Time for a post...and T-14 weeks to Surf City

Question: why no posting in such a long while?

Answer: I've been traveling (yes, again). 

3 days after running a 10k PR at the Palo Alto Moonlight run , Toni and I set off on a 3.5 week trip to south east Asia:   Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. (To de-jet lag before our big round of countries we started with 3 days in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia).

This was an intense, high energy trip and there was no time for any running...just as well because the weather was hot and humid..not the hottest time of the year down there but plenty hot for us, especially if it was sunny.

We took over 4000 photos during the trip, so it will take a while to whittle down to a few hundred of the best, when I've done that I'll share the link.  Meanwhile I'll share this photo of sunset over the Mekong river in Vientiane, Laos

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Only 14 weeks to surf city, not really enough for the best buildup, but enough to do something better than a trot.

Since I didn't run for 4 weeks (last run was 10k race on 9/20) that makes for an interesting question:

1) How much fitness did I lose in 30 days?
2) How fast can I get it back?

Somewhere, I remember reading that fitness goes away twice as fast as getting it back, e.g. if you knock off for 1 week, it takes 2 weeks to get back to the same shape. Somehow this seems a bit unfair! 

I will test this theory and see how long it takes me to get YPB efficiency numbers in the ballpark from when I ran the 10k race before the trip. Here is my first week back:

Date	Miles	Pace	BPM	WHR%	Elev+	Elev-	YPB
2013-10-21 Mon	3.2	9:47	120.6	61.1	25.7	25.1	1.475
2013-10-24 Thu	3.3	10:55	102.4	46.2	27.2	26.8	1.563
2013-10-26 Sat	3.0	9:23	126.4	65.9	14.7	14.7	1.468
2013-10-27 Sun	7.9	9:44	123.7	63.7	88.8	93.6	1.451
Summary	17.4	9:55	119.1	59.9	156.4	160.2	1.479

This was a light mileage week at pokey paces, as the jet lag from the return flights was some of the worst Toni and I have experienced.  

I thought I was energetic on Monday and did a 3.2 (aborted doing 5..I was feeling it too much). On Wednesday I was so sleepy after lunch at work I had to go home at 2:30pm. I then slept to 6:30pm, ate dinner, and back to sleep at 8:30pm until 8am the next day(!). Thursday I felt good enough to try another 3 miles and plodded at 11m/m with reasonable efficiency. But my strength was still gonzo.

Sat/Sun I could tell I'm getting a bit more back to normal, but both Toni and I have had some cold-like symptoms, drippy noses etc...probably due the dry air at home after all that extreme humidity.

As for my fitness, compare the YPB numbers above with the last set of weeks before my 10K

Date	Miles	Pace	BPM	WHR%	Elev+	Elev-	YPB
2013-06-10 Mon	26.8	11:33	126.2	65.7	1609.0	1601.6	1.233
2013-06-17 Mon	33.3	11:30	124.5	64.3	1286.0	1275.3	1.228
2013-06-24 Mon	6.8	10:03	122.0	62.3	44.4	47.8	1.438
2013-07-01 Mon	8.0	9:29	127.0	66.4	91.6	89.9	1.464
2013-07-08 Mon	30.6	9:31	124.1	64.0	152.4	162.7	1.489
2013-07-15 Mon	25.3	9:44	123.9	63.8	430.6	438.2	1.483
2013-07-22 Mon	30.2	9:33	125.6	65.3	255.5	258.6	1.471
2013-07-29 Mon	43.0	9:34	123.4	63.5	490.6	496.9	1.493
2013-08-05 Mon	33.0	9:31	122.7	62.9	394.9	363.3	1.513
2013-08-12 Mon	18.4	9:20	124.5	64.3	72.5	41.4	1.524
2013-08-19 Mon	28.5	9:21	124.1	64.1	417.4	432.8	1.525
2013-08-26 Mon	21.4	9:16	124.3	64.2	127.8	136.1	1.535
2013-09-02 Mon	29.3	8:59	125.1	64.9	112.0	115.6	1.553
2013-09-09 Mon	14.2	8:54	126.8	66.2	44.6	52.0	1.560
Summary	348.8	9:47	122.1	62.4	5529.3	5512.3	1.460

Last time I had a week below 1.48 was around 7/22 ..it was 8 weeks after that I was hitting 1.55+ pretty consistently, so, it looks like it will take me 8 weeks to get back after 4 weeks off ..so far this is validating the old saw I am remembering...we shall see!

(To translate the YPBs into something you can understand better: right now running at 125 bpm for 5 miles + I get about a 9:40 m/m pace. At 1.55 YPB  fitness I can run the same HR at 9:00 pace...i.e. I've lost 40s per mile at the same effort level)

I have 12 weeks left of training before  my 2 weeks of taper: if i can get back into the shape I was in on 9/2 in just 8 weeks from now I will be happy as 4 weeks to top up a bit more should be great.

Of course there are holidays in there, a birthday (mine!) and a bat mitzvah which will require working around ....but I'm used to that by now.

RunDown: 29th Annual Palo Alto Moonlight run 2013

I ran this race at 8:15pm. The first race I've run NOT in the morning...and on a weekday no less. 

