Labor Day Weekend

Apologies for not coming up with a more creative post title, but I think my brain is still mush after my long run yesterday. Where to begin?

Saturday was spent in DC. After a quick and easy 3 miler on the Toe Path in the morning (which was absolutely delightful by the way), Mike and I went in search of new bikes. We both have really heavy mountain bikes and are looking to purchase some lightweight hybrids. While I do enjoy my 25 minute walk to work during the weekdays, biking would cut that down to 6 minutes each way, effectively giving me almost 40 extra minutes Monday-Friday. Considering how busy I'm going to be this fall, I'm thinking I could really use the extra time! No luck with the bikes though. We tested a few out at two different shops, but we ultimately decided to do the purchasing in Philly. We have a good idea of what we are looking for now though, so the window shopping wasn't a complete waste. Hopefully we will get to a shop tomorrow!

We spent the rest of the day visiting friends. I finally got to meet my friend Jess' new baby, Raylan! He is only three weeks old and super adorable!

Enter Sunday morning - 6 am and I'm out bed. Water bottle filled, two servings of Sport Beans packed, half a bagel in my stomach, compression socks on, Garmin synced with satellites, and I'm ready to go!

Half asleep but ready to run

For simplicity's sake I decided to go with an out-and-back path as opposed to a loop. I didn't map it until 11 pm Saturday night and I wasn't up for memorizing 20 miles of twists and turns. 10 sounded much easier!

10 miles out and back

The course I mapped had a nice variety of scenery. After leaving Georgetown I headed through part of Rock Creek Park.

About a mile and a half in I realized just how humid it was. Leave it to DC to ruin a perfectly good 75 degree morning with 80% humidity!

Another mile or so later I came upon a tunnel which, having never run this far down the path before and not having looked very carefully at the course I'd mapped, left me very confused. Did I go the wrong way?

Ominous tunnel

Luckily right as I approached the tunnel a path opened up to the left. I still wasn't sure if it was the way I was supposed to go, but it was better than running through a tunnel full of cars!

My next challenge was just getting into a groove. Usually it takes me 1-2 miles during a long run for my legs to feel warmed up. On this particular run, however, it wasn't until mile 5.5 that I started feeling good. 5.5 miles is a long time to wait for your groove, and I half considered cutting the whole run short as I wasn't feeling up to it. The whole way through the park I swear my feet were barely leaving the ground when I moved. Speed wasn't my goal necessarily, but I wasn't planning on being beat by a turtle either. Oh well, what's that saying: slow and steady has enough energy to run away from the serial rapist hiding in the bushes wins the race?

To top it off, after leaving the park I had to contend with a MONSTER hill to get up to Connecticut Avenue. Feeling defeated I even walked some of it.

This picture does not do it justice, but let me tell you it was one, big eff-ing hill!

The groove came (finally!) when I hit the Taft Bridge on Connecticut Ave. It was nice to be out of the park and on the city streets. It was still early so there weren't many people out (except running folk of course!). I stopped on the bridge to eat a pack of Sport Beans before heading on.

Taft Bridge

I made sure to stop by and say good morning to the chief as I headed down to the Mall.

Wake up Obama!

Early Sunday morning quiet

Finally I reached the Mall and proceeded to do my loop before hitting the halfway point. I don't know why I keep running down there whenever I'm in DC. Granted, it was nice this time, but my previous experiences with it have been so horrible that you'd think I'd learn my lesson. Like I said, it was bearable this time, but I certainly had a bad taste in my mouth about it the whole time.

While I was down there I took some time to take in the art...

Fanny packs are cool and you know it!

...and the monuments. For the record this is supposed to be a picture of me with the Washington Monument in the background. Unfortunately my big head is blocking it. You get the idea though.

Mile 11 and feeling good!

After I hit the turn around I was still feeling pretty good. I stopped around the 2 hour mark to eat my second pack of Sport Beans. On the way back through the city it was mostly uphill, but the incline was pretty gentle. I was also just happy knowing that I wouldn't have to go back up the monster hill on the way back. Instead I got to go down!

