1740 and All That

For a variety of reasons, I ran my usual distance running pace today, so I did the 1.3 miles in a little under 13 minutes.

My knee twinged the whole time, but it also felt noticeably better at the end than at the beginning.

One of the reasons I ran slowly was because I had a meeting at 8 and didn't have time for a long cooldown run, so I had to not run fast enough to need a long cooldown to fend off a post-run crash.

Speaking of which, I googled post-run crashes quickly yesterday when I was writing my update, and I found "postural hypotension." Apparently your blood pools in your legs, and while your heart rate is high, that's fine because it's working hard enough to pump blood into your brain. If your heart rate drops while your blood is still pooled--boom!--dizziness and nausea, risk of fainting. That's why a cooldown run helps: it keeps your heart pumping at a rate that can get blood to your brain while your blood distribution slowly equalizes across your body.

This makes so much sense! It feels exactly like the postural hypotension I've had since about age 10. The number of times I have either fainted, greyed out and had to sit or lie down quickly, or just felt alarmingly and miserably like I was going to faint or grey out, are beyond what I can count. Dozens, and maybe hundreds. It was bad enough that I had my doctor investigate at one point. She found nothing wrong, said it was benign, and I should just be careful and avoid my triggers. Of which apparently running is one, as it is for many runners.

So I guess a good cooldown run is, in fact, the way to go, as well as maybe investigating sports drinks (and better hydration in general) for longer runs.

landofnowhere, this is presumably why you're able to end your runs at home: you're not getting your heart rate up to a point where you need an additional 15-20 minutes of gradual renormalization of blood pressure just to not pass out.

Yesterday my legs needed a rest day (variety of reasons), but today I pushed myself and did 1.3 miles at an 8 minute/mile pace. I wouldn't say I quite hit my wall, but I felt myself brushing up against it near the end.

No runner's high, which I was hoping for! I got a wonderful case of it on Sunday. Ah, well. I did feel good afterwards. (I mean, after the post-run crash, which always feels awful and forces me to do a cooldown even when that's the last thing I want.)

The interesting thing about the recent speed runs is that my legs are telling me they could definitely go faster; the bottleneck is my cardio. Which is the exact thing I'm working on and that I expect to improve in the next couple weeks. So I'm kind of interested to see what I can do re speed.

I've always considered myself a slow runner, but I've also never approached running with any kind of systematicity before the last couple years. And it's been a lot of trial-and-error.

Maybe my next trial-and-error should be daily short and fast runs to bring down my heart rate, then see if that helps with the distance running at all. I feel like it has to be something about oxygen-to-the-brain that triggers the strong desire to quit during a run, and maybe a better ratio will help at least a little bit. We'll see!

I ran the 1.3 miles this morning at a pace of about 8.25 minutes per mile. I know my mile was about 8 minutes in high school, the last time I ran short distances for speed, and I haven't been sure why I couldn't get below about 9.5 in the last few years. Well, turns out it makes a difference if I know I only have to go 1.3 miles, vs. knowing I'm trying to stick it out as long as possible.

Muscles worked well together, especially after a mile, chest didn't hurt, was definitely out of breath the whole time. And then presumably because of being out of breath the whole time, I got runner's high afterward! Woohoo!

The chest hurting is something that frequently happens on my first day back to running after a long time away; it used to happen in Massachusetts and then would go away after one or two days. I think my body just needs a chance to remember how to do the thing. It doesn't seem medically significant.

So the plan is to keep the short runs up this week before work and see what happens next weekend.

Also, I realize it was probably my fault for never joining the track team despite my junior high P.E. teachers' encouragement and the best efforts of the high school track coach to recruit me every year, but I wish I'd been given some useful information in school on how to improve my running. As opposed to just "Run as fast as you can."

Something like "Set a sustainable goal that gets you breathing fast and do the same thing for 3-4 consecutive days, you will notice an immediate improvement in how hard running is!" would have gotten me more motivation to stick with running and to approach it in a systematic fashion.

Also someone to explain distance running vs. speed running. Because I'm way better at distance, but P.E. never gave us time for anything but speed. I got runner's high once, the one (1) time I got to run 2 miles*.

