Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Statin Side Effects...


Today the NYT has an article about a new admission of possible rare side effects to those taking statins. For the first time, cognitive problems are on the list.

Full article here.

But don't worry, be happy. Keep taking your meds.

I am lucky..my numbers were high enough my doc wanted me to take a small dose of statins, but low enough that changing my diet and starting running fixed the problem:

LDL was 177 , now about  113-130 (should be less than 130)
HDL was 45,  now about 60 (should be greater than 40 in men)
Total Cholesterol / HDL = 3.2-3.4 (should be less than 3.5)
Triglycerides now 60, was 110  (should be less than 150)

These results have held for the last 4 years. It was not hard for me to do (but my numbers were not that bad compared to some).

I was 51 when statins were suggested. Why the heck would I want to take such a complex  drug for the rest of my life when I could fix the problem and feel better to boot? 

Science doesn't really understand the whole story about cholesterol and statins..they do have a bunch of decent statistics that says they help people avoid heart disease, on average. My doctor could plug my numbers into a little calculator and tell me exactly how much I would raise or lower my risk which each change.

Of course, in reality the statistics probably mask a ton of other information..people with high numbers that won't get sick, people with low numbers that will still get sick, etc. That's statistics without true understanding for you! You treat everybody the same. What else can you do?

Well..you could try living more like your body expects you to....

I personally think that even people that have very high numbers should change their diet and start exercising. Then even if you still need to take the stuff you can take the smallest amount possible. Oh, and by the way you'll feel great!

Don't just assume a pill is going to fix you. 


Sunday, February 26, 2012

Weekly Status: 9 weeks to Eugene



A shout out to Michael  another 50+ runner/blogger out there doing his dardest to stay fit.

...this Sunday was his first marathon  at the Cow Town (Fort Worth, Tx)....from peeking at the race results it looks like  he totally SMASHED his A goal and had a great race. We'll know more how it went when he posts the race report!

Congrats Michael!

----------------



Monday: Normally a rest day but since no Sunday run we did 70 minutes of biking, 5 of rowing. 


Tuesday: 10 min row 2x1 min hard + 30 min biking 12 x {1 min @ level 15/20, recover to 115 bpm}, Lb weights.


Heel is getting better, but I can still feel it when going down stars or jogging on it so I'm not going to mess things up.. Another couple of days may just do it. 


Meanwhile, cross training allows me to really push hard without hurting it. It's hard to get the HR up with biking but the 1 minute intervals I did today got me just up to 140bpm or so.. It's the legs that are really complaining however! 


I remember fondly my cross training this summer during my previous issues and I had one heck of a time on the bike when I first started ;)


I managed to keep the cadence at 100 the entire 30 min....(I try to keep the cadence in the same range as running cadence.)


Wednesday: A test...5 miles at high base pace. Wore the Brooks Launch shoes. 


It felt ok, I run at 11am and it was already close to 70 and SUNNY, so I was hot compared to my usual early morning runs.  


Legs felt good, even with yesterdays hard bike intervals. The heel was way way better...and running in the Launchs seemed ok. I did ice after just in case but the proof things are able to improve is tomorrow.



Split Dist Pace HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 1.00 9:27 124 63.9 87 1.502
2 1.00 9:16 125 64.8 87 1.521
3 1.00 9:23 126 65.6 86 1.487
4 1.00 9:25 127 66.4 86 1.472
5 1.00 9:17 133 71.3 86 1.424
6 0.04 9:52 132 70.5 84 1.250
Sum 5.04 9:22 127 66.4 86 1.479


If we are lucky the rest days and the slightly higher drop, more forefoot cushion shoes will let us stay ahead of the game.


Thursday: 5 @ 10:23 m/m (HR 113), recovery pace.


I was all set to do some speedwork to test out the foot...but I was draaaaggin'. Usually after a mile I'll be warmed up and ready to go, but not today..for some reason I was tiirrrred. Kept it slow, enjoyed the sunshine. foot ok during the run...no big hit from yesterday's run...a good sign.


We'll see how we feel tomorrow...spent a bunch of time working all the trigger points out of both calves..there were 3-4 on the left leg.


