Confused by a Slow Turned Fast Midweek Long Run

Like most runners, I am definitely a creature of habit. I like my workouts nicely planned, way far out in advance, with fixed distances and fixed paces so there is no confusion about what I’m doing for training each and everyday. I’m perfectly happy as long as I can follow this pre-planned training schedule all the way to the marathon However, when I am forced by circumstance to start shifting workouts and mixing and matching paces from one run to another, that’s when things break down and I start getting confused and a little anxious. And if the chaos lingers for long enough, I can become downright miserable even if everything appears to be going well on the surface.

Let’s take today’s run as an example.

The workout on the original schedule called for 12 recovery miles at an easy pace. Because I had a hard tempo workout 2 days ago and the 5K race this past weekend, my intention was to give my legs a break from the speed and just run some slow mileage in preparation for a longer 16 miler this weekend. In fact, by the time I got off work in the late afternoon, I was so exhausted from having had to deal with a family with 2 boys who had BMI of 68.9 and 70.2 (a record for me!) at the office that I wasn’t even feeling the 12. Still, I figured I could at a minimum do six easy in Central Park and maybe jump on the treadmill afterwards to finish off the distance.

Although the temperature had miraculously climbed into the low 40s today while I was at work, it was a bit windy by the time I got to the park. Dusk was beginning to settle onto the city as I started my journey southward from Engineer’s Gate. I was still feeling tired at the beginning of the run so I made sure I took my time moving down Cat Hill. I finished mile 1 which coincided with the 72nd street transverse at 7:05, which is exactly where I wanted to be since most of the first mile was downhill.

For the next several miles, as I looped around the bottom of the park and up and over the rolling hills of the west side, I didn’t pay attention to the Garmin but just told myself to run at an easy and comfortable pace. The wind died down some as I saw myriad of runners passing me by in shorts and a single long sleeve shirt. I looked somewhat out of place in my hat, heavy Nike runner’s jacket, gloves and long heavy tights. Okay, so I overdressed for the occasion just a little bit but still felt pretty comfortable moving at my own pace.

I reached the 4.5 mile mark at the top of Harlem Hill, and for some reason decided that 8 would be better than 6, so I made a left and headed onto Morningside Park. As I exited the park, I checked the Garmin again and was astonished that I averaged 7:01 pace for those hilly park miles.

After dodging some brief traffic, I found myself standing alone on the precipice of Morningside Park. The day had already begun given way to night as I began running again. I had to admit. I was a little scared to be running there alone in the receding light, but still found the tranquility somewhat invigorating. My pace had slow down a bit mostly because I was unfamiliar with the terrain and had to dodge some snow puddles. Pace for this section – 7:10.

It had gotten a little darker by the time I reached the northern edge of the park. I stopped, took a sip from my Gatorade bottle, but instead of running back from when I came, I again made a left in the direction of Riverside Park and the West Side Highway. Hmmm…Laminator, shouldn’t we be heading back now, it’s getting dark. We can knock out whatever’s left over at the Reservoir or at the gym. But despite my sheepish complaints, my legs were having none of it and were already carrying me up over the steep hilly streets and onto the edge of the Hudson. What could I do? I was forced to comply. And so I ran, first through the streets to the park then cautiously and slowly down the west side. Night had set up permanent residence in the city and aside from the cars whizzing along the highway and the occasional dog barking at a stranger nearby, it was quiet, almost eerily so.

I reached 96th Street in the middle of mile 8. My pace had recovered from a lackluster 7:17 in the previous mile to a 7:07 in this mile, and I was happy that I was almost 2/3 of the way to knocking out my 12. Ordinarily, at this juncture of the trip, I turn back east to finish up the remaining 4 miles in the familiarity of central park. But somewhere between being freaked out that I was running alone at night on the opposite side of the island with no ID and no phone and feeling vindicated that I was going to finish my 12 miles completely outdoors without the use of a treadmill, I must have had an absence seizure because my mind completely froze and I continued running down the west side past the park exit. In my freaky head, I was trapped by the thoughts of hmmm…I’m feeling good…so let’s do 16 instead of 12…isn’t that the scheduled long run for this week…oh, and I heard it might rain this weekend, better to get it over with now then wait…

Again, I felt powerless to protest. So I ran completely down the upper west side, down to 59th Street before making it all the way back to 96th Street to the park exit. The whole extra excursion added another 3.5 miles to the run. The pace was 7:02, 7:05, 7:21 for the respective miles so that by the time I landed back on the west side of Central Park, I was looking at 12.5 miles with an average of 7:10 min/mi pace.

