Private Equity Race Enthusiasts

Suzanne and I are not “typical” destination race enthusiasts. 

We have traveled to Augusta GA, Jacksonville FL, Nashville TN, New Orleans, and Panama City FL, for the sole purpose to run a road race or do a triathlon, but we are, for lack of a more-eloquent term, “private equity” racers.

If you’re not familiar with how private equity works, a private equity firm generally uses shareholder money to purchase firms.  They pay back the shareholder either by the purchased firm’s profit or the liquidation of its assets.  Suzanne and I aren’t quite so mercenary; we look for race events which coincide with business travel and adjust our schedule so as to be able to participate in the race, then take care of the project or attend the conference.  She has raced the ING Half-Marathon in Miami twice, done a couple of 10-kilometer runs in Orlando, FL, as well as a few other small races.

My day job entails doing work for a large government organization.  I spent my first year as part of a civilian education and training internship (living out of a suitcase) in exotic locations; Great Lakes, Illinois.  Arlington, Virginia.  Orlando.  It took me three years to learn my way around Pensacola, much to the chagrin of my wife.  My running habit was not lost on my fellow interns.  Once, when we were slated to attend a conference sponsored by the American Society of Training Development, my friend Terri Kelly said, “Mikey, there’s a run that weekend, too.”  Both Terri and her husband Tom spent some time In San Diego, and Tom ran his share of races, including the Bay Bridge 4-Miler.

Having run the Bushwacker 5K, a race where you run over a bridge in 90-degree heat and 90-percent humidity, I figured this couldn’t be “much” worse.  I was correct.

I have a mug with the San Diego skyline from a coffee purveyor whose name sounds much like “Four Bucks.”  Just inside the rim is printed a phrase: ’78 Degrees and Sunny.”  If you’re going to run, it might as well be in San Diego.  The weather can be very warm as you move more inland, but the city as a whole is a meteorologist’s – and a runner’s – dream.

The Bay Bridge run starts near the Convention Center and Gaslamp Square District, goes down Harbor Drive, then turns after a mile to go onto the Coronado Bay Bridge.  Gaslamp Square on a Sunday morning is like Bourbon on a Sunday morning, only more quiet.  I was fortunate to be fairly close to the front when I raced; the race announcers were making a big deal over a nine-year-old girl who was some age-group ace.  Her father was also running so as to keep her from being trampled.  When the gun went off we were all hell-bent for election, hauling down Harbor.  Darned if the little girl and her father didn’t leave me in the dust.  Just after one mile we approached Cesar Chavez Parkway and the on-ramp to the bridge.  Take that right hand turn and…holy cats…that IS a bridge.

The Coronado Bay Bridge is steep.  Not terribly steep, but it seems to keep going and going.  All you can do is what most smart folks do when racing on a hill; shorten the stride and increase the turnover.  And, most importantly of all, keep moving.  I caught the waif and her father about half a mile up the bridge and gave a brief word of encouragement.  Perhaps, though, I should have kept it for myself.  The two-mile mark is at the top of the bridge, just enough time to look out straight ahead toward the Hotel Del Coronado (glorious!), North Island and the Silver Strand (site of future post-marathon recovery jaunts).  Also at the top is a suicide hotline phone number.  I remember telling a fellow runner, “I’m not in the mood to jump and I don’t have a cell phone, so I guess we’ll just have to run the rest of the way down.”

Downhill on the bridge is a comfort and joy, it seems much less painful than hammering down the hills on our training loop around Bayou Texar.  Next thing I know we are not only back on terra firma (the more firmer, the less terror…) on Coronado Island but still have a little less than a mile to go.  The race finishes in Tidelands Park, traveling down a footpath and into a grass chute.  I felt bad for all the guys who finished only a few minutes behind me, as the race announcer made a point to inform them and the spectators…they had been beaten by a nine-year-old girl.

As the race was sponsored by the Navy Morale, Welfare and Recreation group, I don’t recall whether there was beer during the post-race – besides, we were stuck going to some mindless educational seminar – but the post-race celebration and awards were top-notch.  A fleet (pun not necessarily intended) of shuttle buses carried runners back over to Gaslamp Square and the Convention Center.  All in all, the Bay Bridge 4-Miler stands as one of the more demanding, yet scenic races I’ve ever run.

And well worth traveling to on someone else's money.

