35, 5, and 2

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Run looks good, Doug -don't beat yourself up as that was 24 miles faster than you thought and without taper.

+1

That was a solid 24-miler. Some fade after 20 is to be expected. (And a long-long run isn't a good time to do lactate threshold work, anyway, unless you're aiming for a 3-1 fast finish.)

As to the 25K coming up... race it. It'll be a good test of your ability to hit that target race pace, and be a good stimulus. Go for it!

Mark B wrote:

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Run looks good, Doug -don't beat yourself up as that was 24 miles faster than you thought and without taper.

+1

That was a solid 24-miler. Some fade after 20 is to be expected. (And a long-long run isn't a good time to do lactate threshold work, anyway, unless you're aiming for a 3-1 fast finish.)

As to the 25K coming up... race it. It'll be a good test of your ability to hit that target race pace, and be a good stimulus. Go for it!

Thanks for your comments.  It's humorous to me, now, as to the tenor of my post.  As I was running that 13:54 mile that I WAS thinking about how well I was doing without a taper.  Then, I was thinking if I could lose 30-40 seconds per mile to get to my goal marathon pace of 12/mile in January.

DING!  13:54 mile.  CRAP, I can't have a great run with a 14 minute mile listed.  Huff, puff, huff, puff.  DING!  13:48 last mile.  Whew!  Then, the analysis leaned more to why I slowed, rather than more on how well I did.

As far as the LT, well, it had just presented itself and I wanted to see how I could turn it into a positive. 

*30*
This morning, my BK level was "Lo", which is the first one of those in quite a while.  I was expecting it because I ate 100 grams or so of protein (salmon and some really good beef ribs), so I could give the body enough protein to rebuild damaged muscle fibers.  I expect to show a number on Wednesday.

My left ankle, and the rest of my muscles, were fine and dandy, this morning.  I didn't run any, today.  I have yet to receive my lab results from the physical.

I was surprised to find my Blood Ketone level was 0.3, this morning, after being "Lo" yesterday.  I didn't think it would rebound that quickly.  I ate less protein than Saturday, so I guess I wasn't too far from registering an actual number on Sunday morning.

I broke out the Brooks PureFlow's for its first run.  The plan was for 7 miles, but that could be shortened should the shoes not do well.  These shoes have a unique curvature of the way the laces go through the shoe.  I know a benefit is that it makes it soooo much easier to get the shoes on and off.  On the other side, it makes them interesting to tighten them up and tie them.  The last eyelets were so far back in the shoe that it was not readily possible to tighten them the usual for me way.  There was a lot of toe box room in these shoes.

They felt fine in the act of running, but my left ankle was starting to hurt like it did on Saturday.  The actual location is lateral to the tibia about 1 finger's width and 2 finger widths up from the bend of the foot.  I wasn't running fast at all.  At about 2 miles, the discomfort spread down and medially and was going to replicate the Saturday location, had I not stopped.  But, I did and I turned around and walked home.

I don't believe the new shoes were causing it, as I think it's just residual from Saturday's run.  Anyway, I'm going to PT, this afternoon, and will talk with them about it.  I also have a small amount of discomfort on my right quad that can be re-produced by me just holding up my right leg, as I sit in a chair.

I'm wondering if I can shim the left heel under the orthotic to keep my left ankle from collapsing medially, as much.  Yet another question for them.

BK level was 0.2, this morning.

No to the shim as it would just knock the knee and hips out of kilter.  My stride is what it is.  The ankle pain is a result of my ankle getting used to the shoes and having to be more involved in the run in a less cushy shoe.

BK was "Lo", this morning due to me trying out some 63% chocolate morsels, last night.  So, let's see how long it takes to measure a number.

7 miles was on the schedule.  It was 41 degrees with a dewpoint of 28 and a 10 mph north wind.  When I finished, it was 36 degrees.

6.69 miles, 1:24:05, 12:34 pace, 133 avg hr, 177 hr max during the last mile, 1st half pace 13, 2nd half pace 12:08

1. 13:09
   
2. 12L52
   
3. 13:03
   
4. 12:48
   
5. 12:52
   
6. 12:27
   
7. 9:56 pace
   

I had 3 long-sleeved shirts on for the run. These are the usual 3 that I would wear in this kind of weather, plus gloves, my Buff, and my hat with ears on it. The usual shorts and no long tights. This was the coldest since April 4.

My left, lateral tibia area that hurt on Monday, was aching again for the early miles.  Then around mile 3, it got a tad worse.  By mile 5, there was no pain.  I guess it needed a couple of miles to get the trash out?  Maybe?  I was very glad the pain stopped, as anyone would.

