Carbon Plate Shoes I Have Known: New Balance RC Elites

Hello, if you missed Part 1 about carbon plate running shoes (ie "super shoes"), you might want to check it out before reading on. Or don't! It's your world!

If you've chosen chaos, allow me to catch you up slightly:

• Carbon-plate shoes have been around since the 90s, they just weren't good enough for the heinous price tag to make the shoes economically feasible as a product.
• They caused a massive dust-up in the mid-2010s when Nike pros started running in VaporFlys & normies started sometimes paying like $800 a pair on the secondary market
• Yes, they really do work, science says so.
• The magic is a combination of a super-stiff, super-light carbon plate usually sandwiched between next-gen foam with crazy high energy return. The plate works like a teeter-totter and the foam is what provides the spring-like action.
• In addition to letting you run faster with less effort, they may also mitigate the damage on your calves from training, possibly allowing you to train more and harder.

As I said in the previous post, I got my first pair of carbon plate racing shoes as a Christmas present at the end of 2020--the New Balance FuelCell RC Elites. At the time I was planning to train hard in spring 2021 and run 5K, 10K, and half marathon time trials and it's always fun to have a new toy to motivate you.

Race Report: Stow Lake Stampede 5K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

This race was another on the PA short-course circuit where I thought we might end up having a team, and it seemed like a nice follow-up to the (40)8K in April. It didn't hurt that it's super close to home (just three miles away in Golden Gate Park) on extremely familiar ground.

I was also just excited to try my hand at a 5K again, especially in a situation where I'd have a big chunk of weeks to train for it consistently in a way that really targeted 5K speed. So often when I've run 5Ks it's been in the middle of training for a longer distance, or the beginning of a season as a kind of fitness gauge, or a convenient way to get in a workout; I was really curious what I might be able to do at this point with some for-real 5K-specific training. 

I really do believe that variety in what you train for plays a big role in everything from keeping running and training mentally fresh to making you fitter and less injury-prone by switching up the physical stimuli, so it was nice to do a couple of months training for the half and 10-miler and then switch gears to shorter, more speed-focused stuff.

And then what happened?

Stow Lake Race Week + Spring Racing Comes to An End!

(Posting this for the sake of completion -- alas I didn't manage to get it up before leaving for vacation. :) )

Hello from the end of spring racing season 2022! Apparently I finished up my spring races just in time for it to get hella hot out. No 12-mile workouts in 90F for me, ha! (Er, at least for now.)

 *~*~Stow Lake Stampede 5K Race Week!~*~*~

Grand Total: 29.5 miles

* 24 easy
* 2.4 speed
* 3.1 race

Monday 5/16: Rest

Tuesday 5/17: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength; p.m. 2 warm up, 2 miles of 2:00 fast / 1:00 easy, 2 cool down = 9 total

Wednesday 5/18: 5 easy

Thursday 5/19: 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength

Friday 5/20: 30-35 minutes easy Rest. I just had this hunch that my body needed to take an extra rest day this week before the race, so I went with it. No regrets!

Saturday 5/21: 3 easy + 4 strides = 3.4 total

Sunday 5/22: Race! 3 warm up, 3.1 race, 3 cool down = 9.1 total

(Race report here!)

Mental Health Talk: Less Thinking, More Running (1 Week to Stow Lake 5K)

Someone created this to help kids handle their anxious feelings better but spoiler, it's occasionally useful for certain 41-year-olds as well

***CONTENT WARNING***, mental health talk ahead.

So, some years ago I started getting treatment for anxiety, not like horrific life-altering can't-function-in-the-world-on-a-daily-basis anxiety but a kind of constant, low-grade-but-sometimes-*less*-low-grade anxiety that, when I stopped to think about it, I had really suffered from for basically my entire teenage & adult life.

There were some ways in which it manifested in running, mostly around perfectionism and catastrophizing about races and psyching myself out, then super beating myself up if things didn't go at least acceptably okay. (Not productive, do not recommend.)

