Marathon Training Update

by Brandon  
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I looked at a calendar the other day and realized that there are only 5 weeks until my first marathon! After I finished panicking (not really 🙂 ), I realized that it was high time I gave an update on how my training’s been going.

Overall, I’d say my training has been going very well so far. I pretty much just treated my Zombie 1/2 Marathon as another training run, improving my time by 10 minutes. I also recently purchased a Garmin Forerunner 305, which has been indespensible in helping me keep on my target pace, especially during my long runs.

This past weekend, I did my first of 2 planned 20 mile runs. You can check out the details I posted on dailymile if you’re interested. Basically, I did a 10 mile out-and-back course twice, meaning that I ran the same stretch of 5 miles 4 times in a row. This may sound a bit boring to some, but I actually really enjoyed it, and there are several good reasons why I chose this route for my first 20-miler:

  • I’m very familiar with this trail, as I’ve done plenty of running on it in the past, including both of my half marathons. This means that I’m able to easily break the route down mentally into smaller pieces.
  • These 5 miles are all on paved trails, mostly through the woods, meaning that I don’t have to deal with traffic or crossing intersections – I can just run!
  • This route is relatively flat, and I wanted to stack the deck in favor of my first 20 mile run being a good one! Also, the marathon course in Vegas is about as flat as you could hope for, so I don’t feel too bad about not training as much for hills.
  • Being able to stop back at my truck after 10 miles meant that I could refill my water bottles and refuel. I have a hydration pack with 2 water bottles, but they are pretty small, only 8 ounces each, which just isn’t enough for 20 miles. I also ate a banana real quick, which sat very well on my stomach – especially compared to gu/gel, which I am beginning to like less and less. How many bananas do you think I can fit in my pockets for my marathon? 🙂

I finished my first 20 mile run in 3:11 (a pace of 9:29), which was actually 3 minutes faster than my 18 mile run from 3 weeks prior. This makes me feel much more confident about running 26.2 miles in less than 5 weeks, especially considering my relatively condensed training schedule.

Around mile 18, I had a bit of a run-in with 2 moose. One crossed the trail about 30 feet ahead of me, where I watched it meetup with a 2nd moose. They walked off and dissappeared into the woods together, so I kept on running. About 30 seconds later, out of the corner of my eye I saw them again trotting along at about my same pace on the other side of a small creek. I knew that the creek would only slow them down for a second or two if they decided to come my way – which is exactly what they did! I dashed into some trees on the other side of the trail. For anyone who hasn’t dealt with moose before, they are actually very fast – and dangerous – animals, but they can’t maneuver and turn very quickly. So the best thing in this type of situation is to get something like a few trees between you and the moose.

Luckily, the moose ran on past me, but they stayed right on the trail. Once they were 50 feet or so down the trail, I continued running behind them. This continued for probably a 1/4 mile, until the trees opened up to a large field. The moose turned toward the open field, and I took my chance at getting away from them – I picked up my pace to nearly an all-out sprint until I was well past them. At this point I had about 1 1/2 miles until I was back at my truck. I slowed down to around my normal pace, but kept looking back over my shoulder to make sure they hadn’t changed their minds about what direction to go! Oh, the joys and hazards of running in Alaska 🙂

After my run, I immediately went home and took my kids trick-or-treating. All things considered, I actually felt really good afterward. The next 2 days I was fairly sore, especially my knees, but really nothing too bad.

This weekend I’m planning to run 8-10 miles, then another 20-miler the weekend after that. Then I start tapering already! 12 miles the first weekend, then 8 miles, and then the full shebang December 5th!

Zombie 1/2 Marathon Recap

by Brandon  
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On Saturday, I ran in the Zombie 1/2 Marathon here in Anchorage, my second 1/2 Marathon so far (you can read the recap from my first one here). I’ve been really excited for this race, mostly because how could a zombie-themed race not be completely awesome?

Dressing up was highly encouraged (actually, I think the flyer said “run as a zombie or be eaten” 🙂 ), and I’d say there was probably a 50/50 mix of people who were dressed up and not. Most of those who were dressed up were zombies (of course), but I also saw Spiderman, Sponge Bob Squarepants, and even an Elvis. Zombie cheerleader was quite a popular choice as well 🙂

Braaaaiiinnnns!

