Peek and Peak

Five days out from the Cleveland Marathon, I peeked at the weekend forecast. The weather is important to me, because I am peaking for this race and I want it to be a good one.

Alas, it does not look so good: the high for the day is now forecasted to be a toasty 81. This wouldn't be quite so bad if it came along in the summer, when we're used to training in warm weather, but not when it's been well below average for weeks and weeks. Those cool morning temperatures have felt pretty good. 81 will not.

I should have had a Plan B. Oftentimes, I do. For example, last fall, I ran the Columbus Marathon, where the weather was bad, and as a result, my time was slow. My Plan B race came two weeks later at the Veterans Marathon. I ran a little better at that one. But this time, there is no Plan B; it's do or die in Cleveland, probably the latter. 

There's been a whole lot of yin and yang this season. After Sunday's decent race, yesterday was a slow and easy day. Today's track workout wasn't bad, though. After a cold start, my friends and I ran the 10 x 400 5K workout, and I was reasonably happy with my run. After they all left, I was alone on the track once again. 

But not totally alone. My shadow joined me, and I was happy to have the company. He needs to get into better shape, though.

Dan and his shadow

Moms Rock 5K

A wardrobe malfunction can have many possible causes. 

One possible cause is this: you put on some tights that you haven't warn for three years and you wouldn't be normally wearing tights when it's fifty degrees but since you will be walking around the zoo all day after the race, you figure you should wear something that works for both running and walking around but you learn that the waistband elastic of the tights is shot but you can keep them up by tying the drawstring, so of course the knot comes undone and your tights are falling down at about the two-mile mark, causing you to stop and re-tie it, just when you ought to be running at your fastest because it's downhill here.

Other than that, the race was okay. As usual, I was slow and slower on the uphill sections, which included most of the first half of the race. Coming back down, I wanted to unleash the beast (after all, we were running at the zoo), but that wardrobe thing slowed me down. 

I finished in 25:58. That's not too bad, but the course was a bit short. Better that than long, I always say. After a while, I checked in at the results tent and learned that I won a miniature daisy planter for being first in my ancient age group. But when I got home, my name isn't showing up in the results. I'm working on this...

DNS

over·​train: transitive + intransitive: : to train (a person or animal) to excess or beyond advantage : to harm (a person or animal) by too much training.

I'm on the mill today. Is that because the weather's bad, you ask? Nope. I just couldn't get myself out the door. And last night, I couldn't get myself over to Medina for the Run 4 Fun 5K. It was raining, but that only reinforced my decision to stay at home. I think I've ventured into the overtraining arena.

My first clue was Tuesday's speedwork. That wound up being a failure to launch, just like last week's session. Then came the Thursday night Ladd 5K. That was almost an all-time personal worst. And it's not for lack of trying.

Tomorrow it will be the Moms Rock 5K at the zoo. It will be Mother's Day, and Debbie will come with me. More importantly, we're only a week away from the Cleveland Marathon. Uh oh.

Well that was tough

I did my long run today, the day after the Run for Tacos. Two Hinckley loops with training partner Julie Boggs, plus a couple more miles to make twenty altogether. It wasn't easy. It's the last long one before Cleveland. Glad it's done. Now, I'm done.

Will Run for Tacos Cinco de Mile 5-Mile Race Report

It was a nice, clear, beautiful Spring morning for the Will Run for Tacos Cinco de Mile 5-Mile race. The good weather brought out a good turnout of runners and lots of good competition. I ran fast, and I’m quite proud of my performance. Afterward, the tacos were extremely tasty.

Not one of those previous statements is even remotely true. Here’s the real story.

I’m officially on fire. Not in terms of running. It’s the post-race taco. Not totally aware or even coherent, I had waited in line after the race, and received a lukewarm soft taco wrapped in foil. I had unwrapped the foil and opened the taco to discover a thin smear of meat, sauce, perhaps melted cheese, and maybe some other stuff. I wasn’t concerned about anything unhealthy therein, because there was so little of it. At the next station, I had squirted on some hot sauce and added lettuce. Then I’d found a warm corner inside where I could stand up and enjoy my meal. It's hot! It is three-alarm-fire hot; I’d added too much of the much-too-hot sauce. Of course, I consume it anyway. It’s been that kind of morning.

The Will Run for Tacos event takes place in the Tremont Neighborhood of Cleveland. The weather is awful – 37F with cold, drizzly rain. I don’t want to get out of my car, but I eventually do go for a short warmup run. Then I line up with the 5K runners as well as 94 other 5-Mile runners. The race is simply out and back on the Towpath Trail. I think this part is fairly new; it certainly is for me. It runs more or less along the West Bank of the Cuyahoga River. 

Even though I hadn’t warmed up properly due to the cold, damp weather, the first mile goes well. Of course, that’s because it’s downhill. I am gonna pay coming back. At 2 ½ miles, we turn around, and I eventually start going back up. Yes, I do pay, big time. My last mile turns out to be my slowest. It’s the opposite of last week’s race.

My time is 42:24, good for first in my ancient age group. That 8:29 pace is slower than last week’s pace for double the distance. I have some work to do.

Ludicrous and other speeds

It all started with the film Ben-Hur. Remember the slave rowers on the Roman warship? Based on orders from the Admiral, the guy beating the drums increased his cadence from ‘battle speed’ to ‘attack speed,’ and all the way up to ‘ramming speed.’ The rowers had to match the drumming cadence, and naturally had a tough time at the higher speeds.

Then there was ‘warp speed’. Warp speed is a term popularized by Star Trek to describe faster-than-light travel, which has since entered the public lexicon to mean an extremely fast pace.

In Star Wars, ‘hyperspace’ is an alternate dimension allowing faster-than-light travel, enabling ships to cross the galaxy by bypassing real-space limitations. Navigated via computers to avoid stellar "mass shadows," it uses hyperdrives, often colloquially termed ‘lightspeed,' though actual speeds vary for plot purposes, frequently appearing as near-instantaneous travel.

This brings us to ‘ludicrous speed.’ Ludicrous speed is the faster-than-light speed from the 1987 movie Spaceballs, surpassing ‘light speed' and ‘ridiculous speed’ to reach ‘plaid’. Ordered by Dark Helmet, it requires extreme safety precautions (fastening seatbelts, securing the zoo) and causes physical discomfort. It is famously faster than light, which is considered "too slow".

The best speed of all, however, is ‘speedwork speed.’ Dan attempted to achieve this particular speed during today’s Yasso workout at the Brunswick Middle School Track. Although Dan did do ten 800s, it didn’t happen. His interval speed didn’t even reach battle speed. Maybe next week.

500 million Chinese don't know you're playing

In my younger days, UCLA had a basketball coach named John Wooden. His teams were highly successful, winning championship after championship. Yet he was known to be very down to earth. I recall a story about him trying to calm his team down prior to yet another National Championship Game. To try to help them understand that although sports are important, they should be kept in perspective, he told them, "There are 500 million Chinese who don't even know you are playing." Of course, nowadays, there are two and a half times that many Chinese, and many of them do know at least something about U.S. college hoops. More concerning to me is that my recollection isn't as accurate as I thought. I now find that the quote should be attributed to American sports commentator and former coach Bill Raftery, not John Wooden. Oh well.

I bring all this up because even though I was pleased as punch with myself after yesterday's 10-mile race, it isn't quite the cat's meow of road racing. As far as I can tell, I ran two ten-mile races slower and a whole bunch faster. This run was nearly a personal worst! My fastest ten is nearly 20-minutes better. I just compiled a list. I am probably missing several, but here it is.