Your day is always better after running, biking or swimming

This weekend I was again reminded of the main reason I’m doing this “endurance stuff”: It makes me feel better afterwards.

The week was pretty stressful, lots of work, couple of things to do at home, my server crashing all the time, etc. etc. – the usual things that happen in life, only a bit more condensed than usual. With all of this and with me currently in my “off-season”, all I managed to get in during the week was one little run. By Friday, I was totally miserable and stressed out. Headaches, a little cold, short temper – I was in a really bad mood.

On Sunday, I got to sleep in, have a nice breakfast, then went for a great two hour bike ride. Nice weather, fresh air, some music on my iPod (and a couple of nice podcasts) .. totally changed my outlook. By the time I got back home, I was a new person. I was nicely exhausted after doing some uphill sprints on my bike. My head was clear, and after a shower and a nice pasta meal, I was ready to tackle some of the todo items that lingered during the week and got quite a lot done.

So, again, it showed me that in its most basic form, getting out for a run or bike session is mainly for myself – I just feel better afterwards and I’m more productive. Also, I’m a much nicer person when I’m working out on a regular basis. I sometimes get caught up in “getting ready for a race” which for me, it’s just a great way to get me motivated to get out of the door.

Let’s see how much I manage to do that in the next week …

Running a Marathon in your training

Note: I’ve written a post on Mitch’s forum over at CounterpartCoaching at the end of April. Most of my thoughts are still valid after my main race, so I thought I’d share my original post here.

Before Mitch & Scott freak out, let me add to the title:  … in your training for an Ultra Marathon.

I’m training for my first Ultra Marathon this year, the 73k trail Ultra “Rennsteiglauf” in Germany (only three weeks to go! ). I’ve always been intrigued by Ultra Marathoners running really long runs in their training. So I’ve included two Marathons in my training plan, and while this certainly not something for everyone, I want to share my experiences and am quite interested in other people’s thoughts.

Here’s the benefits I’m hoping for:

• big training day
  Running a marathon is a pretty long training run.. more is better ;-)
• it trains a “different” kind of endurance
  I’ve read somewhere that something strange seems to happen after a certain number of hours, namely at 3 hours, 7 hours, 10 hours. (Not sure where – Mark Allen?) What I mean by that is that a “different” kind of endurance is required to go for 2 hours than for, say, 5 hours. In order to train for that, you should be doing sessions longer than 3 hours. (Just think of the first few “longer” bike rides in a season.) As I plan to go about 8 hours in my Ultra, I wanted to cross the 3 hour “threshold” a few times. A marathon allows me to do that in a safe environment.
• confidence
  Completing a marathon is a great confidence builder, especially if you manage to complete it in a decent fashion.

The first marathon I did this year was the “Winter Marathon” in Husum, Germany at the end of February. I managed to go at a 6Min/k pace without having to go real hard. The other one was the Hamburg Marathon last weekend, where it was a bit hotter and harder but I still managed to go sub 4 hours. I haven’t quite recovered yet and my A-race is still out, but here’s what I learned so far.

The main point I’m taking away is that these Marathons are still training runs and should be treated as such. So all the usual “long run rules” still apply:

• Adjust your pace accordingly.
  The main goal is to finish the race, so it’s not about time goals. My marathon PR pace is 5 Min/k, so I was shooting for a 6 Min/k pace in Husum. After that went well, I was trying for a sub 4h pace in Hamburg (5:40 Min/k). This is just a touch slower than my “normal” long run pace.
  This is more difficult than it sounds, as there will be a ton of people racing for much faster times than you. It is even more difficult if you’re in a big race that seeds runners according to their PRs.
• Take your time at the aid stations.
  Make sure you get all the hydration and nutrition you need at the aid stations. No need to shove people out of the way to get a cup of water or to try to drink and eat while running.
• Don’t be afraid to walk a bit.
  As you’re not in it for any (important) time goals, don’t be afraid to walk to catch your breath or relax at the harder uphill sections. I didn’t follow any fixed schedule, but just walked when I felt like it.
• Lug around all the equipment you might need for your A-race.
  As I plan to run with a Camelbak at my Ultra, I was running with a Camelbak, an MP3 player, extra clothes and food at the marathons. I wouldn’t do that if I was  going for a time goal, but again it is similar to what I would do for a long training run.
• Enjoy the race.
  Took some time to take pictures and enjoy the atmosphere. Also took a couple of pictures with my cell phone camera and was texting my wife and friends who came to watch with updates and split times.

Of course, the big concern about running a Marathon in your training is the time lost before and after the race. By not tapering much, you can limit the time lost before the race. These marathons were a good chance to race ala “Taper Interrupted”. For Hamburg  I did a 20k run on Thursday and a faster 10k run on Saturday before the Sunday race. (For Husum I was taking things easy the days before as I was a bit worried about finishing and had just completed by biggest running week ever.)

Afterwards, you have to focus on recovering hard. Recovery comes quicker if you have a large running base. For me, this meant to focus on running (to the detriment of swimming and biking), and I’ve had 4 of my largest running weeks ever in January and February (100k+ weeks for me). With all the running volume in my legs, I feel I can recover in about a week to get back into training.