The 1/2 Marathon started at 10am, and the full Marathon and “Undead Ultra” 50k started at 8am at the other end of the course. Some of those runners had already reached the turnaround point at our start line before we began. The others we ended up passing going the other direction. I feel sorry for any of those runners, because all they would have seen was a massive wave of zombies running straight towards them!

Getting instructions from the head zombie before the race.

The weather was about what I had expected. It was 27° when I first woke up Saturday morning, and warmed up to right around 30° by race time at 10am. I had been more worried about there being snow, because that definitely would have slowed me down. But luckily we didn’t have any yet, so the trails were dry and free from snow and ice – ideal conditions for a late-October race in Alaska.

The temperature at the start of the race was 30 degrees, as evidenced by the frozen lake near the start.

The course itself was great. The first 4 miles are mostly through the woods, starting in midtown Anchorage, heading out toward the scenic Coastal Trail. This whole section is relatively flat and went by pretty quickly. Around mile 2, I noticed that I had been passed by someone wearing Vibram Five Fingers and dressed in a Dracula cape.

A bit later, around mile 3, as I passed a small group that appeared to be running together, I glanced over and realized that one of the people I was passing was my high school calculus teacher. Now, I actually really liked this teacher, so it wasn’t one of those “ha ha, it’s payback time now!” moments, but it did give me a reason to smile nonetheless.

Right about mile 4 is when we reached the Coastal Trail at Westchester Lagoon, along with the first of only 2 aid stations along the course. I took a quick drink of Gatorade, popped a few Shot Bloks, and was back on my way. The next 2 miles were still relatively flat and went by pretty quickly.

It was around mile 6 that we started seeing any hills of decent size. Coming up one of the hills, I noticed that I was getting ready to pass the guy wearing Five Fingers and a Dracula cape that had passed me earlier. Just as I was passing him, I glanced over and realized it was my cousin! I ran alongside him and talked for a minute or so, and asked him how he like his Five Fingers (he loves them). It was obvious that he was struggling on the hills, eventually saying “you better get on running, I’ll see you at the end,” so off I went.

Mile 8 brought the end of the hills (for the time being), and the 2nd (and last) aid station. This time I downed 2 Gatorades, pulled a Clif Shot from my pocket, and took a big gulp of that. It turns out I had just committed one of the cardinal sins of running – never eat or drink something during a race that you haven’t previously had in training. Now, I’ve had plenty of Clif Shots during other runs in the past, but I had never had this particular flavor – vanilla. It was so sickly sweet that it quickly made me a bit sick to my stomach. Luckily that only lasted a few minutes, but instead of testing my luck, I just shoved the rest of it in my pocket without trying another taste.

Miles 9 and 10 both brought moose sightings. Luckily they were both a good 20-30 feet off the trail, munching on some tree branches, so they didn’t slow us down at all. The last few miles after that were mostly a blur. My legs were starting to feel a bit fatigued, but nothing too bad. All in all I was feeling really good still. But I had heard some people talking before the race, and so I knew what to expect at the very end of the race – a long, slow climb to the finish line:

In reality, it was about a 200 foot climb in the last 3/4 miles of the course. My legs were definitely burning once I reached the top, but at that point I wasn’t thinking too much about it because there were lots of people shouting and cheering us on, and I spotted my family waving and cheering and taking pictures shortly before I crossed the finish line.

Coming up the final hill towards the finish line.
Almost across the finish line. Notice there are two timers because the full Marathon and Undead Ultra 50k started 2 hours before the 1/2 Marathon.

One happy zombie!
I crossed the finish line in 1:55:44, slashing just over 10 minutes off my previous 1/2 Marathon time! Obviously it was me and my legs that actually ran the race in that time, but I have to give a lot of credit to my newly-acquired Garmin Forerunner 305 for helping to keep me on pace. There were a number of times (especially closer to the end of the race), that I caught myself starting to slow down for no real reason at all. I think as soon as I started to feel tired, my body just sort of naturally shifted down a gear or two, even though I was perfectly capable of keeping up my pace. In the past, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, and just gradually ran slower and slower. Thanks to my Garmin, I was able to keep a pace of 8:30-8:40 minutes miles for almost the entire race.