Finding The Sweet Spot

"These sudden joys have sudden endings. They burn up in victory like fire and gunpowder. . . . Too fast is as bad as too slow."
--"Romeo and Juliet," Act 2, Scene 6 (William Shakespeare, ca. 1597), in modern English.

My loving wife often warns me about what she calls "hobby-horses." She knows I tend to be fixated to the verge of obsession on certain topics. When I served as RRCA state rep for North Florida, headphone use was my "hobby horse." I've had other "hobby horses," too, but the headphone thing was most-notable.

I've talked a lot about treadmill running with people who hate treadmills. Some of them are folks who say TMs are no good for training, others don't like the boredom factor. Since late November, I've done every weekday run, including speed workouts, on a treadmill. True, the TM can be breathtakingly boring, but they let me control many training variables. I can adjust one variable at a time and see how my body reacts, or I can end the workout the instant my tendons are in distress.

The initial 35-minute runs are now 60-minute runs, averaging eight minutes per mile. The good news is I'm near the training volume where I was when I was running six days a week and racing once every three months. But the ache in my back and hips is not so good.

It's not the shoes - the oldest of my three pairs has somewhere between 260-270 miles on them, with the newest pair less than thirty. Could it be the treadmill? The "Gait Guys" wrote an article for Triathlete magazine; they warned readers about how a treadmill can adversely affect a runners' gait.

After reading the research by University of Virginia physical therapist Jeff Dicharry, I called the overwhelming majority of the "Gait Guys" article bupkis. Except for that "downhill" thing.

Like a road or trail surface, the feel and comfort of a treadmill varies by manufacturer, model, and even the machine's installation. Ed W. sees treadmills and elliptical trainers as warm-up, not the workout itself...that means run/tri guys like me are not his gym's typical customers. The treadmills in his cardio area are on solid rubber flooring, and thick rubber matting supports his lobby area TMs. There might be a slight slope in the lobby naturally; all the lobby treadmills seem to have this feeling like one is running slightly downhill.

The "Gait Guys" say the downhill sensation is caused by the "pull" of the belt on the runner's lower extremity, in contrast to the "push" of the lower extremity on the ground surface. They say it affects the gait; Dicharry has proven whatever variations exist (in 40 percent of runners) are so miniscule that to tell the difference it requires equipment which exists in only two sports labs in the country.

So, runners who sense that "downhill" feeling on the TM may benefit from an elevation tweak of 0.5-to-1.0 percent. I've tried both; for me a 0.5-percent adjustment is enough to take away that sensation.

The cause of the hip ache is simple - spin class on the "off" days. The exercise bicycle in the gym cannot be adjusted as readily as a "real" bike, or like a "spinning" bike. Different movement patterns cause musculoskeletal aches and soreness.

Any runner who has ever tried to run a pace that is too slow for their comfort has probably found out too late the error of their ways. I like to tell the tale of running with Suzanne at Honolulu's Ala Moana Park in January 2008; a solid minute-to-two-minutes-per-mile decrease in pace left me hobbling after the third day. A pace that is much slower than a runner's intrinsic efficiency forces major gait adjustment, either in stride length or stride duration. A shorter stride length is not biomechanically injurious; a longer stride duration means a longer period of compression time for the large muscle groups and joints. Drive with your shock absorbers compressed beyond their normal range for an extended period of time is most likely going to shorten their lifespan.

So, perhaps it's possible not only for a runner to go at a pace that is too fast - leading to fatigue, overstriding, a compensated gait pattern, and heel-striking - but also too slow on a treadmill.

How can a runner determine what are good training paces for treadmill runs, without going into a lot of trial and error? There are a couple of really good on-line calculators developed by some of the nations' best running coaches (e.g., McMillan, Daniels) which provide optimal pace ranges for easy runs, recovery jogs, and speed work of varying degrees.

I used my Daniels VDOT training pace for easy/long runs as the starting point for treadmill runs. After a time it appears the easy/long run pace is too slow. So, I will probably start at the "marathon pace," a little closer to 7:30/mile, and adjust downward until I find the least uncomfortable pace which doesn't feel too slow.

That's why the later editions of Running Formula, and McMillan's calculator, have pace ranges, because there will always be a sweet spot at each of the intensities which feel best for the individual runner. While running too fast on the treadmill can injure a runner, too fast is no more injurious than running too slow.

