My Running Story, As Related to Coach Glenn McCarthy on August 10 2012
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Transcript of My Running Story, As Related to Coach Glenn McCarthy on August 10 2012
Page 1
Glenn,
Thanks so much for the stimulation you provided me this past Sunday May 27 2012 over
the phone.
I am not sure I want to go ahead with an orthodox training program.
My goal in life is to abolish suffering : I am a “spiritual activist” seeking to change the
world, and this begins by changing the way we approach our lives…
So what the heck am I doing asking a veteran, accomplished coach to give me a recipe of,
say, 7×1 km with 2 min recovery trot? I have tried many times to do one such nice, pretty-
looking, streamlined, hard long-interval session, and on most of those occasions I have aborted
at the second or even just the first rep.
The Monday morning of May 28 after we talked, in fact, I felt like aborting even a mostly
easy run. Total lack of motivation. Something did not feel right to me about racking my body
and asking my mind , one more time!, to fire through the appropriate neural pathways to keep
flogging on the oxygen-starved, lactate-swamped or simply fatigued muscles against the
dictates of common intuition and nature. The human body is the sacred temple of God. Why
should we brutalize it, and habituate it to perennial discomfort, to fighting the wholesome
impulse to quit and rest? Birds happily flutter about. They don’t time themselves and each
other in agonistic contests against fatigue and the clock. Maybe the Buddhists are right, and
the only way out of pain is to dissolve the ego and renounce all goals and ambitions.
At the same time, without effort on one’s part, there is no reward. Everything
worthwhile in life costs something. But does this mean that, in fact, no pain no gain?
Life, at least in the present reality, feels to me like a punishment by God, because one is
ever fighting the losing battle against entropy buildup and decay. I take no solace from the
comforting advice from the likes of my mother that running is something I ought to do just for
health and fun and without getting obsessed. Neither am I relieved by the common medical
counsel which posits that just those twenty minutes of aerobic easy exercise three times a
week are enough to “maintain fitness”, “stay healthy” and minimize (but unfortunately never
fully avert) the problems associated with aging. Health is not something that one ought to
perpetually toil and strive, in a Sisyphean manner, in order to maintain. Health should be our
natural state, requiring no effort or sacrifice. But it is not, because we live in a fallen world,
subject to the merciless arrow of Time, and our consciousnesses have accepted this indenture
to Time, entropy and sorrow for so long, generation after generation, that they have forgotten
that this is not the way things should be, and have inadvertently kept generating, and
perpetuating this reality, at least until now.
I am 37, I am over the hill. Conventional understanding proffers that no amount of
training is going to keep me from, almost imperceptibly at first, then ever more noticeably,
slumping down that hill of entropy and aging, although it may still take me a while to reach my
genetic ceiling as I have been training very seriously only for a few years. Deepak Chopra does
not run competitive marathons year after year after year. He is not seeking an Olympic spot.
He does not follow Lance Armstrong in the sports news (did Lance dope, then?). There are
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days when it seems that my dad was right, after all: life ends up defeating you, bending you
down like a sagging tree, breaking you. Also, no amount of hard training is going to change my
inferior genes.
Now, one can change one’s genes, and rewrite one’s DNA codes, through the power of
Consciousness. Here I must introduce the horrible and grotesque, but still mostly unaccepted
when not plain unheard-of, realities of mind-control: the total takeover of someone else’s
mind (and hence body). According to Fritz Springmeier and to my good friend Cisco Wheeler
in their awesome tome The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind-
Controlled Slave, the main finding that scientifically launched the super-secret Monarch mind-
control program was that, in stressful situations, the brain can convert nerve signals into
messenger molecules that induce the endocrine system to make certain hormones, which
then reach the nucleus of some cells and alter their genetic makeup, the DNA blueprint
responsible for metabolism, sexuality, development and the immune system.
In mind-control, the set of behavioral instructions laid on a subject in such a manner that
he/she can only obey them is called programming. Under suitable programming, individuals
subject to Monarch mind-control –slaves- can influence their body’s temperature and heart
rate, and even paralyze their bodily functions so much that they look dead.
Ken Bowers, Franz Alexander and a mind-control programmer known as “Dr. Black”
were all involved in this ultra-sensitive area.
The capability of humans to affect muscle tension, glandular responses, breathing
patterns, skin surface electrical activity and heart rate was broached to the public in the 1970s
with Barbara Brown‘s research on biofeedback, but it is important to emphasize that her
findings were known in the secret mind-control programs years before her book New Mind
New Body came out.
One goal of these heinous mind-control programs is to create, sometimes in conjunction
with cyborg-type robotic “upgrades” or other techniques, military combatants with super-
human traits as in the movie Universal Soldier. This I must repudiate vehemently. Another
matter would be the peaceful, benign application for the benefit of society of some of these
techniques covertly developed in the baleful mind-control programs. The techniques might
conceivably be employed to cure Down’s syndrome and other obvious genetic afflictions. But I
question the morality of rewriting one’s genetics through one’s mind powers just for the sake
of something as banal and competition-driven as sports achievements.
Moreover, conventional medicine soon might enable one through gene therapy to
rewrite his/her genetics to an extent. Applying such a medical genetic treatment to improve
one’s sports performance, however, does not feel right or ethical to me, even if all athletes
competing in a sporting event have had equal access to the treatment, treatment which at first
will presumably be very expensive.
In a similar vein, one can stem and even reverse the ravages of entropy and aging, lifting
oneself up from the fallenness of this world, through the Godly power of Consciousness: “free
energy” systems with which I am conceptually familiar already might upend the second law of
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thermodynamics, and John Hutchison, a Canadian “free energy” inventor, has reported
anomalies in time flow. He is not the only such inventor reporting that, but John has
furthermore gone to the length of stating that his biological aging has reversed , although this
last thing, even if true, could be due to his vitamin supplementation. Without going to these
still very uncharted unconventional waters, soon conventional medicine with telomerase
therapy and all that is going to step in as well. But is it ethical to benefit in a professional
sporting contest from reversing one’s aging through any approach? If one contestant is
allowed to do it, then all contestants must be allowed to do it. Obviously, age-group records
will no longer be kept after a while if this glorious scenario unfolds.
Can you imagine Haile Gebrselassies training at the maximum level of their youths all
through their 60s and 70s and 100s and 200s and 300s? (The term “youth” and a good swath of
our language will lose its meaning, or will have to be further clarified, if and when aging
reversal becomes commonplace).
And where will we end up, as far as absolute world records are concerned, if athletes at
large learn to improve, running-performance-wise, their genetic makeup with the power of
intention?