I also want to give a shout-out to Rita’s husband, who said something to her during their first 1/2 Marathon together that really stuck with me and went through my head several times during this race. When she felt like they were running too fast, faster than she had trained for, faster than she thought she could keep up, he asked her “but what if you could?” I had the same sort of thoughts going through my head during this race, thinking that I was pushing myself too hard at times. What if I couldn’t keep up this pace? What if I get to mile 10 or 12, and just have nothing left in me? But every time I started thinking this way, I just went back to asking myself the same question:

“But what if I could?”

Zombie 1/2 Marathon Preview

by Brandon  

This Saturday, I’ll be running in my second 1/2 Marathon – the Zombie 1/2 Marathon here in Anchorage.

From what I can tell, this appears to be a pretty low-key event. There aren’t any chip timers, and it’s unclear from the web site whether there will even be any aid stations, though I should be able to get that cleared up when I pick up my bib this afternoon. The 1/2 Marathon was limited to 500 entrants (there’s also a full marathon and the “Undead Ultra” 50k), but for whatever reason, only the first 350 finishers get a medal. So depending on how I do, I may not even get anything to show for my effort. Of course, the medal isn’t the reason I do this, but it is a nice little memento to have. And I can only imagine how cool a zombie medal would look! 🙂

I finished my first 1/2 Marathon in 2:05:52. I would certainly like to improve on that this time around, even finishing in under 2 hours if I can manage it, but there are several variables at play that could make this an interesting run.

First and foremost is the weather. The race starts at 10am, so I expect the temperature around that time to be in the 30-40°F range, which is more or less what I’ve been running in the last couple of weeks, so the cold shouldn’t be a big factor. So far, we don’t have any snow (knock on wood), but it could easily happen any day now. If there’s fresh snow and/or ice on the ground, that’s definitely going to slow me down. According to my trusty ol’ iPhone, they are calling for a rain/snow mix today, and rain tomorrow – yuck!

The other big variable is the course itself. For one thing, it’s definitley a bit hillier than my first 1/2 Marathon. Nothing too huge, but still a factor.

I’m very familiar with the first 4 miles or so of the course, as that’s where I’ve been doing many of my long runs lately, and it was also part of the course for my last race. This section is almost entirely flat, so no worries there.

The next 4-ish miles I’m also pretty familiar with, as I’ve ran/walked/biked that section of the Coastal Trail a decent number of times. The first 2 miles of this section are fairly flat, but in the last 2 miles, you start to come into some decent-size hills.

But it’s the last 5-ish miles of the course that have me worried, as I’ve never been on that part of the trail, and really have no idea what to expect. I mapped that part of the course out in Google Earth, and the hills don’t look too bad, but it’s also kind of hard to get a good sense of size at that scale, so that could end up going either way.

One other thing I’m very excited about is that I recently purchased a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watch with heart rate monitor. I’ve been able to play around with it some on my shorter runs this week, but this race will be my first “real” experience with it. I’ve learned from the past that I have almost NO idea when it comes to pacing myself, so having a tool like this should be very useful for me. Plus, I’m a geek and like to see all the numbers and graphs that this thing pumps out. 🙂

What are you doing this weekend to be healthy?

Why I’m No Longer Running the 1/2 Marathon in Las Vegas

by Brandon  

Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve done a lot of thinking, and a lot of self-reflection. This is not a decision I came to lightly, I can assure you of that.

After careful consideration, I finally came to the decision that I’m no longer going to run the 1/2 Marathon in Las Vegas.

Why, you ask?

Because…I’m going to run the full marathon.

So where did this crazy idea come from? Well, it all started after I tweeted about how well my 16 mile run went 2 weekends ago, and Mac replied:

My initial gut reaction was to just laugh off the comment, thinking that the idea was absolutely crazy! But over the next couple of days, I really started to think more about it and seriously consider it. I even emailed Mac directly and talked to him more about it, to see if he seriously thought I could be ready for a full marathon by December. We both agreed that with the number of miles I’m currently running per week, and the amount of time between now and the marathon, it’s definitely doable.

So last week, I emailed the Rock n’ Roll Marathon folks and asked about upgrading to the full marathon. They finally just replied to me today and said that my registration has officially been updated – GULP!

I sat down last week and mapped out my training schedule, specifically my long runs. The marathon training plans I’ve seen typically have the longest run for marathon training at 20 miles. I figure if I can get 2 or 3 runs of that length in, I should be doing pretty well. Here’s what I’ve got planned as far as my long runs go – I’ll also be doing 3-4 shorter, 4-ish mile runs during the week:

Date Miles
10/9 18 miles
10/16 8-10 miles
10/23 13.1 miles (Zombie 1/2 Marathon)
10/30 20 miles
11/6 8-10 miles
11/13 20 miles
11/20 20 miles
11/27 8-10 miles
12/5 26.2 miles (Las Vegas Marathon!)

