I cheated! I am a cheater!!!! One month ago I ran The Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, VA. I finished the marathon in a time of 3:30:14 which qualified me for the Boston Marathon in 2009 when I will be 45 years old.
I must confess. I cheated! I didn’t cheat during the race. I ran every single step of that 26.2 mile race, and I honestly finished in 3:30:14. I estimate somewhere near 50,000 steps in fact. No, I cheated while training for it!
Here is how I cheated. Years ago, I played with body building for a while. And I learned various principles. One of them was the “Weider Cheating Training Principle”. When you are lifting weights for body building, you lift heavy weights doing reps until you hit the point of failure. You cheat by going beyond the point of failure. This is done by getting to the last rep when you literally just can’t get the weight up. A spotter will help you lift the weight for that last rep when you couldn’t get it up by yourself. This cheating allows you to go slightly beyond your limits.
I don’t do the body building anymore, but some of the principles cross-over. Such as the “Muscle Confusion Principle” in which you vary the exercises you do to force your muscle to continually adapt. The FIRST training schedule has this built it by varying the speeds and distances from week to week. And even another principle that describes what I did “Weider Rest-Pause Principle” which incoporates shorts rests between reps so to allow more reps.
Just to give you an idea of the path to my BQ:
Aug 2006: Started running
Dec 2006: 5:24 marathon
May 2007: 4:21 marathon
Sep 2007: 3:51 marathon
Dec 2007: 3:36 marathon
Mar 2008: 3:30 marathon
How I used the Cheating Training Principle or the Rest-Pause Principle was to take breaks. I chose a fast training schedule. Faster than I was capable of completing. The FIRST training schedule had little guidelines about whether you are ready for this schedule or not. I didn’t meet these. But I had a goal of running a 3:30 marathon and qualifying for Boston. I didn’t use the FIRST schedule, but other schedules as well. I cheated with those too.
The FIRST schedule has 3 runs/week. I run my intervals on Mondays, tempo runs on Wednesdays, adn long runs of Saturdays. The intervals are very fast. They have prescribed rest intervals. I found I could run the distance at the speed usually, but I needed a longer rest. The book has me walking or jogging the rest interval, but usually I would just collapse in a chair gasping for breath. After a bit, I would run the next interval, and then collapse again. Sometimes I would sit for as long as 10 minutes between intervals. But I would run each and every interval at the speed prescribed. Over time, these intervals got easier, more doable, and I didn’t need as long of break between them. I even needed to break the 3200m interval into two parts by adding a short breather between the first and second mile.
On the tempo runs, I would add breaks in. Sometimes they were walking breaks such as walking one minute each mile, or just getting off the treadmill for a couple minutes. But overtime these got easier, and I was able to complete the distance without any breaks.
I especially cheated during the long runs. I hate the long runs most. Sometimes I will break a 20 miler into two parts. I would run 10 miles into the morning, and 10 miles in the afternoon. And I would take short breaks during the run to go to bathroom, get lunch or play on the computer. Sometimes, I would do part of my run Saturday night, and finish it Sunday morning. But I would run each and every mile. My legs were still tired, and I forced myself to keep running on them.
I have been told that taking breaks wouldn’t work. But I am here to tell you, they do work. I got faster! And I have a BQ to prove it! And I did it by cheating!!!!
I didn’t used to get this. And I still don’t get it all the time. But sometimes during and after a long hard run, I get a rash on my forehead. I think it is caused by the profuse sweating and heat.
Last night I was running on my treadmill. I ran one easy mile at 10:00 minute/mile pace. Then I started on my fast running. I was scheduled to run 10 miles at 7:15 pace. I cheated by taking a couple minute breather between each mile. So I still ran 10 miles at 7:15 pace. I just kind of turned the tempo run into a long interval set. Hey, it has worked for me. Anyway, I was literally dripping sweat. I have a towel hanging off the side on my treamill, and I would be wiping my forehead. By the end of my workout, the towel was soaked. I was baking, and dripping sweat. It’s usually after workouts like these where I get a rash on my forehead. I am not sure if it is caused by the sweat, the heat, the combination of the heat and the sweat, or from wiping my forehead with a sweat soaked towel.
I did a search on “sweat rash” and “heat rash’, and some other terms. Some of the results mentioned a rash under sweathy clothing or a sweaty hat. But I don’t wear a hat on the treadmill. Some talked about blocked sweat glands, and that doesn’t seem like it either. So I am not sure what the cause of it is. It general doesn’t bother me too much. The skin is slightly sensitive, but not really painful. And it is red. Running my head under clean cold water usually helps it feel better.
When I ran with my buddy Al this weekend, he mentioned the Grand Island Half Marathon. I hadn’t heard of it. I did a search, and after a bit I found it. It is on May 3rd, and I am scheduled to run 15 miles that day. So I could run the race as my training run. The cost of the race is only $30 if I register soon. Grand Island is almost an hour and a half drive each way. Yeah, the race is cheap. I think I would get a shirt or something. And they have medals.
