SRM WEEK 5: Double Digits + Hangin' In The Pain Cave

Firstly, I hope everyone had a lovely Father's Day, whether or not you are actually a father. :)

Ca. 1985. We were mad stylin' in those days, me & Dad.

On Sunday I was supposed to run for 80-90 minutes or 9-10 miles. Early in the week I started out completely dreading it, then got kind of almost excited about it mid-week, & then as of Saturday was back to absolutely dreading it again. I did a tempo run on Friday & have a sneaking suspicion I ran it too hard, because on Saturday I was not even remotely in the same *neighborhood* as feeling the easy six miles I needed to do. About halfway through I think some of my muscles actually stopped working all that well and I started thinking that maybe that day should have been my first unplanned rest day. Oops; too late now.

Saturday we had dinner with some friends, which was a good time. Actually maybe kind of TOO good considering how I felt when I woke up Sunday morning.

At least I slept a lot.

On top of that, my legs hurt. Nothing serious; just that deep, all-over, low-grade ache you get from being on your feet for a long time. When I started this training cycle, though, I made a deal with myself that I would NOT sacrifice my functioning bones and muscles on the Alter of the Training Plan, that the second I had more than mild pain or was too tired to run well & with good form, I would take some extra rest days or cut back on the mileage a bit. And let me tell you, when I first got up, I'd pretty much accepted that today was the day I'd have to start putting that into practice.

I ate breakfast around twelve thirty, then ran some errands, then spend the afternoon trying to get some wicked heartburn to go away so I could try to get some running in. I sort of figured I'd give it a shot, see how my legs felt, & if it just got too awful to deal with I could always cut it short.

I was exactly this excited.

As suck-tastic as Saturday's run had been, though, this one started out feeling weirdly not-horrible. I tried to keep it super slow and easy, completely ignoring my pace, making sure I was never breathing very hard but still maintaining good form. Maybe it's because I'd built it up so much in my mind, but one by one the miles just seemed to roll by. I'd kind of decided that as long as I was feeling good, I'd quit at ninety minutes or ten miles, whichever came first. At about forty-three minutes in, I hit five miles & turned around.

I'm not saying this run was easy; just that it was maybe not the fifth-circle-of-hell level of torture that I'd assumed it would be. Actually I think I felt the best on this run between miles 6 & 9. (Once I got to 9.5, though, I definitely hit some kind of wall & was legitimately worried about my ability to make it five more blocks.)

So, my streak of zero unplanned rest days remains intact for another week. I'm trying not to get too attached to it, though, because this has been a pretty darn steep build up for me, and I really do feel like sooner or later that day is coming.

* * * WEEK 5 * * *
(10 to go)

It seems kind of ridiculous to me that I'm already a third of the way through this training cycle. (Then again, it's only a little over 20% mileage-wise.) In terms of weekly mileage, I only got up to 38 miles for I think one week when I was "training" training for the Berkeley Half last fall, so this week's 39 is officially the highest weekly mileage I've run in over a year. HUZZAH!

Grand Total: 39 miles

* 3 threshold
* 10 long
* 26 easy

Plus:

* 1.5 hours strength/stretch/roll

Monday: a.m. strength work

No karate because I had to get on a plan for SoCal.

Tuesday: a.m. 6 speed 5 "easy"

Because I was working 7:30-5:00 on Tuesday in a not-very-running-friendly part of SoCal & then spending the evening on a plane back to SF, my only option for getting any running done on Tuesday was to get up at 5 a.m. & run on the (rather rickety-looking) hotel treadmill. Naturally this sucked quite enough as it was, but to make it EVEN BETTER I ended up working until 11 p.m. with my team, barely slept, & neglected to make any sort of plan for putting food in my body pre-run.

I loathe doing speed work on treadmills, but sometimes it's doable if the intervals are longer, slower ones. As luck would have it, though, Tuesday's workout called for 12 x 200m at 6:00 pace w/ 200m recoveries, which I really did not think would work at all, but I'd figured I'd at least give it a try before giving up altogether.

Hah. Well. I dragged myself through the warm-up at 9:00+ pace (never a good sign), then with great trepidation cranked the ol' girl up to 10mph. The first interval only took me about 45 seconds but during that time I felt absolutely certain that sad little bucket of bolts was going to fly apart at any moment. Plus it took so long to toggle between interval pace & recovery pace that the whole enterprise became patently ridiculous pretty quickly.

Eh. Whether from lack of sleep or low blood sugar or not getting my usually two full days of recovery post-long run, I felt pretty terrible anyway & ultimately just resigned myself to knocking out an easy mile, grabbing a cup of water, knocking out another mile, grabbing a cup of water, etc. I wanted to do six so that I'd at least get the day's mileage in but ran out of time before I had to go get cleaned up, so five rather dubious & sketchy miles it was.

