Go See Brett!

I stumbled across Brett Dennen purely by accident at show on New Year's Eve at the San Diego House of Blues, but man am I glad I saw him! I was fortunate enough to catch him again a couple of nights ago in a very small venue here in Madison - the show was amazing. Adding to the coolness was that I bumped into Brett and his band before the show in a restaurant and got to talk to him a bit. Check his webpage and if he's coming anywhere near you, go see him!

Allergies suck

I've got allergies. Pretty bad allergies compared to much of the population, although nothing compared to some members of my family. I am constantly a bit congested and stuffed up: I would estimate that I can breathe through both of my nostrils at the same time for maybe one hour total every year. Fortunately, I'm not generally too sneezy or runny, although numerous people can tell stories of me laying on the couch with tissue stuffed up my nose to make the occasional hay-fever outbreak stop.

Given all of this, I was happy to find that my insurance would cover allergy treatments and about a year ago I headed off to see the doctor. The allergist administered a skin-prick test where they prick your arms with about 36 different allergens so see what you are allergic to. Given my reactions, the doctor stated that I "am one of their most allergic patients," and this is a big clinic! So from there the shots began. Every five days I head to the clinic and get three shots in the upper arms for all the tree and grass pollens, dust mites, cats, and some other things that I reacted to on the skin-prick test. I then have to hang out for 30 minutes to make sure there is no major reaction before I am allowed to leave. The shots are full of whatever you are allergic to and with each session the concentration is slowly increased so that your body builds a tolerance to the allergins. Shots are administed every five to ten days - if you go longer than ten days, you have to repeat the dose from the last session. This continues for about a year, then you move to monthly shots for another two years or so. A pain, but if it helps at all, it will be worth it.

About six weeks ago I went in, got my shots, then headed home. An hour after I got home, things weren't going so well though and I was getting very wheezy, coughing a lot, my lips were swelling, and I was having problems breathing. I headed back to the clinic where they loaded me up with epinephrine (synthetic adrenalin), albuterol, and prednisone and monitored me for a couple of hours. The drugs took care of the reaction pretty quickly, but left me jittery as all get out for a while, and then crashing hard later. The doctor could not give any reason for my reaction, other than that "they sometimes just happen" and that maybe my immune system was down. As it turned out, I came down with a nasty cold a day or two later, so my immune system was likely overworked already and the allergens pushed it over the edge. Scary.

The big problem with having a reaction to the shots is that they set you back in the sequence: the doctors reduce your allergen concentrations and then start to rebuild. So after getting over my cold, I was eager to get back into the series, and keep building. All was going well, and I was up to more than double the concentration that caused the first reaction when today I had another reaction. Not cool. I was at work and could feel it coming on, so popped a couple of benedryl and had a coworker take me back to the clinic. I still haven't used my Epipen to self-administer epinephrine, but I came close today. Once again they loaded me up with epinephrine, monitored me, then sent me home when I was doing OK. Like last time, they did not have any explanation for why I had the reaction, although the RN treating me strongly suggested that I go to a seven or eight day shot cycle (rather than five) to allow my body to generate more antibodies between shots. If I can go every seven days with no reactions, I will actually get through the cycle faster than going every five days and having occasional set backs like these. Plus I won't have the scary sensation of my breathing slowly shutting down.

Needless to say, today's run didn't happen. Allergies suck.

My Sweet 16!

Today was the long run day, conveniently coming just after the massive snowfall that we had over the weekend. The run was 16 long miles, and I managed a 7:31 average, which is well short of where I'd like to be, but as you'll read below, not too bad. Some thoughts:

Road Conditions
The road conditions were horrible! We got about 18" of snow over the weekend, which then packed down to about a foot of slush when it briefly rained yesterday. It has also been lightly snowing for the past 36 hours. While streets and sidewalks have largely been "cleared," most are still covered in slush and many have this thick layer of icy, slushy, slippery mess on them. The run involved much more lateral movement than usual trying to stay upright, and I think that's why my knees and hips are a bit more sore than I would expect. I would guess that the conditions easily added 10 - 15 seconds to every mile.

The slush had another "benefit": very wet feet. By mile 5 my shoes were completely soaked - they might has well have been dipped in Lake Mendota. This caused some issues with blistering, although not as bad as I feared, but also slowed me down a lot with the extra weight! Now I know you are thinking "Is he kidding? That can't be much weight...." Well, I weighed my shoes, and they more than doubled in weight with each one picking up a pound. Given that I took about 10,000 steps during the run, that's a lot more weight for my already sore hip flexors to be swinging forward on every step! A bit more time lost....