For the first time ever on a run, I brought my credit card with me (I had to put something in my awesome fanny pack to justify wearing it!). This ended up being an awesome idea, because I ran out of water around mile 15 and ran into CVS to buy a bottle. I would have been really miserable the last 5 miles without it! What I also should of picked up, however, was a granola bar or something, as I had completely run out of energy by mile 16. My stomach was growling terribly. Note to self: next time bring 3 packs of Sport Beans!

At mile 17 everything started hurting: my feet, my quads, even my butt! As I approached the "one mile" left mark, however, I started feeling the waves of accomplishment come on. I finally hit mile 20 with a half mile left to go before I reached my Mom's house. It was the most blissful half mile ever because I knew that I had already reached my goal and this was just the icing on the cake! I even sprinted (okay, tried to sprint) the last block home before breaking down into tears of personal pride and achievement. Who knew I had any energy left to cry after 20 miles?!

Final stats: 20.56 miles, 3:29:03, 10:10 pace

The big 2-0! (and one sweaty beast of a runner)

Of course, after my celebrating I had to contend with this:

Luckily Mom fills the guest bathroom with a Costco-sized bottle of conditioner. It only took me 25 minutes!

Final thoughts on the run:

• The Sport Beans worked great and I didn't have any GI issues! For actual racing, however, I don't see them as a possibility as it takes far too long to eat them. So, the fueling issue still deserves some attention.
• I am really pleased with my average 10:10 pace. Like I said, I thought I was going turtle-slow, at least until I hit my groove. Frankly I was anticipating a pace with the number 11 at the front of it, so I will happily take a 10! Granted, the point of this run was NOT about speed, but about building endurance. As my body begins to feel more comfortable running 20+ miles, I can start working on the speed part. 
• No calf muscle pain! In fact, other than some brief soreness in my legs and feet during the last few miles, I have no residual pain! I feel like I could easily run today, but to avoid running 14 days in a row, I'll take the rest day!

The "monster" hill is the highlighted section. It qualified for a category 5 climb.

Post-run Whole Foods sounded like a great idea, but my legs were not up for the 1.5 mile walk, and I thought if I hopped in my car they might seize up with cramps! Instead I opted for some Sweetgreen for a salad. I also sampled their new watermelon lemonade. It hit the spot!

Post-shower, looking like a normal person again

I spent the rest of the day doing a little shopping with Mike and watching Sophie try to make this happen:

Jealous of Chloe's new bed, Sophie tries to make it work for her big butt. No luck!

The whole Philly fam - Chloe, me, Mike, and a grumpy Sophie

We ended the day with dinner with Mike's mom and brother before we headed back to Philly.

All in all, a great weekend!

Jelly Bellies and Yassos

Since my scarring run on Monday, I have been doing some research about what I could possibly substitute my gels and blocks with in order to remain fueled on my long runs. I think I'm going to give Fig Newtons a try for Sunday's long run. Wednesday night, however, when Mike and I were in City Sports, I spotted Jelly Belly Sport Beans. While they are not as "normal" a food as pretzels or Fig Newtons per say, they are a heck of a lot more familiar to my stomach than vanilla flavored GU, so I decided to give them a go.

I devoured them about twenty minutes before my 8 miler on Thursday. Normally I wouldn't fuel for a run of that distance, but I thought it would be better to get sick during an 8 mile run rather than a 20 mile run!

So, how did the Sports Beans and I get along? Just fine actually! They tasted like regular jelly beans and my stomach was not scared of them at all! Does that mean I had a good run? I'm sure I would have had a good run, but unfortunately I forgot about two keys things:

1. I sort of forgot to eat on Thursday. Or, rather, I forgot to eat that little extra amount that I would need to get me through 8 miles.

2. I forgot that I ran Thursday morning. While I probably should have been taking in even more calories than normal on account of my already boosted metabolism from the morning run, I took in way less. Oops!