Time Is The Final Currency

Suzanne and I drove home the other day from what I would call the fitness equivalent of the Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour." Between the two of us, we visited Gulfport and Biloxi, MS, and Gulf Shores, AL, participating in two events. Naturally, this meant being awake and functional before the crack of dawn to carpool with friends to the venue/s.

In between Johnny Cash tunes, a couple of Suzanne's friends found out her age, as well as mine. They also marveled at her fitness level and appearance as of late. I like when people look at my wife. Why not? That's what I like to do.

We talked about the observation later in the afternoon. We don't see our health as fantastic. In fact, when we compare ourselves to many individuals near our age we consider ourselves somewhere closer to the median. I guess that's where that theory of relativity kicks in; if you spend much of your free time with active persons you're more likely to fool yourself into thinking it's the norm. But if you have a lot of friends or associates who aren't necessarily athletic you soon find out exercise is not the norm.

Research done in 2010 by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found 22 percent of American men and 16 percent of American women over the age of 15 engaged in sports, recreation or exercise activity; almost an hour and 20 minutes for women, just a little under two hours for men. That averages out to somewhere a little under 20 minutes a day for the entire population of America.

In 2008, the US Center for Disease Control recommended that adult Americans get anywhere from 75 to 150 minutes of aerobic activity (depending on the intensity), combined with at least two days a week of activity designed to strengthen and work the major muscle groups. If you divided those activities up it would be anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week, and two days (CDC recommends multiple sets of between 8 and 12 repetitions of any exercise requiring some muscle strength) of muscle strengthening activity, which can range from weight training to resistance bands, to hard yard work, to yoga.

Yoga, huh? I've tried yoga. For me it's more an exercise in frustration. To each their own.

Even with such a low standard, why don't Americans get in a reasonable workout?

The government survey data says something I've always felt: We invest our time, finances, and resources into the things which are the most important to us. It makes it easier to understand why people buy workout club or gym memberships and never step foot in the place.

Many persons who do invest in a gym membership or a treadmill or an exercise device think exercise is a zero-sum game. If I don't have an hour to invest in a workout then I'm wasting my time. For many of them it's impossible to block out an entire hour or more to dedicate to a workout.

Ever consider whether the workout can be split into two or three sessions throughout the day? What if I can do a 30-minute workout in the morning before I go to work, and a 30-minute workout in the evening once I return home? Some physiologists have opined that anything less than 20 minutes of aerobic activity is probably not going to provide a benefit, especially in the case of weight training. No lollygagging in the gym.

So what are the benefits of splitting up a workout into smaller pieces? A little bit is always better than nothing. Personally, I can hit the road for a 30-minute run before I go to work, and get at least three-and-a-half-miles in. I haven't beat myself up too much; my body is still burning calories during the day, and I'm stimulated when I hit the office as much as if I sucked down a cup of coffee. Even better, if something suddenly comes up in the evening which requires my non-running presence I'm less likely to feel guilty.

Are there down sides to splitting runs?

The first drawback may be an endurance limitation. Running two 30-minute pieces a day may work well for a runner focused on races up to 10,000 meters, but anything longer may be a disaster. For longer events the training runs are still going to be long. Time-crunched runners can still split runs in their training plan which will take longer the two-and-a-half hour physiological limit for distance training. Two-and-a-half hours of running on Saturday, followed by an hour-to-90 minutes on Sunday, is more likely to keep my wife and family members happy as marathon training grinds into the later weeks of the plan.

In our household, the dirty clothes already multiply at an astounding clip. Two runs a day means dirty running attire accumulate at twice the rate. Add to that pile of stink sweaty shoes which need to dry or need time to dry; you'll either spend time shoving newsprint inside the shoe, money to maintain a running shoe arsenal, ingenuity in finding ways to make wet shoes less wet in as little as eight hours...or you'll develop a tolerance for damp running shoes.

Lastly, splitting runs in two means more attention to the (brief) recovery period available. When running twice a day run efforts ideally vary between hard and easy, or all of the efforts are easy. A good diet, portable self-massage devices, regular hydration and even sports supplementation also become more important during the period between runs.

