I've done the tamale thing now for several years on and off, serving mostly as labor who spreads the masa on the shucks. While this could be drudgery, it is usually accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, plenty of good food and quality time spent with family. But with our head tamale chef (Sylvia, my mother-in-law) in St. Louis for Christmas, it was either go it alone or no tamales this year.
So, after a bit of thinking and then planning (and then calculating, as in "how many people can I trick into coming over to help spread the masa?) I decided that we would give it a go. I knew that mom would always be at least a phone call away, and also I remembered that last year she had discovered that you could buy masa that was pre-mixed, meaning that the hardest part of the job (in my experience) was already done for you.
So the first part is planning and shopping. I knew a partial list of stuff I would need: masa, shucks, a pork roast and chiles. Patty called around and found a few places that sold masa pre-mixed so I knew that I could get it. With my confidence in place, I started to make plans.
I ended up going to Fiesta Mart to attempt to get everything. This was on Christmas Eve eve, i.e. the 23rd. It was evening, but I figured that things wouldn't be too bad. Of course I was wrong, but nothing new there...
When we arrived (Bailey was with me, as I was bringing her home from swim practice) we headed to Fiesta. I bribed her by promising to buy her ojarascas, which she really likes. We showed up around 6:45 in the evening and the place was packed. We had to park a ways across the lot and then make our way in through the thronging patrons. Now if you've never been to Fiesta it's and experience. It's about as much of a third-world experience as you can get in Austin, expecially when it's crowded. They sell just about everything: clothing, luggage, cds, in addition to all of the strange foods that you could imagine. As we made our way into the store the tamale making stuff was front and center. And middle center and back center... Five pound bags of masa, lard in ever imaginable measure from one pound up to huge buckets, bags 0f dried chiles of all types: anchos, pasillas, cascabels, Guajillo, etc. I picked up a few things that I knew we needed (based on a call to Sylvia earlier in the day). This included a bag of ancho chiles, and a few heads of garlic. I searched high and low for the pre-mixed masa and also for a decent pork roast (shoulder or butt) but no luck. However, if I wanted a pig's head, well then there are more than enough to go around. I wanted to ask at the meat counter, but it would have taken 20 minutes just to wade through the line, so I gave up and picked up the few things that I had already and vowed to come back early in the morning. Oh, and they were out of ojarascas too...
to be continued...
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Panettone
Every Christmas one of the things I do is bake at least one batch of Panettone. This is an Italian Christmas bread that is studded full of candied fruit and nuts. It's essentially a brioche dough with a few extras added, as are most Christmas breads for that matter.
This year I decided to go with the recipe from _ The Bread Baker's Apprentice_ (by Peter Reinhardt). I can't remember if I've made this one before or not? I think that I have at least once, but I'm not sure. I know that in the past I've used a recipe out of Bernard Clayton's book (the title escapes me right now) and also one out of _Bread Alone_ by Daniel Leader. I also think that a time or two I made up my own recipe on the fly, but this year I decided to follow someone else's lead, at least mostly anyway.
Reinhardt starts with something he calls "barm" which is a wild-yeast starter that requires a bunch of time and effort. I decided to dispense with that and just go a more standard pre-ferment starter. So I started with:
1 cup milk
a pinch (~1/8 tsp) yeast
1 1/2 cups flour
I mixed these up about 4-6 hours ahead of making the final dough. (In reality I had to call home from work and ask Patty to make this starter for me.)
When I got home, prior to starting the dough, I got the fruit ready. I took a cup or so of candied fruit that I had bought at the store plus about 1/2 cup of golden raisins and soaked it all together in 1/4 cup of rum. I also heated some water to boiling in a small saucepan and once it had boiled, I put turned it off, added 1/2 cup of raw almonds and covered the pan to let them soak. This would make the them easy to skin later on. So, in recipe terms:
1 cup candied fruit
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup rum
1/2 cup almonds
After letting the fruit soak for a couple of hours, it was time for the final dough. Here I followed Reinhardt pretty directly. As I remember, the recipe was something like:
starter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tsp yeast
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 stick butter, room temperature
You start by mixing the yeast and the warm water and let the yeast soften. Then you add the starter and sugar and start mixing. Once it's well mixed, it's time to add the salt, egg and egg yolk and mix it well. Next the flour, letting the mixer mix it all well and knead it for a bit (~1 minute). At this point, it's a good idea to let the dough rest for a bit so the gluten can get started forming. About 20 minutes give or take.
Now it's kneading time. Also time to get the butter incorporated into the dough. I like to keep using the paddle attachment here because it cuts the dough a lot better than does the dough hook, and in trying to incorporate butter you need to keep the dough kind of broken up.
The butter didn't really want to go in this time, but I kept at it, even removing the beater and choping at the dough with a knive to force the two (dough and butter) to combine. Eventually thought it all mixes and comes together into one solid mass that you can knead with the dough hook. After letting it go for a bit, it's time to work the fruit and nuts in.
I was using raw almonds, which took a bit of work to peel. Even after soaking them for 30 minutes or so, some of the skins didn't come off easily. But, with Patty's help, we got them all peeled. I didn't bother to chop them as it was getting late, but a lot of them broke in half when I peeled them, and I thought that would be perfect. A nice crunch to counterpoint the soft dough and chewy flavor of the candied fruit.
I mixed in all the fruit and nuts at once, rum and all. This made the dough wet all over again, but the mixer was able to incorporate the fruit and nuts pretty quickly. I added flour, one tablespoon at a time, to convince the dough to come together and pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Probably four or five tablespoons at most until I felt like things were ready. The dough at this point is a nice silky smooth texture with a beautiful yellow sheen from the eggs and butter. I shaped it into a ball and put it into the rising bowl and into the fridge to wait for tomorrow.
This year I finally bought some actual panettone baking papers so I can have something that makes it easy to bake and then easy to transport afterwards. After letting the dough sit overnight, I got it out the next day at about noon and let it get to room temperature and then continue to rise. For whatever reason (probably the butter) this dough rises slowly. But rise it does, and eventually it pretty much filled the bowl, so I took it out and divided it to be ready for shaping. I had large panettone papers and small ones, so I made a mixture. My dough was enough for two large ones or several small ones, so I made one large and several of the smaller ones. Once again, it rises slowly, so after spraying down the paper with oil spray I formed it and put it in there and set it out to rise.
The bread is generally baked at a relatively low temperature (325) for a pretty long time (> 1 hour). I've taken to testing the temperature with an instant-read thermometer for these breads to be sure that they're done but not over baked. At about 195 they should be done, so that's what I did. The smaller ones were done in about 50 minutes, but the bigger one took more like 75.
In the end, the bread was much moister this year than in the past. Whether that has to do with using the papers or the recipe, I'm not sure. But I thought that it was the best I'd ever made. Here a a couple of different pictures.
This year I decided to go with the recipe from _ The Bread Baker's Apprentice_ (by Peter Reinhardt). I can't remember if I've made this one before or not? I think that I have at least once, but I'm not sure. I know that in the past I've used a recipe out of Bernard Clayton's book (the title escapes me right now) and also one out of _Bread Alone_ by Daniel Leader. I also think that a time or two I made up my own recipe on the fly, but this year I decided to follow someone else's lead, at least mostly anyway.
Reinhardt starts with something he calls "barm" which is a wild-yeast starter that requires a bunch of time and effort. I decided to dispense with that and just go a more standard pre-ferment starter. So I started with:
1 cup milk
a pinch (~1/8 tsp) yeast
1 1/2 cups flour
I mixed these up about 4-6 hours ahead of making the final dough. (In reality I had to call home from work and ask Patty to make this starter for me.)
When I got home, prior to starting the dough, I got the fruit ready. I took a cup or so of candied fruit that I had bought at the store plus about 1/2 cup of golden raisins and soaked it all together in 1/4 cup of rum. I also heated some water to boiling in a small saucepan and once it had boiled, I put turned it off, added 1/2 cup of raw almonds and covered the pan to let them soak. This would make the them easy to skin later on. So, in recipe terms:
1 cup candied fruit
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup rum
1/2 cup almonds
After letting the fruit soak for a couple of hours, it was time for the final dough. Here I followed Reinhardt pretty directly. As I remember, the recipe was something like:
starter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tsp yeast
1 egg
1 egg yolk
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour
1 stick butter, room temperature
You start by mixing the yeast and the warm water and let the yeast soften. Then you add the starter and sugar and start mixing. Once it's well mixed, it's time to add the salt, egg and egg yolk and mix it well. Next the flour, letting the mixer mix it all well and knead it for a bit (~1 minute). At this point, it's a good idea to let the dough rest for a bit so the gluten can get started forming. About 20 minutes give or take.
Now it's kneading time. Also time to get the butter incorporated into the dough. I like to keep using the paddle attachment here because it cuts the dough a lot better than does the dough hook, and in trying to incorporate butter you need to keep the dough kind of broken up.
The butter didn't really want to go in this time, but I kept at it, even removing the beater and choping at the dough with a knive to force the two (dough and butter) to combine. Eventually thought it all mixes and comes together into one solid mass that you can knead with the dough hook. After letting it go for a bit, it's time to work the fruit and nuts in.
I was using raw almonds, which took a bit of work to peel. Even after soaking them for 30 minutes or so, some of the skins didn't come off easily. But, with Patty's help, we got them all peeled. I didn't bother to chop them as it was getting late, but a lot of them broke in half when I peeled them, and I thought that would be perfect. A nice crunch to counterpoint the soft dough and chewy flavor of the candied fruit.
I mixed in all the fruit and nuts at once, rum and all. This made the dough wet all over again, but the mixer was able to incorporate the fruit and nuts pretty quickly. I added flour, one tablespoon at a time, to convince the dough to come together and pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl. Probably four or five tablespoons at most until I felt like things were ready. The dough at this point is a nice silky smooth texture with a beautiful yellow sheen from the eggs and butter. I shaped it into a ball and put it into the rising bowl and into the fridge to wait for tomorrow.
This year I finally bought some actual panettone baking papers so I can have something that makes it easy to bake and then easy to transport afterwards. After letting the dough sit overnight, I got it out the next day at about noon and let it get to room temperature and then continue to rise. For whatever reason (probably the butter) this dough rises slowly. But rise it does, and eventually it pretty much filled the bowl, so I took it out and divided it to be ready for shaping. I had large panettone papers and small ones, so I made a mixture. My dough was enough for two large ones or several small ones, so I made one large and several of the smaller ones. Once again, it rises slowly, so after spraying down the paper with oil spray I formed it and put it in there and set it out to rise.
The bread is generally baked at a relatively low temperature (325) for a pretty long time (> 1 hour). I've taken to testing the temperature with an instant-read thermometer for these breads to be sure that they're done but not over baked. At about 195 they should be done, so that's what I did. The smaller ones were done in about 50 minutes, but the bigger one took more like 75.
In the end, the bread was much moister this year than in the past. Whether that has to do with using the papers or the recipe, I'm not sure. But I thought that it was the best I'd ever made. Here a a couple of different pictures.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Pain a l'ancienne
Pain a l'ancienne is an interesting and fun style of bread to make. The recipe that I first learned, and the one I used here is from Peter Reinhardt's book The Breadbaker's Apprentice. It's a different method for making bread with results in a loaf with a very different flavor, a sort of bright, sweet, nutty flavor.
At this point, I set the cookie sheet out and let the dough rise while I worked the other piece in the same manner. Now I heated the oven to 500° and let the dough rise for about 30 minutes while it gets nice and hot.
The dough is a very wet one. The general recipe is:
2 1/2 cups cold water (i.e. ice water)
2 tsp dry yeast
6 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp salt
The method I used was to soften the yeast in the water, then add all of the flour and salt to the bowl of the mixer. I then mixed it on low speed for 30 seconds or so until the flour was all hydrated. Then I mixed on medium speed (this is a stand-up Kitchen Aid mixer) using the dough hook for about two
minutes. In my case, the dough was so sticky that I added some more flour, on table spoon at a time, to encourage the dough to not stick too badly on the mixing bowl. Still, this is a very wet dough, and it will stick at least on the bottom of the bowl. You just want it to crawl at least somewhat up the dough hook.
You don't really want to knead it for long, the gluten is going to form in while it sits in the refrigerator overnight. However, when the dough is this sticky, transferring it is lots of fun. I used a silicon spatula that I wetted down with cold water to scrape it from the mixing bowl to my heavy rising bowl. Here's what I looked like:
Looks like fun to work with, doesn't it?
Now you cover it with plastic wrap
and put it into the fridge and leave it at least over night.
The next day, I took it out (well Patty did) about four hours before I was going to be working with it. That allows it to get up to room temperature and continue to rise.
By the time I got home, it had more or less doubled in size and looked nice and bubbly, like this:
From here, I put a nice layer of flour on the countertop (like a half cup or more) and had the flour container standing by for refresh as need be. I took my silicon spatula and wetted it again and used that to scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto the countertop. More flour onto the top of it; you pretty much always need a
layer of flour between your hands and the dough, because if you get into it you may never be able to separate yourself from it.
I used my dough scraper to cut it into two pieces, and rounded them each up into a ball, which I then let rest for a few minutes. From there, I flattened one of the balls out into a rectangle, more or less 12x7 inches, always using enough flour to keep things from sticking to each other. Then, I cut the rectangle into three strips using the dough scraper. At this point, it comes time to shape the dough. This is definitely my weak point with bread, and with this dough I'm not sure how much you can do anyway. Bu
t what I tried to do here was to stretch the dough evenly into three "baguettes" each about 14 inches long and 2 inches wide which I placed on a sheet of parchment that was set on a cookie sheet. You can see from the picture, that even stretching didn't really happen for me...