Clearly this nonsense of agonistic gladiatorial contests, of pushing the body to the limit
and seeing who can suffer the most, which a lot of high-level athletics is, must stop at some
point. It eulogizes the wrong view of life, that of the survival of the fittest, of hunting, of
running for one’s life, of escaping predators: athletic fitness, after all, is a modern proxy for
Darwinian fitness. And the term “cutthroat” needs no etymological exegesis if the world is
ruled indeed by the law of the jungle. But the world in the last instance is not thus ruled. Life
only seems such a dog-eat-dog contest because we live in a fallen state, having forgotten our
divinity, our Oneness, and the eternal, infinitely-creative, nature of our Consciousness.
It is not in the realm of the hard-core paranormal to consider a possible holistic natural
regeneration of the human body as something at hand in the coming years, if we detoxify
ourselves from the stresses and daily insults of our corporate consumeristic Big-pharma GMO
junk-food fluoride-in-the-water society. Furthermore, Deepak Chopra suggests a modicum of
regular physical exercise as a way to lessen, if not stop, the body’s deterioration with age, and
to feel reinvigorated. But such a regeneration is not to be abused: its purpose would be, I feel,
to heal the pathos of our competitive Darwinian existence which some runners tend to play
out in their will to prove themselves to the limit. And, in fact, as I told you over the phone, my
perception is that the ultimate defeat of entropy and aging will be accompanied by an
evolutionary shift to a more ethereal, energy-radiating body form that will no longer need the
daily purge of hard exercise in order to regenerate itself from the stresses of daily life and feel
good. We will have cleansed the karma. I might be wrong. But at any rate I don’t want to wait
to die in order to enjoy the blisses of heaven, so I want to see heaven brought down to Earth
(or to whatever Earth transforms into) in my lifetime… or in whatever my existence morphs
into if Time as we know it ceases to run…, and in such a heavenly existence I see no room for
races or discomfort or agony, whatever the body form we end up taking .
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Call me a prophet if you want.
I am also against doping of all sorts, and in fact I do not take any dietary supplements or
pills. To me they feel like a form of unnatural enhancement of one’s body. And the cyborg,
transhumanist pictures of man-machine or organ-design amalgamations are repellant to me,
except for isolated justified cases like amputees, disabled people on wheelchairs, etc. The
evolutionary implications of transhumanist athletics where genetic, nanotechnological and
biomedical enhancements to the body are allowed might be worse than eugenicist, and I am
scared of even contemplating them.
For a thorough study of the deep transformational issues confronting us, and also for
cutting-edge information about the related subject of what’s really going on in the world, you
can consult my webpage http://conradosalas.info .
So enough for theoretical ranting.
…
You basically said when I first contacted you by e-mail that any person (with normal
genes) can, with consistent proper training (at least 75 miles a week, I remember), progress
within the span of two, three years at most, from a three-oh-something marathon (which is
where I then was) down to the “the Magic Enchanted Land of Two Thirty Something”, as a
poster in a runner’s internet forum yearningly put it. In fact, you talked about progressing
down to a marathon time in the very low 2:30s within that time span and training volume.
There is just an abyss, a world of difference between a marathon time in the very low 2:30s
and one in the very high 2:30s, and I will not indulge in daydreaming. I don’t see myself
running a 2:30-something marathon, or even a 2:32-something marathon, ever. But even if we
talk about a 2:39-something marathon, I must say you were wrong, Glenn. Either I have
subnormal genes, or I have a subnormal tolerance of suffering.
So, if after all this you are still in the mood of giving me some advice, I will happily
summarize for you my “running career” and training so far. I think that a detailed, five-month
training plan as you suggested might be premature. Even if I were in the mood, one would still
have to think about what races to aim at, as well as to factor in things like travels and other
foreseeable and unforeseeable disruptions in life’s routine. There has to be a proper interplay
of discipline and flexibility, even for professional athletes who can schedule their whole lives
solely around their training and racing. There is also one more thing I have discovered these
past years. Training is 24/7. It is not just enough to crank out the training sessions. In fact, you
cannot work and have your mind and spirit during the day in something totally unrelated to
running, and then suddenly when the workout hour arrives switch your mindset to running
and expect to produce the performance. It just doesn’t work like that. What produces the
performance is the motivation that you soak in not just during the actual time of running but
during the entirety of the day –and even night-. The drive to push your body through pain,
discomfort, fatigue, even agony comes from the mind, and that source in the mind must be
nourished and replenished constantly by external stimulation and inspiration, such as by
watching others succeed in endurance events, which invariably prompts you to want to
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emulate them. In other words, you don’t have to just train running. At a certain level, you have
to speak, read, watch, breathe, and live running, make it your whole personal milieu, and be
surrounded by supportive friends, relatives and acquaintances who mirror back that attitude.
You have to move gradually, but inexorably and ascetically, toward the world of pro runners. I
am not sure I am ready for this. Moreover, my mother has submitted me to nearly constant
scold for my abnormal running-centeredness. She no longer gives me a hard time when I go for
a second workout in the late afternoon or evening, but she sure isn’t very pleased. She finds
two-a-days offensively pathological and pointless. She is right about the latter. I agree that, to
run a 3 hour marathon, two-a-days are certainly pointless. But, even if I have already reached
my genetic limit at three hours and I may never progress substantially under that, even if I may
never become a pro or semi-pro runner, two-a-days make me feel that I am training like one,
and this, in a deep psychological way, is important to me. God knows up to what extent I am
driven by the desire to get back at nature, at society… or at my mom.
So here’s a brief history of Mine, to crib poor Stephen Hawking (doesn’t he deserve the
normal physical mobility that I unjustly take for granted?). Here’s a brief history of my efforts
against Time.
Here’s my running background.
…
My father had very thin legs and as a boy rode a (heavy) bike around the local villages to
aid his family in the hard, hunger-stricken days of postwar Spain. He never had the opportunity
to compete in any sports: to him, surviving and getting ahead was the only competition he
knew. He went out on foot to sell door to door and village to village, he sweat doing the almost
Sisyphean errands required to stay on top of the dog-eat-dog business world, he wrestled with
the debasing treacle of commerce and enterprise regulations, he stood in long lines and put up
with the red tape. He ended up becoming very successful as a businessman, but he
overworked himself and was also a very nervous person: all this stress finally took its toll, and
he suffered three heart attacks.
My mother was very thin and handsome when she married. Her father had been a great
swimmer, and while she worked as a school teacher she exceeded at the running tests and was
even asked to coach youth track for a little while. But she also has an obesity gene, and after
giving birth to me her metabolism suddenly changed. Now she is very overweight, and this has
been the cause of untold suffering of hers (and of mine, too).
