A Marathon in 24 hours?

I found a YouTube video by someone named Beau Miles documenting his marathon in 24 hours, running a mile every hour.  In the extra time every hour he tried to get things done.  The idea strongly resonated with me, and I do have a good list of projects, so I did not let the inspiration pass.  At 9:00 am the next morning I had a bowl of oatmeal and started to run, one loop every hour, for 24 hours.

In the end, I stopped short of my plan - but it was a memorable day anyhow.  It brought back a lot of memories of old long runs.  It reminded Mary she is married to a crazy guy. 

Here is how the day (April 22, 2020) unfolded.

9 am - My "one-mile loop" is out the front door around two long blocks.  The loop is 'tilted' (not flat) so it will be interesting to see how much vertical I get over the day. Weather at the start is sunny and cool.  Saw a fox on the road.  My first task was getting the edger out of the shed, getting it started and making a nice clean edge where my yard meets the front curb.  I edged around the big flower beds while I was at it.

10 am - Spread Preen on mulch beds to hopefully slow the weed return.  I could probably weed for a couple of hours! Had first coffee of the day.

11 am - Cleaned out overgrown ground cover between the stepping stones to downstairs patio

Noon - Mary made her wonderful mushroom soup for lunch.

1 pm - Trimmed branches from cherry tree.  I cleared everything off the patio and got ready to power wash the stepping stones and pavers.

2 pm - Power washed stepping stones and downstairs patio.  Observation: Just because you have 40 minutes to power wash doesn't mean you can get it done in 40 minutes ...

3pm - weeding patio

4pm - Washed both cars

5pm - Rest!

6pm - Dinner. Mary made a nice spaghetti dish.

7pm - Mary gave me a haircut.  She worries she is going to mess it up, and I sound like Rocky Balboa yelling at his corner man "Cut me!  Cut me!"

8pm - Practiced a new Ryuichi Sakamoto piece on the piano.

9pm - I have covered just over 15 miles according to my Garmin, so my "one mile loop" is a little longer than I thought.

10pm - Mary went to bed.  The team dynamic shifted ...

11pm -

Midnight - Deer and fox in the road on this loop.

1am - I was thinking back to a time sleeping in the basement of the house on the river in Moorhead, watching the flood dikes with my brother Steve.  We set the alarm to go check the sandbags every hour.  Eventually I stopped getting up and Steve did it by himself - I still feel guilty about that ...  But I got up this time and went out.

And then I stopped.  I felt "OK".  Really tired though.  My back was feeling tired and weak.  There was nobody around and I just couldn't find the motivation to keep doing the hourly loops until 8am.  So I just went to bed.

Thanks to Mary for taking some pictures, and all the encouragement once I got going!

The track from my Garmin:

1,673 ft of elevation gain - I should have picked a flatter loop ...

What will it take to get back to running?

I've had a way too long lay-off from running. It took a long time to recover from an achilles injury, but some recent easy runs tell me that my achilles is no longer an excuse.  So what are the challenges to overcome to get back to running?

- Age. It's real, it's measurable, it's progressive. It lowers peak performance levels of course.  It makes recovery times longer, so that limits total training workload.
- Weight. I think it's the biggest obstacle I face.
- Flexibility and range of motion. I've lost a lot of both!  These are essential to running fast and running efficiently.
- Strength. It would be good to improve my core and upper body strength at the same time I'm working on flexibility and range of motion.
- Doing the training work.  I actually like doing the running. The challenge is doing the volume of work required.  I'm a natural at just racking up some time and distance during a base-building phase, but I haven't done any higher intensity work in a long time. After rebuilding my base I need to plan some interval/repeat work and hill work.  And speed work improves efficiency - efficiency is essential to running long.  I think I can do that myself, but a smart runner would find a coach ...
- I like to remind other people that training stress leads to improvement, and greater training stress leads to greater improvement - all good, right up until you get hurt. I need to not injure myself!

I've got some shoes, my old running watch, some comfortable cold-weather running clothes. I've got a challenging race on the calendar just over four months from now.

Gotta run!

"The Ditches of Fairfax County"

I ran with some friends along Pimmit Run this week, where the first part of the run is like running in a concrete-lined drainage ditch.  But it's always surprising to find a bit of real trail running and adventure right in my own neighborhood.

Elite runners (Mark and Paul) and the slow guy (me, in the middle)

Skaters and skiers might say this is where you "drop in"
to the ditch just off Rt 7 by Pimmit Drive

And then there is this ahead of you.  Not bad!
But don't try it during or soon after a hard rain ...

This is the underpass that gets you to
the other side of the Dulles access road

Coming up to Great falls road

And then the Little League baseball
fields off Westmoreland road

.

Watch out for tree roots, but the trail is good

The last bit of trail before the cul de sac at the end of my street

Overall the run is quite flat, dropping a little over 100 feet in this 3 mile section.  If you keep going, you can follow Pimmit Run all the way to where it runs into the Potomac underneath Chain Bridge.  Good luck!

You can push hard to get to the top of the hill.  But just run in the moment and the top comes to you.

thought for the day

“I believe that if you set out on an adventure and you’re absolutely convinced you are going to be successful, why bother starting?”  -  Sir Edmund Hillary

Young, fit, gifted ... that's one way you could go ...

cross that bridge when you come to it

I was running on the Main river in Frankfurt and was trying to think of an alternative to running one side or the other, or up one side and back on the other, and discovered a topological problem.  What if I ran down one side of the river, crossed the next bridge I came to, continued down the other side to cross the next bridge, and just continued doing that?  Eventually of course I should cross a bridge and head back, but continue to cross each bridge when I come to it on my way home.  I was thinking it through and discovered that as I crossed a bridge on the 'out' and 'back' part of the run I always crossed any given bridge running the same way each time.  I first thought this depended on whether there were an odd or even number of bridges, but I was jogging along trying to mentally draw these paths out and couldn't find a way to "cross each bridge when you come to it" and cross each bridge both ways.

my Garmins view of this run

I won't bother with you my observations on the first and last bridges crossed ...

p.s.  After getting home, I found these kinds of problems have gotten plenty of attention - see for example Seven Bridges of Königsberg