Friday: 2 m warm up + 9 x { 4 min @ sub 8:00 pace + 2min recovery} + 2 m cool down.


This morning after sleeping like a brick, I felt a lot more energetic and so headed to track with calf sleeves on, temps around 50 and bright sun!  Time to see if I could take some speedwork. The foot was feeling quite good so I decided to try 800s.


I guess what I did are modified Yassos....800m @ 8:00 pace takes 4 minutes...but I don't take a full 4 min recovery like a Yasso, but two minutes. 



Split Dist Pace HR Max HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 1.00 9:53 116 168 57.4 87 1.534
2 1.00 10:02 120 127 60.7 87 1.462
3 0.51 7:54 136 141 73.8 92 1.640
4 0.21 9:58 128 138 67.2 87 1.361
5 0.51 7:59 138 141 75.4 91 1.606
6 0.21 9:47 130 141 68.9 87 1.391
7 0.54 7:45 138 142 75.4 90 1.654
8 0.21 9:54 129 138 68.0 86 1.358
9 0.52 7:50 138 146 75.4 91 1.643
10 0.20 10:01 130 142 68.9 85 1.343
11 0.52 7:47 138 148 75.4 91 1.649
12 0.20 10:25 135 148 73.0 85 1.232
13 0.50 7:59 142 146 78.7 90 1.547
14 0.22 9:18 137 147 74.6 87 1.396
15 0.52 7:49 143 148 79.5 91 1.581
16 0.21 10:01 138 148 75.4 85 1.281
17 0.51 7:49 145 150 81.1 90 1.542
18 0.22 10:33 136 150 73.8 84 1.225
19 0.51 7:54 139 146 76.2 90 1.603
20 1.00 10:47 123 146 63.1 85 1.328
21 0.95 10:34 125 128 64.8 85 1.335
Sum 10.26 9:09 130 n/a 68.9 88 1.478

During the 8th it was getting tough..I was having to push to keep the pace and really concentrate on form. I knew I could do a full 10 but my little "inner voice" was telling me to be prudent..the heel was feeling very good but this was quite a bit of fast running..so perhaps I should stop. Sneaky that inner voice..always looking for a reason to cut things short.


I compromised at doing 9...the time was also getting late and I did still have 2 miles to get back home. I'm happy with low drift in HR and especially happy with the 90 cadence in the 2 oz heavier Launches!


Iced the foot after. Felt pretty good...proof will be how it feels tomorrow.


Saturday will be rest but not sure what to do Sunday, Jill?....12.5 @ base with last couple of miles fast?


----


Not much rain around here this "La Nina" year and it's already sunny and warm (70F+ today) and Spring


And that means pollen..the flowering trees are out and the mustard is starting to bloom in the hills. After my run Friday I started sneezing later in the day..dear dear..what a messy runny nose..time for the meds!














Sunday: Jill says try to do 14 @ base pace..monitor the foot and abort if required. I was really looking forward to a long run....


It was a cool morning, 50s, some high clouds but pretty sunny. 



Split Dist Pace HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 1.00 10:11 110 52.5 87 1.571
2 1.00 9:54 118 59.0 87 1.507
3 1.00 9:51 120 60.7 87 1.488
4 1.00 9:41 118 59.0 87 1.540
5 1.00 9:49 121 61.5 86 1.481
6 1.00 9:40 119 59.8 86 1.530
7 1.00 9:23 121 61.5 86 1.550
8 1.00 9:48 123 63.1 86 1.459
9 1.00 9:33 126 65.6 87 1.463
10 1.00 9:24 126 65.6 87 1.487
11 1.00 9:31 128 67.2 87 1.445
12 1.00 9:25 127 66.4 87 1.470
13 1.00 9:12 132 70.5 88 1.450
14 1.00 8:48 140 77.0 89 1.429
Sum 14.01 9:35 123 63.1 87 1.494


A decent run, pretty good HRs..not fully peaked yet but getting there..the foot didn't bother me much it was there during the run but didn't mess up my form, however after 10 miles I could tell it was going to be sore after, and yes, it was..icing as per usual.


