Yasso 800s and my WR prediction

The White Rock Marathon is only 11 days away.  This will be my 4th consecutive White Rock.  This morning I ran my last Yasso 800s leading up to White Rock.  Yasso 800s are an interval training workout that also serves as a predictor of marathon finish times.  (See my entry on Yasso 800s from this time last year here.)

This morning I averaged a 3:35 800.  The best thing about it is that if I leave out the first interval (I wasn't quite warmed up yet), intervals 2-10 ranged from 3:31 to 3:36.  I am encouraged by this consistency and by the strength of the latter intervals.  My normal pattern on intervals or tempo runs is to taper off with slower times at the end, and to be inconsistent in pace throughout. 

So based on the Yasso 800s philosophy, this should predict a 3:35 finish at White Rock.  This is actually pretty encouraging; my marathon PR is 3:35, set at White Rock 2009.  There are lots of factors, and Yasso 800 times are no guarantee, but I have been putting in more miles more consistently in the months leading up to WR  than I did last year.  (I'm at 87 consecutive days of running, and counting.)  Maybe, just maybe, I have another 3:35 marathon in me.  

Yasso 800s revisited

I don't know if I'm dumb or just ignorant.  Probably a healthy dose of both. 

I have been running Yasso 800s for 2 years now.  Developed by Runner's World's Bart Yasso, Yasso 800s are a way to run intervals by which you can predict your marathon race time.  You run 10 800s, with a 400 jog break in between, and your average time on the 800s predicts your marathon time.  So if you run them in an average time of 3 minutes 20 seconds, you should be able to run a marathon in 3 hours 20 minutes. 

Bart Yasso, super runner and super nice guy.

 I had it down.  Like I said, I've been running them for more than 2 years.  I have, several times, run Yassos in less than my goal of 3:20.  But the other day, a friend of mine dropped a revelation on me.  You see, I initially based my Yassos on the brief article about them in Runner's World.  It repeatedly refers to running 800s, but never states whether that's 800 yards or meters.  (Actually, now that I look at it again, it says 800 meters right there in bold letters at the top.  Maybe they added that recently for morons like me!)  I'm an American, I don't use metric.  Why would I?  Eight hundred yards is .454545. . . mile, so I have been setting my Garmin for intervals of .46 mile. 

Well, if I had ever run on a track, I would know that when runners talk about 800s, 400s, 1600s, or whatever, they are referring to meters!  As my friend pointed out, I should be running 800 meters per interval, not 800 yards!  Eight hundred meters is .4971 mile, so this morning I reset my Garmin for intervals of .5 mile.  That extra 4/100 of a mile may not sound like much, but it adds 211.2 feet to each interval.

Like I've said, I have, on occasion, run 3:20 or faster Yassos, in anticipation of being in the ballpark for a 3:20 marathon.  I probably ran my Yassos today as fast as I've ever run, but since I ran 800 meters instead of 800 yards, I only averaged 3:31.  I think I'll still run with the 3:20 pace group at White Rock, hoping against hope that I'll find some way to finish in that time.  But more realistically, I would expect to be able to finish in the 3:31 range.  Run and learn. 

Eine Kleine Nachtlaufen

I don't speak German, but since Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is normally translated "A Little Night Music," and since laufen means run (I think), my title means A Little Night Run.  German speakers, I welcome your corrections.  Actually, now that I google my title, I find that I'm not at all original.  No big surprise.

Anyway, tonight was a night for another frustrating long run.  I feel like I'm on track in my training: I'm close to goal in intervals; I'm making progress on my tempo runs; and my easy runs have been at an acceptable pace.  All three have definite room for improvement, but I'm getting there.

Long runs are another story.  The ultimate goal, per my White Rock training plan, is to run my long runs at a pace of about 9 minutes/mile, with the last 4 or so miles at race pace, about 7:30.  Tonight I started out OK.  The first hour I ran mid-9s.  The second, around 10.  So after 2 hours, I was definitely in the sub-10 range.  The next mile or two were a little slower, and I decided to pick it up on mile 15.  I ran a blazing fast 8:50, aided by the first 1/2 mile being downhill.  The next mile, not so fast: 10:59.  After that, I got a little slower.  The last 2-3 miles were a painful, slow walk home.

