A Balance, Redefined

March 28, 2024

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Location:

Vestavia,AL,USA

Member Since:

May 31, 2007

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

Marathon Top 10 Finishes: 7 Bridges ('15), Utah Valley ('13), Salt Lake City ('08), Top of Utah ('07), and St. Louis ('04). Ran around the equator (24901.55) in 4,388 days.

Personal Records
Marathon 2:39 (SLC '08)
1/2 Marathon 1:12.30 (Provo River, aided '08)
10K 34:16 (Track, sea level '00)
10K 33:15 (Des 10K, aided '08)
8K 25:32 (Crack of Dawn, aided '13)
5K 16:44 (Track, sea level '00)
5K 16:07 (Running of the Leopards, aided '12)
 

Short-Term Running Goals:

NYC Marathon November 3, 2019 done 

London Marathon October 3, 2021 done

Tokyo Marathon March 3, 2024!!!

And my largest challenge to date, raise $20,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of my cancer survivorship and in memory of those lost to blood cancer...
DONE! $26,403.70

https://pages.lls.org/tnt/al/london2021/awende

Long-Term Running Goals:

Enjoy being a Masters Runner.

Get under 3 hours one more time...

Personal:

Grew up outside Chicago and joined the blog while I lived in Salt Lake City. Now living outside Birmingham. I am married with two daughters. Wife thinks I'm crazy for doing marathons. And yes I am crazy I'm a scientist for a living...

Click to donate
to Ukraine's Armed Forces
Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 331.25
RM 090416 Lifetime Miles: 136.06
Saucony Type A Lifetime Miles: 200.18
Nike Vaporfly Pink Lifetime Miles: 122.22
Saucony Ride #37 - Black Lifetime Miles: 56.50
Saucony Ride #38 - Neon Lifetime Miles: 53.50
Saucony Ride #39 - Grey Lifetime Miles: 59.50
Brooks Launch #38 - Grey Lifetime Miles: 65.25
Brooks Launch #39 - White Lifetime Miles: 57.50
Brooks Launch #40 - Blue Lifetime Miles: 54.00
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTrainer 1 MilesTrainer 2 MilesRacer MilesTotal Distance
12.000.000.000.000.000.000.0012.00

AM: Déjà vu, or more of the same. I have to keep reminding myself that this week is sleep and recovery. Two points of good news, 1) I got 8-hrs of sleep, 2) My legs felt like “normal” today. Got into work at 7:30am but today is the lightest day of the week so no big deal. I did the same MG O&B run as yesterday. Though my legs felt fine I was still not 100% I would say I felt more like 75%. I think the cumulative mileage/lack of 8-hr nights is paying its toll. I have to remind myself that when I was only getting 5-6hrs of sleep per night in grad school I wasn’t running 80-90 mi weeks. The good news is looking at my schedule I should be able to manage 8-hrs tonight and tomorrow night as well. The weather was beautiful today and it was hard to convince myself to turnaround at the 4 mi mark… Mi 8-T1 Avg. 8:15 HR 165

PM: Treadmill run. I know the weather is perfect today but I'm on daddy duty. I also had a quick comment about the discussion started on Walter's blog (sorry Walter). How valuable do people find their HR monitors? I notice most people do not train with them. For me this is a relatively new thing but I find it interesting. Previously I used the excuse of looking for signs of overtraining. However, I don't normally take my AM HR. But this week I noticed a strange trend in my HR during my runs. Considering the long recovery from the 10-miler and the extra stress outside of running the last few weeks I looked around for info on overtraining. Good news is it does not appear that this is what is going on for me (check out the following for an interesting discussion on this http://physiotherapy.curtin.edu.au/resources/educational-resources/exphys/00/overtraining.cfm). My question is if anyone else has noticed high starting HRs (180-200) that then taper to "normal" for me at the recent effort ~130-40. Sasha suggested skin contact and that is a good possibility except I hadn't noticed this before and all my previous runs this week it has happened... Except for this treadmill run. Ok enough rambling. Two more days of "recovery" and if everything is feeling normal again long run on Sat... Mi 4-T1 Avg. 8:00 HR 127.

Asics DS-Trainer #1: 90 / / Asics DS-Trainer #2: 87 / / Saucony Rides #1: 76 / / Saucony Rides #2: 79

Night Sleep Time: 0.00Nap Time: 0.00Total Sleep Time: 0.00Weight: 0.00
Comments
From wheakory on Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 16:27:30

Nice job Adam. It's amazing what sleep can do for your performance. That's great that your schedule will allow you to sleep longer. I as well got 8 hours of sleep last night. 80 to 90 miles a week I know for me with not much sleep is dreadful, and it seems to hit you hard the following week (the fatigue factor). I can also remember in College where even 4 to 5 hours of sleep was fine with no issues (when not running as much).

I'm starting to look at training this way, if I'm running all these miles being determined to be ready for a PR in a HM or full Marathon than it will not do me any good for race day if the rest and sleep is not balanced. I've just wasted all those determined hours of training. Because I will not be PR'ing with fatigue legs, because of the lack of sleep in the training.

From Adam RW on Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 16:33:14

Kory, thanks for the input. Glad to hear you also got some sleep. It seems like work has been just as hectic for you lately... Don't these people know we have training to do :) Your comment is just the thing I've been struggling with most the last couple of weeks. I know if I want to meet my marathon PR goals I need to increase my training in specific ways either amount or intensity at different times. But I agree without the recovery your dead on your feet. The good news is that since my last injury I've learned to take my easy runs easy. Back in St. Louis if I wasn't running under 7-min pace I thought it was a waste of my time. now as you can see most of my recovery runs are around 8-min pace or even slower. That has helped the most. I just hope that the extra time sleeping doesn't lead to problems at work. I know this week is down as far as waiting for reagents and next week will be tougher so I figured why not get the rest while I can...

From wheakory on Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 17:21:35

Thanks for the info. Question: have you noticed better performance/improvement now that all your runs are not under 7/min pace? Did you experience a faster pace by training this way?

I've recently this year tried to switch gears and have been doing the same approach where all my runs are not under a 7/min pace. I've gotten a lot better at this especially this week. I know that building that aerobic endurance helps your body maintain Carbs better than vs always running fast and burning them off so in a long race your body does develop the ability to maintain carbs better, because of the slower pace running.

From Adam RW on Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 17:24:47

Overall I would have to say yes. I'm running some of my fastest times in 8-yrs. However, I can not conclusively say that this is because of slower easy runs or higher cummulative mileage. Assuming this cycle of training works, I'm going to switch the next round and drop back down to a slightly lower weekly mileage with more intensity for the summer season and see how that mixes things up... However, I think the overall thing that I need to focus on now is recovery so that I don't push over into overtraining...

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