Man that was hard. It was around 0 Celsius at the start, and there I was, half-naked, waiting for a half an hour. Not a chance to warm up since I had to get into the target pace section. Everybody else was smart enough to wear old sweaters and sweatpants that they would throw away before the start gun, which was kinda funny. So, to get warmed up, I started up rather quickly. Streets were wide enough for the running crowd not to be an issue. I was feeling GOOD. I kept on thinking how the taper and high altitude training were giving me such a great boost. I never felt out of air during the entire race. During Medellin’s half, the first few Ks were tough, so I was prepared to feel a little uncomfortable at the beginning, while I started to get into aerobic mode. But I never gasped, so I decided to take the risk and speed up. So much that at the half point I was well below the target split time, and I was still feeling awesome.

Then around mile 18-20 I hit the wall. I passed from feeling great to feel like crap pretty quickly. Breathing rythm and heart rate were still doing great, but my legs simply weren’t responding. Was it because of the too fast start, or was it that I just didn’t have enough long distance training? I think a bit of both. During those last 10 miles I saw hell. I tried walking for about a minute after each mile. Sometimes trying to follow pacers, and then letting them go. I finally got into the finish line at 4:04, 14 minutes above what I had in mind, but 8 minutes better than my last and first marathon. I feel good about it because I know I gave it all given my low mileage training. And I’m more and more motivated to be able to classify for Boston in a couple of years, and get one of those shiny blue jackets. For the moment I’ll continue with the triathlon training, pumping up the running part, and thinking of the others as just cross-training.

After having finished my first half four years ago with a time around 2:20, I finished yesterday Medellin’s half-marathon at a very satisfying new race PR of 1:48. First time I don’t feel I either started too fast or didn’t give enough.

Everything went as planned: kept a 5:13 min/km pace almost all the time, started at that pace even if I felt I could do better or everybody else was passing me, accelerating on downhills, speeding down shortly from time to time when I was gasping, not getting influenced by any one else’s pace, forgetting about pacers, and a great give-it-all sprint in the final Ks. For a very humid day, and an average of 27 degrees Celsius (although mostly overcast) it was a great finish.

I joined a triathlon training team three weeks ago and I’m following a detailed training plan now. The routing has been very different from what I’m used to. I miss my daily runs now that mileage has come down significantly, to make room for gym work, swimming and a lot of biking. Still, the goal right now is the Chicago marathon which is 5 weeks away, and running mileage is supposed to increase in the following weeks. I was a little worried for the lack of mileage, so I just went ahead and did a 20 miler last week, completely violating the training plan. It felt great. The thing is that a few days later I’m starting to have a few pain stitches on my left leg, reminding me of those old shin splints days. The reasonable thing would be of course to just pace things down a little. But my tri teammates convinced me to do this weekend’s Medellin half-marathon, for which I hold dear memories, as it’s where all started for me, and it’s such a well organized and challenging race. Also I gotta make up for that bittersweet feeling I still have from the last Half. So looking to do at least 1:50, and not breaking my leg in the process.

The Bogotá Half-Marathon sucks. Same disorganization as always and a 10 am start to make sure you get your nice dehydrating Bogotanian tan. I passed the start line several minutes after the starting gun, and raced like hell during the first 10k or so to try catching up with the 1:45 pacer. I was doing sub 8 minutes per mile pace, something I rarely do in training, which would bite me in the butt later on of course. When I caught the 1:50 guy I told myself, that would be equivalent to the 1:45 one given my late start, so I stuck with him. He did seem a little slow though. But guy next to me told me he was doing the planned split times. I wasn’t using my chrono to avoid stressing myself like in the previous marathon. The delay started to become obvious later on, and some people in the pack started bringing this to his attention. Around kilometer 15 he started pacing up like hell, and I had to let him go.

So three lessons here: don’t trust pacers, don’t trust random guys next to you, just trust your watch.
I’ll have to take it easier and stop stressing so damn much about the numbers. Anyway, my tank was empty already during the last kilometers, and I started alternating walking and running. This is what Jeff Galloway,world-famous “easy going” coach,  preaches for both beginners and advanced runners to make long distances more enjoyable. Some even say this walk/run alternation technique would improve your times too. Even if that’s the case, I feel the race accomplishment is even more remarkable if I’ve been able to do it without stopping to walk. So I ended up a bit disappointed, having no idea how much time I did. The organizers geniuses put two clocks at the end line with different times, so no idea which one meant what.

