Dog days in Dog Town

I did it! First race of the year has come and gone. Check me out holding this guy off at the finish line:

http://www.zazoosh.com/photos/386340657

Feb. 26 marked the first annual Dog Town 9K and Half Marathon in and around Washington City. It was a cold, blustery day but someone did us a favor and held off the rain until about noon that day. The course was up in the air until that very morning, and ended up being a nice, hilly challenge that my buddy Ryan would have really enjoyed (he likes the uphill stuff). I did the half marathon in about 1:55, which is about 10 mins above my personal best for a half, but taking in several considerations it's not all that bad:

1) I was horizontal nearly the entire 10 days before the race
2) Wind!
3) Cold!
4) All things considered, I probably didn't take the race as seriously as I should have, and my training was lacking.

So that's Lesson #1 for this post, I guess: Make Every Race A Grand Event. It doesn't matter if it's a 5K, an ultramarathon, a weekend group ride or an Iron Man. Of the handful of races I've completed to date, the most memorable ones were the ones that I spent the most time preparing for - not necessarily because I posted my best times, but because the anticipation for the day of the event had built it up so that, when the day came, it became a celebration. And the reverse is true, as well: the more you mark up your mental calendar in anticipation of race day, the more work you're likely to put in to prepare. One thing lends itself to the other, and then come race day, you're bound to have a lot of fun and most likely a good success.

Case in point: the night before, I went to go pick up my packet and got stuck behind a couple of 40-somethings who were whining and waffling over whether they should sign up for the race the night before. For those of you familiar with Saturday Night Live in the mid to late 80's, they sounded a lot like Doug and Wendy Whiner:

"But it'll be windy......"
"Maybe we should just do part of the Iron Man course instead..."
"But I don't need more race shirts...."
"Maybe we should just go for a bike ride..."
"I bet the finisher's medal is ugly...."

To get the proper effect, say every sentence like a 5 year old and hold the last syllable out for 5 seconds.

I was surprised at my frustration with these people - I mean first of all, who decides to sign up for a half marathon the night before? I didn't stick around to see how it turned out, but given their lackluster attitude standing in front of the freakin' sign in desk, had they decided to go for it, my guess is that they would have felt afterward like it was a waste of $45, regardless of how good of shape they were in or what their finishing time was.

On the flip side, I'm sure the person who got the most out of it was the brave soul who was race number 0001, who signed up way back in November, who had spent three months pounding the pavement to get ready, and they were going to get out there and do it, weather be damned.

Okay, enough of that.

Now that this race is behind me, I've changed gears a bit and am now training for the SHAC beginner's triathlon on April 2 (mental calendar starred and highlighted in technicolor orange). I generally SUCK as a swimmer, so I anticipate that the next few weeks' training will largely be spent in a pool or on a bike, which my legs tell me is just fine with them.

I am, however, going to keep up the running so that I can quickly change tack after the triathlon and gear up for the SoCal Ragnar, which promises to be a hoot and a half. But I'm planning on keeping the miles down and focusing a lot on strength training and interval training to see if I can get my minutes per mile down a bit from that rather mediocre 9 min/mile I posted last Saturday.

End Transmission.

An interesting note this week:

An old friend of mine has been chasing me around the last month or so. Goodness, how I hate shin splints. Up to the end of last year, I was battling them with just aspirin and by following a few of the "cardinal" rules of running, namely:

1) Don't run in one week more than 10% than you ran the previous week
2) Don't run more than 400 miles in any given pair of shoes
3) Make sure you have well-built shoes that provide extra support if you pronate while you run.

Nevertheless, in the end, the shin splints won last year and prevented me from running a last half marathon in November. I assumed that they had arisen as a result of a compressed training schedule leading up to the Hood to Coast relay in August, and after taking from October through mid January off completely, I thought I may have solved the problem. When I started up again a few weeks ago, I started following the same rules, going very slowly and building up my mileage 10% at a time.

And yet, my old nemeses returned. Yargh!

So I embarked on a little experiment. I couldn't understand how I had run all the way through 2009 and the first part of 2010 without any trouble, and then became so debilitated so quickly. The only explanation that I could come up with was that it was my shoes. This week, I ended up breaking all three of the above rules, and I went back to running in my old, worn-out Asics that I first started doing things in over two years ago. Result? Next to no shin pain (though I still occasionally take ibuprofen for my knees, which I imagine also has some effect), and this week I jumped from 18 to 28 miles in a week, at just around 9 minute miles.

Lesson? I suppose "believe in the shoeless revolution" would be most appropriate. I abandoned my overbuilt "supportive" shoes in favor of my older, thinner, lighter shoes, which changed my running stride just enough that nearly all of my maladies disappeared in about 10 days. I can only imagine that going shoeless, or nearly shoeless, would have the same, if not a greater, effect.

I'm considering entering in the "Dog Days" half marathon in Washington city, to take place on the 26th. It's kind of a big race to start the year with, but it will set a good baseline for me for the rest of the season, and plus it's close to home so I don't have to eat into my "time away from home" budget. I have a long run on Saturday coming up. If that goes well, I'm in for the race.

End Transmission.