So, while the Sports Beans didn't upset my stomach, that extra 100 calories didn't get me that far either, as overall I didn't really have that much in my stomach to begin with. But even though I was out of energy by mile 3, I persevered and stuck it out through the whole thing (albeit very slowly)! 

Friday morning I was planning to wake up at 5:30 am for a 4 miler. When my alarm went off, however, my body immediately rejected that idea and decided to sleep for an extra hour and a half. No fear though! I was more than willing to push my 4 miles to the afternoon after work. Luckily, since it is Labor Day weekend and I work for the best university ever, we got a 2 pm early dismissal, so I was able to head out for my run earlier than normal. Another reason I was okay with pushing my run to the afternoon? I have been really eager to start using the Penn track, but the timing never works out. The track doesn't open until 8 am (is a 5 am opening so much to ask for!?) and the Penn track team uses it weekdays between 3-6 pm, which is not convenient at all for after-work workouts. Since I had early dismissal on Friday, however, it was the perfect time to get in there and see what it's all about!

I've been wanting to try out Yasso 800s for quite some time. As I approach my first marathon I've been trying to figure out what my goal time is. Earlier this week I decided that I would aim for a sub 4 hour marathon, meaning I have to hold a 9:09 minute mile or less for the entire distance. Frankly, I'm skeptical that I can even pull this number. Looking to build my confidence a little bit, I hope Yasso 800s will do exactly that. If you are unfamiliar with this workout let me explain:

• Run 800 meter repeats at your marathon TIME, not pace. So, if I want to finish my marathon in 4:00 hours, I will attempt to finish each 800 meter repeat in 4 minutes, 0 seconds.
• Start with four repeats with active rest in between for the same amount of time (4 minutes).
• Add another repeat each week until you get up to 10 repeats, about a week before the race.

The point of all of this is that if you can complete this workout, then you can supposedly hit your target marathon time. 

My first Yasso 800 workout had splits of 3:48, 3:53, 3:44, 3:47, and 3:42.

As you can see, I started out with 5 repeats instead of 4. I admit, I didn't think this workout would be very challenging, but I was dying by the time I got to the fifth repeat and even considered throwing in the towel. Frankly I don't know how the heck repeat 5 ended up being my fastest. It must be because I knew it was almost over!

As you can also see, I had a little bit of trouble landing 4 minute repeats, and ended up overcompensating quite a bit. This is fine, but the repeats really need to stay consistent. So if I'm going to hit repeats at a 3:45ish pace, I need to hit ALL of them at that pace, not a few of them at that pace and the others at 4 minutes. And who knows, maybe that will land me a marathon time of closer to 3:45 (Ha, yea right!).

And lastly, I'll just mention that I did not take 4:00 minutes (or even 3:45 minute) jogs between repeats. Instead, I decided to go by distance and just lightly jogged 400 meters between each set of 800. These rest periods ended up only being around 2:28 minutes, which might explain why I was so darn tired by repeat 5! The reason I did this, however, is because I get really OCD about logging my distances correctly. Since my Garmin sometime has trouble latching onto the satellites in the city, I decided that for sanity's sake it would be better if I just picked a distance, instead of focusing on time.

Looking ahead, I'm off to DC for the long weekend. On schedule is an easy 3 miles Saturday and my first 20 miler on Sunday (woohoo!) plus lots of friends and family in between!

Happy Running!

Running Through History: Inca Email

Has it been a month already? Wow, times flies! Welcome to another edition of Running Through History! Last time we found ourselves in Egypt and we discussed how running was used as a means to show the strength and power of the king. Now, we are going to fly halfway around the world and 2,000 years into the future to South America and learn how running was used in an entirely different fashion!



