100 minutes over Patrician, with some extra on the South Field. Went ahead for a bit on the hills at first to get some workout in, then doubled back to catch the guys in back. Tossed in six striders as well. I felt reasonably strong despite the long week and workout yesterday. Nonetheless, striders were inevitably somewhat forced after 95 minutes of running.
Friday, August 29 (tempo am, 30 pm)
Time to go now
Time to train
Fitness you just
Cannot feign
Old arroyo
tempo loop
Sun is rising
give a whoop
First one: cruised it
felt just fine
Next one: faster
all aligned
Third one: still there
going strong
Fourth one: problems
something's wrong
I have to poop
what to do
Never look back
but run on through
run on through, man
run on through
I think my splits for 4xarroyo tempo were 8:56, 17:42 (8:46), 26:34 (8:52), 35:50 (9:16). As alluded to above, I was feeling pretty good until I had bowel problems on the last one, but I decided just to keep running and try not to explode in the middle of the trail. I made it, but as you can see was forced to slow considerably.
My impression from this run is that no particular component of my fitness is especially lacking. My aerobic and muscular fitness seem in line with each other. Both are really pretty good. But everything is down a notch or two from my peak fitness. It'll take me some time, but I'll progress steadily to new levels if I just keep training intelligently and do my various injury-preventing routines. I need some endurance-building long runs, some strength-building hills, and some speed-building fartleks and intervals. I've got to toss it all in there, and keep on practicing these threshold runs with an eye towards a couple good cross races in preparation for the half marathons.
In the afternoon I jogged it out with the team and did a very difficult ab routine, guided by Katherine. There was a lot of rest in there between exercises, which ideally one would try to avoid. But my abs were in poor enough shape that they needed it. Lifted a little bit with Dennis afterwards, but I was too tired from moving stuff to the new apartment and not eating a proper lunch to go at it very hard.
Thursday, August 28 (70 am, 20 pm)
Full arroyo with the team in the morning. I could feel all the pounding the sidewalk did to my legs, so I have to be careful about that. Also stopped to take an enormous dump in the arroyo, which allowed me to join back up with Kangway for most of the run.
Afternoon just jogged a bit on the infield while some high schoolers were playing football on our beautiful field. Some brief core stuff afterwards, then Scott bought me a new pair of DS trainers.
Wednesday, August 28 (30am, 55pm)
Easy morning jog with Ian and Dennis, then Huntington with the team in the afternoon. I went to the track at the end of the Huntington and did 1600 at goal half marathon pace - 5:17 (maybe one second too fast). It felt very nice and relaxed, but not 13.1 miles relaxed. My work is cut out for me.
Plan
My competitive plans are for two cross races (Westmont 9/13 and Riverside 9/27) and two half marathons (Rose Bowl Half and Huntington Beach, AKA Surf City).
I want to train with the team as much as possible, although I also recognize that I have to take tutoring work where I can get it, so some afternoons I might be forced to skip out. I don't see myself in a coaching capacity. A coach has to be confident in himself and his methods. I don't even have methods to be confident in. What I can do is offer myself as a mentor. I've done lots of both good and bad things as a Caltech student athlete. Younger athletes can benefit from my experience; older athletes from my camaraderie or example. At the very least, I can drive one of the vans. Having Ian and Ryan, and even McGrail around was a huge boon for me, especially over freshman and sophomore years. Those guys were awesome training partners and guides, and I wouldn't have developed the way I did without them. Now I'm in their role.
Personally, my strongest competitive motivation is still in track, but I want to take my fall and winter seriously. I plan to prepare for them more intelligently and more diligently than before. My goals are consistent, competent, injury-free (or minimized, at least), aerobic-focused training. I want to build from where I am now (not great shape, but not awful) into PR shape by Riverside, and then into new territory by mid-winter.
I'd like to run a couple of cross races as motivation to get good workouts in. That way I should begin advancing my fitness right away. I won't expect fantastic performances because I only have two weeks to Westmont and one month to Riverside. Nonetheless, it'll be good to get into the training-to-race and then the racing-to-compete mentality. My old cross country PR is 26:45, which I should be able to better on the Riverside course a month from now.