At this point, I set the cookie sheet out and let the dough rise while I worked the other piece in the same manner. Now I heated the oven to 500° and let the dough rise for about 30 minutes while it gets nice and hot. The bread rises, but it also spreads a lot, kind of like a ciabatta dough. I mist the oven well with a spray bottle of water and put the slip the parchment sheet right onto my baking stone, baking one group of three loaves at at time. The baking time is on the order of 25-35 minutes, you just want to watch for the caramelization to appear. Technically Reinhardt says to measure the internal temperature of the loaves at 205 before declaring them done. I just look for something like this:
I know, the shape is goofy, but believe me the smell and the flavor make you forget all about that. And perhaps with enough work, I can figure out this whole shaping thing.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Owls
It's been a bit of a stressful time over the last month or so with all of the things going on in our lives. I came home after a long day of meetings at work today; it was a drizzly warm evening, with a bit of a fog in the air owing to the super high humidity. When I got off of the car, I thought that it seemed like a good night for a walk.
After dinner I asked Patty to go for a walk with me. We went out and I noticed that it had cooled off a bit and the fog was gone. Still everything was wet from the rain and it was a great night to be out walking. As we walked through the neighborhood we noticed that the moon was mostly full. Everything was bathed in moonlight; it was very beautiful and peaceful (in spite of the noise from Mopac). We walked hand-in-hand just talking, working out as much stress as we could and enjoying the evening and each other's company.
After twenty minutes or so, as we approached home, I just suddenly felt and I stopped, took her in my arms and kissed her. As we held each other tight, off in the distance I heard an owl. You hear them sometimes here in town, but it's not that common and it just felt like a special moment, that I had chosen just this time and spot to stop and linger for a bit. We listened and remarked that it must be a special sign of some sort.
Eventually we moved on, not really wanting to leave the moment, but understanding that it couldn't last forever. But as we passed 29th street, I thought I heard the owl down in that direction, so we turned there and walked on towards home. Sure enough, the owl sounded closer as we walked and then it sounded like two different owls calling back and forth. Pretty soon it was obvious that we were getting closer. And then, it was right across the street from us. We looked up in a pecan tree across the street, and there, high in the branches we could see the outline of a large owl where the sound came from. Soon the companion called, and he was clearly nearby too. In fact, as we looked for a bit we picked him out as well, in the same tree just over on the other side. They continued to take turns calling back and forth, one higher pitched than the other, in spite of the more-or-less constant noise from the cars that passed underneath on a regular basis.
We stood and watched for a while, not wanting to leave the moment. I think I remarked that I could stay all night; I've never been that close to an owl calling that I could see so clearly. But eventually, after several minutes we finally moved on towards home. But still, that moment will live with me for the rest of my life. It's frequently not the big things, but the little moments that make up the most special memories.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Chicago, A Tale of Two Races
It was the best of races, it was the worst of races.
Ok, I got that over with. But it is what I kept thinking coming out of the weekend as I limped around waiting for my quads to recover enough to walk like a normal human being again.
To get it over with up front: 4:04:16. That put me 7114/31,401 finishers. I guess that when you put it that way it doesn't sound quite so bad.
It was a warm day in Chicago, unseasonably warm. I would guess that it was probably around 65° at the start and probably close to 85° by the time I crossed the finish line. But that's not even as warm as most of my training runs were (how nice 65 degrees would have felt in July and August here) so I wasn't worried when I saw the forecast.
The race was amazingly well organized. I don't know how you accomplish something like that; there were 31,000 finishers. Add to that some 3,000 non-finshers and 11,000 no-shows. So if everyone who signed up had run, that would have been over 45,000 people! Everything ran like clockwork. I took the subway in the morning; it was crowded pretty much entirely with marathon participants. I got off at the Harrison station and made my way into the park. From there it was pretty easy (I had studied all of the material carefully to figure out where everything was) to find my way to the gear check tent and then around to the C corral where I was seeded along with the other 3:40 - 4:00 runners. The corral was relatively uncrowded, though it filled up pretty well by race start time. Still it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder like most race starts I've been in are.
We got the national anthem sung by a couple of country music stars appearing at the country music festival in town (shows how much I know about country music that I didn't even recognize their names). And then there were several luminaries in the starter's box. I remember Datham Ritzheim and Cat Osterman (Ron, you should have been there ;-) by name. I looked for her as I passed the starting line, but wasn't able to pick her out.
The race started fine; it took me about 5 minutes to reach the starting line I guess from the gun. 10 from the elite start, and all of the clocks along the route started with the elites, so they were running about 9+ minutes ahead of my watch. The race starts north, out of Millennium park and then across the river before turning back to the south and then eventually back north again on a quick tour of the heart of downtown Chicago. It's spectacular and the crowds are amazing, easily six and seven people deep and lining every bridge and overpass along the way.
The energy of those early miles is astonishing. You really have to think consciously about holding back. Though there are enough people running in the street around you that you don't have to work too hard to set a reasonable pace. And it's not like the races in Austin where people who fully intend to walk the entire race like to get up at the front of the starting gate, and you have to spend the first couple of miles weaving around them. Everyone around you is more or less running your pace, so you can just settle in and run with the crowd.
I took it relatively easy and probably ran the first couple of miles around 8:45. It was so crowded that I never saw the mile markers, it wasn't until mile 3 that I first saw a marker. I got my split there at 25:29, which put me right at about 1:30 off my goal pace. That was fine; I fully intended to lose a couple of minutes during the early part of the race, with the hope that if things went well, I would get it back later.
Things went well for the first half of the race. I stuck to my hydration and nutrition plan, the water stops were all two full city blocks long with gatorade in the first block and water in the second (both sides). I made sure to drink at every single one of them and took my GU dutifully every 30 minutes. My early splits were good:
3 -- 25:29
4 -- 8:03 - 33:32
5 -- 7:54 - 41:25
6 -- 8:16 - 49:42
7 -- 7:37 - 57:19
8 -- 7:57 - 1:05:15
10 -- 16:03 - 1:21:18
11 -- 8:18 - 1:29:36
12 -- 8:11 - 1:37:47
13 -- 7:58 - 1:45:11
This part of the race, after weaving through downtown, heads north on La Salle street and goes up along the lake to near Wrigley field before turning back south on Broadway. That is a really great part of town; feels very much like a university area with streets lined with shops and then later row houses. Eventually you find your way back downtown and then cross the river and head due west. That's about the halfway point, and the race was going well.
The splits from there on tell a different tale:
14 -- 8:58 - 1:54:43
15 -- 7:50 - 2:02:13
16 -- 8:29 - 2:11:14
17 -- 8:56 - 2:19:59
18 -- 9:56 - 2:29:16
19 -- 9:39 - 2:39:35
20 -- 11:02 - 2:50:18
21 -- 12:30 - 3:03:08
I stopped taking splits at that point. Looking back, it's pretty easy to see where the wheels came off. As to why, I'm still not sure. All I know is that long about mile 15 or 16 my hips locked up and my left knee started hurting. I tried moving forward as well as I could, but quickly things devolved into a death march where I tried to run for as long as I could before I had to start walking again. The last four miles were particularly long and painful. As you can see, it took me 1:01 to run the last 5.2 miles. Of course using the word "run" here is a stretch.
I didn't see Patty or Mel along the way, though they saw me several times. It's just hard when you're running and the crowds are so deep along the way. I kept looking but it wasn't until around mile 25 that I caught sight of them. So I didn't get my recharge of nutrition stuff, but that didn't have an effect on how my race went. Everything fell apart before any of that would have made a difference.
Was it the heat? The nutrition/hydration? Did I not train hard enough? I can't look back and say that I really have any idea. Maybe I'm just not cut out to run long distances like that? Anyway, I did the training (the hardest I've ever trained for any race) and felt like I was ready. The heat was there, and it would have been nice to have a 45° to 60° day, but would that have made all the difference? The humidity didn't seem overly high and the breeze that blew out of the south felt nice from time to time. Also the first half of the race was mostly in shade due to the tall buildings.
Anyway, under the heading, "you learn more when things go badly," (my mantra, by the way ;-) this should have been a great learning experience for me. I have no idea what I really learned, though. I will say that I was able to appreciate a lot of things, like how much fun I had in Chicago with Patty and Melissa and how much I enjoyed the experience of running a big city marathon like this. Overall, it's definitely an experience that I won't ever forget and maybe someday I'll go back and do it again. Though I need some time right now to forget the pain before I'll be able to convince myself to try to do something like that again.
I should say something here about "Tis a far far better thing I do..." but I can't think of any good way of working that in. What I will say is that I really appreciate all of the help and support I got along the way on this journey. Dave, Scott and Jim carried me through so many of those long runs in the July and August heat. It's hard to imagine having made it through the training without that support. And Patty really supported me through the whole effort. I'm sure that those 5:30 wake-up alarms were more than annoying to her as was having to live with this grouchy, wreck of a man during those high-mileage weeks. And she and Mel were troopers on race day, suffering in the heat, hoping subway trains and cabs trying to keep ever ahead of me. I guess that, in the end, like with the rest of life, it really is all about the people around you.
Ok, I got that over with. But it is what I kept thinking coming out of the weekend as I limped around waiting for my quads to recover enough to walk like a normal human being again.
To get it over with up front: 4:04:16. That put me 7114/31,401 finishers. I guess that when you put it that way it doesn't sound quite so bad.
It was a warm day in Chicago, unseasonably warm. I would guess that it was probably around 65° at the start and probably close to 85° by the time I crossed the finish line. But that's not even as warm as most of my training runs were (how nice 65 degrees would have felt in July and August here) so I wasn't worried when I saw the forecast.
The race was amazingly well organized. I don't know how you accomplish something like that; there were 31,000 finishers. Add to that some 3,000 non-finshers and 11,000 no-shows. So if everyone who signed up had run, that would have been over 45,000 people! Everything ran like clockwork. I took the subway in the morning; it was crowded pretty much entirely with marathon participants. I got off at the Harrison station and made my way into the park. From there it was pretty easy (I had studied all of the material carefully to figure out where everything was) to find my way to the gear check tent and then around to the C corral where I was seeded along with the other 3:40 - 4:00 runners. The corral was relatively uncrowded, though it filled up pretty well by race start time. Still it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder like most race starts I've been in are.
We got the national anthem sung by a couple of country music stars appearing at the country music festival in town (shows how much I know about country music that I didn't even recognize their names). And then there were several luminaries in the starter's box. I remember Datham Ritzheim and Cat Osterman (Ron, you should have been there ;-) by name. I looked for her as I passed the starting line, but wasn't able to pick her out.
The race started fine; it took me about 5 minutes to reach the starting line I guess from the gun. 10 from the elite start, and all of the clocks along the route started with the elites, so they were running about 9+ minutes ahead of my watch. The race starts north, out of Millennium park and then across the river before turning back to the south and then eventually back north again on a quick tour of the heart of downtown Chicago. It's spectacular and the crowds are amazing, easily six and seven people deep and lining every bridge and overpass along the way.
The energy of those early miles is astonishing. You really have to think consciously about holding back. Though there are enough people running in the street around you that you don't have to work too hard to set a reasonable pace. And it's not like the races in Austin where people who fully intend to walk the entire race like to get up at the front of the starting gate, and you have to spend the first couple of miles weaving around them. Everyone around you is more or less running your pace, so you can just settle in and run with the crowd.
I took it relatively easy and probably ran the first couple of miles around 8:45. It was so crowded that I never saw the mile markers, it wasn't until mile 3 that I first saw a marker. I got my split there at 25:29, which put me right at about 1:30 off my goal pace. That was fine; I fully intended to lose a couple of minutes during the early part of the race, with the hope that if things went well, I would get it back later.
Things went well for the first half of the race. I stuck to my hydration and nutrition plan, the water stops were all two full city blocks long with gatorade in the first block and water in the second (both sides). I made sure to drink at every single one of them and took my GU dutifully every 30 minutes. My early splits were good:
3 -- 25:29
4 -- 8:03 - 33:32
5 -- 7:54 - 41:25
6 -- 8:16 - 49:42
7 -- 7:37 - 57:19
8 -- 7:57 - 1:05:15
10 -- 16:03 - 1:21:18
11 -- 8:18 - 1:29:36
12 -- 8:11 - 1:37:47
13 -- 7:58 - 1:45:11
This part of the race, after weaving through downtown, heads north on La Salle street and goes up along the lake to near Wrigley field before turning back south on Broadway. That is a really great part of town; feels very much like a university area with streets lined with shops and then later row houses. Eventually you find your way back downtown and then cross the river and head due west. That's about the halfway point, and the race was going well.
The splits from there on tell a different tale:
14 -- 8:58 - 1:54:43
15 -- 7:50 - 2:02:13
16 -- 8:29 - 2:11:14
17 -- 8:56 - 2:19:59
18 -- 9:56 - 2:29:16
19 -- 9:39 - 2:39:35
20 -- 11:02 - 2:50:18
21 -- 12:30 - 3:03:08
I stopped taking splits at that point. Looking back, it's pretty easy to see where the wheels came off. As to why, I'm still not sure. All I know is that long about mile 15 or 16 my hips locked up and my left knee started hurting. I tried moving forward as well as I could, but quickly things devolved into a death march where I tried to run for as long as I could before I had to start walking again. The last four miles were particularly long and painful. As you can see, it took me 1:01 to run the last 5.2 miles. Of course using the word "run" here is a stretch.
I didn't see Patty or Mel along the way, though they saw me several times. It's just hard when you're running and the crowds are so deep along the way. I kept looking but it wasn't until around mile 25 that I caught sight of them. So I didn't get my recharge of nutrition stuff, but that didn't have an effect on how my race went. Everything fell apart before any of that would have made a difference.