Machu Picchu, Peru

The Inca civilization lasted from sometime in the 12th century up until the Spanish Conquest in the 16th century. While the civilization originated in modern day Cusco, in the 15th century their boundaries quickly spread into other parts of South America including Equador, Chile, Bolivia, Columbia, and Argentina, eventually making them the largest pre-Columbian empire in the Americas! The ruler of the empire was known as the Sapa Inca, or "Great Inca." Power was hereditary and was passed from father to son over successive dynasties. 



Incan Expansion

With such a massive area of land to control, it was necessary to make all parts of it accessible. The Inca, therefore, developed an extremely complex and advanced road system to connect all parts of the empire. This system spanned more than 14,000 miles and cut through jungles and over mountains (ie. the Andes). It consisted of two main north-south roads that extended throughout the empire and numerous smaller branches extending to the east and west. They even constructed rope bridges to span ravines!

Inca rope suspension bridge near Cusco

Today, parts of these roads can still be hiked (less than 25% of the original roads exist), now known as the Inca Trail. Only a certain number of people are allowed on it each season, however, as overuse has led to some erosion.  

Part of the Inca Trail - a trail runner's dream!

Having an elaborate road system was good for several things, such as trading and moving goods. Another major benefit, however, was the ability to send information. Today, it is hard for us to imagine life without email. Even now, so-called "snail mail" seems out of the question, though only twenty years ago it was the norm. More than fifteen hundred years ago however, before email and even before letters, the Inca used their roads to send information verbally via the Chasquis, or Inca messengers.

Chasqui - Inca messenger and runner

As the Inca had not discovered the wheel and did not have horses, going on foot was the only means of getting anywhere. The Chasquis worked in a relay system. When a message needed to be sent across the empire it was conveyed to the nearest Chasqui. Once he memorized the message he would run in the direction of the next Chasqui, who would be waiting a few short kilometers away. The message would be passed from Chasqui to Chasqui, sometimes going as far as 250 km in a single day!

When they weren't relaying messages the Chasquis lived in huts, called Tambos, that were strategically placed along the roads. Each tambo was made up of a small shelter with storage for food and water. A messenger would only need to run as far as the next Tambo before he could pass his message on to the next Chasqui.

Tambo

To avoid delaying delivery of the message, it was important to alert the next Chasqui that you were on your way! Therefore, each Chasqui carried with him an instrument called a Pututu, a trumpet made from a shell, that they would sound as they approached the next Tambo. In addition to the Pututu, Chasqui runners would also carry one or more quipus (knotted cords that recorded numeric values) and a qipi bag on their backs to carry valubles.

In the event of an emergency, such as an invasion, a bonfire could be lit near each Tambo. When a nearby Chasqui saw this he would light his own fire and it would relay on and on until it reached the capital and alerted the Sapa Inca.  

Only the strongest and fittest males were chosen to be Chasquis. You had to have both speed and endurance as you likely had to run many miles a day. Runners had to contend with the weather and the altitude of the Andes mountains, usually wearing attire made from wool and cotton (no tech shirts back then!). The Inca roads were not paved like Roman roads. Even though there was an attempt to clear them of debris, Chasquis still had to run over tough terrain, and in sandals no less! As far as fuel goes, their diets probably consisted of fish, quinoa, llama, and potatoes.

Unfortunately, with the arrival of the Francisco Pizzaro and the Spanish in 1526, less than a hundred years after the Inca empire had been firmly established, the downfall of their civilization began. Through battle and the introduction of disease, the Spanish eventually overtook the Inca. The Inca roads, which had once been so beneficial to their society, unfortunately probably aided in the rapid spread of smallpox, Typhus, influenza, and other diseases. Not long after the conquest was finalized, many of the roads were destroyed and, no doubt, the relay message system was dismantled.

Despite their brief existence in history, the Chasquis are still a popular topic of discussion in Peru today! Many companies that host hikes of the Inca Trail have their own "Chasqui Adventures." Peru even designed a caraciture of a Chasqui to be their mascot when the country hosted the Copa Americana in 2004!

This has been another edition of Running Through History! Stay tuned for the next post on October 1st!