Still, something!!! Not nothing!!!

Wednesday: afternoon 6 easy / p.m. karate

Still a bit sleep deprived, so I skipped a.m. strength training in favor of extra sleep. Also, Wednesday runs continue to live up to their reputation of sucking massive, galactic proportions of ass. GOD was this miserable.

Thursday: a.m. massage / p.m. 6 easy

Seriously? I love this massage therapist. He pulls no punches. My right calf has been bothering me more than anything else, so he spent probably half an hour working on just that while I laid on my stomach and chewed on my fingers and pulled all manner of what I am sure would have been hilarious and horrifying faces had anyone been able to see them. Quote of the day: "It is just an absolute mess back here."

Yeah, no; epic fail on that count.

I'd been thinking about maybe going to the track Thursday afternoon & trying to make up the failed speed workout from Tuesday, but after the massage my calves were utterly tenderized, and he warned me about not trying to do too much on them that day. So I skipped the track & just did my usual easy Thursday run. It started out completely awful, but was okay after a couple of miles, & by the end actually felt pretty great.

Friday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 6 threshold(1.75 wu, 2 @ 7:25-ish, 1 @ 7:04, 1.25 cd)

In my plan this threshold workout was written as 1.75 wu, 2 @ 8:15, 1 @ 7:30, 1.25 cd. I think my 1.75 warm-up averaged in the 8:11 range, though, so I was obviously not about to do two threshold miles at 8:15. Instead I decided that 8:15 was probably intended to mean "not easy but still pretty comfortable" and 7:30 "comfortably hard but not for very long" & just did them by feel/heart rate. I still feel like I probably ran them slightly harder than was intended. What I really need to do is check in with Coach Tom about the accuracy of my paces right now & maybe see if I can get him to translate them into effort level/heart rate to be sure I'm doing these harder runs the way I should be.

Saturday 6 easy

One word: SLOG. I mostly blame Friday's probably-botched tempo run.

Sunday: 10 long

In theory, I'm supposed to run 45 miles this week, mostly seven milers plus another 10 mile long run. So we'll see what happens.

.

Getting Fitter. I think. Maybe?

As with most sports, it's possible with distance running to utterly drown yourself in data and statistics. Miles per week! Average pace! Easy pace! Tempo pace! Race pace! Pairs of shoes! Average heart rate! Max heart rate! Average miles per day! LT threshold! VO2 max! Some people, obviously, couldn't care less. Some are only interested in a particular few variables. (I totally get that.) Then there are people like me, complete math/science geeks who adore numbers and data. If it can be spreadsheet-ed, I will spreadsheet it. When I got my first Garmin I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

Some of that data, it turns out, is actually useful for improving my running. I keep track of my miles and paces and shoe usage, and I even believe in the value of heart rate monitors, to a certain extent. But let's be real; most of it's just there to entertain me, the way baseball stats amuse particularly devoted fans.

When it comes down to it, this marathon cycle is about one thing and one thing only: being able to run 8:00-8:10 miles, consistently, when my body is exhausted. Realistically, that's the only data I need.

Now that I am running six days a week (DID I MENTION I AM RUNNING SIX DAYS A WEEK NOW? BECAUSE I TOTALLY AM), nearly all of them are hard. I don't mean they are all equally hard; there are really hard days and not quite as hard days. But let me be clear; there are no easy days.

For that reason, I've been trying to do my level best to make sure the "easy" days are as easy as they can possibly be. In addition to reviving the heart rate monitor to keep me honest, I've also taken to running with my Garmin set to show only time of day and distance. When I can't see my pace whenever I want, I usually think about it less, which leaves more brain space to focus on keeping my effort level nice and light.

The first time I trained for a long-distance race with a Garmin, I was so obsessed with my pace on workouts. I knew the pace I wanted to run & was pretty sure I could run on race day, and I fretted to no end on days when a full minute per mile slower than that felt like a slog. (Enter: The bad habit of running easy days too hard, just to reassure myself that I could.)

Later, when I was older and wiser and had more races and training cycles under my belt, I would understand this phenomenon completely: The point of workouts is to stress your body with cumulative fatigue, and the point of a taper is to rinse that fatigue away, leaving you with the fresh, springy legs and fitness that is its residue. If you're running your race pace during easy workouts, something is wrong; either you're wearing yourself out on training runs, or not racing as hard as you're capable of.

But now, especially running six days a week (DID I MENTION I AM RUNNING SIX DAYS A WEEK?), I'm over that. On "easy" days, I can't even think about pace; all I can think about is getting the miles in with as little exertion as possible.