You would think I’d be satisfied, having run an extra 4 miles longer than I origninally expected, to be running this strong pace for an impromptu long run. But then you’d be wrong. For some reason, when I saw 7:10, my mind went completely numb and my legs took control and ran hard the rest of the way as if they was on a mission. I blistered the 3.77 miles back over to Engineer’s Gate (yes, even through Cat Hill) at a 6:41 min/mi pace. I wasn’t looking at Garmin during this impromptu speed session so I had no idea what I was running until I arrived at the finish. I wanted to carry a marathon pace (6:52) for the final miles, but 6:41 sounds completely ridiculous to me. My finishing time for the short-6-turned-long-16.17 miler was 1:53:51. Average pace: 7:02.

Now as I’m sitting here, trying to come to grips with this weird midweek fast long run, I am not really sure how I should really categorize it in terms of distance or speed. For distance, sure the 16 miles fulfills me long run requirement for the week, but does that mean I should only do 12 this weekend. Or maybe an 18 miler would be more appropriate now to improve my long distance stamina. For speed, the dilemma is even trickier. Up to now, my long run pace has been in 7:15-7:20 range, or so I had thought. So 7:02 is really unfathomable to me as a long run pace. By comparison, my previous training PR for this distance (established a month prior to NYCM last year) was 7:13! Combined this with last week’s 20-miler, where the average pace of 7:12 blows the previous best of 7:21 out of the water, and I truly do not even know what my long run pace is or should be anymore. On the one hand, I’m ecstatic that I’m running so much stronger than I ever have before. On the other, I’m afraid that I’m running everything too fast, risking burnout, injury or just peaking too early before Boston.

Gosh, this is confusing. If only I could’ve just stuck to the plan and run an easy 12 at a slow recovery pace…

Running: Physiologically SpeakingFive Easy Steps to Better Nutrition

When it comes to my ramblings about running, those who’ve been around these parts know that I usually don’t delve into the subsidiary topics such as fueling and nutrition. I know there are many running bloggers out there that are both knowledgeable and skilled in this arena so I figured I’d leave the advice and the recipes to them. After all, I spend so much of my blog space talking about running and marathon training that I feel I would not do the topic justice if I were to cover it sporadically. As such, even if nutritional counseling is part of my daily responsibilities as an obesity specialist, up to now, I’ve resisted all temptation to talk about my attitudes/advice concerning nutrition in this blog.

That all changed last week when I saw two patients in the clinic back-to-back and found myself giving the same exact speech to both families. The odd thing was that they would appear for all the world to be completely different in every appreciable way. One was a morbidly obese teenage girl who was seeing me because all her previous attempts at weight loss has been unsuccessful. The other was a muscular teenage boy, very active in school sports, who was seeing me for an underactive thyroid condition, but mid-interview, asked if he needed nutritional supplements because he felt groggy after early morning football practice. As I was explaining to both patients and their parents some key principles of proper nutrition, I was quite shocked to find that most of what I had to say was completely foreign to them. Seriously? And both of them had been to countless other professionals, such as trainers and nutritionists, before coming to me.

As I was coming home from work that day, it occurred to me that I should write about this, not because what I have to say is so earth-shattering or brilliant, but because it is so basic, and would help both those who are trying to lose weight and those who are looking to improve their athletic performance. Again, dear readers, the list that follows is not comprehensive, but serves to just highlight some basics for those who have no idea where to start. I hope they will be useful to you and will inspire you to look elsewhere for more information.

My Five Easy Steps to Better Nutrition

1. Always eat breakfast – This is by far the most frequent faux pas among dieters and athletes alike. In my opinion, breakfast is the MOST IMPORTANT meal of the day. That is because your body has been in starvation mode while you’ve been sleeping through the night. When you awake, all your hormones are reved up to help your body physiologically get ready for the day. It is in desperate need of some energy to fuel this transition. (That’s why that cup of joe feels so good in the morning!) If you skip that meal, then you are essentially asking the body to use alternative sources of fuel (by breaking down muscle for example) for energy since the glucose/glycogen stores from the previous meal has long been depleted by this point. (It is well known that those who don’t eat prior to early morning workouts bonk earlier and suffer more injuries than those who do.) Also, because the body adapts amazingly well to your eating habits, when you skip meals, you will feel more hungry during the infrequent meals that you do eat, and will tend to store more of those meals as fat to be used in the early morning. (That’s why those who don’t eat breakfast can’t lose weight or maintain their weight loss for very long.) So for both the athlete and the dieter, it is imperative that they both eat a small breakfast to reach their goals.
2. Have smaller and more frequent meals – The current recommendation is 6 to 7 small meals folks, not the standard three big meals that we knew and love when we were kids. This is due to the fact that when we eat, insulin is secreted in proportion to the meal size. So the bigger the meal, the higher the insulin level. High insulin levels are generally not good because it enhances lipogenesis (or the deposition of fat cells). Not only so, but it is also a culprit behind hypertension, high cholesterol and a myriad of other problems. When you eat smaller but more frequent meals, you keep insulin levels somewhat low and in a narrow range, which helps your body adapt to metabolic changes and handle energy demands more rapidly and more efficiently.
3. Chew your food and eat slowly – Aside from the obvious enjoyment of the food that you’re eating, another reason to take your time to chew, eat, and drink is because stretch signals from the stomach (carried on slower nerve fibers) take a good 5-10 minutes to generate a feeling of satiety in the brain. What this means is that if you eat at a pace that is faster than what the brain can process, you will still be eating when the stomach is already full. This is one situation that can be avoided if we allow the time to chew, swallow and digest our food fully before proceeding to the next bite.
4. Skip the juice/Avoid liquid calories – Except in specific circumstances, such as during or after a hard workout, it is generally a good idea to skip the juice. These empty liquid calories do not offer any nutritional benefits and can sabotage any well-intentioned diet very quickly. Stick to the diet stuff if you must.
5. Avoid eating around stress/Be calm when you eat – I like this one because it makes perfect hormonal sense. When your body is stressed, again there is a surge of hormones (think flight-or-fight response) that is preparing the body for a physical or psychological battle. These hormones, just like we saw in the early morning, is helping the body cope by absorbing more of the food and storing it as fat. (It’s not a coincidence that at times of extreme stress, we often feel the most hungry.) This tendency to overeat is also in response to elevated cortisol levels which is the inherent stress hormone for the body. If you can find a calm setting for a meal, you not only will eat less and eat more comfortably, but will absorb less of what you eat as fat as well.