Was it the heat? The nutrition/hydration? Did I not train hard enough? I can't look back and say that I really have any idea. Maybe I'm just not cut out to run long distances like that? Anyway, I did the training (the hardest I've ever trained for any race) and felt like I was ready. The heat was there, and it would have been nice to have a 45° to 60° day, but would that have made all the difference? The humidity didn't seem overly high and the breeze that blew out of the south felt nice from time to time. Also the first half of the race was mostly in shade due to the tall buildings.
Anyway, under the heading, "you learn more when things go badly," (my mantra, by the way ;-) this should have been a great learning experience for me. I have no idea what I really learned, though. I will say that I was able to appreciate a lot of things, like how much fun I had in Chicago with Patty and Melissa and how much I enjoyed the experience of running a big city marathon like this. Overall, it's definitely an experience that I won't ever forget and maybe someday I'll go back and do it again. Though I need some time right now to forget the pain before I'll be able to convince myself to try to do something like that again.
I should say something here about "Tis a far far better thing I do..." but I can't think of any good way of working that in. What I will say is that I really appreciate all of the help and support I got along the way on this journey. Dave, Scott and Jim carried me through so many of those long runs in the July and August heat. It's hard to imagine having made it through the training without that support. And Patty really supported me through the whole effort. I'm sure that those 5:30 wake-up alarms were more than annoying to her as was having to live with this grouchy, wreck of a man during those high-mileage weeks. And she and Mel were troopers on race day, suffering in the heat, hoping subway trains and cabs trying to keep ever ahead of me. I guess that, in the end, like with the rest of life, it really is all about the people around you.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Chicago
Well, here it is just three days out from Chicago. Come Sunday morning at 8:00 I'll be lined up in corral C and ready to go. It's been a long summer of early mornings, slogging through long runs, painful tempo runs, sore tired legs and plenty of "what was I thinking?" moments. But now it all comes down to 3-4 hours on Sunday morning and then it will be over.
I guess I knew what I was getting into when I signed up last April but still, nothing quite prepared me for long runs in the heat of July and August nor for those 5:30 wake up calls from my alarm watch telling me that sleep time was over and I had to get up and moving.
I guess I'm pretty nervous about the race right now. The taper has been kind of strange. I don't feel like I did a great job with my running, but still I managed to get in a decent amount of mileage generally around 24/week over the last 4 weeks, down from a peak of 41 in week 10 (out of 18 total). Then about a week ago, my legs got this strange soreness that continues to stick around. It's really not soreness, more like the fatigue that I feel late in a long run; it's all up in my hips as kind of feels like almost sharp pain moving longitudinally down my legs. I don't know what to make of that, but I guess it's something I'll have to deal with.
I keep telling myself, "I've put in the training, all that's left to do is relax and enjoy the weekend." If it's not there on race day, there's not much I can do, so just enjoy being in Chicago and the thought that I at least accomplished hard training through the Austin summer.
They have a tracking site setup for the race. If any of my one or two readers were to want to track my progress, they could go to this URL:
http://www.doitsports.com/results/MSG-signup.tcl?sub_event_id=2161
and get updates of my progress along the way.
Right now the weather forecasts are for a low on Sunday morning of around 63 and a high of 78. That's a bit warmer than I would prefer (55 and 68 would be about perfect) but not too bad. I've run the Austin Marathon three times, first was a 3:55 (2003) then a 3:38 (2006) and then a 3:45 (2007). My goal for this race is to hit my Boston qualifying time, which is 3:30. I think that on a good day I should be able to do it, but we'll have to see how Sunday goes.
My race strategy (to the extent that it matters; they're usually out the door in the first few miles for me) is to try to take it easy early on. There will be pace groups, but I'm not going to try to hang with the 3:30 group from the get go. I'm afraid that if I'm out of the gate right at 8:00/mile, that won't be the best strategy. It usually takes my body 20 minutes or so to settle into a rhythm, so if my first few miles are 9:00 or 8:30, I'm not going to worry. But I hope to get to the 10 mile point at no worse than 1:22. The next 10 miles are the "hang on" part of the race. I'd like to be right at 8:00 for these if I can still do that. That would get me to 20 at 2:42 or better. That leaves me 48 minutes for the final 10k to arrive at 3:30. I really don't think that I can go faster than a 48 minute 10 k at that point, and 50 is more reasonable.
The other thing is nutrition. I'm planning to take a GU every 30 minutes, regardless of how I feel. By the end of the race I'll be sick of the sweetness and texture, but it really does help me to keep my legs moving. I'm also hoping that Patty can meet me from time to time along the course and I'm planning to load her up with baggies of pretzels and fig newtons; I know that late in the race I usually really crave something salty and substantial. This will be better nutrition than I've done in my previous marathons, so I hope that it helps.
So there you have it. At a minimum I should have a fun weekend in Chicago with Patty and her sister Missy. That I'm looking forward to. And I will run the race and do my best to enjoy it, regardless of the outcome.
I guess I knew what I was getting into when I signed up last April but still, nothing quite prepared me for long runs in the heat of July and August nor for those 5:30 wake up calls from my alarm watch telling me that sleep time was over and I had to get up and moving.
I guess I'm pretty nervous about the race right now. The taper has been kind of strange. I don't feel like I did a great job with my running, but still I managed to get in a decent amount of mileage generally around 24/week over the last 4 weeks, down from a peak of 41 in week 10 (out of 18 total). Then about a week ago, my legs got this strange soreness that continues to stick around. It's really not soreness, more like the fatigue that I feel late in a long run; it's all up in my hips as kind of feels like almost sharp pain moving longitudinally down my legs. I don't know what to make of that, but I guess it's something I'll have to deal with.
I keep telling myself, "I've put in the training, all that's left to do is relax and enjoy the weekend." If it's not there on race day, there's not much I can do, so just enjoy being in Chicago and the thought that I at least accomplished hard training through the Austin summer.
They have a tracking site setup for the race. If any of my one or two readers were to want to track my progress, they could go to this URL:
http://www.doitsports.com/results/MSG-signup.tcl?sub_event_id=2161
and get updates of my progress along the way.
Right now the weather forecasts are for a low on Sunday morning of around 63 and a high of 78. That's a bit warmer than I would prefer (55 and 68 would be about perfect) but not too bad. I've run the Austin Marathon three times, first was a 3:55 (2003) then a 3:38 (2006) and then a 3:45 (2007). My goal for this race is to hit my Boston qualifying time, which is 3:30. I think that on a good day I should be able to do it, but we'll have to see how Sunday goes.
My race strategy (to the extent that it matters; they're usually out the door in the first few miles for me) is to try to take it easy early on. There will be pace groups, but I'm not going to try to hang with the 3:30 group from the get go. I'm afraid that if I'm out of the gate right at 8:00/mile, that won't be the best strategy. It usually takes my body 20 minutes or so to settle into a rhythm, so if my first few miles are 9:00 or 8:30, I'm not going to worry. But I hope to get to the 10 mile point at no worse than 1:22. The next 10 miles are the "hang on" part of the race. I'd like to be right at 8:00 for these if I can still do that. That would get me to 20 at 2:42 or better. That leaves me 48 minutes for the final 10k to arrive at 3:30. I really don't think that I can go faster than a 48 minute 10 k at that point, and 50 is more reasonable.
The other thing is nutrition. I'm planning to take a GU every 30 minutes, regardless of how I feel. By the end of the race I'll be sick of the sweetness and texture, but it really does help me to keep my legs moving. I'm also hoping that Patty can meet me from time to time along the course and I'm planning to load her up with baggies of pretzels and fig newtons; I know that late in the race I usually really crave something salty and substantial. This will be better nutrition than I've done in my previous marathons, so I hope that it helps.
So there you have it. At a minimum I should have a fun weekend in Chicago with Patty and her sister Missy. That I'm looking forward to. And I will run the race and do my best to enjoy it, regardless of the outcome.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Fall
Well, fall actually came early this year to Austin. Normally we can count on September continuing as a part of full-fledged summer with highs in the high 90's and plenty of humidity. In fact, the highest temperatures that I remember in my 20 years in Austin have come in September (112, 110, and 108 degrees) during the last several years.
Growing up in Missouri, I was used to the idea that once you got through August, summer was over and you could look forward to substantially cooler temperatures. Yes, sometimes we had what we referred to as "indian summer" when it would be hot for a handful of days in September or even October, but the cool was always there, waiting to come right back. This has been one of the hardest adjustments for me to make to living in Austin. Summer generally stretches through September and even into the middle of October. You can't generally count on cool weather up until Halloween or so.
Anyway, after Ike moved through the state last weekend and we got no rain, only hot humid air, a cold front pushed in from the north. (I imagine that it was responsible for providing the impetus to push Ike off to the east and out of here so quickly.) So after Sunday's run, which was kind of alternatively hot an humid and then seemingly cooler and drier, we woke up Monday to nice cool fall air. And while this might not be so rare for mid September in general, the fact that it's stayed now for over a week is definitely not normal.
Fall really changes things around here. Maybe it's just in my state of mind, but when I wake up with the windows open and have to think about wearing long pants and shoes with socks, I know that things have changed. All summer, I spend in shorts and sandals, so even having to think about these things in the morning is a change. Also I haven't worn a shirt for a run probably since April or May. Now I begin to think about whether maybe I should? It's even a bit chilly in the morning as I head out the door, though I know that fifteen minutes into the run I'll begin to regret any decision to wear a shirt.
Fall also changes my thinking when it comes to eating. It opens up so many possibilities for other ingredients and for finally turning on the oven without any regrets. I love the flavors of fall, I think of mushrooms: the porcini and cremini flavoring soups or pastas, I think of apples, fresh Jonathans baked up in a pie or apple pancake, I think of moving back from white wine (which gets me through the summer here) and back into reds, Zinfandel and Cotes du Rhone, and most of all, I look forward to that first taste of butternut squash, usually flavored with sage, made up into a cannelloni or lasagne, the layers of flavor of the squash, the cheese and the cream all mixing together in a blessed sweet/savory taste that just screams out "fall" when it hits my tongue.
It's also a time to move from the light beers of summer into the heavier fall and winter beers: like oktoberfest, porter and stout, soon heading into the specialty holiday beers; to move from the cold cereal breakfasts of summer into hot oatmeal, farina and rice pudding breakfasts meant to warm you from the inside out. To work in the kitchen in the evening with the windows open, and note the way that the sound travels so much farther and clearer in the cool air.
Right now I'm thinking about hot baguettes coming out of the oven, dark on the outside, listening to the crust crackle and the loaves cool to room temperature. About maybe getting the rye starter out of the fridge and working to revive it, all so I can have the taste of that super complex whole wheat/rye bread that goes so well with the cool fall mornings and evenings. Or bread pudding, hot out of the oven, dotted with plump raisins.
Ok, now I've made myself hungry. I guess I'll have to stop thinking and go home and do some baking. Too bad smell doesn't translate into 1's and 0's...
Growing up in Missouri, I was used to the idea that once you got through August, summer was over and you could look forward to substantially cooler temperatures. Yes, sometimes we had what we referred to as "indian summer" when it would be hot for a handful of days in September or even October, but the cool was always there, waiting to come right back. This has been one of the hardest adjustments for me to make to living in Austin. Summer generally stretches through September and even into the middle of October. You can't generally count on cool weather up until Halloween or so.
Anyway, after Ike moved through the state last weekend and we got no rain, only hot humid air, a cold front pushed in from the north. (I imagine that it was responsible for providing the impetus to push Ike off to the east and out of here so quickly.) So after Sunday's run, which was kind of alternatively hot an humid and then seemingly cooler and drier, we woke up Monday to nice cool fall air. And while this might not be so rare for mid September in general, the fact that it's stayed now for over a week is definitely not normal.
Fall really changes things around here. Maybe it's just in my state of mind, but when I wake up with the windows open and have to think about wearing long pants and shoes with socks, I know that things have changed. All summer, I spend in shorts and sandals, so even having to think about these things in the morning is a change. Also I haven't worn a shirt for a run probably since April or May. Now I begin to think about whether maybe I should? It's even a bit chilly in the morning as I head out the door, though I know that fifteen minutes into the run I'll begin to regret any decision to wear a shirt.
Fall also changes my thinking when it comes to eating. It opens up so many possibilities for other ingredients and for finally turning on the oven without any regrets. I love the flavors of fall, I think of mushrooms: the porcini and cremini flavoring soups or pastas, I think of apples, fresh Jonathans baked up in a pie or apple pancake, I think of moving back from white wine (which gets me through the summer here) and back into reds, Zinfandel and Cotes du Rhone, and most of all, I look forward to that first taste of butternut squash, usually flavored with sage, made up into a cannelloni or lasagne, the layers of flavor of the squash, the cheese and the cream all mixing together in a blessed sweet/savory taste that just screams out "fall" when it hits my tongue.
It's also a time to move from the light beers of summer into the heavier fall and winter beers: like oktoberfest, porter and stout, soon heading into the specialty holiday beers; to move from the cold cereal breakfasts of summer into hot oatmeal, farina and rice pudding breakfasts meant to warm you from the inside out. To work in the kitchen in the evening with the windows open, and note the way that the sound travels so much farther and clearer in the cool air.
Right now I'm thinking about hot baguettes coming out of the oven, dark on the outside, listening to the crust crackle and the loaves cool to room temperature. About maybe getting the rye starter out of the fridge and working to revive it, all so I can have the taste of that super complex whole wheat/rye bread that goes so well with the cool fall mornings and evenings. Or bread pudding, hot out of the oven, dotted with plump raisins.
Ok, now I've made myself hungry. I guess I'll have to stop thinking and go home and do some baking. Too bad smell doesn't translate into 1's and 0's...
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Remembering Rick Wright
I would be remiss to not say something about the death of Rick Wright. He was not a personal friend of course, but stil,l as a founding member of Pink Floyd, he certainly had an impact on my life and has made many, many moments of it more enjoyable.