I was the plump nerd at secondary school, with straight As except for Physical Education,
where other kids snickered at me. I think that I once finished last at the 1500 m in the PE class,
somewhere in the 8 or 9 minute range, at around age 8 or 9. I then took up team handball,
where I was actually rather good, because I was tall and strong.
The onset of puberty suddenly trimmed off my plumpness. I took my first trip to the
States, as a 14 year old exchange student, and resolved to kick those jeering classmates’ asses
at the PE class track tests the following year. That summer I took up running and ended up
timing myself over a (mostly flat) 7.5 km course in the park in basically 30 minutes, (under 6:30
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pace I would venture). I would never repeat that performance in many, many years, however.
Neither did I get the pleasure of making all those mocking classmates bite the dust: some still
beat me, although I was no longer at the bottom of my class on the PE track tests: in fact, I was
now near the top. (truth be told, many of those jeering classmates had by then taken up
smoking “to be cool” and “in”) . That year I gave up team handball for track and cross-country,
… and learned the kinds of times that the good high school runners of my age were already
racing in. I was no match. On one practice test, over 200 meters at the track I was timed 29.5.
With less than a month after I turned sixteen, realizing that competing in the standard
races for my age was not my thing, I decided to excel by doing something really singular: I
entered, and completed in 4:31:30, the 1991 Barcelona marathon, which ended in the
pronounced ascent to the Olympic stadium (my recollection is that the climb was made more
gentle the following year for the Olympic race). Then that summer of 1991 I trained very hard
to add some speed to the endurance, throwing in some swimming too, but I must have done
something wrong, because I suddenly developed a heart arrhythmia that left me very fatigued
and diminished. I was told by a physician to totally back off from running for several months,
doing only jogs at less than what I now reckon to be the minimum threshold for an appreciable
training effect (correct me if I’m wrong): 55% of the heart rate reserve . The problem
disappeared in ECGs after the prescribed months of rest: I would be told much later that such
arrhythmias can be quite common in adolescents with their ion counts screwed up.
On resuming my running at age 17, I timed myself 13.8 seconds for 100 (flat!) meters.
That’s the fastest I’ve ever been. I also timed myself 69.6 seconds for a 400 m. So sluggish, I
know. In the Spanish equivalent of my senior high school year, I enrolled a local track team, the
former Scorpio, but I was still shamefully slow. I timed myself 20:00 for an unofficial 5 km loop
in the park.
I did university studies or research in the States, with some interruptions from late 1994
through early 2004. Except for the 1994/95 academic year (my first year of studies in the
States), I did not pursue competitive running in university, doing only basic gym and dancing ,
some yoga and the occasional jog or unstructured run. And some sex, I must add… “ the best
exercise”, as a beautiful blonde I picked up one night, told me.
I returned from the States in 2004 to settle definitively in Spain. And then in late 2006 I
took up again running earnestly. I was now an autonomous worker, helping my dad and mom
in our small real estate business, and this was giving me a more or less leisurely schedule with
little physical labor. This is the tranquil occupation I have had since then, increasingly freed
from stress, and I have sought to take full advantage, running-wise, of my new found calm.
In my first year of serious training in this new period of my life, I basically worked out for
an hour and twenty minutes Tuesday thru Saturday (Tuesday was an all-around full-body,
natural workout in the woods, with my heart rate not lower than the aerobic zone; then, for
the rest of the days, sundry intervals were intermixed with base pace recoveries and hills) .
Then on Sundays I went for the usual long run, which at first went only for two hours.
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Initially Mondays were to be total rest days. (Concerned about me, my poor mom had
consulted a physician and he had recommended a prescription of one weekly day of complete
rest, a prescription she wished to see me heed. I must add that I live in my parents’ house: this
is normal in Spain, especially now during the economic crisis). However, I realized right away
that, psychologically, if I don’t get my daily minimum of an hour of continuous, aerobic-or-
more-intense, exercise I feel I have not been “man enough” and do not deserve the little but
indispensable pleasures of life, which by then were essentially reduced to reading. I only drop
that self-imposed requirement when it is truly indispensable, such as when tapering for a
marathon (and then it took me quite long to accept the imperativeness of a full marathon
taper), or the day of a short race. (Very lately I have added the incomparable fine morning
grilled croissant with coffee at the local brasserie to my sacred, -almost- daily rituals). Besides,
the chemical urge to exercise becomes simply unbearable and I feel too yucky for my day to
have any enjoyment. Hence I was soon commencing what was to be my perennial frontal
attack on my mother’s nerves and tolerance by tucking in an easy 1-hour run or swim on
Mondays as an “active” recovery day. I so have loved recovery days. Why couldn’t all days be
recovery days?, I have wondered.
The Tuesday all-around full-body natural workout was eventually replaced by just
another standard (although typically hilly) training run; the Sunday long run began to go
beyond two hours, at first only a little. And after some time, recovery days began to stretch a
little longer past the hour.
Then I underwent a few episodes of anomalous arrhythmias that forced me to stop in
some runs, totally short of breath and with my heart going wild. My parents took me to see
José Antonio Casasnovas Lenguas, a Professor of cardiology at the University of Zaragoza.
After strapping me with a portable monitor of my heart rate (and perhaps of other
parameters, I don’t remember now), and having me undergo with it the routine of a typical
day of mine, including a normal training run, José Antonio assured me that my heart was
healthy and OK, “well coupled” to the training, and that I shouldn’t worry, the arrhythmias
being the product of my nerves.
By the summer of 2008, I began to first experiment with, and then get used to,
sporadically adding a second, shorter run in the late afternoon or early evening. I discovered
that I actually relished running out in the heat, especially if followed by a dip in the small pool
we have in our apartment complex. But my mother has often expressly forbidden a second
training session in the heat, she is understandably very scared of the heatstroke stories. So,
would you have any special expert reassurance for my mother that a second workout in the
day is OK, that I am by now acclimatized to the heat, that I have over the years learned to
carefully read my body and monitor its signs of stress, that Zaragoza’s summer late afternoon
heat can be scorching but is very dry, and that if the temperature goes over 100o F I can always
don a fully soaked T-shirt as refrigeration?
Progressing in running or in my athletic aspirations became for a while almost
tantamount to going up against my mother, defying her view of what a respectable life should
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be about: now she is becoming a bit more accepting. Putting my training center-stage has felt
for quite some time like an affront on her sense of identity.
On July 20, 2008, I finished, totally exhausted, the toughest race I have ever done, a
grueling 16.1 mile mountain run in the Pyrenees, with 1,640 yards of accumulated (positive)
altitude difference.