And then there was a period of time (~2017ish to ~2019sih?) where I started to have some weird issues every time I'd go to the track, which historically had always been my favorite workout of the week. I was telling my therapist about this once incidentally, how sometimes I would be warming up and not even doing anything hard yet and my heart rate would shoot up really high and I'd have this ringing in my ears and a sensation like ice water running through my veins, and my hands would shake a little and suddenly I'd feel lightheaded and have a hard time catching my breath. Weird, huh? So yeah, anyway!

And my therapist was like, "Uhhhh back up there chief, do you think maybe you were maybe having a little panic attack?"

And I just scoffed like, "What? Now that is ridiculous. Of course I wasn't having a panic attack. I think I'd know if I was having a panic attack."

And she was like, "Uhhhhh are you sure about that because I am a therapist whose job it is to know these things and tbh it kind of sounds like a little mini panic attack."

And I was like, "Madam. Please. WHY on EARTH would I be having a PANIC ATTACK before my track workout?"

And she was like, "EXCELLENT QUESTION MY FRIEND, PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT, PERHAPS TO SOMEONE LIKE I DUNNO ME, UR LITERAL THEREAPIST????"

Carbon Plate Super Shoes: What's Up W/ That?!?!

If you are reading this I am sure you know all about the Nike Vaporfly and the general uproar it caused in the late 2010s. But in case you are curious about why someone would ever put a carbon plate in a running shoe in the first place and how the whole deal works, here is a quick primer.

The first carbon plate running shoes were made by Reebok in the early 90s, followed closely by Adidas (1, 2). Even at that point people had figured out that a carbon plate could offer an advantage, but it was an idea whose time had not yet come. The carbon fiber was so outrageously expensive that there was no way to produce a shoe that could compete with the rest of the market (remember in those days more than $100 for a pair of running shoes was kind of outrageous), and the shoe tech and knowledge needed to really optimize the effect of a carbon plate and make it something people would actually pay top dollar for didn't yet exist.

Reebok InstaPump Fury with a Carbon Fiber bridge (from FreeRunSpeed.com)

Training Log: 2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede

Wow, it is so hard to believe it is only two weeks to Stow Lake 5K & the end of my spring racing season, and only about 3.5 weeks until my vacation! 

I don't know why it should be so funny to notice training working and yet it never fails to entertain me. This week's mid-week workout was 6 x 1K at 5Kish pace (not that I really know what that is right now, but the intervals were supposed to be at roughly 6:40-7:05 pace). On paper that still seems REALLY FAST to me but on the first three intervals I found myself running ~6:45ish pace, I don't want to say comfortably, but with a feeling like "You know what, this isn't that awful, I could do it for a while."

The last three definitely got harder, particularly keeping the legs turning over quickly towards the end of the interval, but I still managed the last one at 6:48 pace without feeling like I was going to die. So in the end I ran them all between 6:41-6:48 pace. If you'd have asked me a year ago if that was ever in the cards again, I probably would have laughed. Even just a few months ago I probably would have grimaced doubtfully.

Then on Sunday I had 12 miles, with fartleks for the middle four, 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, which I decided to do actually *at* Stow Lake because a) it's a nice place to run & b) I never really run fast there it & seemed like I might as well take the opportunity to practice.

Some random photos of Stow Lake I happen to have on my phone. It does not suck! Though the swans might chase you in a threatening manner.

 "Fast" wasn't really defined so I tried to do the first 2:00 by feel & without looking at my watch, aiming for "as fast I can run that feels like I can do it eight times without redlining" & apparently that was around 6:45 pace, which shouldn't have surprised me after Tuesday but still kind of did. (I even saw 5:51-5:52 pace on my watch for some of that last hard 2:00, and you can be sure any time I see sub-6:00 on my watch under any circumstances, I will 100% mention it on the internet.)

While obviously I need the physical benefits of all the speed-focused stuff as much as anyone who is trying to run a fast 5K, I actually think my bigger hurdle has been mental; it's been so long since I've been able to run a 5K at sub-7:00 pace and so long since it was a pace I ran with any regularity that it's hard to believe it's something I can actually do, even with the right training. Running these workouts at what to me still feel like SOOOOPER fast paces has helped my brain kind of re-calibrate & go, "Okay, you know what, yes, 6:45 is a pretty hard and somewhat painful pace and also you have now trained your body so that it can actually maintain it for a while, possibly for an entire five kilometers."

