Jan-April 2017

The year started off with me in a boot rather than hitting the roads like I'd hoped. I spent about 3 weeks wearing the boot recovering from a calcaneus injury. Because of this, Kimi and I opted out of the Phoenix Marathon to focus on building mileage and strength towards the spring so we could have a solid spring racing season. We wanted this to propel us right into our Chicago Marathon training cycle which will really get rolling the last week of June.

I managed to get in shape enough to race mostly off of fresh legs and experience during the month of April. My highest mileage week was about 62 miles and the majority of my mileage was near 55-58 for about 4 weeks prior to Rock the Parkway. The key was to make sure that I was putting in quality miles in the process. There wasn't much fluff in those miles. Kimi and I ran pretty well at Rock the Parkway considering how windy it was that day. She took home the 1st place overall women's spot and I think I finished about 8th place overall on the men's side. This was my 2nd race of the spring season and right in the middle of a 5 races in 6 weeks stretch. Which we are still in the middle of right now. We have one more race to crush this Saturday so long as the flood waters don't prevent the race from taking place (I'm so glad the rain is finally letting up).

Last weekend was a crazy adventure. We went to the USATF half marathon championships in Columbus, OH which was hosted by the Ohio Health Capital City half marathon. They did a great job with the race and it was a wonderful experience. Unfortunately, they were unable to keep the weather from rolling in and crushing the finish line festivities. The lightning and rain just got crazy in a hurry. It really didn't rain during the race for those of us that were able to run fast enough to get done in the 90 minute window from when the race started. I felt bad for all the others that were either pulled off the course due to the storm or were stuck in it for the last few miles trying to finish up.

Kimi and I both had great races though. The wind was pretty calm and conditions were nearly ideal other than some higher humidity. They started the championship runners about 4 minutes and 30 seconds ahead of the first corral. I was shocked when I actually started catching some of the championship women around mile 5. The women that I was caught definitely were having some cramping or injury issues as they didn't look good at all. Later in the race, I started reeling in some other championship women that were still not having great days. I just kept hoping that none of them would be Kimi because that would mean that she was having a horrible day.  Fortunately, I made the final turn to the finish line and she wasn't in sight so I knew that she had at least finished already. I was a little bit disappointed as my goal was to go sub 1:15:00 but all things considered, I was still pleased as I ran a 1:15:10. That's the fastest half marathon I've run in several years (mostly due to me not targeting a half and focusing on the full marathon).

The trip back was an adventure. We decided to make a 40 minute detour to go to an outlet mall in Cincinnati on the way back. It was worth it as we found some good running gear at the Saucony outlet.  Then we started the long trip the rest of the way home. It was going pretty smoothly until we got to Effingham, IL (approximately 5 hours away from home or about the half way point in the trip). That's when the national weather service came across the radio and reported that there were tornado warnings and quarter size hail coming straight towards us. We decided the best thing to do was to find somewhere to pull over and ride out the first wave of storm. We waited it out for 30-40 minutes allowing the worst part to pass over. Then it was back on the highway home. Another delay happened after we made it past Rolla. There was an accident that made I-44 come to a stand still for 30 minutes. The final 7 or so hours were all in the rain and darkness. We finally made it home by midnight. I think I'm still recovering from the trip.

As for my yearly mileage, I'm way behind. Kimi has about a 300 mile lead on me for the year since I got off to such a slow start. I'm still hoping that we can have such a solid summer of training that I have a chance to reach 3,000 miles for the year. We will see how the rest of the year goes though.

Oh, and on other news. My chiropractic practice will be changing locations for the second time in a little over a year. Hopefully, this will be the last move for quite some time. We're really excited about the future as our new facility is going to allow us to do some incredible stuff.



As the excitement in training continues to build and our new office gets rolling, I'll be sure to write more frequently to let everyone know how things are progressing. Until then, keep on running everyone!
 

Injuries Stink!

