Training: The Buildup Phase

As the word "buildup" implies one has to be in a state of atrophy or degradation before you can "build up". Unlike so many dedicated superhuman runners who seem to never allow themselves to fall into disrepair, the rest of us mortals find those occasions where we have slacked and given our shoes a chance to air out and de-stink a bit, and our tummies time to expand. This means that we must start the training process over again. How much you have previously ran, length of running hiatus, and your abilities as a runner, will determine how smooth or painful this stage of training is.

It begins the same as all things running, with a single step. The difference is that this first step often adsorbs the added impact caused by the extra pounds gained during the holidays (darn those chocolate oranges). Unlike the last time you ran fit and well, this step reminds you just how out of shape you let yourself become. The first system to tap out tends to be the lungs. This initiatory run seems to cause the lungs to revolt and sear with pain and all the huffing and puffing just falls short of filling your oxygen quota.

It is a good thing then that your pace for this first run falls somewhere between snail and tortoise. Now the mind kicks in and begins to scold the runner with such thoughts as "how come you took a break" or "this pace is pathetic, I might as well be walking laps at the mall", or you begin to sound like a fogie reminiscing about the good ole days like "I remember it only took me 17 minutes to get to this point during the summer". After the self-flogging you start to settle into some sort of a laboured rhythm.

Then for some of the more unfortunate runners, their pulmonary system has an unpleasant surprise in store for them. All the millions of capillaries that we had spent the previous year growing for maximal blood flow, had spent the hiatus sealing themselves up since they were no longer needed. Now that the body is having to work, it decides it is time to open up the old capillaries and move some blood to the surface of the skin to aid in the cooling of the over-insulated machine. This may seem harmless enough but for anyone who has experienced the burning and itching associated with running after a break, knows the torture I am talking about. No matter how hard you scratch your ribs, stomach, and thighs you can't begin to quench the fire from within. Millions of rusty pipes being flooded with blood for the first time in weeks or even months. All that can be done is a half trot half scratch lope down the trail or road (possibly even whimpering) until you finally have had enough training for one day.

With run number one out of the way you are able to start the next run knowing you have at least ran once previously and so you start again. This time things work a bit better, not anywhere near comfortable but at least the itchy capillary thing is over (it tends to only take one run and the phenomenon vanishes until the next time you run after a hiatus).

Now starts the phase of building up some fitness momentum. Unfortunately, fitness follows Newton's first law all to well, in that an object at rest wants to stay at rest and an object in motion wants to remain that way. In many ways fitness is like a gargantuan iron steam locomotive. If neglected, it kind of sits there in all its ginormous glory, and rusts to the tracks. In order to get your fitness moving down the tracks in the right direction again you first have to use some superhuman strength just to get it to budge. This is really what the first few weeks of a new training program are all about. Getting that fitness in a state of motion and moving in the right direction. With dogged perseverance and consistency you find your fitness on track and moving in the right direction.

It is at this point that we are the most prone to injury. The lungs and heart have finally figured things out and found that they are still capable of providing the oxygen necessary to fuel the furnace. Herein lies the conundrum, with your new found fitness, and zealous impatience to achieve that fitness level you once had you begin to ignore such basic laws of running like the 10% rule. Why not increase distance this week by 25 or even 50%? Now it is your legs who tap out. Up to this point your limiting factor has been your respiratory and pulmonary systems, now that they are working, and you are logging some impressive miles, you start feeling some pain along your shins or perhaps a slight twinge of something on the side or lower knee. Now is the time you must exercise extreme caution because you can kiss all those previous weeks of training goodbye if you make one wrong move at this point. You are on extremely thin ice. You now must let up a bit and let the legs catch up to the lungs. This interim stage usually takes a few weeks of tip-toeing the knife edge between too much and just enough. If you listen to your body and try not to get too greedy with mileage your legs eventually turn the corner and you begin increasing your mileage again, a little wiser from that close call.

You are now running consistently. You have lost some weight and your mental state has improved. You are positive and seeing great improvements. You can run 4-5 times a week with little problem. Your pace has progressed from tortoise to something a little quicker. Your long runs are at the half marathon mark no problem. You have made it through the buildup phase, it is now time to turn your attention to an entirely different beast, the long run, but that is a whole different story for another day!

Back from my writing hiatus - The H2H is when?

I can't believe I finally wrapped up the first draft of my 50 page PhD proposal. It was a beast to write with hundreds of references. I basically sat and wrote for 6 weeks with little else to offset the academic-induced coma I found myself in. The worst aspect is I basically had to kiss my training goodbye for the summer and hunker down on my project. I knew that it was a matter of time before school pushed ultra training aside for various stints during my program. Alas, I came here to study Geology and leave an impact on how geologists' think about my area of interest. So I had to push my running aside because to run at all would be to take away from time that had to be spent sleeping or writing.

Excuses aside, I am back at it again. The main motivation is I just realized that I am less than 2 months away from the Haney to Harrison 100 km relay race in which I am a member of a 6 person team. I just realized that I am completely out of running let alone racing shape and I have a team depending on me. So I have developed a plan in which I add 3 minutes to my daily runs each day and 15% to my long weekend runs. This should get me close to 1.5 hours of running a day with long runs near 3 hours once a week. Since it is a road race (yuck!!) I have been incorporating flat road and gravel trail into my training to get me into better shape for pounding the pavement.

