Dallen

I'm moving my blog from blogger to fastrunningblog. Back in 1997-2000 I lived in Provo and trained with Sasha. Now I am living in Chicago finishing my residency training in radiology. I have been blogging for over 2 years. Sasha tried to convert me to this site long ago. I declined. Now I am ready to make the move.

I might give the longer version later, but here is the short running version. I worked down to a 2:39:46 marathon in 1999. In 2000 I unwisely took 4 years off from running during medical school. Started back up about 3 years ago. Ran a 2:42 marathon in Chicago last year and just recently managed to barely survive the infamous 2007 Chicago Marathon. If you are interested you can read about it here.

6 relatively easy miles today. I threw in 6x100 meter strides and finished with the 18 flights of stairs to my apartment.

I have been tryint to figure out how to lengthen my stride. It is very short. With easy running my cadence is about 190 and at higher speeds it is over 200 steps a minute. I have several theories on how to accomplish this:

- consciously try to run with a longer stride

- run faster on slow days

- form drills

I don't know if any of this will work, or even if it is a good idea to try to lengthen my stride. Maybe my short stride is the most efficient way for me to run. I think it does limit me at speeds faster than about 5:20/mile. 

I response to Lybi's question, I will be in Chicago until June 2009. After that I will be doing a 1 year fellowship, possibly in Utah, then I will most likely move to the Boise area.

It looks like I took one for the team.

At the recent marathon I was part of the team competition with my running club. Cross country style scoring. There were 12 of us on the team, top six count in the scoring. Only 6 of us finished, I was #6. The rest didn't start, or dropped out. We ended up getting 2nd place. We only lost be a few points, so we would have won if I had gone a little faster. However, if I had dropped out (like I should have), we would have only had 5 finishers and been disqualified.  Makes me glad that I hung in there.

11 days later, I'm still not feeling completely back to normal. I'm not sore, but I just don't have a lot of energy in my legs.

5 mile run to the park. A little over an hour of ultimate frisbee. 5 miles back home. I'm going to call it 14 miles total. It was definately a good workout.

That gives me 34 miles for the week. About 20 mles last week (excluding the marathon). This will probabably conclude my post-marathon recovery period. I should be able to resume some real running next week.

4 easy miles.

Felt some soreness form yesterdays running, but it was definately a new soreness rather than a return of the soreness from the marathon. That should mean that I am officially recovered. Now I am just left with the loss of fitness from a big taper and recovery. No big deal. The season is essentially over and the next important races will be in the spring.

6 easy miles in the morning.

4 easy miles in the evening doubling as a trip to Blockbuster.

I have a cold. I have no desire to push things this week, so I am not. Maybe next week.

This evening I was feeling lazy and planning on taking the day off. Then I got bored and decided to go down to the treadmill and put in a few miles (raining outside, which does not mix well with already being sick.)

I ended up feeling really good and couldn't help but push the pace. Put in a 6 minute mile and averaged 6:34.

I'm calling it 8 miles, which mostly involved playing a lot of ultimate frisbee. While we played the runners for a 50 miler/50K/marathon came by.

This race was just for fun. I ran wearing a gargoyle costume. My time would have got 2nd place in the race last year. This year word got out that tre is a 100/50/25 prize structure, the the fast guys came out ihn force. I was somewhere around 10-15th.

8 easy miles in the morning before work. I was a fairly worn out by the end of my run. My body does not really like running in the mornings, but it really needs to learn.

6 miles with 4 x 30 seconds and 4 x 60 seconds. I was originallty planning on a more formal interval session, but I didn't feel up to it. I still have a little chest congestion from the recent cold and a little residual soreness from the race this weekend. I finished the run with a trip up  the stairs to my 19th floor apartment (1:35).

6 easy miles in the morning before work. Uneventful. I may do some more this evening.

10 easy miles today. The workout consisted of running to pick up my trophy from the recent race. It's a gargoyle pencilholder, and it's a beaury. Much better the a plastic runner. I had left the race quickly because I didn't think that I was close to being in the top 3 of my age group. They used 10 year groups which made it even less likely. Anyway, I apparently got 3rd place. The official results are still not out, but the sent me an e-mail telling me to come get my hardware. Sadly this will probably be the only trophy I get this year.

