Ready for the 2011 TC Marathon; long runs complete, injury free, and I have a full tank of blood

The Twin Cities Marathon starts at 8:00 AM this Sunday and I’m in the best shape ever. This is the first time I’ve completed my marathon training injury free. I think my success is mainly due to consistency during training. I never missed a long run during the week and during the most critical time of my training I got in most of my short runs. During the last few weeks of my training my life got really busy, so I didn’t do all the short runs I planned but I made sure I got in all my long runs. By being consistent with my training, I never got into a situation where I had to play catch up and push myself too hard.

Back in early June I officially started my marathon training with a 10 mile long run. At the time I could comfortably run 10 miles, but 14 miles was very difficult and painful. Since then each week I would add one mile to my long run, except for one week I reserved as a “rest week”, where I didn’t add a mile. (I’ve recently read from a marathon trainer to expect at least one long run with poor performance – it just happens).

Starting with my 18 mile run I started a routine that seems to work pretty well. For my long runs I run with a water belt holding four 6 oz water bottles. Before drinking water I run to my turnaround point and then back to a point where I have about 8 miles left to run. At that point I have my first water break where I walk while slowly drinking water. Then I take three other walking water breaks about every 2 miles. Between the walking water breaks I run at a pretty good pace to keep my average pace near 9:30 (I’m not a fast runner so that is a pretty fast long run pace for me.)

I was going to run 22 miles last week, but I tried running during the afternoon and the heat really got to me. After running 19 miles I stopped into a public restroom where I could douse my head with cool water. I spent too much time cooling off and my legs got all stiffened up.

I don’t think the walking water breaks give me much physical rest, but they help me a lot mentally. Rather than focusing on finishing the run, I just focus on getting to the next walking water break point. I find I can push myself a little harder to get to that next reward. Many marathoners walk through water breaks when racing, so my training method is not unusual.

There is famous Olympian marathon runner, Jeff Galloway, who teaches a run/walk method for marathon training and racing. He claims this is a way to marathon run injury free until you are 100 years old. Some runners have completed a marathon race well under 3 hours using his run/walk method, so one can still finish a marathon with an exceptional time using his method.

After my last walking water break, I hit the lap reset on my Garmin Forerunner 305 at the 2 mile remaining point and start my final push. Out of my last 7 long runs, I’ve been able to complete the last two miles with a pace less than 9 minutes-per-mile. For my 23 mile long run I finished the last two miles with a pace of 8:40. I typically finish my long runs with an average pace of about 9:30, which does not include bathroom stops to poop.

I’ve been having some problems with runner’s trots. There was one long run where I had to stop 4 times. Fortunately there are a number of Porta Potties a long the way that I have found over the years. One problem is I have been starting my long runs very early in the morning, typically around 4:30 am. That’s just not optimum timing with my intestinal track, which doesn’t usually wake up until about 6 or 7 am.

I have made some improvements by changing my diet, which is usually super high in fiber. I won’t go to an unhealthy low fiber diet, which seems to partially defeat the purpose of running, but a day before making a long run I do cut out any super high fiber items like beans or double-fiber bread. I also try not to eat any greasy foods the day before. This week before the marathon race I’ve really been watching my diet. I got to be careful though; I don’t want to be running constipated either. One thing is for sure, if you are having troubles with constipation, try long distance running. Gravity is the most natural way to get things moving.

This is the first marathon I will be running with a full tank of blood. I was anemic for my 4 previous marathons. A physical I had before my first marathon in 2006 showed I was slightly anemic. Unknowingly the anemia was probably the first sign of my cancer, but unfortunately my physician at the time didn’t follow up on it. In 2007 I ran the TC marathon and finished with my best chip time yet of 4:06. I think I could have finish less than 4 hours but the temperatures that day were at record levels. Then in 2008 I ran Grandma’s marathon a couple of months after completing chemotherapy, and then the TC marathon that fall. I was very anemic for those races. It took about a year after chemo for my blood to return to normal levels. I can see and notice the difference.

