Week 16: 3/28/11 - 4/3/11 (2 weeks remain)
So last week sucked, but fortunately, it seems to have been effective in allowing me to heal up, for the most part. Now that I'm aware of the problem, I'll be taking strong proactive measures in the future, and now that the weather's also improving, hopefully we can avoid any unfortunate health crises in the future. Time to get back in the game!
Monday: Off day. Hit the weight room. (I've been weightlifting semi-seriously since November, in anticipation of possibly trying my hand at a triathlon sometime after the marathon. Turns out I can now rep my body weight - not a big deal for actual weightlifters, but a notable achievement for a scrawny marathon runner who's really never had any upper body strength to speak of previously. W00t!)
Tuesday: 7 miles, general aerobic. Actually went a little faster than I had planned/expected (glad to be back in the game!)
Wednesday: 12 miles, general aerobic. Legs a little stiff today - probably a combination of having taken a week off and having gone perhaps a bit too hard yesterday. Otherwise unremarkable.
Thursday: Super busy - didn't get out to run today.
Friday: 5 miles, recovery day.
Saturday: Also super busy - likewise didn't get out to run (although today was supposed to be another recovery day, this week being part of the taper and all).
Sunday: 16 miles, final long run of the season - everything else between now and The Big Day is <= 13 miles. Ran the Fresh Pond + Commonwealth Ave/Boston Common loops. Took the first 10 miles or so around Fresh Pond pretty quickly, partially just to check out how my legs were feeling after having taken the previous week off. The quicker pace felt pretty good, but I ended up a little more fatigued at the end of the run than I had expected to. It's hard for me to determine whether that was due to having simply gone a bit too fast in the first 10 miles, lingering effects from missing most of last week, or the fact that I haven't gone to bed before 4AM in the previous 3 days...
Total weekly mileage: 40
Monday, March 28, 2011
Down, but not out
Week 15: 3/21/11 - 3/27/11 (3 weeks remain)
This week was f*&$ing horrible.
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 10 miles general aerobic.
Wednesday through Sunday: Fair warning: If you are averse to what may possibly be too much information, I advise you to stop reading now, and move on with the rest of your day.
OK, so I unfortunately have a chronic skin disorder called eczema; it's an autoimmune disease related to (strongly correlated with) asthma (which I also have, although it's exercise induced and very sporadic) and allergies (which I had in spades prior to completing a multiple-year course of immunotherapy in the form of allergy shots - which in my case were a godsend).
My eczema was pretty bad as a kid, although I appeared to more or less grow out of it by the time I was 5 or so, which apparently pretty common. After that, I would occasionally get some on my hands if we had some particularly inclement weather (unusually hot, unusually cold, unusually dry), but having spent the vast majority of my life in California and nearly all of the remainder in Texas, this really wasn't much of an issue...
until I got to Cambridge. As it turns out, eczema is exacerbated by very cold air, very hot air, very dry air, and skin irritants (like sweat and soap), so running long distances in the cold dry, New England winter air, sweating all over yourself, coming back into your apartment that your roommate likes to keep uncomfortably warm using our building's central heating, which blasts out hot, 0% humidity air, and then hopping in the shower and lathering up to clean yourself off is pretty much the perfect storm in terms of things that will aggravate the hell out of this condition. Furthermore, not having had a serious outbreak in 20+ years, I guess the thought never occurred to me that it might become a serious issue.
So when I started to see the first symptoms appearing, I didn't really think very much of them, I figured that my skin was just unusually dry because we'd had an uncharacteristically cold snap (even by our standards), and it would probably clear itself up in a couple of days. A couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, and unfortunately by the time it dawned on me that the problem was a) not going away and b) in fact appeared to be getting substantially worse as time progressed, I had pretty much missed the boat on the preventative care opportunities and was now well into full-on panic-level damage control.
Unfortunately, by now roughly 70% of the surface area of my body was involved. So at this point, I pretty much reasoned that I had two choices: I could a) quit, or b) man the fuck up and keep training. Having invested a considerable amount of time and energy in qualifying for the Boston Marathon, I opted to go with option b). Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts to treat the symptoms, my condition kept steadily deteriorating as the weeks went on, until this week.