By then my attitude had become that, if in this present reality, subject to aging and
entropy, one can only maintain basic fitness through a minimum of routine exercise, if I have
to breathe this oxidizing atmosphere of Earth, then, given my extremist character, I may just as
well go whole hog and turn exercise into my life, training almost like a professional athlete, at
least as far as exercise-centeredness is concerned. I would go on grinding myself in training
with a quasi-pro dedication until I could improve no more in my times; then I would just retire
to a basic, “maintenance” fitness routine.
In September ’08 I ran a marathon in my hometown of Zaragoza. I did 3:08:13 on a
(mostly) flat course (net 3:07:43), including a forced pit stop due to what I was to learn was a
great dread of any marathoner: the runner’s trots. I ran under 3-hour-pace until the 30 Km
point. When I was passed by the 3-hour pacing bus, I became demoralized and totally crashed:
my crawl to the finish was an 8-minute-per-mile-pace calvary, the traditional scenario of hitting
the wall which was to become quite familiar to me.
By then I was doing the bulk of my training runs with extra weights, so at the easy base
pace effort of 142 beats per minute I was plodding along slower than easy base pace.
Moreover, I had also just learned to ride a bike (that’s right, I had missed out on that as a
child), and was enthused about the prospect of triathlons. One Friday I logged in a total of four
hours between the running, the biking and the swimming. What seems now retrospectively so
remarkable, given my inborn propensity for sleeping a lot, is that I pushed myself through
those grueling (although very low in anaerobic quality) multi-sport training sessions sometimes
on just 9½ hours of sleep a day or even less. And in those days when I was toying with
triathlon, I had to put up, due to my dad’s high-powered business drive, with far more stress
and with more physically demanding work-related activities (errands, travels and the
mandatory calls to the various real estate properties we have scattered around) than I do now.
With hindsight now, however, it seems clear that it was precisely my dad’s commanding
presence as “the boss” that pushed me to sustain for that time (what to me was) such an
exacting training routine. My dad did his exercise throughout the day by walking about town
and physically carrying out sometimes very heavy errands: hence work and the fun of a
leisurely walk was for him always blended into one. I couldn’t partake of that fun because I had
picked up early in my adolescence the notion that walking tires you but has no training effect
(This, I have learned now, is not accurate, but certainly a stroll about town in casual clothes is
no substitute for a decent, compact easy run). Moreover, my dad understood that I naturally
wasn’t thrilled by doing business the way he innately was. And he could understand that I did
some morning jogging before starting my proper workday: after all, even George H. W. Bush
famously jogged around the time when he was President. But a heavy training routine, semi-
Page 9
professional in mindset and aspiration if not in performance level, upset my dad’s notion of
what a decent, respectable life should be like. So I wanted to show him, with a certain seething
fury, that I could attend to my family business responsibilities and train for a triathlon. My dad
would pass from a fulminant cancer in July 2010, and the underlying psychological motivation
“to get back at him” by redoubling my athletic self-punishment is now gone.
Also, a couple of duathlons I took part in later 2008 quickly disabused me from multi-
sport projects. Cross-duathlons demand a high level of mountain biking skill and are simply not
for me, I painfully found out... And then, for ordinary (road) duathlons I had to master the road
bike, and my parents had banned me from road bikes, rightly concerned about their inherent
risk of accidents.
Then in April 2009 I came across you online and you sent me your inspiring running
encouragements. I heeded your advice and dropped all the weights in my runs. I still went out
for an occasional bike ride but now I was to focus solely on running.
In late 2009 I really squeezed myself in training. One week I logged in over 125 miles:
that’s the highest mileage I’ve gone up to. Two-a-days had by then become rather common. I
sure reveled in training like a Pro: that’s why I wanted to see that 200 km+ week, even though
it surely sagged me more than boosted me as my running speeds and my access to peripheral
but very important aspects of running like physiotherapy were not those of a Pro. In
preparation for the ‘09 Zaragoza marathon I did one long run (not entirely at easy base pace) a
few yards in excess of the distance of 26.2 miles, finishing completely depleted, drained. There
was little quality training in those high-mileage weeks, though. For that marathon, which took
place on Sunday November 23 2009, I clearly did not taper adequately (I did my hour of easy
running even on the Friday and on the Saturday before the race: I couldn’t let go of my ritual
habit). Still, I should have been able to properly break three hours, I surmised. Wrong. I
finished in 3:17:28 on a flat course and a perfect, windless day, struggling through half in
1:29:59, and being forced to stop to empty my bowels three times. It was a horrible day for
me.
By 2009 my consistent training went year-round: there were no “off” seasons, although
the quality was always scarce: I dread discomfort, I go by feel, and I am just not man enough to
push myself to agony.
For the November 2010 Zaragoza marathon, however, I made the supreme effort of
incorporating those high-quality workouts, the pinnacle of suffering being a two hour
continuous session on the flats with a total of 4.35 miles of what to me is a very hard pace,
roughly 5:26/mile, scattered in chunks throughout the run, with at least one chunk being of 1.2
miles, and the rest smaller; and with the recovery being easy base pace (7:40/mile or quicker),
not a jog. Moreover, I am almost sure I topped off that session at the end by a four-to-five
minute pickup at 6:25/mile. If I didn’t, then on another day of training (perhaps after the 2010
Zaragoza marathon), I certainly completed, between the morning and the afternoon-evening
sessions, two hours of running on the flats with:
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chunks of (what to me is!) high-quality at ~5:26/mile pace, totaling 4.35 miles
or more in chunks (one chunk being of at least 1.2 miles);
12 minutes at ~6:25/mile pace;
and the rest easy base pace as recovery.
This type of training day remains my most exacting accomplishment. (Actually on one
day I strung together 5 miles in what felt like ~5:26/mile pace intervals, again with one of
those intervals being longer than 1.2 miles, but I was totally broken after that, and I don’t think
I managed to top off that day by picking up my pace to ~6:25/mile for the last few minutes).
That kind of training day is certainly not something I can do every week, or even every other
week. Psychologically, in fact, I now dread it.
I also had my go at the infernal 440s, although I never strung together a classic 12×440
yards: the closest I came was one day when I did a block of half a dozen 440s (at, perhaps, 78
seconds/400 m) with a 1-2 minute recovery trot, then two miles easy, then a couple more
440s, then another two miles easy, etc. And it was only on that day, of great motivation and
focus, when I managed to do that; I haven’t repeated it since.