Anyway, I can't say anything significant about Rick that hasn't already been said by the various critics and fans. And I'm sure I can't say it nearly as well as many of them have said it. All I can offer is my own personal perspective of the beauty and warmth that I think his work brought into my life.
I never put a lot of thought into where the sound that was Pink Floyd really came from. I always knew that it was Roger who wrote the complex, depressing, "the world is out to get us all" lyrics and that David Gilmour's guitar could take me places that I never even imagined existed. And that, as with many great bands, the synergy of what the group produced far surpassed anything that any one of the individuals might be capable of on their own.
However, for some reason, it's Pink Floyd's music, of all the rock that I cut my teeth on back in my younger years, that still sticks with me today; that I can still listen to and feel the same sort of excitement and anticipation as I did when I was younger. Don't get me wrong, I still love Zeppelin, The Who and Rainbow, but it's not the same. (Ok, The Stones I still dig in a big way too, but that's a different kind of trip; and they were post-high school anyway). I know every lick of every song. But even so, with Floyd the music can still carry me to places that are somewhere else, somewhere outside of my body and provide me the opportunity to touch the cosmos, if only for a moment. (And I don't even need any sort of extracurriculars to help me get there any more.)
I never really put a lot of thought into it, other than the idea that Floyd had more elements of classical music than any other band I listened to. And I think that that sort of underlying structure of musical complexity ahead of any lyrical content is really what I'm getting at, or what I react to. (In fact, in some early Floyd I am still convinced that the actual content of the lyrics was secondary to the sound of the words, almost as if they were another instrument to be played as a part of the musical whole. Think "Mathilda Mother" or "Echos:"
Overhead the albatross
hangs motionless upon the air
and deep beneath the rolling waves
in labryinths of coral caves...
And with "The Great Gig in the Sky" they took this to its logical conclusion where the lyrics aren't even actual words, just another instrument in the mix, taking you to places of which actual words could only dream.)
But in reflection over the years, I realized that it was Wright who was probably in many ways responsible for this underlying depth and colour of the music. His palette of different sounds and moods created the complex underpinnings and backdrop against which all of Floyd's various melodies, whether soaring, gripping, majestic or just plain trippy could do their thing. I still want to have "A Saucerful of Secrets" played at my funeral.
Now, to be honest, I'm a huge Gilmour fan. And his guitar is like a force of the cosmos to me; I'm not sure that there's ever been a better guitar song in the history of the planet than "Comfortably Numb." (It's a dream of mine still to see him live in concert some day.) But I think that for the continuing depth of experience that I get out of Floyd's music, I owe much to Rick Wright.
Rest in peace, Rick. May your soul soar through the universe for eternity, the way your music allowed the rest of us to feel what that's like...
Anyway, I can't say anything significant about Rick that hasn't already been said by the various critics and fans. And I'm sure I can't say it nearly as well as many of them have said it. All I can offer is my own personal perspective of the beauty and warmth that I think his work brought into my life.
I never put a lot of thought into where the sound that was Pink Floyd really came from. I always knew that it was Roger who wrote the complex, depressing, "the world is out to get us all" lyrics and that David Gilmour's guitar could take me places that I never even imagined existed. And that, as with many great bands, the synergy of what the group produced far surpassed anything that any one of the individuals might be capable of on their own.
However, for some reason, it's Pink Floyd's music, of all the rock that I cut my teeth on back in my younger years, that still sticks with me today; that I can still listen to and feel the same sort of excitement and anticipation as I did when I was younger. Don't get me wrong, I still love Zeppelin, The Who and Rainbow, but it's not the same. (Ok, The Stones I still dig in a big way too, but that's a different kind of trip; and they were post-high school anyway). I know every lick of every song. But even so, with Floyd the music can still carry me to places that are somewhere else, somewhere outside of my body and provide me the opportunity to touch the cosmos, if only for a moment. (And I don't even need any sort of extracurriculars to help me get there any more.)
I never really put a lot of thought into it, other than the idea that Floyd had more elements of classical music than any other band I listened to. And I think that that sort of underlying structure of musical complexity ahead of any lyrical content is really what I'm getting at, or what I react to. (In fact, in some early Floyd I am still convinced that the actual content of the lyrics was secondary to the sound of the words, almost as if they were another instrument to be played as a part of the musical whole. Think "Mathilda Mother" or "Echos:"
Overhead the albatross
hangs motionless upon the air
and deep beneath the rolling waves
in labryinths of coral caves...
And with "The Great Gig in the Sky" they took this to its logical conclusion where the lyrics aren't even actual words, just another instrument in the mix, taking you to places of which actual words could only dream.)
But in reflection over the years, I realized that it was Wright who was probably in many ways responsible for this underlying depth and colour of the music. His palette of different sounds and moods created the complex underpinnings and backdrop against which all of Floyd's various melodies, whether soaring, gripping, majestic or just plain trippy could do their thing. I still want to have "A Saucerful of Secrets" played at my funeral.
Now, to be honest, I'm a huge Gilmour fan. And his guitar is like a force of the cosmos to me; I'm not sure that there's ever been a better guitar song in the history of the planet than "Comfortably Numb." (It's a dream of mine still to see him live in concert some day.) But I think that for the continuing depth of experience that I get out of Floyd's music, I owe much to Rick Wright.
Rest in peace, Rick. May your soul soar through the universe for eternity, the way your music allowed the rest of us to feel what that's like...
Monday, September 15, 2008
Of hurricanes and long runs
Ike had us in his sights for a while, but I've lived here long enough to know that we would be fine. All of those gulf hurricanes either make a hard right and rip up through east Texas or a hard left and go down to tear up Mexico. In Ike's case, it was the former. We had been warned about wind gusts of up to 50 mph and lots of rain, but as the storm track moved eastward, I had the sense that not much was going to happen here in Austin.
As it turned out, I was right. We could have used a few inches of rain, but all we got was hot, humid air. Really humid. "Sinking air" they call it, it comes on the west side of a hurricane if you're far enough away to not get caught in the rain bands. We had it with Rita a few years back; fortunately this time we didn't have the 108 degree temperatures that Rita brought, just 97 or so, which is pretty managable for this point in September.
I got up early Sunday to run. Jim said he was going to meet me at 7:30, planning to run 13. I just wanted to get 2+ hours in, somewhere in the 14-16 range. It was very hard to get out of bed; perhaps the hardest morning I've had yet. I don't know why, but it just was. I finally got moving and out of the house around 6:30. I got to Zilker and out of the car at about 6:50 and started my run. It's still pretty dark at that time; I had decided to do an out-and-back on the greenbelt to burn enough time until Jim arrived. That gave me about 40 minutes total to run.
The greenbelt is an amazing place at that time of day. There was just enough light to see, otherwise it's crazy to try running there, the rocks will do you in for sure. But in the sort of quarter-light of the dawn, it's really special to get back into the woods, with noone else around. Only bird sounds to keep you company, that and the occasional scurrying mamal. No owls this morning, but I did hear a red-tailed hawk off in the distance as I came back to the park.
I passed one guy on the way out and then again on the way back. But other than that I had the place to myself. I managed to not fall along the way, and just enjoyed some time in nature (in spite of the humidity). I made it back to the parking lot just in time to catch Jim getting out of his car.
We headed out on the eleven mile loop to Longhorn Dam and back. I figured that I had probably gotten 3+ miles in on the greenbelt, so with 11 more I'd be at my 14 for the day. While the humidity bore down on us, at times it would seem to strangely vanish. I knew that a cool front was supposed to be coming in, but I couldn't explain how it could feel oppressively humid at one moment and then cooler and dryer a few minutes later.
I felt pretty good along the way. At times we upped the tempo and coming back to the Mopac bridge Jim ran away from me. I had to keep telling myself it was ok to let him go. My tempo was at about 8:00, according to the quarter mile markers along the path, and I really didn't want to go any faster than that. He was probably hitting around 7:30 there towards the end.
I caught him at the water stop and we ran on together back to Zilker. He left me to do another 3 mile loop, but I was happy to be done and headed back to the car. I was more worn out than I had expected, but this is likely to be one of my last, if not my very last long run, so that put me in a good mood.
No hurricane, no rain. But the promise of a mid-September cold front and a cool week ahead. It's hard to ask for more (or at least expect it!) at this time of year.
As it turned out, I was right. We could have used a few inches of rain, but all we got was hot, humid air. Really humid. "Sinking air" they call it, it comes on the west side of a hurricane if you're far enough away to not get caught in the rain bands. We had it with Rita a few years back; fortunately this time we didn't have the 108 degree temperatures that Rita brought, just 97 or so, which is pretty managable for this point in September.
I got up early Sunday to run. Jim said he was going to meet me at 7:30, planning to run 13. I just wanted to get 2+ hours in, somewhere in the 14-16 range. It was very hard to get out of bed; perhaps the hardest morning I've had yet. I don't know why, but it just was. I finally got moving and out of the house around 6:30. I got to Zilker and out of the car at about 6:50 and started my run. It's still pretty dark at that time; I had decided to do an out-and-back on the greenbelt to burn enough time until Jim arrived. That gave me about 40 minutes total to run.
The greenbelt is an amazing place at that time of day. There was just enough light to see, otherwise it's crazy to try running there, the rocks will do you in for sure. But in the sort of quarter-light of the dawn, it's really special to get back into the woods, with noone else around. Only bird sounds to keep you company, that and the occasional scurrying mamal. No owls this morning, but I did hear a red-tailed hawk off in the distance as I came back to the park.
I passed one guy on the way out and then again on the way back. But other than that I had the place to myself. I managed to not fall along the way, and just enjoyed some time in nature (in spite of the humidity). I made it back to the parking lot just in time to catch Jim getting out of his car.
We headed out on the eleven mile loop to Longhorn Dam and back. I figured that I had probably gotten 3+ miles in on the greenbelt, so with 11 more I'd be at my 14 for the day. While the humidity bore down on us, at times it would seem to strangely vanish. I knew that a cool front was supposed to be coming in, but I couldn't explain how it could feel oppressively humid at one moment and then cooler and dryer a few minutes later.
I felt pretty good along the way. At times we upped the tempo and coming back to the Mopac bridge Jim ran away from me. I had to keep telling myself it was ok to let him go. My tempo was at about 8:00, according to the quarter mile markers along the path, and I really didn't want to go any faster than that. He was probably hitting around 7:30 there towards the end.
I caught him at the water stop and we ran on together back to Zilker. He left me to do another 3 mile loop, but I was happy to be done and headed back to the car. I was more worn out than I had expected, but this is likely to be one of my last, if not my very last long run, so that put me in a good mood.
No hurricane, no rain. But the promise of a mid-September cold front and a cool week ahead. It's hard to ask for more (or at least expect it!) at this time of year.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Swim Pactice
I've been a bad boy when it comes to swimming. And it shows...
Since the swim center is closed during the month of August every year, I take that month off and try to swim on my own. I had the best of intentions this year, but somehow it didn't really happen. I swam a little bit, about once a week. But not much more than that.
Now that UT is open again, I've started trying to get back in the habit of going in the mornings. Now that I'm back at a job in an office again, the noon practices really aren't an option. So if I'm going to swim, it will have to be in the mornings. But somehow, with my Tuesday and Thursday mornings taken up with early runs, I'm finding it difficult to convince myself to get up in time for swim practice at 6:30.
I did make it today. This is the third time in the last three weeks, only once a week. I'm not going to improve my swimming like that, but let's get through the marathon and then we'll see. I have some big ideas to improve my swimming this winter, but I'm discovering that it's really hard to do that while doing serious running too.
Anyway, I guess because the pool isn't in big use these days, probably because now that the Olympics are over the men and women aren't as interested in killing themselves every day, so the pool isn't in such demand. So this is the second of the three workouts I've attended that Whitney has used the whole pool for some sort of creative workout. Today it was 500 yard "snakes" i.e. starting at one end of the pool and swimming a 25 in one lane and then moving to the next lane and so on covering 20 lanes by the time it's all over (i.e. all lanes in the pool except for the two outermost). Then out of the water at one end and walk back to the other end and do it all over again.
We did nine of these snakes total. If memory serves me they were:
In the end, it was over 5000 yards. Even for a Whitney workout, that's pretty ambitious. Usually if we cross the 5000 threshold it means we're a) swimming a lot of free and b) not spending much time resting. Those were definitely both true for this workout!
Since the swim center is closed during the month of August every year, I take that month off and try to swim on my own. I had the best of intentions this year, but somehow it didn't really happen. I swam a little bit, about once a week. But not much more than that.
Now that UT is open again, I've started trying to get back in the habit of going in the mornings. Now that I'm back at a job in an office again, the noon practices really aren't an option. So if I'm going to swim, it will have to be in the mornings. But somehow, with my Tuesday and Thursday mornings taken up with early runs, I'm finding it difficult to convince myself to get up in time for swim practice at 6:30.
I did make it today. This is the third time in the last three weeks, only once a week. I'm not going to improve my swimming like that, but let's get through the marathon and then we'll see. I have some big ideas to improve my swimming this winter, but I'm discovering that it's really hard to do that while doing serious running too.
Anyway, I guess because the pool isn't in big use these days, probably because now that the Olympics are over the men and women aren't as interested in killing themselves every day, so the pool isn't in such demand. So this is the second of the three workouts I've attended that Whitney has used the whole pool for some sort of creative workout. Today it was 500 yard "snakes" i.e. starting at one end of the pool and swimming a 25 in one lane and then moving to the next lane and so on covering 20 lanes by the time it's all over (i.e. all lanes in the pool except for the two outermost). Then out of the water at one end and walk back to the other end and do it all over again.
