Author Archives: dshen

ASRSpeed.com: Ultimate Speed Training

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Once again, the book Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss has me trying one more new thing!
For the last few months, I’ve been working on my strength through Russian techniques (see Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous) and Deadlifting for Faster Running). I’ve seen some definite increases in my track workouts, having dropped from 39 seconds to 37 seconds for a 200m run (that after dropping my time from 45 to 39 seconds simply by altering my form and in addition to my normal weekly treadmill neuromuscular speed training).
But having no real race goal in the foreseeable future, I cracked open my copy of Four Hour Body and engaged with ASRSpeed.com, the automated website training program built by Barry Ross using some breakthrough research from Rice University (see High-speed running performance: a new approach to assessment and prediction by Matthew W. Bundle, Reed W. Hoyt, and Peter G. Weyand) which is able to predict the final distance/time or time/distance of a runner from a few meters to a run of about 4 minutes. Then using this algorithm, Barry Ross and his colleague, Ken Jakalski, created a training system which removes two old ways of training:
1. Workouts of set distances and set number of repeats.
They cite the problem here is that a runner is always holding back in order to make sure they make the requisite number of repeats, and therefore, never trains at his maximum potential.
2. Running overdistance.
Running overdistance makes runners too tired and reduces top speed by its very nature to improve the energy system.
They and the researchers at Rice University figured out that for maximum speed, you don’t want to train the energy system but rather you want to train the muscles which the energy system fuels and reduce their rate of fatigue.
You first run a time trial. Then the website takes that data and returns workouts for you to perform. The workouts are in the form of distance and a goal time. You are NOT given a set number of repeats to run; instead you run full out each time until you can’t achieve the goal time, at which time you stop. If you hit 10 repeats and are still under the goal time, you stop. The website then makes you retest the time trial – in theory, you should be faster this time!
Without any races on the horizon, I decided to give this a go. In theory, if I get faster at short distance, this should make me faster at long distance as well. Also, it would be a complement to my strength building program from the same Barry Ross.
To prep for this, I got some blue masking tape to tape lines on a track. I also bought a Ultrak 495 100 Lap Memory Professional Stopwatch (using a wristwatch timer is OK but not ideal due to button position and pressing them on a full sprint).
Then I also bought a CST – MeasureMark 31-10M Single 4-Inch ABS Plastic Wheel Measuring Wheel in Meters/Decimeters to measure out the workout distances given by the website. You need this because the workout distances are not standard distances of any sort. Plus, I could never figure out track markings no matter what.
It also helps to bring some objects that you can drop on the ground to mark distances before you tape. I actually found some discarded pieces of flat plastic that worked great. Sometimes I end up just using the plastic and not taping the track ground.
I went to the website for my first workout, which was to run the time trial. This was 3 repeats of a 10m run, with a 25m fly-in (headstart, so that you are at full speed when you hit the start of the 10m). The second time trial was a 300m run, with 5m fly-in.
For the 10m run, my times were: 1.42s, 1.50s, and 1.49s for an average of 1.47s. My 300m time was 53.9s. I entered these into the website and then got another workout. The next workout I did the following day as I was not sure about taking days off or frequency of workouts per week. (The workouts seemed short enough that I could potentially run every day or nearly so – well this proved to be false.)
This workout was 40m repeats with a goal time of 6.30s, and rest interval of 4 minutes, and as many as I could before I could not hit the goal time. I used a fly-in of 25m although the website didn’t specify exactly how much. My times were:

Repeat Time (sec)
1 6.04
2 6.10
3 6.10
4 6.10
5 6.08
6 6.14
7 5.80
8 6.05
9 6.00
10 6.02

I was under the target time by about .3s and was able to do this 10 times. So I called it quits and came back to enter the info into the website, at which time it asked me to run the time trial again.
One thing I found out was that this is more stressful on my body than I thought. Even though I had a whopping 4 minute rest interval which allowed almost full recovery, the hours after and certainly the day after left me sore. Full-on sprinting was a new stress on my body and while I tried to do my best at maintaining a soft but rapid footfall, it was still enough to make me more sore than I thought.
I think that I will adapt to this workout, but I don’t think that I could do this every day. I think my starting workout week will be ASRSpeed workouts twice a week, and then a 1 hour run added in. In the past, I have found that without at least one 1 hour run per week, it caused my overall fitness to drop where my track workouts were hard to make gains week over week. I will intersperse this with my strength training regimen, which is talked about on the website but gives no details, and my swimming.
More on this later as the months progress – I had entered my goal race as a 400m and my previously my fastest recorded 400m time was 1:27. I am hoping that this training program added to my strength training will improve that time, as well as my marathon times.

