Hilly trail work tonight

That’s the elevation profile of the trip up from the Marquam Shelter to Council Crest  and back down again. I’ve described it before as “straight up for 1.7 miles,” which isn’t quite true – there are a couple flattish sections and even a short downhill or two. Still, I used to consider this a bear of a trail to hike up. It was, certainly, a lot harder than laying on the couch. This trail got me started running, too — after one hike back in January ‘07 I decided to try running down, and it was fun.

Today, 10 months and one marathon later, I decided to give running up it a shot, too. Well, jogging up it anyway. And I made it all the way up! This might say as much about my ability to gauge a reasonable pace as it does about my fitness, but it’s still saying a lot. I’m as proud of this slow 3.4 mile run as I have been of a lot of 13-milers.  Reaching the very top of Council Crest, never having slowed to a walk along the way, felt great.

This route is the same as run #6 in Trail Running Oregon, which rates it a three out of five on both the “pain” and “gain” scales. Only a three! Then again, it says it should take between 45 minutes and an hour, and it took me 39 minutes, so there!

Monday Night Run

Strangely enough, even though it’s getting darker and colder, more and more new people are showing up at the Portland Running Company’s Beaverton location Monday at 6:00 for their free group run (plug plug). I didn’t count, but it was more than 10 people last night. I ran in the middle-speed group, which started off around 9:45/mile and gradually picked up speed, hitting 8:30 or so the last mile. I also ran a warm-up mile on my own before the group run, making my total distance 6.8 miles. I felt great, but I should have run a little slower — I’ve foolishly bought into the theory that slow runs build your red blood cell count and teach your body to burn fat instead of carbs more effectively than fast runs do. All hogwash, I’m sure. But I’m trying to do the whole “base building” thing for a few weeks as I come out of marathon recovery, and that means slow runs.

Eyeball: much better looking. The last of the burnt-skin flaking has fallen off. Well, been rubbed vigorously off. Whatever. Still a little swollen. Still a little blurry vision too, which I think (or hope) is happening because there’s still some oozing stuff coming out of the lid and coating the eye with an optically-nongood film.

Willamette Run

Saturday morning I woke up early and went for a planned 10-mile run. I wanted to take it pretty easy, so I did a flat waterfront loop on the Willamette. I started just east of the Sellwood Bridge, followed the Springwater trail north along the river until it hit the east bank esplanade downtown, then took that to the Steel Bridge. After crossing the Steel, I ran south along the west-side waterfront until it petered out under the Marquam bridge, then followed Moody Avenue past all the new South Waterfront construction until it hit the Willamette Greenway trail (just past the trolley station). The Greenway trail winds past condos until it hits Willamette Park; after running through the park, it was a short hop skip and jump to the Sellwood Bridge, and across back to my car. Ten point five miles at a ten-minute-per-mile pace.

Detailed MapMyRun Map of the route

Eyelid report

Friday afternoon, I headed over to my eyelid doctor for the third time in three weeks. All day the lid had been feeling a little better — up until then it had a huge painful pressurized seeping lump in it, but that day it was just a huge lump. Oh, and the lid’s skin was burnt from all the hot compresses I had been doing, as instructed. Anyway. The doctor looked at it and declared that it didn’t seem too infected anymore, and (unlike last Friday) he was able to clamp the lid inside out and inspect the inside. And, huzzah, he decided to cut it open (from the inner side of the lid) and drain that sucker. I’ve had this done at least four previous times, so this was a relief.

The Novocaine shot into the lump hurt like a mother this time. After that, it all went normally, but with a bit more elbow grease during the “scooping” part than usual — evidently there was quite a bit of stubborn solid matter in there he wanted to get out, in addition to the easy-to-handle liquid filling. It’s kind of interesting having your eyelid clamped inside out during all this, since it means that you can’t close your eye. You can do the muscle movements of closing your eyes, but the one they are prying and scooping at? Still open. Ah well.

After that’s done, they pack the now-closed eye with a lot of gauze and tape over that. You need to leave this patch on for about an hour. I’ve actually gotten reasonably comfortable at driving home with my left eye patched close, but it still isn’t exactly fun. An hour later, I took off the patch to find my eye the oozing bloody mess that the doctor told me it would be. A lot of the blood-laced ooze was actually coming out of the spot he’d shot the Novocaine into, on the front of the lid, an effect I don’t recall from previous incisions. We decided to stay home that night, instead of attending a Halloween pub crawl.

The next day, it was clear that lid was getting better rapidly, and I felt happy enough with it to go out of the house without sunglasses. This morning it is still a bit swollen, terrible bruised, flaky and burnt looking — in other words, enormously improved.