The Rose Bowl Half won't be a fast course, but it has a lot of things going for it. It's right here, so logistics are easy and I'll be familiar with the course. It has some trails in it and goes up around JPL. It probably won't be a very competitive field because there is no prize money, only some smaller awards. That's fine for the "tune-up" first of two halfs (would you spell it that way, or "halves", or "half's"?). The race is ten days after my 24th birthday and it's on my Dad's birthday, December 13.
Huntington Beach will be a good goal to shoot for over the next two months - it's February 1. I haven't run there, but Feldman runs it sometimes and says it's a great course. Much faster than the Rose Bowl, so I can gun for a good time there - right now I'm tentatively setting 1:10 (5:20 pace) as a goal, although I'll re-evaluate that when I have more data on how things are panning out a couple months.
As for what I'll do, I'm going to keep it simple and keep it loose. I need some long runs, some threshold, and some faster stuff. I'll do whatever the team is doing, except maybe going longer on tempo days. I've already done a 95 minutes long run. I'll keep pushing that out bit by bit as long as I don't feel truly awful doing so. And I'm going to resume counting weekly minutes, while using my meditation-built mental restraint to refrain from adding junk minutes just so that figure soars higher. A good training week would have a long, 6-15 mile tempo/steady state, a long run, and a shorter workout such as fartlek, intervals, or 3-6 mile tempo. If I'm feeling good, another medium-long run or another workout, or some light, fast reps (4 300's at mile pace for example) would be good to throw in as a bonus. If not, easy running can fill it out.
I want to be doing at least a little core work five days a week, and lifting two. I'll keep with the double days over preseason, and reevaluate that when the demands on my time change with the beginning of the school year.
I did a max set of 10 pullups the other night. That needs some fixing. And my abs coach and I have our work cut out for us. Fortunately, we'll be living together so I can get constant advice.
Tuesday, August 26 (55 minutes easy)
Recovery jog in the evening, around the illicit South Field. I thought someone might come and try to throw me off. If they do in the future, I have a trump card. According to the official Caltech Athletics website, I am the assistant coach of the men's cross country team. Now I can just tell them I'm officially conducting a special inspection of the facilities in preparation for the athletes.
Monday, August 25 (95 minutes)
Very nice long run with Ian, Gustavo, and Kangway down in the arroyo, from the bottom of California to a little ways down the waterfall trail and back. I still didn't feel well. My legs were sore and I'm not in top shape, but it was very nice to go out and put in all those miles with some good guys. Getting up early and doing that shit is actually a really nice feeling. The top sections of my calves were excessively sore all day, though.
Sunday, August 24 (65 minutes easy)
North Field running with Kangway. My first run in a while, and honestly I felt terrible. My digestive system was simply not adapted to doing anything other than being empty and taking lots of naps, especially after I blacked out due to low blood pressure immediately after standing up. That's what I get for messing with my body for two weeks straight.
Hot Events
I noticed today that the lovely Ms. Flanagan is now the 12th fastest female 10,000m runner ever, and 3rd fastest white chick (also ahead of her are three Asians and six Africans). But I also noticed that there were a lot of top performances this year at the women's 10,000. So I decided to look at the flat running events and see how many of the top 100 performances all time have come in the last three years for each event.
Men
100m 37
200m 33
400m 27
800m 5
1500 2
5000 25
10000 36
half 48
full 35
Women
100 6
200 10
400 9
800 13
1500 12
5000 33
10000 26
half 23
full 25
New Adventures
If you fall off the bike and don't get back on, the asphalt wins. And you know how much I hate asphalt.
My plan was to bike out of Stanford and go on a new solo adventure. Unfortunately, I caught a cold my last day of camp. (I haven't run the last few days for this reason.) Going on an adventure that involves six hours of exercise a day, which I'm not truly fit for, while sick, seemed like a bad idea. So I'm now in the 24-hour library in Stanford, wondering where I'll sleep tonight. A new camp has moved into the house I was occupying, and there aren't exactly any campgrounds around here.
Biking is out, but most of the adventure I had planned remains intact. I'm headed to North Fork, CA (near Fresno) for a 10-day retreat at the California Vipassana Center to learn to meditate. At the moment I'm mostly trying to not get any preconceived notions of what this thing will be like or what I'll get from it. I learned about this place from an EPGY counselor I met two years ago. He meditated two hours a day using the techniques he learned from a Vipassana center. We spent several long, lazy dinners talking about it, and over the course of a few weeks got me interested in trying meditation out.
