2018 running totals

2018 #yearinsport summary. Not 100% accurate, for example, the 3,775 miles include walking, and it short-changed me on the running miles by about 4 or so miles.

Correct numbers for 2018:

Total running miles: 3,654 miles
Total runs for 2018: 336 runs
Average per run: 10.88 miles/run
Average per day: 10 miles/day
Shortest run: 1.68 miles
Longest: 16.4 miles.

Guess who just has two thumbs and just broke 12 miles in under 2 hours ???

I am starting to break my "Strava Badge Day" tradition whenever the first of the month falls on a Saturday. This month I tried to take it easy and only scored the 10K badge, which left me a nice, warmer, Sunday to shoot for the half-marathon badge.

I also tampered with my shoe rotation and decided that the Hoka One One Bondi 6s with just 31 miles should sit out Saturday's easy 10K and instead use them for today's half-marathon.

The combination of (trying to) take it easy a couple of runs prior, and wearing fresh shoes, and picking a fast route, sort of paid out.

The numbers between Garmin and Strava are a hair different. Strava sees me as hitting 20 segment achievements and 10 best efforts. Garmin's version of my best half-marathon is 2:07:52, while Strava claims 2:11:51. I shouldn't complain, since my very first half-marathon back on March 13, 2017, was 2:43:13. I really can't complain, especially since I'm just a recreational runner.

Strava sees my fastest 5K at 25:18, while Garmin claims 23:27. I am NOT going to bitch about either of these since even that 25:23 is almost 4 minutes faster than my last race.

As for the "fast route" it is only fast because of the very few "safety" stops on the Washington & Old Dominion trail between Wielhe Avenue and downtown Vienna combined with the fantastic paving characteristics of that part of the trail. It's just glorious. 

The slushy feet run

This was actually the second snow run of the 2018 winter fall (yup, still fall, suck it) season.

Yesterday's run started with icy rain, then right at the one-hour mark it started to snow. Traction was excellent, the powder blanket was actually very nice and the run was uneventful.

The exact opposite of today's run.

I don't think we took two inches of snow, but the mess that it left was about as bad as what usually happens when we get a foot or worst. The trails and sidewalks were caked over with frozen snow, they were unusable. And the two bridges over the Dulles Toll Road are set up so it's impossible to run on the roadway, you are forced to use the designated walkway... which was under at least an inch of slush. The first one happened right before the 2-mile mark (this is the Wielhe avenue bridge), which meant I was facing another 9 miles of running with wet shoes in 35°F or so.

And then, right around mile 7-ish, my headphones disconnected and refused to reconnect. That usually means that their battery is too low, so I tried to keep going. And crossed the second bridge at the Fairfax County Parkway and got my feet soaked again. That's when the fuck its won for the run, I rounded up the run to 9 miles and called Uber.

So yeah, the run ended with an Uber ride of shame. And it was worth it, oh hell yes.

Update (11/17/2018: all that excitement yesterday got me some mild DOMS. It didn't stop me from running today, but now I feel like I got my ass kicked.

The four day break

Courtesy of some kind of stomach bug.

The child decided to bring a bug from school, and of course, he only got sick for half a day. Next up was Ivette, my turn came 12 hours later right as I was getting ready to take off for my early Saturday morning run. That run lasted maybe 20 yards and I already knew that I was in trouble.

Turned around and went back home and to bed. I spent the next 2 and a half days in bed, and it wasn't until today that I actually was able to run. What's funny is that I did not lose any of the pace gains of the past two weeks, what I DID lose was the weather conditioning and our averages dropped at least 10°F.

Looking at my weeklies, I was expecting that this was my worst week over the last two years, but this is the third time this year that I drop into mid-50 miles in a week, compared with four mid-50s weeks for all of 2017.

Burned out?

According to my training log I have only taken 8 real "rest" days for the year. That means that out of 257 days so far this year, I have either run or walked (or both) for 249 days. And according to Strava, I have run 237 times. This also includes one streak of 60 days straight running, and the second streak of 40 days that I stopped this morning. So yeah, I think I am a bit burned out.

Here's what this looks like, those of you familiar with Strava can tell that days marked as XT means I logged some other kind of non-running activity, in my case some kind of walking.



What's weird is that I am not in pain, I guess there's a mental component too.

So far this year I have figured out that I can't run nonstop for the year, and that running 6 on, walking one day is boring as hell. I am guessing that my next step is going to be to try to run 12-14 and take a day off.

There goes the walking "break" day

After my 60-day running streak I started to experiment with running 6 days straight, then walking on the 7th day. It worked fine, I always met my quota (~70 miles per week) without getting hurt.

The problem? It's boring as hell. And my walking day is Saturdays, which is when EVERYONE in North Virginia is out running. Suddenly I was feeling too conscious about all them running folks looking at me and wondering why I was walking when it was obvious that I could run.

So here I am, back on running 7 days a week. I'll go with what worked over the last 18 months: run 7 days a week until I feel like I need a break, and then take a REAL break day. That is no running, no long walks, just rest. We'll see how that one goes ...

2,018 miles run so far for 2018

This should have happenned YESTERDAY but I was too worried that I needed to be back home before 7:00 AM (work reasons, usually I don't start work until 9:00 AM) and I ended my run .4 miles or so too early.

And there goes the daily steps streak

81 days straight of meeting whatever automatic step goal is assigned by Garmin Connect. That was 17,000 or so per day at the start, it is now 19,007 per day. It was almost never a problem until I started running 6 days a week instead of 7, which made it a bit harder to meet the goal on Saturdays.