Since about that time, it has also become customary for me every week (typically on
Fridays), to go for an all-out sprint, just for a second or two, enough to reach peak speed. And
then I like the hills, the natural strength, and (if done as intervals) the power, that they give
you. Hills have been a staple of my training for quite a while. I am especially “fond” of “the
walls” I use: each about 45-50 yards at a 70-100% grade (35-45o incline). I crest the top
painfully and in very high oxygen debt: I have taken 190 beats per minute. Hence I have come
to highly respect mountain runs. Mountains put you in your place.
That year you would think I would have learned the lesson and would adequately taper
for race day. I did actually take a day of full rest, but I felt disgustingly yucky on it, and I sensed
that it didn’t do me much good either. Then the Saturday before the Sunday of the 2010
Zaragoza marathon I ended up stretching the usually mandated very short and easy shakeup
run on the eve of the race to 50 minutes. God knows if I paid for that on race day, but I must
say that in the end I am proud of how that marathon came out. Indeed, often since that
marathon, I have thought in frustration that it may end up being the only occasion in my life
when I manage to break three hours. But did I truly break them? My official time was 2:59:33,
but at some point along a (quite flat) course the route to follow was not well signaled, and I
found out later that I had gently cut a couple of curves. I am pretty sure I made up for those
shaved yards when I took the exit to (yes) empty my bowels, as well as with the usual slight
sideways moves at the water stations etc, but the doubt is still nagging me. The best of that
day was the elated feel I had up to the 3 Km point, which, because it was placed across the
avenue from the exit, the official clock said I passed in 11:39 (6:15/mile pace). After that, I
gradually slowed down (half in 1:25:21), the gusts of wind ended up getting the better of me,
and I abruptly crashed at the 30 Km point (2:03:28) to the by now familiar 8 min/mile calvary,
but hey, I still made it, didn’t I?
Page 11
After the 2010 Zaragoza marathon and before my next one, the Seville February 13 2011
marathon, I participated in a couple of cross-country races. I did well, or at least I was
encouraged by my results at both cross-country races. Those weeks prior to Seville possibly
saw the best training, in both quantity and quality, I have ever done. But that might precisely
have been the reason why Seville’ 2011 wound up being such a disappointment for me: you
have to watch out not to leave the best of your racing on the training trails, paths and roads in
practice.
Another possible factor accounting for my fiasco in Seville, where I expected to really dip
under 3 hours, with 2:50 being my realistic target, was the previous days of very little running
in the hotel in Seville, when I may have inadvertently stuffed myself with the breakfast buffet
and picked up some weight. I took a day of complete rest the Saturday just prior to the Sunday
race. It seems that Friday would have been a better pick for the day of full rest. The course
and the weather on race day were perfect, the only ramp being the little one at the
exit/entrance of the stadium where the race started and finished. I felt rather torpid during
the race, never finding that sub-4-min/Km click (the closest was the 5 km to 10 km split, at an
average of 4:01’7/km or 6:29/mile), keeping the effort only through half, which I hit in a very
disappointing official 1:27:05 (1:26:36 the net), and then steadily slowing down to the end,
impotently arriving in a gun time of 3:00:48.
On March 20 2011, I did a somewhat hilly 3.32 mile race, feeling ungainly and slow,
finishing in 19:54. I was very disappointed by it.
On April 3, 2011, in a race held on a tough course over scenic dirt trails, with a killer hill, I
finished in an official 1:21:34. I couldn’t hold the pace on the last, flat stretches. Giving up and
crashing down to a lower pace has become habitual for me. The course officially was 11.87
miles long (one runner’s GPS gave 11.9).
Then along came the 2011 Zaragoza marathon, held on November 6 2011. As
preparation for that one I did, five weeks prior to the race, one long run of 26.22+ miles,
basically along flat terrain, but with an initial twenty-something minutes at ~6:20/mile pace,
and with three or four pick-ups of 110-220 yards at ~5:25/mile pace interspersed throughout
the rest of the run. I finished the run totally knocked out, almost like after a race. It was the
last time I did a long run over the marathon distance (or a few yards in excess of it) in practice.
Subsequently I have been told that such long runs do more harm than good because of the
induced muscular and chemical fatigue: 20 miles is the longest long run recommended by the
knowledgeable veteran runner who sells me the running shoes at the local store. Even those
shooting for a sub-2:40 marathon should not go beyond 20 miles in training, he says. (He has a
PR of 2:36 and, by the way, concurs with you that it is possible theoretically to move one’s
marathon PB from three hours down to the magic enchanted land of two thirty something
over the span of two-three years of dedicated, 75+ miles/week training, provided, he says, that
one undergoes much starving with the diet, and that the training is streamlined and
Page 12
mercilessly optimized, ever looking for that agony zone. In other words: 7×1 km with 2 min
recovery trot, the kind of stuff I simply refuse to do).
At the Zaragoza 2011 marathon I went out conservatively. The course was rather flat,
but it was a windy day, with the winds expected to hurt the most in the second half, which
went along unprotected large avenues outside the city center. I hit half in 1:29:26, but then,
when the time came to step up my effort to battle the winds, I crashed instead. The final
stretches were a Dantean nightmare against 58 mph gales. In the circumstances, then, I ought
not to be too depressed by my 3:07:27 finishing time.
Two weeks after that marathon, I took part in a cross-country race I had done before and
which (at least up to that point) I had liked: a hilly course on pine needle-covered dirt trails
with tight bends, which went for 4.35 miles, maybe a few yards past that. I suffered big time,
specially uphill, and was depressed that I just couldn’t keep a fast pace: I said, I am going to
give my best in this race one more time, but that’s it, I compete no more, running just isn’t for
me. My finish time was 28:41: I was 37th in the field. The winner, one of those puissant local
athletes, finished in 23:33. An acquaintance of mine, a really mad ultra runner with a marathon
2:34 PB, came in 7th at 25:05.
Then, about that time, on a Sunday when I was very eager to prove myself, I pulled off in
training what might be my best performance ever: a sub-4 min/km 20 miler. I didn’t measure
the course, but judging from my by then well memorized cadence I am very certain I went at
that psychological watershed pace of 4 min/km (6:26.2/mile) or barely under. There was
almost no wind that day and I had to smartly find my way through the flattest avenues and
portions of town, amply anticipating or dodging cars and pedestrians and bikers in order not to
lose any seconds, and then I had to grit my teeth and summon all my willpower to finish, but I
think I did it. I actually carried on past 2 hours and 10 minutes, so it must have been a few
yards past 20 miles. That’s it, that’s my highest achievement so far, Glenn. Since then every
time I have gone out for a long run I have, following common running wisdom, only done
tempo pace for a portion of it: my latest habit is to tackle my long run (typically on Sunday)
progressively, starting at 7:10 min/mile (if the terrain is flat) or so and picking it up gradually to
6:20/mile or under, and then almost invariably crashing to (fatigued) base pace for the last half
hour or more (in which I then insert one, maybe two, surges of 110-220 yards at ~5:20/mile).