Here’s what I did specifically to recover quickly after Husum at the end of February:

• Follow the race with a really easy week.
  For me, this was three days off in the week after the race. The two runs I did were short (30 Min) and easy. My legs weren’t a problem, but I didn’t feel fresh and didn’t have any “zip”. The weekend after the race I took a really easy 16k run with lots of walking breaks – managed to complete it but I was still tired, so I probably should have waited a bit longer.
• Take some extra sleep.
  I tried to easy my workload as much as possible and managed to get an extra hour of sleep for a couple of days.
• Prepare some other things to keep you busy.
  If you’ve got a basic week that works, it’s really hard not to do certain training runs. For example I do a faster 16k training run on Tuesdays. After the marathons I set up other things to do instead of the session – after Husum I set up my training blog, after Hamburg I set up my bike for the summer season. If I didn’t have these other things on my mind I would have done the running session even if it was way too early to do that.

So far, I’m quite confident to recover in time for my big race on the Rennsteig in 17 days …

P.S. Looking back, I think the two marathons in my prep really helped me get ready for my Ultra. Would I do it again? For an Ultra, certainly! Not so sure about doing it in my prep for next year’s Ironman. What are your thoughts and experiences?

Reinfeld Swim and Run: Totally Shelled!

This weekend, I was doing a fun little event here in my local town: a swim and run. This started as a relay (with four runners and two swimmers), and also added an individual event a few years ago. The distances are pretty short (about 300m swim and a 3k run), so you can actually take part in the individual event and in a relay.

On the picture you can see the beach where the start is. The swim is across the lake to the right, and the run goes along the perimeter of the lake to the tip you can barely see in the background and back to the little beach house.

It is a “different” event for me, especially this year when I was just doing longer events. In fact, the “shortest” race I had done this year was a 19k run in January … It turned out that the high intensity still hurts pretty much.

The swim was okay (considering I had barely swum at all this year), the transition was okay as well. But as soon as I started the run I was light headed and had to concentrate really hard. I was puffing really hard, but at least no one was overtaking me. (The people in front of me were better runners than me anyway.) I had to put in a little extra surge towards the end to hold my place and that really killed me. It took me about 15 minutes to start breathing normal again, and the pain took a while to go away. Then my legs went rock-hard (but luckily no cramping) and I was really exhausted.

It was a good thing we had about an hour before our relay, so I had some time to recover (and eat some food). Some easy jogging, some stretching, and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to run really hard for my 900m in the relay. Good thing that our first runner already had a sizable gap, so I could pretty much cruise my leg of the relay. I don’t think I would have been able to run head-to-head with another guy. We actually won our wave, and strangely we also managed to have the best time of the day. (Must have been the others that did it.)

Totally shelled afterwards. Hadn’t eaten all too well during the day, and I was really ravenous afterwards. Then I overate in the evening and wasn’t feeling to well during the night. I’m so not used to any faster stuff ... good thing I don’t have any races lined up so I can properly recover!

The weird thing .. I still enjoyed the event very much! We had so much fun with all the people from our club. I probably have to do some more speedy stuff next year so I’m not going to be quite as grumpy after the race.

Nice relaxing weekend

Just came back from a long weekend in Denmark. My parents have been spending their vacation there for years, and this year was no different. They rent a beach house (sounds more impressive than it actually is), and family gets a chance to visit them over the weekend. All it takes is a three to four hour drive ..

We had a chance to spend an extra day on Monday, and we spent the weekend with my wife, my parents and my cousin’s family. We had great weather, got a ton of sun (including a sunburn) and went swimming a couple of times in the ocean.

I also managed to get two runs in. (Sorry – no pictures.) The first one was an hour with my cousin. He usually starts a bit faster than me, but doesn’t have that much endurance. So when we starting running through the dunes and on the beach after 20 minutes, he suffered a little bit (but didn’t complain).

I also enjoyed my second run which was a solo run on Monday. My wife and my parents went shopping in the next town, and afterwards I ran home with most of the route directly on the beach.

 
(View of the beach from the light house at Blavand)

Running in the sand is different and quite a bit more exhausting, so I took things easy. It was getting hot and I was quite spent after the 75 minutes that the run took. Looking back, this was the longest run since mid-May when I ran Rennsteig ….

Next weekend, I’ve got a little local swim and run, so I guess I’ll have to get a swim session or two in .. haven’t done any swimming since last October!

One thing I was discussing with Mitch was that I need to move back to a balanced triathlon training after my vacation in August. This year I was in “single sport mode”, and that won’t be good enough getting ready for IM Germany. But for now, I’m just trying to enjoy the fitness I have and get some nice and cool stuff in. It works so far!

Major Race for 2010: IM Germany

Yesterday (Wednesday), registration for IM Germany opened for a few spots. Last year, almost all (?) spots went away the day after the race at on-site registration. So this year, they were giving away 1.000 spots before the race. I assume that the rest of the spots will be handed out on-site and that there won’t be another chance for a registration through the web.

So I was anxious to get a slot on Wednesday. I even planned to take the morning off but that didn’t work out because of a meeting I had to go to at work from 9 to 10am. Luckily, registration opened at 10am .. but when I tried to access the registration site from work, I got error messages. They didn’t look like it was a problem with any site blocking, but as it still didn’t work after half an hour, I snuck out to the coffee shop to try their local wifi. Same result, so I needed to be a bit more patient.

After 90 minutes of building panic and retrying every few minutes, I managed to get to the registration page. Filled out the required info, gave them my credit card info and boom … I was in!

Seems I made it just in time, on their website they said they filled the 1.000 spots within 2 hours. So my main goal for next year is on the calendar now: IM Germany on July 4th, 2010.