Tuesday morning I went into work in the lab, and when I sat in my chair, it felt like somebody was twisting a red-hot dagger in my back. The pressure of sitting in my chair was actually causing me significant, constant physical pain, to the point where I was more or less totally cognitively ineffective, and the thought of having to go outside and run around and sweat all over myself under those circumstances (thus further exacerbating my condition) was actually, finally, more than I could bring myself to do. Out of desperation, I decided that the only thing to do was to basically stock up on food, barricade myself inside my dorm room for several days, Howard Hughes like, so as to escape the cold, and try to heal myself up to rejoin the fight.
So that's pretty much how I spent my spring break. Woop-de-doo :-/.
Total weekly mileage: 10
This week was f*&$ing horrible.
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 10 miles general aerobic.
Wednesday through Sunday: Fair warning: If you are averse to what may possibly be too much information, I advise you to stop reading now, and move on with the rest of your day.
OK, so I unfortunately have a chronic skin disorder called eczema; it's an autoimmune disease related to (strongly correlated with) asthma (which I also have, although it's exercise induced and very sporadic) and allergies (which I had in spades prior to completing a multiple-year course of immunotherapy in the form of allergy shots - which in my case were a godsend).
My eczema was pretty bad as a kid, although I appeared to more or less grow out of it by the time I was 5 or so, which apparently pretty common. After that, I would occasionally get some on my hands if we had some particularly inclement weather (unusually hot, unusually cold, unusually dry), but having spent the vast majority of my life in California and nearly all of the remainder in Texas, this really wasn't much of an issue...
until I got to Cambridge. As it turns out, eczema is exacerbated by very cold air, very hot air, very dry air, and skin irritants (like sweat and soap), so running long distances in the cold dry, New England winter air, sweating all over yourself, coming back into your apartment that your roommate likes to keep uncomfortably warm using our building's central heating, which blasts out hot, 0% humidity air, and then hopping in the shower and lathering up to clean yourself off is pretty much the perfect storm in terms of things that will aggravate the hell out of this condition. Furthermore, not having had a serious outbreak in 20+ years, I guess the thought never occurred to me that it might become a serious issue.
So when I started to see the first symptoms appearing, I didn't really think very much of them, I figured that my skin was just unusually dry because we'd had an uncharacteristically cold snap (even by our standards), and it would probably clear itself up in a couple of days. A couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, and unfortunately by the time it dawned on me that the problem was a) not going away and b) in fact appeared to be getting substantially worse as time progressed, I had pretty much missed the boat on the preventative care opportunities and was now well into full-on panic-level damage control.
Unfortunately, by now roughly 70% of the surface area of my body was involved. So at this point, I pretty much reasoned that I had two choices: I could a) quit, or b) man the fuck up and keep training. Having invested a considerable amount of time and energy in qualifying for the Boston Marathon, I opted to go with option b). Unfortunately, in spite of my best efforts to treat the symptoms, my condition kept steadily deteriorating as the weeks went on, until this week.
Tuesday morning I went into work in the lab, and when I sat in my chair, it felt like somebody was twisting a red-hot dagger in my back. The pressure of sitting in my chair was actually causing me significant, constant physical pain, to the point where I was more or less totally cognitively ineffective, and the thought of having to go outside and run around and sweat all over myself under those circumstances (thus further exacerbating my condition) was actually, finally, more than I could bring myself to do. Out of desperation, I decided that the only thing to do was to basically stock up on food, barricade myself inside my dorm room for several days, Howard Hughes like, so as to escape the cold, and try to heal myself up to rejoin the fight.
So that's pretty much how I spent my spring break. Woop-de-doo :-/.
Total weekly mileage: 10
Friday, March 18, 2011
Robots and Zombies and Opera, Oh My!
Week 14: 3/14/11 - 3/20/11 (4 weeks remain)
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 14 miles. Went to do an interval workout at the track, but once again, the f*$@ing lacrosse team had closed the track because they "needed" to "play a game". How inconsiderate! Ended up switching some workouts around for the week, and doing the medium-long day today.
Wednesday: Didn't run - spent all day at the MIT 150th Symposium on cancer research, followed by a midterm from 7:00 - 10:00.
Thursday: 8 miles with 5 x 600 meter intervals. Got out of lab late today, and by the time I got to the track, lacrosse had closed it off AGAIN. I thought briefly about running the interval workout on the treadmill again as I had last week, and then decided that since running on the treadmill sucked, I would just go back to the track later after the lacrosse team had left. Got back to the track at 7:00, did a 2-mile warmup, stretched out, and then started the workout.
