Hyannis Half Marathon, Why Not?

A friend of a friend could not make it to the Hyannis Half Marathon. I briefly considered the pros and cons and scooped up the bib number for the 13.1 mile race on Cape Cod.

Things have changed since marathon training inNovember, there are a few factors that are going to make this tougher than itshould be-

-Lack of training:  Ihaven’t run 13 miles since the Athens Classic Marathon in mid-November and I’vebeen changing my running style to a forefoot strike but can only maintain thatfor about 5 miles before my calves are smoked. I can regress to a mid-footstrike mid-race.

-Pain: I ran 7 miles on Tuesday and my knee was painin' the nextday despite the ridiculous ice bath (3 trips to my hotel ice machine and luke-cold water from the faucet) I tookimmediately afterwards. I also pulled a muscle in my back around my kidneywhile jitsing about a week ago. Not sure if it’s a pulled muscle but that’swhat it feels like. Stretching or foam rolling should mitigate pain and preventfurther injury.

-Shoes: I wouldn’t be able to maintain 13 miles on my BrooksPureConnects which force runners to strike with the forefoot. I’ve got to stickwith the well cushioned Reebok Zigs to get through this. Hopefully mentalfortitude, superior genetic ability in the form of athletic prowess, close-knitconversations with God, and luck will get me through this. 

-The Elements: It’s been said that there is no such thing asbad weather, only weak people. However, you’re not going to run yourbest time with a 60mph headwind, that’s a fact. I’ll do what I can to deal withthe wind and dress appropriately. It's a looped course so my fingers are crossed that the wind direction is at least half agreeable. 

-Strength/Cardio: CrossFit-like circuit training and Jiu Jitsu over the past two months made me a better all-around athlete for short bursts in terms of strength and cardio. Hopefully my legs' endurance can keep up with my cardio endurance. I'll be doing a lot of 3-4 minute high speed intervals to exploit this strength and allow for mid-race recovery.

My personal record for 13.1 miles is 1:38 which I ran alongthe Boston Marathon course back in October. Given the 5 factors above, a 1:50:00 just over a 8:00 min pace is reasonable and 1:44:48 is ambitious.

Keep running,

LSF

The Hyannis Half Marathon Went Okay I Guess

I ran a 1:32:43 after hoping for a time between 1:44:48 and 1:50:00. That's a 7:05 pace which, to be honest with you, I'm surprised. What could have caused this?

+Cardio lifting: Cardio lifting seems to be pretty effective for maintaining an elevated heart rate for an extended time. My HR monitor read between 85% and 93% for most of the run.

+Form: I bent my knees and took short steps to decrease reliance on muscle and put the pressure on cardio. Think of bench-pressing 1000 lbs. You can lift 200 lbs 5 times or 50 lbs 20 times. In a half marathon, you already know you're going high reps so go low weight.

This also helped reduce the likelihood of any musculoskeletal injuries. My left hip, right knee, and lower back are a little sore today, but nothing worse than during the long runs in marathon training.

My calves' ability to run the way I wanted them to faded around mile 7 and I reverted to my old form but maintained a good pace. More muscle means more juice.

+The Elements: Reduce the wind by 20mph and it was perfect out there. A little headwind gets the mind back into the game.

+Pace Booty*: The competition of the fairer gender was stunning. Not to sound like a perv, but deep down you ladies know you're just trying to give us something nice to look at. How else do you explain running tights and yoga pants? So you just run til you catch the next awesome butt and trail behind it, then the next one, and so forth. It's a great technique, just watch out for dudes wearing running tights.

+Mid Run Fuel: I noshed some Trolli Brite Crawlers around mile 10. Energy boost baby. I also stopped at every water station along the way (tip a la Matt Cormier, @mcorms). I nearly ran into people 4 or 5 times, but I drank when I could to prevent cramps.

+Huge Heart: I'm pretty awesome at leaving it all out there. I know myself and my body well and it didn't give out until 12.5 miles in. From then on it was just pain and the clock that kept me going.

Keep running,
LSF

PS: I was going to link Girls in Yoga Pants in the pace booty section but it is dirrrrrtaaayyyyyy and Momma Longsox is a regular here so you'll have to Google it yourself.

Rank Stinks

Close followers of this entertaining/educational/exercisical blog remember that its humble author set some goals in 2012, which included earning a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. It's a realistic, obtainable goal that will take me out of the beginner phase of a new skill. Well today I realized that being a beginner is awesome. Having any kind of rank or experience is the worst.