Hit those trails

Bloated pressurized eyelid or no, I needed a run this evening. I went all out and donned my new Ultimate Direction Wasp hydration pack, filled with 48 oz of tap water with a dissolved Nuun tablet. The best thing about the pack is how much storage is built into the front of the straps, with easy mesh pockets for my MP3 player and a cell phone, and bigger pockets for gels or whatever else. There’s a lot more storage in back, of course, but it’s great to have the room up front. The worst thing about the pack, so far, is the awkward machinations needed to refill the bladder. Straps, the tube, a Velcro loop — it’s all a little unwieldy.

So with the sun setting, I hit the trails around OHSU and in the Marquam Nature Park for an hour:

Only five miles, but three and a half were on trails with significant hills. I jogged slowly, but I never stopped jogging. I had a clip-on LED flasher to be seen by and a handheld flashlight to see with, which I needed by the second half of the run. The trails were wet but not too muddy, and the rain held off while I was out. Once I got back to Terwilliger (that last little uphill in the elevation map above), running suddenly seemed easy enough: kind of funny, because that “little” uphill has seemed pretty big in the past.

This was the first time I’ve run on trails in the dark. It may sound like a really stupid thing to do. Maybe it is. But if I’m ever going to run 100-mile races, I’ll need the practice. And it’s kind of fun.

Blearg, part the second

I haven’t been running for quite a while now, because of my eyelid infection and the antibiotics I’ve been on for it. I look awful and feel awful. It has been hard — I’ve failed, actually — to keep a positive mindset about the whole thing. I’ve been lashing out at people left and right and I don’t feel good about that either. Sorry, folks.

The only sign of improvement is that my eyelid is no longer completely swelled up like some grand Zeppelin experiment gone awry. No, now it’s only about a half to two thirds of it that is. It’s a subtle difference in practice, since the parts that aren’t swollen still have to stretch out to connect with the parts that are, so the entire lid still appears gargantuan and Quasimodoesque.

The treatments? Antibiotics (pills and drops) — who knows if they’ve done anything. (Certainly not with the predicted speed.) Hot packs, to melt the waxy deposits that cause the blockages in my eyelid that seem to start the whole thing. The idea is to put as much heat as you can stand, for as long a time as you can stand, directly onto the swollen, tender lid. Sound like fun? Yeah, well, contrary to most people’s expectations, not all runners are masochists, and neither am I.

Bleargh

I’ve had an infected eyelid since Monday and it’s kept me under the weather (and more hideous-looking than usual) ever since. I did run Monday night, 5.8 miles averaging 8:34 minutes per mile, a pace that nearly killed me — but if I let the lead pack get any farther out of sight I would have been lost in Beaverton somewhere. Good motivation, I guess.

New Toys

Saturday morning, I ran three hilly, slightly muddy miles on the trails in tiny Woods Park, not far from my house. They were remarkably slow miles, but I enjoyed being out there. In anticipation of more time on the trails, I got a new toy in the mail today,  an Ultimate Direction Wasp hydration pack. I also got a wider-sized pair of Brooks Addiction 7 shoes, to see if that helps my right-side little toes.

Marathon Pictures

Thanks to Mom & Friends & M & R for the photos!

These first two are early on,  around mile 5, after we’ve returned to downtown after the climb up Barbur and down Front. I still have the hat on, which I’d take off around mile 13 or 14.

All the rest are up on the Willamette Boulevard bluff, after the St. John’s Bridge and before the downhill on Greeley. These are in no particular order.

Now I’ve gone and done it…

Hey, I ran (well, jogged) 15 minutes today! No problems.

And I signed up for the 2008 Eugene Marathon. It’s on May 4th.

Halfway Better

Well, it’s Wednesday, three days since my first marathon, and I’d say my legs are about halfway recovered: I no longer look stiff or feel weak when walking on a level surface. Uphills, I’m OK at too. Let’s not discuss the downhills. I can make it. But it ain’t pretty.

The tightness and soreness is in my calves and thighs, especially the latter. I haven’t felt even a hint of anything like a shin splint or knee pain! Which I am very, very happy about. Maybe a little ankle soreness, and the barest little faint touch of bottom-of-foot soreness. My right pinkie toe and the next toe over, though, got pretty well mashed against my shoes, and are still healing up.

Only on my right. I’m not sure if my feet are shaped differently, or if it’s a difference in my right/left stride, but those little toes on the right have been a long-term problem. Before my 22-mile training run, I got a different pair of shoes, from Saucony, which were supposed to have a wider toe box, but I went back to my old Brooks Addiction 7s for the marathon, since I thought  the Sauconys might have something to do with the little shin splints and plantar fasciitis issues I had been having. Plus, I had some seam chafing during the 22. The Brooks work great for me… except for the right-side little toes. Maybe a wider size? Or would that throw the whole fit off?

