Two years gone by... musings on today's run and stride length

So... I apparently got busy and/or boring and completely stopped communicating with those of you out there in the blogland (aren't I cute? I think people might read this!)

SO rather than try and summarize two years here and still end up with pages upon pages of drivel that no one cares about, I'll just jump right in to my thoughts now...which will probably still be pages upon pages of drivel that no one cares about.

Today I went for a long run from my mom's house - I learned many new things (like where Kent Denver is... though I only know how to get there via trail, so I don't know how useful this find is). I also learned that if you leave a jagged spot on your big toenail, it will rip a hole in your fancy new drymax socks over the course of 20 miles... Much sadness came from this discovery. On the upside, they still did their job and protected my precious tootsies from blisters. On the downside, it appears that the mud they had picked up at the super awesome 2009 Run at the Rock Slip n' Slide Mudfest was not entirely eradicated by 1) a good rinse in the shower, 2) hosing off, and 3) a trip through the washing machine. Poor little socks. I'm very proud of them for being such troopers and doing their job despite their state of disrepair. I have resolved to try and fix their little toe hole so they can accompany me on many more running adventures (and to buy them some friends).

I also happen to be reading Born to Run at the moment, where they talk about barefoot running (which I have been doing on and off since the late '90s... mostly due to not having running shoes available when the urge strikes) and how your stride changes when you wear shoes. What's funny is that the stride everyone describes seeing when folks run barefoot is pretty close to my natural stride in shoes (knees bent to absorb shock upon landing, footstrike on the outer heel, moving inward as the arch collapses to absorb the shock, then moving outward again to toe-off). As a result, when I put on my little Vibram Five Fingers (to ward off the agony of hitting itty bitty pebbles while running barefoot), I have no problem launching into a 4+ mile run despite the dire warnings of other newbie barefoot runners. It also means I generally look goofy in race pictures because I almost never reach full stride extension in long races (and I pretty much don't run short races) and they always seem to catch me when I am in shock absorption phase, so my legs look like they are about to buckle, leaving me in a crumpled heap. For years I tried to overcome this and open my stride to achieve that majestic, long stride for which my gangly legs appear, at first glance, to be built, but this resulted in a series of stupid, nagging injuries and my essentially having to learn how to run again.

Any time I think about running styles, I am reminded of a conversation I overheard between two friends on a run about 7 years ago - the one put forth that there were two kinds of runners out there - the floaters and the grinders. He was definitely a floater, bounding from rock to rock, patch of dirt to patch of dirt, whereas the other friend and I definitely identified with the grinders: each step an intimate, lasting, solid connection with whatever our foot landed on. No bounding, just gears powering and grinding our way through the trails. Not terribly romantic, huh? Grinders also don't tend to be good on the downhills as our long-term relationship with the ground on each footstrike means that should the ground be less stable than we expect or contain a root or rock that we didn't notice, we have already committed our full being to that spot and we are thus more likely than floaters (who have probably already flitted to the next location by the time the ground tries to betray them) to cultivate a new relationship with the ground - this time between our face and our earthen companion.

So where does this all fit in to barefoot running revelations? Well, you see, around this same time, I was also blessed to associate with a number of top notch triathletes who I overheard talking about downshifting to 'granny gear' when riding uphills. While I have never mastered proper gearing on a bicycle, I reasoned that I should be able to do the same thing running: itty bitty quick strides to pull me up the hill with minimal effort exerted per stride. There are very few hills you can't run with this strategy. As a result, I tend to run way more hills than your standard ultra runner. Its not pretty, mind you (I have the race photos to prove it!), but I motor my little self up the hill with my itty bitty strides considerably faster than I would walk and I don't feel any worse for the wear when I get to the top. The problem is I am naturally one of biggest downhill trailrunning pansies in the world, which made me a super annoying freak at races at this point. I would pass people uphill, they would pass me downhill. I never actually got to run WITH anyone because most people excel in the opposite pattern and on top of that, we all ended up mildly (stress on the mildly as trail runners are a good-natured, friendly bunch) annoyed at having to pass every 10 min by dodging each other on narrow single-track trails to pass without falling off whatever mountain/ridge/bank we happened to be running along.