When I now run my heart rate stays at a much lower rate even for faster speeds. When I ran my last 23 mile run my heart rate stayed at about 148 bpm up to the 21 mile point at an average pace of 9:33. For the last two miles I picked up my pace to 8:40 and my heart rate average 161 bpm during that time. For Grandma’s marathon in 2008 my heart rate was averaging around 160 to 165 bpm even though my average pace was around 10:03. That’s a huge difference from now and then. Whether or not I finish less than 4 hours will not be determined by my cardio systems, but rather by my legs. Oh, and my head too.

For the previous 3 TC marathons I ran, I let adrenalin take over and started out at a pace that was way too fast. Then at about mile 19 to 21 I would run out of gas. At about mile 20 there is a relatively steep climb up the Mississippi River valley up to Summit Ave. In past years I have seen many marathoners collapse somewhere along this climb, and many others walking. I’ve never been able to finish strong at this marathon because of poor pacing. This year I plan to run alongside the 4:00 hour pacer, a very experienced marathon runner that helps runners set a good pace and provides motivation on the way.

We’ll see what happens, but this year I am determined to take on the notorious Summit Ave climb and finish under 4 hours.

Twin Cities Marathon 2011

I’ve signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon, which runs on October 2nd, 2001. For this race I have two goals: (1) injury free training and (2) minimize training impact on family life. I’ve ran 4 marathons so far and for every one I had to deal with some type of overuse injury. I blame that on improper training methods. My biggest problem is that I push too hard during training, either by running too fast because I want to beat some personal time record or by increasing distances too quickly to catch up from lost time. This year I’m going to watch my speed and work very hard on following the 10% rule – not increasing weekly running distance or long run distance by more than 10% each week.

To setup my training schedule I’ve examined my running over the last two months. I’ve recently ran a half marathon race followed by a couple of 14 mile long runs. The 14 mile long runs were really hard on my legs. I looked over my Garmin GPS training log and during the last couple of months my weekly total miles were pretty weak. I was mostly doing long runs and very few short runs. So I’ve decided to reset my long runs to start at 10 miles so I can focus on building up my weekly total by adding in more short runs. Furthermore, I’m going to add only 1 mile to my long runs each week, which will allow me to increase my short runs more quickly without breaking the 10% rule. My biggest challenge is to get more consistent with my training. I’ve gotten sloppy over the last couple of years.

For me the key to having consistent training is getting out of bed early in the morning. That means waking at about 5:00 or 5:30 AM to get my short runs in before work. This year I plan to do my long runs during the week days to free up my weekends for family. For my long runs I’ll need to rise at about 4:00 AM. Fortunately I have trail nearby my home that I can safely run on before daylight.

I figure I have enough calendar time to get my long runs up to 23 miles and my weekly totals over 60 miles at the pinnacle of my training while staying well within the 10% rule. I also have a couple of spare weeks in my plan just in case something comes up that interferes with training. Furthermore, if I get my long runs up to 20 miles, I’ll still be in good shape for race day, so I have plenty of margin built into my schedule.

It may sound like a lot work, and it is, but I love it.

The Big Picture

I was signed up for the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon and was considering running the New York City Marathon this fall, but a problem with my left foot has interrupted my running. The pain actually started last fall after a run on a rocky desert trail in Phoenix. I thought I had bruised my heel on a rock, but now it seems like the symptoms best match with Plantar Fasciitis. For a few months the heel pain mostly occurred during the first few steps in the morning and wasn’t getting worse even though I continue to train. But a few weeks ago things changes dramatically.

 

I went for a 13 mile run and afterwards I noticed a big change in my foot. That evening it was so painful to walk on it that I crawled on my hands and knees to go from my bed to the bathroom. After that I stopped training until my foot felt better and decided to put long runs on hold. But even with shorter and fewer runs my foot is only getting worse. So I have put my running on hold until I fully recover from my foot injury.

 

I’ve been doing everything I know I should do to treat a foot injury like this. I replaced my old running shoes with new ones, I’m using an orthopedic heel insert, I been wearing shoes around the house and do some stretching exercises. I’m planning on seeking medical help to make sure I have the correct diagnosis and to make sure I’m doing everything to completely heal. I’ve read about people who have trained through their Plantar Fasciitis and now have chronic pain and no longer can run. I don’t want that to happen. I’ve prepared myself mentally for the possibility that I may not be running for a long time, maybe the entire summer. To stay in shape I’ll replace running with bike riding, and if that proves to be too much I’ll find something else.