We did nine of these snakes total. If memory serves me they were:
- swim
- 100 strong / 25 easy
- IM
- pull, 3 breaths per lap
- kick with fins
- 25 best / 25 worst (I did free/back)
- 100 free / 25 fast, IM order
- pull, breathe every 5th
- fast, for time.
In the end, it was over 5000 yards. Even for a Whitney workout, that's pretty ambitious. Usually if we cross the 5000 threshold it means we're a) swimming a lot of free and b) not spending much time resting. Those were definitely both true for this workout!
Monday, September 8, 2008
Another Sunday, another long run...
Sunday, September 7 2008, 2+ hours
After a week "off" so to speak, it was back on for this week. I ended up skipping the Tuesday run, after racing The Human Race on Sunday, because I was so tired as it turned out. But I managed to get 8 1/2 or so in on Thursday and another 5+ on Friday, so I was doing ok. I scheduled myself for another 2+ hour run, hoping to get in the 14-15 mile range. I was also planning to try some race pace running on this run, as in 2-3 miles warmup and then most of the rest of it at around my 8:00/mile race pace.
Jim was doing a supported ride on the Longhorn course and Scott's still out with back issues, but Dave said that he'd meet me at 7:30 and run. So my plan was to get going at around 6:30 and then only have about an hour left when I met up with Dave. Of course my plans never quite work out.
I got moving a little later than I had hoped. I had managed to hold my Saturday night drinking down in the "quite a bit" range, which is better then the "a lot" or "way too much" ranges that I frequently end up in. Still it was difficult to get up when the alarm went off at 5:50. I will say that during the night, I had woken up to hear a barred owl off in the distance, just down the greenbelt from where we live. The weather has been pretty nice lately, so I opened my window before going back to bed so I could listen to him. I don't know why, but hearing owls at night always gives me comfort. I think of it as a good omen. And here in town it's pretty rare to hear them, generally it's only screech owls, and even those you don't hear every day. So hearing him, combined with the fact that during my Thurday morning run I had run right beneath a great horned owl down in Old Enfield, and I was feeling pretty good. Still, the 5:50 wakeup was tough.
Especially when you consider that I didn't get out of bed until about 6:15. So by the time I ate and got packed, out the door and down to Zilker, it was 6:45 before I was on the trail. Still, that gave me 45 minutes to rack up some miles before I had to meet Dave. I did the S. 1st Street to Mopac loop, for about 5 miles total. (Ok, it's 4.77 according to mapmyrun.com.)
I had planned to stick with taking one GU every 30 minutes today, regardless of how I felt. I'm realizing that I really do get a kick of energy out of those things, it just lags them by 20 minutes or so. During the marathon, I'm convinced that I'll do a lot better if I make sure to take one every half hour, hoping that it will provide me with the energy I need to hold on for the last hour or so. So today was a test.
It was just getting light as I headed out on the trail. Right now, 6:45 is just about the exact time when there's finally more light from the sky than from the street lights. It will be getting later as we move into the fall of course, but for today getting on the trail right then was perfect. There were actually quite a lot of other people out there as well. I'm not the only crazy one, apparently.
The run was good, I checked my pace a time or two. I don't have a fancy Garmin or anything, I just kind of know my pace. And on the trail, there are markers every quarter mile, so it's easy to gauge how fast your going, so long as you know where the markers are and remember to look at your watch (and remember what you read on your watch). I wasn't down around 8:00 yet, more like 8:45 to 9:00, but that's ok for early in the run. Dave will make me speed up when he shows up, that I know.
I met up with him back at Barton at about 7:30. We head out, this time in the other direction. I suggest doing the I-35 loop with him (about 7 miles) and that's fine for him. So we move along, enjoying the scenery (trees, lake, girls) and talking the usual talk about kids, school, jobs, etc. Not long after the first water stop, I'm working to keep up with him. While my ambient pace seems to settle in around 8:15-8:30, I think that Dave's is naturally more like 7:40. So he's always pulling me along (or I'm always pulling him back, depending upon how you look at it). Anyway, I take a couple of time checks along the way and we're crusing along at something like 7:40/mile. A little too fast, but still it's better to be pushing myself today I decide.
I'm good about sticking with my GU/half hour plan, and I think that it helps. Still at times he runs away from me and has to wait for me to catch up. Finally, just after we cross the lake at I35, he tells me that he's going to run a little pace back to the S. 1st street water stop. So I let him go (it's better for us both, believe me ;-) and try to stay at my eight minute pace as best I can. (There are no markers on this part of the trail.)
We meet up at the water stop, but I've decided to cross the bridge and go back the long way, which will give me three more miles instead of just one. That's easier (psychologically anyway) than running the one mile and then picking up the other two on an out-and-back. I feel good, and manage to keep the pace pretty well the rest of the way. Every time check comes in right at 8:00, so I'm happy with my overall performance.
In the end it was 2:10, 14 miles and 4 GUs. I think that I kept my pace pretty well. And in retrospect here from a couple of days, I think that I definitely feel that. I'm more worn out than I've been from most of my long runs. It gave me some confidence for race day, but I definitely don't want to do that again.
Also, my left achilles tendon is quite sore. This is the closest thing that I've felt to an injury during all of my training. I've been wondering, as tired and worn down as I've felt over the last month or so, how long my body could keep doing this and not start to pay a price. I may have an answer now. I'll keep off of it and only run a little bit at first to see how it responds. At this point I think that I have my training and endurance there for the race. It's most important to stay healthy up until race day.
After a week "off" so to speak, it was back on for this week. I ended up skipping the Tuesday run, after racing The Human Race on Sunday, because I was so tired as it turned out. But I managed to get 8 1/2 or so in on Thursday and another 5+ on Friday, so I was doing ok. I scheduled myself for another 2+ hour run, hoping to get in the 14-15 mile range. I was also planning to try some race pace running on this run, as in 2-3 miles warmup and then most of the rest of it at around my 8:00/mile race pace.
Jim was doing a supported ride on the Longhorn course and Scott's still out with back issues, but Dave said that he'd meet me at 7:30 and run. So my plan was to get going at around 6:30 and then only have about an hour left when I met up with Dave. Of course my plans never quite work out.
I got moving a little later than I had hoped. I had managed to hold my Saturday night drinking down in the "quite a bit" range, which is better then the "a lot" or "way too much" ranges that I frequently end up in. Still it was difficult to get up when the alarm went off at 5:50. I will say that during the night, I had woken up to hear a barred owl off in the distance, just down the greenbelt from where we live. The weather has been pretty nice lately, so I opened my window before going back to bed so I could listen to him. I don't know why, but hearing owls at night always gives me comfort. I think of it as a good omen. And here in town it's pretty rare to hear them, generally it's only screech owls, and even those you don't hear every day. So hearing him, combined with the fact that during my Thurday morning run I had run right beneath a great horned owl down in Old Enfield, and I was feeling pretty good. Still, the 5:50 wakeup was tough.
Especially when you consider that I didn't get out of bed until about 6:15. So by the time I ate and got packed, out the door and down to Zilker, it was 6:45 before I was on the trail. Still, that gave me 45 minutes to rack up some miles before I had to meet Dave. I did the S. 1st Street to Mopac loop, for about 5 miles total. (Ok, it's 4.77 according to mapmyrun.com.)
I had planned to stick with taking one GU every 30 minutes today, regardless of how I felt. I'm realizing that I really do get a kick of energy out of those things, it just lags them by 20 minutes or so. During the marathon, I'm convinced that I'll do a lot better if I make sure to take one every half hour, hoping that it will provide me with the energy I need to hold on for the last hour or so. So today was a test.
It was just getting light as I headed out on the trail. Right now, 6:45 is just about the exact time when there's finally more light from the sky than from the street lights. It will be getting later as we move into the fall of course, but for today getting on the trail right then was perfect. There were actually quite a lot of other people out there as well. I'm not the only crazy one, apparently.
The run was good, I checked my pace a time or two. I don't have a fancy Garmin or anything, I just kind of know my pace. And on the trail, there are markers every quarter mile, so it's easy to gauge how fast your going, so long as you know where the markers are and remember to look at your watch (and remember what you read on your watch). I wasn't down around 8:00 yet, more like 8:45 to 9:00, but that's ok for early in the run. Dave will make me speed up when he shows up, that I know.
I met up with him back at Barton at about 7:30. We head out, this time in the other direction. I suggest doing the I-35 loop with him (about 7 miles) and that's fine for him. So we move along, enjoying the scenery (trees, lake, girls) and talking the usual talk about kids, school, jobs, etc. Not long after the first water stop, I'm working to keep up with him. While my ambient pace seems to settle in around 8:15-8:30, I think that Dave's is naturally more like 7:40. So he's always pulling me along (or I'm always pulling him back, depending upon how you look at it). Anyway, I take a couple of time checks along the way and we're crusing along at something like 7:40/mile. A little too fast, but still it's better to be pushing myself today I decide.
I'm good about sticking with my GU/half hour plan, and I think that it helps. Still at times he runs away from me and has to wait for me to catch up. Finally, just after we cross the lake at I35, he tells me that he's going to run a little pace back to the S. 1st street water stop. So I let him go (it's better for us both, believe me ;-) and try to stay at my eight minute pace as best I can. (There are no markers on this part of the trail.)
We meet up at the water stop, but I've decided to cross the bridge and go back the long way, which will give me three more miles instead of just one. That's easier (psychologically anyway) than running the one mile and then picking up the other two on an out-and-back. I feel good, and manage to keep the pace pretty well the rest of the way. Every time check comes in right at 8:00, so I'm happy with my overall performance.
In the end it was 2:10, 14 miles and 4 GUs. I think that I kept my pace pretty well. And in retrospect here from a couple of days, I think that I definitely feel that. I'm more worn out than I've been from most of my long runs. It gave me some confidence for race day, but I definitely don't want to do that again.
Also, my left achilles tendon is quite sore. This is the closest thing that I've felt to an injury during all of my training. I've been wondering, as tired and worn down as I've felt over the last month or so, how long my body could keep doing this and not start to pay a price. I may have an answer now. I'll keep off of it and only run a little bit at first to see how it responds. At this point I think that I have my training and endurance there for the race. It's most important to stay healthy up until race day.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Sunday Long Run
Ugh, 5:30 on Sunday morning comes way too early... But up and out of bed I get, eat my cereal, load up everything: water bottle, 5 packs of GU, watch sweat rag, glasses, cell phone, keys and (of course) my driver's license. I'm out the door by 5:50 and at Barton Springs by 6:00. I got out of the car and finally on the trail by 6:03. Dave said that he was going to meet me at 6:30, so I wanted to get some mileage in before he shows up.
It's still pitch dark at six these days, so as I headed out and got away from the lights pretty quickly. I headed out on the hike and bike trail towards Mopac. I was completely alone on the trail. The only light was from the moon, a fat crescent that stood straight overhead. The trees cast moon shadows on the trail as I ran. It was really beautiful, having the trail all to myself, with only an occasional runner or two coming the other way to keep me company.
I ran all the way to the RunTex water coolers at Mopac, took a quick drink and headed back. I was back in Zilker by 6:33 or so and Dave was waiting for me. He says that he's in for as much as an hour and a half, so we set off on our normal Longhorn Dam loop on the hike and bike. Conversation floats around the usual stuff: kids, jobs, the weather, training. It's hot and humid and I have to not think about how much it hurts to run, but just stay in the conversation and appreciate the fact that I'm outside, by the lake, in the trees and watching the sun rise in front of me.
Overall, the run is good. There are enough people on the trail at this time to make it interesting but not so many as to be crowded. People watching is good; lots of sweat, a GU every 40 minutes or so and the time passes. It's great to have company, that makes a big difference on these really long runs. Finishing this loop will add 11 miles to the 3 that I started out with, but I still need more than that. So back at the Barton Creek footbridge, I bid Dave goodbye and continue on for another loop. One more time around S. First St. to Mopac will give me another four miles, which should get me up to 18 for the day. I'll be happy with that.
I notice that at some different points during my last four mile loop I feel totally worn out and then suddenly I find myself feeling great. It never lasts; the fatigue always sets back in, but I realize that these periods of feeling good tend to follow the previous GU by about 20-30 minutes. I guess that the quick energy really does make a difference. I'll have to remember that and get in the habit for the marathon of taking something every 30 minutes whether I feel like it or not.
In the end, I roll back into Zilker at about 8:55. So the total was around 2:45, 18 miles. I'm exhausted, but feel good. I made it through the week, which may be my highest mileage for the whole training. Now I get to back off for a week before having to pick things back up. The total mileage for the week is right at 41.
It's still pitch dark at six these days, so as I headed out and got away from the lights pretty quickly. I headed out on the hike and bike trail towards Mopac. I was completely alone on the trail. The only light was from the moon, a fat crescent that stood straight overhead. The trees cast moon shadows on the trail as I ran. It was really beautiful, having the trail all to myself, with only an occasional runner or two coming the other way to keep me company.
I ran all the way to the RunTex water coolers at Mopac, took a quick drink and headed back. I was back in Zilker by 6:33 or so and Dave was waiting for me. He says that he's in for as much as an hour and a half, so we set off on our normal Longhorn Dam loop on the hike and bike. Conversation floats around the usual stuff: kids, jobs, the weather, training. It's hot and humid and I have to not think about how much it hurts to run, but just stay in the conversation and appreciate the fact that I'm outside, by the lake, in the trees and watching the sun rise in front of me.
Overall, the run is good. There are enough people on the trail at this time to make it interesting but not so many as to be crowded. People watching is good; lots of sweat, a GU every 40 minutes or so and the time passes. It's great to have company, that makes a big difference on these really long runs. Finishing this loop will add 11 miles to the 3 that I started out with, but I still need more than that. So back at the Barton Creek footbridge, I bid Dave goodbye and continue on for another loop. One more time around S. First St. to Mopac will give me another four miles, which should get me up to 18 for the day. I'll be happy with that.
