http://www.christhefoo.com The Musings of The Music Man Thu, 13 May 2010 09:47:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 © chris.rodriquez@gmail.com () chris.rodriquez@gmail.com() 1440 The Musings of The Music Man chris.rodriquez@gmail.com No no http://www.christhefoo.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://www.christhefoo.com 144 144 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/684 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/684#comments Thu, 13 May 2010 09:47:24 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=684 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=684 0 4:38 Figure I haven't done a random run down in a while and it's about time I got things off my chest so here we go.... 1. ... Figure I haven't done a random run down in a while and it's about time I got things off my chest so here we go.... 1. The experiment is over. I failed but I am actually OK with that. Towards the end I was just in constant pain. I struggled just to find the motivation to wake up in the morning. It was quite surreal. I know that the reason I failed was because I just wasn't recovering properly with regards to eating enough food which really brings me full circle...2 years ago I went from eating 4000 calories a day of the worst food imaginable to now requiring 4200 calories a day just to survive the workouts I was doing. The irony of the situation is not lost on me. 2. Now that I am recovered sufficiently from the experiment, I have moved up a level in fitness. Last year in the build up to the Long Beach marathon I was struggling to hit 7:30 per mile consistently. I even ran Long Beach at an 8:00 pace even though I feel I was capable of more. Nowadays, I am coasting along at 7:00 per mile on my easy days and am now hitting the low 6's and even sub-6 min mile paces on my hard days. It fuckin scares and excites me all at once. 3. My low mileage weeks are in the 50 mile range. That seems like nothing for an experienced marathoner but for me it's such a huge milestone. I set a personal goal for my first marathon to hit a peak of 50 miles in a week and never was able to do it. I was felled by injury and lack of fitness. I was also not able to go sub-4hrs for my 1st marathon. Now it's like those barriers just don't exist anymore and I am also surprised to see other barriers fall all the time. Again, exciting and scary. 4. I will someday run a 2:30 marathon. I have said this before and I will continue to say it. It's a matter of time now. The next big barrier will be running a sub-3 hour marathon which will hopefully happen at the 2010 San Francisco Marathon. But as for the 2:30 marathon, I have said it before but it's weird how something I had visualized so hazy is suddenly coming into focus in a huge way. It's just a matter of putting in the time, putting in the effort, putting in the miles, and not getting hurt. 5. Seriously, few things scare me more than reading about running. How do these tasty morsels sit with you: You have to run 100 miles a week to be up there. That's all there is to it. To be a really top runner, you have to be all the way up to 140 miles a week. That's only 20 miles a day. - Tom Fleming To even begin to see what you're capable of you have to train injury free for 2 years at high mileage - Matt Fitzgerald or Greg McMillan, can't remember source ahhh!!! Either way, this scares the shit out of me. I was able to handle about 70 miles per week and I got some great gains from that and I'm sure with time I could get up to 100-120, but 140 for 2 years!? GEEZ!!! 6. I'm still not training very smart. Enough said on that tip but that may change in the future as I may seek out a coach. The jury is still out on that one though. 7. Seven ($1 to Lee) 8. Still a little worried that time is running out on this whole running thing. In a few short years the PR's will have come and gone and I will just be declining into my old age. It's sounds stupid but it's true. I just hope I can wring as much out of my body as possible before I switch it up to ultra distance running or *gasp* no running at all. 9. I am now trying to be a "blogger" over at http://www.milesissmiles.com and of course am failing miserably. Though it does give me an outlet to re-hash my training and maybe get a humorous post about running/training every now and again. Either way, check it out and recommend it to your friends. 10. actually I just put up this last point to say that the new Minus the Bear album is great and you should all go buy it, download it, rob it from stores, and give it a listen. Night Peeps. Life,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/680 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/680#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 23:37:49 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=680 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=680 0 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/675 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/675#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:37:23 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=675 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=675 0 3:48 ...or rather, the lessons i've learned in striving to become a high mileage marathon runner. Please bear with me as this helps me to relieve ... ...or rather, the lessons i've learned in striving to become a high mileage marathon runner. Please bear with me as this helps me to relieve the stress. 1. Running everyday, once you get accustomed to the feeling, is not that much different than running 4-6 days a week. The biggest difference I would say is that if you make a mistake in training one day (i.e. you run a difficult pace, run hard with bad form, pack on too much volume too fast) you pay for it a lot longer than if you have a rest day or 2 to recuperate. Recovery from day to day is very crucial and you put yourself in serious recovery mode when you have a hard workout day. Forget about trying to put in 2 hard workout days in a row as you will pay the price eventually. 