The center runs by donation only, so I know they're not just out there to scam me. Further, they don't have any obvious religious ties, and they're not making any totally outlandish claims about what their training does. I have ten days to kill, so I'll see what this is like.
The program is pretty extreme. In approximate order of extreme-ness, I have to follow these elements of a code of conduct:
- "noble silence" as in, no talking. except to ask questions of the teachers or communicate some physical need to the staff. but no communication whatsoever with the other participants
- no reading or writing. not even a journal to record your thoughts. certainly not a novel or a textbook
- no exercise, except walking around the grounds
- no communication with the outside world. no cell phones, laptops, newspapers, etc
- wake up at 4am, then spend 10 hours meditating (or trying to) throughout the day on a strict schedule
- no sexual activity (masturbation is apparently a sexual activity, at least according to meditation guys)
- no leaving early or ducking out
- no contact with women
- give the course a full effort
- no praying, meditating by other techniques, nothing that would interfere or overlap or complement the training
- no wearing shorts, or anything with a logo or writing on it, or anything ostentatious
- no eating meat, or anything other than the food they provide
- no drinking, no telling lies, no stealing, no killing stuff (I don't do lots of these things normally, anyway. except telling lies. i do that whenever i have students around. it's fun.)
- no music (I don't use music much on a daily basis)
- no cameras/tape recorders
After that, Kangway and I are looking for a place in Pasadena. I'll be looking for some tutoring work, getting back into racing shape, and starting what had better be my last school year.
Friday, August 8 (65 minutes)
I keep forgetting/putting off updates, but here's at least one for today.
I went to Wilbur in the afternoon. Soon random chance graced me with the opportunity to observe a phenomenon which theory predicts must occur, but empirically happens quite rarely. The buses crossed. There are two free bus shuttle routes around campus drive - one clockwise and one counterclockwise. Mostly I ignore the buses because the bicycle is a much better transportation option. But I do see them from time to time.
Because they're going the same route in opposite directions, they have to cross twice per loop. But if the drivers go the same average speeds, they'll keep crossing at about the same spots.
Apparently, either the drivers have different personalities, or the directions are intrinsically different, or people demand different numbers of stops, or there's a large random component in how long a trip takes, because I finally saw the buses cross today, but then didn't see them cross there again in an hour of running.
When I realized the buses were going to cross, I got really excited. I closed one eye to eliminate my depth perception. Now the buses were headed straight towards each other! Crash inevitable! Bus parts everywhere! Fire and explosions! Then I could run in and start dragging out bodies. When I thought I had saved everyone, there would be one hysterical woman still standing there, pointing and screaming "my baby! my baby!", and I would rush in, save the child, and run back out of the bus carcass just as the fuel tank exploded into a giant ball of flames.
Alas, despite my lack of depth perception the buses passed harmlessly past each other, and I finished the run without incident.
Sunday August 3 (80 minutes)
Public bathrooms have a little corner built in just past the door, so that even if the door is wide open you can't see people peeing from the hallway. But it has a little added psychological effect, too. When you turn that little corner, it feels like there's no going back. You're in a whole new world, baby. A world of bodily functions and no eye contact.
Anyway I did 80 minutes on my favorite field today, although it was unusually sloppy down in one of the corners. I suspect I was running through liquified attack dog poo, but it was too dark to check, and besides, the fact that I just don't know is slightly exciting.
Thursday, July 31 (80 minutes mountain)
I was planning on running a mile at the Los Gatos All-Comers meet, but my achilles was bothering me a bit on the warmup. This is probably due to a combination of:
- hill repeats on Tuesday
- over-vigorous achilles rehab exercises on Wednesday
- not doing achilles exercises for a while before then
- several consecutive days of barefoot running for the first time in a while
- general lameness
I ran some big mountain/hill thing, then came down the other side to this mostly-dry damlake, which I tried to circumnavigate. I failed when the trail petered out three quarters around, so I went back around the damlake, back up the mountain/hill, and then up this other bigger mountainhill that was definitely a mountain but the top of it was called "Hilltop Vista". There I met this dude named Alex who run high school cross in the area and showed me the way back to the school and started doing striders while I watched and ate an orange.
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