Running with screws in your shoes

Yesterday morning, Tuesday, I did get up early enough to go for a run. If you read my previous blog posting you will know that I had rigged up a pair of running shoes by inserting ¼ inch sheet metal screws into the soles using a power drill, I should add, as a way to get traction running on ice and packed snow. Well, the verdict came in. A definitive success! They work very well. If you look at the photo of my shoe, you will get the idea of what it looks like and also the size of the screw.

I ran to the river. My street still had a layer of ice/snow. I did some little test stops and starts and the things do really grip well. It is easy to feel confident with them. I ran on the road for a little bit and they are fine for running on paved roads. Not something you would want to do all the time but not a problem and they grip perfectly adequately—there is a clacking sound as they hit the road and you lose a bit of shock absorbency too, I think. The shoes that I put the screws into are very old and probably have not much cushioning left. I probably should have used a pair that was not quite so used up. The only surface that the screw shoes are not good on is the red brick sidewalks that you get around here. The bricks don’t offer much traction. I think it is because they very hard and smooth, this despite having gaps between the bricks.
When I got to the river I realized that they have given up trying to keep the paths clear. I think they did try for the first storm and not for the second, or at least on the Cambridge side of the river. This isn’t so good. And even part of the path that was cleared had snow that was plowed off the road thrown in on top. I ran on this for a couple hundred meters but that’s annoying. Then I ran on unplowed paths for a few hundred meters. Not much fun either—you really need to concentrate on both these surfaces or you risk landing badly and potentially hurting an ankle. And my ankles seem to be always to be a little sensitive to slights of this nature. One of my traning goals is always to strengthen them, and I do from time to time, but not consistently. Do I see a New Year’s resolution abrewing. Anyway, I hope that the rain we are having today starts a thawing process so the paths along the river, and the sidewalks generally clear up and we don’t have a winter of running discontent. I renewed my gym membership last week assuming that some of my training will have to be done indoors. I had no problem whatsoever with traction. I did have problems with not feeling much energy. But I cannot blame the shoes for that.

The first month of my training ends this Sunday coming. Four weeks in. I am very happy with how things have gone so far. Sometime between now and the end of the year I am going to spend a little time evaluating how things have gone and a little time examining the next while. I have been reading a book about Kenyan runners and a little component of one coach’s training struck me. I think my next blog will be a little review of the month and a preview of the next while. Bet you cannot wait! Thanks for reading, and Happy Christmas.

Hold on to your hat.

I came across a great story recently about scientists reexamining long held truths. Truths that sometimes turn out not be really true at all. After long and arduous research they concluded that there is not any proven cure, regardless of how exotic or farfetched it might sound, for hangovers. Fair enough. But, the piece that caught my attention was their debunking of the widely held belief that most heat is lost through the head. The belief, they relate, came from a U.S. army survival manual from 40 years ago that advised on the importance of head covering in harsh weather due to the proven fact that 40-45% of body heat was lost through the old noggin. Very pertinently, these debunking science chaps said, “If as much as 45 percent of body heat were lost through your head, going out without a hat would feel like going out without trousers.” Flaw in the study apparently was that it was done in extreme conditions and the only part of the participants uncovered was the head, so in that case the 40-45% heat loss figure through the head was possible.

It is hard to let go of something that is widely held to be true. Sometimes when I go running when it is cold but not freezing, I think about whether I will wear gloves or whether I will wear a hat. And, it seems that often the hat wins and the gloves stay at home. Wonder how much heat I lose through the hands? Head and hands are the two parts of the body most often exposed to the elements, and they are both pretty sensitive. Cold fingers hurt, cold ears really hurt in a sharper way. But I can imagine some other parts of the body that would hurt even more if left exposed to the elements. Like Saturday for example: I went running on the snow. We got a fairly big storm here on Friday night. 7-8 inches or so. So, Saturday morning I went out for a run. Planned to do 5 miles or so along the Charles River and if conditions were decent, well, maybe I would stay out a while and get my weekly long run done. The paths along the river were mostly ploughed and cleared, but there was not much road showing under a layer of lightly packed, snowplowed snow. In general, the river is a great place to run—if you wish you can run about half of the circuit from the Science Museum to Harvard Square and beyond on the grass margin by the side of the path. I like to do that as it cuts down a bit on the wear and tear on the joints. Fine place to run, but also a windy place to run. Especially when you are on the Boston side of the river along the Esplanade where the July 4 celebration takes place. Even when it appears as though it is a calm day, chances are you will find a stiff breeze down along there; however, when you have a cold, wintery day, chances are you will encounter an arctic blast. They should start a wind farm there. The wind in the winter at least seems to blow from the West toward the ocean, which is a mile or two away. And if you are doing a counter clockwise loop—with the wind in your sails—you think you have found that effortless pace, finally. And if you are running the opposite, you see the runners coming toward you who think they are suddenly fast while you lean forward just to remain vertical. The aching ears might be the worst part. There’s a good mile of exposure until you get some limited shelter from trees as you get closer to the Boston University boathouse.