This year's Bass Pro Conservation Marathon was successful. We went into this race with a non-PR mindset. We never intended to shoot for a PR. Our goal was to run it at such a pace that it would springboard our confidence into next year. For those of you that have been following my training and racing, you know that this was my 5th marathon since June 2015. I ran in the 2015 Grandma's marathon (Jun, 2:40:19), 2015 Twin Cities Medtronic Marathon (Oct, 2:39:50), 2016 Los Angeles Marathon (Feb, 2:42:45), 2016 Grandma's Marathon (Jun, 2:36:40), and finally 2016 Bass Pro Conservation Marathon (Nov, 2:44:57).  Needless to say, I'm a bit tired from the amount of training it's taken to get those results. More so than being physically tired, I'm mentally worn out.

Headed towards the Bass Pro marathon, my training was decent. I wouldn't say it was stellar by any means though. It became a chore to get out there daily and just get the runs in. They typically went okay once I got myself motivated enough to do them, but that in itself was enough of a battle that I knew it was going to be time to take a rest and recovery break once we got through the race.  I like to have the feeling of looking forward to my run, rather than feeling like it's something I just have to get in.

I scheduled myself 5 days off with absolutely no running following Bass Pro. It's amazing how quickly that goes by sometimes. By Saturday, I was actually excited to get up and go for an easy 3 mile run. That's a first time in months I've had that feeling. I made it about 2 miles before I started feeling some discomfort in my heel. I stopped, stretched lightly with some active isolated stretching and then continued the rest of the way home. Unfortunately, I could tell something just wasn't right. I worked in the yard all day bagging leaves and when I awoke on Sunday, I had enough discomfort in the heel that walking normal was pretty much impossible. It was official, I had reached a breaking point.

It's very frustrating when injuries occur. I'm a chiropractor and work with others all the time that are dealing with running related injuries. Unfortunately, you can feel like you do all the right things, and then still end up with an injury. That's just a part of being an athlete. I'm not trying to diminish it by any means because being injured always stinks. However, with rehab and giving the body just a little assistance, healing occurs and a return to activity happens.

It's been about 5 weeks since the injury first started and I'm getting back into things. I'm by no means 100% yet but I'll continue with the rehab process for the next 10 weeks to continue building tendon strength. I try to view this as a blessing because it's giving me a little extra time to get things done around the house (small home renovation project underway again😄 which should be the last major project at this house).

I'll keep you posted on my progress as try to get myself ready to run (not racing) the Phoenix marathon in February. YIKES! It's only 11 weeks away! I hope I can get in shape by then! :)

Pre-Bass Pro write up, just posted a bit late! :)

With my final race of the fall season just 6 days away, I decided I would take this time to recap my fall racing/training season. After the Grandma's marathon in June where I finally met my sub 6 min average goal that I had been working towards for a couple years, I really struggled mentally to regroup and set another goal. To be honest, I still haven't been able to get myself 100% focused on any particular goal. I signed up for the Bass Pro full marathon during the early signups this year knowing that it would be my 9th marathon. At the time, I never really thought about how difficult the training would be for me to get back to my peak level (I just don't do as well in the heat and this summer seemed to go on forever).  Bass Pro will wrap up my fall racing season. I raced a couple times this fall. The only two races I ran this fall were both 10k's. The Plaza 10k was an awesome race. I ran one of my best road times at 34:26. Then a few weeks later, Kimi and I went up to Columbia to run the Roots N Blues 10k. We ran a really solid race. The plan was to run it together and that's precisely what we did. This is a much tougher course than the Plaza 10k course so our times reflected it. We ran right around 35:30. Another solid outing though.

Track day! Love 'em!

One of the highlights of my entire fall so far didn't even come from my own personal running. I want to take this time to talk just a little about how proud I am of all the athletes I get the opportunity to coach. I have the opportunity to work with runners of all levels. Some are working toward their first 5k or improving upon their past 5k's. Others working towards and completing their first marathons. It's difficult for me to express the joy I get working with other runners and seeing their accomplishments. In June, I was able to witness one of my runners complete her first ever marathon at the Grandma's marathon. It was amazing! She even qualified for the Boston Marathon! Another one of the athletes I coach was able to finally break the 3 hour barrier in the marathon back in early October. She had been working towards this goal for a long time and I was simply happy to be a small part in it.