Total Immersion: Fixing My Left Side and Swimming Symmetry

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Back in May, I met with Coach Shinji for a swim lesson. Going through some of the things I wanted to work on, I remarked that for some reason when I am spearing with my right hand, I seem to glide a lot faster/longer than when I spear with my left hand.
It had been annoying me to no end for months now. I would swim and watch the black tiles go by underneath me. As I speared with my right arm, stroking back with my left with a flick of my left foot in two beat kick, I would glide forward at a certain speed. Then my left arm would come forward and speared forward, again with right arm stroking back and flick of my right foot, I would glide forward again, but always travelling less distance and with less speed than when I speared right.
How annoying!
There would be times when I swam that there would be 1 or 2 perfect left spear strokes for each length and my glide on that side would be as fast and as far as the other side. But most of the time, I would glide more upon the right spear than for my left.
It’s amazing to see the asymmetry in my swimming when I began to train Total Immersion. The two ways you could see this was: 1) Coaches Shinji and Dave Cameron could see this with their practiced eye, and 2) constant video taping of myself by me and watching painful videos of myself swimming in slow motion.
So experienced coaches first note the problem, but then after you leave the coaching session you need to keep practicing and have the ability to get feedback on your performance so that you’re still practicing the new movement and not reverting back to the old problem. I videotaped myself swimming virtually every session for the last few weeks after the coaching sessions. I would critique myself, swear silently at myself for thinking I was improving a focal point but video evidence would tell me I barely made a nudge or I was still exhibiting the problem. Then, for the next swim workout, I would mentally adjust my focal points a little more and attempt them at that next workout.
This left side asymmetry was definitely a tough one.
The timing of my left arm spear, my body rotation, hip drive, and flick of my right foot in two beat kick were sufficiently off enough to make a noticeable difference between my left and right sides in propulsion. The problems were mostly in the timing of the left arm drop from high recovery into the water and how the hip is connected to that movement. Then the kick itself was not exactly at the right time to send the spear off with maximal effect.
How I worked the heck out of it and brought it to some level of being fixed:
1. I would swim very slowly and focused on using my hip to move the arm into the water, versus whatever I was doing before, which was more about leading the spear with my arm and shoulders.
2. At Shinji’s suggestion, I then worked on focusing on my hips to time each stroke versus any other body part. Thus, I would focus on rotating my hips from side to side and let my arms do their normal thing. This increased my awareness of my hips’ contribution to the stroke versus just the arms.
3. Dave Cameron made a great suggestion, which was to use a tempo trainer to help fix the coordination and time my two beat kick to each beep. In order to make a beep, I had to use my hips or else my body would just be moving too slow. Then, in order to time my kick to a beep, my side and arm spear had to be in the water before the beep so that my kick would be able to hit on that beep. This really helped even out the difference between my left and right sides.
It took many weeks of focus and drilling with the tempo trainer to start evening my two body sides out. Now I travel much further during my left spear than before, but it is still not up to quite as far and fast as I travel during my right spear.
It’s amazing to see how my body has created such asymmetries over my lifetime. I start favoring my right side since I’m right hand dominant and it is so much more coordinated than my left. Now through incessant drilling and focus, coupled with a feedback system – my coaches and videotaping – allows me to address these differences and become a better athlete as a result.

Deadlifting is HARD (and Dangerous)