2. All bets are off with regards to feeling in tune with your body. What I mean by that is, I recently checked a few calorie calculators online to see exactly what my daily caloric needs are given that I've now logged 4 consecutive weeks of over 70 miles per week and I feel like I can't keep any weight on. Little did I realize that in order to maintain my current weight I need to be eating 4200 kCal per day! That's double the recommended calories for the average person. That is just to maintain my current weight! I don't feel like I have the stomach to handle that much food or the budget and time to buy and prepare it. Sheesh! 3. Sadly, in regards to the last point, eating becomes everything. If I am having a down-in-the-dumps type of day, I can usually attribute it to how I have been eating the last day or two. Or in the event of a wild mood swing, the last hour or two of eating (usually not eating). Like I said, not in tune with my body but I'm getting there. 4. Keeping in line with my last point, there is absolutely nothing to look forward except your next step/stride. Sorry this one is definitely a darker one for me. I can come home after having ran a strong tempo workout and be temporarily proud of that accomplishment. I can celebrate with a post-run Slurpee or have beer or 2 that night (for the anti-oxidant properties only ;-) but at the end of the day I know that I am gonna have to go out and do it all over again the next day. Sometimes that leaves me feeling hopeful that I have more chances to hit better paces on another day but mostly when I contemplate it I just think - "when I finally taper off this mileage for my next marathon I am gonna feel like a million bucks but DAMNIT if that isn't a long way off!" (my next planned marathon is the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July) 5. You do get stronger and faster. It's this strange little bubble that runners live in (or maybe it's just me) that you just can't see the forest for the trees. For instance, I am setting my goal time to be 2:59:00 (really anything under 3 hrs so I can say I can run a sub-3 marathon-seriously I'll take 2:59:59!). I look at that goal time and I shudder a bit. At this point in time I can't imagine myself running that pace (6:49) for that long of a race.. But then I look back to last summer when I couldn't imagine myself running a 7:30 pace for longer than 6 miles but now I run a 7:00 pace on a regular basis. My 1/2 marathon PR is 1:31:31 - a 6:59pace. I never thought I would see the day when I posted a sub-7 pace for anything longer than a 5k. I just see my day to day performance and imagine that's all there is to my running when in reality, I have posted faster average paces every single week of doing this run streak (except for the week after the 1/2 marathon - remember item #1 - recovery time). 6. There is a breaking point. This is the one that scares me. When I started this streak/experiment I didn't know how long I would last. The highest mileage I've ever been able to sustain was in the low 60's and even then for only a couple weeks at most. I figured I would make it to the end (13 miles a day - 91 miles per week) or I would find my equilibrium and stay at that level. I am hoping I reach the end but a Life,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/670 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/670#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 10:18:54 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=670 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=670 0 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/666 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/666#comments Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:10:06 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=666 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=666 0 4:06 40 Days, 269 miles and 0 injuries. Knock on some wood please... The idea started back in the end of November when I saw a Daily ... 40 Days, 269 miles and 0 injuries. Knock on some wood please... The idea started back in the end of November when I saw a Daily Mile friend who was doing some serious mileage in preparation for a charity run across the US. At the time he was doing 10 miles a day and announcing he was going to do that for a week then increase to 11 the following week and so on until he got to 13 miles a day. I was completely awestruck as I had done a run streak before but I was always alternated hard and easy runs as well as long distance with short distance. A typical week during my run streak was as follows: Monday - 7mi Tuesday - 10mi Wednesday - 12mi Thursday - 10mi Friday - 3mi Saturday - 18mi Sunday - 3mi I wouldn't dream of doing a long week like that without the 3 milers and the 7 miler. Even sometimes I would drop it down to 5. But after seeing him do that and spending a lot of time lurking the Ultra List the seed was planted that I could do it if I really just tried. After injuring my calf at the end of November (post Long Beach Marathon when I really should have been taking it easy) and struggling to maintain any sort of consistent mileage for 2 months I finally decided that I was gonna do it. Since I didn't register for any races and we wound up moving back home to Bakersfield I figured I could devote some time to a lot of low intensity runs. My plan was simple: I didn't want to continue the injury so I decided that I needed to do a lot of slow, low mileage runs before I really started to attack the bigger weekly mileage. So in the same vein as Greg on Daily Mile I would do a number of the same distance runs for a time. I came up with mileage that matched the days - mainly cause I was anxious to get the mileage up but also when I got to the higher mileage runs I would be at them for a longer period of time so my volume would sort of taper off from week to week. 3 days of 3 miles 4 days of 4 miles 5 days of 5 miles 6 days of 6 miles 7 days of 7 miles 8 days of 8 miles 9 days of 9 miles (which I am currently in the middle of finishing. 