The mid-week runs, especially, are just a slog. I work hard on maintaining good form, but that is the only thing I work hard at. In general those runs feel glacial, like I am plodding along, breathing deeply and slowly, barely conscious, every muscle in my body involved with running feeling worn out and blah and ugh because cumulative fatigue and blah blah blah...

Only here's the strange part. Lately, on those plodding, glacial, mid-week slogs, when I would swear I must be running 9:15's or thereabouts (no pace on the watch, remember), from mile 2 or 3 on, the splits will pop up and say things like 8:15. 8:08. 8:02. 7:56.

Friends. Those are the numbers I want to see during the marathon. Not ones I feel like I should be seeing on an "easy" run (at least not very often), and DEFINITELY not ones that match the way I feel while I'm doing it.

I've tried to be very honest with myself about whether I'm really taking these runs easy or maybe subconsciously doing that thing I used to do back in the day, just to prove to myself I COULD run that pace easily. This is part of why I went back to the heart rate monitor. Honestly, though, I am usually so worn out and exhausted going into these runs that doing them at anything but an easy, plodding, glacial effort is extremely unappealing.

So....Maybe I really am getting fitter? According to my training plan, I'm supposed to do my easy runs at an 8:45 pace, but that's based on the 5K I ran in April when I was running maybe 10 miles a week & hadn't raced in months. I suppose it's not ridiculous to think that they might be outdated after nearly five weeks of higher, more consistent mileage (AFTER ALL I AM RUNNING SIX DAYS A WEEK NOW, DID YOU KNOW??). I don't have 26 miles' worth of endurance yet, but if the goal is to run at 8:00-8:10 pace even when my body feels utterly exhausted, well, it appears as if I am not making too bad a start.

SRM WEEK 4: Dusting Off My Heart Rate Monitor

A few years back I was really into heart rate training. I wore my monitor for every run and race, recorded the data meticulously, and built statistical models to explore how different variables affected my performance. (I am a mathematician and a social scientist, so really, this is pretty normal behavior for me.)

There are a lot of benefits to training with a heart rate monitor. First, ask any professional running coach about the biggest training mistakes recreational runners make, & they will inevitably list somewhere in the top five running "easy" runs too fast / hard. I know I've certainly been guilty of this (though at least I'm aware of it & have definitely gotten better about it). If you know your max heart rate & run with a monitor, it's pretty hard to get away with "But this TOTALLY feels like the pace I should be running!!!" when there is hard evidence to the contrary staring you in the face. They're particularly excellent for keeping tempo / threshold runs at the right effort level regardless of terrain or weather, and it's also cool to watch your average pace improve as your average heart rate gradually drops over weeks or months of training.

But, after a while, I got lazy about it & went to wearing it only for speed & tempo workouts, then only for races, & eventually just abandoned it altogether. I wanted to go back to using it last year to make sure I wasn't running my easy runs too hard as I recovered from my hip injury, but shockingly, the three-year-old battery was dead, & I never got around to replacing it. Which actually worked out for the best, since just a few weeks ago I learned from Page that heart rate monitors generally only last for 2-3 years anyway & after that don't really provide reliable data. So, I took her advice & picked up the Garmin premium heart rate monitor (soft strap) for ~$45 on amazon.

AND, it only took me a week and a half to open the box and figure out how to activate it & pair it up with my Garmin! :D

On Saturday I went for my first run with a HR monitor in three years. Because it's been so long, I wasn't aiming for particular numbers so much as just to see what my heart rate was doing and compare it to what it was doing on average the last time I was using it regularly. It was encouraging to see that for runs of the same distance (5 miles), my heart rate was lower and my pace faster, even though most of the runs for which I have records were in the 45°-50°F range & Saturday in the city was closer to 70°. (Temperature tends to have a dramatic effect on heart rate since your body has to do additional work to keep itself cool.)

If I was being super-rigorous about things, I would probably need to go get my max heart rate tested again. The highest number I have ever personally seen on the monitor was 223 (mid-2011, toward the end of speed work on a hot day) & when I had it tested in a lab in early 2012, we got it up to 211. (It's harder to get up to true all-out effort on a treadmill than, say, running on a track, but it's close enough for science.) That wasn't TOO too long ago, so I feel like somewhere in that range is probably a reasonable number to go by.

(Maybe this is a good time to bust some myths about max heart rate. It is not 220 minus your age or any other formula you read on the internet or on some poster at the gym. Anyone who tells you it is should not be telling anyone anything about their cardiovascular system. Also those little charts that tell you which zone is your "weight loss zone" / "endurance building zone" / etc. are total bullshit. If you want to know your max heart rate, get it tested in a lab or do some speed work with a monitor for a while.)