One last story (there are many and I simply don't have the time for all of them). I have to give props to one other athlete that I'm very proud of as well. She and I have been working together for close to a year now. She had some injuries that I helped her with and then I started coaching her towards running a half marathon. I was very impressed with her dedication and discipline. She's not blazing fast which is what makes it even more impressive. The athletes that impress me the most are the ones that aren't blazing fast but are very determined to get to the finish line. She completed the half just under 2 hrs 30 minutes. Immediately after that, she told me that she wanted to do a full marathon. I could see the determination in her face and proceeded to explain the amount of work it would take for her to get to the finish line at 26.2 miles. It would take hours and hours of running, training, and nutrition consulting to get her there. She had to struggle through some 18 and 20 mile runs which take 3-4 hours of her time on the weekends to get finished (unlike myself which takes about 2 hrs 20 minutes or so). In October, she ventured up to the Twin Cities Marathon and took on the challenge. Heading into the race, she was very concerned about whether she would make it to the finish line fast enough to be allowed to finish. A few days after the race, she came into my office wearing her medal with extreme joy on her face. She had finished the marathon and wasn't even close to the time cut off. These are the stories that inspire me in my practice. I'm always truly honored to be a small part of these success stories.

Grandma's Marathon 2016! 4th time's the charm! Part 2

4:00 a.m. - The ring of the alarm clock did its thing. It was time for Kim to get up and make her way down to the front of our hotel to board her bus. I remained in bed for another 30 minutes though I didn't fall back to sleep. At this point, sleep was just out of the question as the nerves were already starting to get going. At 4:30, it was my time to get up. My alarm went off and up I jumped out of bed ready to tackle the task of the day. The Grandma's marathon has been my favorite race as evidenced by this being my 4th time to run it and I've only run 8 marathons total. At 4:45, exactly 3 hours prior to the start of my race, I started scarfing down my breakfast which included 1 whole bagel and a banana plus a whole bottle of water.

All registered runners were listed on the car. 

For those of you that have never done the Grandma's Marathon, let me describe it a bit more in detail.  The Grandma's Marathon is a point-to-point race starting in Two Harbors, MN and then traveling Southwest along the North shore of Lake Superior. To get to the starting line, you have a couple options. You can either board a bus or take the train to the starting line. The thought of riding the train actually sounds like fun except that it is a longer ride to the start and I imagine it being a little more cramped than on the bus. That's why I decided on the bus. The course itself is nearly flat with only one decent incline around mile 22.

This particular morning was a warm one starting out at 68 degrees and clear skies. There was very little wind which was perfectly fine with me. I was a quite a bit nervous about the temperatures being too warm but I wasn't going to let it change my mind about giving it everything I had to try and break the 2:37 barrier. I was very focused this morning. In the past, I usually find other runners to talk to on the bus or while waiting around near the starting area. Not this morning. I had put together a 'get psyched' playlist on my phone to get some energizing songs stuck in my head and I spent the entire time up until I dropped off my gear bag listening to it and just remaining focused.

Kimi was running the half marathon this morning and her race started at 6:15 in the morning whereas mine started at 7:45. With this timing, I was able to track her on my phone all the way to the finish line and then ditch my gear bag and head to the start. It is always a great feeling when she runs on the same day as me and I get to see how well she does prior to starting my race. If you want to get more details about her race, check out her blog all about it by clicking Kimi's Blog.  With the results of how she ran, I had even more confidence headed into my race.

The facilities

The starting line corral 50 minutes before the start

While I was waiting to see the results of Kimi's race, I was waiting for one final pit stop at the porta-potty. The line took what seemed like forever. I've never really understood what takes people so long on this. If you need to spend 5 minutes in there, then get in line extra early before the lines start forming. Anyhow, I immediately started warming up with a jog to the bag drop and then a jog to the starting line. Then I spent the final 5 minutes jogging in place and doing some active stretching to get the muscles warmed up.