This has become my pattern for long runs: strong start, but seemingly not excessively fast, then a few miles of struggling but keeping an OK, if not optimal, pace, followed by a death march to the finish, as my friend Stuart would say.  Now that I think of it, that's pretty much my pattern in races, too.  So what I practice in training runs comes out in races.  I don't know how to get out of that!  I'd settle for even splits in my long runs now, but I'm far from that, much less negative splits!  The good news: I still have 4 months until White Rock.

50 mile week

A decent week of training last week.  The week before, I was at church camp with the boys.  It was scheduled to be a low-mileage week anyway, but I didn't even get in the short runs I had planned.  Last week I was back to normal, and even got a 20 miler in.  This is the first week I have gotten in 50 miles since January (except for the 50 miles runs in February and March).

I starting putting together a schedule for training for White Rock.  I am basing it on a 20 week plan in Bart Yasso's book My Life on the Run.  He uses a 10 day cycle rather than the tradition 7 day, so it's a bit trickier to plan, and will be trickier to implement, since long runs will be on different days each week.  He says with the 10 day cycle, older runners have longer to recover between long runs thus can run faster.  Of course, this first week of training I will be in Hawaii, so we'll see how well I get my runs in.

I will once again be aiming for a Boston qualifying time at White Rock.  Maybe this will be the year to do it!

Nice Place to Run: The Lake at Lakes of River Trails South

Of all the places I run, I am pretty partial to the lake at Lakes of River Trails South, chiefly because it's out my front door.  Convenience is certainly the number one attribute for me, but it's great for a few other reasons, too.  One lap around the lake is right at a mile; it's actually a tad less, so if you want to run your best mile, you can tell yourself it's a full mile around and shave a few seconds off your time instantly.  I like to run intervals here because the surface is predictable--a wide, level sidewalk, with very few cracks, all the way around.

Besides all that, it's just pretty.  One side of the lake is lined with trees, and the side with houses has a nice hill up from the sidewalk to the houses.  The HOA put in some benches along the lake, picnic tables at one end, and recently added a volleyball court, tetherball pole, and a horseshoe pit.

I share the lake with a variety of water foul (you can see the Canada geese at the bottom of the picture above if you look closely).  There are some decent sized fish in the lake (eat them at your own risk), and a few years ago someone caught several ugly gar.  This morning I saw a beaver, and one morning a while back I was chased by a skunk.

So come for a run at our little lake.  Look for the overweight guy wearing Vibram Five Fingers, running really slowly or huffing and puffing through a set of Yasso 800s.

Some encouraging intervals

I didn't have time for a full set of Yasso 800s today (10 800 yd repeats w/ 400 yd rest in between), but I did do 6 800s, with an average pace of 3:20.  That encouraged me, because at the height of my training for White Rock, I was doing Yassos in 3:15-3:20.  Granted, the last few repeats today were getting gradually slower; had I done all 10, my average may have been closer to 3:25 or 3:30.  Once the 50 Slam is behind me, I'll take more time for speed work.  Maybe I haven't lost too much speed.  Total distance today: 5.6 miles. 

White Rock Marathon 2008: My First Marathon

With White Rock coming up one week from today, I thought it would be fun to relive WR08.  As I have written here, I started running in February 2008 with the intention of getting into shape and losing a little weight.  Running organized races didn't hold much appeal to me, but I got on a training schedule for a 10K (the Fort Worth Zoo Run) to keep myself disciplined.  I ran it, enjoyed it, and was hooked.  I still didn't think I could run a marathon, but after running a couple longer races (a 1/2 marathon and a 25K) I figured I might as well try a marathon.

So I set out to run White Rock, aiming to finish in under 4 hours.  I trained pretty hard, sticking with my Runner's World Smart Coach training calculator.  One of the training techniques I read about was Yasso 800s, a way to run intervals that helps predict your time for a marathon finish.  I went to the expo to pick up my number a couple days before the marathon, and there was this guy at a booth promoting his new book.  The name on the cover was Bart Yasso, so I asked him, are you the Yasso 800s Yasso?  Of course he was, and is, and we had a very nice conversation.  I bought a book, which he signed, and which I have thoroughly enjoyed.  We have exchanged a few e-mails since, and I wish he were my personal running coach.