 

Running is really hard for me to give up, even temporarily. But I have my sights on the big picture – I plan to be running marathons well into my seventies. Ever since I was passed up by a couple of 74+ runners at mile 23 of the Twin City marathon I was determined to do the same when I hit that age. To get there I’ll need to take good care of my body by eating well and training with good techniques. I still have a lot of room for improvement in both those areas. Some people look at growing old as getting worse, but I see it as an opportunity to get better – again, looking at the big picture.

Back to the Races

I have signed up for the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon, which runs on Sunday, May 2nd. I miss having a race on the horizon. It feels good to be back into a training routine. I’ve put together a training schedule in an Excel spreadsheet. Each week involves building more weekly miles and a longer long run. I plan to get up to a 16 to 18 mile long run before the half marathon. That’s more than what I need to do, but I want to get close to full marathon shape. I will probably sign up for the New York City marathon, which runs in early November. I may also sign up for the Twin City 10 mile, which runs the same day as the TC marathon. I found that I need to have some race, at least a 10 mile or half marathon in the plans to keep me motivated for running.

The last few weeks over the holidays I didn’t run much at all. It wasn’t just the holidays but the cold weather and crunch time at my work that made it difficult to get out and run. I’ve been training solid now for a couple of weeks and have notice rapid progress. Yesterday I was able to run 9 miles without feeling stiff the next day. However, there is a potential issue that I’m dealing with.

I’ve been having problems with my left foot ever since trail running while on a business trip to Phoenix. The trail I was running on is very rugged with lots of rocks. I think what happen is that I stepped on a rock with the ball of my foot, causing my foot to flex more than it should. Now when I get up in the morning it is painful to walk. Fortunately the pain goes away after I walk on it for 15 minutes or so. So far it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse with my running, but it is not getting any better either. Even when I practically took off a couple of weeks from running it didn’t get any better. Hopefully I can figure out a way to get my foot to heal without having to stop running. I may have to call in a pro.

PET Scans, Diets, and Mountain Training

Well I have some fabulous, fantastic, super, wonderful, amazing, awesome, tremendous, astounding, splendid, breathtaking, great, extraordinary, remarkable, magnificent, huge, enormous, very big, terrific, superb, marvelous, brilliant, spectacular, astonishing, good news. My PET scan came back squeaky clean again. My Oncologist is very impressed. In the past when asked about how he felt about his pathologist’s diagnosis (a curable type of lymphoma,) and Mayo’s diagnosis (an incurable type), he refused to give any speculation and just concluded it was a difference in opinion and there’s not much we can do about it. But now he is thinking a little differently. He still talks with great care. He is a well seasoned oncologist and knows how to talk to the patients without scientific backgrounds. I’m working on him to communicate in my language - science, math and probabilities. These are not the exact words he said, but rather my interpretation.

Being a seasoned oncologist, he has seen many cases of both types of lymphoma: diffused large B-cell (DLBC) and follicular. He has seen how patients of each type respond to chemo and that, on the average, there is big difference in response characteristics. I speculate that many more DLBC patients have rapid and complete responses than follicular patients. It may be rare that follicular patients have a complete remission that lasts any period of time. Therefore, since my response has gone so well and so complete, the probability that I have follicular lymphoma (incurable type) is low and it is much more probable that I have DLBC. We will never know for sure, but the more time I stay in complete remission, the more probable I have been cured.

Getting through the first year in complete remission is a huge milestone. At the one year milestone my odds of surviving and being cured are much greater than 50/50 odds I got just before starting chemo. (I intend to calculate those odds based scientific papers I found on the internet, but I’ve been too busy enjoying life). The first year milestone is the biggest for burning down risk, but the second year is a big one too. However, it doesn’t matter what happens here on out. I’m very gratified with the extension of life I’ve received thus far. From here on out, it’s icing on the cake.

