back in the water again

Workout notes yesterday, 2000 yards after yoga. Today, 2000 yard swim (mixture of drills, free, off strokes), 40 minutes of walk run (.5 walk, .25 run, .25 walk, then 27 minutes of 2 run, 1 walk). I attempted to really run the “run” parts. Then, 10 minutes on the bike; that was enough to generate a mild leg ache.

You have to start somewhere.

A couple of people talked to me when I was on the bike. One lady told me that the red winged blackbirds are back; I hate those little nasty dive bombing suckers.

Another one talked to me; she is a triathlete who wanted to help me with our group of beginning walkers. She told me that “I was right” when I cautioned her about expecting too much intensity out of the walking bunch.

The fact is that of the vast majority of people who are attracted to walking, only a handful really want to walk fast or want to put the time and effort into learning how to walk fast. Most just want to get outside, enjoy the outdoors and get some exercise while chatting with a friend (which is a perfectly fine thing to do).

Any “driven” athletic individual who works with these folks has to understand that.

Speaking of walking, I head from John Greene who is the newest US Centurion. I’ll share what he wrote to me; it contains his race report:

Ollie,

It was good to see you again this weekend. Sorry you struggled
in the race. I’m told that lots of people (me included) had blister
trouble because of the heat and humidity. Apparently it affected
you differently. I don’t remember how the weather was last year.
I know the year before (when I did 93+) was also a bit hot and
humid and I had blister trouble and you had stomach problems.

Some comments on my walk: As I had said before the race,
my ultimate goal was 106.01 (to get to 500 total FANS miles).
My plan was to try for something like 55-56 in the first half
and 51 or so in the second. That plan was gone by 6 hours
since I had about 27.35 by then, but only because of the fast
pace I started at. I got to 52.51 by 12 hours, and hoped it
would be enough. In 2006, I had done 50.09 in the first half,
but slowed to only 43.54 in the second. I was only 2.4 miles
ahead of 06, so I had to significantly improve on my second
half.

That last 12 hours was a fight the whole way. I had to
average about 36:40’s, but I knew I would have some significant
down time to deal with blisters. I postponed that stop till
near the 14 hour mark, hoping for only one long patch of down
time. I didn’t want to wait till lap 26 (I had the blister
stop at lap 25) so I sacrificed about 8 minutes on my 100k
time, coming in at 14:28:35. After that, I could afford
36:30’s, and I was walking 35-36, with an occasional sub 35.

At midnight, I could afford 36:50’s (incremental progress).
Of course all my laps were 36’s at that point. At 4am, I had
built it to 37:40’s and I was doing 37’s. Very frustrating.
I didn’t have any real confidence till Dave and I did a 35
with 3 laps to go.

At one point late in the race, I complained to David that
I felt like I was sprinting, but I was only managing 36-37 minutes
per lap. I think I found the reason. I wore a pedometer during
the race. (Call me a measurement freak.) In my long training
workouts, I was very consistently taking 1750 steps per mile. In
the last 8 hours of FANS (I recorded how many steps I had at
midnight) I averaged 2150 steps per mile. I assume this was due
to my blistered feet: I had large heal blisters and large blisters
on the balls of both feet. If I am calculating right, to make
up for my shorter stride, I had a higher turnover. In fact,
the turnover rate at 15 min/mi was roughly the equivalent of
the turnover rate I had in training at a 12:15 pace.

I’ve mentioned this to you before, but I’ll do it again:
We use different eating strategies. You eat infrequent small
meals, where as I graze. For example, until the last 6 laps
or so, I took food EVERY time I came to an aid station. Not
much: perhaps as few as 2 pretzels. I never took more than
4 pretzels. I’d take a small number of peanuts, or one small
piece of a candy bar. But I would take something. You might
try this. I know you’ve said you had your successes with your
current method but it certainly does not seem to work for you
now. It is probably worth trying something different.

Also, after a disastrous 24 hour effort, I did the 12 hour
race a couple of times to help work out the bugs. That might
not be the worst idea for you either.

I won’t be doing the race next year. I intend to crew
for David. We kind of alternate that way. That’s another
advantage I have over you: a wonderful support crew at the
race. I hope to see you next year.

John