Marathon Thanks

Some shout-outs I forgot to shout out:

• As far as I could tell, the race organization was flawless. The finisher’s chute area was awesome! The volunteers were all great. Yeah, the start and finish blocks were crowded. Too many crazy people running marathons nowadays, eh?
• Thanks to the hashers and their beer table at mile 24 or 25. Ice-cold, too! (Don’t worry, it was a tiny little Dixie Cup.)
• Thanks to T. for coming out with Sweetie and keeping her company in the scary wilds of North Portland.
• Thanks to J. for transportation services and agreeing to go to Carl’s Jr.
• Thanks to Mom for giving birth to me, and R. for keeping Mom and J. in line.
• Thank you to Portland Fit for getting me to the starting line.
• Thanks to Kelly, the Run Oregon blogger, for the words of encouragement at the finish line.
• Thanks to Sweetie for putting up with me. (And the leg rubs!)

Race Report: Portland Marathon 2007

Official time: 4hrs 9min 24sec. Runpix results.

Mile / Pace / Average heartrate (% of max)

1 9:20 82%
2 9:19 86%
3 9:26 91%
4 8:34 90%
5 8:28 89%
6 9:07 88%
7 9:08 87%
8 9:08 88%
9 9:08 88%
10 8:56 88%
11 9:07 87%
12 9:04 87%
13 8:53 88%
14 9:08 86%
15 9:07 86%
16 9:22 88%
17 9:28 88%
18 9:32 89%
19 9:19 88%
20 9:05 89%
21 9:06 89%
22 9:15 89%
23 8:31 88%
24 10:17 86%
25 11:34 84%
26 13:21 79%
27 4:39 85%

So a glance at miles 24-26.45 should leave you saying “well I see your problem right there! You ran too slow at the end!” But let’s back up.

My Mom and her two friends were in town from Eugene to cheer on my first marathon (they’d agreed to it long ago, probably figuring I’d never actually carry through with it ;-) and they drove me downtown with plenty of time to spare. Techincally, I was not only running the marathon but also co-hosting the MiPL “MiPL does the Portland Marathon” event, so I waited around in front of city hall in case anybody else actually signed up. Only my co-host did — ahhh, what did I expect? Around 15 minutes before the 7:00 am start, we walked over to the starting lineup and forced our way into the crowd. I knew the 4hrs30min pace runner, and saw her balloon sticking up, so I waded over to her to say hi, then moved up toward the 4:15 area for the start. Before the start, I ditched the $3 Walgreens sweatshirt and free gloves I had been wearing to keep warm.

The weather actually cooperated. They had been predicting showers for Sunday, but all the rain came in the afternoon: the race conditions were mostly cloudy, with some sunbreaks, and maybe even a tiny bit too hot. By mile 15 or so, I would need to take off the cooler-weather running cap I had worn.

The first half of the race was uneventful. I was using my Garmin the happy way — keeping an eye on it to make sure I wasn’t running too fast. I never let my overall average pace get below 9:03 per mile (9:06 is a four hour marathon), and it felt easy enough. I had my heart-rate monitor strap on, but I wasn’t looking at the heart-rate data. Looking back, it was at around 87 to 88% of max most of the time, which is about right, I think. I wasn’t breathing hard.

Mile 17-18 has you going up the approach to and over the St. John’s Bridge. This is often considered the big tester on the course, the make-or break moment. I felt intimidated starting up the hill. But I still had plenty of energy and I jogged up the approach and the uphill half of the bridge OK. It was, by the way, absolutely beautiful up there, with mixed clouds and areas of sunbreaks visible all up and down the river for miles. At the top, I actually said “It’s all downhill from here.” Well.

I called Sweetie to let her know I was approaching her pre-arranged cheering point. She was also going to have pretzels and a fresh disposable water bottle for me. There’s a steep little downhill right after the bridge, just before I got to her, and I noticed something that would prove telling later: I wasn’t enjoying running downhill. I wasn’t blasting down it like a little kid, arms flailing. Instead, my calves and especially the fronts of my thighs were feeling it. Well, maybe I was a little worn out from the bridge climb.

I got the pretzels, water, and a kiss from Sweetie, who ran alongside me for a block, and ran on. At this point — 18 miles in — I had a 9:07 overall average page and was done with all the big uphills, so I thought I was doing all right. But over the next few miles, I found it to be more and more work to keep my pace up. I saw Mom and her friends, and they got some good pictures, then I saw some friends from MiPL, who said I looked strong, but I said I was feeling “iffy” — four hours was starting to look pretty hard. I held out for the long downhill on Greeley… it took forever to get there.

