Only When Chased — The First Ten Weeks — Part I
Fits and starts. Fits and starts. The sporadic nature of wrapping yourself in anything worthwhile will often encounter this problem. Let me explain.
For as excited as I am about my first marathon, and as excited as I was to publish the first in the #onlywhenchased series, the fits and starts of life have already struck. Luckily only ten weeks in. There is time to correct it, but the break from running shouldn’t be taken lightly. As a habitual fitter and starter (if there is such a thing), I feel it best to be upfront that after the first ten weeks in which running and I got on like a house on fire, the last four weeks of work, snow, and ongoing commitments to other life items have put me on a little bit of a break. Ever watchful during the first ten weeks, I remained true to the commitments I had made to friends to start slowly, see how it went, and build it up right. So here we are — it’s 14 weeks later — that’s right, eight months to GFNY Florida Sebring Marathon, and it’s time to take the next step forward. But before we get on to the next steps, let’s hit the Wayback machine and see how it went.
Weeks 1 and 2
Like a sea of blood, or catsup or marinara sauce or whatever turns you on, the weeks following the GFNY Florida race, bubbled red within Training Peaks. Without going into detail, we can just say that the rigors of life got in the way. Leading into Thanksgiving week, the sea of red within my training plan was telling me daily, that it was time to get back to trying to make that hour — any hour — during the day and finding a way to devote it to training again. While still considering the GFNY Florida Sebring Marathon, and no official announcement for the race, I had dreamed of figuring out how to make it happen but I had yet to, literally or figuratively, take the first steps.
Is it the Shoes? It Must Be the Shoes!
One year removed from GFNY Argentina, when I was forced over dinner one evening by my teammate Adrienne to order a new pair of bike shoes, I finally worked up the courage on November 13, 2020, to unbox my first serious pair of running shoes. Wearing them as I write this, for the first six weeks that I owned them I treated them as delicately and as gently as I would a brand new bike. Weeks and weeks of research, reaching out for advice, and of course, finding the right color and size, led me finally to a choice, an online purchase, and the inevitable unboxing. Tragically, it would be two long weeks before I worked up the courage to put them to their proper use.
Style counts. While not on brand with GFNY (because no running shoe really is), a good pair of shoes that are in the right color palette was just it. (I personally think they are quite fetching with the GFNY kit as seen here directly after a Sunday GFNY Group ride — but more about that later).
By Thanksgiving, I had returned to my regular — or at least desired level of — consistency in my bike training. This is what had been missing leading up to the time in NYC when the Autumn really gets into full swing. The gear you wear on the bike gets thicker and thicker week after week, and it’s time to settle into the routines of Winter training. The GFNY Group Rides would begin again the following weekend and so there was training to be done to make sure that I wouldn’t embarrass myself as a ride leader, as well as the desire to see what it would feel like to run.
The discipline needed to be maintained through the holiday, and somehow a running attempt to make sure that the long weekend was properly focused. For anyone on a training program, you know that the key to your program is consistency in the short form workouts, and making sure that nothing gets in the way of the long-form workouts. Swaps can be key to making sure that you can make the best use of the time you have, and so I swapped in my long ride for the week to Thanksgiving Friday to give me the flexibility of experimenting with the run over the weekend.
With a fifty-plus degree day on Saturday, I couldn’t lose. Opting to sleep in a bit I made my way to the beach around lunchtime and set in for a fairly intense interval workout on the bike. I intended to complete the scheduled workout I had swapped on Friday, and then brick it for five kilometers after. If I was strong enough to talk myself into running after the bike workout, I would be on my way to being able to talk myself into running at almost anytime. But this day had the best of everything. A long weekend, sun, and a perfect temperature for the whole workout. If I were to deny myself the run at this point, I would have nothing, no one to blame but myself. And so off I went.
Keeping the run in mind, I did not hold back on the bike workout. After all, if the goal is to build up into a reasonably capable endurance athlete I would need to learn to be able to take the punishment. On the horizon, the GFNY Florida Marathon. True story. But cycling will always be a part of my training, and this is a significant piece of my thinking in how to move forward with training for the big day in October 2021. But to develop my capability as an endurance athlete, I am simply fascinated by the idea of mixing both, becoming fitter and more well-rounded as an athlete. That said — I have also always had a lust to go hard from the start, and today would be a part of that.
When I got back to the car from the ride, I was thorough and deliberate in getting my bike secured, getting the running shoes on, and prepping for the run. Maybe too deliberate, maybe not thorough enough, I ran the first 50 meters with my bike helmet on before turning back and trading it in for my cycling cap.
The name of the game today was “slow”. Many of my training buddies had been steadfast in their recommendations. Running too fast when starting the program would lead to injury, overtraining, burnout, and failure. OK, I added failure, and for the record, most of those I spoke with were concerned with injury more than anything else. It’s a thing. You run, you run faster, you get hurt if you don’t think about what you are doing. They had effectively scared the bejeezus out of me, and so there was a suspension of ego, bravado, machismo, and all of those non-athletic trappings of being an athlete that are so associated with systematically taking yourself down. I wouldn’t have it. And so I crept out and watched my pace the entire time.