Recall my prevous PR 10k was a 8:01 pace (49:45) and was set 4 long years ago when I was a 53 year old sprite ;)

Below is the course, you can see the levy with water on both sides (and lots of birds at some times along there)...a bit over 2.5 miles on dirt and the rest on pavement. Mile 5 you  are back on the pavement!

Toni decided to do the 5k walk which was the first event. We parked on the west side of the 101 and walked over the bike overpass and down to the athletic center to make sure we could leave without parking crazyness.

Here I am at the 10k start...onward to pick up our bibs. 

 A coworker we ran into took our pic together. This race benefits a bunch of non-profits in Palo Alto.

Toni is ready to go..but sun not down yet. 5k not much of a challenge for her, she was the one that got me to sign up for the 10k and so I guess she felt she should have something to do as well ;)

This is a pic from Toni of the river along the levy for the 5k walk. I run this trail all the time but never in the evening.

Here I am at the 10k start...first time I've been behind motorcycles! Well, at least for a few seconds after the start.

Seriously, there were a lot of people at the start that were slower than me so I felt no guilt getting up there.






Toni's 5k walk started at 7 and ended for her before 8pm. I gave here the bag with the long sleeve shirt booty and went to the 10k start. 

I had met a nice guy, Roland, a Stanford Radiology prof, originally from Austria, that was wearing a SF marathon shirt. It was fun to talk about marathons, etc as we waited for the start.

My plan was to run about 7:50 m/m and hope to shave 5s per mile off my previous best. I had one gu before the start. I ate a partial bowl of cereal about 3 hours before the start...no normal dinner for me.

The race started on time and off we went in a frenzy. I had my Garmin 610 set up to show only two numbers: average pace and this lap's pace (1 mile laps). Right away we saw goofy numbers like 6:30 but I slowed right down a bit and settled in at my 7:50-ish goal pace.

The crowding was not that bad! I was not bothered too much. I did wear a headlamp just in case as about 10% of the field did. We did have some cones to watch out for and posts and things but people were calling them out.

Hit the first mile in the 7:50s and was happy. Lots of young folks were yakking and joking. I was already doing 2:2 breathing and NOT talking. I felt good but this was not a walk in the park but a serious effort. 

Another older guy blew by me at the end of the first mile....he was really breathing hard! Annnd of course we passed him back looking not so good at about mile 4. 

at about mile 2 we got onto the levy and YUK. Even with the headlamp the slight ups and downs of the dirt track were impossible to see. ...no depth perception! I eventually settled on toe-strike as the best way to have some give...else I was struggling with the footing too much!

The effort seemed about 10% higher doing all this.

Soon we had a great view of the full harvest moon playing cat-and-mouse in some lines of cloud out over the water. Wow. Amazing. Sorry I don't have any photos of THAT.  I passed a couple of 'plugged in' people listening to their tunes that seemed to be ignoring it. 

The crowding was not bad but there were the usual doofus people running 4 abreast, etc. After about mile 3 all the chatty cathy types were silent and we could get down to business.

I kept cranking out the 7:50's, and even got a little faster. It was not "easy" but I was feeling like I could sustain that pace for the whole distance without too much pain...my plan was to speed up in the last two miles if I could.

My watch was my cattle prod. If I saw the lap split average pace flagging I would concentrate on my form and cadence until I got it back in line.  

For most of miles 2.5 to 4 I was by myself with somebody in the dark about 40 feet in front of me and nobody behind me that I could hear.

By mile 4 I knew I had a PR in the bag. I was hurting but not too bad. The big question was how much could I speed up in the last bit?  Come mile 5 we got back on the pavement...BLISS!  I started speeding up then a bit.
Here's the raw splits:

2013-09-21 Sat
Split	Miles	Pace	HR	% WHR	YPB
1	1.00	7:51	149.1	84.5	1.502
2	1.00	7:53	146.0	82.0	1.529
3	1.00	7:44	148.0	83.6	1.534
4	1.00	7:48	150.0	85.2	1.504
5	1.00	7:49	151.0	86.1	1.490
6	1.00	7:40	151.0	86.1	1.518
7	0.36	7:04	153.0	87.7	1.627
Sum	6.4	7:45	149.4	84.7	1.523

Time: 49:19 (vs old 49:45) so NEW 10K PR.  A solid race, smartly run if I do say so myself. HR was 149...previous PR was 152, so more efficient there too. This race not so good for tangents showing 6.4 miles (previous PR race was a clean 6.2).

Official results:
Chip time: 49:18
144/727 Overall
122/388 Men
   5/23   M55-59

A 5th place in my age group..not too shabby. First time I've been that high in my AG in  a road race....the 4 guys ahead of me were all super speedy 45, 46 minutes. After me were a several 49 minute folks (including one 2s behind me!) 

I think with 10F cooler temps (it was in the mid-60s), no levy running but good pavement, better tangents and some proper 10k targeted training for a few weeks earlier I could shave another 30s off this time.

But I'm satisfied...2013 a good year for PRs: 10k and HM @ age 57!

This race was well run with many, many good an enthusiastic volunteers. I would do it again!