The plan was to start one interval every four minutes, with the goal of running at or below 75-second quarter pace (5:00/mile pace), corresponding to 2:00/interval. The actual times I ended up running were 1:48, 1:47, 1:48, 1:48, and 1:48, which comes out to 72 seconds/quarter, or 4:50/mile pace.
Surprisingly enough, I hadn't actually planned to go that fast for these intervals; as before, I basically just ran the first one at a pace that felt like a reasonable balance between comfort and sustainability, and I just so happened to come in at 1:48. Since this turned out to be significantly faster than I had originally planned without seeming out-of-control, as in the case of the last time I ran this workout I once again basically just made a game-time decision to revise my target pace downward to 1:48. I was also pretty happy to see that there was a 1-second spread over the entire set, which was lot tighter than the spread the last time I ran this workout (also I'm not known for my reliability when it comes to calibrating my pace :-P).
But most importantly, I didn't feel at any point during the workout like I was really straining - I was running relatively quickly, but it felt almost effortless. I think this is a pretty good indication in terms of my current level of fitness - looks like the hard work is finally paying off :-).
Friday: Also didn't run - didn't get up until noon as a result of spending the previous night out (St. Patrick's Day and Kimchi's birthday). Moderately beat. Then had to rush out for the opening night of Death and the Powers. Robots + zombie apocalypse + opera = win :-D!
Saturday: 9 miles, general aerobic.
Sunday: 16 miles. I had originally planned to get up and run this workout in the early afternoon - unfortunately, I ended up not waking up until 12:00 or so (was out until 2:30 at Vamsi's place the night before with some Caltech guys who were in town visiting). Got a call at the last minute to show a visiting student around town (also from Caltech :-), and consequently didn't get back until 4:30. Had dinner scheduled for 8:00 in Harvard square, and didn't get out the door until 5:00 or so, so I ended up having to run this workout at a pretty high intensity, much higher than I had originally intended. Was pretty beat by the time I got back, but actually quite pleased with how much the LT/VO2 max stuff has been working over the previous couple of weeks - there's been a noticeable improvement in speed.
Total weekly mileage: 47 <-- on the low side again, but still of high quality.
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 14 miles. Went to do an interval workout at the track, but once again, the f*$@ing lacrosse team had closed the track because they "needed" to "play a game". How inconsiderate! Ended up switching some workouts around for the week, and doing the medium-long day today.
Wednesday: Didn't run - spent all day at the MIT 150th Symposium on cancer research, followed by a midterm from 7:00 - 10:00.
Thursday: 8 miles with 5 x 600 meter intervals. Got out of lab late today, and by the time I got to the track, lacrosse had closed it off AGAIN. I thought briefly about running the interval workout on the treadmill again as I had last week, and then decided that since running on the treadmill sucked, I would just go back to the track later after the lacrosse team had left. Got back to the track at 7:00, did a 2-mile warmup, stretched out, and then started the workout.
The plan was to start one interval every four minutes, with the goal of running at or below 75-second quarter pace (5:00/mile pace), corresponding to 2:00/interval. The actual times I ended up running were 1:48, 1:47, 1:48, 1:48, and 1:48, which comes out to 72 seconds/quarter, or 4:50/mile pace.
Surprisingly enough, I hadn't actually planned to go that fast for these intervals; as before, I basically just ran the first one at a pace that felt like a reasonable balance between comfort and sustainability, and I just so happened to come in at 1:48. Since this turned out to be significantly faster than I had originally planned without seeming out-of-control, as in the case of the last time I ran this workout I once again basically just made a game-time decision to revise my target pace downward to 1:48. I was also pretty happy to see that there was a 1-second spread over the entire set, which was lot tighter than the spread the last time I ran this workout (also I'm not known for my reliability when it comes to calibrating my pace :-P).
But most importantly, I didn't feel at any point during the workout like I was really straining - I was running relatively quickly, but it felt almost effortless. I think this is a pretty good indication in terms of my current level of fitness - looks like the hard work is finally paying off :-).
Friday: Also didn't run - didn't get up until noon as a result of spending the previous night out (St. Patrick's Day and Kimchi's birthday). Moderately beat. Then had to rush out for the opening night of Death and the Powers. Robots + zombie apocalypse + opera = win :-D!
Saturday: 9 miles, general aerobic.