Christmas came early this year. The running store that I I run for decided to geve me some winter runnig gear. I went to the store expecting to get a couple chesp shirts. I ended up with 3 nice shirts, three jackets, and 3 pairs of running pants. All high quality stuff courtesy of my friends at Fleet Feet Chicago and Nike. (Shameless plug...I owe them). This stuff was probably worth $300-$400. I will be well stocked this winter.

As for my running, I did 10 easy miles this morning. I say easy because I ran slow. Actual, it was hard to maintian even a slow pace this morning. Cardiovascularly I was fine, but my legs were not in the mood to cooperate. I am happy to say that I was able to pull myself from the happy confines of my bed to run before work 3 times this week. Not bad.

10 miles on the treadmill in 62:45. I really had no reason not to run outside, but for some reason I just fult like going on the treadmill.  Played a lot with the controls and ended up doing a couple 2 mile stretches in under 6:00 average pace. Felt good.

10 easy miles in the morning. I was feeling a little sore from yesterday's run on the treadmill. For some reason any time I do hard running on the treadmill it makes me much more sore than the equivalent workout outside. Not sure why.

6 easy miles before work.  I was planning on doing some more running this evening, but then I discovered that  I am on call this evening. I will see what I can fit in.

PM: 4 miles on the treadmill at 6:20-6:30 pace.

4x400 on the track. It was dark and cold and windy. I thought that I was running fast, but I was not. 77, 77, 79, ?.  I did the last on off of the track.

I really need to develop some more speed. This was pathetic. Cardiovascularly it was not that hard, but I felt like I was going full speed.

For various reasons I stopped at 7 miles. I will try to make up my 10 mile a day quota tomorrow.

6 easy miles. I am falling behind on my miles. I will do better. I did manage to add a photo, but clearly the quality is pretty bad.

8 easy miles before work. My body is not enjoying the recent increase in mileage after meny weeks of low mileage during the taper and recovery. I am fairly sure that I over tapered.

Frisbee day. 4 miles to the field, 2 hours playing and 4 miles back. Exhausted. I'm never really sure how much mileage to count when it's a frisbee day. Maybe I will try wearing the garmin next time.

10 easy mils this morning. I was feeling pretty beat up after spending over three hours running/frisbee yesterday. Considered quitting in the first few minutes, but kept going. Felt better after a while.  I should be able to put in some good mileage this week due to a fairly easy work schedule.

8 miles. This run doubled as a trip to pick up my car from the mechanic.

Tried to do some speedwork today. Planned for 4x400 on the track.

I have the luxury of living across the street from a track, which might not be a big deal in Utah, but there are not that many tracks in non-suburb Chicago. The downside is that the neighborhood is not the best, so it is not the brightest idea to run there when it is dark.

My first 400 was in a pitifully slow 82 seconds. It felt very clunky. I almost called the workout off, but decided to try another. 81 seconds. I decided to continue. 78 seconds, 77 seconds. For unknown reasons I decided to try another, 79 seconds.

Right now it is very frustrating for me to be running intervals. I feel like I shuld be able to run them faster than I can. This better improve with time.

PM: Added another 6 easy miles.

AM: 4 easy miles.

PM: 8 miles at a average pace of 6:30. Considering the 20+ MPH winds this was a pretty good workout.

If you would like a good read I would recommend you take a look at Duncan's blog. He is currently writing about his 5 day 100 mile stage race in the Himalayas. It is by far the best bit ofwriting that I have ever seen on a blog. He is about 6-8 installments in so you will have to scroll down a bit to start from the beginning. (As a warning, he does not always use family-friendly language.)

Half outside, half on the treadmill. 2 miles at 5:44 pace. Felt pretty good.

14 miles this morning including some frisbee.

10 easy miles this morning. I am glad to see that the days of frisbee are not taking as much out of me as they used to. I felt rather good today. I think all of the sprinting is making my legs a little stronger.

10 miles today. All easy. I got a haircut in the middle of the run. For whatever reason my legs were really tired.

A week or so ago Sasha recommended that I do 10 x 100 to see what happens. I have no idea what he wanted to see, but for a good semi-scientific test I suppose it is better that I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing it for. Sasha, you will have to let me know what you were thinking.