And my dad used to run, but he had a set 6-mile run he did every day for work reasons (military basic fitness requirements), didn't particularly like running and wasn't trying to improve his skills, and wasn't the verbal type anyway. So while he was happy to have me come along on his runs and was the only person in my family who seemed remotely pleased that I was running, he wasn't dispensing useful information.

I osmosed a few things, mostly from reading (hi, Voigt's The Runner!), but don't feel like I actually started to gain key knowledge until I got into the Barkley fandom a few years ago. And lo! I started being able to really run.

* And I had to fight for that. Everyone else had gone in and was in the locker rooms changing, class was almost over, and the teacher wanted me to go in. As I was reaching her at the end of the loop and she was waving me over, I held up a finger and called, "One more loop and it'll be 2 miles." She nodded and called back, "Just one more!"

I didn't want to quit, I felt better than I'd ever felt in my life. I remember continuing my run toward the locker rooms afterward, and the terrible letdown of having to stop at the door. And wanting that feeling again. I'd definitely heard of runner's high and knew what to call it, at least.

(Part of my memory is telling me it may have been 1.5 miles and I just really wanted to do 2 and knew I could, but that is a depressing thought. So let's just say I was allowed to run 2 miles.)

Much more common in school was to run across the gym and back, or an equivalent distance outside. I *sucked* at that. I was always a slow starter, there would be an impenetrable line of kids in front of me, and by the time I'd caught up, I couldn't pass them without breaking school rules about pushing and shoving. So I had to wait for them to reach the turnaround point, come back toward me and separate around me, allowing me to continue to the turnaround and then turn back, and then I would come in dead last. Which is absurd and I knew it at the time. Let me run more than 50 feet, ffs!

Signed, the person who is still trying to train to run 50 miles at the age of 42.

Oh, and hurdling. Hurdling was of Satan, as my (atheist) wife would say. We kept having to do running in a way that had nothing to do with how I, probably with the most serious running potential in my classes, ran. But any time they put me on a track and just let me go, I'd be competitive with the boys, and that was without any training. This is why I raced the boys who were athletes in high school.

Oh, rereading that entry, I realize there is something I absolutely took for granted when I wrote it but which may be weirding some of you out: I went to a high school where the classroom doors opened to the outside. So all this racing from the classroom door was happening outdoors; we weren't running in the hallways, which wouldn't have been safe or allowed. No one ever told me to stop running outside, though. (In fact, I suspect if you were going to be late to class, it was encouraged!)

First I needed new shoes, then I couldn't find new shoes, then I went to Europe, then I came back and gave a talk, and then I found new shoes but my knee was acting up, and then there was a week-long-seminar with bookended social events I needed to attend, and then my knee stopped hurting and then I could finally run today! Whew.

I got a recommendation for a local running store about a mile from me. The fit specialist found me shoes that were comfortable on the *first* try. This is UNPRECEDENTED. Normally shoe-shopping is this huge, time-consuming and tedious ordeal.

He also suggested that if they behaved like my old shoes, which were comfortable up to 15 miles of running and then started to give me runner's toe, that I try toe caps, which I could order cheap from Amazon. So I have those in case I need them.

But I do not need them yet, for my body forgot how to run! It's been almost two months, and my cardio is complete trash.

My muscle memory wasn't too bad, but hoo boy. Out of breath after 3 blocks and chest hurting after 1 mile. My cardio gains never last longer than a few days, so I was fully expecting this. I set out to do 2 loops, but after my chest started to hurt I decided the best thing to do was try to finish this loop as soon as possible.

So I did 1.3 miles at about an 8.6 minute/mile pace, and called it a day. I'm going to try to do that every morning (maybe faster) until my cardio comes back and I remember how to run, then we can think about some distance running.

I like my running shoes and shirt and belt and shorts, though! It's a lot easier to run when your equipment is comfortable. Worth the money.

I haven't tried out my new running vest yet, but once I remember how to run and get some momentum going, I'll try that.

I've also discovered a small hill near here, so maybe that will help. I have to cross an enormous boulevard to get there, but if I wake up early enough in the morning (currently fighting a sleep schedule that's much later than it should be) and don't run too long, it should be feasible to at least try it out. I miss hills.