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Well, my first adventures with the deadlift were enlightening and a bit painful.
I was foolishly naive about the details of deadlifting form and just started into deadlifting without thinking too much about it. I only thought to keep my back in neutral position and then lift the weight. I started by trying the prescribed path in Underground Secrets to Faster Running by Barry Ross which suggests a series of weights to try in order to determine my maximum weights at certain repetitions. It starts at 50% of my body weight and works upwards from there, until you find your one rep max, or 1RM.
I got up to a rather wimpy 195 lbs for 2 reps and then trying 215 I could not budge it at all! This unfortunately strained my back, probably both muscles and my spine, for several days. I then had a session with my physical therapist who ran me through the intricate details of deadlifting form. In fact, around 155 lbs my upper back started to curl and my shoulders could not be kept in position as the weight dragged my upper body down. I should have realized this and not kept going.
I found out that deadlifting is more than what it seems. At first glance, it seems to be just a leg building exercise but it actually builds the entire upper body as well. You need to be able to activate a sequence of upper body muscles to not only lock the spine into neutral position but also to be able to perform the lift and get the weight off the ground and up into its final position.
I found out the hard way that I didn’t have the ability to activate my muscles in the right sequence, and also some of my muscles had “amnesia” which meant that my body had forgotten how to activate them when I needed their help in making the lift. This was a problem that had been plaguing me for my running – I know I have “gluteal amnesia” where my glutes would not fire and my hamstrings would get wiped out from running and ultimately cramp up during a race.
But first, the proper sequence, for the sumo version:
1. Take a wide stance, similar to the initial setup position of a sumo wrestler. The feet should be pointing about 45 degrees outward from center. Take as wide a stance as your flexibility allows; this will allow you to get the grip on the bar of the barbell as close to your body’s axis as possible, which allows the body to take the weight of the barbell with the spine as vertical as possible.
If you can, lift barefoot or in Vibram Five Fingers. Even the height of the sole can cause instability in the lift.
2. Push your shins up to the bar, touching it. You will want the feeling of scraping the bar up along the shins when you lift up, but also being that close to the bar means the weight is as close to your centerline as possible.
3. Squat down. The flexibility of the leg and hip muscles may prevent you from getting down really low into a low squat, but you want to get as low as you are able. Also, you may find that your muscles are not strong and/or activated enough to be able to lift weight from such a low starting position. You may need to start in a higher squatted position.
4. Hinge the hips such that your butt is sticking out and not curled underneath. If your butt is curled under your spine, that means your spine is not aligned near the bottom which is bad. Lots of bad pressure to your disks if not aligned!
5. Grip the bar. Use opposite grips with the hands, one with the palm facing inward and one with the palm facing outward. With the hands in opposite directions, you can actually lift more.
6. In preparation for the lift, do this:
a. Grip the bar firmly.
b. Load up to right before the lift by extending upward with the body, but maintaining a neutral spine.
c. In loading up, tighten up the core, the back muscles, and the shoulder muscles. This will lock up the body in position and prevent your back/spine from moving out of alignment which will increase the possibility of injury.
d. Grip the ground with your feet and press up to right before the lift, flexing the leg muscles and glutes.
e. Look up at about a 45 degree angle. This will help keep the body in alignment. Looking down could cause your body to curl.
Setting up for the lift is super important. You want to make sure your whole body is locked in for the ultimate effort to lift the weight off the ground.
7. Take a deep breath and hold it. Holding your breath during the lift will help get you maximum effort. Then, as if you’re going to force your feet/heels through the ground, press the weight up, rising up on your legs, while keeping your body locked from step 6 above.
8. When you reach full extension of your legs, expel your breath at the top of the lift. Pull your shoulders back slightly, and then shove your hips forward while flexing your glutes. This completes the lift.
9. While the books prescribe dropping the bar, this is nearly impossible in most consumer gyms. You have to be at a real muscle place like Gold’s Gym to be able to drop a heavy weight without people or the staff complaining, or even if the floor can take that much of a weight slamming down on it from knee height.
Instead, after expelling your breath, take another breath, lock your body into position and then slowly lower the bar with your legs back to the floor.
10. Repeat steps 1-9 until you finish your set.
Now I practice this with only 135 lbs. Over the last few sessions, I make sure I can do this absolutely right. It is an interesting muscle activation experience.
When I lift, I rehearse the sequence through my brain as it’s easy to just forget one of the steps if I move too quickly.
I must maintain control and flexing of a whole set of muscles during the lift. I find that if I lose concentration, I can lose the tightening of any set of muscles which lock my body into position. This is bad and can cause my back to be sore, or cause my disks to fire up other muscles like my hamstrings, glutes, or erectors (back muscles).
Early on, I could feel that certain muscles just weren’t firing at all, especially my glutes. I could tell because after the workout, my hamstrings were very tight. Now I also focus on flexing my glutes especially during the lift.
I also have to watch the floor. At the YMCA in NYC, the floor is a rubberized tile. But it is also slippery against the soles of my running shoes, which caused my left foot to slip outward during a lift – very dangerous. I finally just took off my running shoes and socks and lifted barefoot. My sweaty feet nicely gripped the otherwise slippery tiles.
I need to burn the entire steps 1-9 into my brain so that I do it all, in sequence, naturally and every time.
Once I get the steps into my nervous system, then and only then can I start increasing the weight I lift.
Other exercises that are helping:
1. Cable rows, pulling the weight with elbows low.
2. Using a functional trainer or similar (one of those things with weights and cables and adjustable big arms), I row low, pulling my elbows to my sides and then pull my arms downward for triceps extensions.
3. Single leg dumbbell deadlifts, great for glute activation.
4. Single leg supine hip raises, one leg at a time.
Such a simple looking move, but yet so complex! I look forward to advancing in my Russian strength building techniques, and hopefully my running as well.
NOTE: By the way, an amazing back book is this: Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance by Stuart McGill. It’s expensive but well worth the read.