With that in mind, here's what I'll be aiming for, courtesy of Papa Daniels (who I trust in all things running-related):

• For easy runs, 65-80% MHR, or ~140-172 bpm (I averaged 160 on Saturday & 164 on Sunday, so HELL YEAH!)
• For marathon pace runs, 80-90% MHR, or ~172-193 bpm
• For tempo runs, ~90% MHR, or ~193-194 bpm
• For speed work, 98-100% MHR, or ~210-215ish

* * * WEEK 4 * * *
(11 to go)

Up until Friday, I was sure that the story of week 4 was going to be the story of cumulative fatigue that may or may not end up causing me to skip training days. This has happened to me before in training cycles; more than once I've had around a month of strong, solid, gung-ho training, and then suddenly it would all start catching up to me. My legs would start feeling heavy & leaden on every run, and even after rest days I would start thinking that maybe another one was not the worst idea ever. (And don't get me wrong, sometimes unplanned rest days are *exactly* the way to go.)

But just as in week 3, things started looking up with the weekend. Not because the runs were easy; they were still tough and I absolutely had to work and dig deep to get them done, which called to mind one of my favorite marathon training quotes from Kevin Hanson (of the Brooks-Hanson Hanson Brothers):

"Everyone wanted a regimen that would leave their legs feeling fresh. They wanted to know, 'How can I get that spring in my legs?' That was the wrong question. The question should be: 'How can I train my body so that when the fatigue hits me, I'm still able to respond?'"

And that's exactly what I got towards the end of the week. Not painful, not utterly soul-sucking, not stopping-to-catch-my-breath-every-half-mile exhaustion; just general fatigue, tough but doable, & just challenging enough to finish and go, "Not bad; still glad it's done." It's given me confidence this week to get some runs under my belt that have forced me to practice powering through and maintaining good form and good turnover even when my body felt tired & like it would really rather just lie on the pavement with a beer than run even one more block, plzthnx.

Grand Total: 31 miles

* 1.5 speed
* 2 threshold
* 7.5 long
* 20 easy

Plus:

* 2.25 hours strength/stretch/roll

Monday: afternoon strength work / p.m. karate

I had to drive 40 miles to get to the South Bay butt-early in the morning, which means I had to do my strength work in the afternoon. Guess when I am the least motivated to do strength work? :P

Tuesday: speed work (1.5 warm up, 2 x 1200m @ 5K pace, 1.5 cool down = 4.5 miles total).

In case you missed it:


That pretty well summarizes my feelings about said track workout.

Wednesday: a.m. strength / afternoon 5 easy / p.m. karate

I woke up feeling super tight & kind of fragile all over, & also just generally crappy from not sleeping well, so Wednesday morning definitely involved more rolling & stretching & less actual strength work than usual (but still not an insignificant amount).

With this whole six-day deal I've been working under the assumption that Wednesday runs are just generally going to suck, coming as they do on the heels of speed work. Thus far this assumption seems to be a valid one. I was deeply unexcited about this run & the only way I got through it was by running one-mile laps in my neighborhood & making occasional water stops by the house. I felt slow & sluggish & was quite happy just to get this one in the books.

Thursday: 4 easy

I desperately needed some extra sleep Thursday morning, so I skipped the bike & hoped that would make my run a bit easier than the previous two. No such luck; like Wednesday, this one pretty much sucked from the very beginning. My legs felt exhausted & I was seeing numbers on the watch that I haven't seen since my very first runs back after my hip injury. At least after the first 3 or so miles I did feel ever so *slightly* less like ass. So it only, like, 80% sucked.

Friday: a.m. strength work / p.m. tempo (1.5 wu, 2 @ LT pace, 1.5 cd = 5 miles total)

Thankfully, Friday (once again) brought my streak of sucky runs to an end. Yes, my legs felt heavy starting out, and I was a bit discouraged because of the massive headwind I found myself running into in Golden Gate Park. I loosened up a little but still wasn't feeling confident that I'd be able to ratchet down to (not to mention maintain) a 7:25 pace. And then suddenly it was just happening, with less effort than I expected. I ran the first mile in 7:24, which was fine but realistically probably just a bit fast considering the crazy headwind. I was sure I was seeing things, though, when the second mile clicked off in 7:11. Yes, I had a tailwind going that direction, but it was also net uphill, including two not-insignificant climbs. The good news: I'm fitter now than I thought, apparently. The bad news: still out of practice re: pacing. This is why we have tempo runs!! :D

Saturday 5 easy

The afore-mentioned first HRM run since 2011.

Sunday: 7.5 long

Usually I don't start labeling runs as "long" until they're at least in the double digits, but RunningAhead has had all my Sunday runs pre-designated as long (since they are in fact longer than the rest) & though I've just been switching the category back to "easy" up to now, I forgot to do it Sunday when I recorded this run, & once it was done it seemed kind of silly and pointless to go back and change it.