I was happy I could do the run after doing a pretty hard set of intervals on Friday. Hopefully the foot will bounce back after the rest day tomorrow.


Total: 34.3 miles


For the first time in a long time I managed to hit <170 lbs on the scale. The weight bounces around from day to day so I don't obsess over it but watch for the min values...they are gradually going down. This morning I had to stop and cinch my water belt ..the default setting was just a touch too loose.


9 weeks to go.....

















Thursday, February 23, 2012

Midweek status and .....I'm Famous!

Midweek Status

After doing cross training for a few days I started running again on Wednesday...5 miles at fast base.

Today I was really feeling a bit tired for some reason, so didn't push it and ran 5 at a recovery pace. My foot felt pretty good considering the previous day's run...no retribution there.

Even though it has gotten better I'm still not sure it's up to full bore training yet. Waiting another day or two before upping the ante. Doing lots of self massage of trigger points in left calf.

I like the Brooks Launches, I have no problem landing forefoot in them and boy, are they quiet! They are just the thing for babying my legs right now. (I will be going back to a mix of shoes once I feel up to it....not running in these all the time!)

I'm Famous! not really.


Marathon maniac Steve Walters made this MM logo artwork from about 400 Maniac names. 

There are over 4000 Maniacs already (me #4012) so I was surprised to find out that my name was included in this priceless creation poster.








I found my name within 5 minutes! Here's a closeup...it's from the bottom rightmost "s" in "MANIACS"...I have rotated the pic 90 degrees clockwise:


I'm not sure why my name got picked....perhaps he put all the MM-ers that are silver and above? I suspect I just got lucky...even at that there are more then 400 MM-ers.

This reminds me of the Honda LA marathon where they had two Honda cars with all the names of the runners on them. My brother in law and I found our names! I'm not sure how we did that...I think they were distributed in some kind of alphabetical ordering.....does anybody remember?

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Analysis of pacing variation in the Eugene Marathon, Part II

After my previous attempt, I was not satisfied using bar plots to look at the data and decided a simple scatter plot of percentage fade vs finish time (in hours) would be more useful.


I also downloaded the data for the Eugene marathon for years 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 just to get more data ;)


As Nelly asked before, I'll tell you that when I say 'fade' I mean the percentage by which your marathon time went up due to extra time in the second half.


So if you ran a 5 hour marathon, and you took 2 hours in the first half and 3 in the second half you would have


fade_pct = (5hrs - (2 * 2hrs)) / 5 hrs =  1/5 = 20% 


You will notice two lines on the plots..these show a best-fit line matching the average fade for men (red) and women (green). The slopes of the line are noted as well in the X-axis label text.


I have cut off the data at  5 hours..slower than that and you are getting into walking, as well as some people that were clearly not faded but injured (calf strain, GI problems, ??).


You can see that for both men and women the percentage spread of fades increases with running time. ...e.g. the really fast runners are less vulnerable to the problem. Remember that these numbers are already percentage based on the finishing time so the increases in fade are a double whammy to the finishing times.


To return to my original hypothesis about women and men's marathon pacing: with these plots, you can clearly see that the women have:


1) Less overall percentage fade. At a 4 hour finishing time the women have 2-3% less fade. This is 6 minutes!


2) Less increase in percentage fade vs total running time...by about .5-1% per hour. So as we are all out there the men fade more AND their fade increases about 1% per hour more than for the women.


There is a lot of individual variation but I think these plots show the effect pretty clearly.








Monday, February 20, 2012

Born to Run?

Yes, I think so. I'll spare you all the evolutionary and biological evidence but, yes, I do believe Homo sapiens is the best distance runner on the planet.


But..


Born to Race?


Here I think the answer is: No.  Racing  is NOT part of our DNA.


(Racing on trails is a bit better, but even that isn't something we were doing a lot of in times long ago..)


Granted, some people can take more racing than others...I read blogs of people doing ultras and sub 3 hour marathons galore..and I've read other blogs of people that get stress fractures every time they try to do a marathon build-up. Age is a factor of course, but genetics is clearly a huge factor.