Leg Pains
My left calf just doesn't like long runs: two weeks ago it was hurting pretty good during my 14 miler, and today it and my left hamstring began hurting around mile 9. I considered stopping and busing it home, but pushed through instead. We'll see if that was a good idea or not in the next day or two I suppose. I have abnormally tight calves and Achilles tendons, so they are always a bit sore, but this was serious pain and in a different place than last time. I stretched it out when I got home and will again before bed and hopefully all will be well!

Nutrition
I did a better job today with the nutrition! I made it through both bottles of the Gatorade Endurance, and one and a half of water. Still, that's only about 90 calories, and I'm expecting a deficit of around 900 during the race, so I need to keep working on getting more calories in. Not bad though.

I thought of all sorts of other things to write about during the run, but they all escape me now, so I guess that will be all for tonight!

The "Blizzard" of '07

Well, I managed to survive the "blizzard" that hit Wisconsin over the past 24 hours. After dire warning to say inside and that you "risk death" by venturing out, it didn't turn out to be that big a deal. We got about 10" of snow on Friday night and another 8 or so last night. A decent amount of snow, but come on, this is Wisconsin! People should expect storms like this all the time. They didn't even issue warning that dire when the temps were -15 a couple of weeks ago - conditions that could actually be a threat to life. There was some cool thunder and lightening with the snow last night, but that was really the only thing remarkable about this storm.

Today it has been snowing and raining off and on all day, so the snow has all packed down to about a foot of thick slush. What a mess. Even the sidewalks and streets that have been "cleared" are coated with an inch or two of slick slush. The short run was one of the slowest I've done recently, mainly because I was just trying to stay upright! I'm thinking that tomorrow's long run will be for time (two hours) rather than distance (16 miles) as my speed will be so low. I'm also a bit concerned that if my feet get as wet tomorrow as they did today I will be in for some serious blisters....

Unfortunately I didn't think to take my camera with me today, but I'll try to get some better pictures of the snow and various snow art tomorrow.

Even Better...

They have now issued a blizzard warning for Madison for the remainder of this weekend with predicted snowfall of over a foot and winds expected in the mid-30s. This may crimp my running plans a bit....

Damnation.

Earlier this week we got hit with some remarkably warm weather for Wisconsin in February: temps ran up into the 40s for a few days straight. It was fantastic. It was also just a tease apparently, as the rain we were supposed to get this weekend is now predicted to be up to a foot of snow. It is coming down decently right now, but apparently Saturday night is when it will really pile up. I know that it is still February, and I'm not asking for balmy temps, but come on, is no more snow too much to ask? Apparently so. Tomorrow's seven mile run will be fun with winds at 30 - 35mph. And Monday's sixteen miler promises to be another miserable slog since roads and sidewalks likely won't be cleared well by then.

Which brings me to another point: despite being in an area of the country that gets a goodly amount of snow every year, Madison still hasn't figured out how to plow streets. I have spent most of my life living in the Midwest, and I have never seen such half-assed plow jobs as they do here - it is almost like they drive the plows around with the blades two inches off the road for fear of scraping up the horribly pot-holed road surface! And don't get me started on the snow driving....

I really don't know why I live here and will be looking to get out when school wraps up. In 27 very, very long months. Damnation.

I love technology, always and forever!

OK, bonus points for identifying the quote above. I am a big fan of technology. I always have been. I love playing with gadgets and always seem to want the latest and greatest electronics items, which is a bit of a problem as I have a negative income right now. This carries over to my workouts as well: I have no less than four, yes four, heart rate monitors right now: a really old probably doesn't even work model, a Polar s210 that I use on the track and sometimes on the bike, a Ciclosport HAC4 on the road bike, and the ultimate runner's gadget: a Garmin ForeRunner 305.

Depending on how you look at it, the 305 is either a small computer that is strapped to your wrist, or an oversized watch, made to look all the more ridiculous by my very thin petite wrists. Packed inside of this unit is a stopwatch with all the usual functions, a heart rate monitor (linked to a chest strap), and a GPS unit, which is what really makes this unit magic. With the integrated GPS you can see while you are running how far you have gone, how fast you are currently going, and your average speed. There are also features allowing mapping and other fancy stuff that I haven't gotten into. I love not having to know where I am heading before I start a run, although I still pre-plan my long runs on MapMyRun or Gmap-Pedometer to make sure that I don't have to run around the block ten times at the end to get the distance in. It is also nice to know how fast (or slow) I am going, especially since I don't have a great sense of pacing yet.