Even though my diet and my training have not gone exactly to plan, my weight loss has. During the work week I do a pretty good job of staying under 2000 calories a day. But I haven’t been able to count my calories close enough to record them. It’s easy to measure food when I’m home, but whenever we dine out or eat at someone else’s house or when I’m on a business trip, I just have to estimate how many calories I eat. And I don’t always count them either. I have been traveling to Phoenix on business trips for the last couple of weeks, but that is a good thing when it comes to my diet. For business travel I don’t dine out but rather get a hotel suite that has a kitchen and cook my own food. Since I buy all my groceries, I don’t get the tempting treats that my wife gets for our sons. So I actually eat much healthier when I travel on business. I haven’t given up on calorie counting; it is still the basis for my weight loss plan. I’ll still do it when I can and when trying new meals. Many of my meals I already know how much to take to stay within my calorie limits.

Keeping track of my weight every day has also been a learning experience. I’ve noticed that my weight has a big cycle that repeats itself over a one week period. Every weekend my weight goes up 2 or 3 pounds, and then drops during the week. I think the weekend weight gain is mostly water weight. I speculate that on the weekends I tend to eat foods that are much higher in sodium, which can make the body retain water. So monitoring your weight on a daily basis can drive you crazy if you’re not careful with interpreting the data. The first plot of my weight shows my daily weight over four weeks. The first week I was not on my diet. During the fourth week I was in Phoenix so there is some missing data. You can see my weight being all over the map, but there does appear to be a downward trend too.

A better way to look at weight is by averaging the daily weight over a one week period. This takes out the weekly cycle and reduces random variations. As you can see in the second plot the data points fall much closer to the fit line, which shows that I’m losing on the average 1.2 pounds a week (rounded up), slightly better than my goal. The fit equation shows a good R^2 factor of 0.98 (rounded up) which means the data follows the fit line to a very high degree. Isn’t science amazing?

My running training has gone very well too, but not always as planned. Over the prior two weeks I have run two half-marathon (13.1 miles) runs. The first one I didn’t have a great finish time of 2:02, a long ways from my goal of 1:39. However, I was running mostly on my local trail which had fresh loose snow on top of ice. The slipperiness robbed energy from every step I took. I was exhausted and beat up near the end of the run and hoping it was due to the slippery conditions. The following week the loose snow had melted and I was mostly running on hard pack snow, in which my trail running shoes get pretty good traction. My finish time was 1:54 and I felt great at the end of the run. My guess is that my time will improve even more just from better traction after the snow and ice disappears this spring.

My weight loss plan included running at least 30 miles a week to burn roughly 3500 calories or more per week. Well that hasn’t worked out to plan either. The biggest deviation comes with business travel to Phoenix. Not because I don’t run, but because I do a different type of run while in the desert. My favorite kind of running is trail running, and my favorite trail running is in the desert, and my favorite desert trail running is up and down a mountain trail. I have read that some marathon coaches feel that hill training can also improve speed or finish times. Well, mountain training must be the best then, right? One of my favorite mountains to run up and down is Shaw Butte in the North Mountain Park of Phoenix. Going up the mountain I try to run as much as I can, but need to take walking breaks at the steepest part. There’s something about running up a mountain that is motivating and makes it easy to push harder than usual.

My favorite part though is running down the backside of Shaw Butte, which is very steep and rocky in places. It’s a type of meditation for me. Any mistake could lead to a serious injury, so one must keep constant and absolute focus on each step. This kind of focus really clears the mind of the daily garbage.

When I mountain trail run my running distances (about 4 miles) are less than the typical 6 miles I run on flat land. So it may seem that I’m burning fewer calories if going just by distance. However, based on time and heart rate, I think I’m burning more calories. There are websites that calculate how much calories you burn for just about any activity, including mountain climbing and mountain biking, but I haven’t seen anything on mountain running.