During the last mile, "Freebird" came on my Shuffle.  That got me to thinking about whether I should go faster or not.  I was feeling no pain.  So, I went a little faster.  Then, I stopped because the song would be over before I was finished.  I reset the song and ran it up to the instrumental part about half way through the song.  Found it and I turned myself loose for a little more than a half mile and got the 9:56 pace.  That was a lot of fun.  The ankle wasn't hurting and the only thing that raised its head was the right calf muscle in the medial area in one spot.

Great fun in the cold.  We get one more mid-30s morning, then back to mid-fifties for Friday morning.  Rain for the weekend, but I couldn't run this weekend anyway.

Nice running, Doug - love the pace in the COLD weather.  Me thinks the legs are getting used to the new shoes and PT work.

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Nice running, Doug - love the pace in the COLD weather.  Me thinks the legs are getting used to the new shoes and PT work.

Thank you, ma'am.  All this fastness is new to me, though.  I think I have more capability than I have before.  But I just don't have a full knowledge as to how to use it now for the purpose of attaining 12 minute miles for Houston.

Specifically, if I do a 12 minute pace for the 25K race on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, does that help goal of 12's for Houston?  I think I need to be a little faster.  It's a 3 loop course and my bias is to run the 1st loop a little slower than 12, then try the other two laps faster than 12.

About the shoes, I'll probably have to buy 2 pairs soon because these have 100 miles on them.

Thanks again, 1L.

Yes to your question about the pace - but the question still is whether or not 12s for the 25K are really your 25K pace or your marathon pace.  I'd still go for it and the race results will tell what the pace correlates to.  Remember my half pace is around 7:50 and my marathon pace was 1 min slower, but I am more of a speed runner than endurance. Obviously, 25K is longer than a half, but your pace for that distance might still be quicker than that for a full marathon.

That's very true about which pace is for which distance.  Talking to the PT, he expressed that I keep my pace for the 25K, on November 24, at a pace that will allow me to be 100% in January.  He doesn't mind if I run it faster than my 24 miler, but to listen to my legs and set pace accordingly.  He thinks the 30K on December 15 will be a good race to see how I'm really doing.

Hopefully, the weather will be such that I can park a couple of miles away and warmup to the start line.  Thanks, Michele.

*30*

BK level registered at 0.1, an increase from Lo.  Nifty.  15 miler, in the morning, followed by PT.

I sent a note to my doc about the blood tests.  He replied saying the cholesterol fractionation (segregating the Pattern A fluffy (good) particles from the Pattern B granular (bad) particles.  This was the test I requested that wasn't in their database at the time of my physical.  He also said that all my bloodwork was normal, except for the LDL of 177.  177.  That's higher than a lot of people's total cholesterol.

My diet is essentially The Ketogenic Diet that is for people with seizure disorders.  This diet was created by JohnsHopkins and has been going on since the 1920's.  The diet somehow changes the chemical balance in the brain of seizure patients enough to inhibit or manage their seizures.

Friday's blood ketone level (BK) was 0.4, up 400% from Thursday's 0.1.

8 days from the 25K race, next Sunday.  I'm narrowing down the potential pace for the race.  I'm thinking to run a HR-based race, rather than pace-based because it would potentially be a better long term strategy for getting to Houston at 100% in January.  My run on Friday was HR-based to see what 145 bpm (72.5%) would get me for pace and a time.  It was to be 15 miles, but I slept during the alarm and could only do 14 miles.

It was 55 degrees with a dewpoint of 53.  Not too shabby.

14:03, 2:52:30, 12:17 pace, 144 avg bpm, 161 max HR during mile 14, 1st half pace 12:07 and 2nd half pace 12:27.

1. 12:01, 131 bpm
   
2. 11:45, 141 bpm
   
3. 12:01, 144 bom
   
4. 12:18, 147 bom
   
5. 12:15, 144 bpm
   
6. 12:04, 142 bpm
   
7. 12:27, 141 bpm
   
8. 12:25, 142 bpm
   
9. 12:29, 145 bpm
   
10. 12:35, 145 bpm
    
11. 12:14, 148 bpm
    
12. 12:36, 148 bpm
    
13. 12:29, 149 bpm
    
14. 12:19, 152 bpm
    

Typically, I try to negative split, but it felt like I couldn't shift into another gear and maintain the HR.  So, I am confident that the wise mitochondria in my body is busily working to insert another gear into my transmission.  Maybe by the end of the year, that gear will be in place.