7 down, 2 to go) etc... So the original plan was to get to 13 days of 13 miles which would put me at 91 miles per week. As I get deeper into the mileage I am starting to realize that the sky really is the limit. At this point in the "experiment" I see it being open ended. I figure that as long as I can keep from feeling super run down (translation: eat like a madman) and I don't injure myself then I will continue indefinitely. There have been some tough days in this for sure. Days when I haven't eaten enough and paid the price on my run. Some days I finish a run wanting nothing more than to fall asleep for the rest of the day. And there have also been the usual assortment of aches and pains that go along with running but so far my response to this has been positive. I have been keeping a close track on my stats throughout this experiment and much to my surprise, as the miles pile on I have actually gotten faster! I didn't expect that but I suppose it's not entirely implausible: the effects of training after all. Anyway, I don't know that I have a point to all this. As always thanks for reading. And if you're not doing anything tomorrow, I'm running the Bakersfield Track Club 1/2 marathon tomorrow to cover my 9 miler (and then some including running the 2 miles to the start and back home afterward). I am super excited to run it as I have been training a lot on the course already and I haven't run a 1/2 marathon in a year so I am expecting a HUGE PR! Race starts at 8am tomorrow at Yokuts park off Truxtun and Empire. Hope to see you there. Life,,Love,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/662 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/662#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 06:11:18 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=662 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=662 0 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/649 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/649#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:30:34 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=649 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=649 0 3:55 I should call this post I am a lazy hurt bastard but Evolution has a better ring to it, doncha think? I still would classify myself ... I should call this post I am a lazy hurt bastard but Evolution has a better ring to it, doncha think? I still would classify myself a Lazy Runner (see item #2) . I feel I should quantify that for this post... I am now running a pretty solid 7 minute mile. If I were to rank how that feels on a scale of 1-10 (difficulty) I would say it ranks as a 5. I have, since the beginning of taking running seriously, been running "5" runs about 95% of the time. That is to say, I have been running rather lazily. I would argue that most runners (hell any field/subject really...artists, programmers, chefs, data entry, any random talent/gift/skill) are their own worst critic and I think that is where the battle lies: I believe/know (is there a difference between belief and knowledge in your mind and self worth?) that I am a lazy runner. I don't try too hard and at the same time, I am terrified of slipping too far back to where I was. I have said for the longest time that my increase in ability has to do with my weight loss. I still believe this. I can literally count on 1 hand the amount of runs I have had where I made my heart jump out of my chest and really pushed myself to my limit. Again, we are our own worst critic but lately I feel like the limiting factor in my progress is my own laziness. I run by feel and the feeling I am always shooting for is comfortable...a "5", not so easy that I fall back in my progress and not so hard that I really have to work. It's where I have stood for literally hundreds of miles. So therin lies the rub: it's time for an evolution. And damn if I am not hurting these past 2 weeks. But I think the word du jour is Patience. I have some technical things to continue to work out. For 1, I think I have taken the Chi Running concept a bit far and am running too far forward on my feet. I am dead certain that my foot strike is causing me a lot of problems with my calve muscles (the hurt bastard part from above-shin splints are an absolute BITCH to run on!). But more importantly, I think I need to get over my fear of losing the "5" runs: That is to say, I should try for a "7" or "8" or *gasp* a "9" run on of these days (interval workout maybe). At the same time I should actually do a "2" or "3" run as well and feel good about it. Sometimes your legs need that slow shakeout. I need to evolve as a runner if I am gonna achieve the lofty goals I have set for myself. I guess the problem is that it's hard to hide from yourself. You can keep it up for a time but sooner or later you will emerge and do what you do. It's those moments that you need that evolution/revolution. Or put more simply: it's time for a swift kick in the ass. As always, thanks for putting up with my indulgences... Life,,Love,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/638 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/638#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:38:14 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=638 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=638 0 4:11 Official Time=3:29:31 - Apparently I am actually faster than I give myself credit for but I should probably do some longer training runs to help ... Official Time=3:29:31 - Apparently I am actually faster than I give myself credit for but I should probably do some longer training runs to