What do I mean by "Race" anyway? 


I don't mean strapping on a chip and bib. I don't mean trying to get a new PR.


The thing that we aren't meant to do too often is  peaked training for a specific race. This is what the professionals do all the time and this is not easy: you have to push the limits of what your body can do and it's quite likely you'll push too far from time to time and break something. 


In my (slight) experience, its very hard to know when to let up the gas in training. Plenty of times during my CIM buildup I thought I was right on the cusp of some injury, but I would go out anyway, do a good long warm up, and then surprise myself by having a great training session and recover fine and on schedule (barely ;).


It seems inevitable we will push too much once in a while... and then hope to recover and resume without messing up the schedule too much. Every time this happens you lose a smidgen of potential training benefit and are not as optimized for race day as you hoped, but every time you push through you get to a higher level of fitness.


So it's a gamble...you push yourself and see how close you can get to the limit. Along the way you get serious about injury prevention and learn how to strengthen, stretch, fuel and treat your body to minimize the odds of downtime.


When you pull it off, it is sweet. There's a lot of time, effort, planning, reacting, thinking and luck, that goes into a peaked cycle and race day.


But, this kind of running is hard on your body..there is no doubt. There is only so much abuse the connective tissues of your body can take...and the amount of gains we get is absurdly small, really.


My sweet spot seems to be 4:10-4:15 marathons..I can run these with no speed-work and limited training time (averaging 25 miles per week).  I finish these races in good shape and ready to do some light tourism afterward. I ran a flat, purposely slow paced (for me) 4:45 trail marathon and went skiing the day after the day after (usually the most sore day!).


CIM, by contrast, was a big buildup, not perfect...there were some glitches, but I reached a level of fitness that was clearly (looking at the training data) above and beyond. Result: about 15 minutes faster than my sweet spot pace. This is only about about 6-7% faster. 


And, after CIM I was hurting. I had much worse post race soreness than any other marathon I've run. I'm sure that is not good for me.


Yes, I'm still going to "Race"


It's just too much fun to do once in a while..e.g. once a year or so. And I'll do it knowing that it might be a little bit bad for me too...it goes beyond "good health". (Hey, climbing Mt Everest goes beyond good health and has major death risks besides!)


However, it really sucks being unable to run race you've signed up for and you looked forward to. 


Running marathons in the slightly slower "sweet spot" is incredibly fun and still challenging. Just because you aren't trained to the peak, you still have actually run 26.2 miles and you have to pick a smart pace on race day.


Most beginners at the marathon don't do any speed-work..the training plans opt there for beginners focus on getting you to the finish...which is tough enough. 


Shorter races


If you've been following my blog for a while you'll realized that my ramblings above apply mostly to marathons..as that's mostly what I run. I have only run 3 half marathons and two 10ks and a few Bay to Breakers (12k) back when I started running. 


I guess what puts me off is that running peaked shorter races for me means doing some Very Fast training and I find that fast running is the thing that puts me most at risk of injury...marathon training beats you up too, but I seem to do better at the somewhat slower paces there and my body doesn't mind the longer distance as much.


Another factor for me is that training time during the week is available, but that weekends are often busy with other activities and so race days are not easy to come by...hence I lean toward fulls.


What do you think?


How many total races do you do in a year? Do you peak for races multiple times per year? Which races do you enjoy the most?





Sunday, February 19, 2012

Weekly recap: 10 weeks to Eugene

Monday: Rest. I was a bit sore and tired from Sunday's run...took a walk of about 1 mile in the afternoon to loosen up my legs.


My nasty pinkeye is essentially gone now, yay!


Tuesday: 7 miles,  2 miles easy + 3 miles: 1 min @ 10K/1 min easy + 1 mile easy + 1 mile hard. Lb strength training


This time I understood the 3 miles of 'fartlek' 8). Since it is supposed to be  'speed play' and not crazy precise speed control I did mess around and do some minutes a bit faster than 10k and some slower. 