Finally, the gun sounded and off we went. All 7500+ runners started funneling out of the starting area. It took me about 6 seconds to get across the official starting line. Because of the heat, I started conservatively with my first mile at 6:07 and then kept rolling for the next 6 or so miles in the 6:00-6:05 range with the majority being really close to 6:00. As far as I can recall, I never allowed myself to get more than about 30 seconds over 6 minute pace. I had been following a pack of about 6 girls and 5 guys for several miles already when I noticed one girl was trailing just about 20 meters or so behind the pack. I slowly pulled up next to her as she was running all alone and she didn't let me go right by. She picked up the pace just enough to stay right beside me as I was surging forward a bit. I started talking to her and found out that she was a former Dallas Baptist runner so we were able to converse about some Missouri Southern cross country and track events that she had attended (MO Southern was were I went to school). I asked her what her goal was and at that time she was shooting for a sub 2:40. I told her that I intended to run sub 2:37 and it didn't seem to phase her a bit. She went right along with me. We kept clipping off mile after mile and then at mile 10, I reached down to grab my first GU and was shocked when I found that both of my pockets were empty. My GU had somehow fallen out of my pockets. Fortunately for me, my new found racing partner (Kelsey Bruce), had some fuel on the women's elite tables. She was only using about half of her gel and half of her fluids so she started handing me the remainder after she was done. I have to say, I think that she might have seriously saved my race. Kelsey and I came through the half marathon about 20 seconds over a 6 minute average. I didn't panic one bit. I told her that I was going to start picking it up around mile 16 in hopes to run a rock solid final 10 miles and still reach my goal.

We worked together all the way until mile 23. I'm so used to running with elite women since my usual running partner is one that Kelsey and I just kept feeding off each other's energy. We went through aid station after aid station with her splitting to the right to grab her fluids and me splitting to the left to grab mine and then quickly regrouping after the station. If I pulled ahead a little during the aid station, she'd pull right back up to me and when she'd happen to get through a little faster than me, I'd do the exact same thing. At mile 23, the women's elite race was really ramping up. Much earlier in the race, Kelsey and I had worked together to catch that small group of elite women and we were a lot of the reason the group started to split up some. At this point though there were only a few women competing for the top 4-8 spots and one of them passed us around 3 miles to go. I had been checking the time at each mile marker and knew that I was on pace to hit my goal so long as I didn't have any implosion in the final 3 miles. Part of me wanted to try and pick up the pace to see just how good I could finish but wisdom told me to just keep the pace strong and consistent. With my prior experiences, I knew that you could be flying one minute and the next thing you know, you're out of gas and crawling in.

I watched Kelsey pull away from me as she started chasing and competing with the other elite women just in front of us. Now it was all me. I stayed focused as I came to the brick road in downtown Duluth. There wasn't much shade so I just kept grabbing sponges and cups of water to cool myself (I had started doing this for the final 10k at every aid station) and put a look of determination on my face. I know I did this as I could hear many people in the crowd point it out. My pictures back that up too. I had finally reached the final mile and knew that if I just kept it around a 6 minute pace, I would be golden to reach my goal. It hurt like crazy but I told myself, 'why hurt and lose when you can hurt and win!', which is one of the few things I learned from my collegiate coach. As I crossed the 26 mile mark, I panicked for a moment. I saw the clock and knew I had 90 seconds to get to the finish line. In my mind, I was thinking that I had a quarter mile to go which meant I had to run under a 6 minute pace for the final quarter to get across under my goal. I didn't want to leave anything to chance so I immediately poured out everything I had left.

I made it to the final 30 meters and that's when reality set in. I was going to accomplish my goal! Emotions immediately rushed across my entire face and throughout my entire body. Sometimes, when you want something so bad, and work extremely hard to get it, you take the time to envision what it will be like to accomplish it. I had been doing that all week. I just knew that if I came across that line on pace, I'd be doing some crying tears of joy and relief. My finishing photos are a bit embarrassing for me to show to everyone but I figure why not give you all a glimpse of what it looks like to see pure emotion after 26.2 miles and miles and miles of training, discipline, and focus.