On February 5 2012 I participated in a local cross-country event that I had done in
previous years. In 2012 the course went for an official “6 miles”, but I found out later that the
race organizer tends to advertise the course as slightly longer than it really is in order to puff
up participants’ egos and hook them in for next year. The racecourse that day, at least for the
open male and female races which closed the event, was very muddy, and there was that small
hill that had to be passed in every loop. A little bit into the race I gave up under the lactate
buildup (“the bear”), and slowed down a bit, but I still came in 36:54, 46 th in the open male
field. For a while I was reassured that my average pace (even if the course was short), was
almost as fast as that of Marisa Casanueva, and faster than that of 2008 Beijing Olympic
marathoner María José Pueyo, in their shorter female event which had taken place earlier the
Page 13
same morning, and where they had finished 2nd and 3rd respectively. (The girls did the same
loop as the boys, they just did fewer loops, so if the loop was short of the announced distance,
it was equally short for both categories). Marisa has now run a 34:51 road 10 k; María José had
run a 2:34 marathon the year before. Unfortunately, the same guy I’ve alluded to before who
sells me the running shoes was the killjoy: he told me later that I shouldn’t draw too much
from the performance of these top girls vis-à-vis mine at that particular cross-country race, as
they don’t race flat out in these local events. I must also add that the time of the girls’ event
had coincided with a heavy downpour.
About that time I had decided to go for the 2012 Barcelona marathon, which was to be
held on Sunday March 25. My last three weeks of full training (before the mandatory last
fortnight of taper), came at 104.3, 100.7 and 95.2 miles.
I must say I am not dissatisfied with how my 2012 Barcelona marathon came out. By that
edition, held on Sunday March 25th, Barcelona was already the fourth biggest marathon in
Europe by number of entrants. For that race I observed pretty much a correct taper, including
full rest on Friday, which made it a horribly yucky and anxious day; and on Saturday the
customary 25 minute easy shake-up, in which I felt actually very bad and awkward. Then, on
Sunday, on what is an almost flat course right at sea-level, and on a day with no wind, which
got just a tad too warm as the race progressed, I produced a 3:01:35 gun time, 3:00:53 net. But
I keep from that race my encouraging 39:52 net 10 K split. I felt like a good marathoner up to
that point, the pace feeling fast but not unbearable. I actually relished gliding down, even up,
those streets and avenues. Nevertheless, I knew there was no way I was going to hold that
pace through the second half. Very shortly after passing half in 1:25:26 net (already struggling),
I had to take a, yes, pit stop due to the runner’s trots again (this time probably triggered by
those little tomatoes at the hotel breakfast menu…). Still, I managed to tough it out and did
not slow down very much until the 30 km point (that’s why it’s called the wall, I guess). The
last 2 km were a real calvary: their very gentle 1% uphill grade, which ordinarily would not
have been a big deal, felt dauntingly imposing to my stiffened legs. I had to summon all my
strength to finish, and I vowed I would never run a marathon again.
Barcelona was the first time when I just couldn’t go out for a run the day after a
marathon. I had to help myself by the hand rails to walk down the stairs. Well, maybe I could
have gone for a short, limping trot, but I refused to. My muscles were just too sore. I did an
hour of pool work.
I understandably did not even want to consider racing for a while after Barcelona.
Nevertheless, by the third week after the marathon, I had gone back up to my usual mileage
and quality, or attempts at quality, doing 95.5 and 93.2 miles in the two weeks from April 9
thru April 22 2012.
But what is the point of training if you don’t race? So it was with some enthusiasm that I
signed for a hilly 12 K race to be held on Sunday April 29. In every race, however, there comes
the moment of truth, when you have to buckle down and bite the bullet. I refused to do it on
that day. Shortly after the 4 minute/km (6:26.2/mile) bus passed me, paced by none other
Page 14
than Abel Antón, the two time marathon world-champion (and now a coach), I simply quitted,
and did not finish. There is a slight possibility that the bus pace group was actually charging
ahead faster than the stipulated 4 min/km pace, I don’t know for sure. But at any rate, I
couldn’t put up with the specter of the same old familiar types of upper-middle-of-the-pack
runners passing me, some with the now fashionable long compression socks that are said to
aid muscle recovery, and which like all fancy gadgets and trinkets I have refused to buy into as
long as I am in that unworthy, uncouth three-hour-marathon level category of heavy-framed
wannabes. And there was that guy I knew who was much older than me, with white hair, but a
thin and small complexion, who didn’t even need to pass me, he was ahead of me from the
get-go and unreachably pulling away: yet, and despite his gracefulness, I had watched him
crank out the long intervals in training and neither that nor his racing on that day was a very
pleasant sight; rather, it seemed to me the epitome of the losing, unnatural, brutal battle
against aging. No, in that 12 K I was demoralized. I was not having my day, I stopped and
emptied my bowels, I had diarrhea or close. But it’s no excuse. I’m not cut out for suffering. If
life is about who can withstand more suffering, then I am a loser. And I don’t give a damn
anymore.
That week I closed with 75.5 miles, race included.
Perhaps to give in a race what I am truly capable of I have to admit that I will not escape
the inevitable performance decline with aging and summon, while the decline is still essentially
unnoticeable, all of my spirit, if not my soul, into that peak race? (it feels wrong to summon
the soul and the Holy powers of God just for a sporting event).
So the week after, April 30 thru May 6 2012, I was back at it. In fact, the very day after
the race, Monday April 30, I pushed myself punishingly through a 20.8 mile run, not entirely at
easy pace. And then the Sunday after I did another long run , this time of 19.7 miles, but with a
good chunk of it under 6:30/mile. That week I ended up logging in 105 miles in total.
These were my mileage totals for the following weeks:
week TOTAL miles
Days of the week when I did doubles
May 7th thru 13th 90.0 Tuesday, Thursday & SaturdayMay 14th thru 20th 96.9 Tuesday & WednesdayMay 21st thru 27th 87.3 Tuesday & WednesdayMay 28th thru June 3rd 95.2 Monday, Wednesday & SaturdayJune 4th thru June 10th 102.2 Wednesday & Friday
June 11th thru June 17th 95.2 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & I'm almost sure Sunday
There were no long runs in this six week period. I have the perhaps insane perception that the
heat makes me stronger when I later compete in normal weather (anything that doesn’t kill
you makes you stronger, right?), so I try to pack up as many late afternoon / early evening runs
as, well, my mood, and especially my mother’s mood, allow. This means that sometimes I
Page 15
sacrifice the long run (which I like to do typically on Sundays) for a two-a-day if the weather
forecast is going to be of a hot afternoon.
