Sweet Victory

Hal Higdon's Intermediate II plan has two "recovery" runs per week. By recovery, Hal means they should be leisurely, fun and relaxed. They're designed to help rejuvenate your muscles and spirit, while increasing your running economy. All of which will help you focus and perform better on your key days. I think recovery runs do all of these things. Except they also suck. The worst part, I've found, is that without putting myself into either a "zone" or oxygen debt, my mind has time to think about a lot of things. But what it thinks about mostly is how this isn't much fun. When I do a marathon pace run, I don't have time to worry if a dog's on a leash. If he's not, I'll just out-run him. I don't worry about the strange twinges in my knee or shin or foot because all of that will be dealt with only after I've put those marathon pace miles in the bank. But on the recovery runs, I just feel like an old guy with ADD shuffling throug...

If running were only allowed to be done in the morning, I would not be a runner. There, I said it. Not only that, but I'm incredibly jealous of those you who bop out of bed at 5am (or earlier!). How do you do that?? When do you sleep?? Here's my deal: I'm mostly a lunchtime runner, thanks to shower facilities at my employer. The only time I get out of bed to run early is on the weekend. Most weekends, that's only one day and on that one day, I find it crazy crazy difficult to do. The creativity of the groggy whining in my head at 7am on Saturday surprises even me. Today, however, I had a client coming to the office around lunchtime. Tomorrow, I have a morning long run planned. Running after work would mean barely 12 hours between two hard workouts, which meant: a morning run for me today, too. I should also mention that while walking the dog PRIOR to my run at 7am, my neighbor drove by on the way home from his 5:30am run, playing loud music and waving frantically. God, ...

Until yesterday, I'd never taken a supplement for my diabetes. Mind you, I munch on a small handful of pills with my breakfast. Things that promise optimum recovery, endurance, etc. The types of pills one finds when wandering the drug store aimlessly while one's wife and daughter decide whether they want to buy autumn chestnut or summer sunset to give their hair a little something-something extra. But I've never bought anything specifically for my diabetes simply because most of those supplements say they help you even out your blood sugars, and (thankfully) I got that covered. But then commenter Jed from yesterday suggested I add Cayenne pepper to my program, saying that he uses it and it reduces the amount of insulin he needs. Truth be told, I wouldn't care how much insulin I need, except for the crux of my argument, which was: more insulin = more weight retention = heavy marathoner. Here's a link from a guy who seems to think Cayenne fixes pretty much everything...

I don't know about that, but I think the Vermont Death Race might be trickier to train for. Here's hoping it's a sweet t-shirt.

I'm currently rotating three pairs of shoes: Asics Hyperspeed II racing flats, Asics DS Trainers and the Nike Lunar Trainers. I've been totally out of my orthotics for nine months now. Shin-wise, I'm in a good place. Haven't been injured in a few months, which I chalk up to rotating shoes and keeping the miles fairly slow. That being said, I didn't really want to buy the Lunar Trainers, but I needed a new pair of shoes a few months ago, and the New Nike Free wasn't out yet. It is, now, and I can't wait to need a pair. That being said, I might train differently in them than the crew in this hilarious Nike spot:

Hardly a out-on-the-ledge pick, as Born to Run , by Christopher McDougall is currently ranked #61 on Amazon. Still, the PR department at Knopf can't take all the credit. This book is insanely good. Here's the deal: The author stumbles across a mysterious trail guide who takes him to see the Tarahumara, the famed reclusive Mexican runners of the Copper Canyons. While there, he learns the secrets of their injury-free (and FUN!) running. You could stop the book there and still have it be a good read, but noooo.. From there, the author returns to the Copper Canyons to compete in a 50 mile race against the Tarahumara, Barefoot Ted , Scott Jurek , Jenn Shelton , et. al. Not convinced? How about cameos by Joe Vigil and some of the best theories of Why We Run sprinkled in for fun? Oh yeah, there's nutrition, too, as evidenced by the two bags of chia seeds I just bought. It's been a quiet summer for running books, but this one makes up for it. It's truly 2 (or 3) great bo...

I just got my Spi-belt and will never wear another belt for running again. Simply put, they're ridiculously better than anything on the market: 1. When nothing's in a pocket, the elastic pocket is sleek and small. 2. When putting things in the pocket, it expands quite wide (enough for my BlackBerry storm in one pocket and my DexCom in another) 3. It doesn't bounce. At all. Big fan. You need something to carry your stuff? Look no further. I've used a couple other belt/bag combos but previously tended to favor my RaceReady shorts over belts and bags. I'll still use the RaceReady shorts sometimes, but a BlackBerry and a DexCom are a tight fit and you get a little bounce in the RaceReady. You get none of that with the Spi-belt, plus the feeling that everything is safe and secure. And for the fashion conscious, the Spi-belt looks way cooler than the RaceReady shorts. I'd expect to use the Spi-belt for my average runs, and a combo Spi-belt and RaceReady shorts for th...