Even though I have had a two month break I have found my running coming back fairly quickly (for this first week anyhow). The first run was a bit brutal as my capillaries opened up again and I busted the lungs back in, but since I have comfortably found my breath and air. I really need to kick about 12 pounds as well so it is time to chill out on my eating. I am afraid that the pressurized writing scenario may have allowed me to find solace in snacking and late meals to accompany during late nights of writing. The lack of inactivity and overeating was a simple equation for rapid weight gain. I am glad to be back to burning some calories and eating less and more thoughtfully.

Last night was awesome. My 4 year old son wanted to accompany me for a short warm-up run. It was dark and foggy so we each strapped on the headlamps and hit the dark tree choked trails. What a trooper! He cranked out an awesome pace for a little dude and we ran about 1 km in about 9 minutes which was pretty cool. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of it was sharing this aspect of my life with him. I look forward to future running exploits with my family. I love that I don't even have to push him to do it. He sees me running and the joy and passion I get out of it and he naturally wants to run like dad. It is really cool. Who knows he may have a natural talent that can carry him far. I guess the key is I let him do it on his own without me forcing him. After all if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't want to run.

I guess I have just a short 31 minute run tonight and I am looking forward to it.

In the spirit of my lack of preparation for the H2H I am including a song appropriately named "Not Prepared" by a group called Mesh. It is a classic song. The first time I heard it was on a napster copy of Depeche Mode's Exciter album. This leaked copy of the album included this track by Mesh and also "Pony Tail Girl" by Brian Hazard of Color Theory (another of my favorites). Apparently the person who put the Exciter album up on Napster around the year 2000 thought these two artists sounded similar to Gore and included them with the album, fooling many people (not me I could tell the two tracks weren't Gore). Well now that I am not prepared remotely in any way, shape, or form, for the H2H this song might light a fire so perhaps I can salvage some sort of a slightly below average time and not completely disappointed my team.

Mount Work TH to TH to TH double summit

I have not posted for a while for several reasons, first because it is obviously the end of the semester and I have not had the time to write about my life, secondly because it is the end of the semester I basically have had to take a small hiatus from running to get my final assignments squared away so I have not had any training runs worth mentioning on my blog to report, and lastly two weeks ago I was ill and took some time off to let my lungs heal. I am afraid this lung thing is still hindering my running but I am not letting it slow me down too much.

Since it was a nice spring morning and we are on the tail end of this 4 day Easter break I decided to crank out a double summit of Mount Work, starting at the north Trail Head running to the south Trail Head and then turning around and running back to the north Trail Head. The distance or elevation are not anything to write home about but it ends up being about 10 km with 1800' of vertical. Since I have been ill and running inconsistently the past few weeks the run was nothing impressive, but what a joy to get out there and push myself to the top of the mountain several times. The summit is not spectacular in itself but if you run to the south a few hundred meters the views really open up. I could see Victoria and the Olympic Range to the south and the Gowland Tod Range to the west. The trails were littered with uprooted fallen trees and branch debris from a Spring Gale that blew in the previous week (the same story on Mount Doug with many trees fallen across the trail, I am kind of glad I postponed my run during the worst of the wind for that very reason).

I had never ran the south side of the mountain and found the trails to be fantastic. The trails switchbacked through large forests of Arbutus trees and wound down the ridge to the shore of Fork Lake. I popped out at the Munn Road parking lot and turned around and began my climb back to the summit. There was a major difference with the run feeling much steeper heading up than it did when I was gliding down. I took my time and pushed hard and cruised beyond the summit and started my final descent toward the North Trail Head again.

I caught up with a couple who had started the hike the same time I started the run at the north trail head, and they stopped and asked me why they didn't see me at the summit and wondered where else I would have ran. I explained that I ran to the other trail head and turned around and came back. They couldn't fathom that someone would or could do that, let alone in the short time it took them to hike to the top once and get a quarter of the way back down. I think it is interesting that many people don't really ever consider running on the trails. It was intriguing to see them react to my trail running as if it was the first time they considered the possibility. I strongly urged them to give it a try and who knows perhaps one day I will see them out there running in the bush and enjoying the freedom that comes with trail running. I can't imagine spending my life not pushing my physical limits, I feel many people underestimate what the human body is capable of.

I actually was surprised at how easily my pace came and that I still had some fitness to draw from even though the last two weeks have been inconsistent and challenging at best. I only have another strong month of running before I teach Field School for the undergrads for a month, and then head straight to Utah. It is really important that I run consistent the next 30 days and throw in several long 3-4 hour runs with 3-5000 feet of vert if I want to be up to running the peaks and trails I am planning on running in Utah in May. I know I will be consistent. School is really starting to cook but with the longer days it shoudn't be too hard.

I can't claim discovery of my song today because I am going to repeat one that I first heard on Krupicka's blog here. It is called "Sweet Disposition" and is by an Aussie group called the Temper Trap. The song has U2-ish guitar riffs with awesome vocals. The first time I heard it on Krupicka's blog I thought it was good and then forgot about it, but last night Vye and I were watching So You Think You Can Dance Australia (a guilty pleasure) and saw a routine with the song and I suddenly really felt it, and it has been in my head since. So while running Mount Work this beautiful song was stuck on repeat in my head as the drama of my run unfolded under cool gray skies. It was EPIC. I hope you enjoy it.