I have done a few cold runs along there. I remember one from a couple of years ago in February or March of 2006 when the Gatorade in my water bottle turned into a slushy. It was pretty slippery on Saturday, and I was extra cautious as it is just about a year since I fell on that path by the river and kinda had to stop running for a couple of weeks. And to help prevent that from occurring again, following directions I saw in a recent Runner’s World article and on this website, I decided to try out putting 1/2 inch hex-head sheet metal screws into the soles of a pair of my running shoes as a way to gain some real traction out on icy and frozen paths. This very day, I went to the hardware store and bought a box of screws. I have rigged up the shoes, and tomorrow morning if I can get out of bed in time, I will go and try them out before I go to work. And that is what my next blog will be about.

Thanks for reading.

Mill Cities Relay. The lesson today=Warm Up Properly, James, [you dummy].

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Mill Cities Relay. The cities are Nashua, New Hampshire, Hudson, NH, Lowell, Massachusetts, Dracut, MA, and Lawrence, MA. The route is along the Merrimack River on roads and bike/multi-use paths.There is a nice little bit of history here about the run and the area. The history is stamped along the sides of the river, which is a pretty decent little brook of at least 200 hundred yards wide at its widest. It has some really interesting dams and other controls for the river still clearly evident, though I think the milling industry is no more and has ceased to be. I cannot find a photo to describe it; this one gives the broad idea.

So, 27.1 miles broken up into five legs: 5.6, 4.75, 2.5, 9.5, and 4.75. I had the fourth leg. Mostly flat, the only steep parts were going down and coming up from the bike path section. It was a snowy and slippery morning; cold but not freezing. Roads were a bit icy. I traveled up with the guy doing leg five, Steven. I am keeping this posting short, btw. I didn't warm up enough, and from the start for about three miles my shins, especially the right, were bugging me. I slowed up and walked a little bit, and stopped at one point and gave the right one a bit of a pounding. I didn't really have a top day. I think I did about 6 minute 55 second miles, which is around just fine as this was primarily a hard training run and I didn't need to try any heroics despite being passed it seemed by everyone but forty-something fertility aided mothers with their triplet-holding strollers. They must have been at Baby Gap today, thankfully. My first relay race and it was a good experience. It is well organized and seems to have tons of people who have done it often before and who seem to all know lots of other folks doing it too. Much welcomed soup and pasta at the end and two very good and sweet m&m cookies. Nice nap followed when I got home.

Again, thanks for reading! Drop me an email.

Week the first - small adventures related mediocrely.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

I am updating my runs for the last few days, and it seems simplest to do it in chronological order.

Wednesday, December 3, was hills day.
2mile warm up and then 6 [or 8 depending on which version of the schedule] 75 second runs up a hill of your choosing. Then 1.5 mile cool down.
Well, about all I can say is that I did it. I got home from work and felt a bit flattened, so to help get over that I ate a half a bag of potato chips. I am binge eater or potato chips. When I start eating them I have difficulty stopping. And I my hand just keeps going into the bag. So I close up the bag and put a clip on it, but my two hands just seem to reopen the bag and the one hand goes right back in. After getting myself stopped eating the chips, I needed a little lie down [after my healthy supersnack] and so on. By the time I actually get out the door it is about 7:30. Not surprisingly I didn't have much energy. My warm up was uneventful but then came the hard part--the hill. Not just any hill, but Prospect Hill. Built for some historic reason in 1912 because it was the spot where the first United States flag was flown or something during the war of independence. Check out this website for some better history and some great photos. This photo shows the road up the hill being constructed. It is completely recognizable but the picture does not really show the gradient. It is a nasty little @#$%@#$%^ of a hill. I have run up it dozens of times in the last few years... it has a tight turn about half way up and ends with a children's playground on the right. Lots of times the kids have been merrily shrieking in the playground with my lungs been screaming louder.
I had to use a bit of trickery to get myself to do the six repeats. No way I wanted to. In fact after two I didn't think I would do more. But one by one, I did it--that was the trick, one at a time. Each repeat took about 65 seconds, which is 10 short of what the schedule calls for. But close enough.

Thursday, December 4, is Khoury's night. Khoury's is a longstanding, if not so upstanding, bar where we meet and take shelter before and after. This Somerville Road Runners weekly run/race has been going on for a long time--thirteen years or something without a break. I do it as often as I can, usually 2-3 times a month. Tonight, I ran with Ed, who has been my friend since we went to Honduras years ago with the church. Ed was moving pretty well, while I huffed and puffed my way through the 4.13 miles. I didn't have much breath for chit-chat, or wise-ass commentary even. And even though I didn't go very fast it still seemed kinda rough. Winter Hill, which is about 1/3 of a mile into the run is a nasty hill to run up and has some nasty associations too. I'll get into some of those in a later Thursday, Khoury's run post.

