Pushing My Buttons - Previewing NY13.1

I sometimes think of myself as a computer with buttons that you can push to get a predictable response. The better you know me the more you can push those buttons. For example, if I say, "Oh I better not have any pizza," you can very easily change my mind. Push the button by putting a pizza in front of me. That was easy.

Such is the case with the NY13.1 half-marathon. I heard about this a few months ago and took a look at the course.

what is this i don't even

Not that Flushing Meadows is a beautiful venue but if you're putting on a large half-marathon there, it's kind of.. small.. Anyway, add to it the fact that it's an hour away, it's a half-marathon, it conflicts with the NJ Ultra Festival and I thought I'd drop by, it's not the cheapest race in the world, and oh yeah it's a week before Umstead and - well - the odds of me signing up for it are remote at best.

That is, until somebody inadvertently pushed my button. I call this button the "Do it because friends are doing it button." Sure enough, there are three or four tri club people going. They didn't even have to invite me. Oh I'd like to join you guys! Umstead shmumstead - lets go run a half!!

So tomorrow morning I'm running the NY13.1 Half Marathon. It'll be fun. Actually - it's going to be a friggin' great time. Alex and Joe are coming along, and after the race we'll go to the Queens Hall of Science and spend half-a-day there, and then maybe we'll get a gyro at Fontana and perhaps maybe visit some family in Brooklyn if they're around. Definitely going to be an awesome day.

Oh, and Umstead? Check out this rationalization. If this doesn't make you roll your eyes, then I don't know what will:

"You see, this is actually a good fitness test and tune-up run. I'm going to run this race nice and hard, but without killing myself. And since Umstead is 8 12.5-mile loops, this 13.1 mile race will tell me how I should pace myself in the first lap or two. You see, I'll add a half-hour to this race's time. So if I run 2:05, I'll aim for 2:35 in the first lap of Umstead. If I run 2:15, I'll aim for 2:45. Where did I get the half-hour figure? I pulled it out of my ass! What about subsequent laps at Umstead? Glad you asked! I figure I want to slow down by about ten minutes per lap. So lap two will be 40 minutes slower than the half, lap 4 will be an hour slower, etc. Where did I get that ten-minute number? I pulled it out of my ass!"

The De Facto Training Schedule

Inside the Sweat Lodge

As you can imagine, joining the Triathlon Club at my YMCA has colored my entire training schedule. In fact, it has largely taken over, and I have noticed in the last month or so of training with these guys a routine that I have fallen into. It's been great for me, because not only do these guys motivate me to work harder than I normally would, but I also have a bit of long-missing structure to my exercise routine.

I also have been successful so far in maintaining my running streak, which stands at 431 days today.

Sunday
7:15AM - Tri Club run. One of the members of the club puts together a route. We meet at Market Basket in Franklin Lakes, NJ. The route has ranged from 6 miles to 9 miles, and it's getting a little longer each week. I think tomorrow we're doing 10 miles with hills.

Monday
Lunch - I take this as my recovery-from-aerobic-exercise day. I do a mile or two running, nice and easy, usually on the treadmill, and then lift weights for 30 minutes to an hour.

Tuesday
6-7AM or Lunch (or both) - Run on my own, 4 to 6 miles.
6PM - 1-hr Masters Swim at the YMCA. This was suggested by the guy who runs the Tri Club there. For $7.50, I get an hour in the pool, with a coach who corrects mistakes in my form (of which there are many. Swimming is hard!) This is great because the class to coach ratio was 2:1 this week!

Wednesday 
(odd weeks)
6-7AM - Run on my own, 3-4 miles
Lunch - 40-minute Boot Camp Group Class at work. This is often the toughest workout of the week!!
(even weeks)
6-7AM or Lunch (or both) - Run on my own, 4-6 miles.

Thursday 
(ALL weeks)
5:30AM - 75-90-minute "Lake House" Spin session - we bring our own bikes and trainers, and go through a spin workout, lead by YMCA staff.
7:40AM - After spin I drive straight to work, and run on the treadmill for 20 minutes until I have to shower and, um.. work.
(even weeks)
Lunch: 30-minute Boot Camp Group Class.