Sunday: 16 miles. I had originally planned to get up and run this workout in the early afternoon - unfortunately, I ended up not waking up until 12:00 or so (was out until 2:30 at Vamsi's place the night before with some Caltech guys who were in town visiting). Got a call at the last minute to show a visiting student around town (also from Caltech :-), and consequently didn't get back until 4:30. Had dinner scheduled for 8:00 in Harvard square, and didn't get out the door until 5:00 or so, so I ended up having to run this workout at a pretty high intensity, much higher than I had originally intended. Was pretty beat by the time I got back, but actually quite pleased with how much the LT/VO2 max stuff has been working over the previous couple of weeks - there's been a noticeable improvement in speed.
Total weekly mileage: 47 <-- on the low side again, but still of high quality.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Smells Like Victory
Week 13: 3/7/11 - 3/13/11 (5 weeks remain)
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 15 miles, medium-long. Was going to do intervals today, but the track was closed when I got there because the women's lacrosse team was playing a game. Decided to swap today's workout with tomorrow's, so I ended up doing a medium-long run today. Turns out that was a pretty good decision; I ended up running into the MIT women's XC team at the start of Commonwealth Ave, and ran with them for about a mile until they crossed over the Mass Ave Bridge back towards campus, while I continued up the running trail on the far side towards Harvard. Turned around at the Eliot Street bridge, and ended up running into a men's club XC team from Northeastern at JFK Street. Ran with them for about three miles until we hit the BU bridge, when I turned up Brookline to head back to SidPac. Finished up with 3 miles on the treadmill to thaw myself out (it was only ~34 out tonight). A pretty good day; it was nice to have some company after having 3 months of > 45 mile weeks totally solo.
Wednesday: 6 miles, recovery.
Thursday: 9 miles w/ 6 x 1000 meters @ 80 seconds/lap. Meant to do this workout on the MIT track today, but unfortunately by the time I got out of lab, it was already 5:00, which meant that the track was closed so that the MIT lacrosse team could play... so I ended up doing the workout on the treadmill. I actually wasn't sure that the treadmill could even get up to that speed... (Tim informs me that the ones in the SidPac gym max out at 5:00 / mile, so I was pretty much redlining them the whole time :-P).
Friday: 10 miles, general aerobic.
Saturday: 6 miles, recovery. Ran around the Freedom Trail with Chief, who was visiting MIT as a newly admitted MechE Ph.D. student. Looks like he's going to come out next year :-).
Sunday: 18 miles w/ 14 miles @ target marathon pace. This was the last serious long run on the schedule; I have other long runs, but none of them include an LT or marathon-pace portion, so I went into this really focusing on making it count. Fortunately, we had SidPac's monthly brunch this morning, and by 3:00 PM the early-morning cloud cover had burned off to make way for a beautiful, sunny, 50 degree afternoon - perfect for fast running. Did the first 10 up around Fresh Pond, and then the 4-mile loop around Commonwealth Ave and Boston Common, back to Mass Ave and up the street to SidPac. By the time I got back to the dorm, my legs were definitely feeling it, but I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping up the focus/intensity throughout the 14 mile MP section (of course, it also helped that I broke out the short shorts, technical tee and Dragonforce on the iPod - this was SERIOUS BUSINESS :-).
Finished up the last 4 on the treadmill at 7:30 pace so I could warm up the core/legs before a thorough stretch, then went back to my room exhausted and PTFO'd for about an hour. Smells like victory :-D.
Total weekly mileage: 64 <-- Nailed it!
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 15 miles, medium-long. Was going to do intervals today, but the track was closed when I got there because the women's lacrosse team was playing a game. Decided to swap today's workout with tomorrow's, so I ended up doing a medium-long run today. Turns out that was a pretty good decision; I ended up running into the MIT women's XC team at the start of Commonwealth Ave, and ran with them for about a mile until they crossed over the Mass Ave Bridge back towards campus, while I continued up the running trail on the far side towards Harvard. Turned around at the Eliot Street bridge, and ended up running into a men's club XC team from Northeastern at JFK Street. Ran with them for about three miles until we hit the BU bridge, when I turned up Brookline to head back to SidPac. Finished up with 3 miles on the treadmill to thaw myself out (it was only ~34 out tonight). A pretty good day; it was nice to have some company after having 3 months of > 45 mile weeks totally solo.
Wednesday: 6 miles, recovery.