Any reasonable runner would probably laugh at these numbers. But one would suspect that a seasoned runner that understands how this works would say that this is a solid first run. Knowing that there was a time in my life when running five kilometers without stopping would have been unthinkable. These were the first steps into a larger world.
Moving into Week 2
The accomplishment of simply doing what I had set out to do that day was overwhelming. The excitement led to research, and the research led to a plan.
Hypothesis: If a fella wants to train to run a marathon, while simultaneously continuing to train as a cyclist, then that fella might want to look at how triathletes train for guidance.
Having consulted some of the oracles of triathlon training over the next twenty-four hours I was starting to confirm that my hypothesis, if not completely correct, was probably as close to correct as I would need to get started. And so I invested in a running training plan from a triathlon expert and started to get myself situated in my overall training plan.
Sandwiching my cycling workout schedule with regular runs I set my expectations for four runs per week. Those runs would go as follows:
- Monday — Short, capped heart-rate run #1–5km at a max heart rate of 132
- Wednesday — Short, capped heart-rate run #2–5km at a max heart rate of 132
- Friday — Long run (apparently like in cycling — you NEVER miss your long run). To start this would be 10km, building up each week by 10% in distance.
- Sunday — Short brick run. A perfect post-GFNY Group Ride activity, a 5km run taken slow — I will own up now to the fact that on the first day, I thought this run was supposed to be 2 miles, and so only ran two miles.
The capped heart rate workout was a new concept. While I understood the concept of base miles in cycling, the idea of actually slowing my pace to keep my heart rate in check was completely foreign. The concept as I understood it from the book Triathlon Running Foundations, by Taren Gessel was to use a methodology developed by Dr. Phil Maffetone, whereby you subtract your age from 180, thus in my case 180–53=127, and if you have been training consistently and without injury add five for a total of 132.
When training on the bike, this is sort of a sweet spot. At that heart rate I am usually moving pretty well, but still able to hold a conversation and on a flat keep a reasonably good pace. Under stress, climbing a hill, or trying to chase on to a group, my heart rate would usually wander up to the high 140s or into the mid 150s. While time trialing, I would usually be in the 170s in the last two or three kilometers if I hadn’t completely blown up somewhere on the course (This was usually the case in the TT for me — God damn, but I miss it). So this seemed a fairly easy heart rate to dial in except for one thing.
It wasn’t for cycling, it was for running. My body hasn’t yet learned the motions, or the nuances of how to run a long distance (never mind a short one — my Saturday brick notwithstanding).
My first three efforts, like someone’s first three efforts with anything, were solid attempts to keep the pace under control. While not 100% successful with the heart rate cap, the success of keeping the pace under control and completing the runs as scheduled was exactly the motivation that I would need to power into week 3.
The final run of the week, the Post GFNY Group Ride brick. I was lucky enough to have a buddy from the group of triathletes that have signed up to do GFNY. Billy Depra joined me on the first run, and she was full of great experience and advice. While I flubbed my distance requirement on the first brick, it was probably just as well. I was tired. Two miles was enough (Billy ran five more, so you can draw the fitness comparisons there). The brick is designed to teach your body how to be OK with getting off the bike and running in a multi-sport event like a triathlon. For triathletes that don’t combine the bike and run on the same day apparently bad things happen, when you try it for the first time on race day. I decided to add it to the program for one reason and one reason only. The punishment factor. In deciding to take up running, and the idea of a marathon, one of the things to achieve was to become, truly, tougher. While I have suffered through a lot of tough days on the bike (and hope to suffer through many more), the idea of creating this connection between marathon running and cycling seems natural and inevitable. I hope that Billy will continue to put up with me when our group rides resume.
Key Takeaways:
- This is a process, and literally a marathon, not a sprint. Developing the muscle memory and the discipline to get out and do the work would take time.
- Taking it slow would be important, the post-run soreness was often made better by a quick spin on the bike. A reverse brick as it were.
- Training is a commitment. Training for running and cycling at the same time doubles your effort and demands more of your attention. The process got underway largely at night when there was time. But you can certainly run out of motivation as the day goes on.
- The brick seems unnecessary but feels essential. It’s part of the Running Foundations program that I invested in, and while I don’t consider myself a triathlete, it just feels like a great way to continue to build well-rounded fitness.
I hope that you will stay with me on this journey. As we speak, I am planning to reboot week 11 starting with a morning run tomorrow, February 22, 2021. Almost exactly 8 months to the day from October 24, 2021, the GFNY Florida Sebring Marathon, which when backed with the GFNY Florida Sebring granfondo on October 31, 2021, will be a tough #GFNYDoubleDouble. More next week.
