all of the information about your current run that you need sitting in front of you on display. How fast I am going, how far have I run, how many calories have I burned, how much time left. For someone with an undiagnosed case of ADD, this can be a terrible problem if you don’t know how to handle it. Normally it takes about 10 to 15 minutes for me to squeeze out a handful of conscious thoughts. When I am on the treadmill it takes about a second. I will sit there and calculate how far I am going to have completed at the next interval, scream at myself to quit thinking about it, tell myself how tired I am, tell myself how tired I am not, ponder tripping and falling off the treadmill, and convincing myself to stop staring at the display. This all happens in several seconds and then repeats over and over until I talk myself into giving up or slowing down to a walk, and if I am lucky it will go until my time is up. This excruciating experience is only alleviated by focusing on something completely off the treadmill such as a good song or the TV. Actually, a song that is really good might be the only thing that can distract me. Another good distraction is the TV. On Sunday I had a 10 mile run on the plan so I slipped in Rocky, of course to keep me company. The story of an over the hill, down on his luck club fighter getting a shot at the heavyweight championship of the world seemed only natural as I drag my tired old bones through a workout in preparation for my own World Championship. All in all I find this struggle necessary. The mental aspects of the Ironman have to be developed and trained as well. I have to be prepared to march right up to my limits and keep going. I love running on the bike trails near the lake by my house. I can let my mind wander and feel the wind rushing past my face cooling me off. Running indoors has to be more like solitary confinement. No wind, no birds chirping no nature, nothing. I figure that the punishment of running all of those miles on a treadmill have to count for something. They are not just miles on my training plan. They are brutal, unforgiving reminder that there is nothing stopping you from ending your workout early. You are just as far from your house as you were when you started. If I can somehow fight off the piles of easy excuses sitting in front of me with the treadmill display begging me to count the seconds along with it, then I will be that much stronger on race day.

Training

Training. The only thing that is going to make event even remotely enjoyable. The big question you have to ask yourself is how much you want to suffer. In the end I truly believe that you are going to suffer greatly whether you train really hard for this event or not. The only control that you have over that is in determining whether you want to suffer a lot over 6 to 9 months so you don’t suffer as much on race day, OR, do you want to suffer a little before race day and suffer severely on race day and not finish. I personally choose to suffer as much as I can in advance. That being said I am using a 36 week training plan I snagged off of trifuel.com. The important thing for me is understanding my training plan so that when I have completed the training and I am at the start in Kona, that I feel confident about what I am about to do. I also track my training on a spreadsheet that shows actual completed mileage and how that compares to goal mileage. The biggest worry I have at this early stage in the game is over doing it and getting hurt or over doing it and getting burnt out. It is so easy to be gung ho at this early stage of the game but I have to keep in mind that I need to maintain this effort for another 4.5 months and I should try to keep on an even keel, mentally and physically.