Once you finish the workout, the 305 can be connected to the computer and all of the data can be uploaded to training software. This makes tracking your workouts very easy as all you have to do is add comments like "my legs felt like lead today" or "man, I am quick like a bunny!" A few sites have gone a step further and allow full mapping of your workouts along with the display of all data at any point on the map. I am currently using MotionBased for this purpose, and it is pretty much awesome. The site displays and graphs all of your information from heart rate, to speed and pace, to elevation, and can display all of this on a map with a little you running along. The site can also perform workout analysis, and if you use the same route multiple times, can overlay your workouts on eachother so you can see where you are faster and slower. If you haven't checked out any of my runs yet, head over to MotionBased, set up a free account, and then search for user "kluecke1". Those of you who enjoy playing with Google Maps and Earth will particularly like this. Those of you who enjoy stalking me (and why else are you reading my blog?) will have the added bonus of knowing where you can find me most of the time when I am out running.

Wow, rereading this I should see if I can get some sponsorship money from a few companies here. A reader base of around two probably won't work for them though....

Motivation

As evidenced by the title of this blog, I'm not a huge fan of running and this sometimes manifests itself as a serious lack of motivation. Like today, when I am supposed to do seven miles, but find myself doing nothing. I'm so tired of this damn cold (14 with winds gusting to 30 dropping wind chills well below zero) that it is hard to motivate for anything that involves leaving the apartment, and especially running around in the cold. Highs are predicted for the upper 30s and maybe even 40 next week, which will feel downright balmy after this spell we've had!

I guess today will just be a lazy day, but no more days like this!

More on body composition

I realized today that I left a critical stat out of yesterday's BodPod post: I am 5'9" tall. So you can probably put together that in addition to being very lean, there is very little muscle on my body. It hasn't always been this way....

When I headed off to college over a decade ago, I was almost the same height and weighed the same that I do now. At school I joined the rowing team and over the course of the next three years packed on about ten pounds of muscle. My peak rowing weight was 142, which still made me a very small lightweight rower (the bigger lightweights loved me because I made the boat average). During my senior year I was burnt out on rowing, and switched to coxing for the team. The coxswain is the person who sits in the boat, steers, and motivates the crew; since they are dead weight in the boat, you want them to be as light as possible and men's coxswains have a minimum weight of 120.

Seeing how hard my boat was training, I didn't want to slow them down at all and worked to drop as much weight as I could. Since I was about 8% body fat at 142, this meant that I had to drop muscle, and the only way to do this is cutting calories. From the January of my senior year until our season championship in early May, I managed to knock my weight down to 122, with a body fat of around 3-4%. This was one of the most miserable experiences of my life, made all the more painful by the fact that I was coxing heavyweight guys who were eating more in a meal than I was all day! Within a week of the end of season my body weight was back up to the low 130s, and that's where I've been ever since.

I would like to put a little more muscle on, about five pounds total (three in the lower body, two in the upper), but it's not important enough to me to do the requisite weight lifting right now. Also, this is largely for aesthetic reasons and additional weight, even muscle, may work against me in my running. Road cycling and distance running are dominated by people my size, many who look improbably scrawny for the speeds that they compete at. I could definitely use a little more leg muscle for cycling, but I don't think more than a couple of pounds: in 2003 I was in phenomenal cycling shape (especially climbing) at a similar weight to where I am now. I do some occasional weight training now, but it isn't anything that will result in any real muscle gain.

As mentioned yesterday, I will get BodPodded again around the time of my race to see if my training has led to any body comp changes. Based on my race results and if I decide to keep running or make the swing mack to cycling (more likely), I may look to start a more structured strength regimen, especially for the lower body.

The BodPod!

Today I headed over to see a trainer at a Sports Medicine facility that I have access through for work to get BodPodded. What is a BodPod? It is this futuristic egg-shaped pod that you get into and it finds out things about your body composition. Based on air displacement and some other parameters, it can accurately measure body fat to within one or two percent and provide you with information about metabolic rate and other body measurements.

To use the machine, some basic data is entered into a computer, you strip down to minimal clothing (spandex shorts), get weighed on a very accurate scale, climb into the egg, sit there for about a minute while the egg makes weird noises, open the egg, then re-close the egg and repeat. There is an option to breathe through a special hose that helps measure lung capacity and O2 in, CO2 out for metabolic rates. However, you have to breathe very specifically with the air hose, and there is new thought that if not done exactly right it may skew the results more than what the machine can predict on its own. Wanting to keep things simple, I went without the air hose today.

