Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Week Ending Jan 28, 2012
I ran up Barr Trail for the second time this year on Sunday. I ran about as far as I ran last time – somewhere in between the top of the incline and Barr Camp. It was really slick up there. Add in the wind and cold to a really slick trail and I wanted nothing to do with going farther. I turned around to get the hell out of there and ran into Peter Maksimow and Justin Ricks coming up. I told them to turn around and we all ran down together. An extra few miles in Manitou made it a 2hr 25min run for me, which was a great start to the week. Monday I ran a double of 11 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. This was looking like a great week and I finally felt that I hit my stride and was getting back into shape. Then on Tuesday I only ran 4. I was really busy and didn’t have more time to run. Wednesday was a medium day and Thursday was another zero. I was too exhausted to run again. Man, I really need to find out what’s going on. I don’t know why I’m so tired near the end of the week that I have to go home and sleep and can’t go out for a run. Friday afternoon was a great run in Cheyenne Canon and I ran a race on Saturday. A race? Yeah, I haven’t done one of those since Sept 11th. I opted to race a flat 8-miler in Colorado Springs. The plan was to run it as a tempo run/workout to see where I was fitness wise. That plan was shot to hell as I ran the first mile in 5:10. The rest of my miles were run at 5:40-5:50 and I finished in 45:42. It was a decent performance for a winter race with little training and no speed work. I definitely tell I had not run anything like that in a long time as I was sore Saturday afternoon and Sunday. 77 miles for the week.
Week Ending Jan 21, 2012
After only getting in 57 miles last week, I really thought this would be my week to top 70. I ran two workouts – one on Sunday and one on Saturday – and ran both of them uphill. It’s never too early to start training for summer mountain racing, right? I figure if I want to do well at Mount Washington, then I need to start running uphill at least once every few weeks. So on Sunday I ran 10 x 3min uphill on Cheyenne Canon trails. Monday was a medium day and Tuesday was a short 6.5 miles. Wednesday was another medium day and Thursday was supposed to be a long day, but turned out to be shorter than I wanted (sounds a lot like last week). Friday turned out to be a zero. I was so tired after work again that I had to take a nap. I meant to take a short nap and get up in time for a 30 or 60 min run before dark. Instead, I napped for 3 hours. Something must be wrong with me for me to need this much sleep and have to take naps in the afternoon. I mean I feel worn out all the time. I should probably go see a doctor and have some bloodwork done. Saturday was another workout in Cheyenne Canon. I ran 7 x 4.5 minutes. I need to get serious about training again, need to up my mileage, and need to start running doubles. I plan on starting all of this in February (assuming I’m healthy and can make it though a week without having to take a day off due to exhaustion).
Monday, January 30, 2012
Week Ending Jan 14, 2012
Well I’m finally getting back into the swing of things and running regularly. I ran 63 miles last week and thought I could get up to 70 or 80 this week. On Sunday I ran a treadmill workout. I hate the treadmill. I only ran on it because I had to cover the gym as the ‘adult on duty’ this weekend and decided to kill two birds with one stone and get my run in while working. I ran 6.25 miles in 54 minutes. I know that doesn’t seem impressive, but I ran at 8% incline the entire time and I live at 6000ft. So it was a hard run starting at 6.2mph and ending at 7.9 mph (and 8%). Monday was a workout and I ran 6 x 1200. This is a typical winter workout for me. I try to do 10 x 800 or something like just to turn the legs over and stay in some form of shape. Tuesday was a medium day. I only ran 6.5 on Wednesday because it was really cold. I didn’t run on Thursday. I was so tired after work I had to go home and sleep. Something might be wrong with me because I have to sleep a lot and am feel exhausted all the time. I think I might have mono or something – I don’t know. Then again, I don’t know anyone who can run 70 miles per week with mono, so I’m stumped. Friday was another medium run and Saturday was a medium long run (not as long as I wanted). 57 miles for the week.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Week Ending Jan 7, 2012
So I had big plans to go big during the holidays and run a lot of miles. Something gets inside while I am on break however, and I just do not run much. New Years Day itself I was a bit hungover and a bit tired, so I ran about 5.5 miles. Monday was a long run followed by no running at all on Tuesday! On Wednesday I ran a workout: I ran 8 x 800 after a 2+ warm up, followed by a 2+ cool down. I felt great on Thursday and went 11 instead of the planned 8-10. Friday I ran a wimpy 8 and headed to Pike's Peak on Saturday. I never would have dreamed of going to Pike's Peak on January 8th, but I saw a bit on the news about some hikers on Barr Trail and noticed there wasn't any snow on the trail. Up I went and it was great to be back on that mountain especially because I had not stepped foot on that trail since August. There were some snow/hardpacked spots in the W's but it was mostly good footing. Up above the top of the incline, past the experimental forest was all snow, however. I went up to about a mile shy of Barr Camp and was not looking forward to the run down on hardpack snow. Fortunately I ran down just fine and didn't slip at all. Now that I know there's not much snow on Barr Trail, I'll try to hit it as often as I can until it does snow. 63 miles for the week.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Goodbye 2011
My name is Tommy Manning. I am a distance/mountain/trail running in Colorado Springs and this is my goodbye to 2011.