Total Immersion: Learning the Early Vertical Forearm

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A few weeks ago, I had another coaching session with the elusive Coach Shinji, who is flying all around the world promoting Total Immersion but I managed to catch him back in the Bay area!
This time I asked about Early Vertical Forearm, or EVF. I had thought I was trying to do EVF and wanted him to video me to see how it looked. But it turns out I wasn’t even close!
When you look at this sequence of photos of Grant Hackett and Ian Thrope, you can see that their forearms are perfectly and fully vertical, well before the arm starts stroking back. Wow. I atempted to visualize that and put it in practice, but underwater video of me trying showed my technique nowhere near theirs.
Shinji taught me two very important things, which were:
1. My spear was way too low, even though it was not wrong. I was spearing at an angle down which is appropriate for typical Total Immersion style swimming. However, trying to get EVF when the elbow is so low is very hard, if not impossible because you have to lift the elbow up to get your forearm vertical and that is super hard, given the weight of water pressing down on the elbow. However, spearing low is great for balance in the water and keeping your hips up.
So I needed to spear straight ahead which is hard considering I had been spearing forward and down for months now, perfecting my balance and keeping my hips high. To spear horizontal, the feeling of the trajectory of my spear is almost that I’m spearing out of the water! Thankfully, my water balance was good such that my hips didn’t drop when my spear was much higher.
Now that my spear was horizontal, my elbow was in a very high position and thus I could just bend my forearm down to EVF.
Theoretically. More on this later.
2. There are two surges of power in the actual stroke. The first surge happens when you bend the forearm down and the surge of power is in the forward part of the stroke. Then there is a lull as the arm moves back past the shoulder. The second surge happens when you engage the lats and press through to the end of the stroke.
This was hard to grasp; I had to work on other things first. At this point, I was hoping that once my form was looking good, that the 2 surges of power would happen naturally.
Then I went to a Total Immersion Tune Up with Dave Cameron who taught me another critical part of EVF. For details, check out his post High Elbow Catch Introduction. Basically, he showed me the sequence of moves to shift from recovery to spear and EVF. The video in that post shows the practice sequence – see it below.

You stand upright and one arm is speared while the other is preparing to recover. Then as your hip comes around (you take a small step to simulate), you keep the speared arm forward and bend the forearm to EVF position as you spear with the other arm.
I melded this with Shinji’s tips, especially on spearing high and horizontal, while in the pool. I had two video cameras on me at the edge of the pool, videoing underwater and above water. I tried swimming fast but I felt that I was getting messy and that my elbow was dropping. However, I felt that I was getting a lot more power – I could get across 25y in only 13 strokes when it was taking me 14+ with regular TI style low spearing. But it was very tiring.
Shinji did tell me that he almost never does EVF style swimming unless he is sprinting or in a short race. Otherwise it is too tiring to maintain over long distance.
I tried slowing down a lot. This helped me focus on mimicking Dave’s upright practice movement while lying in the water. I felt that I was making strides in practicing EVF as I was still reaching 25y in 13 strokes.
Analyzing the video showed a bit otherwise – I certainly did not look like Grant Hackett or Ian Thrope in that post! I thought I was spearing horizontal, but I was still angled downward. I did not bend my forearm down early enough as my nervous system is too programmed to start stroking. I need to keep my upper arm horizontal as my forearm drops down and resist the temptation to stroke before my forearm is vertical. I also need to turn my forearm/elbow so that my elbow is pointing up – this is a move I can do on dryland but I have not noticed happening in the water as too much is happening. But turning my arm like that means I can bend my forearm downward. Still, something interesting was happening as I could get more stroking force ahead of my shoulder whereas before there was not as much and I could get across 25y in at least 1-2 less strokes.
More work to be done here for sure, but at least now I know the secret of EVF!