Very roughly, about 5% of my weekly mileage in recent times has been in hard (~5:25/mile on
the flats) or “power” intervals (5:09/mile or faster). I must report, though, that this percentage
might be dropping, as I am losing the motivation to hurt and push myself to even moderate
discomfort. All for what, I tell myself in each surge or interval as soon as I start to feel the
asphyxiating grip of lactate buildup and oxygen debt, “the bear”?
Sometimes, instead of those hard or very hard intervals, I have done “semi”-hard intervals,
which I guess are at ~5:39/mile on the flats. These are also to me high-quality miles, so if we
include them in the count, the total weekly percentage of high-quality miles might have then
been larger. But I am losing my motivation for these “semi”-hard intervals too, as I just don’t
see myself holding that kind of pace in a half marathon, which was my original rationale for
doing them.
Then another ~ 9% of my weekly miles has been tempo-style running near my anaerobic
threshold (6:15-6:20/mile).
And yet another 9-10% has been brisk or “live” pace (6:20-7:00/mile), generally as part of a
progressive long run.
And that’s it, as far as the “high-end work” is concerned. My body dreads agony, is accustomed
to the good life, and does not ask for any more quality, at least not at my recent mileage
levels. So the rest of my training routine is just easy miles, easy downhill segments, and uphill
stretches where I “take it easy”.
Realize that a sizable portion of my weekly mileage total, even of the “high-end” miles, have
been on hilly, sometimes quite steep, terrain. These hills, even when not done as intervals or
at tempo-ish pace, cannot properly be considered easy miles, for my heart rate goes markedly
above 142 beats per minute, especially at the “walls”!
The day (typically Saturday) before a planned, hard long run I have found that about an
hour and a half at easy pace with some tough hills leaves my legs primed but not too tired.
Occasionally, if my week has been deficient in quality, I may try to make up for it by packing in
a few minutes at fast pace or a few surges, but I have to be careful not to burn myself out on
the eve of a planned, hard long run.
The recovery day after a (progressive or hard) long run has so far almost invariably
consisted of an easy run of ten-miles-and-a-few-yards on the flats.
When doing doubles, the second session in the day has often featured at least 12
continuous minutes at anaerobic threshold/tempo-ish pace.
I use no GPS, so there will probably be some error in my reported training paces and
distances, although I have a pretty good feel for my pace, especially on the flats, where I often
calibrate my judgment against 100 meter marks that are available on some paths.
Every day I do my sit-ups and lumbar exercises (with about twenty pounds in dumbbells)
before heading out for my (first) run, and I finish each run with the basic stretching.
Page 16
I really take care of myself. I eat lots of raw vegetables, especially lettuce, which gets on
my mother’s nerves. I stay away from all sweets and keep processed foods to a minimum. (I
relish the excellent Greek-style yoghurt from the local supermarket chain, though). My dad in
his last years was a fanatic of healthful eating and he really helped improve our diet. One of
the factors that have contributed to lowering my self-esteem in the past has been the fact that
I am such a sleepyhead. These days it is just plain common for me to sleep 11½ hours after a
hard training day with a double, and I have come to unapologetically accept it. –I don’t nap,
however: my phobia of siestas is a hard-ingrained custom I carry from the days I wanted to set
myself apart from the common, afternoon-lazy Spaniard, even though now Americans are
catching up with the wholesomeness of the ancestral Spanish habit, and the in-between-
training-sessions nap has long been an indispensable staple of many professional long-distance
runners-.
I think I can detect the (at first very slight) symptoms of getting older. I need to sleep
more, and I no longer recover as well as I used to. It’s becoming harder and harder for me to
stick to the same training routine week after week: I try to change the scenery a little bit by
taking the car and occasionally driving to appealing unexplored nearby locales, but even this is
not exciting me much anymore. I feel I am winding down and aging and slowly dying, sinking in
sadness. I would like to insert some desperately-needed freshness into my life by traveling to
the States and catching up with my good old friends there, and maybe meeting you too, but I
suspect I have already sentenced myself to lifelong exclusion from the US when I wrote to the
American embassy in Madrid and other official places and decried to them up front that a large
chunk of the US government is run by criminals that perpetrated 9/11 as what’s called a “false
flag” operation, blaming it on Islamic extremists. So I’ll probably be blacklisted at Homeland
Security or wherever as a troublemaker: society has no stomach for those who tell the truth.
And I cannot stand the lies. This is a spiritual battle to the end.
On the evening of Sunday June 17 I went for a very short run. At a very exacting pace, on
the flats, with a slight head breeze, I timed myself at 6:22/mile pace. I aborted the run almost
right away. That’s it, what’s the point anymore. I was not assuaged by the fact that my legs
were tired after closing a week of 95.2 miles (including that Sunday evening run), many of
which were intense and demanding to my low-grade lungs and cardiovascular system. Neither
was I consoled by the heat of that evening. After years of obsessive hard training, I am still a
pathetic piece of shit, I told myself: a trudging pig, a subpar creation by God. 6’4” tall, 180 lbs
on a strict diet, I felt I was just not made for running, period.
But life is running, isn’t it?
The life force is in the blood, and in its capacity to carry oxygen, and a new breed of
parvenus, of the new rich, eager to rule and dislodge the traditional aristocratic Alphas and Old
Money establishments, have discovered this new martial elixir of power, gym youth and
beauty, and express it in neat bouts of aerobic or more intense exercise, like neatly-packaged
little capsules containing the active ingredient of life, vitality’s distilled living essence. Beta,
lower-class people cannot afford that, and have to scatter their vitality out throughout the day,
Page 17
like my poor dad had to do. The Betas slave away at the mines or sweep streets or perform
some other lowly, menial social function to serve the ruling power ELITE.
Fitness and prowesses at recognized endurance events have become the new status
symbols.
On days like this past Sunday June 17, my judgment gets blurred, conflating the highborn
Elite who rule the world, and the Elite of long-distance running and endurance athletics, in one
dejected fit of sinking impotence: if one doesn’t have an ELITE OV̇� 2 max or if one doesn’t have
(athletic or aristocratic) ELITE genetics, one doesn’t deserve to breathe the fucking oxygen of
this planet. I tried to solace myself by reading Whitley Strieber’s Communion. But I couldn’t. I
don’t care how wonderful and real Whitley’s experience with aliens or the paranormal has
been; Michael Shermer will not be impressed unless the person vouching its reality can
produce a two hour thirty something marathon, which shows that the person’s genes are
Alpha and can survive a Darwinian sieve. (Shermer was an ultra-endurance cyclist in his
younger years and once finished the Hawaii Ironman).