Time, as David Crosby wrote, is the final currency. We can only spend what we have available at a particular moment. It doesn't necessarily mean the time we have during a day for running is absolutely limited to one unbroken 60-minute period. With a little discipline and the desire to do what is absolutely necessary, even the time-constrained runner can achieve the goals they've set for themselves. It all boils down to will.

Off (Or On?) A Tangent

I've run road races since 1995, but never really learned about how to run a course until I raced the 2003 Recycler Run in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. It was there Brian McMahon taught me how to run a race course. The Recycler Run course winds through a residential area, but what made this course even more interesting, outside of the live oaks on both sides through the neighborhood, were the gorgeous sweeping turns. There might have been two miles of straight road on the course...in total, but at no more than a two-block stretch at a time.

We had a gorgeous, cool, overcast morning for the race, so it didn't take long for us to get comfortable on course. I was pacing former Pensacola Runners Association president David Harris, who wanted to run 19 minutes for 5,000 meters, so we needed to run about a 6:19 pace. A pack of us were moving at about 6:20 pace, with Brian just a little ahead. We caught up with him & kept a comfortable clip. As we exited a corner, I could feel a little bit of a nudge from Brian, who was off my right shoulder. Brian & I at that time had a history of pulling a little college cross-country physicality (elbows & shoulders) on each other, so this was nothing new. I nudged him back.

He nudged my shoulder again, & said: "Mike, run the tangent." At that point I suddenly realized what he was doing. I always heard the shortest distance between two points was a straight line but to that point in my racing career had never practiced the technique. This had a lot to do with some of the courses I raced in Tampa being straight out-and-back types.

I could see a couple of guys perhaps five seconds ahead of us; at first glimpse they appeared to be drunk & weaving from the left to the right side of the road. Ah, so they were running the tangent. Brian & the rest of us commenced to play "follow the leader" until the turn-around point on the course, then headed back. I not only ran a good race, bringing David painfully close to his goal of a 19-minute 5K, but also learned that day road racing is a thinking person's game.

You can't go into a road race, shut your mind off & expect to run your best. Pacing yourself is one thing, & smart training is another, but you can needlessly waste precious seconds on a road race by not knowing the course & not running the shortest possible distance.

Most people know I measure courses for USA Track and Field certification. It's one reason I don't run a lot of races in Pensacola. If I show up for a local race three things happen: I'm asked whether the course is certified. I'm asked if I measured the course. And, I'm confronted by runners who say the course was long, according to their GPS receiver.

There aren't many races I'll run which are not on a certified course. I want to know the distance is reasonably accurate (which USATF defines as "not short"). This way I can tell how well my training has progressed over time. I've written much about the USATF measurement protocol, so I won't go into detail here. But even I forget about the technical limitations of GPS receivers & the USATF/AIMS (AIMS is the international marathon measurement authority) protocol. When I ran the Rock n' Roll/Mardi Gras Half Marathon last year in New Orleans my GPS mile splits would beep initially about five seconds (eventually a minute) before the measured mile splits. I fussed for a second, & then remembered the additional 5.28 feet/1.609 meters which were added to each mile to make certain I didn't run less than a half marathon.

But a lot of GPS wearers don't take the time to understand the measurement protocols, don't know the limitations of their equipment (up to 25 feet of error at a single point) &, most importantly, do not run the shortest possible distance on the race course.

Rather than take a winding section of road - some sections are more winding than others - let me use a standard 400-meter track as an example:

- The width of one lane of a standard 400-meter running track is 1.25 meters.

- An athletic track lane distance calculator (http://www.brianmac.co.uk/tracklane.htm) shows the distance around a 400-meter track, in lane three (3.75 meters out from the inside rail) is 415.71 meters.

- Multiply the additional distance by 12.5 (the number of laps in a 5,000 meter track race) and the total distance is 5,196.375 meters.

- The width of one lane of a two-lane roadway with a shoulder is approximately 3.75 meters, a little over 12 feet in width. Even when the five added meters for USATF's short course prevention factor is subtracted, that's an additional 191 meters of distance to run if you're one lane of road out from the tangent for the entire race.

Lose your concentration for five seconds if you're running a six-minute per mile pace & you can add a little over 20 meters to the distance run at a 5K.

In closing, even a set of legs, a heart & lungs in the best of shape can be defeated by a brain that's not prepared on race day. Knowing the course & running the tangents can save a runner from running an unnecessary additional three percent of course distance.