One day, though, I received a revelation. I was running a lovely little "50k" (if you know David Horton, you know what this means) and came upon a rather steep downhill portion of the course. As I began to pick my way down, expecting to see all the people I had passed on the preceding uphill (as was my routine), a gangly mountain man-looking person came flying by me. The thing I noticed about him was that he was not bounding down the hill like others I had seen pass; instead, he appeared to be almost skiing down the hill. It was like a beautiful lightbulb went off in my head: my lack of propensity for bounding from rock to rock like a gazelle did not preclude me from short footstrikes and the glory of blazing down a hill. In fact, this skiing actually might be more energy efficient as it didn't involve much in the way of quad-pounding landings. I viewed the whole thing like more of a conveyor belt - feet just rotating around and around rolling me down the hill. Now mind you, one ill-placed root or rock could still result in a face-to-ground mating ritual, but I reasoned that my wildly flailing arms might prevent too much actual damage to my beautiful mug (ha!) So power granny was born and adapted to up and down hills, with moderate success.

The state of my career

I've been working toward my PhD for a very long time now. I submitted a paper, they asked for some additional experiments, I did them, and came up with an unexpected result that will require me to largely rewrite the paper. It kind of weakens the original point, but makes for a more complete story. However, I've been having a lot of trouble getting a couple of other experiments to work, so I went back to try and figure out what might have caused my unexpected result. Basically, my protein is synthesized much slower than a closely related protein, indicating a different RNA structure... Understanding how all this works is not necessary, however, as I think the picture is really worth 1000 words:


My career has been reduced to a picture of a phallus.

(As a sidenote, if you tilt your head to the right, it looks like a snowman with a big gun...or a huge erection...you know, whatever.)

The reason for the slower synthesis is likely the little antenna between the shaft and the left testicle. Sigh. I'm going to have to do a lot of practicing so I can present this with a straight face.

stupid rant of the day

I am not a short person. I will readily admit that, at some times in my life, my pants have been pushing the limit of socially acceptable length. I've never been asked if I'm expecting a flood or anything, but it's hard to find pants that fit when you're a female but are the height of an average male (look it up - average American male is 5' 9.5"). I am forever grateful the people in the fashion industry who finally realized that there are tall women out there who live on a budget and, as a result, started selling pants in "long" sizes at stores where I can afford to shop. I really do appreciate that. Really.

What I can't understand is short people whose pants are too short. 99% of pants made for adults in this world would be too long, if anything - how is it that YOU managed to find the one pair of pants anywhere that doesn't even touch the top of your shoes? ...or are you just mocking those of us who have done a better job of overcoming gravity?

Marge Simpson is a sage

So I managed to catch the Simpson's re-runs on TV last night and it was as if fate had plunked me down in front of the TV... You see, Lisa won tickets to an indy flick on NPR and dragged the whole family to see a movie called "Kosovo Autumn" or something to that effect and as the family is leaving the theater, the following conversation took place:

Bart: [after they watch a foreign film] I was so bored I cut the pony tail off the guy in front of us.

[holds pony tail to his head]

Bart: Look at me, I'm a grad student. I'm 30 years old and I made $600 last year.

Marge: Bart, don't make fun of grad students. They've just made a terrible life choice.

So true, Marge, so true....

warning: attactus - it looks harmless enough...

I was innocently trying close the blinds today when, out of nowhere, I was mauled by a vicious attactus. It looks like a harmless little houseplant, sitting innocently next to the window, but beware - a small brush against the plant with an unwary digit will result in an index finger full of little hairlike needles. Even worse, though, is that the afflicted appendage will sting for hours afterward.

I was just trying to help...it was getting dark...I didn't want the little plants getting cold next to the window in this frigid (HA!) North Carolina winter evening weather. Apparently I had overstepped my bounds.

As an aside, I would like to point out that it is supposed to rain here tomorrow...nothing says Merry Chistmas like a nice, gray, rainy day!

Happy holidays to all (except my new sworn enemy, the attactus)!

an actual post...as if anyone reads this stuff...