To my surprise chip times were already published last night, and it turns out I did 1:52, much better than what I thought. But damn, just 1 minute and something above the classification time to get into a seeded starting corral at the Chicago Marathon.

Final thoughts

I’m getting more and more into cycling and swimming and I’m loving it. I’ll be finishing soon a swimming class, and within one or two months of practice I should be able to finish long distances.
I read this at the Zen and the Art of Triathlon, and it rang a bell:

“Train hard when needed, train soft when needed. Do not train moderately hard all the time.”

I think I’m logging too many “moderately hard” miles. I’m gonna be seeking some real triathlon coaching soon, and hopefully will get a better training plan.

I had this idea of getting my first marathon done and out of the way, so that I could start training for a triathlon, which was something I was looking forward to because, among other things, I was tired of constantly getting running injuries every time I twisted up a notch the training intensity.

So I did my first marathon two days ago. I was expecting finishing somewhere between 4:00 and 4:30, knowing in the back of my mind the upper limit was more realistic. So the actual 4:12 that I did felt really good. Like planned, I tried never to look at the time and just concentrate on my running. That worked perfectly all over, except on the last 4 miles or so, when the end felt so close that all my concentration and will broke down and I just put the chrono mode on and saw 4:00. So I thought to myself, I’m doing great, my legs are killing me, the goal is gonna be accomplished, so I can walk now. For the next time I won’t be even starting the chrono, and I’ll have someone to scramble the day time, so that I’m only left with the pace indicator to look at. Forget about recording stats and other useless shit.

The race started at 6 am sharp, with around 250 participants.  Good level overall, and a nice change from those typical over-crowded races. I committed my first mistake the day before with a lasagna overdose.  I had planned to run very easy on the first half hour, and feeling so bloated helped me to act conservatively and follow the plan. Half an hour later I was feeling great. I forgot about the bloat, pumped up the pace and started passing people.

The first 10 miles had a slight upward slope, I’d say like 1%. Then the course turned back the same way, and I profited the now downward slope to considerably augment the pace. That momentum lasted me for 5 miles. I felt tired but good. But that took its toll on my quads, and the pain that started building up was the hardest thing to support later on.

Almost all the course was shared with the “ciclovía”, which is the closing of some streets during Sundays to let cyclists, skaters, runners and walkers enjoy a sporty day. This is a common practice all over Colombia. As time passed the road started getting more and more crowded so we had to be very careful. And the crowd didn’t had the slightest idea about the marathon, so the already zero-cheering situation was not going to change.  About this time water ran out as well. Thankfully, there was this lady popping up all over the course ready with supplies and moral support for her guy, and she helped me out with some water.
I need to get a woman like this for myself!

Training is just a matter of discipline. I realize now that if you’ve done your homework, and the miles are in the bank, the game on race day becomes 100% mental. I did a good job of really concentrating on my form and pace until the final few miles.  Tried hard to filter out any other thoughts, specially those concerning mileage and time.  Around the last quarter the thoughts about stopping started arising. And I started questioning why I was  doing this. And thinking how easy it is to set goals and think you’re ready to overcome suffering. But suffering is something that just can’t be imagined. It can only be felt. I could carry on with this inner battle in my head until we started entering this village where the race was supposed to end. I couldn’t bear that overwhelming thought and lost all concentration.

Nevertheless, it was a honorable battle, and I am proud. Things that worked: good taper, good starting slow for the first 30 mins, good to pace up when I feel I can, good to take small but frequent sips of liquid.
I need to come up with a way to not loose it when I feel the end is close. I’ll experiment in training. I also need to pace up my Sunday long runs.

After this first marathon I’m having my doubts now about pursuing the triathlon training. Right now I just wanna run harder and farther. But I’ll definitely will continue cycling once or twice per week, because I enjoy it so much and it’s such a great cross-training alternative for running. I’ve already signed up for the Chicago Marathon in October, and will be running for charity using pulpTunes (see link in the sidebar) to raise money — more about this in a future post. In the meantime I gotta find another marathon in about three months. Any suggestions?

“Nenikékamen!”
(We have won!)  Pheidippides, Athens, 490 BC

I’ve been running for years now, racing only for 10K and half-marathons. I had aimed at running my first marathon like 5 months ago, but I had to keep on pushing back because of many injuries. The last one I had planned was for Miami in January, but after having done my first few 20 miles training sessions my knees were very sore. So I canceled that one too, and I’m now finally going to loose my marathon virginity in Medellín on March 22nd. I just needed a couple of weeks for my knees to heal, and now I have many 20 milers in the bank, each one easier than the previous one. Two weeks ago I did my first 100K week, and on Monday last week I did the final 20, which ended up being like 22, with lots of fuel left in the tank. So having pushed back my first marathon has definitely made me more ready. Also I think the sand track I’m training on for the last couple of months has served me well to avoid injuries, and also the biking, which I’m loving it. But after that last long run I think I overdid on the bike the next day, and ended up with a mild annoyance on my right upper quad. Now I just need to have an IT band syndrome and hamstring problems to have experienced every conceivable running injury known to mankind! So I continued running very slow last week, and took the weekend off.