My left ankle started hurting from time to time, but one of the benefits of maintaining a constant HR is that it gives me the opportunity to observe what may be causing the pain.  I determined that as the mileage clicked on, my gait was a little more wobbly, not tracking straight.  I confirmed that a stronger core would assist in less wobbly.  Further, the continued use of the Kinvaras as my new shoe will force my ankles to strengthen or fail.

This morning's BK level was 0.2.

I'm experimenting with different vegetables to saute, to what I then add cream.  This week was eggplant.  Diced it up, but it sure does soak up the bacon grease and butter when compared to yellow squash or spaghetti squash.

Nice work on the run, and nice bloodwork. The whole anti-seizure aspect is interesting. Is that a problem for you?

I've noticed that when you set a target heart rate, you seem to use the overall average heart rate - as opposed to trying to hit that average heart rate for each of the miles. If you tried that, I imagine your first few miles would be noticeably faster... with a bigger slow-down as  the run progresses until you find the bottom end. I know that goes against your negative-split strategy, but it might be interesting to try as an experiment someday. The upside of that approach would be that you wouldn't overstress the system in the last few miles. Just a thought.

No seizures for me, but I have a close family member that does and I've done a lot of research to understand things and such.  After writing about the Ketogenic Diet a day or so ago, I should correct that the change in the brain is because of the additional ketones that replaced the carbs that runs the brain.  In some people, this ketone fuel inhibits some seizures.

And I can tell you that seizures and matters of the brain are infinitely more difficult to nail down than matters of carbs, fatty acids, and cholesterol. 

A final thing about seizures for your own edification, if someone has 2 seizures in a 12 month period, then they have epilepsy.  I've heard many times, "She has seizures?  Is it Epilepsy?" followed by dramatic music.  I reply, "Well, yeah, but epilepsy is just 2 seizures in a year."

As far as HR pace, I can do that at the 25K.  Michele had mentioned earlier that it's not known as to whether a 12 minute pace is a viable 25K pace, much less a marathon pace.  So, I knew from your Maff runs to try to average a steady HR to see what the pace numbers are.  And since I couldn't do a negative split, the steady HR was the next method to consider.

What HR would you recommend?  75%?  Thanks, Mark.

Glad no seizures for you. I know a few people with seizure disorders and/or epilepsy, and it's a scary thing.

A target HR of 75% max is fine for the 25K, at least after Mile 2. If you want to push it, 80%.

75% is perfect and then like Mark said, if you can push that up to 80-85% in the last 2-3 miles.

75% (150 bpm) will be dialed into my cruise control. thank you both.

BK level was "Lo", this morning and it might be again tomorrow.  I shall be at 1.0 or greater by Sunday and measurable by Tuesday.

I usually start my long runs in the neighborhood of 72-73% of max and creep up to 75% through probably about 3/4 of the run.  If it's a 20, I'm typically hitting pretty close to 80% of max by the end of the run.  I may be different than the average bear, but I usually don't feel like this is too much of an effort.  I'm definitely a culprit of doing long runs too fast sometimes, but when I end a run at about those numbers, I feel like I've hit my mark pretty well.

Thanks, Jim.  Sounds like your effort equates to a well trained endurance.  I want to get there, too.  I know I'm getting there, but I'm not there yet.

*30*

This morning, I had a Blood Ketone level of 0.1, greater than "Lo" from yesterday and measurable one day early.  I've found a really good dark chocolate called Guittard.  It's a 63% dark chocolate morsels and is a whole lot tastier than Ghiradelli's 60%.  http://guittard.com/our-chocolate/detail/extra-dark-chocolate-chips

I see it's available at Whole Foods, but I never shop there.  I found it at another grocery store in Houston at around $3 for a 12 ounce bag.  I'm surprised my BK level was measurable by taking into account how much of it I ate yesterday.

I ran 6.7 miles this morning.  It was 72 degrees with the same temp for dewpoint, along with a thick fog at 3:30 in the morning.  I let the legs drive the first half and fell in at 13:42/mile, then I took over a bit and got the final pace down to 13:06, which makes the 2nd half pace 12:30/mile.  No pain in the ankles.  I'll post the splits, tonight.

6.7 miles, 1:28:11, 13:06 pace, 128 avg bpm, 148 bpm max during the last mile, 1st half 13:42, 2nd half 12:30.

1. 13:43, 117 bpm
   
2. 13:45, 120 bpm
   
3. 13:49, 123 bpm
   
4. 12:36, 131 bpm
   
5. 12:54, 133 bpm
   
6. 12:36, 137 bpm
   
7. 12:29 pace, 139 bpm
   

Last night, my doctor gave me my blood work results from my November 7 annual physical.