"Time and tears ago, I chased my dreams without a single fear That I'd ever miss the treasures of my youth. But recently I thought I'd take a trip back through the years And it hurts me just a bit to face the truth." - The Rarely Herd. Part of Growing Up (That Gets Me Down) Last weekend was the 3rd Annual Solanco Alumni XC Meet (which I also waxed poetic about last year ). Highlights: 1.Last year, I lamented the fact that I was one of only 2 guys from the White Snake era. This year, we had four additional runners from my time, 3 of which I can take credit for (though Facebook certainly helped). I cajoled local legend Connie Buckwalter into coming, as well as Chris McAndrews and Alan Martin - the two guys who handed me my hat week in and week out during the late 80's. Just seeing Chris for the first time in twenty years was a HUGE highlight. It sounded as if he hadn't changed a bit and that's one of those things I say as a sincere compliment. He cracked me ...

So yesterday the DexCom sent me a few warnings telling me I'd need to change the sensor soon. Hmm... I thought. I have more than a day to go. I guess that's nice to get a 24 hour warning?? Turns out I forgot that I was off work last Friday so I was on my 7th day. After three more warnings, the sensor turned itself off at 11 last night. There's plenty of Internet chatter about restarting Dex sensors and getting 12-13 days out of them, but I opted not to for the following reasons: 1) It was 11pm. If I did a restart then, I'd need to calibrate at 1am. 2) I'm running a 5k race tomorrow and one of the main reasons I'm doing CGM is to monitor myself better doing races. Using a sensor for a race beyond the FDA recommendations didn't sound bright. 3) Insurance is paying 100% for sensors, and it's not like they're going to cut me a check for spending their money better. Taking off the sensor at bedtime was interesting. First off, not having something else on ...

Summer is here and the running is... well, heavy. Four weeks into the marathon season and the miles are adding up. Last year, I become "compression crazy" and used Zensah recovery sleeves and Skins all during the fall. In a nutshell, I found the Zensahs to be superior for recovery but too warm for running and I found the Skins to be cool enough for running, but they lost their elasticity within a month (which pretty much rendered them all but useless). Research is sketchy on the power of recovery socks while running but from personal experience I can tell you that wearing them after running helps BIG time. But I'm wondering if I need to put up with sweaty calves all summer long from the Zensahs?

On Saturday, I took the DexCom with me for a 14 miler. My biggest fear about using the Dex (instead of Medtronic) was having a second device and a relatively big one at that. The DexCom receiver is actually a little taller than my BlackBerry storm and is exactly as wide at its widest point. My idea was to put the Dex into the big pocket of my RaceReady shorts, but once the Storm was in there, that wasn't happening. (Side note: I love my BlackBerry Storm, but it's not good for hauling around on the roads.) Instead, I decided to use the DexCom holster and just clip it to my waistband. Surprisingly, this worked like a charm. In the end, what I didn't realize about the Dex is that while it is every bit as big as a cellphone, it's not nearly as dense. It's a relatively lightweight device and with a secure clip in place, it doesn't bounce at all. When I hit the road, my blood sugar was 125. I didn't want to obsess about it, though, so I decided to check it every 2...

So, I'm currently rocking the DexCom 7 and have been for 4 days. I love it, love it, love it. For most of the posts, I'll likely be talking about how I use it for running, but this time around, I'm going to tell the insurance story, because I wouldn't be using it if insurance didn't pay for it. Not that my health isn't worth the $140 a month the sucker would've cost me, just that... well just that I guess I didn't think it was. To recap, this all started late last fall when I met with my Dr. and asked them if my insurance was approving CGMS, yet. Without asking me what insurance I had, the doc pretty much dismissed it, saying that with my good A1C's, it wasn't happening. About a month later, I was talking to a co-worker who told me his wife just approved on our health insurance. At the time, I was actually on my wife's health insurance. I'm incredibly blessed to have two wonderful insurances to choose from. The wife's is a teeny bit w...

Earlier in the year, I'd planned on running a spring marathon this past weekend, but after I lost my peak 8 days of training, I bagged that idea. All of which meant that I'm pretty fit right now, though not peaked for a marathon. As I wrote last week, the goal for this year's Red Rose Run was to beat last year's time of 33:48. I felt I was in sub-33 shape, but not in this course, which is far from easy. Still, I surprised myself. The plan was to go out with two 6:20 miles and then hold on. Last year, I'd run a 6:55 3rd mile, a 7:21 4th and a 6:59 5th. This year, I did a 6:18 and a 6:15, but then only slowed down to a 6:47. The true torture mile of this race is mile 4, and I slowed down to a 7:13. Surprisingly, I had a nice 6:32 5th mile, so I came in at 33:04, a real shock. I'm crediting a good chunk of the time on the weather, which was much milder this year. But I was pretty pleased with coming in 69th out of 1100 (last year I was 71) and 13th out of 140 in my...