I notice that at some different points during my last four mile loop I feel totally worn out and then suddenly I find myself feeling great. It never lasts; the fatigue always sets back in, but I realize that these periods of feeling good tend to follow the previous GU by about 20-30 minutes. I guess that the quick energy really does make a difference. I'll have to remember that and get in the habit for the marathon of taking something every 30 minutes whether I feel like it or not.
In the end, I roll back into Zilker at about 8:55. So the total was around 2:45, 18 miles. I'm exhausted, but feel good. I made it through the week, which may be my highest mileage for the whole training. Now I get to back off for a week before having to pick things back up. The total mileage for the week is right at 41.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The big week...
This was my biggest week yet, and probably the most mileage I'll do in a single week during my run up to Chicago. After last week, the fatigue was starting to really set into my legs. Looking back at my training log, I see that my mileage over the last eight weeks was:
27, 20, 33, 37, 31, 27, 33 and 34
That's pretty substantial for a guy like me. No wonder I feel so tired. But last Saturday's long run went really well, so I'm hoping that this week won't be as hard.
The week started out with a non-run on Tuesday. The alarm went of at 6:15 and I started to rouse myself. But a few minutes later I heard the rain start coming down hard. It does that around here. From nothing to flat-out pouring in a matter of seconds. As I lay in bed listening to the rain, I thought, "if I were already out and it started to rain like that I would keep going. But I'm not going to head out the door into that..." So I rolled over and went back to sleep. Never mind that 25 minutes later it wasn't raining any more, my decision was made. Besides I was very comfortable.
So the whole week started by slipping back a day. I got up on Wednesday for my aerobic 10 miler, trying out a new route that took me up Shoal Creek, across at Far West and then back down Balcones. Lots of hills, but as a relatively easy run, it was different and interesting. I finished up a little after eight and got into my day. My legs definitely felt tired, but not especially worn out the rest of the day.
I followed up Wednesday's run with an easy four miler on Thursday. Friday was anything but easy.
Friday's schedule called for 70 minutes of tempo. I had never done anything quite like that (other than last week's 60 minute tempo I suppose) and I wasn't looking forward to it. Still, I told myself that being out and running in the morning would be great, and I believed it enough to get out there. Things started easy enough. But at about 14 minutes, I started into the tempo part. 70 minutes is a really long time when you can't wait for the end, and so I tried to not think to much about anything except keeping my turnover going. The route was the 9.5 mile Shoal Creek / Foster / Great Northern loop. Early into the tempo, just as I started to feel good I heard steps behind me. Some guy with a fuel belt cruised past me. So much for feeling strong...
In the end, I managed to do it. I can't really do fast tempo the whole time, so I have to concentrate on staying strong and picking things up as I move along, finally running down around 7:40 - 7:20 during the last 15 minutes or so. (I hope anyway; though maybe I'm just so tired it only feels like that.)
I think that this was perhaps the most grueling run workout that I've ever done. I know that the rest of the day Friday and onto Saturday, my legs were more tired than they've almost ever been. And boy am I dreading my three hour run on Sunday.
27, 20, 33, 37, 31, 27, 33 and 34
That's pretty substantial for a guy like me. No wonder I feel so tired. But last Saturday's long run went really well, so I'm hoping that this week won't be as hard.
The week started out with a non-run on Tuesday. The alarm went of at 6:15 and I started to rouse myself. But a few minutes later I heard the rain start coming down hard. It does that around here. From nothing to flat-out pouring in a matter of seconds. As I lay in bed listening to the rain, I thought, "if I were already out and it started to rain like that I would keep going. But I'm not going to head out the door into that..." So I rolled over and went back to sleep. Never mind that 25 minutes later it wasn't raining any more, my decision was made. Besides I was very comfortable.
So the whole week started by slipping back a day. I got up on Wednesday for my aerobic 10 miler, trying out a new route that took me up Shoal Creek, across at Far West and then back down Balcones. Lots of hills, but as a relatively easy run, it was different and interesting. I finished up a little after eight and got into my day. My legs definitely felt tired, but not especially worn out the rest of the day.
I followed up Wednesday's run with an easy four miler on Thursday. Friday was anything but easy.
Friday's schedule called for 70 minutes of tempo. I had never done anything quite like that (other than last week's 60 minute tempo I suppose) and I wasn't looking forward to it. Still, I told myself that being out and running in the morning would be great, and I believed it enough to get out there. Things started easy enough. But at about 14 minutes, I started into the tempo part. 70 minutes is a really long time when you can't wait for the end, and so I tried to not think to much about anything except keeping my turnover going. The route was the 9.5 mile Shoal Creek / Foster / Great Northern loop. Early into the tempo, just as I started to feel good I heard steps behind me. Some guy with a fuel belt cruised past me. So much for feeling strong...
In the end, I managed to do it. I can't really do fast tempo the whole time, so I have to concentrate on staying strong and picking things up as I move along, finally running down around 7:40 - 7:20 during the last 15 minutes or so. (I hope anyway; though maybe I'm just so tired it only feels like that.)
I think that this was perhaps the most grueling run workout that I've ever done. I know that the rest of the day Friday and onto Saturday, my legs were more tired than they've almost ever been. And boy am I dreading my three hour run on Sunday.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Austin Triahlete's Open Water Swim
Sunday was the Austin Trithlete's Open Water Swim. This is the new late-summer edition to complement the one that happens in late spring. It used to be the Austin Aquatics open water swim and was a USMS sponsored event, but AT took it over a few years back. Now it's a USA Triathlon sponsored event and this year they changed it from the more swimmer-specific distances (800M, 1 mile and 5k) to the triathlon-specific distances of 800M, 1.2 miles and 2.4 miles.
Sunday was actually cool with a threat of rain. The first cool day since early May as far as I can remember, we have a rare late-summer cold front moving in from Colorado and giving us cool weather and a chance of rain. Fortunately the weather held long enough to get the race in.
I parked outside and walked into the park. The race is held at the LCRA Mansfield Dam park. There was a bigger crowd than I expected. It looked like probably on the order of 100 people were entered in the race. I got my packet, which included a cool AT mesh bag with a zipper pocket. Cool, I already had something to show for my $33 entry fee ;-)
I had brought my Fastskin legskin just in case, but the water was really warm and I thought better of wearing it. So I just went with the standard issue speedo. Open water tends to be where I'm at my best, and if everyone else can't wear wetsuits, I'm in pretty good shape. They said that the water temperature was 88. I had debated between the 2.4 and 1.2 mile distance, but because I haven't been swimming that much, and I'm so worn down from my marathon training I decided on the shorter distance. The fact that the water was so warm made me feel better about my decision.
They started us in 4 waves. The 800 meter swimmers went first. They were going around the point and then into the cove and back. For the 1.2 and 2.4 mile swimmers, we had to go down the coastline past the cove all the way to the yellow buoy and then back. The course was marked on the way out by a series of orange buoys. The 2.4 people had to do the loop twice, we only had to do it once. After the 800M start, the 2.4 people started. Then they started the 39 and under 1.2 mile swimmers, and last my wave of 40 and over 1.2 milers.
It's nice to start in a relatively small wave. Compared to some tris, where the wave is big and I have to do my best to get up front and avoid getting clobbered. Also, with tris, I tend to go out as fast as I can for the first 100 meters or so to see if I can separate myself from the pack as quickly as possible. With open water swims, I take a little different of a approach; I don't feel the need to go out as quickly because I figure that everyone there is a decent swimmer and it's not as important to separate myself quickly.
There was an older guy next to me. He went out quickly, so I figured that if he was really that fast I'd just draft off of him. I got right on his feet and tried to draft. But there's a funny thing about drafting, when you're off to the side of someone you might have to work to keep up with them, but then you get behind their feet and after a couple of strokes you're catching them and hitting their feet. So I kept catching him; after about 50 yards of this I decided to go on past him. Either he's not fast enough or I would get tired quickly and catch him again when he came by. I didn't see him again until the finish, when he arrived about 5 minutes after me, so I guess I made the right decision.
By the first buoy at about 100 yards I was already too hot. At this point I was glad that I had chosen the 1.2 over the 2.4 swim; I'll save the 2.4 until the spring when the water is colder.
I turned the 90 degree at the first buoy and headed down the lake. After a minute or so a curious thing happened; the orange buoys were suddenly about 20 yards off to my left. I think that I do a pretty good job of sighting when swimming in open water, so I was surprised that I could have gotten this far off course in such a short period. Clearly at this point the best strategy (as always) was to just sight down the line and keep going, correcting my course slowly. After another minute or so I could see the yellow buoy at the end, so I sighted on it the rest of the way, pulling myself slowly back on course. I'm convinced that the course must have been a bit curved, and that following from orange buoy to orange buoy would actually have been a longer course than the one I took.
At any rate, being so far out kept me away from most of the other swimmers. Already at the first buoy I had started to run into the wave in front of us, and as I moved along I continued to pass other swimmers. Still it's a lot better than a triathlon, because very few swimmers are swimming the breast stroke, so you don't have to be so worried about their feet kicking you.
The race was pretty uneventful from there on. It was just hot enough to make me tired and I keep my turnover going as well as I could. Many times I though about how glad I was that I didn't have to make a second loop. Eventually I got to the yellow buoy, backstroked around it and headed home.
On the way back I continued to pass people, now mostly white caps (the 2.4 milers). I felt sorry for them. I guess I followed the buoys pretty well on the way back, but if they were bowed in this direction then there was no shortcut like on the way down. I came back to the point, turned around it and started trying to sight on the finishing chute. The water suddenly got very shallow and I had to shorten my strokes to keep from hitting the bottom. I had to correct my course out to the left back towards deep water until I could stroke fully again.
At about 100 to 75 meters out I decided that I was close enough to the end to bring up my finishing kick. When I'm trying to drop someone, especially at the end of an open water swim, I use my kick to try to do it. I can only do about a minute or two of hard swimming with a full kick, so I try to reserve it as much as possible. There were several people finishing up at this point right ahead of me, all 1.2 milers probably from the wave ahead of me. I decided to pass as many of them as I could.
I have to say that my finishing kick didn't last for too long. It got me moving, but after 30 seconds or so I started to feel sick and probably had to slow down some. I guess the combination of being out of conditioning and the hot water got the best of me. Anyway, I got to the finish and did everything I could to get to my feet and cross the mat. It's amazing how hard it is to get up and move forward on your feet after being in the water like that.
In the end, I finished in 31:58, fifth overall and good enough to take the overall master's winner. Actually there was one guy who beat me in my age group, but he turned out to be the overall winner. Results here. I got a cool Rocket Science transition backpack to show for my effort.
Sunday was actually cool with a threat of rain. The first cool day since early May as far as I can remember, we have a rare late-summer cold front moving in from Colorado and giving us cool weather and a chance of rain. Fortunately the weather held long enough to get the race in.
I parked outside and walked into the park. The race is held at the LCRA Mansfield Dam park. There was a bigger crowd than I expected. It looked like probably on the order of 100 people were entered in the race. I got my packet, which included a cool AT mesh bag with a zipper pocket. Cool, I already had something to show for my $33 entry fee ;-)
I had brought my Fastskin legskin just in case, but the water was really warm and I thought better of wearing it. So I just went with the standard issue speedo. Open water tends to be where I'm at my best, and if everyone else can't wear wetsuits, I'm in pretty good shape. They said that the water temperature was 88. I had debated between the 2.4 and 1.2 mile distance, but because I haven't been swimming that much, and I'm so worn down from my marathon training I decided on the shorter distance. The fact that the water was so warm made me feel better about my decision.
They started us in 4 waves. The 800 meter swimmers went first. They were going around the point and then into the cove and back. For the 1.2 and 2.4 mile swimmers, we had to go down the coastline past the cove all the way to the yellow buoy and then back. The course was marked on the way out by a series of orange buoys. The 2.4 people had to do the loop twice, we only had to do it once. After the 800M start, the 2.4 people started. Then they started the 39 and under 1.2 mile swimmers, and last my wave of 40 and over 1.2 milers.
It's nice to start in a relatively small wave. Compared to some tris, where the wave is big and I have to do my best to get up front and avoid getting clobbered. Also, with tris, I tend to go out as fast as I can for the first 100 meters or so to see if I can separate myself from the pack as quickly as possible. With open water swims, I take a little different of a approach; I don't feel the need to go out as quickly because I figure that everyone there is a decent swimmer and it's not as important to separate myself quickly.
There was an older guy next to me. He went out quickly, so I figured that if he was really that fast I'd just draft off of him. I got right on his feet and tried to draft. But there's a funny thing about drafting, when you're off to the side of someone you might have to work to keep up with them, but then you get behind their feet and after a couple of strokes you're catching them and hitting their feet. So I kept catching him; after about 50 yards of this I decided to go on past him. Either he's not fast enough or I would get tired quickly and catch him again when he came by. I didn't see him again until the finish, when he arrived about 5 minutes after me, so I guess I made the right decision.
By the first buoy at about 100 yards I was already too hot. At this point I was glad that I had chosen the 1.2 over the 2.4 swim; I'll save the 2.4 until the spring when the water is colder.
I turned the 90 degree at the first buoy and headed down the lake. After a minute or so a curious thing happened; the orange buoys were suddenly about 20 yards off to my left. I think that I do a pretty good job of sighting when swimming in open water, so I was surprised that I could have gotten this far off course in such a short period. Clearly at this point the best strategy (as always) was to just sight down the line and keep going, correcting my course slowly. After another minute or so I could see the yellow buoy at the end, so I sighted on it the rest of the way, pulling myself slowly back on course. I'm convinced that the course must have been a bit curved, and that following from orange buoy to orange buoy would actually have been a longer course than the one I took.