In less awesome news, I pulled my shoes off post-run & was greeted with this lovely scene:



Which wouldn't be so ironic & annoying except that a) I just randomly mentioned the last time this happened in my recent Kinvara 5 post, and b) I had just clipped my toenails Sunday morning specifically to prevent this kind of thing.

Shoe Review: Kinvara 4 vs. Kinvara 5

For several months now, I've been trying out new shoes, & in spite of several promising candidates, I have yet to find something (that is actually for sale) that ticks all the magical little ticky boxes in my head. I was hoping the PureDrift would be a good option, and there are indeed many things I love about it, but I just think that right now I need a bit more cushioning that it offers to run comfortably on concrete.

Every time I try a new shoe & it doesn't work out, I go back to my trusty Kinvaras, and though they are far from perfect, I can't deny that running in them gives me a feeling like coming home. Sure, it would be nice if it had just a LITTLE less cushion and the toe box were just a BIT wider (something I found myself acutely aware of after a few runs in the Altras & 'Drifts), but in general, I find that when I run in the Kinvaras, whether for three miles or twenty, I don't think about the shoes. They're comfortable, fit my foot really well (except for the toe box thing), and let me keep up good form without too much work, and that's not doing too badly as finding a solid running shoe goes.

So, as terrified as I am of suffering another major injury, it seems like marathon training (particularly when the base is not good) is a great time to stick with what works, even if it's not perfect. Obviously I haven't been going through tons and tons of shoes lately, but I recently I finally got down to two pairs of Kinvaras, one that's getting on in miles & will need to be retired soon, and one with ~150 miles on them, so it seemed like not the worst idea ever to have another couple of fresh pairs on hand.

But what, ho! No sooner had the thought of purchasing more Kinvaras crossed my mind that I received an email from my local running store that the Kinvara 5 had recently been released. Seriously??? I feel like the 4's have barely hit puberty and now they're being closed out at rock-bottom prices to make way for The New Hotness. Kinvara fans, should you stock up on the old model, or embrace the new one and get it over with for another year?

This seemed like a GRAND setup for revisiting last year's Kinvara 3 vs. Kinvara 4 head-to-head challenge. You're welcome.

Here we have two brand-spanking-new pairs of Kinvaras, version 4 on the top and version 5 on the bottom, size 7.5B:

Construction:

As you can see, many aspects of the shoe's construction have remained the same, as they did from the K3 to the K4.

In theory, the stack height & heel drop (22mm heel/18mm forefoot) are the same. (To me, the K4 feels juuuust a touch lower to the ground, the same way it did compared with the K3, but I don't have calipers so I can only go by the specs Saucony provides.)

Although the bottom of the sole is slightly different (see below), by & large the outer sole is built the same way & with the same shape. Both are built on a semi-curved, strobel last (perfect for the neutral supinator, AHEM) and feature a high-abrasion EVA midsole with a pretty traditional thickness, decoupled & beveled (forward-angled) heels, a Memory Foam heel pod (I still don't know what this is) & a material called PowerGrid in the heels.

Kinvara 4 on the left; Kinvara 5 on the right.

There are definitely a few differences as well:

1) As mentioned above, the K5 has additional carbon rubber (which they call XT-900) on the middle outer edge (blue) as well as very slightly more in the toe area:

Kinvara 4

Kinvara 5

2) The tongue and heel collar area have been radically changed. Instead of the FlexFilm™ used on the K3 & K4, the K5 uses a much thicker, plusher material called HydraMAX™.

At first, this change felt a little weird. Because the HydraMAX is so plush, my heels sometimes feel like they don't really settle securely into the heel counter at first. A few minutes into a run, though, I get used to it and it doesn't bother me.

3) Most of the upper is made of a "new, more flexible and durable lightweight mesh material" that feels stiffer/sturdier than the K4. (I have read in a few reviews of the K4 that some folks did not like its upper material & had issues with it cracking and tearing over time. I never had this problem with my K4's & liked it just fine.)

4) Pro-Lock lacing feature. Two small pieces of material with lace holes that are actually connected to the sole itself, not the upper, the idea being that using these holes will cause the shoe to hug your foot more securely.

I agreed with RunBlogger about this feature--if you lace up pretty tightly, you can feel this doing something, but it causes the upper to winkle in weird ways, and honestly, if I tried to run with my shoes laced that tightly, I'd lose circulation.

The specs state that the Kinvara 5 should weigh in at exactly the same as the Kinvara 4, and this is indeed what I found:

BUT. It is worth pointing out that the pair of K4's I used for last summer's K3/K4 comparison--same size & everything--weighed in at 6.4 oz, and a year & many miles later, they still do. (At this point I got worried about the consistency of the scale, but after weighing all the shoes several more times on different surfaces, the numbers never changed. So I don't really know what to tell you about that.) Both pairs of K3's I've weighed (also 7.5B) both consistently also weighed 6.6.

