Slow progression, still no master plan

Step By Step

As I explained in my introduction, I got started with running by joining a colleague in a local fund-raising 5K (3.1 miles).  That served as my motivation and purpose and since I had been in athletics most of my life as a participant or coach, I respected the need for some type of a plan or approach.  There are no shortages of these – just Google “beginner 5K” and you will find endless options.  Perhaps the most important training tip that I received as a beginner was to just forget about speed and pace and even distance.  Just focus on duration; run for x minutes in a row and then increase that over time.  Lots of other details came into the mix like not increasing distance too much week-over-week, what pace would I run the 5K at so that I can project how many minutes I would need to be able to run, etc.  So much of running is in our minds and to get started from zero, I found it much easier to use the “minutes in a row” approach.  Even at its simplest level, I knew I could get myself to run for 5 minutes so I set that as my starting point.  Surely I could run the next time for 5 ½ minutes – just 30 more seconds.  Onward and upward from there I went until I was stretching out to over 10 and then 15 minutes.

I ran that 5K in April of 2010 on a drizzly, humid morning in Piscataway NJ, the Rutgers University “High Speed Chase For The Cure” with proceeds to benefit the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. The race start was called by Greg Shiano, then head football coach at Rutgers who then moved on to lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. 

My finishing time was somewhere north of 31 minutes and I totally enjoyed the experience.  Having done most of my training alone, this was my first experience with an organized race, running with other runners and all that goes with that. I was fortunate to have my colleague Ryan, and his other fund-raising team members to meet up with before the race, mingle with and learn from. We didn’t run together because we all had such different pace levels but at least I wasn’t completely alone before the race, picking up my race bib and pinning it on, and getting into the start area. Then the adrenalin rush and the impulse to jump out too fast – after all I had never run beside other runners, not to mention a few thousand of them.  After a few hundred yards of panting and adrenalin dump, I eventually settled into a pace that was more “my speed”. A half-hour later I was done and my wife and daughter were there at the finish line to cheer me on.  

After that initial 5K run, I didn’t have any master plan. It all just seemed to evolve naturally.  I began to do more running on the treadmill at our health club and I would take my gear on business trips so I could run in the hotel gyms and outdoors when time and weather allowed. I enjoyed the running itself but soon the competitive athlete in me began to itch so I signed up for another local 5K fund-raiser.

This seemed to work for me as I could plot the race on my calendar and then “train” toward that event.  I was beginning to notice that I enjoyed this cadence; find and schedule a local race, train for the race, run the race. And this is when I learned more runner jargon: the “PR”, Personal Record. Like everything else in life, when you are just starting out running, you are able to improve your performance on just about every race you run. The verb form of the word is “to PR” which means to set a new Personal Record and I was setting a new 5K PR on each race.  And back to my introduction again, I was beginning to notice and enjoy that camaraderie and community of runners. Each 5K race I entered gave me another opportunity to enjoy that fraternity and to be among other runners.

At this point, I began to look into more challenges and the options were to improve my speed for 5K distance and/or extend my distance to the next natural level; 10K (6.2 miles).  I began to learn that in the running community, there are far more local 5K races than 10K’s and that continues up the scale. There are fewer Half Marathons and even fewer Full Marathons. I also began to learn the seasonal cycles for races. Living in the northeast, the two race seasons are spring and fall. So late in 2010 with about four 5K’s under my belt I began to look for a 10K to enter and there was one in my area in the March timeframe. I made the decision to register during the Christmas season 2010 and gave myself a 3-month window to train for this new distance.  This would mean a 100% increase over my current distance of 5K and it sounded very daunting at the time.  I mentioned the race to my friend and colleague Bob who was well on his own way to Full Marathon training, and he agreed to enter the race with me.

As I began to train for this 10K race, I quickly learned another reality of the seasonality of running in the northeast; training for a spring race means you begin your training in winter while training for an autumn race means training during the summer.  Pick your poison! So I began my training in January and I realized that I enjoyed running in the cold elements. As long as it wasn’t bitter (temperatures in the teens or lower) nor too windy or slippery, it was a challenge to get out there and withstand the elements.

Winter training for springtime race

My biggest challenge was the jump up in distance and as all runners learn, that has to be done gradually over time.  I would tell my friends – especially other runners – that I didn’t feel limited in an aerobic sense, I wasn’t breathing too hard or feeling tired in that way.  I was feeling increasingly sore and painful in other areas; specifically my knees and hips. Oh boy, did I get an anatomy lesson real fast. I had learned my high school biology pretty well and I could recite all 206 bones thanks to Mr. Niosi's 10th grade biology class. But I had never heard of something called my Iliotibial Band. So I quickly learned about my ITB and the ever dreaded ITBS; Iliotibial Band Syndrome. Suffice to say, now I must’ve been a “runner” because I was experiencing one of the most prevalent runner’s ailments and a classical case that was tied to my increase in mileage and training.

The dreaded ITB and ITBS

The training for the 10K went OK and I flirted on and off with setbacks due to knee pain from the ITBS. Race day came and I enjoyed having my good friend join me although we didn’t plan to run together. Bob was looking to PR in the 8-minute per mile range (there’s that PR word again) and I was just looking to finish. Being an early March race – and aptly called “The Run From Winter”, the weather could be unpredictable in the northeast. We were lucky to get an overcast day of 40 degrees in the morning and up to 50 during the race which was ideal. Bob and I separated just after the start and I settled into my pace comfortably having learned in my earlier 5K’s not to be caught up in the adrenalin rush to jump out too quickly. Somewhere around mile 3 we passed each other because the course was out and back, meaning we re-traced our steps after about half-way.  He looked great and said he was a bit behind his PR pace but felt good. It’s amazing how much two runners can communicate to each other in such a short pass-by.

Early in the 10K race

As I approached mile 5 I could feel my left knee getting very painful. This is one of the characteristics of ITBS, it doesn’t come on gradually, it’s very rapid. The biology is all about inflammation that impedes free movement of the ITB as is passes back and forth over the knee joint and once it happens; every stride brings direct pain to that spot.  I struggled for another ½ mile but then I pulled up with my knee completely locked up. I could barely walk on it and so I got my first ever DNF – Did Not Finish (there’s another term we learn).

After the work I had begun to do to combat the ITBS, this was a frustrating setback for sure. I went to a physical therapist to assess the problem because I was having trouble walking on it and maintaining normal lifestyle.  The fact that I couldn’t run on it at all was additional frustration but I wasn’t that “hooked” on running yet – I just needed to get back to walking! After some weeks of PT and focused exercises I was slowly able to get back to normal and some light running again.

More on that in my next post.