Deadlifting for Faster Running

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The book, Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, brings me new insight all the time. After implementing the details on pre-running prep, I started into the chapter on increasing strength for better running. This led me to Underground Secrets to Faster Running by Barry Ross which further describes what to do.
It is a melding of strength training techniques pioneered by the Russians and it’s effect on running performance. It basically uses the deadlift as the primary method for increasing strength, but you don’t train to failure like I was taught way back when I was really into weightlifting.
So many misconceptions about how to weightlift and why we are doing it. I used to lift weights religiously on the hopes that I would increase muscle and size. I would train to failure and be into that “no pain, no gain” mentality. It would work for a while, but I would often plateau or I would injure myself. Reading the concepts in 4 Hour Body and then Underground Secrets to Faster Running, I finally understood how weightlifting can benefit running.
The idea is to gain strength without increasing your size. Bodybuilders want to look good on stage and on the beach, so they want to increase size and lose fat to increase definition. But that doesn’t necessarily make them strong. And often you gain weight while your muscle size increases. Training to failure can make you bigger, but it doesn’t necessarily make you stronger. It does increase your chance for injury as your support structures also fatigue during the last few reps.
But us runners want to remain light so that we’re not dragging around extra pounds during a race. That’s a waste! However, we can get strong without extra weight. With more strength, we can endure the energy sapping conditions of a race better. We can also increase our cycle rate as our legs/feet can rebound off the ground with more energy and do it longer without fatiguing.
I dug into this further in Power to the People by Pavel Tsatsouline. Really interesting concepts into how the Russians have trained for strength for the Olympics. But the focus of this training is more for maximal strength for powerlifting. I needed maximal strength that also didn’t leave me fatigued or wiped out for run training afterwards. This was also a problem with training to failure; it would leave me sore and tight on the next day that I could not run effectively.
The plan described in 4 Hour Body and Underground Secrets involved a combination of pressing motions and plyometrics. In this case, the two main movements would be the bench press and deadlift, with plyometrics. The plan called for 2 reps at 95% 1RM (1 Rep Maximum) and then 5 reps at 85% 1RM. This was both for bench press and deadlift. Then after each set, I would immediately do a set of plyometrics and hit my stopwatch to do nothing for 5 minutes of rest. The 5 minutes of rest was crucial for me to return to a nearly fully recovered state. This would enable me to gain strength by activating the right aspects of my muscles but not stimulate growth in size and weight. Also, given that I was almost fully recovered, my support structures would not be fatigued and thus I would be less prone to injury.
The typical workout would eventually look like this:
Warmup w/ dynamic stretching, not static
Bench Press
1 set 2x 95% 1RM weight
push up plyometrics (or 10 pushups)
rest 5 minutes
1 set 5x 85% 1RM weight
push up plyometrics (or 10 pushups)
rest 5 minutes
Deadlift
1 set 2x 95% 1RM weight
jumping plyometrics
rest 5 minutes
1 set 5x 85% 1RM weight
jumping plyometrics
rest 5 minutes
Other Exercises
Core Exercises
Cool down with static stretching
Note the addition of Other Exercises and Core Exercises to round out the workout.
Other Exercises I do are some combination of:
Reverse Hyperextension using exercise ball and bench
Glute Ham Raise, assisted
Hyperextensions
Supine Hip Raises
Single Leg, Stiff Legged Dumbbell Deadlift, with 1 or 2 dumbbells
For Core Exercises, I keep it simple and use what is suggested in 4 Hour Body which is the Torture Twist. You lay on a sideways bench and hook your feet under a bar or similar. Then lay back and turn to one side to hold for 3 seconds, then turn to the other side and hold for 3 seconds, then repeat for 3 times and then sit up for rest of 30 seconds. Do up to 3 Torture Twists, and then start increasing the hold time from 3 seconds to longer.
As I mentioned, I was into weightlifting back many years ago. However, I knew that I could not jump back into weightlifting without starting out slow. I had to start out slowly and see what my current limits were and build from there. Way back, I knew what my 1RM for bench press was and that was 215 lbs at a body weight of 150. Still, I was out of shape to attempt even close to that now. As for deadlift, I had no idea what my 1RM was at all.
The other complicating factor was that I had never deadlifted at all in the past. I had tried it a few times, but never worked on it. I had no idea how my core and back muscles would take heavy deadlifting.
For the upper body movement, I would just start with pushups for a few workout days and then add in plyometrics for chest, and then go to bench press with plyometrics. For deadlift, Underground Secrets gave a workout sequence for determining my 1RM and I thought I would give it a try. I picked the sumo style of deadlifting versus traditional as it would put my hips closer to the bar and hopefully not stress my back as much as the traditional form.
The workout sequence they gave was to start with some % of your body weight and deadlift for 3 times. Do the plyometrics, rest for 5 minutes after. Then increase weight and deadlift for 2 times and repeat plyometrics and rest. Then increase weight and deadlift for 1 times, repeating plyometrics and rest. The next workout day, you would start with more weight and repeat. Repeat this sequence over a period of many days until you fail on a lift attempt. This would be your 1RM.
I got up to about 155 lbs when I felt like my shoulders were starting to drag forward due to the weight. I had a feeling this would be a problem but I decided to keep going just to see what would happen. I got up to 195 lbs for 2 reps and totally failed at 215 lbs. But after the workout, my lower back was pretty sore since by then shoulders were totally dragging down and my back was beginning to round due to the load of the weight. This was bad!
One problem with all these programs is that they never talk about how to start out. They pre-suppose you having some level of fitness or ability beforehand. They just jump you into the workouts and don’t talk much about preparation, which could take months beforehand.
At least 4 Hour Body had a small chapter on pre-run preparation. I do those exercises religiously even though I’m not really starting out as I find they have benefits. The big problem with the strength training is that lifting heavy weights is kind of dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing. This is why I started getting afraid when my shoulders started dragging downward and my back started to curl under the heavy weights, and I was right: a sore lower back was not a good thing.
Querying my sports medicine guy, he showed me proper deadlift form. Here is a great video on proper deadlifting form:

He also told me that a lot of it has to do with a super strong upper body and being able to lock it in position even under super heavy load. My upper body was totally unprepared for even a relatively wimpy 200 lbs or so which is not even 1.5x my body weight. I have to be able to pull my shoulders back and down and hold it there while I lift upwards. So proper form, and the strength to hold form, are crucial. I started rowing now to increase my upper back/lat strength for heavier lifting.
For a while I will still deadlift lower weights in/around my weight until I feel that my upper body is starting to get the knack of holding proper form. Then I will increase gradually.
The other thing I changed was the negative/downward motion of the lift. In both 4 Hour Body and Underground Secrets, they prescribe dropping the weight at the top of the lift. Well, the problem with this is that most gyms, especially consumer gyms, hate it when you drop heavy weights. The floors and weights aren’t rubberized enough and the other people are too wimpy to like the loud thumping noise of the weights dropping onto the floor. Only true muscle gyms like Gold’s or World Gym let you drop the weight like that.
I tried racking the weight on low hooks on a squat cage after lifting to max height which works after a fashion because you lift up and then you shuffle forward slightly to rack the weight. But I was unsure that if I could rack the weight if I was nearing my max weight lifted. I then tried adding the negative/lowering portion of the lift. This definitely put added stress on my legs (because I was more sore afterwards) but at least I could get through my sets faster.
So far, so good. My running times on the track are getting faster and it’s unclear whether or not a month of deadlifting was the cause of this speed increase, but I intend to experiment for the better part of this year as I await the lottery drawing to the NYC Marathon later this year.

LA Marathon 2011: Pictures of Hell

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Actually this is not red hot hell but a frozen hell. Note the wet pavement; you can’t see the rain coming down on us in the pictures. You can also see that my shirt is soaked through – that ain’t sweat unfortunately! Temps in 50s, high winds, wet race clothes, hands and feet both numb after only 3-4 miles into the race:

Me running past Grumman’s Chinese Theater and on Rodeo Drive. Note the dude with no shirt on – he must have been freezing:

After long miles battling muscle cramps, I am resigned to walking…and getting more hypothermic:

Finally the finishing chute along Ocean Ave in Santa Monica. I fight my cramps to have a run-in finish:

First, me happy to have finished! Then, me not so happy with the wind blowing my mylar blanket around and not keeping me warm at all:

Me turning off Runkeeper:

Body temperature dropping after the finish:


Teeth are chattering now, that isn’t a smile:

The lone tent under which 50+ people were huddled to escape the rain and wind:

Finally a smile after I change out of my wet clothes and put on a wool shirt and rain jacket. Teeth still chattering behind my lips worse now:

Moving as quickly (and painfully) as possible to my car, which is at least a mile or two away SUCK:

LA Marathon 2011 Post-Mortem and Recovery: 3-21-11

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Recovery is going pretty well. I took about 70g of protein powder after the race, through many doses across the rest of the day. Today, race day + 1, I took an additional 80g of protein powder. Both days I drank several packets of Emergen-C to keep throwing vitamin-C and other essential vitamins into my body for recovery.
Currently, after the race, what hurts:
1. My left ankle, but after I adjusted it, the pain went away!
2. My left anterior tibialis is sore. Left ankle area on top is sore when I move/bend the foot.
3. My right anterior tibialis is not sore much. Right ankle area on top is sore when i move/bend the foot.
Re: 2 and 3 – I think that the numbness in feet due to cold contributed to this. I felt like I was running on club feet and could not tell how my feet were landing on the ground. This could mean that my foot contact was not optimal and beating up my ankles and the surrounding structures more than normal.
4. Almost no soreness in either hamstring or glutes. I think those 4 Hour Body exercises are working well!
5. Both quads very sore. I think this was exacerbated by the cramping in both quads. I suspect 3 things that caused the cramping:
a. It was a cold day and I was not drinking much, so less electrolyte contribution from my sports drink. I was gel-ing every 45 min. so that was still on my normal schedule. I had electrolyte tablets with me, but didn’t take them until mile 14 after my right quad cramped. By then it was too late. I should have started taking them on my usual schedule, but I was also curious to see if I really needed that much electrolytes, and especially on such a cold day.
b. The cold was driving down my heart rate. I looked at my HR graph from my Garmin 305, and it steadily declined as the day wore on. Some of that was due to my walking, but I could see my HR angling downward even before my first cramping at mile 14.

So I wonder about whether or not less blood flowing through my muscles caused the cramping since they were not getting enough nutrients or electrolytes. Need to look up research on the effect of cold on muscles and cramping.
c. I’m just not strong enough. After I recover, I’m going to start on some suggestions in the 4 Hour Body book from the coach who makes sure his athletes are super strong for running, using lots of deadlifts and similar exercises. I think I’m pretty weak in the quads, and especially if I’ve been working the hams/glutes with the weights/exercises I’ve been doing and they have practically no soreness at all.
5. My right shoulder/pec is very sore. It was getting sore towards the latter half of the race. I suspect that carrying my kid too much had something to do with that. It was taking a lot of my concentration to keep that shoulder/pec from tightening up as I ran.
6. I only slept 4 hours the night before. Every night before that, since daylight savings time started, I have not gotten really good nights of sleep at all. So a whole week of not sleeping enough may have left me at not maximum condition at start of the race.
Lots to think about and work on in the next upcoming months.