So how did it go?

• Weight: 132.29
• Body fat: 5.2% (6.88 pounds)
• Free mass: 94.8% (125.413 pounds)
  
• Thoracic Gas Volume: 3.862 L
• Resting Metabolic Rate: 1480 kcal/day

Everything was close to what I thought it would be: my weight was slightly high coming only an hour or two after lunch and body fat was slightly lower than the 6 - 7 percent that I would have predicted. What did surprise me was how low my RMR is - that is definitely something to pay attention to on off days when all I do is sit on the couch and read for school!

Not bad overall and I'll get tested again right around the race to see if things have shifted at all. Now I need to see about getting in to a lab and getting my VO2-max tested....

That was miserable

What a difference two weeks makes - and not a good difference! Two weeks ago I managed to crank out my 12 mile long run at 7:11 pace and while it was certainly hard, it wasn't bad. Today was a different story....

I was actually fairly excited for today's run - it was predicted to be in the 20s and I think my cough is moderately better. However, a couple of things quickly put a bit of a damper on the enthusiasm: I got off to a bit of a late start (3:45 instead of 3:00) and we got about 4" of snow overnight. While the snow was pretty well cleared, there was a constant layer of gray mashed-up snow underfoot that builds up on the shoes and feels a bit like running on a beach. Despite this, the run got off to a good start: I was moving comfortably around 7:15, and my temperature was pretty good. Running with the new fuel belt was a bit odd, but it is really stable which is good.

The run took a pretty sharp turn downhill right around mile seven: I came around a corner and was into a 12 - 15mph head wind for the rest of the run. While I can deal with pushing through the wind, I wasn't dressed quite right for the single-digit windchills; my face was pretty cold and I was worried about my knees getting chilled. Around this time I also began having a decent amount of my pain in my left calf for unknown reasons (maybe the lower stability on the snow?). I also have this problem where my left foot clips my right ankle bone about once a mile. Normally this hurts but isn't a big deal, but on a run of this length things got rubbed raw pretty quickly. Cold and bloody. Not fun.

I pushed through the run and ended up finishing with an average pace of 7:29 - not bad, but well off the 7:11 from two weeks ago. I think the biggest problems were the wind on the second half (I averaged 7:16 for the first 7 miles and 7:41 for the last 7), and the snow on the ground as I didn't have great traction.

As far as the Fuel Belt experiment went, I used one gel, and drank about six ounces of water and four of Gatorade, which isn't nearly enough. Although I know that I need to eat and drink, I don't like slowing down to do it, and today I actually had problems with the bottles icing up. Interestingly, Gatorade freezes much more readily than water does! No real intestinal problems, although things didn't feel great down there either. I'll keep working at it.

Although I'm not too happy with the run, at least I got all of it in. Assuming that my calf is OK, it's great to have that extra base, and to have some things to focus on for next time!

I'm a dork!

In preparation for my long run today, I went out an became a full on running-dork by buying a Fuel Belt. I went for the Endurance 4-Bottle Belt as the capacity looked good to me. I've never been able to eat or drink while running, something about putting stuff into my stomach and then shaking it up and down for a while tends to lead to... ummm... "intestinal distress." However, my runs are reaching a point where I need hydration on them, and I also know that in the marathon I will have to consume in the area of 800 - 1000 calories, so I figured I should start practicing that now.

During the race I will be using the on-the-course aid stations, so I am beginning to train with the products they will have: GU and Gatorade Endurance Formula. Exact calculations on what I need on the course will be made later, but for today I will start out with a couple of gels, 14oz. of water, and 14oz. of Gatorade with me - we'll see how it goes!

I'm usually pretty healthy...

but I've been dying for the past two weeks. Not literally, of course, but a couple of times I thought I might be coming close. I came down with a cough a little over two weeks ago. Being prime cold season and with the weather having made a dramatic shift to arctic conditions, I figured it was just a cold coming on. But the cough kept getting worse, and wouldn't go away. It slowly progressed from a dry and painful cough, to a wetter (gross, I know), uncontrollable choking cough that would erupt for no reason after hours without coughing. Last week I finally dragged myself in to see the doctor, who couldn't come up with anything. He gave me the option of going on antibiotics in case it stemmed from a sinus infection, but he didn't think it was necessary. Being ready to try anything, I opted for the antibiotics, and am now in the midst of a ten day course of amoxicillin. Something better work!