So I'm seeing someone now who is a far better runner than I. This is amazing for me because watching him run literally gives me goosbumps. ...that and I happen to find good running a huge turn-on, but that's beside the point. The point is spending time with someone so talented has inspired me to actually put some effort into my own running. I've decided the days of skating by on the 3-day-a-week program are gone and that I would like to actually see what my little body is capable of doing. In this vein, I decided to assess my situation at what may have been the dumbest venue ever: the Shut-in Ridge Trail run.

For those of you uninitiated, this is a lovely (read: grueling) 18-ish mile run (read: run/hike/shuffle) over some beautiful (okay, they really are beautiful) hills (dilemma here - coming from Colorado, I can't call the Smokies "mountains", but the parts that we run up seem very much like vertical climbs that go on for 100 miles.... I guess I will call them steep, long-ass hills?). I ended up the 16th female out of 55, which was acceptable, took 20 minutes off my finishing time compared to the last time I ran it, and beat the girl I had been seesawing with for the whole race. I also ran as well as I could, strategically speaking, given my level of training. Ah ha! You say - my "level of training"? Yes, I did well on the flat parts, I did well on the downhills, I even did well on the more gentle uphills, the problem was when I got to the steeper uphills, I didn't have a gear for that. The annoyance was overwhelming. So there you go - I need to get stronger so the steeper uphills are not such a problem for me. As an aside, Ronnie came in 7th overall and was the first flat-land finisher - I'm so proud of him!!!!

So here we go - a frank assessment of where I stand:
I know I have some talent for distance running (I managed to get 5th in a 40-miler last November without actually cracking 40 miles in a training WEEK leading up to it). I think, however, I've reached the limit of what I can accomplish by simply varying the length of my long run on Saturdays...

I am weak. Apparently, 7 years of not visiting the gym or doing any really tough hill workouts has caught up with me and though my legs are quite toned and can run for a very very long time, they are weak. If I wasn't weak, those hills would not have been the problem they were. I need to work on attacking every hill I cross when I'm training and maybe throw in some stair workouts (UGH) every so often.

If I am to really take this training thing seriously, I need to run more than 3 days a week (and hashing doesn't count.... though it does provide some opportunity for some good ol' fashion fartlek trail running!). I am now set to run Mon nights (~6 miles), Weds mornings (~6 miles for now), Thurs nights (~7 miles for the winter), and Sat mornings (12-15 miles), and will add either an easy run Tues or Fri or a tough workout Fri afternoon as training progresses. As of now, this brings my weekly base mileage to 30-35 with the additional Tues/Fri workouts on top of that.

I need to vary my workouts. Running all distances moderately hard is great, but it might be helpful to have a little more variety... Mile repeats on Weds mornings. Stairs some Friday afternoons. We'll see what pace Mon and Thurs settle out to...

I am targeting Uwharrie (beginning of Feb) for the next assessment of progress.... I would really like to get back into the top 3 this year....

Other random training goal: Get 6 mile repeats under 6:30 so I can go sub-42 at the Bolder Boulder....may not be feasible this year, but it's a goal :)

And, finally, my thoughts on all this for today:

The upside of all this is I think I might be surprised at what I can accomplish; there have been small flashes of running brilliance on my part (2nd at Uwharrie 2 years ago) in the sea of middling to slightly above average performances that have marked my running career thus far.

The downside is that training hard hurts. I've started doing some mile repeats on Weds mornings and I have to say that while I appreciate the benefits and the principles, those workouts are just not fun. I come away with a sense of accomplishment and pride that I managed to haul my buns out of bed early on yet another Wednesday morning, but I can't say that I've ever actually enjoyed such a workout.

Another upside, though, is that sometimes I get a breakfast date after the run, which DEFINITELY makes the whole thing worthwhile :)

Downside: Training hard also makes you tired. I swear I can't get enough sleep to make up for the abuse that I'm inflicting upon myself. Maybe if I give up working, I could catch up?

Thank you for listening.

I'm getting too close

You see, I've been having trouble getting the last couple of experiments to work for my first publication out of this lab and I think I've finally figured out why. I am clearly getting too close to the truth and God is saying, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." Thus, I have a compromise - If I can get the pictures I need in order to graduate, I will completely misinterpret them so we don't actually get any closer to the answer... sound like a deal?