I ran the straights of the track and jogged the corners. The first 8 were at almost full speed, that last 2 were as fast as I could go. 17.9, 17.6, 17.3, 17.1, 16.4, 16.4, 16.7, 16.7, 15.7, 15.4.

I thought about addong on some quarters, but after a 80 second trial I realized that I was rather worn out from the 100's.

10 miles in the cold, wind and rain. The first couple miles were very, very unenjoyable. Once I warmed up it became fun. These kinds of runs build mental toughness. At least that is what I was trying to convince myself when I was out there in the freezing horizontal rain.

I was probably the only person not to run a turkey trot. I just didn't fel like doing one this year.

The thanksgiving weekend hurt my mileage. I went out of town to visit the in-laws. I could claim that the trip was the problem, but honestly I was just lazy and did not feel lijke doing much running. I am not adjusting very well to the cold weather. Thankfully, I have gotten back into the pattern with 2 consecutive days of 10 miles.

AM: 4 easy miles

PM: 6 miles on the treadmill with 2 at 5:45 pace. This workout was amazingly easy compared to any other recent attempt at running hard. Maybe I am getting back into good shape after the taper/recovery.

AM: 5 easy miles

4x400 meters on the treadmill at top speed (12 MPH = 75 seconds.) People are not supposed to run on the treadmill this fast. It got awfully clunky. At the end of the 4th repeat it shut down. Oops. I am going to have to call the maintainance people and let them know that I broke one of the two thredmills in the gym. I am glad no one else was in there to see who broke it. I already get some funny looks when I go fast on tthe treadmills.

easy miles.

Decided I need to start doing some good base building. 12 miles this morning in the rain. The 8.5 miles wthat I timed were at a 6:55 average pace. I have been doing too much running around 6:30 pace, when I should probably be slowing that down to around 6:45-7:00. 6:30 takes too much out of me.

PM: My walf wanted to go for a walk on the treadmill so I joined her and did 4 mire easy miles.

10 easy miles this afternoon. Yesterday's higher mileage left me feeling rather sore. Joints rather than muscles. I am having a rad time getting used to the cold. Finished the run with 6 strides of about 100 meters.

Today was the first snow run of the year. I love running in the snow. I love that feeling of the fresh snow crunching under the feet. I look forward to this first snow run all summer. Of course, I will be ready for the snow to go away soon.

AM: 4 miles in a few inches of new snow

PM: 8 miles on the treadmill at about 6:45 pace.

In the middle, ran the 3/4 of a mile to work bacause I was too lazy to scrape my windows. Or maybe every other day aI am lazy when I drive the short trip to work.

AM: 4 miles outside. It was the first day cold enough that I needed the ski mask. The pace was slow because I was sore/tired from yesterday, and the traction was really bad.

PM: more easy running

5 miles on the treadmill with 2 at my threshold pace of 5:45.  By the end of those 2 miles I was pretty tired. I have a long way to go.

I flew out to Denver today because I have a job interview tomorrow. For some stupid reason we interview for fellowships 18-20 months in advance.

Anyway, I did 7 miles in the afternoon in the snow and 5 miles on the evening on the hotel's treadmill.

Even though the temperature is colder out here, it feels better. Maybe it's partly due to the humidity, but it is definately helped by a lack of wind. In Chicago the wind is a factor on about 90% of runs.

I've got a lot of stuff going on in my life right now which is cutting into my time, energy and desire for running. I was in Utah and Colorado last week for job interviews, but never even got the chance to get together with my old running buddy Sasha. I'll probably just take things easy for the rest of the month before cranking up the intensity next year.

I've been taking things a lot easier the past few weeks, and especially last week when I was out of town and enjoying a cold. Now I am feeling better and ready to start back up again.

I am still out of town, so today was 10 easy miles in Michigan.

Goals for the coming year will be here soon.

Im still out of town, so I don't have my officiallog with me, but this run probably puts me at about 3400 miles for the year. When I get home I will have to make up a year end summary.

For now I can say that 2007 did not go as well as I hoped. No legitamite PR's. Very bad performances on the big races.

2008 will be better.