Friday
5:30AM - 1-hour YMCA Tri Club Swim session. Again, a coach is there to correct form, but unlike the Masters Swim coaching session, it's sometimes a 25:1 class to coach ratio. So the coaching is still valuable, but the real value in this workout is camaraderie.
6:40AM - A bunch of us go right to the gym there at the YMCA and run on treadmills for an hour or so. I usually do 4-5 miles on this run.

Saturday
5:30AM - 2-hour "Sweat Lodge"Spin Session - we pack our bikes and trainers in the two-car garage of one of our tri club members, and we follow a workout generously provided by a top age-grouper who is acquainted with our club. This or Boot Camp is always the toughest workout of the week.
Later that day - I run, usually really short just to keep the streak alive. Today I ran immediately after the (really tough) 2-hour spin session.

Totals
7 days of running - 30 miles, 5 hours or so
2 days of swimming - 2 hours
2 days of biking - 3.5 hours
1 day of weights - 30 minutes

So that was my schedule for February and March will look really similar. I expect that as the weather improves and the light returns, things will change. We'll probably bike outside instead of on the trainer, there will be open-water swimming, and track workouts.

And yes, I am missing long runs. This will be a factor at Umstead. I have to count on the residual training effect of 150 miles at ATY + 11 hours/week of training to compensate. I will probably be walking most of the second 50. Mike Henze pointed out on the ultra list that when he does a month of walking at 11 minutes per mile, then walking 15 minutes per mile in a race doesn't feel very hard. To that end March I also am going to add a few hours of walking per week, and perhaps replace some running miles with walking, and I'm going to try to keep it either 5MPH or faster, or 5% or steeper.

2012 Calendar, and some other stuff

2012 Calendar


Finalized my race calendar for 2012. Excluded a lot of races that I really enjoy doing, but with the Memorial Day burnout last year, the lesson that I shouldn't race too much has been learned. A mere three ultras this year, and - yes - three triathlons. Completing an Ironman has long been a bucket-list item for me, and 2012 will be the year I finally do it. But even though it would make an interesting story, it would probably be foolish to have an Ironman be my *first* triathlon, especially since I still don't haven't gotten the swim thing figured out yet.

• March 31: Umstead 100-miler
• May 10: Three Days at the Fair 72-hour
• June 16: Wyckoff/Franklin Lakes Triathlon - 0.5M swim, 17M bike, 5M run
• September 9: Westchester ToughMan Half - 1.2M swim, 56M bike, 13.1M run
• September 22: North Coast 24-hour
• November 13: Ironman Florida - 2.4M swim, 112M bike, 26.2M run

Of course, I'll probably add a couple of races 5K to half-marathon. Perhaps even a full marathon or two. But those six are the main events. And, if you're wondering, I'm not ruling out a third trip to Across The Years on December 29, but I'm not committing to it either.


January Recap


After Across The Years, I spent a couple of weeks nursing my beat up body back to health. Notwithstanding the 17 miles I hobbled after midnight in the last 9 hours of the race, the first week was about nine miles, the second week 11. Mostly just easily jogging my minimum mile per day. By MLK day, I was coming back (especially after that problem toenail fell off), and the last three weeks of the month were 19, 25, and 28 miles, giving me a total of about 104 miles in the month of January.

Regarding that other persistent issue with me, I actually ended up gaining weight in January, despite intentions to the contrary. By the last week of the month, I figured that I'd re-commit for real on Febuary first, and as a result the last few days in Jan resembled Fat Tuesday. I got that out of my system and I'm ready for some serious discipline at this point.

State of the Streak


400th day in a row of running today! There's an organization out there that tracks all known running streaks a year or longer, and as of this writing I'm own the 305th-longest running streak in America (that they know of.) How long will I keep going? Doubtful I'll make the 43.5 years of the #1 longest running streak, but I do plan on keeping this going as long as possible. The streak has kept me consistent, and I have no idea how I'll stay consistent when the streak ends - so I'm putting it off ending it as long as possible.

State of the Blog


Boy, I'm certainly not posting nearly as frequently as I used to, eh? Well, looking at the unpublished drafts, I see reports for Knickerbocker 60K and the MS Bike Ride from September that just need to be published, so I suppose I owe that to you's. But otherwise I can't promise any increased frequency. There will certainly be no blog-publishin' schedule anytime soon - my real-life schedule is busy enough as it is! There will be some things though - I'm sure this triathlon thing will motivate me to write about some insights that I have along the way.