The smell of a run?
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Last night I discovered something weird about my neighbors while out on my run.
Their street smells like Dimetapp.
Seriously. Dimetapp.
I had taken a different route than I normally take, just to kind of liven things up. And I discovered that different parts of the neighborhood smell completely differently. Just in my short outing, I smelled Dimetapp, fried chicken, dog and burning rubber.
What are my neighbors doing?
I’m pretty sure that a person with a cold stole a dog and fried chicken and then peeled out in his escape car.
Maybe I should stick to my original route.
Marathon Training – Week 13
Week 14 – 20 Miles
Marathon Starting Line
NW 5th & Harvey
Sunday, April 10th
Announcements 6:25a.m.
Start Running 6:30 a.m.
We had another great turnout this past Sunday (this is getting redundant!). It was a warm and windy morning with the temperature near 70 and the wind gusting above 30 mph. But, I didn’t see anyone blew away and the runners were in good spirits. There was also quite an array of goodies on the table after the run. Thanks to everyone who brought something to share.
Runners, you have come a very long way in the past 13 weeks. You have completed 170 of the scheduled 210 miles of weekend long runs (81%). This weekend’s 20 miler is the last big hurdle before we start our taper to race day. Congratulations, you are almost there. The effort will be worth it when you cross the finish line on May 1st.
Our water stops sponsor this week will be the Red Coyote. They will have water stops every three miles. They will also have something VERY special for everyone who completes the training run on Sunday. You don’t want to miss this. It will be well worth getting up for.
Course – The 20 mile course will begin at the official marathon starting line and follow the regular course to Waverly and Carlisle where we will turn left on Carlisle and go west to Penn. At Penn, turn south (left) and go to Grand. At Grand turn east (left) and you are back on the course. Follow the course from there back to our usual finishing point at NW 5th & Broadway. The following link illustrates the course.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/view_route?r=871213825318
Mark Bravo’s Tips – As you’re well into your longer efforts for the OKC Memorial Half or Full Marathon, it’s time to establish a ‘game plan’ for the pivotal aspects of your big day:
1) Nutrition: Simulate how you’ll hydrate and take in sustenance, in terms of timing and how much. Familiarity breeds CONFIDENCE!
2) Set the stage for how you want the race to play out; realistically create game plan for midway through-whatever distance-and 3/4 through, so you’re prepared for whatever ‘intangibles’ may arise.
3) Complete a few “fine-tuning” workouts; heighten leg turnover for short periods or TEMPO runs once/week.
All of these lead to your heading to the starting line on top of your game, mentally and physically, the key to making May 1st a day you’ll always remember! Runnning Coach Mark Bravo Questions? Find me at runbravo@yahoo.com.
Pothole Update – We need to give the marathon folks a pothole report asap so they can fix them before May 1st. If you know of any potholes on the course please send me an email and I will get them reported.
Registration/Membership – The training group is a free open service to anyone wanting to train for any aspect of the OKC Memorial Marathon or just wanting to get some physical activity. We would love to have any interested runners/walkers join the OKC Running Club as well but it is not required. Annual memberships are $20. You can also join through a new link on our web site www.okcrunning.org. Click on Join The Team!
Kids Marathon
Have you heard about the Kids Marathon? It’s ridiculously cute. Kids run 25 miles in the months leading up to the marathon, and then they all finish the last 1.2 miles together. Awesome! My 1 1/2-year-old daughter is a bit too young for such an undertaking, but I can’t wait until she’s old enough to do this. Here’s a video about the group training at Casady School. Pretty great.
Running against the wind
No, this isn’t a sappy Bob Seger ballad. This is Oklahoma running at its finest. Running against the wind – sometimes 30 mph wind as fellow blogger Christy Watson pointed out – is tough, really tough.
I also was hurting today after 10 miles of wind and hills at Mitch Park, which raises the question, what will I do on race day if it’s that windy?
I have a goal for how fast I’d like to finish the half marathon, but if it’s windy, I have serious doubts if I’ll be able to achieve that. Do I start out slow and pace myself, so I can finish or do I try and keep on pace and just see if I can push through the wind?
Cara Rogers-Nance is president of the Land Runners, the group that organized the Mitch Park run last weekend, and she advised treating the wind like any other variable in a race.
“If it was really windy, I would probably not stress,” she said. “It could be wind, it could be temperature, it could be the way you feel that morning, so you really just have to look at how you feel that morning.”
But like anything, Rogers-Nance said, practicing under the conditions will help prepare you just in case a wind storm is brewing on May 1st.