Because after those workouts, I did find myself thinking that, yes, I actually think that physically I *could* run a 5K at that pace right now. Yes, it will be super hard and painful towards the end, but well, that's just racing, isn't it?

Of course, as I was reminded a couple of weeks ago, it all comes down to having a good day & getting the rest of your ducks in a row in terms of rest, recovery, mental state, etc. But I am feeling optimistic about Stow Lake!

 

 ~*~*~2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede 5K~*~*~

Grand Total: 38 miles

*  29 easy
*  9 speed

 

Monday 5/2: Rest

Tuesday 5/3: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength + p.m. 3 more easy = 6 total. This was a difficult mental health day for reasons I am sure many of you are already aware of & in the afternoon I was going a bit nuts & really needed a little physical activity to get the bees out of my skin.

Wednesday 5/4: warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, cool down 5 easy. In the gym we've been putting serious work toward strengthening my hamstrings and adductors, especially on the right side. It is clearly working because I woke up quite sore in my right hamstring/adductor! I could have tried the workout but I thought better to take an easy day & do it Thursday instead.

Thursday 5/5: 2.7 warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, 2.3 cool down (= 10 total) + 1 hour strength. The downside of moving the workout to this day was having to back-to-back it with strength. C'est la vie! Let's just say I ate a hearty dinner.

Friday 5/6: 5.5 easy. Grocery store run! + a little extra.

Saturday 5/7: Rest

Sunday 5/8: 4 warm up, 4 miles of 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, 4 cool down = 12 total.

Training Log: 3 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede 5K

 I think one of the ways you know that you didn't *really* ask as much of your body as you could have in a race is that you feel pretty much fine the day or two after. For example, I didn't feel like I pushed myself at Oakland Half all that hard, but OMG I felt like an utter train wreck for the 2-3 days after. 

On the other hand, even though I felt like I ran the 8K as hard as I was capable of at the time, I felt basically normal a few hours after the race. Which is all to say, this week was supposed to be a little easier to give me some recovery time, but I didn't really feel like I needed it. 

My first (and only) actual workout of the week was Sunday, 14 miles with two 3-mile stretches at half marathon-ish pace. I felt so good on this run; the acceptable pace was anything between 7:35 & 7:55 and I had to keep slowing myself down the whole time. Even so I think most of the miles were 7:30ish and I felt like I could have run that pace forever (but probably not haha).  Even on the cool down, where I really was running at what felt like a very easy effort, my splits were in the eights, which is unusual. How do I channel these great workouts into race day?? 🤣🤣

Training Log: (40)8K Race Week

Pretty boring training week heading into San Jose (40)8K, but here it is for the sake of completeness!

 ~*~*~San Jose (40)8K Race Week~*~*~

Grand Total: 32.5 miles

* 24.5 easy
* 3 speed
* 5 race

Race Report: San Jose (40)8K Race to the Row

Why did I sign up for this race?

This race was on the PA circuit, meaning a deep field, a good course, and (supposedly) a well-organized race overall. I was hoping to run something in the 5K-10K range around this time, so poof! Perfect. (Even more so because I'd never run a certified 8K before so I had no real expectations.)

And then what happened?

One of my research teams got a paper accepted to a pretty major conference & the conference was Thursday April 21-Monday April 25 in San Diego. It would have been no problem for me to go if our session had been on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Monday. But no; we got Sunday.

Fortunately, there was a virtual option and I wasn't all that excited about the rest of the conference, so our team agreed that we would present virtually. The race was at 8:30am so unless something went horrifically wrong, I'd be done running by 9:10ish. The first session slot was 9:45am and the next one was 11:30am, and it would be no problem to be home & presentable by 11:30am. "Surely," I thought, "there is no way my luck is so bad that our session would not only be on Sunday morning, but also the ONLY slot that I couldn't possibly get home in time for.

Welp.