Analyzing Angles and Max/Min Height in Running

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A buddy of mine sent me this video from the Somax Performance Institute in Tiburon, CA. It showcased some of their research on elite runners from Kenya and in the US:

They conclude that it’s not genetics but rather run form/mechanics that determine why Kenyas are consistently winning races versus US runners. It was very eye opening, but also firmed up a belief that I had that most of our own problems in running are not genetic, but rather problems in how crappy we run, and these problems are what get us injured and keep us from getting fast.
Immediately after seeing this video (and replaying it many times over and over again), I dug up some old running video taken last year of me running on the track last June 2010. I took frames out of that video and measured some key angles and my max/min height against those of the elites. Here are my results for 3 of the angles:
Max/Min height of when you run:

Mine was about 2″:

Stride Angle:

Here are mine on either side, note the difference:


Toe Lift Angle:

Here are mine on either side, note the difference:


Toe Lift Angle:

Here is mine on the right side:

After I saw this, I knew I had a lot of work to do to get even close to the elites! I pinged my physical therapist and told him we had to get started on these angles ASAP!
In the next few weeks, I’m going to take 2 video cameras to the track and take some video of me running at different speeds. I hope to see an improvement since last June, but also I suspect the angles are different for every running speed.

LA Marathon Race Report 3-20-11: Misery Redefined

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The LA Marathon for 2011 started very poorly. There was rain in the forecast for LA, but it hit SF first and 1/2 hour before my flight was supposed to take off, AA cancelled my flight due to weather, sunspots, whatever! I got on the phone with their special hotline but they told me everything was booked solid and I could arrive on Tuesday. Well, that works real well, don’t it? So they did give me a refund thankfully on Saturday’s leg BUT I was panicking on how to get down to LA in time to get to the expo at Dodger Stadium, which was closing at 5pm!
I literally ran over to the Southwest desk, at the end of the next building over, to see if they had something. There was a flight with space, but it was at 310p at Oakland airport! I took it on the chance that I could get to LA in time to get over to Dodger Stadium. It was supposed to arrive at 420p but I thought that the chance of me getting to LAX in time to get in a taxi and get over to Dodger Stadium before 5p was pretty slim if not even possible. But I have no other choice. I hop in a taxi and he huffs it to Oakland.
As I’m sitting in the taxi, I’m starting to panic. Thankfully I find someone in LA to go to pick up my race materials for me. I forward over my race confirmation email, a picture of my license which I amazingly had on my hard drive, and an authorization letter. I get on the Southwest flight and arrive at 430p which meant that I would have never gotten to the expo in time.
I arrive to cold and light drizzle. That was the first part of this miserable experience.
The next morning I got to the race start and it was relatively dry but very overcast. The wind had picked up but all of us were staying within Dodger Stadium to keep out of the cold and wind. I hoped that the weather would just stay overcast without rain. I was wrong.
The race started but it was a big blur due to the weather. Shortly after we start, the rain starts coming down. First it was a drizzle, and it was stopping and starting. I was doing OK, actually going pretty darn fast all things considering. It was probably a mistake to run at that speed though.
At mile 14, my right quad starts threatening to cramp. Up to that point, I had run through many instances of stopping and starting rain, with the rain getting more severe as the day went on, and the wind was picking up also. My hands and fingers were getting numb and I could barely open up my gel packets. I was running through rivers in the roads and my feet were getting numb from being cold and wet. I couldn’t tell how my feet were being placed on the ground; they felt like stumps.
My race clothes were getting totally wet and I knew that stopping would be a potentially fatal mistake. Wet clothing in cold weather will suck heat out of your body like nothing else. It could make me hypothermic. So I had to keep moving no matter what.
My quad doesn’t get better; it gets worse. I start walking when it seizes up until it calms down. I remember bringing some salt tablets and take those, but it helps not enough. This begins to repeat itself over and over again and I start slowing down considerably, especially when my left quad starts to do the same thing!
By mile 19, my quads were getting screwed and taking longer and longer to calm down. I start walking for longer periods of time until they calm down. By mile 21, I am only walking. And it’s raining hard. I start to shiver which is not a good thing. Thoughts of quitting enter my mind, even at mile 21 so close to the finish. I start looking for a medical tent to retreat to in order to quit. I ask around at aid stations where the heck is the next medical tent. They keep pointing down the marathon course. Wonderful. I’m walking, freezing my ass off, on the verge of going hyperthermic, and these guys tell me to keep going.
So I want to quit, but cannot quit. By this time, I start getting mad. I think about the crap I went through the day before. I think about my build to the Honolulu Marathon in December and couldn’t race because I sprained my ankle 3 weeks before. And even if I want to quit, I cannot!
At mile 22, I am at about Barrington and San Vincente which is near where a couple I know lives. As I pass through there, I start running because I don’t want my friends to see me walking. The things I do to maintain my tough guy illusion.
I get to mile 23 and see a medical tent there but keep walking. I get to mile 24 and figure out that if I walk for a 10 count, and then run for a 20 count, I can actually get my speed up. I reach the home stretch on Ocean Ave in Santa Monica and just start running to look good crossing the finish line. I cross at chip time of 4:15:00.
After crossing the line, I start shivering uncontrollably and I’m limping due to my quads being so tight. The wind at the beach on Ocean Ave is considerably greater than amongst the buildings. Now I’m walking and move quickly to grab a mylar blanket. But the wind is just whipping my blanket around. So it’s raining hard, the wind is dropping my body temperature, and I’m walking to my daughter and her mom who have come down in the raging rain to see me at the finish line. I finally find them and now I move/limp to where the expo is…and my race gear bag. After some miserable minutes, we get there and it’s a mess getting my race gear. The trucks are chaos and finally they find my bag. I move rapidly back to a tent where about 50 other people are huddled under in the whipping wind and rain. By now I can’t stop shivering. I take off my wet clothes and put on some dry stuff. Then it’s off to my car where I can barely grip my steering wheel because my hands are numb and get home to a hot shower where I finally can stop shivering.
Before this race, I thought that my most miserable race was Ironman CDA back in 2009. It, too, was a cold, drizzly day and after 12+ hours in that, it was sucked pretty bad. But after running in the whipping rain and wind in 40-50 degree weather, this has become my most miserable race. It’s too bad; the course is not bad and I’m sure in decent weather this is a great race. It’s easier than NYC Marathon and I think I can set my marathon PR here. But not when the weather is so cold and wet.
My new definition of misery is….LA Marathon 2011.
Analysis:
1. In thinking about what went wrong, I think my race prep was OK.
2. I think I went out too fast, even though I wanted to PR and didn’t feel all that bad.
3. Since it was very cold, I think my nutrition could have been better. I did not drink nearly as much fluid, limiting my intake of electrolytes and calories. I also decided to try not taking salt tablets which may have caused or enhanced my cramping.
4. I should have run with wool socks which would have helped even when wet. I also should have worn my gloves which could have helped my hands not be so numb.
5. Cramping hasn’t happened to me in a while. But I think I pushed too hard this race, too early. I think I will try some insight from Tim Ferriss’s Four Hour Body which was about how a coach first gets his athletes as strong as possible. I think that in general, I am not so strong and need to do this.
6. Maybe I should have just resigned myself to fate and not worked so hard to get to LA the day before and just not raced. Certainly I would have just sat here enjoying the warmth of my apartment while watching the wind and rain through my window.
But then I would have been disappointed to have done another training build to a race that I wasn’t able to run. That would have sucked.
All in all, I am glad I finished. It is said that Ironman elites have extreme mental toughness. I think that even though I felt miserable, I think that my fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds was trained significantly. I look forward to applying that in my next marathon.
Besides, I have to maintain the illusion of being an Ironman tough guy amongst my racing friends…