I have to say 2011 was a good year of running. It did not start off as such a good year, but I sure had a great summer of racing.
I decided not to run the Boston Marathon so I could concentrate on shorter mountain races during the summer. A lot like the old saying “marathons are not good for bad hamstrings, and vice versa,” the same can be said about mountain training: Mountain training isn’t good for marathons, and marathons are not good for mountain training. Of course the year I decide not to run Boston – which was the first time in 4 years including a 2:26 for 34th place in 2009, is the year they have great weather, a tailwind, and record setting runs. I was kicking myself in the ass all day long as I was watching the times of the leaders on the internet. I kept thinking “this was the year I could have run 2:22.” Oh well.
As it turns out, I probably could not have run anything near that. I had an awful start to my racing season. I ran a 1:16+ Half in April and just felt like crap the second half of the race (I had been on 1:11ish pace through 6). I was very disappointed with that time and quickly found another Half to enter in May. Then I ran a 1:19+ in May! I had no legspeed whatsoever and just could not run any faster. That’s 2:36 for a marathon with a month of rest, which is slower than any marathon I’ve run since 2002 – ouch.
If something like that happened to any of my friends, I would tell them to “stick with it. Don’t worry about it. Shake it off.” It’s not so easy to tell that to yourself, however. I worried about my slow times through June. I was really worried about mountain running season and kept training hard anyway. I had some big mountain races in New Hampshire to run in June, I stuck with my training plan, and hoped things would work out by the Mount Washington Road Race, which was my goal race for the summer. Although Mount Washington was my goal race for the summer, I also practiced running downhill a lot because the U.S. Mountain Running Championships were held on an up/down course at Cranmore this year (odd numbered years are up/down courses while even years are uphill only) and I wanted to make the team again. The selection criteria is to finish in the top-6 at the Championships (Cranmore in 2011).
The training and the work all paid off in June when I went to NH. I rocked Mount Washington and finished 2nd in a PR time, behind my friend Rickey Gates. My time was 1:45 faster than last year and I was excited. I certainly did not expect to finish in the top-6 at Cranmore, the site of the US Mountain Championships the following week (I finished 13th in 2009), but I wanted to at least give myself a chance. I ran an awesome race at Cranmore and finished 5th, which meant I made the US team for the second year in a row. NH has been good to me friends. In three Mount Washington races, my lowest finish has been 7th place. In three Cranmore races, my lowest finish was 13th. Going from 13th to 5th at Cranmore the two years it has been the US Championships (2009 and 2011) shows just how much my downhill running has improved.
My next primary race was the Pike’s Peak Ascent and I also had the NACAC race in July. NACAC is the North American/Central American/Caribbean Championships and I was asked to represent the United States in the race. The race was in Ajijic, Mexico (central Mexico) and the uphill was brutal. I didn’t run well at NACAC, but I didn’t run badly either. I could not have helped the team much more though. Had I run a great race, I think I would have finished 8th instead of 10th. The guys who finished 7th or better really dropped me on the downhill and I was satisfied with 10th.
4:16PP
I came back to the States and ran the Pike’s Peak Ascent in August. I can’t say enough how awesome it was this year. I finished second (8 minutes behind the winner, which isn’t so awesome) for the second time in my three Ascents. I was in second most of the race. I got passed between Barr Camp and the Bottomless Pit sign. I asked the guy if he had every run the Ascent before and he said no. I told him the last three miles were brutal and passed him again once it started getting steep. My time was a PR by 4:16 and I had several friends who drove up to the top waiting for me and cheering me on. It was a fun finish seeing a bunch of my friends up there.