That’s it. Hope all my knowledgeable and fine readers are already abiding by these basic principles. If so, then pass this advice along to someone else who needs it. God knows how many people there are out there who just need a little guidance to improve their health and their lives.

If you have questions for me, or have other clinical questions related to running, training, or nutrition, drop me a line. Au revoir for now!

[FYI – For those who are new and never read the first installment of Running: Physiologically Speaking, you should check it out. It was pretty well received and convinced me to continue the series…albeit nine months later! Okay, my bad. Still, it might be educational if you’ve ever had a headache after a long run on a hot sunny day…]

Boston Marathon Training Update - Week 10

One essential question above all else dominated my running this week. How does one incorporate a 5K race at the peak of marathon training? On the one hand, I was planning some heavy mileage at a slower pace, including a 20-miler, for my runs this week. On the other hand, I knew I had to burn through some quick, short intervals in preparation for the 5K at the end of the week. It was an interesting dilemma but one I struggled with almost every time out this week. What eventually evolved was a compromise of sorts. See if you’ll agree.

Week #10 (2/23-3/1)
What I Planned:

Speed Intervals: 7 total miles with 3 X 1 mile at 5:58 pace

Recovery Run: 4 total miles at easy pace

Midweek General Aerobic Run: 12 miles at 7:05 pace

Weekend Long Run: 20 total miles at long run pace

Weekend Race: 3.1 miles at race pace

Total week 10 distance planned: 46.0 miles

What I Ran:

Tues - TM Speed Intervals: 5.3 miles with 3 interval miles [5:45-5:48]

Tues - Recovery/Cooldown Run: 5.52 miles at 6:47 pace

Thurs - Midweek Long Run: 21 miles at 7:12 pace

Sat - TM Speed Intervals: 4 miles with 2 interval miles [5:49, 5:51]

Sat - GA/Recov Run: 7.54 miles at 7:03 pace

Sun – Coogan’s 5K Race: 3.1 miles at 5:59 pace

Total week 10 distance: 46.5 miles; avg pace – 6:56 min/mi

How I Ran:

As you can see, my plan of attack was to do short fast interval miles on the treadmill and then jump outside for another 5-7 miles as a cooldown/recovery run to add mileage for marathon training. I applied that training strategy for both my Tuesday workout at normal speed and my Saturday workout at reduced speed. The end result was the completion of my inaugural 5K on Sunday at 5:59 pace, which is about the best I could hope for given the nature of the race.

In between these workouts, I had a midweek 21 miler that went extremely well. The weather was perfect that day and because I was running in the early afternoon, I had the running paths around the city pretty much all to myself throughout the entire run. I ran a completely new route which took me from the Upper East Side over the Queensboro Bridge, back to Central Park, then up to Morningside Park, across to Riverside Park before finally ending out on Riverside Park and the West Side Highway. Essentially I ran from one side of the island to the other without having to run downtown. Sweet! And because I held myself to a slow and easy 7:30 pace for the first 10 miles, I had enough energy to run a bit faster in the second half, including the last 4 miles at sub-marathon pace (6:48 average pace). I just love my pacing strategy for this long run and will definitely use it again in the future.

My final assessment of this past week is a pretty good one, given that I accomplished all the main objectives I had planned for at the beginning of in the week. It goes to show that flexibility and variety is really an integral component of any successful marathon training program.

Have a great week, everyone!