TT Running Club

“Congrats, aero!! One of these days I'll have to try that one....

Our masters guys (and older!) did rather well the past couple of weekends at a 10k and 5k. I'll be joining them for the 10k on 5/31....”

“good lord, Aero! "oh by the way, i did an eleventy-million-mile relay race..." LOL! like it ain't no thang.”

“aero -- that race sounds awesome, congrats to you and your teammates!”

“Since I have few exciting accomplishments to brag about, here's another of my running teammates in the news....”

“522 pull-ups?!! He must look like Popeye!

Hey lyra, they have a tandem category- you could bring the monkeys out!”

“Forgot to mention that I got the proof back from the 12k I ran last month. It turned out pretty good; I think I'll go ahead and order one of them.”

“Nice legs Boulderman. ;)

Aero that race sounds like a blast! I wish someone put one on like that around here....”

“Birch - hope you feel better soon, That sucks.”

“LeSubtil, thanks man. I am off work again. I only made it 3 hrs yesterday. The coughing is worsening, another DR appt tonite...

Thanks again or making it down to run. I'd like to try to get a group each year for the half. I am glad you liked it so much and good luck next month!!!”

“Take the drugs!”

“Congratulations, Aero. I noticed there were participants from Kansas at that race. I should have gotten a ride with them.
Birch, get lots of echinacea in you. It's not a quick cure, but you will feel much better for having taken it. Rest well, and I hope you are healthy, soon.
Good pic, Bowlder.
I have 20 miles in, as of Wednesday evening. Ten on Monday, a hilly three on Tues., and a seven on Wed. That's the most I've done in three days in many moons.”

“I was on my 10k "Hills of Severe Pain" course yesterday after work, coming up one of the final hills along a path under some pine trees. I heard the familiar "skitter skitter skitter" of a squirrel running along the branches. I saw something falling down and figured the little guy had knocked a pine cone loose, but I was wrong. It was the whole squirrel! He landed with a thud in the leaves, turned a very deep red in the face with embarrassment, and ran back up the tree to try it again!

Finished April with 106 total miles, which included about 10 "running equivalent" miles from a few biking workouts. (I usually just cut the bike miles in half, so a 10-mile ride is about the same as a 5-mile run.) Not super, but I expect to get in about 110-120 running miles in May - we'll see....”

“Anybody race over the weekend? Any interesting runs? Everyone healthy still? How are the marathoners & half marathoners recovering? Whassup?!

I ran my longest run since October of '01 on Saturday. Got up and out the door at 6:30 and cranked out about 10 miles in about 87 minutes. The 87 minutes included 5:00 of walk breaks. Kind of a boring run, although the tide was out, so I ran along the beach for about a mile, which was nice. Little league practice and heavy duty yard work was my workout on Sunday....”

“Well, I was supposed to run four today but had to make an emergency vet run instead. The dog is okay, it only cost $225 and I guess I get an extra rest day.

Birch is feeling better (finally), I'm walking w/out pain now so we're good to go. There was no running last week at all (except for the mile I managed before hobbling home, lol). I was really surprised how much that race hurt me!”

“I ran a marathon. It took me all of last week to do it, but I got in 27 miles for the week. I will be adding more and more as time goes on. I still feel like I'm on schedule.
Sass, the recovery can be tough sometimes. No matter how slow you go, try to get out and do a little jogging soon. You'll be glad for it in the long run. (pun intended)
Has anyone incorporated fasting several days before their races? Does it help you, personally? I fasted before my marathon long ago, then did the carbo-load thing. I don't know if people still do this or not.”

“Dunadan, I have never fasted before "carbo-loading". I always focus on eating well the week before a race and I have yet to truly "bonk". Did it help you? I am up for anything that helps.

I am still mildly sick. I am gonna run today and get back on track. I have a 10 Hour adventure race on saturday so I need to get on it.”

“Sounds like "fun," birch: get sick, run a marathon, still sick, do a 10-hour adventure race....

Friend of mine did a tri over the weekend - it was so hot they were medevac-ing people out with helicopters, he even puked about 10 times during the run. What fun!”