That said, it was never overwhelming, the main reason for missing it yesterday was that we mistook an airport arrival by a day, which had us on the road by 5 AM, plus the 90 minutes we spent at the airport worried to death that our family member had a problem while in-flight. By the time we made it back home I was so out of sync that I couldn't even look at the treadmill. I still managed to rack up 3.1 miles between walking in the airport and around the house, it was just not enough to meet quota.

What makes this ordeal so weird is that by the end of the day I was as sore as if I had run 12 miles in the morning. What gives?

Brains!

If you don't have this badge yet, hit me on Garmin and we can setup a 24-hour challenge.

Little Free Library, charter 57830

Found Little Free Library charger 57830 in a quiet section of Stepplechase drive in Reston, Virginia. It's right on the trail just a bit south of the school.

My first 60-run streak, by the numbers

It's done. 60 running days in a row. I'm not even hurting, but I am emotionally exhausted so for the next two days I'm going to just walk. BTW, the badge above doesn't mean 60 runs, it means 60 days in a row of meeting the automatic steps quota as assigned by Garmin Connect, which I happily earned at the same time that I wrapped up run #60.

Some numbers:

Total distance: 654.85 miles
Minimum distance: 7.02 miles
Maximum distance: 13.51 miles
Average distance: 10.9 miles
Average moving time: 2 :05:43
Shortest run: 1:23:04
Longest run: 2:34:04
Average relative effort: 81

I don't think I am doing this again. For me the sweet spot for streaking is somewhere between two and three weeks straight. That said, I am going to keep meeting the daily steps quota that Garmin Connect sets automatically, since the additional daily activity is helping keeping my legs from getting stiff throughout the day.

Strava's Suffer Score is no more...

If you noticed that your suffer scores dropped over the past week, that's because you have been looking at a brand new metric: Relative Effort.

This is explained to death here: https://blog.strava.com/relative-effort/

And here: https://medium.com/strava-engineering/quantifying-effort-through-heart-rate-data-e6a0e3dd6a52

So far all it has managed to do is annoy me to death. This happened right as I was increasing my pace, so every day I would come back from my run only to find out that Strava was no longer impressed with my effort. Worse: it's judging the new scores against the previous, which is worthless until there's at least 3 weeks of relative effort logged.

The short story: I am running 2 minutes per mile faster than my winter averages, and Strava claims I am maintaining my fitness level. It's frustrating.

Blood has been spilt, and the Gods have been appeased

Yup, another blood sacrifice run! This time I tripped on loose asphalt while crossing Isaac Newton Square, right in front of the Wielhe gas station. I landed on my hands (lucky I was wearing heavy gloves!) and my right knee. I skinned the knee but not enough to ruin my pants. It took me about 1/8th of a mile to get back to my pace.

Oh Virginia, you and your batshit crazy weather

We just went from a snow storm, to black ice, to 70° fricking degrees at 4 AM in what? A week?

Less than a week ago it was balaklava and double-layers. This morning? Shorts, a single short-sleeve t-shirt, and I was seriously considering putting an ice pack in my hydration pack.

And tomorrow morning it'll be 30° degrees colder than this morning. Because fuck me, that's why.

Yet another failed attempt at vehicular manslaughter

Yup, once again somebody tried to murder me while on my morning run.

Let's set the stage:

1. It's Spring Break, so traffic on Northshore Drive is really light.
2. I was wearing a headlight and a green rear-facing flasher.
3. I was running VERY SLOW, today was my recovery run.

My path is the yellow arrows. At the points marked 1, 2, 3 and 4 I was looking over my shoulder. No traffic.

I crossed the first half of temporary road slowly, then stopped to look to my right...

And that's when the asshole (red arrows) came barrelling as if it was a race track.

What annoys me is that I know that she was speeding, and she didn't give a flying fuck about running over me. I am almost at my most paranoid whenever crossing streets during commute hours, and worse when it is a busy intersection. And I clearly remember looking over my shoulder as I was approaching the corner. That bitch was going so fast that she covered that arc from 1 through 5 in less than two seconds.

And the only reason I am alive is that I stopped at point 5 to look to the right one more time.

Found another Little Free Library

Found charter 47783 hidden somewhere in the northern edges of Reston, Virginia. I was doing a "heat map expansion" run and I only noticed it because I turned into a tiny cul-de-sac, otherwise it would had been hidden by a tree.

A canceled run timeline

4:50 AM Alarm rings.
4:51 AM The procrastinoids start nipping at my toes.
4:55 AM "ugh, I didn't take the day off yesterday, maybe I should do it today..."
5:00 AM (waiting for coffee to brew) "I should just play Borderlands until my 9 AM shift starts."
5:14 AM (wind howling outside, as loud as a frigging hurricane) HOLY SHIT WHAT'S THAT RACKET ... and yeah, I said that aloud but didn't wake up wife, kid or cats.
5: 15 AM Fairfax County schools system sends its "we are shutting down for weather" message.
5:16 AM Feels Good, Inc.

Charles Barkley Memorial Turrible Run + breaking-in new shoes

Yup, it was.
Turrible form, I might as well walk it. 
Turrible pace, too much black ice.
Turrible running surface conditions. It was like running on an ice track with slush on top.

OTOH, I got to break in my second pair of New Balance 1080 V8s, and only one car ran a stop sign in front of me, so I had that going for me.

... and finally made it to the CityStrides leaderboard

In CityStrides you hit the leaderboard by completing at least 30% in one city.

Small problem: I made it in Herndon before in Reston, and I am only 16% done in Reston. Part of this is that CityStrides is still importing my old runs, but I am starting to get a bit impatient.