Unfortunately this kind of running creates a lot of splits: (the fast bits are marked with ***)



Split Time Dist Pace HR Max HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 10:11.7 1.00 10:12 116 144 57.4 87 1.488
2 9:26.0 1.00 9:26 121 150 61.5 88 1.542
3 1:00.2 0.12 8:04 129 133 68.0 93 *** 1.632
4 1:00.9 0.10 10:29 127 133 66.4 88 1.365
5 1:03.7 0.13 8:02 130 135 68.9 93 *** 1.658
6 1:02.3 0.11 9:51 128 135 67.2 88 1.457
7 :59.7 0.13 7:36 132 135 70.5 94 *** 1.742
8 1:00.8 0.09 11:27 128 135 67.2 87 1.221
9 1:08.6 0.14 7:57 132 136 70.5 93 *** 1.633
10 1:01.7 0.10 10:25 130 137 68.9 87 1.317
11 1:00.4 0.13 7:49 131 142 69.7 94 *** 1.735
12 1:01.2 0.10 9:50 139 146 76.2 88 1.241
13 1:00.0 0.13 7:46 134 139 72.1 93 *** 1.707
14 1:05.1 0.11 9:37 134 139 72.1 88 1.332
15 1:05.3 0.13 8:07 136 145 73.8 93 *** 1.546
16 1:09.1 0.12 9:42 130 137 68.9 89 1.411
17 1:18.3 0.16 8:03 131 138 69.7 93 *** 1.647
18 :52.1 0.09 10:03 132 138 70.5 87 1.382
19 1:01.9 0.13 8:06 132 138 70.5 92 *** 1.680
20 1:00.4 0.10 10:16 133 138 71.3 88 1.315
21 1:00.4 0.13 7:32 137 142 74.6 93 *** 1.659
22 1:01.7 0.10 10:29 132 141 70.5 87 1.297
23 1:14.2 0.17 7:23 136 147 73.8 92 *** 1.779
24 1:09.0 0.13 9:11 136 143 73.8 88 1.463
25 1:00.5 0.12 8:43 136 140 73.8 91 *** 1.540
26 1:08.3 0.12 9:46 131 138 69.7 87 1.416
27 :59.9 0.13 7:32 137 143 74.6 94 *** 1.673
28 1:00.7 0.10 10:16 135 143 73.0 86 1.289
29 1:02.0 0.13 7:42 137 140 74.6 94 *** 1.616
30 7:49.6 0.77 10:13 121 139 61.5 86 1.431
31 8:46.9 1.00 8:47 131 140 69.7 89 1.530
32 1:34.7 0.14 10:59 124 135 63.9 85 1.259
Sum 1:06:17.1 7.15 9:16 127 n/a 66.4 89 1.495




My left heel sore spot wanted icing after...it's not too bad ..for example I could do my 2x20 eccentric heel raises/lowers after running and it was ok with it...but there as usual.


Wednesday: 100ups, 6 mile easy 


Did 3:17 @ 10:24m/m


I felt tired this morning and my left heel spot was more sore than it has been thus far. I kept the speed down but decided that some more rest was required rather than just mindless slogging...so I cut the run short. I can always pick up a mile or two on a day where I'm feeling great.


Iced the heel after and during the day and it felt better.


Thursday: 6 miles @ base, 5x15s hill sprints, myrtle routine after


The heel was not happy this morning. It was not to the point that it interfered with my from but it was very close to that. I gave it a couple of miles to loosen up but eventually I decided that hill sprints were a Very Bad Idea. 


Instead I did a longer run at a slow base average. I ran on the bay trails...(dirt) whenever I could and that helped too.  It was pretty sunny although cool (43F or so)...the bright sun make the water blue which is always nice to see 8). There was some wind on the way out but at about mile 5 I turned around and whee: easy running with the tailwind.





