T-3 days: how to approach the race

anyone have any valium? no more caffeine for me, my nerves are *shot!* more on that later. here are some pieces of race strategy from our wonderful coach, who you know and love, ramon.

PHOENIX MARATHON AND HALF MARATHON APPROACH!!!

OK….
I'm sure lots of you are freaking out about the freaking course and

how to approach it !
Read below if you are interested about times, race plans, and how to
behave during those 26.2 or 13.1 miles. The best tips I can give
you right now, when we are just a few days away are: Discipline,
Patience, hydrate, watch your nutrition and Behave, lots of
behaving !!

DIFFERENT PERSON DIFFERENT APPROACHES

The first rule applies to all our marathoners and half marathoners.
Most of you came into TNT with a goal of `just finishing', now a few
months later, you've become `running machines' and many of you have a
goal within a goal, `finishing will be nice, but I'd like to finish
in xx time ` and that's ok, its' totally normal to have a goal
time, as long as it is realistic. But it's also ok to come into the
event and don't worry much about time, a great goal for this event
is to count how many bands and cheerleading squads are outthere,
enjoy the event as much as you can.

I said it before, and I say it again, whatever your goal is, let's
make sure you enjoy your first marathon experience (if this is your
first) if this is your 2,3 or 10th, let's make sure you kick some
butt .

So, if you goal remains just to complete the 26.2 miles or the 13.1
miles, take this Sunday as a fun day, as one more long training
run, with lots of people around you, and lots of people cheering you
on.

That day, it's going to be very special for all of us. For you `a
dream come true' for us the coaches, it's like `sending our children
to the first day of school', we'll be excited, worried, nervous,
but happy, very happy because we know your life is about to change,
but specially proud, extremely proud of all of you, knowing that you
are about to finish what you started 5 months ago……………what an
accomplishment !!!

You are about to see your coaches going nuts, if you thought we were
crazy, wait until you see us on race day, those cheerleaders
outthere have nothing on us ...

Remember: `There's only one first marathon or half marathon…..it' ll
always be special make sure you enjoy it !!

i'm going for +/-5 hours...so here's that specific plan.

GOAL TIME: 5:00 hrs

Ready to rock !!

By experience, the 5:00 hr runners tend to be the most patience, and
very steady, for you guys if you approach the event the same way
you'be approaching the longruns and training in general you should
accomplish your goal.

You guys are not going to worry much about time during the first 14
miles, you are going to run just by how you feel, imaging that you
are running one more training run in Central Park or Prospect Park,
think of it as a loooonnnnnggggg warm up before you go for a run, or
one of those tests or workouts that you mean coaches usually provide
you with, the first ¾ of the race, just concentrate in your own
effort and don't let the cheers and the event get in your nerves and
make you don't run faster than you should.

A sub 5:00 hrs marathon it's around a 11:27. You don't need to
really keep track of each single mile, but just check yourself during the first couple of miles do make sure you are not going too fast, that's the key,
just look at the watch, and make sure you are withing that 11:15-
11:35 range, if you feel that you are running well, that the pace
that you put in, matches the effort, YOU ARE going too fast, YOU
should feel like you are holding back a bit, just like you do during
the training runs. If so slow down, calm yourself down, and run your
own race, your own effort. If the formula gives you around 4:55 to
5:05 marathon finishing time, you should not run faster than 11:05-
10 at any moment during the first 15 miles.

If by mile 16, you feel good, (as good as you can after running 16
miles) , you should know that you have 10 miles left, and have an
idea of your body and what kind of day you are having. I your watch
says anything between 2:45 to 2:50 at mile 15, just keep the same
effort or if you are feeling great, and you think `only 10 miles to
go' pick it up a bit. If you think `i'm getting tired, hold back a
little bit' If you are a little slower than that, but you are
feeling great/good/ok, you can decide to go for it, put a little
more effort in the run, just a bit, and keep that effort to the
end. Check yourself as you go every 2-3 miles, and if feeling good,
keep the effort, if not, slow down a bit.

Basically, depending how well you feel at mile 16, you will or not
break the 5:00 hrs.

The goal for you, it's to run your own race during the first 16
miles, do what you do best, pace yourself, and discipline
yourself. Again you don't need to keep track of each single mile if
you really concentrate on your own effort.

Some check points but again don't get too attached to these, run your
own race:

By Mile 5 you should be within 59:00 minutes but not faster than 55
minutes. .
By Mile 10 you should be within 1:57:00 minutes but not faster than
1:50:00 minutes
By Mile 15 you should be within 2:52:00 minutes but not faster than
2:45 minutes
By Mile 20 you should be within 3:49:00 minutes …

Good luck !

"keep your eyes on the cake"

title courtesy ramon.

so since i last left you i've been a big mess of work, getting ready to go to tennessee for the climate training and also i have entered into holy-crap-i'm-running-a-marathon-in-less-than-two-weeks freakout mode.

a few weeks ago, our coach said when we started to taper, funny things were going to happen because we're running less and running is such a stress relief. yep. i'm cranky. stressed. i can't sleep to save my life. i have a perma-headache and i think i'm going blind (or need a new contact prescription). even though i'm really excited about the run, i'm really anxious and questioning my training, and wishing i had done even more...

this is all normal, says ramon. especially for us first timers. he told all the coaches to put a voice mail on their answering machine that says "whatever is happening is normal".

okay, i get it. logically. but i'm still freaking out. i know i can finish, it's just how painful is it gonna be.

so last night was send off, and we got all our transportation wristbands and tickets to pasta parties and all that jazz. it's definitely going to be a crazy weekend. i'll spare you the itin for now. us "superstar" fundraisers got prizes (a spiffy tote and pin for me) but i was aghast to find i've slipped to *THIRD* place. unacceptable!!

but in that regards...if i can squeeze in some time to write copy, we'll be getting the bum auction up this weekend. when i start thinking of everything to do, that's when i freak! i still have to go marathon shopping for goos and other little things. ~deep breaths~ it'll all be fine.