At any rate, being so far out kept me away from most of the other swimmers. Already at the first buoy I had started to run into the wave in front of us, and as I moved along I continued to pass other swimmers. Still it's a lot better than a triathlon, because very few swimmers are swimming the breast stroke, so you don't have to be so worried about their feet kicking you.
The race was pretty uneventful from there on. It was just hot enough to make me tired and I keep my turnover going as well as I could. Many times I though about how glad I was that I didn't have to make a second loop. Eventually I got to the yellow buoy, backstroked around it and headed home.
On the way back I continued to pass people, now mostly white caps (the 2.4 milers). I felt sorry for them. I guess I followed the buoys pretty well on the way back, but if they were bowed in this direction then there was no shortcut like on the way down. I came back to the point, turned around it and started trying to sight on the finishing chute. The water suddenly got very shallow and I had to shorten my strokes to keep from hitting the bottom. I had to correct my course out to the left back towards deep water until I could stroke fully again.
At about 100 to 75 meters out I decided that I was close enough to the end to bring up my finishing kick. When I'm trying to drop someone, especially at the end of an open water swim, I use my kick to try to do it. I can only do about a minute or two of hard swimming with a full kick, so I try to reserve it as much as possible. There were several people finishing up at this point right ahead of me, all 1.2 milers probably from the wave ahead of me. I decided to pass as many of them as I could.
I have to say that my finishing kick didn't last for too long. It got me moving, but after 30 seconds or so I started to feel sick and probably had to slow down some. I guess the combination of being out of conditioning and the hot water got the best of me. Anyway, I got to the finish and did everything I could to get to my feet and cross the mat. It's amazing how hard it is to get up and move forward on your feet after being in the water like that.
In the end, I finished in 31:58, fifth overall and good enough to take the overall master's winner. Actually there was one guy who beat me in my age group, but he turned out to be the overall winner. Results here. I got a cool Rocket Science transition backpack to show for my effort.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Saturday Long Run
I moved my long run up from Sunday to Saturday this weekend so I can do the Austin Triathlete's open water swim on Sunday. I definitely didn't feel like running on Saturday though, but I managed to get up, make coffee and see Patty off to work before starting my run around 7:45. The schedule called for 2.5 hours, but I decided that I would be happy with 2 since I was doing it all alone and also that I was racing tomorrow.
I got out the door and started moving, not really feeling like it at all. But a strange thing happened after the last couple of painful runs; I felt really good. I can't explain it, but training is strange like that, and after the last couple of runs I'll take it.
It wasn't terribly hot, but the humidity was up there. At one point as I ran along the trail Fish (Andrea Fisher) and Louie came up alongside me and ran with me for a mile or so. They were in the final week of their taper leading up to Ironman Canada and doing a 75 minute run. It was nice to have someone to break the monotony, though I was just as glad to not have to continue with them as they headed into Tarrytown; I wasn't going to be able to keep pace with them for the whole remaining hour and a half.
I stayed on the trail to pick up an extra four mile loop between Mopac and S. First St I felt really good; at one point I checked my time by the mile markers and was holding at around 8:10 miles. I finished my loop and headed out into Tarrytown myself, going up Lake Austin Blvd. to Windsor and back home. Total time about 2 hours (1:45 of actual running) and around 12.5 miles.
I got out the door and started moving, not really feeling like it at all. But a strange thing happened after the last couple of painful runs; I felt really good. I can't explain it, but training is strange like that, and after the last couple of runs I'll take it.
It wasn't terribly hot, but the humidity was up there. At one point as I ran along the trail Fish (Andrea Fisher) and Louie came up alongside me and ran with me for a mile or so. They were in the final week of their taper leading up to Ironman Canada and doing a 75 minute run. It was nice to have someone to break the monotony, though I was just as glad to not have to continue with them as they headed into Tarrytown; I wasn't going to be able to keep pace with them for the whole remaining hour and a half.
I stayed on the trail to pick up an extra four mile loop between Mopac and S. First St I felt really good; at one point I checked my time by the mile markers and was holding at around 8:10 miles. I finished my loop and headed out into Tarrytown myself, going up Lake Austin Blvd. to Windsor and back home. Total time about 2 hours (1:45 of actual running) and around 12.5 miles.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Tempo again
I think that this week, the fatigue of marathon training has finally begun to set in. I had been feeling pretty good, even though at times during runs I would feel pretty tired. But this week, for the first time I started to feel fatigue from run to run.
Coming off of my two hour run on Sunday, I had a 10 miler scheduled for Tuesday. I ran my basic 10 mile loop, which is just my basic 6 mile loop to the lake and back with a four mile loop on the hike and bike trail added in. Things went fine, but from the get go my legs felt tired. I timed myself between a few of the markers down on the trail, and even though I thought I was going well every time I ended up with a 9:30 or so mile. But I finished and felt pretty good overall.
Tuesday was a 10 miler, but it was just an aerobic run. My Thursday runs I look forward to less because they're tempo runs and I always hate the anticipation of pain. This Thursday was scheduled for 60 minutes of tempo after last week's 50. I decided to go for a flatter route and head up Shoal Creek, assuming that 15 minutes warm-up + 60 minutes tempo + ~5 minutes cool down would equate to around 8 miles.
As with Tuesday, I felt tired from the start. I was slow for the first 15 minutes, well short of where I would normally arrive in that time. I started the tempo; without something to tell me exactly how far I'm running it's hard to really measure my pace, but I kind of know the difference between 8:30, 8:00 and 7:40. I try during these tempo runs to start out easier, around 8:15 and keep ratcheting it up every 10 minutes or so, hoping to end around 7:40 or faster. I have no idea whether I did that or not on Thursday, though I can say for sure that it hurt pretty badly by the end...
I've noticed in these weekly runs how it's getting darker early in the morning. I generally get started around 6:30 - 6:45, and now it's still pretty dark at 6:30. Also, while it's cool in the mornings, the humidity is higher. I knew when I signed up for Chicago, that it would mean training hard during the hottest time of the year here in Austin, and I'm not disappointed ;-) I've always theorized about training hard through the summer here, but it's a lot easier to imagine it and do it in your head than to do it for real. But I hope that this will make me tougher in the end. I have to admit, that when I'm running 8 minute miles out there and my legs are tired, I can't really imagine doing that for a full 26 miles, but that's where I hope to end up.
Coming off of my two hour run on Sunday, I had a 10 miler scheduled for Tuesday. I ran my basic 10 mile loop, which is just my basic 6 mile loop to the lake and back with a four mile loop on the hike and bike trail added in. Things went fine, but from the get go my legs felt tired. I timed myself between a few of the markers down on the trail, and even though I thought I was going well every time I ended up with a 9:30 or so mile. But I finished and felt pretty good overall.
Tuesday was a 10 miler, but it was just an aerobic run. My Thursday runs I look forward to less because they're tempo runs and I always hate the anticipation of pain. This Thursday was scheduled for 60 minutes of tempo after last week's 50. I decided to go for a flatter route and head up Shoal Creek, assuming that 15 minutes warm-up + 60 minutes tempo + ~5 minutes cool down would equate to around 8 miles.
As with Tuesday, I felt tired from the start. I was slow for the first 15 minutes, well short of where I would normally arrive in that time. I started the tempo; without something to tell me exactly how far I'm running it's hard to really measure my pace, but I kind of know the difference between 8:30, 8:00 and 7:40. I try during these tempo runs to start out easier, around 8:15 and keep ratcheting it up every 10 minutes or so, hoping to end around 7:40 or faster. I have no idea whether I did that or not on Thursday, though I can say for sure that it hurt pretty badly by the end...
I've noticed in these weekly runs how it's getting darker early in the morning. I generally get started around 6:30 - 6:45, and now it's still pretty dark at 6:30. Also, while it's cool in the mornings, the humidity is higher. I knew when I signed up for Chicago, that it would mean training hard during the hottest time of the year here in Austin, and I'm not disappointed ;-) I've always theorized about training hard through the summer here, but it's a lot easier to imagine it and do it in your head than to do it for real. But I hope that this will make me tougher in the end. I have to admit, that when I'm running 8 minute miles out there and my legs are tired, I can't really imagine doing that for a full 26 miles, but that's where I hope to end up.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Another long run
Sunday morning, the alarm goes off way too early, especially after a late night watching Olympics. My goal is to be out and running at 6:30, but things move slowly and it's 6:45 before I'm parked and out of my car at Barton Springs. Jim said he'd meet me starting at 7, so I only have a little bit of time for a short out-and-back on the greenbelt before catching up with him. I've given up on wearing sunglasses during these early morning runs. By the time the sun comes up and I need them, they're too dripping with sweat to be of any use. I grab my water bottle and a couple of GUs and we hit the road.
Jim is only in for 70 minutes or so today. Note that when Jim says "70 minutes" he means exactly 70 minutes of _running_ and doesn't count any of that other time. I'm a lot more, uh, flexible in how I count my time, either just looking at my watch when we start ("well, we started at eight and now it says 9:30, so that's an hour and a half") or actually starting the stopwatch when we hit the road, but not stopping it every time we stop for water.
So we head out of Zilker and run the I35 loop on the hike and bike trail. It's not a bad morning, but as usual, the humidity starts to overwhelm you after a while. My legs are feeling tired today; I ran a 4 mile recovery run yesterday and I don't feel like it recovered me too much. I guess that the training mileage is starting to wear on me.
The loop is fine, the sun comes up, I sweat a lot and eat a GU somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, without Dave or Scott, we have no excuse to stop at all of the water fountains along the way since Jim and I each carry our own water. I realize how much my run around the lake is broken up into fountain-to-fountain segments, and it hurts (mentally anyway) when I have to keep running past one of those fountains. But still, it's only about an hour and fifteen minutes and we're cruising back into Zilker. Jim, of course, has kept track of his real running time and delcares that he needs another ten to fifteen minutes. I know that, under whatever circumstances, I really need about another 40 minutes or so, so we head out on the greenbelt.
Now my legs are tired and I'm ready to stop, but I will say that time on the greenbelt goes by much faster than on the road or even the hike and bike. Jim turns around after 10 minutes or so, I keep going aiming to go out 25 minutes. It's funny how the "back" part always seems to happen faster than the out, so I've learned if I really care about the time to add an extra five minutes on the out side. Anyway, it's really nice on the trail and I can mostly forget about how hard it is to run this last half hour. I pass a few people with their dogs and some mountain bikers blow past me, but mostly it's just quiet and beautiful out here.
Finally I turn back at 25 minutes and make it back to the parking lot. As I arrive, I meet a woman who looks sort of lost. She's at the start of the greenbelt and asks me how to get back to downtown Austin. Good thing she didn't keep going on this way! I explain to her how to get back over Barton creek and then on towards downtown. She's from Lebanon, and is here to get her daughter started at UT. It's definitely a good introduction to Austin for an outsider...
Ok, so week nine of Chicago training is now in the books. The bounce that was in my step a few weeks back is now officially gone. I totaled something like 33 miles this last week, and I'm starting to feel more work out in the lower body with each week. I just have to keep going, stay healthy and take advantage of the rest weeks when they come up. Hopefully all of this training will pay off when I start to taper and I'll get the freshness back in my legs in the last few weeks leading up to the race.
Jim is only in for 70 minutes or so today. Note that when Jim says "70 minutes" he means exactly 70 minutes of _running_ and doesn't count any of that other time. I'm a lot more, uh, flexible in how I count my time, either just looking at my watch when we start ("well, we started at eight and now it says 9:30, so that's an hour and a half") or actually starting the stopwatch when we hit the road, but not stopping it every time we stop for water.
So we head out of Zilker and run the I35 loop on the hike and bike trail. It's not a bad morning, but as usual, the humidity starts to overwhelm you after a while. My legs are feeling tired today; I ran a 4 mile recovery run yesterday and I don't feel like it recovered me too much. I guess that the training mileage is starting to wear on me.
The loop is fine, the sun comes up, I sweat a lot and eat a GU somewhere along the way. Unfortunately, without Dave or Scott, we have no excuse to stop at all of the water fountains along the way since Jim and I each carry our own water. I realize how much my run around the lake is broken up into fountain-to-fountain segments, and it hurts (mentally anyway) when I have to keep running past one of those fountains. But still, it's only about an hour and fifteen minutes and we're cruising back into Zilker. Jim, of course, has kept track of his real running time and delcares that he needs another ten to fifteen minutes. I know that, under whatever circumstances, I really need about another 40 minutes or so, so we head out on the greenbelt.
Now my legs are tired and I'm ready to stop, but I will say that time on the greenbelt goes by much faster than on the road or even the hike and bike. Jim turns around after 10 minutes or so, I keep going aiming to go out 25 minutes. It's funny how the "back" part always seems to happen faster than the out, so I've learned if I really care about the time to add an extra five minutes on the out side. Anyway, it's really nice on the trail and I can mostly forget about how hard it is to run this last half hour. I pass a few people with their dogs and some mountain bikers blow past me, but mostly it's just quiet and beautiful out here.
Finally I turn back at 25 minutes and make it back to the parking lot. As I arrive, I meet a woman who looks sort of lost. She's at the start of the greenbelt and asks me how to get back to downtown Austin. Good thing she didn't keep going on this way! I explain to her how to get back over Barton creek and then on towards downtown. She's from Lebanon, and is here to get her daughter started at UT. It's definitely a good introduction to Austin for an outsider...
Ok, so week nine of Chicago training is now in the books. The bounce that was in my step a few weeks back is now officially gone. I totaled something like 33 miles this last week, and I'm starting to feel more work out in the lower body with each week. I just have to keep going, stay healthy and take advantage of the rest weeks when they come up. Hopefully all of this training will pay off when I start to taper and I'll get the freshness back in my legs in the last few weeks leading up to the race.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Barton Springs Morning
Finally got myself out of bed this morning to go to Barton Springs. It's great at this time of year, though it is kind of crowded in the morning. It can be more fun to go in December or January when you can almost have the whole place to yourself. But still, there's something about that place that's just good for your soul, no matter how crowded it might be.