The inaugural Pike’s Peak Road Ascent was a week later. I was one of the lucky few to “preview” the course earlier in the summer. I knew what I was in for and started conservatively. Jason Delaney took off around 4 miles and put a gap on me. I wasn’t worried because I know I’m usually a better climber than him and assumed I would catch and pass him in the later, steeper miles. Bad assumption. I didn’t feel great and kept dropping farther and farther back. I kept telling myself I would start pushing at mile 8 or so and would catch him. By mile 9 I had not started pushing yet and decided to get my ass going. I don’t think I really started increasing my pace until about mile 10 and I worked hard to catch Delaney. I did catch him on the last switchback and pulled up shoulder-to-shoulder with him. We rounded the corner and I told him “this is the last straightaway, one quarter mile to the finish.” Maybe I should not have told him that because he took off. I matched him stride for stride for a little bit, but was too tired from all the work I had to do to catch him. I lost by a few seconds – bummer.
Then I went to Albania for the World Mountain Running Championships. I don’t know how all of my teammates felt, but I thought the country was a shit-hole. There’s no such thing as an EPA or environmental or sanitation regulations over there (not that are enforced anyway). They had piles of trash in the streets and alleys. Instead of taking your trash to dumpster and having a garbage company come pick it up and dispose of it like we do, they just walk their trash down the street and throw it in the trash pile someone already started. There were hundreds of such piles. The water was polluted and littered with trash too. I vomited on a training run the day before the race because we crossed a bridge and the water below was the nastiest, thick green color I have ever seen. The water was covered in litter too and smelled something between raw sewage and manure. The smell and sight made me gag and eventually vomit.
The race itself was a disaster for me. I severely overheated and was very dehydrated – the race was 95° F in September and it had been much cooler in Colorado. While the heat did affect several runners and quite a few dropped out, I really don’t know why it affected me so much. I was doing well going up the first lap and got passed by a million guys going down. I just didn’t have anything in the tank. The second lap up was disastrous. I stopped around the 5k mark (1k into the lap) and walked. I can’t remember the last time I stopped to walk in a race. I started running again and run up the hill to the next water station. At the stop, I grabbed a bottle of water and drank the whole thing. Runners were passing me and I stood there and grabbed another bottle. I drank one and poured another over my head. Volunteers were yelling “Go!” and “Run!” and other similar things in Albanian. I was like: nope, I’m okay and drank more water. Twenty guys must have passed me at that station. Ditto for the next stops. On the third lap, as guys were still passing me, I couldn’t help but think “how far back were these guys?” I couldn’t believe I wasn’t in last place. By then I was running at a pace equal to or slower than our training run on the course two days before and certainly wasn’t “racing” anymore. One by one, as guys kept passing me, I wondered why they were even at the World Championships to begin with. I finished the race; I am not proud of my race. Actually, I am quite embarrassed and hope I make another U.S. team so I can redeem myself.
That’s it for 2011. Some good races, some bad races, and another U.S. Mountain Running Team selection, which I will cherish for the rest of my life.
I have to say 2011 was a good year of running. It did not start off as such a good year, but I sure had a great summer of racing.
I decided not to run the Boston Marathon so I could concentrate on shorter mountain races during the summer. A lot like the old saying “marathons are not good for bad hamstrings, and vice versa,” the same can be said about mountain training: Mountain training isn’t good for marathons, and marathons are not good for mountain training. Of course the year I decide not to run Boston – which was the first time in 4 years including a 2:26 for 34th place in 2009, is the year they have great weather, a tailwind, and record setting runs. I was kicking myself in the ass all day long as I was watching the times of the leaders on the internet. I kept thinking “this was the year I could have run 2:22.” Oh well.
As it turns out, I probably could not have run anything near that. I had an awful start to my racing season. I ran a 1:16+ Half in April and just felt like crap the second half of the race (I had been on 1:11ish pace through 6). I was very disappointed with that time and quickly found another Half to enter in May. Then I ran a 1:19+ in May! I had no legspeed whatsoever and just could not run any faster. That’s 2:36 for a marathon with a month of rest, which is slower than any marathon I’ve run since 2002 – ouch.
If something like that happened to any of my friends, I would tell them to “stick with it. Don’t worry about it. Shake it off.” It’s not so easy to tell that to yourself, however. I worried about my slow times through June. I was really worried about mountain running season and kept training hard anyway. I had some big mountain races in New Hampshire to run in June, I stuck with my training plan, and hoped things would work out by the Mount Washington Road Race, which was my goal race for the summer. Although Mount Washington was my goal race for the summer, I also practiced running downhill a lot because the U.S. Mountain Running Championships were held on an up/down course at Cranmore this year (odd numbered years are up/down courses while even years are uphill only) and I wanted to make the team again. The selection criteria is to finish in the top-6 at the Championships (Cranmore in 2011).