Kinvara 4 on the left; Kinvara 3 on the right.

Fit:

As far as sizing, the K5's seem right in line with the 3's & 4's. I've always worn a 7.5B comfortably, and that size in the 5 feels exactly the same length-wise.

Width-wise....Well, here's where things get a little weird.

Back when I got my first pair of Kinvara 4's & wear tested them against the 3's, I kind of felt like they were just a *touch* wider in the toe box. Not dramatically, but just enough to slightly prefer the 4's. When I read reviews of the 4, though, just about everyone mentioned that the fit seemed a bit snug, particularly in the toe box, and for some people the difference was noticeable enough that it was a deal breaker for them. This was incredibly puzzling for me, because my experience was almost the complete opposite.

I haven't really thought about it much since then until I put one of these new pair of K4's on one foot and one of the K5's on the other. The difference was undeniable, though; the K4 felt narrow, particularly in the toe box, and the K5 felt a little wider.

So obviously, out of curiosity, I had to go back to that pair of K4's I compared the K3's to last summer.

Old Kinvara 4 from last summer on the right foot (your left);
brand-new Kinvara 4 on the left foot (your right).

Old Kinvara 4 on the right foot (your left); Kinvara 5 on the left foot (your right).

Again, the difference was unmistakeable. The old K4 is noticeably more spacious than the new one, particularly in the toe box, and feels about the same as the K5.

And it's clearly not just in my head:

I really don't know what to tell you about this. I might be tempted to say that a couple hundred miles of wear over the course of a year has "punched out" the older K4 a bit, except that I had the same impression of it when I first put it on last summer. If K4s have been feeling a bit snug for you, though, it's probably worth trying on a K5 at the same time, because you might find there's a little more room.

Ride:

With the exception of the width issues described above, the two shoes felt exactly the same on my feet when I first put them on--same level of stiffness, cushion, stability, etc. I first took them out with one on each foot, and with the exception of the width in the toe box, it was difficult to discern any real difference. I thought the K5 might feel different because it just sort of looks like more shoe, but it weighs the same & feels the same, so maybe that's just in my head.

I've since run several times in the K4's, the K5's, and in one of each, and my initial observation holds: it is very, very hard to pinpoint a real difference besides the width. With one on each foot, I was aware for the first few minutes of how the heel collars feel different--the plush HydraMax of the K5 vs the lean, light FlexFilm of the K4--but it didn't take long for even that to fade into the background.

In terms of the stuff that I think of as the "ride" of a shoe--flexibility, cushioning, ground feel--they feel basically the same. The 5's apparently have a material in the midsole called Powerfoam "to create a cushioned and responsive ride," but if it makes a difference, I was unable to detect it.

Conclusion:

So there you go. I wish I could remark on the durability of the two shoes, but since I am a) not running that many miles yet and b) rotate my shoes a lot, it'll probably take a while to get to that point. All I can really say on that point is that I have worn Kinvara 3's into 500+ territory without any trouble. At that point there is definitely a difference in the cushioning that you can detect if you put an old shoe on one foot and a new one on the other, so I generally stop wearing them for long runs after about 300 or so. But 4-6 easy miles around the neighborhood? I can wear a hole in the outsole before they start feeling uncomfortable. And mud stained, blood stained, & faded though they may be, even the uppers are still in perfect working order. So we'll see how far I can take the 4's & 5's.

I hope that helps!

Shoe "Review": Brooks Pure Drift 2

So like I said when I first mentioned that I got these shoes, they were on super hella clearance, which I kind of feel like probably means that there's about to be a new version, so there's maybe less point that usual in actually writing a review. With that in mind, this will be brief.

(No, really. I promise.)

Quick recap:

• I have lots of shoes I like a lot but none I am 100% joint-checking-account-style in love with.
• I basically want a Saucony Kinvara with more room in the toe box & slightly less cushioning.
• My first & only Brooks Pure shoe was the first version of the Connect, which was weird & narrow & gave me foot cramps.
• Internet people have raved about version #2 of the Drift, so I bought a super-discounted pair to try out.

PROS:

• They very well may be the most comfortable running shoes I've ever slipped on. Usually that doesn't really mean anything in terms of how they work for me long-term, but it's still nice.
• Light-weight.
• Nice & flexible.
• Excellent ground feel.
• TONS of room in the toe box, but still comfortably snug around the heel/arch.
• 4mm heel drop with the footbed in it, or remove it for a zero-drop shoe.