When you're 2, not pooping your diapers is a great accomplishment. When you're 4, macaroni art is an amazing feat. When you're 18, getting drafted by the NBA will make Mom and Dad proud every time. When you're 28, keeping an entertaining/educational/exercisical blog is okay I guess. It's all relative. The more rank/experience, the higher the expectations.

Chick is a red belt, no shame young man.

As a white belt with two stripes, the bar is pretty low for me, which is awesome. I truly do not care if I tap out to a higher-ranking fighter. Zero shame whatsoever. 

The taps I DO get are great but in the long run. It's just like getting potty trained all over again:

"LOOK at youuuuu!! You got an arm bar just like a big boy! Who's a good fighter? Whoooo's a good fighter? You are! Yes you are!"

Regardless, I'm enjoying the learning curve. BJJ is fun and I'm settling down.

Keep training,

LSF

PS: Nothing used to get my dog, Molly, more pumped up than talking to her like that. It's probably how trainers talk to their fighters in the corner.

How Many Calories Do You Burn in a Day?

My awesome nutrition expert of a cousin was kind enough to enlighten me on the ways of calculating one's basal metabolic rate which, if you've been reading, determines how many calories you burn in a typical day before exercise. Here's what she said:

1) Get your weight in kilograms or... (Your weight in lbs)/2.2 = your weight in kg

2) Get your height in centimeters or... (Your height in inches)/.3937 = your height in cm

3) Gauge your activity level:

4) Choose a formula based on gender:

-For men, 19 years or older:
[662-(9.53 x age)] + Activity Level x [(15.91 x weight in kgs) + (539.6 x height in cm)]

-For women, 19 years or older:
[354-(6.91 x age)] + Activity Level x [(15.91 x weight in kgs) + (539.6 x height in cm)]

5) Plug it in and do the math: 

Por ejemplo (Latino outreach, le gusta?), we'll do mine:

Male, 28 years, 157 lbs (71.4kg), 68 inches (1.73m), very low active (1.08)... working...  the magic number is 2630. Nice. I can eat 2630 worth of calories each day without weight gain or loss AND without additional exercise. Sounds too good to be true. Could it be???

Understanding Nutrition warns that the actual burn rate is somewhere AROUND this number, probably plus or minus 200 calories on any given day. There are several other considerations that we'll go over in future posts.

Plug in your info. Do the math. Crack open an old algebra textbook if you need to. Find out if you're eating near your daily balance. If you're over and want to lose weight, eat less or move more.

Keep training,
LSF


"Activity Level" slide backstory: I got started on making the table above, since crappy ole Blogger doesn't have an "insert table" option, I opted for some MS Office action. Excel was too dull for this action-packed blog so I went to Power Point. It turned into a 10 minute project similar to what every yuppie has done at work. I discovered the slide jockeying and ran with it. A relevant stock picture and Dilbert strip got thrown on top of a tasteful but fun background. The font could be better but so could our use of free time. I'm sure you are as impressed as the execs at corporate.

Bib: Whitney, Ellie and Sharon Rolfes. Understanding Nutrition, 11th Ed. Wadsworth Publishing, 2008.

The 5 Biggest Factors Affecting Metabolism

If you've been reading about my 6 Pack Pursuit, you know that to lose weight, I first had to calculate  my basal metabolic rate (BMR) to figure out how many calories I could consume.

Let's define what I mean by BMR. I mean the amount of calories that a person's body uses for everyday functions like pumping blood, breathing, digesting, sitting, standing, walking, typing, and surfing the internet for pictures of fat Charles Barkley and skinny Charles Barkley. This excludes energy used for exercise like playing co-ed flag football, weight lifting, or running. So think of a "wake-up-go-to-work-come-home-go-to-bed" type of day. What factors come into play? Here are the big 5:

1) Age: Sorry Charlie, you get older and fatter for a reason. Metabolism slows down. Unless you have  more time to work out or slowly start to dislike delicious foods, you're screwed. Or, you know, if you get old AND stop playing professional basketball, you'll probably gain weight like Sir Charles here.

2) Weight: Moving more weight takes more energy, obvi. You'll hear about pretty overweight people losing 30lbs in a couple of months or enormous people losing 200lbs in a year without running hundreds of miles or hitting the weight room for 2 hours/day. When you weigh over 200 or in some cases 300lbs, getting up from the sofa or taking the stairs is no easy task. The obese have built up muscles to move that much weight so they're burning more calories by living normal lives. Consuming less than 3000 calories/day is more frequently the real challenge.