help prevent leg explosions. Strap in kiddies, this is a long one... So after logging 768 training miles and pouring myself (gradually) into hundreds of articles on running this summer I find myself to actually be a runner. To clarify: I feel like an athlete. For the longest time I felt like just a guy trying to lose some weight and I used some races to get there. However sometime between when I ran the LA marathon, ran another 13 miles in the same week as the LA marathon, spent quite a few weeks running every single day, went on to pass 1000 miles in under a year, decided I would run a 50 mile Ultra-Marathon, and plunked down the cash for the Long Beach Marathon...somewhere in all that mess I realized that I have become a runner. I was telling Alyssa recently (mainly because I have been thinking about it for a while) I went from 225lbs of virtually no activity to running a half marathon and 2 full marathons in one year. As a matter of fact, in a few more days it will actually be the anniversary of when I decided that enough was enough and got off my lazy ass to start this journey. I still remember vividly that first night of chugging along on the treadmill after work for one sweaty miserable hour of light jogging but mostly walking equaling about a 16 minute per mile pace (that would be a marathon in excess of 6.5 hours!!!). I know if asked that guy on that night if he ever thought that he could turn into the athlete I am today I'm sure he would laugh in my face. To tell you the truth, I kinda wish I could do that...but anyway, enough with the "I am so great" talk and on with the race details. I woke up (with the help of my awesome wife) at around 3am to get dressed. Why did I wake up so early? I wanted to get in a warm up run (yes I am crazy) and it worked with my transportation choice as well: the metro train. So I woke up at 3am, got dressed, ate my race breakfast (scrambled eggs with hot dogs and some diet Dr. Pepper to wash it down) and set out on a 3mi run down to the NoHo train station and boarded the train to head down to Long Beach. Next up on the checklist was getting to the portapotties. I wanted to get in my ritual pre-run poop. I figured I would be ready to go since I had food this morning and I ate oatmeal the night before but alas, it wasn't in the cards. It was mildly disconcerting since I had used the restroom on almost every single long run during this training cycle. I had a feeling I would be looking for a portapotty on the race route which would have supremely pissed me off. Thankfully it never happened but it did stress me a little bit during the first half of the race. Funny thing about trying to use the restroom though, I couldn't untie my shorts and wound up breaking the drawstring on them so in order to run the race without having my shorts fall down I wound up completely ghetto rigging them up with the broken drawstring. It worked great but wasn't pretty. Oh well... I lined up in the 1st wave in spite of signing up for the 2nd wave. I decided that since I was trying for a 1st wave time I should head out with them. To be honest the 1st 12 miles went by so fast I don't remember much about them. I do remember hitting the 10k mark at around 48 mins (actually 47:10 - 7:36 pace) which worried me a bit as I thought I wanted a larger buffer (I was mistakenly doing my pace calculations on 6 miles and not 6.2 miles) to make sure I hit 3:30. I lost that worry though when shortly after the 8mi mark I over took the 3:20 pace group. I never intended to do that but I was listening to my mp3 player (like I had done all summer) and ran a couple fartleks based on the song pace that came on (for your info it was Helmet-Exactly What You Wanted and Smashing Pumpkins-That's the Way (My Love Is)). I kept my position in front of the 3:20 pace group unti Life,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/632 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/632#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:26:50 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=632 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=632 0 4:18 So ya, writers block sucks. I ran 5 miles tonight and it was tough. I skipped a run yesterday though I am not ... So ya, writers block sucks. I ran 5 miles tonight and it was tough. I skipped a run yesterday though I am not too worried about it. I felt really run down yesterday...in fact I took a nap when June took a nap yet somehow I still felt tired. I think I was working through a sleep debt again from working long on Saturday and running an 18 miler on Sunday. At any rate, I am now on the 1st of 3 weeks of tapering back the mileage for my 2nd marathon of the year. I pretty much embody that adage: anything worth doing is worth over-doing. And I commented earlier that writers block sucks but I actually have a lot to say, I am just holding off until after the Long Beach marathon. So many things are running through my head: Am I gonna blow out too fast like I ALWAYS do? Will I be able to sustain 8min/mi pacing for the entire marathon? Will I avoid hurting myself by running too fast during my taper? It's a hard time of uncertainty but I do feel much more confident in my abilities this time around. One thing is for sure though: after the marathon I will be taking a lot of time off of running. I will still be training somewhat for the 1/2 marathon in December with Lys and the crew, but the 60+mile weeks will be taking a back seat until the middle of January when I start training for LA 2010. I am REALLY looking forward to the time off. Maybe this taper will be easier than I thought... Life,,run chris.rodriquez@gmail.com no No http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/570 http://www.christhefoo.com/archives/570#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:25:00 +0000 Chris http://www.christhefoo.com/?p=570 http://js-kit.com/rss/www.christhefoo.com/p=570 0