Men who finish under 1:30 get a gold medal. Men who finish under 1:45 get a silver medal, and other finishers get a bronze medal. Unless things went bad, I should get a silver medal. I can’t run that fast for that long yet to come near getting a gold medal. I emailed the guy to find otu about the medals. I am wondering if they are generic medals, or custom to the event. Right now I am on the fence about doing it. I can easily run my 15 miles on my treadmill. A new shirt would be cool, and so would a new medal. If the medal is cool, then I might do the race. If the medal is justa generic medal, then I probably wouldn’t bother. I have lots of generic karate tournament medals. Marathon medals are cool since they list the specific event. They make nice collectibles. Am I turning into a medal whore? I have friends who run marathons because they simply have cool medals. I will wait to hear back from the guy, or maybe call him next week.
A friend of mine was telling me about how he was going to be doing a 23 mile training run. He is using the 4 Months To A 4 Hour Marathon book schedule that I suggested to him, and it has runs longer than 20 miles. Anyway, he run a 21 mile run last weekend, and was scheduled for a 10 mile run this weekend, and a 23 mile run next weekend. But he will be on vacation next weekend, so swapped the two runs. I recommended against doing a 21 and a 23 mile run on back to back weekends. But he said he felt fine. He told me his route which ended not too far from where I live. Hmmm. I was scheduled for a 20 mile run. So I told him I would meet him along his route.
He was leaving his house at 6:45am, and would be running at a 10:40 pace. I planned to meet him near the 3 mile mark at about 7:15. I had my wife drop me off, and sure enough, he showed up right on schedule. We took off running. 10:40 pace is slower than I am used to running these days. I warm up at 10:00 pace, and have run my recent marathons at aroun 8:00 minute/mile pace. So this was an easy run for me. I had to keep myself in check to keep from running too fast.
I needed to make a pit stop, so I stopped at a gas station and used their bathroom while my friend kept running. I did my business, washed my hands, and took off to catch my buddy. According to my Garmin I was running at a sub-7:00 pace, and even sub-6:00 pace. I caught him quickly.
Soon we were running on the canal path. Much of the canal path that we would be running was used for the Rochester Marathon, though we would be running in the opposite direction. But the first part that we ran, I had never been on before. It was interesting. We saw lots of wildlife including deer, rabbits, ducks, geese, birds, people walking their dogs, cyclists, runners, walkers, etc.
I had worn my lumbar pack loaded with acouple 16 oz water bottles. My buddy wore a fuel belt witha couple small bottles, and had hid a couple water bottles halfway into the route. He was sweating alot and look tired, but he kept going. Though I noticed we were very subtly slowing down. Around the 16 mile mark of his run, he was looking very tired. The last part of his run was at around 11-something pace, and we were taking walk breaks. I hung with him, trying to keep him going, but not to the point where he was going to hurt himself. I has told my wife to meet me at a park at the end of the route at about 10:45. But we didn’t arrive until after 11am. My buddy’s wife had even called him wondering where he was at. We were still over a mile from the finish at that point.
After the run, I met my wife, and we hit the Burger King drive-thru. I was starving! When I got home, I took a long nap.
It was a fun change from my usual runs on my treadmill. But I wouldn’t do it all the time. I can run at a faster consistant pace on my TM, and watch TV, and take restroom breaks when I want, etc. Running outside is just no replacement for running on a treadmill!
I was at aikido class on Saturday morning, and planned to run 18 miles when I got home. I would have liked to have run 9 miles before aikido, and another 9 miles when I got home to break up the distance, but I had stuff I needed to do int he morning. ANyway, I was at aikido class, and I volunteered to be an uke for a guy who was testing for brown belt. So I and a couple black belts are attacking this guy, and he is throwing us around. I was nearly thrown into some radiators, and also some fellow students. The last time I was throw towards our instructors and a concrete wall. I tried to do a short roll like I had previously done. Apparently I tried to cut the roll too short, and landed with my full weight onto my shoulder. Ouch! I got off the mat, began icing the shoulder, and taking some ibuprofen. It hurt alot. I wasn’t sure if it was broken or not. I seemed to have full range of motion, though it hurt in some directions.
I wasn’t able to do my 18 mile run. The swinging motion and the bouncing hurt too much. It still hurt yesterday, so I did an hour of spinning in the morning, and then another 30 minutes of spinning in the evening. My shoulder got to feeling better in the evening.
Today my shoulder is still sore, but not nearly as sore as on Saturday. I am scheduled to do some intervals tonight. I will give them a try to see how my shoulder feels. I am pretty sure it isn’t broken. Maybe it is just severly bruised or something.