Actually, what the hell. Two hour thirty something is not even world-class for females,
let alone males, these days. No, to be truthful, outside the ruling peerage and the patriciate,
only the Patrick Makaus, the OV̇� 2 max absolute world champions, deserve to breathe the
oxygen of this planet. All other people are useless eaters, according to Prince Charles and his
social aristocratic Elite ilk (who don’t run two thirty something marathons, but that’s OK
because they have a special blue blood –why is it called “blue blood”?-, and their contest in life
is different). On days like this past June 17 I am unable to get myself to do anything. My pain
and my anger at God are too strong. In fact, on days like that, I spiral away in despair,
wondering: what if there is no God, after all?; what if Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins
and all that crowd are right?; what if “God” and “aliens” and “the paranormal” are just fairy
tales with which the Betas, the people of lesser genes that will never be able to emulate the
likes of Patrick Makau, console themselves?
Happily, a little love for myself and the rest of Creation came back in the days after.
One day we will stop competing, and we will fully realize that we are One. Perhaps no
longer One Flesh, as we may have to transcend matter in order to reach that noospheric,
apocalyptic, glorious stage, but certainly One Energy, One Consciousness. There will be no
more Alphas and Betas, no more predatory Wall Street practices, no more killing of other life-
forms to eat, no more social Darwinism of trampling on each other, no more showing off and
bragging that you have made it to the top of the pile, no more boasting about getting laid with
the knockout chick, no more ejaculations and post-ejaculatory blues and Viagras and porn, no
more getting up all low in the morning and having to do a 7×1 km with 2 min trot recovery, no
more look-at-my-genetically-endowed-body-which-you-can’t-have celebrity model airs, no
more aging and anti-wrinkle cosmetics, no more antidepressants, no more pension funds and
401ks and inflation and banks and insurance, no more tax forms, no more testosterone
supplements, no more paralympic athletes and amputees, no more disabilities, no more
Page 18
Skeptic society meetings at Caltech, no more things to prove, no more injustices. To speed the
coming of that day, though, I am finding out that loving the little things in life is all-important.
This past June 24 2012, indeed, I took part in a 7.369 mile race on the dirt trails around a
salt mine near Zaragoza, in the village of Remolinos, in which the course wound up and down
with some prolonged 20% grade ramps. I must say that, while I suffered, this time I did finish,
and moreover I did so with a good feel and I relished the whole experience of meeting those
old running pals and some new people (including a Scot!), of the pre-race pep talk and
camaraderie, of coming under the inflatable arch of the finish with a strong photogenic kick
after having given my best. And, moreover, the numbers on the digital clock as I crossed the
finish line didn’t look too ugly. I came in 55:03.
An entrant in that race was local long-distance running legend Luisa Larraga, who had
been 21st at the Seville 1999 10,000 m World Championships, and is now retiring at age 41
from top-line competitive racing after having failed to make the Olympic team this year in the
marathon. During the initial stretches of this June 24 2012 semi-mountain race, I think I
remember watching Luisa steadily pull away from me with the characteristic yellow racing gear
of her Simply-Scorpio-71 team, the successor of the team in which I had run as a youngster.
She is obviously in better shape than I am, but she went on to win in Remolinos’s open female
field in a not seemingly that unreachable 52:12. I wonder if she exerted herself as hard as I did,
because a few days later she went on to post a 16:39 at a 5,000 m track meet in Mataró, near
Barcelona.
The week of the Remolinos race, June 18 thru 24, I tapered and logged only 80.2 miles in
total. The week of June 25th thru July 1st I did 100.1 miles ; the week of July 2nd thru 8th I did
95.5 miles .
In the evening of Monday July 9th I went for the second session of the day in 95o F heat
with a usual 13 minutes at anaerobic-threshold / tempo-style pace, 6:15/mile I suppose. I took
my heart rate during the last minute or so of the tempo segment: 160 beats per minute. One
minute after fully stopping at the end of the run, I had recovered down to 108 beats per
minute.
As I was wrapping up this report/essay, I was going to point out that my base pace
hadn’t very noticeably improved in the years since late 2006 when I started training seriously:
the bracket for what I take to be “easy base pace” (140-142 beats per minute heart rate)
seemed indeed stuck between 7:11 and 7:27/mile (on the flats, obviously, with no wind),
depending on how fresh and “inspired” I was on the day in question. A few weeks ago I had
timed myself 7:02/mile, but that was already at 146 beats per minute.
But on July 10 2012, at the end of a not entirely easy run, I timed myself at 26.6 seconds
over a couple of measured marks separated by 100 meters: hence 7:08/mile pace. And
immediately after, trying not to modify my pace, I took my heart rate as I ran. At first I got 132
beats per minute. No, that couldn’t be, I must have slowed down a bit since the 100 m
segment. So I took my heart rate again. 140 beats per minute. I, always so hard on myself,
always the strict experimentalist, searched for biases. Was there a tail breeze? If so, it must
Page 19
have been a very slight breeze. Perhaps I should start to admit that my shape, at least for base
pace, may at last have improved?
If the weather hasn’t been too humid and I haven’t had one of those bad days when I
finish very fatigued, I usually recover in the first minute after an easy pace effort from 140
down to 95 beats per minute. My resting heart rate is 39 beats per minute.
Then, in the evening of July 15th, Sunday, about seventy seconds after concluding a fast-
paced second workout of the day, (2.5 mostly flat miles, starting at 6:13 and finishing at
5:38/mile), I took only 95 beats per minute. There was no heat that evening, though. That
workout closed a week (July 9th thru 15th) of 102.3 miles.
It has been increasingly harder to sustain quality and quantity during the last three
weeks of my training. I have managed to do so, but I think I am burned out, at least mentally.
Even recovery days are becoming burdensome:
July 16th thru 22nd: .....................I did 91.9 miles and no long runs
July 23rd thru 29th:......................I did 94.0 miles and no long runs
and July 30th thru Aug 5th: .........I did 92.6 miles and no long runs
…
Frankly, Glenn: I am now not that much more motivated to undertake focused, exacting,
disciplined training than on this past May 27 when we talked on the phone. In fact, on more
and more days I feel like just retiring from competitive running, or rather from my clumsy
attempts at it. Do you feel I should strive on in pursuit of improving my times? Should I
continue endeavoring to see the glass half full?