Running Off the Edge of the Cliff

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Last week, I went out on the track to run a workout that combines 800s and 200s. The workout looked like this:
2×800 RI 1.5″
2×200 RI Jog 200
2×800 RI 1.5″
2×200 RI Jog 200
800 RI 1.5″
200 RI Jog 200
As I moved my way through the workout, I was recording lap times on my watch and feeling like my times were so dismal. In previous years, I had been able to run 800s and 200s so much faster than that morning, but for some reason I just could not make those speeds in recent weeks. I tried cycling my legs faster, but this just made me hit my aerobic limit that much faster and I risked flaming out before I could hit the end of an interval.
Then towards the last few intervals, I remembered that body positioning can enhance speed. If I lean too far back, I need to exert more energy in my legs to drive my body forward. Leaning forward by bending at the waist puts me off balance which is bad also, and I waste energy trying to maintain my balance. But leaning forward while upright, presenting chest, with shoulders slightly back and head upright as well, then gravity can add its acceleration to the body and create forward speed without expending muscle energy.
On every 200, I was running them at 43-45 seconds. Then on the 2nd to last 200, I decided to run it with more aggressive body lean forward. Unbelievably, I hit 41 seconds, and without addition of effort. I then ran the next 800 and it was faster than any preceding 800.
On the last 200, I maintained not only aggressive forward lean, but also cycled my legs a bit faster, pushing my aerobic capacity. I made it to 200 in only 39 seconds!!
But the whole time I was leaning my body forward in that upright manner, and leaning as far as I could, feeling like my upper body was pushing forward beyond my cycling legs, it felt like my body was sliding off my hips/legs and about to fall off a cliff the entire time I was running – what a weird sensation this was!
Now I will strive to maintain that “upper body is flying off a cliff” feeling during running, which I know is giving me free, effortless speed that requires minimal leg energy. It does give me an immense mental challenge, however; for some reason, focusing on keeping my body in that position is mentally taxing. With training, I know I can increase my mental endurance on maintaining optimal body lean over race distance.