CONS:

• Even with the insert, doesn't really feel like a 4mm-drop shoe. I have read in a few places that some people felt like the insert compresses more than, say, the midsole of a more traditional shoe would, so it may actually be more of a 2-3mm shoe in practice. (This won't be a con for everyone, but with my tight calf issues, I'm a little wary of running in anything less than 4mm right now.)
• Just a TAD less cushioning than I'd like. I definitely prefer more ground feel than you get in a traditional shoe, but there was a bit too much of that running-in-bath-slippers feeling for me to feel super comfortable on concrete. (I admit I'm being really picky here; they're both pretty darn close to perfect. But if the Kinvara is the Pappa Bear of cushioning, The PureDrift is Baby Bear. WHERE ARE YOU, MAMA BEAR?!?!?)

BOTTOM LINE:

There are a lot of things I like about this shoe, but I think it is probably a little too far in the other direction in terms of less cushioning/support/drop than it's a great idea for me to go right now. I have a feeling it might make a great track shoe, but I want to be careful with my calf muscles as I'm increasing my mileage (particularly in terms of heel drop), so I'll probably put off trying that until they're in better shape and I'm not marathon training. In the future, I could totally see doing small amounts of running in them here & there & gradually building up to where they're comfortable & not scary.

One of Those "Keeping It Real" Posts

During my time on the internet, I have learned that it is very important to blog readers that bloggers "keep it real," which means maintaining a careful balance of posts expounding on how awesome-sauce/amazing your life is vs. how "real" (ie shitty) it is. With this post I hope I am doing my Bloggerly Duty re: the rainbows-and-unicorns-to-realness ratio.

So. Ahem.

Tuesday was the stupidest day ever. First, I had to drive 40 miles to get to the South Bay butt-early in the morning for the second day in a row (!), which means I couldn't do my a.m. bike ride & there was just no way I was doing that in the afternoon and then going to the track. Then, although it was bright & warm & sunny in my neighborhood, it was cold & windy & dark at Kezar Stadium.

What it was like in the Mission.

What it was like in the Sunset three miles away.

To add insult to injury, the track was closed, which meant I had to do my speed work on the upper concrete track, which I hate with the red-hot passion of a thousand suns. AND THEN, my run totally sucked ass.

Beforehand I was like, "Cool, just 2 hard 1200m's. Easy." But then, although I had been instructed to run them at 7:10 pace, I accidentally ran the first one at 6:55 pace, which meant that I couldn't really do the easy 1:00 recovery jog I was supposed to do in between the two & also (I was pretty sure) that I would totally tank on the second one. I tried to slow it down closer to 7:10 but (even though I thought I was actually going to die) ended up running it just slightly faster than the first one. I am not really sure how this happened.

The worst part was that my cool down utterly, epically sucked. I finished the 1.5 miles, but not without resorting to stopping every quarter-to-a-third of a mile to shake out the burning in my legs. Also that stupid pain in my right calf was back.

So I guess what I'm saying is:

Yeah; that about sums it up.

Keeping it real, yo.

SRM WEEK 3: I Ran A Marathon This Week!

....By which I mean, I ran 26.25 miles over the course of the last seven days. Ha ha ha. No but seriously, this is the most I've run in a week since December and I'm not (re-)injured yet (*knocks on wood*), or even kinda-sorta trending toward injured (*knocks harder*), so it's kind of a big deal.

The story of this week is the story of running six days a week for the first time since high school (WHAT). In the past I've done five days at most, taking off Monday & Wednesday since those are karate days & finding time for a run was tricky (particularly back when I was still teaching high school). It actually worked out well, though, to have a non-running day between my Sunday long run and Tuesday track workout and then another between the track workout & four straight days of running.

Mainly I decided to give the six-day plan a shot this time because I needed to ramp up the distance of each individual run reallllly slowly, but without compromising my overall mileage buildup (since I only have 15 weeks to train for SRM & usually do more like 18ish). Also, five months of doubles (in terms of cross-training) has revealed to me that I have more time each day than I think, even on karate days, so I'm more confident in my ability to fit in a Wednesday run without the rest of my life collapsing around me.

The one remaining question was what my body could deal with. Not to scare any of you young'uns out there, but while 33 is still pretty young in the grand scheme of things, it is *definitely* not the same as 24-25-26 in terms of how quickly your body bounces back from things. Back in the day I could get up at 7am on Sunday to play polo for six hours, go for a run in the afternoon, get the crap kicked out of me at dojo Fight Night from 8-10, & be at work bright-eyed & bushy-tailed & feeling great by 7am Monday morning; trust me, those days are gone & they are not coming back.

Check out that that young, svelte, 24-year-old polo player.