The disadvantage to swimming there at this time of year and that time of day (around 7:00) is that when you swim towards the dam, you can't see a thing because the rising sun is right in your face. You just have to kind of hope that the people coming the other way are watching out for you. I know, that's not a good bet, but you've got no other choice.
Anyway, I only did about 1600 m, or eight laps of the pool. I can't believe that I'm this out of shape for swimming, but I felt pretty tired. And I'm thinking about doing a 2.4 mile race next weekend??
But in the end, it's all worth it. When you feel that cool water and are down in the pool, it's just a really special feeling. Every time I get out, I just want to linger on the side and enjoy the morning. Ahh, but out of the water, home we go and off to work...
The disadvantage to swimming there at this time of year and that time of day (around 7:00) is that when you swim towards the dam, you can't see a thing because the rising sun is right in your face. You just have to kind of hope that the people coming the other way are watching out for you. I know, that's not a good bet, but you've got no other choice.
Anyway, I only did about 1600 m, or eight laps of the pool. I can't believe that I'm this out of shape for swimming, but I felt pretty tired. And I'm thinking about doing a 2.4 mile race next weekend??
But in the end, it's all worth it. When you feel that cool water and are down in the pool, it's just a really special feeling. Every time I get out, I just want to linger on the side and enjoy the morning. Ahh, but out of the water, home we go and off to work...
Thursday is tempo day...
Thursday's are really the hardest days. I have to get up and going as early as I can in order to get the run in before work, and I have long tempo sessions to look forward to. No wonder I don't feel like getting out of bed.
The alarm went off at about 6:10. I got up and moving pretty quickly for me because we're babysitting Flash, my dog-nephew, and that makes things complicated with our cats who are terrified of dogs. So with both cats in the room and the dog encroaching on the bedroom door, I had to get up and get things sorted out right away. That meant pushing Flash out the back door and then getting the cats out the front. By then, I wasn't asleep any more, so I just went ahead and got moving.
Even so, by the time I ate my cereal and got everything ready, it was 6:45. I had a 50 minute tempo run scheduled, so add in the 15 minutes warmup and some cool down, and you've got 8 miles plus or minus a little. I had plotted a route the night before because I wanted something different. This was to go over through Tarrytown and back up the Scenic loop to 35th with an extra loop up Jackson/Bull Creek to 45th and back on Shoal Creek.
It was a nice morning, in spite of the humidity. I got going and shook the stiffness out of my legs. I had my water bottle on my back because I wasn't sure where I'd find water, plus it's better to avoid stopping during tempo sessions if possible. I knew that I was in for hills, and of course I had to start the tempo work right as I hit them... That slowed me down I'm sure, but still it's good on my legs to force myself up and down the hills and still try to keep moving at a decent pace.
The Scenic part of the run is always great, especially in the morning. You could look out over the lake for a mile or two up stream and see the morning sun starting to shine on the giant houses across on the other side. It's nice because there's not really any boat traffic that early in the day, so the lake is still peaceful and quiet. Through the neighborhood all I see are cyclists, other runners and people walking their dogs.
Tempo hurts, did I say that? Especially going up and down the hills. But I forced myself to try to be steady all the way up the last long hill on 35th street over Mopac and then I could finally think about mostly flat (or at least false flats) for the last 8 minutes or so of hard running. I tried to pick up the pace once again and hold a pretty fast tempo for the last part. It hurt, but I eventually made it and had still about 1+ mile to go, which gave me plenty of time to cool down.
Whew, another hard workout down. I'm not thinking about Sunday's 2 hour run or about next week's 60 minutes of tempo yet.
The alarm went off at about 6:10. I got up and moving pretty quickly for me because we're babysitting Flash, my dog-nephew, and that makes things complicated with our cats who are terrified of dogs. So with both cats in the room and the dog encroaching on the bedroom door, I had to get up and get things sorted out right away. That meant pushing Flash out the back door and then getting the cats out the front. By then, I wasn't asleep any more, so I just went ahead and got moving.
Even so, by the time I ate my cereal and got everything ready, it was 6:45. I had a 50 minute tempo run scheduled, so add in the 15 minutes warmup and some cool down, and you've got 8 miles plus or minus a little. I had plotted a route the night before because I wanted something different. This was to go over through Tarrytown and back up the Scenic loop to 35th with an extra loop up Jackson/Bull Creek to 45th and back on Shoal Creek.
It was a nice morning, in spite of the humidity. I got going and shook the stiffness out of my legs. I had my water bottle on my back because I wasn't sure where I'd find water, plus it's better to avoid stopping during tempo sessions if possible. I knew that I was in for hills, and of course I had to start the tempo work right as I hit them... That slowed me down I'm sure, but still it's good on my legs to force myself up and down the hills and still try to keep moving at a decent pace.
The Scenic part of the run is always great, especially in the morning. You could look out over the lake for a mile or two up stream and see the morning sun starting to shine on the giant houses across on the other side. It's nice because there's not really any boat traffic that early in the day, so the lake is still peaceful and quiet. Through the neighborhood all I see are cyclists, other runners and people walking their dogs.
Tempo hurts, did I say that? Especially going up and down the hills. But I forced myself to try to be steady all the way up the last long hill on 35th street over Mopac and then I could finally think about mostly flat (or at least false flats) for the last 8 minutes or so of hard running. I tried to pick up the pace once again and hold a pretty fast tempo for the last part. It hurt, but I eventually made it and had still about 1+ mile to go, which gave me plenty of time to cool down.
Whew, another hard workout down. I'm not thinking about Sunday's 2 hour run or about next week's 60 minutes of tempo yet.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Balcones Pool
Today was my first time at Balcones Pool. I should have gotten up early to go to Barton Springs, but I was too lazy laying in bed and didn't. But I went ahead and brought my swimming stuff in the car to work in case I had the opportunity to get out around lunch time. I did, and so I decided to head to Northwest park to swim. But when I got there, the parking lot was suspiciously empty. I walked in and saw the pool empty and all of the life guards playing cards around a table. "Sorry, our pump is broken," they said. Aargh, there's a waste of time (and gas) driving over here for nothing!
So on the way back, I though that I'd check out Balcones. It's pretty close to my work, just in the other direction (it's north on Mopac, just off the Duval exit at the corner of Duval and Amherst). I found it easily and saw that a) it was basically empty, just a few lap swimmers, and b) it had *real* lane ropes, about six of them! And as an added bonus, it's a free pool, so I didn't even have to burn any of the punches on the swim card.
But the real bonus came when I jumped in; the water was actually _cool_. Not (of course) Deep Eddy cool, but I've swum in Ramsey and Northwest pools at this time of year, and I know what an Austin pool feels like in August, and this was not at all what I expected. I guess that they must have an aerator or something to keep the water from boiling in the Texas summer.
I had already planned a basic anaerobic workout because I only had a little bit of time left on my lunch, so I got in a short 1300 yards, including a 10x50 on 1:00, trying to swim fast and hold a consistent pace. Today my pace turned out to be about :33. Definitely not fast, but probably the best I could do given how little I've been swimming lately and how warm it was.
So on the way back, I though that I'd check out Balcones. It's pretty close to my work, just in the other direction (it's north on Mopac, just off the Duval exit at the corner of Duval and Amherst). I found it easily and saw that a) it was basically empty, just a few lap swimmers, and b) it had *real* lane ropes, about six of them! And as an added bonus, it's a free pool, so I didn't even have to burn any of the punches on the swim card.
But the real bonus came when I jumped in; the water was actually _cool_. Not (of course) Deep Eddy cool, but I've swum in Ramsey and Northwest pools at this time of year, and I know what an Austin pool feels like in August, and this was not at all what I expected. I guess that they must have an aerator or something to keep the water from boiling in the Texas summer.
I had already planned a basic anaerobic workout because I only had a little bit of time left on my lunch, so I got in a short 1300 yards, including a 10x50 on 1:00, trying to swim fast and hold a consistent pace. Today my pace turned out to be about :33. Definitely not fast, but probably the best I could do given how little I've been swimming lately and how warm it was.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Edouard run
Tropical Storm Edouard is on his way. Not that you could really tell this morning when I started my run. I was scheduled for a 9miler this morning, but got a bit of a late start (about 6:45) so I decided to cut it to 8 so I could attempt to make a conference call for work at 8:00. It was just another typical summer morning in Austin, plenty warm and humid. I decided to go without the water bottle, so that meant heading for the hike and bike trail at Town Lake, where I could get water.
It's nice to start early in the morning, once I can get my lazy self out of bed. I like the calm of the dawn air and the still mostly-sleeping city. Heading down through my neighborhood is nice, just a few people out and about, mostly walking dogs. I did my typical Harris - Blanco - Town Lake - South 1st St. loop on the way out. As I turned to the east on the hike and bike trail, I could see the sun rising and the towering storm clouds that indicate (I assume) the outer boundaries of the approaching storm. It was very cool in the morning air to see the clouds silhouetted against the rising sun.
I crossed the bridge over the lake at S. 1st Street and stopped at the Run Tex water coolers. Continued on there on the south side of Town Lake to the Mopac footbridge. From there it was back across the lake (more water coolers here!) and up the Johnson Creek greenbelt to home. The route is visible here. About 1:20 total time on the road, probably a good 9:00 pace or so.
I got home just in time to find out that the meeting was over. Sweet! I got to go straight to the shower and get my coffee; a perfect morning ;-)
By the way, Edouard looks to be a complete bust here in Central Texas, not even a drop of rain. Bummer.
It's nice to start early in the morning, once I can get my lazy self out of bed. I like the calm of the dawn air and the still mostly-sleeping city. Heading down through my neighborhood is nice, just a few people out and about, mostly walking dogs. I did my typical Harris - Blanco - Town Lake - South 1st St. loop on the way out. As I turned to the east on the hike and bike trail, I could see the sun rising and the towering storm clouds that indicate (I assume) the outer boundaries of the approaching storm. It was very cool in the morning air to see the clouds silhouetted against the rising sun.
I crossed the bridge over the lake at S. 1st Street and stopped at the Run Tex water coolers. Continued on there on the south side of Town Lake to the Mopac footbridge. From there it was back across the lake (more water coolers here!) and up the Johnson Creek greenbelt to home. The route is visible here. About 1:20 total time on the road, probably a good 9:00 pace or so.
I got home just in time to find out that the meeting was over. Sweet! I got to go straight to the shower and get my coffee; a perfect morning ;-)
By the way, Edouard looks to be a complete bust here in Central Texas, not even a drop of rain. Bummer.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Sunday's run
Today was the last day of a recovery week. My long run was only scheduled for a 1:30, about 11 miles give or take. I met up with Scott and Jim (two of my running buddies) at 7:00 at Barton Springs. We gave Dave the week off since he's in San Francisco on vacation with his family.
It was really humid with pretty much no breeze. The run was fine, though sweat abounded. We did the full Longhorn Dam loop taking about 1:40 to finish it including stoppage time. In general, it was a good run. My legs held out pretty well, though they got tired as time went on. I took a couple of GUs along the way (one at 45 mintes and the other around 1:15). Jim didn't send me the official splits, but he said we were averaging around 8:18 overall, which felt about right. They have a tendency to start out slow and then pick up the pace as things go along; I feel like I'm always at the back pulling them to slow down ;-)
I'm more tired this evening than I expected; somehow I don't seem to ever really get used to those 1.5+ hour runs.
Now the training really starts to ramp up. I've got a couple of pretty long runs this week (9 miles on Tuesday and a 50 minute tempo on Thursday) plus two hours on Sunday. At this point, my body is feeling pretty good and I've managed to stay injury free. So I hope that holds out!
It was really humid with pretty much no breeze. The run was fine, though sweat abounded. We did the full Longhorn Dam loop taking about 1:40 to finish it including stoppage time. In general, it was a good run. My legs held out pretty well, though they got tired as time went on. I took a couple of GUs along the way (one at 45 mintes and the other around 1:15). Jim didn't send me the official splits, but he said we were averaging around 8:18 overall, which felt about right. They have a tendency to start out slow and then pick up the pace as things go along; I feel like I'm always at the back pulling them to slow down ;-)
I'm more tired this evening than I expected; somehow I don't seem to ever really get used to those 1.5+ hour runs.
Now the training really starts to ramp up. I've got a couple of pretty long runs this week (9 miles on Tuesday and a 50 minute tempo on Thursday) plus two hours on Sunday. At this point, my body is feeling pretty good and I've managed to stay injury free. So I hope that holds out!
Friday, August 1, 2008
So, in a fit of insanity this spring, I signed up to run the Chicago Marathon. I don't know what I was thinking, given that that means training through July, August and September here in Austin, the hottest months of the year. At this point, I'm nine weeks in, which is the halfway point. Of course the second half is tougher than the first half in terms of the distance of the long runs.
This last weekend was my first 20 miler. I only made 19 in the end, but still it was a long 3+ hours. Getting going early is important here in the summer, and that's tough for me, given that I'm not really an early morning person. But if you don't start a 3 hour run at 6:00, you end up really regretting it!
This week has been a back-off (also known as recovery) week. So I'm only in for about 11 miles on Sunday. Whew! I've come a long way if 11 miles is considered a recovery week.
This last weekend was my first 20 miler. I only made 19 in the end, but still it was a long 3+ hours. Getting going early is important here in the summer, and that's tough for me, given that I'm not really an early morning person. But if you don't start a 3 hour run at 6:00, you end up really regretting it!
This week has been a back-off (also known as recovery) week. So I'm only in for about 11 miles on Sunday. Whew! I've come a long way if 11 miles is considered a recovery week.
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