Really Big Free Half Marathon Preview

The Really Big Free Half Marathon is coming up on November 3, 2012 in Henderson, Nevada at beautiful Boulder Beach at Lake Mead.  Those who have been to Boulder Beach know that I just employed sarcasm. The scenery, I’ll admit, is nice.  That’s not sarcasm.  There really are nice views of the lake and surrounding hills. The beach itself is an eyesore.

Why did I sign up for this race?

1. It’s free.  I like free things.  I refuse to pay for races that involve distances I can do on my own fairly easily.  I’m not saying running 13.1 miles is easy.  I’m saying I don’t need the motivation of signing up for a race to do it.
2. It motivated me to keep running over the summer. It’s difficult to run in Las Vegas in the summer on account of shoe-melting summer temperatures.  Knowing I had a race coming up in November got me out the door or on the treadmill more than normal during the summer.
3. It’s free.

How did I train for the race?

I didn’t really train for the race.  I ran.  I’ve done absolutely no speed work and very few tempo runs.  Since July 4, I’ve been running with a heart rate monitor with the sole purpose of increasing my aerobic capacity.  This has produced slower than average running.  That being said, I have set a 5-k pr (twice) since the middle of July.  And I’ve lost 10 pounds.

What is the course like?

There have been three courses so far.  The first course was in Henderson starting near the Henderson Pavilion.  Apparently, race organizers were unable to secure the proper permits and the race was moved to Lake Las Vegas on a ridiculously hilly course, which I’m glad to report was changed to the Lake Mead course, which still has hills but not as bad.

How have my recent 13.1 miles runs gone?

I ran the Lake Las Vegas course a few weeks back on a warm, humid day with tired legs.  The course was brutal.  It took me over 2:04 to finish it.  The course was changed on October 15, a few days after my trial run.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I tried to recreate the new course this past Saturday, although the hills I ran weren’t as steep.  I employed a strategy of keeping my heart rate under 142 for the first 3.5 miles to simulate the flat part of the course.

As the flat part of the run ended, I gradually increased my heart rate to the 150-160 range for about five miles.  Once I reached mile 8, I made sure I didn’t get above 165.  That wasn’t a problem.  I rarely got it above 160.  Once I reached mile 10, I stopped paying attention to heart rate and just ran.  I stayed mostly between 160-168 with an occasional spike to 170.  The last three miles were slightly downhill.  Here’s how the miles looked: 8:36, 9:16, 9:14, 9:02, 8:58, 8:55, 8:32, 8:44, 8:35, 8:37, 8:39, 8:32, 8:17.

Four Possible Strategies

1. The go for broke strategy.  This is the all-out from start to finish, complete the race in under 1:45. This strategy presents the possibility of not finishing, which isn’t that big of a deal since solely completing the distance means little.  That being said, I haven’t trained hard enough for this strategy.
2. Go for a pr strategy.  This would involve mental discipline. It would require going out not too fast on the uphill 6.55-mile first half.  In order to do this I need to have confidence in my downhill running. I am familiar with most of the course and believe if I can reach the half way point in under 58 minutes without getting my heart rate too high, I can knock out the second half in under 52 minutes, breaking my unofficial pr of 1:49:55.
3. Go for the official pr strategy. I honestly don’t remember my official pr. It’s around 1:56 and I ran it the first half of the Utah Valley Marathon last June.  This I could do comfortably.
4. Take it easy strategy. This would involve breaking my previous best half marathon time from nine years ago of 2:02:04. This would be an enjoyable trot through the Lake Mead Recreation Area but nothing to get excited about.
5. I’ve decided on #2. I’ve been running similar hills the past couple weeks and could run the 3-mile downhill right after the halfway point in about 21-22 minutes without killing myself before the last 3.5 miles.  I think with the momentum and the camaraderie, I could knock out that last 3.5 in less than 28 minutes.

Factors that could change my mind include weather. The only weather that would cause me to alter strategy is wind, a possibility on the River Mountain Trail in early November. I don’t foresee the temperature making any difference. I’m used to 80s and sunny. Early November at Lake Mead will be between 50-70 at 7:00 A.M most likely. The narrowness of the trail may play a negative role, especially coming down the hill.  It may also help me not move out too fast the first half.

The race is November 3. If you’re an experienced half-marathoner, let me know what you think.