Again, the downhill didn’t feel great. But pushing it a little was my last chance to make four hours. I ran that mile at an 8:30 pace, and brought my overall average pace — which had crept up to 9:08, I think, back to 9:06. But when the hill ended, I was done. My calves hurt; my thighs hurt. Shortly after, I slowed to my first walk. I had nothing. My legs were done. For the last three painful miles, I alternated walking and running. I wish I could have finished stronger. But I finished :-)

… And with no chafing, no noticeable blisters, no injuries, and no other problems except for not being able to walk up or down stairs easily! (Or, for the first few hours, being able to walk on a flat surface easily.) We got my Carl’s Jr. victory lunch (Six dollar burger combo, large!) and Mom & co. took off. The rest of Sunday was pretty low-key, surprise.

Short Update — More later

A brief update on the results from my first marathon: I got to mile 22 or so about on my target pace, but after the downhill on Greeley, my legs were just done. No cramping, but they felt like they usually do right after a long run; unfortunately I wasn’t quite done yet. The last three or four miles I could only alternate walking with a slow hobbling jog. Finished at 4hrs 9 minutes. I’m happy — but I want to do a lot better next time. First, though, I’ve got to master the tricky art of walking up and down stairs again :-)

One day, sixteen hours and fifty minutes left

Ten months ago, if you’d told me I’d be looking forward to running my first marathon shortly, I’d have shrugged a little bit and shifted around on the couch to get a better view of the TV. Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t change your life. Find something you love to do and make the time for it. You’ll quickly find out what’s important.

Great Moments in American Cookery

I got the new Cook’s Illustrated in the mail yesterday. Buried quietly inside is a recipe that, if its claims are true, is a watershed moment in American cookery. They claim to have an easy and reproducible recipe for a pie crust that is flaky, tender, and easy to roll out.

This is big.

Like all Cook’s Illustrated recipes, this one is preceded by a lengthy description of the trials undergone in the test kitchen and the food science behind it all. The author starts with the usual complaints about the ambiguous nature of most pie dough recipes — just how small should the bits of fat be, after being cut, mixed, or processed into the flour? And in what distributions and shapes? He then tries the same experiment I recall Jeffrey Steingarten describing in (I think) The Man Who Ate Everything: if gluten formation is bad, prevent it by completely coating the flour grains with fat, by blending the two in a food processor until homogeneous. Same result: terrible, nasty, un-flaky dough.

Steingarten stopped his bold new-style science there, and went off tail between legs, to talk to some famous old-fashioned pie baker. If I recall correctly, the recipe he synthesized from working with her involved intricate descriptions of just how you are supposed to roll the flour and fat through your fingers to produce a final dough containing myriad balls of fat of different sizes. Talk about non-reproducible.

Steingarten and the new Cook’s Illustrated both identify the problem with the all-grains-of-flour-coated approach, and correctly, I think: the flakes in a pie crust aren’t just flour separated by layers of fat, they are gluten sheets separated by layers of fat. If no water and flour mix together at all, you get no gluten, and thus, no flakes. But after making this observation, Steingarten still heralded the siren song of fat-ball size, focusing his attention on the fairly irrelevant question “how big should the cut-in fat balls be?” rather than the more pressing question, “how can I reliably control gluten formation in the dough?”

Cook’s Illustrated soldiered on, rather than returning to tradition. If some of the flour needs to form gluten, let it. They process a portion of the flour with all the fat, until thoroughly blended, then barely process in the remaining flour. This second batch of flour remains uncoated by fat and will form the gluten sheets. This worked! (At least so they say.) Every crust made this way came out flaky. Fat-ball size? Irrelevant. Well-coated flour separates flakes just as well as a chunk of butter.

They were still left with the second classic pie-making dilemma. They could add too much water to the dough, and get too much gluten. A dough with too much gluten bakes up into a tough, even if flaky, crust. Alternatively, they could cut back on the water and have a dry, delicate mess of a dough that was difficult or impossible to roll out or get into a pan in one piece.

Lightning strikes. In the unlikely form of vodka. As a substitute for some of the water, it apparently moistens the dough and makes it workable, but doesn’t really get flour “wet” — at least it doesn’t allow gluten formation. Mirabilis!

The recipe (sans development notes) is currently available online. I’m looking forward to trying it. I love pie, and have never, ever been able to make a pie dough that satisfies.

Aches and pains… getting better

I haven’t written (or talked) about it it much, but over the last month or so I’ve been unhappy with various twinges in my lower extremities: some minor shin splints, that “bruised heel” feeling in the morning that’s supposed to mean plantar fasciitis, and an occasional attack of what I believe is mild to moderate sciatica in my lower glutes. I’ve wrestled with the sciatica since 1997 or earlier, and I feel like I have a good handle on what it takes for shin splints to heal up, but the foot was a worry. So it was with some happiness that I noticed I was walking around barefoot this morning without any tenderness.

Postscript: as I was in the middle of writing this post, I got up from the desk and felt my knee twinge. Seems to be better now. But I better run that marathon soon, before limbs start falling off. :-)