The question everyone asks me now, is "Now that you've reached that goal, what are you going to do next?"  My answer, "set a new goal and go for it stress free knowing that I've already reached my lifetime goal. Everything from here on is just having fun and putting icing on top of the cake!"

The view of Mile 25 from our hotel room window.

This marks the Grandma's Marathon finish line permanently!

Grandma's Marathon 2016! 4th time's the charm! Part 1

It's been a while since my last post. Heading into this year's Grandma's Marathon training, I decided that I wanted to try and reduce the pressure that I had been putting on myself over the last year so I put the blogging aside for a bit. I wanted to focus on my training without any additional pressures.

Now that I've reached my goal, I'm able to sit down and reflect on the past year's ups and downs. Starting last year heading into the 2015 Grandma's marathon Kimi and I had an awesome training buildup. We nailed every workout, and felt incredibly strong. We both had the same target goal of going sub 2:37. Unfortunately, a tree limb had a different idea for how my final 3 weeks were going to go heading into the race. During our 24 mile long run 3 weeks out, I reached up  to brush off a tree limb while heading down the Frisco trail instead of running around it and 'BAM!' there it went! Something got me right in my ring finger in the proximal-inter-phalangeal joint. Who knew that something so simple could be the start of a series of dominoes that would derail my running for a while. My finger swelled to a point that I was afraid I might actually lose the finger since my ring was stuck on the finger and pressure was building around it. I was fortunate that I was able to talk a jeweler into cutting the ring off, but that wasn't the end of it. The finger still didn't want to bend and I was starting to get really concerned since I use my hands quite intensely every day in order to treat patients. This became quite the stressful event for me. Just a few days before the marathon, I started having side stitch issues during the 2 mile shake'm out runs. I couldn't make it more than a mile without being bent over with pain in my right abdomen. This is never a good feeling right before a marathon. I had to change my game plan mentally right before the race. Kimi and I were planning to run stride for stride together for the entire race to hit our goal. I decided to just do what I could and if/when the side stitch gets me, I would just have to let Kimi go and I'd be on my own the rest of the way. Much to my surprise, I made it through 20 miles without the side-stitch getting me. Then it happened. I just let Kimi go and she went on to run the best marathon of her life so far. I did manage to regather myself and still ran a decent time but was a bit disappointed since I knew that I was in much better shape than what I got to show on that day.

Following that race, I had a rash break out on the right side of my abdomen. Sure enough, I ended up with a small shingles outbreak (I can still feel the effects of this occasionally, bleh! and the finger still doesn't bend the same to this day!).

It didn't take me long to pick out my next target marathon. The Twin Cities marathon in October was about 15 weeks away. Not ideal, but I thought I would be able to bounce back and be mentally and physically prepared in time for it so why not. Kimi could run the USA 10 mile Championships and I would run the marathon. Training for this went really well. I nailed pretty much every workout and some of them were faster than I'd ever done before. I thought this one would have a good shot of going under the 6 min/mile barrier as I headed into it. I ran a great race through 23, and probably ran a bit too great since I was on pace for a 2:35 with only 5k to go. That's when the wheels fell off and I just couldn't keep it together. I ended up having to stop and walk a bit as the legs tied up. Then I got it going again and just did keep myself under 2:40 for a finish time. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed again.