You may notice that I missed yesterday's six mile run, and it was because I was coughing so much. I'm a little concerned about tomorrow's fourteen miler, but I can't miss any long runs at this point, so it will have to get done. It is also supposed to be almost 25 out, so I can't miss out on that balmy weather!

My lungs hate me

So I hit the track today for the first real speed work I've done in ages. Just a nice simple 6 x 440 which I rounded down to 6 x 400 since I was on a minuscule 200m track. Went through a decent warm-up and stretch, then hit the sprints, and man did they hurt! The sprints were supposed to be at 5k pace, but I don't know what my 5k pace is just yet. I can tell you that I'd like my 5k pace to be about 5:30 miles (~1:22 400s), so that's what I aimed for. With about even rest on each sprint I went:

1:13.1 / 180hr
1:20.2 / 185hr
1:27.3 / 182hr
1:27.9 / ???hr
1:27.6 / 196hr - ?
1:28.5 / 184hr

So an average of 1:24.1, or just off my goal. Man did they hurt! I'm still getting over a major chest cold, but I haven't felt my lungs burn like that in ages. And although I found a good pace for the last four, I don't think I could do that for 5k, at least not yet. Sprints aren't my thing: there is very little muscle on my body to begin with, and I think the vast majority it is made up of slow-twitch fibers. Clearly I need more speed work in general, even if it isn't needed for the marathon goals.

On another note, you'll notice that I had some heart rate monitor problems in the middle there. Polar's plastic straps just don't fit my svelte frame well, so if anyone wants to buy me to buy be their WearLink Coded Transmitter and Belt Set (XS - S), I'd be very appreciative!

My Training Plan

I've never done any competitive running. My mom pushed me into the school's summer track program back in elementary school, but I hated it and quickly protested my way out of that. That is the extent of my coaching in running. My mom always thought I would have been a good cross country runner, and now I wish I had listened to her. Some professional advice on running style and technique as well as some specific training and coaching would certainly be useful now.

Not having the money to secure coaching, I found a training plan on Cool Running, a running site with loads of information on it. I chose the Intermediate Marathon Plan. Although I didn't have the recommended running base when I started the plan, I felt decently comfortable that I could build into it pretty well. What I like about the plan is that the longest long run is full marathon length: 26 miles. Plans that top out at 18 or 20 miles, as many do, don't make any sense to me. Sure, if you can go 20 miles, you can probably survive 26, but wouldn't you rather know that you can do the full length, and that the last six miles won't be a hellish experience?

Currently I am doing my long run on Mondays, as this fits best with my schedule. As I get closer to the race I hope to slowly transition the long day back to Saturday mornings (the same as the race), but this will be difficult with my work schedule.

The plan is oriented toward male runners aiming for under 3:30 for the race, but goals are something that I will get into later. Hopefully it will work for me!

Baby, it's cold outside!

So if you live anywhere in the middle portion of the country, you have probably noticed that it is pretty chilly outside. And when I say "pretty chilly," I mean so cold that there is a half inch of ice on the inside of my window frames right now! Today it didn't make it above zero, and with the wind blowing at 20 to 25 miles per hour, it was a bit too brisk for me to get out for my run. As the weather man said tonight, "The air sitting over the Midwest right now is colder than the air mass above the north pole."

I don't mind running down to about ten below zero, you just have to dress properly for it. The problem arises when it is that cold and the wind is blowing - the wind chill is horrendous! Running one direction you will be freezing, and then you turn a corner and start sweating, then it's around another corner and all of that sweat starts freezing up on you. Not cool.

It looks like tomorrow will be the last really cold day, then we are supposed to be back into positive temperatures. I expect to get out tomorrow, but that could change if it is bitter enough!

What am I doing here?

I don't like running. I really don't. Cycling is my main sport, and is what I really enjoy, but I have a couple of problems: first, I'm in grad school full time, and I don't have time for getting out on my bike, and second, I live in Madison, Wisconsin, which might as well be Antarctica right now. So I'm running instead.

Because I don't like running I need some incentives to keep me doing it. I slipped horribly out of shape last semester, and I am determined to get back to at least reasonable level of fitness. To help keep me motivated I will be running the Sunburst Marathon in South Bend, Indiana, on June 2. If I don't train properly for this event it could be one of the most miserable experiences of my life. I am also hoping that posting to this blog and knowing that some people (probably very few people) will be watching my progress will help keep me motivated. So check back in, see how I'm doing, and if my race turns out to be a great experience, or a morning of agony!