Friday, December 5: This was a first: I ran home from work. It's 4.4 miles according to google pedometer. And it took me 32 minutes, which my online running log [about which more later] calcuates at 7 minute 16 second miles. I hope that is correct. But it didn't seem like I was going quite that fast so there may be a miscalculation somewhere there. Officially, this was my Fartlek run. Don't even ask me to pronounce that. Some Swede invented this and invented the name too, and for some reason the name stuck. Think up your own jokes. You can find a definition right here. Basically, what you just build in some faster periods of running during a training run. Could be any kind of run, anywhere, anytime with short speedier bursts thrown in now and again. Can be done casually, when you suddenly feel like just letting loose (which would be about once a year in my case) or as my schedule calls for 6X75 second Fartleks at 3000m speed, which to get technical about it is not quite the fastest you can go but fast enough so you will not want to do it all day. Truth be told, I kinda forgot that and ended up throwing in a 3 short ones in the last mile. Ooops. This running from work is a very time efficient way to get your workout in. If I do end up doing this regularly, I will probably want to get a snug, small backpack with chest and waist straps. I need to ask around for some suggestions.

Today, Saturday, December 6, I went out this morning to the Charles River. And ran 5.5 total. Felt pretty good. It was a chilly morning but when I got to the river it felt good with the sun out. There was no wind to speak of. A comfortable day to run. There's a thin sheet of ice at the sides of the river. A few people were out running. Though I think more people were shopping today than running, though. A couple of groups were out--probably students from MIT or Harvard. They are always young and lean and fast. I was a bit hungry during my run. I didn't have much dinner last night and maybe not enough breakfast this morning. I wore my Asic Speedstars today; they are lighter than my usual Brooks Dyad's. I have not worn them in a while and I wanted to make sure my feet didn't have a bad reaction before I wear them at the Mill Cities Relay tomorrow. This is the first relay race I have done. It is with my running club, Somerville Road Runners. There will be more about the race soon. I promise.
For now, thanks for reading! And, soon I hope to get a small, light camera and carry it on some runs to get some photos to liven up my page a little and show you what the landscape looks like, and also to try to encourage you to come back again.

At the beginning

3pm, Dec. 2, 2008
New shoes for the first official training run of my 2009 Boston Marathon training schedule. Yesterday was day one but it being a Monday was a rest day; hence today is the first run.
And here is the schedule for today:

• 5.5 or 7 mile @base pace, which for me is between 7 and 8 minutes per mile.
• High knees 2X20seconds (p.96)
• Bounding 2X20 (p.96)
• Optional--run or cross train for 20-60 minutes, and let's just say that is not going to happen today.

And off I go. I came into work early today and am going to head out now at 3:20pm and run along the Charles River.
11:01pm, same day.
Pretty nice afternoon for a run. I headed down to the Charles River, which is about half a mile away down along the west side of the famous Mt Auburn Cemetery (not open to runners or cyclists), and down a short hill. Wore a light fleece hat and didn't wear gloves. Long running pants and 2 lightish shirts--about the right combination. I headed east along the river on the bike/multiuse path for about .75 of a mile and crossed the Eliot Bridge and changed direction going about 1.5 miles or so to the Beacon St. bridge. I did a total of about 6.75 miles in just under an hour. That works out at about eight and a quarter minutes per mile. Felt pretty good--nothing too eventful happened, the sun shone, there were a few people in boats on the river, schulls, I think they are called, a state trooper [police officer] at the scene of a minor car accident, a few groups of runners--one group looked like a college team of about 6 guys, and two female harvard students who refused to yield any of the bike path to me. Damn them and their floppy pony tails and their ostentatious harvard clothing.
Aches and pains? This will be a regular feature, as I always seem to have at least one or two or three niggles. Nothing too much today, just my right calf that has been giving me a little grief now for about a month. I hurt it running on a rough trail in Middlesex Fells partly because I wore my light trail shoes that don't have any cushioning to speak of. Right ankle, seemingly in sympathy is also chipping in with a harmonious twang. I started some strengthening exercises for it yesterday and hope to get it looked at soon by a professional. My left knee gave me quite a little jolt about halfway through and had me hopping for a few steps. It does that now and again and leaves me wondering if or more likely when something really bad is going to happen. Finally, the new shoes worked fine. I don't know if running shoes need breaking in--they might have been a tad stiff, and to be honest I am not sure I felt much difference between them and my old ones which I got in late July. I will still use the old ones for wet and dirty days and if I run trails. That is it for today--a nice day for running, and it felt pretty good to be out. Here is what tomorrow calls for:

• Dynamic Stretch Warmup (p125ff)
• 1.5 mile warmup @ recovery
• 6/8 X 75 sec hill reps @ 1mile pace w/ 2.5 min active recovery (p59 &64)
• 2 mile cool down @ recovery

This is always my least favorite because it hurts the most--that would be becuase of the hill part--it kind of beats you up. I need to decide what hill to use. I have a couple in mind. I will try to link to the google map and photos option so you can get a look at the one I choose.