I didn't let myself get too discouraged though. I was hoping to hit my goal at TCM but after I didn't, I started to get the idea that perhaps I should run the L.A. Marathon in February, the day after Kimi was set to run in the Olympic Trials Marathon. This would make my 3rd marathon in 7 months. I never thought I'd run that many in such a short amount of time.  I think Kimi even wanted me to run the L.A. Marathon so that she'd have me training right along side her all winter long.  Training was going really well until 2 weeks out from L.A. Once again, we had been nailing every workout. Two weeks out, I had some more unfortunate luck. I managed to strain one of my left quadriceps muscles. I immediately started getting treatment from Kimi and also started ramping up my own personal treatments as well. I was having so many issues that I could hardly run on the leg so I just simply took time off while getting treatment in hopes that I might at least be able to run the marathon as a long training run. Four days before the race, I was feeling pretty normal so I decided I'd do a bit of an up tempo effort to just challenge my quad a bit. Much to my surprise, it didn't bother me and I ran fairly decent for the short tempo run. Once again, this changed my race plan. I decided to go into the race with the idea of starting off conservative and feeling it out as I went. In the back of my mind, I thought I might be able to run a decent time but I was unsure at what point I would really start picking up the pace. I covered the first 4 miles at about 6:45 pace feeling pretty good. Then I slowly started dropping the pace a bit. By the 10 mile mark, I was pretty confident in my leg so I really started rolling. I clipped off a lot of miles just under 6 min pace  but the damage had already been done in regards to reaching my original goal. A big takeaway from this race was that I completed it, and ran strong all the way through the finish having practiced my nutrition intake that Cassie Dimmick (dietitian at Achieving Your Best, LLC) and I had been working on over the last several months. I managed a 2:42:45 which shocked me!

My focus finally shifted back to the Grandma's Marathon. I had run this race the 3 previous years and knew that the course and weather had typically been conducive for fast running. I assumed that this year would be no different. For the entire training cycle, I just had a feeling that this was going to be a hot year at the Grandma's marathon. This was solely based on the fact that April was really warm here and that it was getting unseasonably warm here early. With that in mind, I made an extra effort to keep my shirt on during warm runs to try to get myself a little more mentally and physically adapted to a possible warmer race condition.  This year, I was going it alone for the Grandma's marathon. Kimi had decided that she wanted to target a fast half marathon so our training would have to be a little different in our buildups.  We did the same workouts for the most part but many times, I would simply add more distance to the workout than she would do. All of our training went extremely well and we were both maintaining pretty solid health headed into this years race (I made sure not to touch any tree limbs or do anything that might freakishly injure myself).

Now, all that was left is to get to Duluth, hope for good weather, and execute the race plan!

LA Trip Recap! Only a month late! :)

A lot has happened since my last post. I simply don't have the time to go into detail on all of it so here's a short recap.

Kimi's Olympic Trials Marathon was definitely an experience. If you haven't heard by now, she ran 2:52:45 in some brutal marathon temperatures with very little shade on the entire course. Her race was broadcast live on NBC which is pretty cool. You can even see Kimi for the first couple miles of the race (we watched it on DVR when we got home).

I raced the LA marathon the day after her trials marathon. 2 weeks prior to the race, I strained my quadriceps muscles and thought I might not be able to do the marathon at all. Fortunately I was able to get a lot of treatment from a pretty great physical therapist (Kimi) and did a lot of self treatment as well. I did a 10 mile run on the Monday prior to the marathon just to see how my leg would handle it. Then on Wednesday after arriving in LA, I did a short 2 mile tempo run to see if I could handle the faster pace. Much to my surprise this went pretty well also.

I still was concerned entering the race so I decided to forego my original goal and just feel out the race and have some fun. I started much more conservative than I normally would and came through the half in about 1:21. Then I decided to pick it up since I was feeling just fine. The next 7 miles were pretty solid with paces right at or slightly under 6 min pace. Then we hit a stretch of uphill and heat which made it tough to maintain the faster pace. I was able to get the pace back down for the final 6 miles and actually finished with my fastest last mile of a marathon yet. It was about a 5:40-5:45 mile. It's hard to be certain since my Garmin doesn't always beep directly on the markers.

Since the marathon, I have been in the process of refocusing my training to get ready for what I hope will be my best training cycle yet. Headed to the 40th annual Grandma's Marathon in June!

By the way, I'm also nearing the end of my 3rd week at my new office location! It's been great here so far!