And some good news - demps is going to make it! his knee was bothering him so much that we weren't sure if he was going to have to transfer or what, but he did 10 miles feeling pretty good the other day, and ramon said he thinks he can do it so, yay demps! i'm not sure if drew ended up dropping down to the 1/2 because of the same injury...fingers crossed and i'll give you an update on that soon.

okay, back to some work and then downstairs for registration/orientation.

talk to you later! there will be running in tn.

and today's work out is...

here's another exerpt from ramon's hilarious e-mails, to make you laugh and also in case you were wondering what wednesday's practices are like.

hola !!

Big shout out to those that showed up to last saturday !! you are the few, the proud the crazy ones !!

Today you are going to be introduce you to EFFORT 2 (` E2' ) and EFFORT 3 (`E3'). Actually, you've already been running at E2, as that should be the pace that you usually run Your Easy (EZ) runs during your weekly runs (what?? You haven't done any EZ runs? Ohh…Ohh !! you better get you act together and start doing so……remember beginners should be running at least at total of 3 days, others 4-5 days) E2 is our easy, comfortable, conversational pace that comes natural to us, for some slow, for others slower, for others a little faster, but it's basically the pace/speed/effort that We don't need to think about, it just comes natural when going out for a run. On the other side, Effort level 3(E3) is a notch faster than E2, read again a Notch, as of :bit, llittle, poquito. About a 10-15% more effort than your EZ pace, your breathing gets a little be more elaborated, a little deeper, but always, always in control. If while runningE3 you breath hard of too often it means that you are running too fast.

This workout is not about how fast you can run, but to find that 10% increase in effort, NOTICE that I say Effort and Not `Speed'' two different things.

So, during the ON portion we will run E3 and during the OFF portion will run E2.

I know, I know too complicated, but……. I told you from the beginning my e-mails do take a while to unsdertand, don't worry by week 17 you'll be used to them, and then, it'll be time to run the marathon/half marathon….so..no worries…As always, the coaches will go a little more on detail, and will be there to make sure you behave..We don't expect you to get it right the first day……(yet !!)

a little taste of ramon & the ticky-ticky-ticky dance

after each practice and before the next, ramon sends out a recap of the former. i thought you might get a kick out of it. this was the one that i missed - basically instead of long arm swings, they worked on short ones. aka "the ticky-ticky-ticky dance." enjoy.

RECAP FROM YESTERDAYS WORKOUT

Sooo...did you enjoy the ticky-ticky-ticky dance or what?
Don't worry you'll get to do it all over again in a few weeks when we start running some hills...........

Two weeks of training went by, and so far so good.

Running, specially long distance running, (and I think that we all agree that 13.1 or 26.2 it's long....), the most important thing it's to be efficient while we run, not wasting energy as we move/run/trot along the road, and nothing better to be efficient than to run relaxed, and nothing tell us better if we are relaxed or not than our upperbody !! Remember, the upperbody is in charge, the legs will follow whatever the upperbody does, if you swing your arms faster- your legs will
move faster, if you swing them higher- you'll have a longer stride, if swing them lower you run with a shorter stride, Thist upperbody-lowerbody conection was the focus of the first two workout.

First week we worked on a higher swing this week on a shorter-lower swing of the arms. Working on a shorter quicker stride will help you to:
-work a different set of muscles that you don't usually use, so helping the overall leg strength
-you teach your legs to move faster (leg turn over), that's a good thing when running
-loosen up the hip flexor muscles
-upperbody awareness, if you learn to run relaxed this way, chances are you'll run relaxed anytime (relaxation = Your best friend when running lonnnnngggg)
-For those overstriders, helps you to develop a shorter stride with `less impact' (remember the higher/longer the stride the more impact to the quad/hamstring muscles) we want to prevent overstriding.

When do you get to use that kind of stride? You really never run the way we asked you to on wednesday in any race or marathon, when focusing on a particular goal (short stride in this case) we want to exaggerate (for lack of better word in my little english vocabulary) the particular movement, so the brain (for those that have it) will really have to concentrate on the task on hand and be aware of the changes that take place, that's why you feel a `little' uncomfortable doing it, because it's not the `natural' or `your usual' way. But if you repeat that exercise a few times and your brain will make the necessary adjustments, that's why some of you were improving later in the workout (besides the fact that those screaming coaches wouldn't allow to give up). Sooo…..I hope this helps you understand if it doesn't......you are gonna have to trust us...

So, now get ready for Saturday, I can guarantee you that most of you will run the longest you ever done……but get used to it, that's going to be the theme almost everyweekend…

And next wednesday......oh yes....oh .yes.....X-Training madness day !!!! get ready.......

That was my nonsense for today !!