I figured I would give the six-day plan a try, and if I found it was just too much in terms of relentless pounding more or less every 24 hours, I'd replace the Wednesday runs with equivalent time on the bike (which is INFINITELY easier to recover from). I've been mostly worried about my chronically tight calf muscles & doing anything & everything I can to baby them, including but not limited to:

• rocking compression socks or calf sleeves on most runs
• keeping the compression socks on afterward for ~2 hours or so whenever possible
• alllll the calf raises
• stretching them every time I think about it
• instituting an all-flats-all-the-time policy (okay, like 95% of the time)
• getting my post-run protein & antioxidants
• lacrosse ball, lacrosse ball, lacrosse ball.

I doubt if any of these things are a silver bullet but I'm pretty sure none of it can hurt.

So, I'm happy to report that three weeks on, my body in general and my calves in particular seem to be holding up just fine. I have little twinges here & there, but it usually goes away while I'm running and doesn't feel any worse after. This isn't to say that my legs don't need every minute of those 24 hours in between runs, even short ones, to recover; they absolutely do. But right now they seem to need only 24 hours, and then they're ready to go again.

* * * WEEK 3 * * *
(12 to go)

By my reckoning, that puts me 20% through SRM training. Well; time-wise anyway. I've knocked out 3 of 15 weeks, but only 62 of 611 miles, which is just barely more than 10%. I don't know whether to feel relieved or terrified about this.

Grand Total: 26.25 miles

* 1.75 speed
* 24.5 easy

Plus:

* 30 miles bike
* 1.5 hours strength/stretch/roll

Monday:

Memorial Day for me was a much-needed rest day. I did nothing more physical than cooking, cleaning, & doing laundry, & it was absolutely beautiful.

Tuesday: a.m. strength work / p.m. speed work (1.25 warm up, 2x[3x(300m @ 6:15, 100m jog), 300m jog], 1.25 cool down = 4.25 miles total).

Haven't seen this place in a while!



Not my fastest track workout ever, but I survived it + no one pointed & laughed = #winning.

Wednesday: a.m. 15 bike / afternoon 4 easy / p.m. karate

This was without a doubt the hardest run I have done so far this cycle, which, given the heat, hills, and my post-first-speed-session-since-the-Pleistocene-Epoch-legs, I was expecting. I mean, I had kind of *hoped* it wouldn't be that bad, but when I was half a mile in running a minute slower than marathon pace & desperate to stop & catch my breath & stretch my insanely sore Achilleses, I knew it going to be a looooong 4 miles. Perhaps the route with the two giant hills was not the best choice.

In any case, I'm pretty sure I have to give up that particular route. Honestly, I don't mind running up the hills, but coming back down them is a) incredibly hard on my body, and b) frankly, dangerous. It might make sense for me to work on that particular skill if I were in the business of running trail races with steep descents, but since I'm not, it seems smarter not to take the risk.

Nope nope nope nope nope.

Thursday: a.m. strength work / p.m. 4 easy

Every time I approach the Olympic lifting platform & start adding weights, dudes be like


I mean seriously, guys; get over it. I don't even lift that much.

Running-wise, my legs were still tired Thursday, but MUCH improved over Wednesday. I did a little 4-mile jaunt through my neighborhood, kept it nice & easy, & did not feel even a little bad about all the stop lights.

Friday: a.m. 15 bike (15:00 warm up, then 4:00 hard/1:00 easy) / p.m. 4 easy

Tired legs again on the bike Friday morning, but after some warming up going faster actually felt better than slow, so I passed the time with some comfortably hard intervals. Friday's run was still tough, but easier than the previous two. It definitely helped that the city had cooled off some & it was overcast & breezy by the time I headed out.

Saturday 4 easy

I had some sore spots on my shins & was feeling a bit trepidacious given that this was run #5 in a row, but it ended up being my best run of the week so far. For that, I'm going to credit actually getting a solid 8-9 hours of sleep.

Sunday: 6 easy + stretch/roll

I spent Sunday afternoon at Jen's new digs, which meant I got to catch up with her & Cathryn for the first time in ages. After that it was long run time, and although no one training for a marathon should ever bat an eye at six miles and CERTAINLY should not be thinking of it as "long," I was a tad nervous about it, having a) not run that far since December 22, and b) just run five straight days in a row.

Speaking of views I haven't seen in a while, hey there west end of the Panhandle!

But I needn't have worried. The run felt great, my legs felt great, and I even let myself race a few people up the Panhandle at ~half marathon pace, which I know I really should not be doing right now but c'mon; a girl's got to have a little fun. For the first time in so, so long, I had just the faintest glimmer of speed & strength & the runner I was in early 2013. She's still in there somewhere, & it may take me a few months, but I am determined to dig her out.


Hold on to your hot dog carts, Golden Gate Park; I am coming for you.

Next week: Mileage in the low 30's (a 5-month high) & my first threshold run since November. Weeeeeee!