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Exclusive Interview with Marathon Legend Trent Lorcher

In honor of me signing up for the Utah Valley Marathon, I thought I would share this exclusive interview. My wife shot it. It's exclusive because I finished 866th and the elitist Utah sports media only cares about runners who finish in the top 865.

This video is about a minute long, which is 4 hours and 12 minutes shorter than the marathon (not shown). There is a 30-second clip of me running, but I look so stupid that I felt we'd all be better off for it to remain private.

Note how my two older kids are old enough to not want to hurt my feelings and how the younger kids don't care that I just ran a painful 26.2 miles.  The baby I'm holding is mine.  My accomplishment would have been more impressive if I'd carried her the entire distance. I did not.

Some Benefits of Getting Old

There are some benefits of getting old.  Here are my top two.

1. I'm not dead.
2. I no longer "need" to prove I'm a man by doing some great athletic feat, which is good because I'm not really capable and never have been.

There was a time, however, when I felt it was necessary to prove my manliness while running.

My wife is a runner. She's fast. She's also injured, which means I no longer run with her. And we have five kids. When we were first married, we ran together almost every Saturday, and by together I mean she'd wait up for me.  I, on the other hand, was racing. I beat her twice.  The first time I beat her, she thought I was hurt and ran back to look for me.  I had taken a shortcut.  The second time I chased her down at the end of a five-miler.  She didn't know we were racing...and she was seven months pregnant. 

I used to occasionally enter local races.  One such race occurred on New Year's Day. I don't recall the year. I do recall feeling a tweak in my calf muscle about half way through. I kept going. About six really old guys passed me. I couldn't hold back any longer. I just had to beat the octogenarians, so I sprinted the last mile, injured my calf, and couldn't run for another several months.

Then there were all those morning or afternoon runs in the park or on the streets where I just had to "race" everyone I saw. That's just stupid.

Those people behind me eventually passed me.

Now, I don't care. Maybe it's that completing a marathon gave me the self assurance that I'm good enough or maybe I'm an adult now.  Of course, that doesn't stop me from swimming in alpine lakes for no apparent reason. Looks like I might need to do an Ironman.

Random Unofficial 5-k PR

Went running the other day.  Thought it'd be a good day to set a pr, a 10-k* pr.  I'd been running slow to get fast.  Some heart rate monitor guru said so in a book, so I'd been running slow to get fast, although--to be honest, I didn't think it would work.  It sounds stupid.  Really stupid.  How the heck am I going to get fast by running slow--although, truth be told, while training for my first and only marathon to this point (I've another one coming soon.  I bet you can't wait to find out about it), I trained fast and got slow.

Every now and then, human beings lack the faith necessary to follow through on their plans.  My plan was run slow to run fast.  The theory, espoused by Phil Maffetone in The Big Book of Endurance Training, says that if I run with my heart rate in the aerobic zone, I'll build my aerobic capacity, allowing me to run faster at the same effort and to run faster at faster efforts.  As I said, I didn't really believe it, but I was actually enjoying the more relaxed paces.  It's like running was actually fun.  But I'd lost faith in the concept, despite ample evidence to support it, such as MAF test #3, the details of which I will not bore you, and I thought I'd better test the theory before my half marathon in a couple of weeks.

So I thought Monday would be a good, albeit random, day to set a 10-k pr.

I failed.

Instead I set a 5-k* pr.  It had been so long since I'd really tore loose that the concept of pacing didn't register and I ran a 7:21 first mile, which is fast (for me). Mile 2 was also a little faster than I should have gone.  It was 7:28.  Mile 3 was at 7:31.  These are close to times I was running 1-mile repeats at last January.  I realized after about 2.5 miles that I wouldn't have enough left in the tank for a 10-k pr, so I settled for a 5-k pr of 23:06 (a full 36 seconds faster than I'd ever run the distance befor), jogged a recovery mile, and called it a day.

As it turns out, you can get fast by running slow.  Who knew?

Here's part of the Sunset Dunes running trail in Las Vegas where my historic run took place.

*My current 10-k pr is 48:02.  I plan on breaking that before the end of the year.
*You could argue I actually failed since the plan was to run a 10-k pr.  I don't care.  Nobody was there but me.  Besides, in the Olympics, you can set the 5,000-meter world record during the first half of a 10, 000-meter race and it still counts.  If it's good enough for Mo Farah and Galen Rupp, it's good enough for me.