Thursday: 9 miles w/ 6 x 1000 meters @ 80 seconds/lap. Meant to do this workout on the MIT track today, but unfortunately by the time I got out of lab, it was already 5:00, which meant that the track was closed so that the MIT lacrosse team could play... so I ended up doing the workout on the treadmill. I actually wasn't sure that the treadmill could even get up to that speed... (Tim informs me that the ones in the SidPac gym max out at 5:00 / mile, so I was pretty much redlining them the whole time :-P).
Friday: 10 miles, general aerobic.
Saturday: 6 miles, recovery. Ran around the Freedom Trail with Chief, who was visiting MIT as a newly admitted MechE Ph.D. student. Looks like he's going to come out next year :-).
Sunday: 18 miles w/ 14 miles @ target marathon pace. This was the last serious long run on the schedule; I have other long runs, but none of them include an LT or marathon-pace portion, so I went into this really focusing on making it count. Fortunately, we had SidPac's monthly brunch this morning, and by 3:00 PM the early-morning cloud cover had burned off to make way for a beautiful, sunny, 50 degree afternoon - perfect for fast running. Did the first 10 up around Fresh Pond, and then the 4-mile loop around Commonwealth Ave and Boston Common, back to Mass Ave and up the street to SidPac. By the time I got back to the dorm, my legs were definitely feeling it, but I feel like I did a pretty good job of keeping up the focus/intensity throughout the 14 mile MP section (of course, it also helped that I broke out the short shorts, technical tee and Dragonforce on the iPod - this was SERIOUS BUSINESS :-).
Finished up the last 4 on the treadmill at 7:30 pace so I could warm up the core/legs before a thorough stretch, then went back to my room exhausted and PTFO'd for about an hour. Smells like victory :-D.
Total weekly mileage: 64 <-- Nailed it!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Ludicrous Speed!
Week 12: 2/28/11 - 3/6/11 (6 weeks remain)
The half-marathon I ran last Sunday was the beginning of Phase III of the marathon training program; now that we've had base aerobic (Phase I) and Endurance + LT (Phase II), it's time for Race Preparation - lots of speed work. Bring on the intervals!
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 7 miles with 5 x 600 meter intervals. Today was the first track workout of the training cycle. I had originally planned to run the workout at 80 seconds per lap (5:20 pace), starting an interval every 4:00 (so as to obtain 2:00 on, 2:00 off). However, I came through the first interval at 1:50, and in spite of trying to will myself to slow down in the second interval, my body seemed to naturally want to run at that pace, so I basically said "FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!" and switched the goal to 1:50 / interval :-). I ended up running all six intervals at around 73 second pace (which is 4:53 mile pace, for those of you keeping score at home). Pretty good day :-).
Wednesday: 15 mile run.
Thursday: 5 miles, recovery
Friday/Saturday: I had a bad allergic reaction to something that basically just knocked me on my ass for both Friday and Saturday; didn't run.
Sunday: 18 mile long run. Pretty mellow today; did the first 8 around the Boston Common/Commonwealth Ave loop with Tim so that he could break in his footgloves, and then finished up around Fresh Pond.
Total weekly mileage: 45 <-- kinda low, but of high quality.
The half-marathon I ran last Sunday was the beginning of Phase III of the marathon training program; now that we've had base aerobic (Phase I) and Endurance + LT (Phase II), it's time for Race Preparation - lots of speed work. Bring on the intervals!
Monday: Off day.
Tuesday: 7 miles with 5 x 600 meter intervals. Today was the first track workout of the training cycle. I had originally planned to run the workout at 80 seconds per lap (5:20 pace), starting an interval every 4:00 (so as to obtain 2:00 on, 2:00 off). However, I came through the first interval at 1:50, and in spite of trying to will myself to slow down in the second interval, my body seemed to naturally want to run at that pace, so I basically said "FUCK IT, WE'LL DO IT LIVE!" and switched the goal to 1:50 / interval :-). I ended up running all six intervals at around 73 second pace (which is 4:53 mile pace, for those of you keeping score at home). Pretty good day :-).
Wednesday: 15 mile run.
Thursday: 5 miles, recovery
Friday/Saturday: I had a bad allergic reaction to something that basically just knocked me on my ass for both Friday and Saturday; didn't run.
Sunday: 18 mile long run. Pretty mellow today; did the first 8 around the Boston Common/Commonwealth Ave loop with Tim so that he could break in his footgloves, and then finished up around Fresh Pond.
Total weekly mileage: 45 <-- kinda low, but of high quality.
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