Split Dist Pace HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 1.00 10:11 139 76.2 87 1.243
2 1.00 9:59 119 59.8 88 1.482
3 1.00 9:41 120 60.7 88 1.514
4 1.00 9:49 117 58.2 88 1.533
5 1.00 10:07 120 60.7 87 1.449
6 1.00 9:48 116 57.4 87 1.548
7 1.00 9:29 121 61.5 88 1.534
8 1.00 9:55 118 59.0 87 1.505
9 0.26 10:14 115 56.6 86 1.485
Sum 8.26 9:53 121 61.5 87 1.471



Back at the office when showering I could tell I did the run pretty low on calories..I was smelling 'ketosis' on myself:


Ketosis is recognizable by the smell of acetone (as in nail varnish) on the breath. It occurs when the body's processing of nutrient materials for the release of energy depends predominantly on the use of fats. In the absence of a dietary carbohydrate supply for maintaining blood sugar, or if sugars cannot be utilized normally, fuel must come from stored fat and muscle protein.



I get this whenever I do my really long runs, and on this run because I didn't take any GUs with me and I am dieting a bit. 


I immediately iced and took some "vitamin i" (ibprofen) for the heel.
We'll see if I can get ahead of the curve on this thing again. I have 3 more tricks up my sleeve to try:

1) wear the calf sleeves (why have I not been doing this before?)
2) run later in the afternoon when my legs are less stiff and more flexible (morning is the worst!)
3) Put heel lifts in the shoes to reduce the 'drop'  for fast running (<9:00 m/m) to reduce the stress on the AT during for these fast paces.

I will do the usual icing 3-4 times today and try all 3 of these tomorrow.

When I first got AT three years ago and was running in heavy rigid shoes it was HORRIBLE. I would wake up in the middle of the night with a burning, throbbing sensation.  I could not walk barefoot in the morning..I had to have lifted heels. It was a full blown classic case of chronic AT.

Fast forward to now...and  the CIM training and Eugene training have been tougher than anything I've every done and I'm *so* close to being able to do it with no AT issues. 



I just need a wee bit more margin to lick this thing. Frankly, one thing that will help a bunch is to lose more weight. I really do need to drop as much as possible BEFORE these training buildups.

Friday: ~6.35 miles, 100-ups, 2 miles easy + 3x12 minutes @ ½ MP w/2 min recovery between sets + 1 mi cd

I did the icing yesterday and it did help...today I followed my 3 items above and I did seem to be better off than Thursday.

I was able to complete this run...my heel was sore but better than yesterday. I did do 3 min recoveries rather than 2 to give myself a bit of a break. 




Split Dist Pace HR % WHR Cad YPB
1 1.00 9:26 119 59.8 89 1.568
2 1.00 9:44 124 63.9 89 1.459
3 1.00 8:28 135 73.0 91 1.541
4 0.42 8:22 137 74.6 90 1.545
5 0.30 10:57 124 63.9 86 1.314
6 1.00 8:30 137 74.6 90 1.510
7 0.42 8:26 139 76.2 90 1.513
8 1.00 10:11 124 63.9 86 1.394
9 0.20 10:09 120 60.7 86 1.437
Sum 6.33 9:15 128 67.2 89 1.485


Decently low HRs for the red splits.

Saturday: Ub weights + myrtle
Done. My heel was sore today in retribution from yesterday.
Sunday: 12.5 miles, last 25 min hard.



This morning I woke up and knew I probably should not run. Heel area just too sore..time to wear the shoes with slight lifts in them and let things settle down for a few days.


It's a drag having to let up on the gas,  but after punishing myself on the CIM buildup I don't want to do that again...It's not sustainable...(besides I have my 3:56 ;).  What I want for Eugene more than a new PR is to get to the starting line healthy.


So, instead I went to the gym and did 70 min biking at fast 95-99 cadence, 115 HR,  while reading my kindle.


I went to the store and after trying on several shoes and running on the treadmill with them, I picked out a pair of Brooks Launch shoes to use when I'm feeling beat up. I love me my Frees and Kinvaras, but sometimes I need a bit more drop on the heel when my muscles are stiff and yanking on the tendons.


I also wanted a bit more cushioning under the forefoot too for the recovery days...the Launch had the best forefoot cushioning, .8cm of drop, and was only 2 oz more than the K's in weight. It was also less stiff then my old Nike Pegasus shoes (I took them all to the store to compare...as well as my postal scale 8)


Total: 25 miles, 70 min biking.