What a Dud!

That pretty much sums up last week. The lowlights:

• I ran on Tuesday. 4 miles.
• Umm.
• Okay.
• Saturday: The rains came. The trails closed.

• Saturday night I missed what I’m sure was an all around great time with my blogger friends Jill, Meg, Irene, and others at their pre-Carlsbad Marathon carbo load celebration (by the way – I do need a pictorial report please!)
• Sunday – see the picture above. And I couldn’t find my car keys because I knew if I did, then I could move the car out of the garage and would then have to row.

So, last week was a real dud. All around. The worst part? If I’m not running, I can’t eat! Yikes!

It’s Monday and it’s raining again. That means the trails will be closed until at least Wednesday. Which is okay, because my Wednesday is booked solid anyways. Besides, the sun is supposed to be out and the temps into the upper 70’s by the middle of the week. That’s more like it.

Here’s this week’s plan:

• Monday: Rest
• Tuesday: 4 road miles
• Wednesday: Rest
• Thursday: 4 miles. Hopefully trails.
• Friday: Poker day.
• Saturday: Let’s try this again. 10 miles. Trails
• Sunday: 8 miles. Trails.
• Total planned: 26  ish miles.

Hey! That’s like a marathon!

A Minor Setback

After all that rah rah talk about getting started on my journey to aerobic fitness, I suffered a setback over the weekend and couldn’t get out to do my long runs. Nothing physical – just some scheduling conflicts. Yeah. Unfortunately life has a way of getting in the way sometimes.

This week has also had it share of schedule challenges. Here was my planned schedule:

• Monday: Rest
• Tuesday: 4 easy
• Wednesday: 4 easy
• Thursday: 4 easy
• Friday: Rest
• Saturday: 10 trail
• Sunday 8 trail
• Total: 30 miles

But, to top it off, my job search had me running around Wednesday, and I will be doing so today (Thursday) as well, so those two runs aren’t happening. To top it off now, the weatherman* is forecasting rain Friday night and Saturday, which means my beloved trails will be closed this weekend. If that’s the case, I may end up breaking out the rowing machine. After all, a man has to eat!

* I use the term “weatherman” loosely. There are several female weatherpersons on TV in L.A. A couple appear to be keeping plastic surgeons in business…

Building a Base

The toughest part of running for me right now is I remember the way it used to be. Back when I could confidently say “Four miles? Bah. It’s not even worth tying my shoes for.”

Well, these days I can’t even run half a mile without breaking into a brisk walk. Sure – some of it has to do with the extra 20 pounds I’m carrying (yes – I really let myself go during the last year and a half), but most of it has to do with the fact that I’ve lost *all* of my aerobic base.

Here’s a statistic for you – do you realize that your aerobic system provides about 95% of your energy needs in a 5K and almost 100% of them in a marathon? Yet most of us neglect proper cardio vascular training by doing our long runs too fast and doing too many intervals and hills way too hard.

Building our cardio vascular system involves slow, persistent training over a long period of time. I don’t know if I’ve ever told this story, but (time for some proud parental bragging) two of my children were rowers (the kind who row the big boats like you see in the Olympics, or the opening credits of House). My daughter scholar shipped at an NCAA division I school, and my youngest son was racing internationally at the ripe age of 16. Both of them received coaching from people who rowed internationally at the highest levels (World Cup and Olympics). The two of them would literally spend hours every day on rowing machines or running at *very* low heart rates (65% of max or less) building their aerobic base. Why? Because that is how the elites train. All I know is within a few months they were able to row on the water for hours and not really break much of a sweat.

What can I take away from this? This time I’m not going to fall into the trap of thinking that I *need* to train hard. The key this time around will be weekends – long runs at low intensity. Back to back. Miles of slow running until my body says it’s ready to train hard. How will I know when I’m ready? When my long runs become easy.

Yes. This time I’m going slow and steady.  Say, wasn’t there some Greek fable about that?

This week:

• Monday: 6 miles easy
• Tuesday: Rest
• Wednesday: 4 miles easy.
• Thursday: Rest.
• Friday: Rest
• Saturday: 10 miles easy.
• Sunday: 8 miles easy
• Total: 28 miles