Oh Everest, My Everest

I really need to stop taking these long hiatuses (hiati?) from running. I haven't run since my last post. That is, until today. I guess I was getting the lazy streak out of my system before this year's MCM training starts. I plan to get serious this year. No more last minute sign-ups for Army PT and being too busy with work. I should be able to fit two mid-week runs into my schedule when fall hits again, even if they are just 3-5 miles each. And that would only be if whatever job I have by then happens to take a lot of time.

I had a good run, though. I decided to take the shortcut through the middle of the lake on my way back but then I got confused about the doubling back on myself part and chickened out before I got to my exit trail. I ran a little ways and realized I turned off onto the wrong section, but I decided that adding some distance wouldn't hurt. I ended up getting spit back out on the other side of the railroad, still near enough to my house. Did 4 instead of 3 miles, averaged an 11:26 pace. Not too bad for having taken over two weeks off.

I also tried to focus on that 3-2 breathing bullshit again. I'm starting to see how maybe one day I can fall into the pattern, though it hardly seems like it will ever feel natural. I had to take longer breaths sometimes, so I'd switch to 4-3 and the sometimes I just needed to swallow since my throat was dry and that'd take up a whole step. I started just letting the funny things happen (like inhaling half a step too late) and trying to make the exhale land with my foot, since that is the whole point of this odd numbered deal. It's just hard because all of my motivation, all the things I do in my head to distract me, they happen in even beats. Most songs don't have a five count, and when I start to think of intellectual things like the equations I've been learning in class or how much detail I want to include in my latest map, well then I basically start breathing in the nice steady pattern that helps me think clearly: 2 in, 2 out. It's no good running when you have to think about the fact that you're running the whole time! Didn't anybody tell this Kowalchik lady that? Breathing in odd numbers requires so much damn concentration on precisely that.

In other news, I volunteered at the PG County Crime Victims Fund 5K this morning and was utterly delighted by a tiny little boy who ran it. That's tough business for a little kid like that! It took him a little over 50 minutes, but he ran the whole way as far as I could tell. I don't think I could even walk around the block without whining when I was five.

After the run, Katrina asked the coach about a program for the returning marathoners since the program starts out at 3 miles and works up to the two 20s... I guess everyone (who likes to wake up early) will just show up earlier to run some extra miles, and the others may just skip them and run on their own. I'm not sure what I'll do yet.

I may show up early to put in some extra miles, but what I really want to do is run with a different pace group. I'd really like to lock into this 11:30 pace that surfaced when I ran just to run because the marathon was finally over. It still feels like my heart is about to escape from my chest, but honestly I felt that way when I was running 13s and 14s sometimes too and the only difference was that my knees hurt more and it took me longer. The biggest hurdle is getting used to this level of discomfort. It isn't inability, after all, just discomfort. The two no longer need to go together now that I'm not such a green runner. Since I want to put out consistent 11s instead of 13s, I wonder if I should start right back at the beginning and just pick faster people to run with.

At least I have another three weeks to figure it out. For now I'll just worry about getting out to the lake every other day or so and doing some miles. It's a lot more peaceful now that I turned off the laps on my Garmin - no more beeping to enable my obsessing over the miles and in the end I just get one big average pace instead of each mile's data, which I tend over-analyze. Here comes the marathon season, ready or not!

Labels: breathing pattern, yellow gatorade

I'm making decent progress in The Complete Book of Running for Women between classes, map-making and playing around on my bike during draughts of nice weather. I think I figured out my right hip issue that surfaced in LA! (I say that as if it were good news.) Kowalchik suggests an odd-numbered breathing pattern - something like 3 in, 2 out for easy running and 2 in, 1 out for speed work - because the impact is slightly greater on the exhale. It follows naturally that if you're landing on the same foot everytime you exhale, you'll start to feel the effects eventually... say, during mile 19 of a marathon you didn't train for.

Apparently most people naturally fall into a 3/2 breathing pattern and don't need to think twice about it, but breathing rhythm is something us 2/2-ers are supposed to be very concerned about. "It may take some getting used to," she says (and I must say that that's an understatement), but apparently it should be done. Only let's rewind for a second:



I need to re-train myself to breathe.



What? The notion is absurd for several reasons, but it is hard to ignore the evidence in my right hip. I'll take her word for it and keep trying.

Of course, I'm always too ambitious for my own good and I also learned a few pages before the breathing tip that there is an optimal range of steps taken per minute. It's what makes the elite, high-efficiency runners high-efficiency. I don't actually know how many steps I used to take in an average minute, but I'm sure it wasn't up in the optimal range. So before I even knew about my breathing problem, I had already decided to try taking quicker steps during my next run. Looking back, I am sure I should I have decided to correct my bad/sub-optimal habits one at a time. I just didn't think of it yesterday. It was a good day to run and I wanted to run. I also wanted to try out all of the neat things I'd learned, building good habits right away so that the improvements might show by October.

So it was that I came to try both correcting my breathing pattern and taking more steps per minute than I usually do. As expected, my little jaunt around the local lake was unnecessarily unpleasant because of this little experiment in stupidity. It went something like this:

in - two - three / out - two
in - two - three / out - two
in - two - three - and a half / out - two - three
in - two - three / out - two - three (DAMN IT!)
in - two - three / out - two
in - two - three / out - two
in - toosoon! / out - two - three
gasp - two - three - four - and a half / out - two - three - four
in - two - three / out - two - three (GEEZ)
in - two / out - two
in - two / out - two
try - again / next - time
take - more / steps - now
breathe odd / la - ter
I - hate / run - ning
in - two / * sigh * - ... - .... - and a half
gasp - two - three / out - two - three
gasp - two / out
gasp - two / out - two
in - two / out - two
ad infinitum

COME ON. Was it all the trumpet playing in high school? Did I not play enough pieces with changing time signatures? Did the few I played make me dizzy? Help, I've fallen into an eternal 4/4 piece and I can't get up!

Labels: breathing pattern, cadence