“It was recommended in the book by Jim Fixx, "Running", if my memory serves me. There was a red book and a blue book. That was back in the day. However, to the point, a fast was recommended for one day, at least one week before the race. Then you spend the week resting and running slow warm-up runs. Then the carbo-load to end 24 hours before your race.
The way in which it helped me the most, I think, is that it helped me take a little weight off before the race.
I'm not the one to be dispensing any advice. I'm an old-fashioned guy with no gear besides shorts and shoes. However, I wanted to know if anyone else had done this and knew about it.”

“Dunadan, That sound interesting. Defintely something to look into.

Bowlder,to quote Forrest Gump..." stupid is as stupid does" LOL!

BTW are you two running chicago this year?”

“If that Q was directed toward me, birch, "I don't run no stinkin' marathons!"

I did the carbo load thing before one of my two marathons back in the 80's. The way I understood it at the time was to try to cut out as many carbs as possible starting a week before the race, but not to fast completely. Then, with about 2-3 days to go, eat lots of them. Man, did I ever get cranky without my carbs! Don't remember if it helped or not, which probably means that it didn't make much difference for me....”

“I felt ok last week after that half-marathon. My cold was mostly gone and I wasn't terribly sore. I ran 8 Tues and 8 Thurs and 18 Sun. It's just 4 weeks to the marathon now, only one more hard week of training to go...but...I'll never to be able to stop now, lol.”

“LeSubtil, you are killing the miles !!!!!! I am excited for you and you marathon. You'll do great!

I did 4 last night and 4 tonite. Felt good to run again. After this wknd I will be back on a regular training schedule for a race on June 26th.”

“I've managed to increase my pace. I did a trail run w/ my dad on Sunday and, again, last night. Both times I ran about 8:45 min miles. I'll prolly slow down, again, and start running more miles instead of short, fast runs. But, I wanted to see how quickly I could do the hills and am quite happy w/ my times.”

“I suffered from "concrete legs" during my run last night, so nixed the tempo run idea. But I jogged over to the community college, where they built a brand new track and soccer field over the past year. The old track was also an all-weather track, but was pretty worn out. Despite that, the college had that thing shut down like a maximum security prison for some reason - my friends and I tried several avenues to try to get them to open the thing up (and we hopped the fence a few times to work out, too). So my guess was that the new track would also be off-limits. But when I went there last night the gate was open!! I ran a painfully slow 400 to celebrate, but it looks like I will have a place to work on my speed after all. Now to just find time to do it....”

“Well, after 940 days of sloth, I finally did a track workout again last night. I went over to the rather nice brand spankin' new track at our community college (which we local runners had speculated would be locked up like a maximum security prison) to do a workout. The first three gates I went to were locked, but the fourth one was open!

So I warmed up and embarked on one of my standard workouts: 8x400, starting one every 3:00. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my HRM, so I only have the time data. Given my lack of any speed right now, I figured I'd do well to run them between 85 and 90 seconds. So I warm up, stretch a bit, then start.

82 on the first one - oops! Too fast, probably die on the others. So I backed off a bit on #2, but then, miraculously, got faster as I proceeded through the workout. I had even thought I might not be able to complete the whole workout, but I did.

My times:
82, 86, 85, 85, 83, 84, 83, 82. Average of 83.8, standard deviation of 1.4. Hey, it's not fast enough to run a sub-4 (or even sub-5:30) mile, but pretty dang good for where I am now! Not really sore this morning, but feeling like I ran a hard workout.

Will try to get in a nice long run tomorrow to cap off a good week of training. Oh, BTW, I registered for the 5/31 10k race, so I guess I better get into some kind of "shape."”

“Not bad with only about 95-96 sec. recovery! That should really help your 10k pace.

I was always hurting myself running 400's in my later years, so I did 2x2 mile tempo runs on the track instead, where I'd try to hit, say, :82-:83/lap with a 5:00 recovery between each 2 miles.

I can't even approach that now for ONE 400 with my knee acting up! The Doctor told me to baby it for awhile.”

“I'm hoping I can continue to do "short" stuff like that for a while. I'd even like to be able to get back to doing some track racing once in a while - the guys I ran with when I was working at Stanford were running track well into their 50s. I think as long as I'm not getting hurt, it can only help to run a variety of distances and speeds.