So my diet and running training have not gone exactly how I planned. I actually thought of giving up on my diet method. I’m kind of a perfectionist and have trouble finishing things that don’t go to plan. But this time I listened to the words of Winston Churchill, “never, never, never give up”, and decided to stick to my plan but adapt. I can’t stick to 2000 calories every day because many days I just don’t know how much I’ve eaten. But I keep working on learning how many calories on in each meal. I think it’s important to know what you eat. But that just doesn’t happen overnight. It’s like training for a marathon. You certainly don’t start out perfect; it takes a long time to get into a good routine. You’ll always have some bad days, some that you have control over and some that were self inflected. I think one of the key things to succeeding in anything is to realize that nothing including you is perfect and that perfection is not required to move forward. As long as you never, never, never give up, one step back and two steps forward will get you to your destination every time.

My New Adventure: The Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon

I miss having a marathon in my plans, but I promised my family I would take a break from full marathons. So I’ve decided to run in the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon (http://www.lakeminnetonkahalfmarathon.com/) on May 3rd, 2009. To make it adventurous I’m setting a time goal of better than 1:39, which should place me in the top 10 for my age group (50 to 59) based on last year’s results. I was in my best shape when I ran the TC marathon in 2007 and at the halfway point my time was 1:48:52, so I need to cut ten minutes off that time to reach my goal. Now my thinking is I should be able to do that. When I made 13.1 miles in 1:49 time back in 2007 I had to complete another 13.1 miles, so I was saving a lot of energy at that point. Furthermore, it was hotter than heck during the 2007 TC marathon. So I’m thinking with good training I should be able to do this no problem. Last week I get on the treadmill and crank up the speed to 8.0 MPH or a pace of 7:30/mile. Holly smokes! I was surprise how fast that was. There’s a huge difference in the speed for a half marathon time of 1:49 vs 1:39. I can’t imagine running 8.0 MPH for 13.1 miles. Never the less, I’m going try.

I wanted some adventure into the unknown, well here it is. This requires a big change to my training. I’ve never done any serious speed training before, but now’s the time. Last week I started by speed training by employing the Fartlek (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek) method on my treadmill. I’ve tried Fartlek training in two different ways. One is to start out at normal pace for a few minutes to warm-up, then run for about 3 minutes at 9.1 MPH (almost a sprint for me), then back to normal pace to rest for a few minutes, then sprint again. I repeat this cycle until I finish 6 miles. The other method I’ve tried is to run again at normal pace, then up my speed to 8.0 MPH (my goal speed for race day) for as long as I can, then back to normal speed to rest, then repeat the cycle as often as I can. I love this type of training. It makes time go much faster when running on the treadmill.

Speed training may not be enough to reach my goal so I’m planning on doing something else to help my speed – loose weight. During chemotherapy last spring I gained about 7 or 8 pounds. There were a few reasons for that. The Prednisone increased my appetite. It also caused my problems with stomach acid and gas to flare up, way up, and eating actually helped with that, so I ate very often. The other cause of my weight gain was comfort foods. My sons like milkshakes. During chemo I would get through the day by looking forward to an evening of making and eating milkshakes with my sons while we watched our favorite TV shows. Fortunately I was running about 40 miles a week, otherwise my weight gain would have been much more.

I’ve read that you can improve your percentage improvement in marathon time is about the same percentage in weight loss. I’m assuming this is roughly true for a half marathon too. I’m at about 175 pounds right now. So I if loose about 15 pounds I could expect about a 9% improvement in my half marathon time. A 9% improvement over my 2007 TC time gets me pretty close to my goal. I have 15 weeks before the race so I need to loose about 1 pound a week. That’s not unreasonable.

I’m not planning on loosing weight just to improve my race time. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. 160 pounds is a very healthy weight for me. Maintaining a good weight has tremendous health advantages that are obtained in a natural way and without drugs. Before I lost my 30 pounds in 2007 my cholesterol was high and my doctor wanted to put me on drugs to control it. I lost 30 pounds and my cholesterol came down into the normal range without drugs. There are so many health risks associated with being overweight (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/) and one of them is an increase risk in cancer. I don’t need that! So I’m going to use my half marathon time goal as a motivational means for obtaining my weight loss goal. I’m also using this public announcement as a motivational means – I must be crazy!