To recap, I had gone to a local lab testing facility to get my hs-CRP (high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein) measured.  This is a baseline figure for the future and measures the likelihood of having a sudden cardiac event.  My number was 1.38, and the report says 1.0 - 3.0 is considered average.  I was expecting a lower number, but that's fine.  Anything under 2.0 is good and under 1.0 is ideal.

So, here are the cholesterol figures.

Total Cholesterol:  262
Total LDL:  177
Total LDL Particles:  2,882 (anything over 2,185 is considered high by the non-LC/HF people)
LDL Medium and Small (the bad ones):  845 (high end of range is 856 by non-LC/HF people)
Percentage of Medium and Small to Total LDL Particles: 29%.  (LC/HF people want <20%)
HDL:  76
Triglycerides:  47
Triglycerides:HDL ratio:  0.618:1
Total Cholesterol:HDL ratio:  3.4:1

So, copying my October 8 post here, I can add:

Total Cholesterol - April 20, 2012 177
Total Cholesterol - Sept 28, 2013 230
Total Cholesterol - Nov 7, 2013 262

LDL-C - April 2012 129
LDL-C - Sept, 2013 148
LDL-C - Nov 7, 2013 177

HDL - April 2012 51
HDL - Sept, 2013 69
HDL - Nov, 2013 76

Triglycerides - April 2012 47
Triglycerides - Sept 2013 53
Triglycerides - Nov 2013 47

Triglycerides to HDL Ratio - April 2012 0.92:1
Triglycerides to HDL Ratio - Sept 2013 0.77:1
Triglycerides to HDL Ratio - Nov 2013 0.62:1

So by the numbers on a LC/HF diet, I'm in a good place, but I need to work my hs-CRP and Small particles lower.  The Small particles can by lowered by tweaking down the protein and carbs, plus keeping up my consumption of healthy fats (saturated and monounsaturated).  Knowing what I eat, I can lower the protein down some, but I believe I won't get a 9% reduction (29% -20% small particle %-age).  I could be wrong.

Lots of interesting data here, Doug, but the number that really got my attention was the 3:30 a.m. run. Is that at the end of your day, or the start?

Mark B wrote:Lots of interesting data here, Doug, but the number that really got my attention was the 3:30 a.m. run. Is that at the end of your day, or the start?

That would be the start.  I usually try to finish by 5:15 a.m. and on the weekends by 7 a.m.  So, I back into when I start based on 4 miles per hour + 30 minutes and that's my wake up time.  If it's a longer run, I'll just figure the miles without the wake up time.  I've been known to wake up at 12:30 a.m., but that's mainly on a Friday morning (Thursday night).

BK level this morning was 0.3, up from 0.1.

It was 59 degrees this morning with a 41 degree dewpoint.  A Pacific front rolled through last night and cooled us down about 13 degrees.  It's supposed to get back up to 80 degrees by Thursday, but a cold front is due Friday evening and the weather forecast for Sunday's 25K is sunny with temps struggling to get to 50.

I ran 5 miles this morning.  I was going to work up to 75%, but could only peak at 75%.  Under these conditions, my heart is clearly more efficient and enjoys the less stress environment more so than my legs.  When conditions are less favorable, the heart and legs are closer in efficiency.

5.01 miles, 58:23, 11:39 pace, 137 avg bpm, 152 max bpm during mile 2, 1st half 11:46, 2nd half pace 11:32

1. 12:21, 129 bpm
   
2. 11:11, 144 bpm
   
3. 11:38, 137 bpm
   
4. 11:31, 140 bpm
   
5. 11:32, 138 bpm
   

You know, if Sunday's forecast holds true, I might not need to run at 75% by looking at the times above.  My thighs were aching a bit during the come-back part of the run.  I was perplexed as to why, but maybe it might be lactate threshold?  I don't have enough experience with LT, especially at 69-72% HR, to believe that could be it.  It went away before the run was over.

BK level inches up to 0.4 from 0.3 yesterday.  It's starting to get tougher not eating sweets with sales reps bringing by cookies, cakes, etc. due to Thanksgiving.  Just have to avoid the kitchen, but that's easier to type than do.

Sunday's race forecast is calling for a low in the morning of 38 with a high of 51 and NE winds of 20, subject to change.  The course is a 3 loop east/west route, so the going east piece could get a crosswind or headwind depending on how east it gets. 

I should be able to park a couple of miles from the Start line and warmup adequately.

BK level was 1.1, this morning, up from 0.4.  Just need to keep this level or more through Sunday.  Shouldn't be difficult, I just have to be aware of how I can get sidetracked.

Doing good on the BK level, keep it up! Resist temptation! You're almost there!

Can you bring a jar of bacon bits with you to work as an emergency craving cure?