That particular workout is one that I've often used to gauge my condition. When I was doing track racing consistently, I would look at my average and slowest time and project that out to get a range that I could expect to run the mile or 1500. So right now a 5:35-5:44, although that's a little misleading, since I really wasn't going all out. There's a 1-mile race on our road circuit in July - we'll see if I'm in decent enough shape to run that one....”

“carrrefulllll.......”

“Four times in a row, now, that I've run the 2.6 miles trail in under 9 minute miles. The times have varied from 8:27 to 8:51. I've said a couple times that I'll slow down and start concentrating on distance rather than speed. But, once I get started, I can't help myself. Not to mention my dad is like a gd drill sergeant. lol”

“Good job T!”

“Jeez, back off, tb! Yer makin' the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers!

Weird experience during today's run. Some deranged woman attacked me. At first, the way she walked toward me I thought she thought I was someone she knew. Then she yelled at me and tried to grab me. I pushed her away and kind of sidestepped her. She didn't hurt me or anything, but I did kind of worry that the next person she encountered could be like a little old lady or something. Alas, there's never a cop around when you need one....”

“Awesome accomplishment Tara.”

“Good run Tarabull.

Boulderman, that's just nuts! Did she want yer body? Most runners don't carry wallets, lol.

I'm officially back on schedule for another half marathon on June 6th. This one is on roads and I'm anxious to see the difference in my time w/o those killer hills. The course is still hilly, but not quite as bad. So, five miles today! =)

I read an artcle last night in Health magazine about how women's knees blow out easier than mens' becasue of our bone structure. Apparently we have thigh bones that curve so nothing lines up right. I'm gonna have to start being more careful about leaping down hills, etc, I guess.”

“I don't think she was trying to rob me, sass; she was just some nut....

I've heard that about women's knees - you see it a lot in college basketball, where women are always blowing out their ACL's.

Good luck on your training for the half....”

“Tarabull,

You are running 2.6 miles in under 9 minutes. Holy #&%!$.

(slow)running girl”

“Oh oh oh, upon closer inspection I see that I missed the word "miles" after "minute". Sorry. Still, you are kicking butt. Consistently. Way to go.

(not feeling so bad)running girl”

“lol running girl. If I was running 2.6 miles in under 9 minutes, I'd be a freak of nature.”

“Tara, you are a freak :-O”

“I think Buddha Bear was chasing her again!”

“Ewker - as soon as I hit submit I thought... gee, I wonder who will be the first to tell me I am a freak.

It's OK, tho. I take that as a compliment.


Capn - lol!”

“Tara, I meant freak in the nicest way :)

When are you coming back down to Tenn.”

“Wait a minute, you freak! Was that you who attacked me on the running path yesterday?!”

“Tarabull, do you think I could get a huff of that inhaler before and mid way through my next half? I think it might do me some good. (remember, nice friends share!)”

“Speedybull,

I saw Patty last night at the Birchmere. I am going to start living right so that when I die I can come back as Patty. She sang a lot of songs from Impossible Dream, including Useless Desires. It was an awesome show.

running girl”

“I happily ran 4.5 minutes last night without feeling crappy. Did a total 30 minute run/walk. Just concentrating on running for as long as I feel good. I've got a ways to go to get to that darn 5K though!”

“I had concrete legs last night. Planned to do a tempo run but could barely get moving fast enough to get my heart rate into tempo run range. Finally gave up about 5 minutes into it and just jogged the rest of the way. Ugh.”

“At least no one attacked me....”

“Bowlderman - yeah, it was me. And, like Sass suggested, I wasn't after your wallet. I was after yer body!

Sure thing, Sass. I'll give ya a puff.

RunningGirl - I still haven't had a chance to pick up Impossible Dreams. And, Patty hasn't been around here in quite some time to perform. I'm getting anxious! Having Patty Withdrawals. lol”

“Hah, tb! BTW, I got my 5x7 print back of my race photo from March, so you can all judge for yerselves whether Wacko Woman was after my bod or not! (I'll scan and post tomorrow....)”

“So....Bowlder gets whacko's to chase him. Could it work for me?
Good running, Tara.
Seven this morning. Felt very good and should have gone farther, but I'm at my daughters college to attend her graduation and can't spend lots of time running. (Damn good excuse, no?)
Keep up the good work everybody.”