The training and the work all paid off in June when I went to NH. I rocked Mount Washington and finished 2nd in a PR time, behind my friend Rickey Gates. My time was 1:45 faster than last year and I was excited. I certainly did not expect to finish in the top-6 at Cranmore, the site of the US Mountain Championships the following week (I finished 13th in 2009), but I wanted to at least give myself a chance. I ran an awesome race at Cranmore and finished 5th, which meant I made the US team for the second year in a row. NH has been good to me friends. In three Mount Washington races, my lowest finish has been 7th place. In three Cranmore races, my lowest finish was 13th. Going from 13th to 5th at Cranmore the two years it has been the US Championships (2009 and 2011) shows just how much my downhill running has improved.
My next primary race was the Pike’s Peak Ascent and I also had the NACAC race in July. NACAC is the North American/Central American/Caribbean Championships and I was asked to represent the United States in the race. The race was in Ajijic, Mexico (central Mexico) and the uphill was brutal. I didn’t run well at NACAC, but I didn’t run badly either. I could not have helped the team much more though. Had I run a great race, I think I would have finished 8th instead of 10th. The guys who finished 7th or better really dropped me on the downhill and I was satisfied with 10th.
4:16PP
I came back to the States and ran the Pike’s Peak Ascent in August. I can’t say enough how awesome it was this year. I finished second (8 minutes behind the winner, which isn’t so awesome) for the second time in my three Ascents. I was in second most of the race. I got passed between Barr Camp and the Bottomless Pit sign. I asked the guy if he had every run the Ascent before and he said no. I told him the last three miles were brutal and passed him again once it started getting steep. My time was a PR by 4:16 and I had several friends who drove up to the top waiting for me and cheering me on. It was a fun finish seeing a bunch of my friends up there.
The inaugural Pike’s Peak Road Ascent was a week later. I was one of the lucky few to “preview” the course earlier in the summer. I knew what I was in for and started conservatively. Jason Delaney took off around 4 miles and put a gap on me. I wasn’t worried because I know I’m usually a better climber than him and assumed I would catch and pass him in the later, steeper miles. Bad assumption. I didn’t feel great and kept dropping farther and farther back. I kept telling myself I would start pushing at mile 8 or so and would catch him. By mile 9 I had not started pushing yet and decided to get my ass going. I don’t think I really started increasing my pace until about mile 10 and I worked hard to catch Delaney. I did catch him on the last switchback and pulled up shoulder-to-shoulder with him. We rounded the corner and I told him “this is the last straightaway, one quarter mile to the finish.” Maybe I should not have told him that because he took off. I matched him stride for stride for a little bit, but was too tired from all the work I had to do to catch him. I lost by a few seconds – bummer.
Then I went to Albania for the World Mountain Running Championships. I don’t know how all of my teammates felt, but I thought the country was a shit-hole. There’s no such thing as an EPA or environmental or sanitation regulations over there (not that are enforced anyway). They had piles of trash in the streets and alleys. Instead of taking your trash to dumpster and having a garbage company come pick it up and dispose of it like we do, they just walk their trash down the street and throw it in the trash pile someone already started. There were hundreds of such piles. The water was polluted and littered with trash too. I vomited on a training run the day before the race because we crossed a bridge and the water below was the nastiest, thick green color I have ever seen. The water was covered in litter too and smelled something between raw sewage and manure. The smell and sight made me gag and eventually vomit.
The race itself was a disaster for me. I severely overheated and was very dehydrated – the race was 95° F in September and it had been much cooler in Colorado. While the heat did affect several runners and quite a few dropped out, I really don’t know why it affected me so much. I was doing well going up the first lap and got passed by a million guys going down. I just didn’t have anything in the tank. The second lap up was disastrous. I stopped around the 5k mark (1k into the lap) and walked. I can’t remember the last time I stopped to walk in a race. I started running again and run up the hill to the next water station. At the stop, I grabbed a bottle of water and drank the whole thing. Runners were passing me and I stood there and grabbed another bottle. I drank one and poured another over my head. Volunteers were yelling “Go!” and “Run!” and other similar things in Albanian. I was like: nope, I’m okay and drank more water. Twenty guys must have passed me at that station. Ditto for the next stops. On the third lap, as guys were still passing me, I couldn’t help but think “how far back were these guys?” I couldn’t believe I wasn’t in last place. By then I was running at a pace equal to or slower than our training run on the course two days before and certainly wasn’t “racing” anymore. One by one, as guys kept passing me, I wondered why they were even at the World Championships to begin with. I finished the race; I am not proud of my race. Actually, I am quite embarrassed and hope I make another U.S. team so I can redeem myself.
That’s it for 2011. Some good races, some bad races, and another U.S. Mountain Running Team selection, which I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)