So I might have set a 5k PR last Monday. I have a rule with myself that the closer a race is to my house, the more I feel I need to do it. Currently, there's a 4 miler four miles from my house and a 5k three miles from my house - both of which I always hit. On Memorial Day, the Run for Literacy 5k debuted, just two miles from my driveway. How do you say no? Like most first year races, it was small, with only 102 finishers. I had a goal of 19:30, but felt it would take a great run to get there. When I hit the mile mark at 5:52, I knew it was either a great mile or a stupid start. The course was flat and fast and I went through the 2 mile mark at 12:20. Since the beginning I hadn't done much passing. I'd settled in at 10th place, well behind the lead pack, but well ahead of the main pack, which is pretty much where I always am. Around the 2.2 mile mark, though, I saw one of the high school kids in the main pack falling back and I made a move on him. I surged twice but he push...

No, not that one. That 16th anniversary is coming up and we're celebrating it by spending our first night without the kids. Yes, you heard that right: first night without the kids, ever. That's worthy of a blog post in and of, itself, but nevermind... Sometime last month (I truly don't know the date), I passed my 25th anniversary w/ diabetes. Twenty five years. The "silver" anniversary, if you will. Random thoughts: * 25 years without a complication, which is really all that matters. One spot on one eye, that went away by itself. That's it. * Five kinds of insulin, along the way: Pork Regular, NPH (was it beef?), Synthetic R, Synthetic N (after the others were discontinued --- I was on the piggie stuff 'til the end) and Humalog * I originally had one of the first Accu-Chek monitors (which I believe cost around $400 and took about three minutes to do a test), moved to a Diascan (sp?), which took 70 seconds. Then I think I went to my first OneTouch, which ...

As we head into week 2 of the Marathon Plan, things seem firmly back on track. Rather than a 3+rest+2 as planned last week, I did five days in a row, with no problems. This week, my schedule will probably require a 4+rest+1, which will be easier and the long run only goes to 11 miles. My pace is also fairly close to pre-injury speeds, too. More than anything, I'm comforted with a really light travel schedule over the next few months. I'm speaking on one panel in NYC, which will be a day trip, and aside from that, my only travels are for fun, not for business. Moreover, the kids will be out of school soon, too, so I start work earlier in the day and get every other Friday off for summer hours. All in all, I'm heading into a season with ample opportunity to get fit and fast. RE: Dexcom, hmmmmm, my first impression of the company isn't super ideal. When the rep took my info last week, he told me the next thing that would happen would be his assistant would contact me for m...

Using sex to sell diabetes meds? Frankly, I prefer that over Wilford Brimley.

When last before we were so rudely interrupted.... 1) My injury was followed by a week's worth of meetings and culminated in an overseas trip to France & the UK. Because this isn't a travel blog, I'll cut to the chase: my spring marathon season is officially over. Now mostly mended (aside from a nasty bug I picked up during an otherwise wonderful trip), I've just started Day 1, Week 1 of Hal Higdon Intermediate II, culminating in the Allentown Marathon in mid-September. Nothing says you're early in the marathon plan like a three mile run, which is what the plan had me do over lunch. 2) While in the UK, I was fortunate enough to do the London Tower Jog --- 10-12 (who's counting?) laps around the moat of the Tower of London. This being the UK (or being a jog?), they didn't count my laps, or my time or the people I beat. But I did get a t-shirt and a finisher's medal, so who am I to complain? 3) Thank you muchly for all of the CGM advice. I have decide...

The bad news: I've officially postponed plans for a Spring '09 marathon. While my shin has made dramatic improvements in the past three days, I missed more than a week of training, including two critical long runs. May 31 is a long time from now and there's no doubt I could run a decent marathon then, but I'm just not interested in running a "decent" marathon. I need to be fit, trained and tapered to have a shot at 3:15, and I just wouldn't be. The good news: is plenty enough to offset the bad news 1) My shin is mostly better. I've gotten many recommendations about pursuing ART treatments and massage and I'm not ruling it out at some point, but I'm also not doing it right now. I have a strong aversion to most medical things (aside from my diabetes I haven't seen a doctor in years). Moreover, I believe in the concepts of things like Chi running and believe that the answer isn't in repairing wrong running, but in running right. At least, ...

This hasn't been the week I expected. Less important: my cell-phone died. Necessities and contractual obligations I won't bore you with thrust me into the Blackberry age, via the Storm. I'm enjoying this muchly, though - like I said - a week ago I had no plans to have any smartphone, Blackberry or otherwise. Harry Kalas died. And like John Finger wrote , I have no idea how Phillies baseball sounds without him, and I'm not very eager to find out. It's kind of a bummer. And then - more specific to this blog - I am injured. My recurring shin problem flared up very much on a Saturday ten miler with Dave and then went full-bore on Monday, turning an anticipated 20 into a measly 9. And while I've cut back recovery runs to hold off injuries, this was the first long run I've had to bag since I don't know when. Tues. and Wed., the pain persisted. I'd hoped to bike but it rained to beat the band those days. Today it's gorgeous, but I still have the pain, s...