Saturday night I got my clothes and shoes ready, pinned my number on my shirt, and pinned some of my favorite Sport Beans to my shorts.  On Sunday morning, I got up in plenty of time to drive to the American Airlines Center.  Knowing that the train, which stops a couple miles from my house, has a stop at the AAC, I checked the schedule to see about riding it over that day.  They don't run on Sunday so I decided to drive.  I got near the ramp to the AAC almost an hour before the start time.  And I sat in my car, totally stopped on the freeway, for an hour.  I could see the AAC.  I could almost see the starting line.  But there was no way I could get there.  I found out later that the train runs on Sundays for special events like the marathon.  I could have kicked myself.

I finally got off the freeway and found a parking spot a few blocks away from the AAC.  I had a warm up run from my car to a skid-o-can near the start (no line if you use it after the race starts) and crossed the starting line about 20 minutes late.  Of course that flustered me, and I spent a good hour running past very slow runners, dodging around little groups of ladies walking four abreast, squeezing through crowds of walkers, trotters, and strollers.  Part of me knew I was going too fast, but it really felt good to be the fastest one around.

Finally I caught up to some runners running more my pace.  Unfortunately, I ran past them, too, to the group that was running faster than I could run for long.  I reached the halfway point in about 1:50, halfway to a 3:40 finish.  At that point I was thinking I could maybe even run a negative split in the second half, and finish at 3:30 or even--gasp!--3:20!  The naive fantasies of a first-time marathoner who went out way too fast.

About that time, I saw my friend Brian, who was out with his family cheering on his brother-in-law.  He ran along with me for a minute, encouraging me to keep up my good pace.  Then it hit me--literally.  The wind coming off White Rock lake hit me in the face like the proverbial wall.  I know it seems like I'm exaggerating, but even the elite runners said they probably lost 5 minutes or more to the wind.  I struggled for most of the second half against that wind.  I quickly knew I wouldn't be running a 3:40, much less a 3:20.  A few miles from the end, I wondered if I could even meet my goal of 4:00.  Many of those I had passed a while back started passing me.  I got into survival mode, still wanting a good finish, but not caring too much about time, as long as I finished.  I finally crossed the line at 4:03.  Not a bad first marathon, but probably not as good as it could have been had I not started out too fast.

My goal since then has been to run a 3:20 marathon, the time I need to qualify for the Boston Marathon as a 40 year old.  I will be running with a pace team, in which an experienced marathoner will set the pace for the team to finish at or just under 3:20.  He'll have balloons or something so I can easily follow him.  I am not sure I have trained well enough for that, but I'll give it my best shot.  3:20 will be my #1 goal.  My #2 goal will be to beat my time at Cowtown in February, 3:51.  My #3 goal, which should maybe be my #1 goal, is to finish without injury.

No matter what my time is, I know it will be fun to be out there, and, as always, I am thankful to have two good legs and a relatively healthy body so I can run for hours and still enjoy it.

My First Barefoot Run

This morning I got dressed for my run, my weekly Yasso 800s.  Lately I have been running almost exclusively in my Vibrum Five Fingers, but as I started to put them on, I thought, what better day to try a barefoot run?  I run my Yassos around the lake next to our house, so I knew the surface would be smooth, familiar, predictable, and relatively free of debris (if you don't count the goose poop).

So off I went, shoeless, in the 38 degree morning.  At first I thought I would have to call it quits after a mile or so, but once I got warmed up and used to the feel of the bare feet, I decided to go ahead with my intervals.  I stopped periodically to check my soles, half expecting to see them bloody and raw, fearful that the cold would have numbed them too much.  But each time they looked great.  Occasionally I would flick away a tiny piece of twig or something that stuck to my foot, but I kept a solid pace and the feet felt great.

After 6 800 yard intervals, I was on pace for one of my best Yasso sessions yet.  I stopped to flick another little pebble off my big toe, and, alas, discovered an unanticipated peril: a little blister!  It makes sense, of course, I just didn't think about it.  I was thinking about sharp objects and the like.

Today I ran a bit over 6 miles.  I think I'll be able to build up to longer runs without blistering, but for now that's probably the most I'll want to run.  I sure do have ugly feet.