Tons of calories being burned here.

3) Gender: Women are much better at storing energy (aka fat) than men. Lower muscle mass, higher fat percentage. In fact, dudes shouldn't drop below 2-5% body fat while dudettes healthily bottom out at 10-12%. I'd bet Madonna was cruising below 10% in the picture of her in my previous post. Pretty manly looking ain't it? At least gals can carry extra weight and still look good.

Kim Kardashian, looking alright
with 25%+ body fat. 

4) Activity level: The hardest variable to gauge. How active are you? Do you sit at the same desk writing code all day or shuttle back and forth between the kitchen and tables of TGI Friday's? Are you an Apache warrior who hunts deer with a knife every day or a programmer writing code? Do you sit in a comfortable, boring, office chair or do you sit on a core-engaging fitness orb?  Chances are that the waiter, Apache warrior, and fitness orb sitter are burning more calories.

The squaws often teased
Geronimo for getting doughy
once he switched to hunting
with rifles. 

5) Height: If all other factors are the same, it takes more calories to move a lanky body just because of the distance blood has to travel and the mechanical disadvantage of moving long limbs. Don't get it? Compare torso rotations with a 25lb plate held to your chest and a 25lb barbell on your shoulders. You'll find the barbell to be more difficult. The length makes it tougher.

Manute. Bro. I'm telling you,
a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs
PER DAY. You gotta EARN
quads like these.

Stay tuned for the next post. Talkin' 'bout how to calculate your BMR.
LSF

The World's First Blog Comments Blog?

A friend of mine went HAM on the comments section (3 of them) and decided it would just be easier to start her own blog instead of leaving further comments. What do you guys think?

http://longsoxfitme.blogspot.com/



I'm not sure the content will last, but that banner is liquid hot magma. It's got me thinking that it may be time for  LSF to have its own logo. If there's anyone out there capable of drawing one up, get at me and we'll talk concepts.

The artist can't be any geek off the street. S/he's gotta be handy with the graphic design steel if you know what I mean. The designer WILL be rewarded with either a LSF t-shirt, long sox, or maybe, just maybe, his or her own LSF sweatbands.

LSF

(Un)Surprising Finish at the Super Sunday Cambridge 5K

I went with the usual strategy yesterday during the Super Sunday Cambridge 5K. I took it easy to begin with and slowly accelerated. I started by passing people that were just having a good time, nudging up to the people that were new runners, slowly moved pass experienced women and older men. Once I hit my own demographic, I would sprint from person to person, taking rests by keeping stride with the last person I caught. I finally got to the 3 mile marker and zoomed past the 5K finish point and yelled, "Time?" to the guy monitoring the 5K finish line.

"Sorry man, I'm not keeping it." Neither was I, oh well, it would be online. "Grab a PowerAde and get on the bus to go back to the starting point," he told me when a lady on the sidewalk chirped, "It's 5 til 11!" Thank you ma'am. Just the absolute typical person from Cambridge, friendly and outgoing but oblivious.

I got on the bus to see that nobody else was on it. Was I the first one to finish? Did others finish the course and run back to the starting point? Idunno, but that's what I did, just ran back. I checked the website for results all afternoon and they hadn't been posted til much later that night.

The next morning I woke up to a text from a friend that read: "19:57.6. First"

Holy moly! Number 1! First Place! Gold Medal! Official Champion of the Super Sunday Cambridge 5K. Crossing "Win a road race" off the bucket list. I am truly an incredible athlete...

Exceeeeept it was a 5 mile race. If you're looking to "win a road race" I highly recommend you register for the 5K at a 5 mile event. Chances are that the people running the 5K are people that may not be able to comfortably finish the 5 miles. My time was 19:57, the guy behind me was 22:22. Not exactly a photo finish.

So that's a 6:26 pace and I met the goal of running it in under 20 min. I've still got to take off 57 seconds to meet the 2012 goal.

It was hosted by RaceMenu which did a great job. They held a party after the race that I didn't stick around for, it looked like folks were having a good time despite the cold. They called out everyone's name as they crossed the finish line of the 5 miler, a nice touch. I'm pretty sure they took at least one picture of every single runner and posted them on Facebook. Another great feature of RaceMenu. It was a decent course, somewhat similar to the Yulefest route. I will be using their website to find future races in the area. You guys keep up the good work!

Finally, your moment of zen:

Breaking the sound barrier.

Keep training,

LSF