My biggest concern for training is the weather around here. Luckily, it doesn’t usually start to get really cold until January or February, and we don’t usually get a bunch of snow until November or December. So hopefully that will leave me with plenty of good training runs that are at least relatively warm and snow-free. Worst-case scenario: I have a treadmill at home, and there are a couple of different indoor tracks around town that I can pay to run at if absolutely necessary.

I know that this will definitely be a big challenge – but I’m all about challenging myself. I finished my last 16 mile run in 2 1/2 hours. The marathon time limit is 5 1/2 hours, so I figure if absolutely nothing else, that gives me 3 hours to walk the last 10 miles 🙂

I’m not going to put a ton of pressure on myself to finish within any specific amount of time (other than the 5 1/2 hour course limit). Being my first marathon, my only goals will be to finish, and to have fun.

Also, I really like the idea of having lost 90+ pounds, started running, ran my first 5k, ran my first 1/2 marathon, and ran my first full marathon, all within less than a year.

An agressive goal? Perhaps. Undoable? I don’t think so.

Bring it on.

A Fantastic 16 Mile Run

by Brandon  

Yesterday afternoon, I went on a 16 mile run – my longest yet – and it felt freakin’ fantastic! The day started off cold (in the mid 30’s), we even got a few light snow flurries in the morning. I bundled up with 3 layers of shirts and long running pants. I also started off wearing gloves, but took those off after about 2 miles once I got warmed up.

This is a beautiful run, right through the middle of Anchorage, from my house near the east side of town, all the way to Westchester Lagoon on the far west side next to the inlet.

Here’s the map of my run from RunKeeper:

The trail winds through trees most of the way, which makes for a lovely run, although that also brings its’ own set of hazards:

I was the second person to come across the pair of moose munching on brush, and while everyone else just stared and tried to decide what to do, I snaked my way through the woods on the opposite side of the trail, leaving plenty of room between me and the moose! I was on my way back home at this point, with about 6 miles left to go, so turning around wasn’t really an option for me!

All in all (even with the run-in with the moose), this was a really great run. My legs are definitely tired today, but it’s a good tired – knowwhatImean?

What a Difference 2 Weeks Makes

Compare this with 2 weeks ago, when I went for a 13.5 mile run, and felt like I was going to die. My body was running on fumes. I had to take lots of walking breaks. There were a few decent size hills that I didn’t even attempt to run up. After I finally made it home, for about 30-45 minutes I felt like I was going to puke.

Yesterday, I felt on top of the world. I ran the entire 16 miles – even up the hills that I had to walk before. Yes, my legs were getting tired by the end, but my whole body didn’t feel run down like it had 2 weeks ago – I still had fuel in the tank, and could have kept on going if I wanted to.

So what was the difference between yesterday and 2 weeks ago? In a word – carbs.

2 weeks ago, I was near the start of the 30-day Primal Blueprint Challenge, where I was eating a pretty strict primal/paleo diet, which means very few carbs. I’m still eating that way now for the most part, though for about 2 days before this run, I did have some extra carbs as an experiment to see what effect it would have on my run.

  • Saturday morning I had my world-famous oatmeal pancakes for breakfast, topped with fresh berries
  • Saturday night was my sister-in-law’s birthday party, where I ate mostly primal/paleo, though I did have some pasta – and just a bit of birthday cake and ice cream 🙂
  • Sunday morning I had oatmeal for breakfast, topped with almonds, pecans, and a scoop of protein powder

That’s really all I ate that was “off plan”. Those extra bit of carbs in the days leading up to my long run made all the difference in the world. I’ve got about a week and a half of the challenge left. During that time, I’m going to be looking at other ways I can augment my primal/paleo diet to provide more fuel for my runs. The book The Paleo Diet for Athletes was recommended to me, which was written by Loren Cordain, author of “the” paleo book, The Paleo Diet, so that definitely looks like a good resource. I’ll also have my eye out for any other good information on fueling for paleo athletes.

What’s your favorite thing(s) to eat in the days leading up to a long run (or other intense exercise)?