This will not be easy. Many of you know that loosing weight is not easy. I love food and many of the foods I love are not good for me. However, there are a lot of foods that are healthy and are wonderful for the palate too. For the most part I do have very healthy eating habits. My diet is very high in fiber, I eat a lot of fruits (mostly berries which are the best fruits) and vegetables (probably could do better with veggies), I go with low fat versions of most foods, I avoid foods with refined sugars as much as possible, and get low or no sugar added foods when available. So all I need to do is tweak my diet; mostly cut out those evening milkshakes. I’m not going on any special diet. My plan is to have a well balanced diet and to watch calories. For weight loss the bottom line is calories. To loose weight one has to burn more calories than what one consumes. It’s that simple. However, I’m not going on a strict diet like a 1200 calorie a day diet. I don’t have to with the running I do.

Here’s my plan and how I’ve figured it out. I’ve checked with many websites that have online calculators that calculate calories burned. They don’t all give the same answer, so I’m taking an average. For my weight, age and gender, I burn about 2000 calories a day without running – if I were to lead a sedentary lifestyle. The calculators also show that I burn at least 700 calories for 6 miles of running. So if I run 6 miles a day for 5 days a week I’ll burn 3500 calories per week just running. One pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. So, if I eat 2000 calories a day and run 30 miles a week, I should loose 1 pound a week and reach my weight goal by race day on May 3rd. One way to look at this is that all my weight loss is due to running, not cutting calories. I just need to be careful and not eat extra calories.

Ok, now I’m going to get a bit anal with this plan. To make sure I eat the right amount of calories I’m going to watch my calorie intake very closely. I’ve bought a kitchen scale to weigh all the food that I eat. Weighing food is a lot easier than trying to measure the volume. For example, for breakfast I put my empty bowl on the scale, hit the tare button to zero out the scale, add my cereal, write down the weight, hit the tear button, add my fresh blueberries, hit the tear button, and so on until I have the weights of all my ingredients. It really doesn’t take much effort and it’s kind of fun. Then I’m going to try a trial version of some software from CalorieKing’s website that will help me keep track of calories. Once setup I’ll just enter in the weights and the software will keep track of calories and other nutritional data. If the software works well I’ll buy it. My poor wife, she didn’t know what she was getting into when she married me.

Besides keeping track of my calories I’ll keep track of my daily weight. They say you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day because there are normal fluctuations that occur and a normal but temporary weight increase may be discouraging. However, they weren’t addressing a scientist with this advice. By using curve fitting functions I should be able to average out the normal fluctuations and get a better measurement of weight loss trend with daily measurements than I can get with weekly measurements. Here is my weight over last week:

The solid line is a linear fit to the data and shows that over the week I had a weight gain trend of about a quarter of a pound a day. Kind of alarming! But my guess that besides a daily variation there is also a weekly variation. After a couple of weeks I get a better idea of things. The R2=0.6 is basically an indication of how well the line fits the data. The closer to 1.0 the better the fit. A value of 0.6 is not good correlation and is due to having a lot of variation over the fit period. What this means is that there is not a lot of confidence in the accuracy of quarter of pound weight gain trend. Whew! Eventually I hope that the fitted line extrapolated (extended) out to May 3rd will show that I will eventually get to my goal. I suspect that a linear fit may not be the correct model to use and I may need to go to something like an exponential fit (a curve that starts out steep and the beginning and less steep at the end).

Besides monitoring my weight I’m going to monitor my improvement in running speed each week. In a couple of weeks I’ll be running 13.1 miles for my long run each week. I’ll keep track of my time to finish 13.1 miles and chart that too. Hopefully a fit to that data will show that I will eventually reach my race time goal.

I’m really excited about this. Training for a half marathon will not take nearly as much time as a full marathon and there will be less risk of injury. From my experience I start to run into injury problems when I start running about 16 miles or longer. Keeping my weekly long runs to 13.1 miles will save a lot of time. Not only from running shorter distances, but also shorter recovery time. When I run 16 miles or more, I’m kind of useless for about 2 or 3 hours afterwards, whereas I can do something like mow the yard after a 13.1 mile run. That helps a lot in the wife department. The speed training is a lot of fun and from what I read can actually help reduce injury risk.

I can’t believe I’m doing this – posting this kind of detail on the internet. Oh well – I’m on the hook now.