I’ve decided to stop stressing about the possibility of wind on race day, but I’m also going to stop avoiding my runs on windy days.
Ouch!
So I got up way before daylight Sunday morning to hit the trail at Mitch Park with the Landrunners. Actually, I hit the trail before the group because I’m a bit slow and I needed to finish in time for church. Now I’ve run 12 miles before. And I’ve run the hilly trails at Mitch before. But I’ve never run 12 miles of those hills, with 30mph winds to boot. So I’m sore today. My calves. My knees. My quads. My IT band. They all are a bit stiff and sore. Still, it’s the good kind of sore – the kind that tells you worked hard and lived to tell about it. I didn’t stretch enough after the run, and I intended to do a short run this morning to try to stretch out my muscles. But instead, I was tending to a sick kiddo. He has it much worse than sore muscles.
Why core training helps
Seasonably bad running
Runnbers bundled up for the Deer Creek Classic 10k in early March this year. Photo By Paul Helstern
At times I revel in cold weather running.
The sense of defeating the elements is empowering.
Refusing to let something as piddly as snow flurries and a negative wind chill stand between me and the five miles I’ve written down on my calendar, gives me a sense of accomplishment beyond what pounding the pavement usually provides.
But the past two weeks of continuous cloud cover and borderline freezing temperatures have had the opposite effect.
I blame my miserableness on the unseasonably warm days in March that reminded me of the joys of summer running. You know – the little things – like not having to wear three layers of heavy clothing or not being afraid that if you get a side cramp and have to walk home you might freeze to death.
Last week I was so done with cold weather running that I ran once. One time in six days. And my long run? Forget about it. I put in five slow miles with my body protesting the entire run.
This week I pulled myself together and toughed it out, but I still wasn’t happy.
But today!? I have been looking forward to my run all day! I can’t wait to get home, throw on my running shoes and head out on a three mile adventure in my neighborhood.
I’m going to revel in my 10 mile weekend run with the sun beating on my shoulders and burning my cheeks, and the heft of a water bottle on my hip to stave off impending dehydration …. wait a second …
When is it going to be winter again?
Note: Obviously my favorite times to run are fall and spring but Oklahoma skips by those seasons so briefly there’s no need to address them.
- Megan Rolland
Taper time
I have this calendar that I’ve been using to chart my training since January. Today I flipped the page to discover that this is it! April is the last month! Holy. Moly. This is immensely terrifying.
So for me, my training schedule doesn’t really call for tapering, but I know that a lot of marathoners are starting to trim their miles in the coming weeks. This is my question: is is hard for uber-runners to taper? For me, this is no problem. At all. But I’m guessing that it’s tough for those of you who spend 21 hours a day running. Here’s an article from Runner’s World about mentally and physically preparing for the race. Even though I’m not running the full marathon, I thought this was really helpful:
“Think of all the problems that could arise and work through how you’ll handle them,” says Kate Hays, Ph.D., a sports psychologist, longtime runner, and director of the starting-line “psyching team” at the Toronto Marathon. “Doing this will provide solutions so that you won’t panic in case one of the scenarios does occur, and it reduces your anxiety because you’ll know you’re ready for any situation.” Mentally rehearse the following scenarios:
- It’s warm, freezing, or blustery. Less-than-ideal conditions mean you have to adjust your time goals. Headwinds can slow your finish time by several minutes, and heat or cold by even more. A survey of marathon finish times suggests that 55 degrees is the ideal temperature, a temperature of 35 or 75 degrees adds 7 percent to your time, and an 85-degree day adds 10 percent.
- You start out ahead of goal pace. Slow down to goal pace as soon as you figure this out (hopefully no later than when you hit the first mile marker), because running an even pace is crucial.
- You start out slower than goal pace. Speed up, but only to goal pace, because trying to “make up for lost time” is a fool’s game. You can still achieve your goal time by speeding up slightly during the second half of the race.
- You slip off goal pace midrace. This is the time to become your own cheerleader. Coax yourself back into the groove by thinking about all the training you put in and how badly you want to achieve your goal.
- Your old (knee/shin/foot) problem acts up at midrace. Decide in advance how bad it has to get before you’ll drop out. A good guideline is that if the pain forces you to alter your stride, drop out so you don’t develop a long-term injury.
- A side stitch strikes. As excruciating as these can be, plan on hanging in there, because most stitches vanish within a couple of miles–especially if you slow down and apply pressure to the area where you feel the stitch.