Today (Monday) I was supposed to do the last hard session by running a 10K, but I started too fast and couldn’t complete the distance. Usual mistake, and great reminder for the big event. Quad ache is back a little bit, but since the real taper starts now it should have plenty of time to heal completely, so I’m not worried.

The “Maratón del Valle de Aburrá” is no piece of cake. It can get pretty hot and humid, and it has some nasty hills. From my experience, all I need is to run smart the first half hour. I don’t have the slightest idea what time I could be making. I’m thinking I won’t be even looking at the time in my watch and just leave the pacer mode to dose things appropriately and avoid doing stupid things.

I had planned this move for over a year, and finally did a few weeks ago.

I had been living in Medellin for about 3 years in a pretty nice, but hilly, neighborhood (Castropol). So every day I had to climb down a bit to a not so pretty, but flat, neighborhood (Colombia). And then I had to do this before 5:30 am to avoid the traffic and the stray savage dogs, one of whom had bit me already, obliging me to carry mace gas and a knife on every run from that day on. Fortunately I didn’t had to use them.

A triathlete friend living in Bogotá talked to me about the Simon Bolivar park, and its 2.2 miles (3.5 km) sand track. Bogotá is your typical 3rd world chaotic unplanned city, specially offensive towards the poorer, which is the vast majority (in fact I’ve just describe the whole country). But things have been changing a little over the past few years thanks to a couple of great mayors (Mockus and Peñalosa), and public free facilities like this park are a sign of it.

So I visited the park and decided to go live next to it. Well, a 5 minutes warming-up-run away from it.

It’s a gathering place for runners and all kind of athletes (just the other day I saw a professional football team training there), it’s generally uncrowded (except on Sundays), cool weather (ranging from 59F (15C) to  77F (25C)), clean air, high altitude (8660 ft (2640 m)), flat, and my knees are already thankful for the softer surface. What else can I ask for?

I’ve been getting some love for pulpTunes, so I decided to pursue the project more seriously. About the running log website I mentioned before, I think I’ll pass that because it seems there are already very good alternatives out there.

So, there’s a new website just for pulpTunes at http://www.pulptunes.com . I’m also moving the project (source code, forums, lists, wiki) to Sourceforge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/pulptunes .

This blog will remain for my running “adventures” only.

Without realizing it, I have been sinking little by little into the over-training mistake. Thinking that if I don’t feel exquisitely exhausted after each work out, then I’m wasting my time, and getting farther from doing a marathon performance that my ego would get satisfied with, in this oh so little time I have left of youth. Pfftf.

This has served me well to improve my 10Ks, but the half marathon is far worse than what it should be. A lot of cross-training has help avoiding injuries, but I have this recurring little ache deep inside my left left bone. Can’t even tell if it’s above or below the knee, but it’s around that area. Another thing is the runner’s knee symptoms I was having, but I think I’ve been able to manage that through quad strengthening exercises after every weekday workout.

Many times I’ve tried to follow some training programs, but without a coach it’s hard to keep up with all the intricacies of intervals, repetitions, tempos, threshold training, etc. So after a lot of search around I think I found a great plan, not so complex but not minimalistic either, in the “Complete Book of Running” , from Rodale, the same company that produces the Runner’s World mag.  I’m picking up their “intermediate” program, Which starts at 26 miles per week and peaks at 51. Lucky me, the program is 18 weeks long, which is about the time I have left before the marathon I was planning on assisting. You can see the plan here.  I calculated the paces based on goal of a 4 hour marathon, which is pretty conservative, so I might twist it up a notch if things go well.

Finally!

pulpTunes is a software program I created to be able to access and share the music you have in iTunes, through the web by just using a web browser. You can grab the program from here. For more information and instructions, go here.

This runs on both Windows and Mac. Just make sure you have the latest Java installed. Also, this will only serve the files you have in mp3 format (not acc at the moment I’m afraid, which is the default iTunes format).

Although fully functional, this still is a beta release. So please report back any problem you encounter, or drop me a line if you need any help.