Charleston Runs

Marathon and Post-Marathon Report

Charleston Runs Marathoners - We missed a few at our post-race dinner.

Everybody at Charleston Runs arrived at the start line healthy. We did have one runner with a nagging knee issue but she was able to complete her training. Some of our athletes ran much faster than they expected; some were dissappointed with their performance. I’ve spent time with most of them, reviewing their training and what we might do differently the next time. All had a great experience and all are looking at the future.

Yesterday, a few of them did the Turkey Day run here in Charleston. One of them set a new personal record for the 5K distance. This was after a month of standing down, no track workouts, and even multiple days off. Amazing what recovery can do for you!

Charleston Run’s Noah Moore on Live5

Noah Moore appeared on WCSC Channel 5 and talked about why he’s running the Marine Corps Marathon. Great job, Noah! If you’re reading this as a note on Facebook, click on ‘View Original Post’ to see the video at CharlestonRuns.com. (Give the video a few seconds to load.)

Are You Piling On?

The last 21 days of marathon training are critical. As Charleston Runs athletes approach the Marine Corps Marathon, they need to keep careful track of their training and how they’re progressing. We cutting miles but we’re not cutting back on effort.

I’ve put together a one-page document that might help you track your taper. On each day, write down your workout, mark whether it was an easy, medium, or hard effort. Also keep track of your food using the categories poor, ok, or great. Visually look and see if you’re piling hard effort on top of hard effort. Check to see if you’re eating junk for days on end. Only you will see this so be honest and use what you’re learning to make adjustments.

One more thing - SLEEP. It does a body good. You are in the rest, recovery, and restoration phase. Each week, you should go to bed 30 minutes earlier than you did the week before. If 10 pm is your normal bedtime, then by the time the marathon is here, you should have been retiring at 8.30 for a week. Yes, life gets in the way but you’ve spent the last four months or more diligently preparing for this race. Don’t let the lack of sleep and recovery slow you down.

THE Long Run

For months we’ve been preparing for the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of the month. One last long run and we start our taper. Tomorrow we’ll run 12 miles, do the Isle of Palms Connector 10K and then run 2 more cool down miles. Our speedsters may go a little further. They will check in at the end of the 10K and I’ll see how they’re doing.

We did have one runner who strained her back this morning. It’s happened to her before but she’s such great athlete that she still wants to get the 20-miler in. Most runners started building to the marathon in July. Charleston Runs athletes went through a few months of base and strength building before then - about 8-10 weeks worth, depending on when they joined the program.

That big base has enabled them to do hard tempo runs in the heat on one day and knock out a track workout the next day. My number goal with my athletes is to get them to the start line healthy. That big base will also get my runner to the start line without doing a 20-mile run before the race. She’s ready to race today.

Four out of Seven

Seven Charleston Runs athletes entered the Carolina Children’s Charity 8K this weekend. FOUR of them walked away with hardware. All were age group awards - one first place, two seconds, and one third. I don’t know who was more excited - them or me.

16-Mile Long Run

We’re now just 48 days away from the Marine Corps Marathon. If you have built a good base during the summer, then bumping up the mileage every two weeks over the next two months shouldn’t be an issue. When Charleston Runs athletes are finished with the longer runs, everybody is worn out but they do recover nicely over the next few days.

Yesterday, we ran from Mount Pleasant to the Coast Guard Station downtown and back. It was a beautiful day to run. Running across the Cooper River Bridge was tough but in the Marine Corps Marathon, there is one significant hill at the 8-mile point. Somebody running for time needs to have a strategy to not only attack that hill but also a strategy to deal with the ups and downs of the highway ramps that are part of the last 5 miles of the course.

Time for Inventory

Are you preparing right now for your fall marathon? If you haven’t started a 16-week training program for a fall marathon,you are behind the eight-ball and if you do nothing this week about it, you may not make it to the start line prepared. Get it in your head today - you must adjust your life to accomodate your training schedule if this is your first marathon. I can’t emphasize it enough.

Somebody who has run one already knows the enormous amount of time required and not just in terms of the time required for running. You also have to allow for rest and recovery. You will be asking your body to go places you haven’t gone before.

I did all of my long runs on Saturday mornings when I trained for my first marathon and we started at 5.30 and earlier because of the heat of the Charleston Lowcountry. I also needed to by at work at 5 pm on Saturday evenings. I spent that time between the end of the run and 4 pm, when I started preparing to leave for work, sleeping, resting, and refueling. After spending all day doing nothing and then working for a few hours, I was ready for bed at 9 on Saturday evening. Chores went undone. Home maintenance was delayed. Visits with friends and family always ended by 8.30 so I could go home and go to bed.

Take inventory of your body - don’t let something minor become something debilitating. If you have any overuse injury, start figuring out what to do about it. You may need to make the decision not to run a fall marathon this year due to the injury, as I have.

Check your schedule - have you cleared your calendar so you can run long every weekend? Do you have a plan for those times when you are out of town and can’t be with your regular running group? Have you made accomodation for the time required both for training, recovering, and resting?

For the next four months your mantra will be run, refuel, hydrate, prefuel, repeat. Happy running!

12 Mile Mt Pleasant Route

The Power of Your Running Partners

I think this short video represents the benefits of running partners and group runs.

What do you mean when you talk about hydrating?

DRINK!

Question:

What do you mean when you talk about hydrating? How much should I be drinking? What should I drink?

Answer:

Summer in the lowcountry is tough on marathon runners. Dehydration is when the water in your tissues is depleted below normal levels. Your performance is affected when you lose as little as 1% of your body weight. For a 150 lb man, that’s 1.5 lbs.

Water is absolutely your best fluid to combat dehydration. The best way to tell if you’re dehydrated is to check your urine color. Here’s a good explanation of what to look for. Scroll down to see the urine color chart. (Yes, Boot Campers, I know it’s from the Army but it really is good information.)

http://www.detrick.army.mil/ih/ehhot.cfm

You can come up with a rough gauge to estimate how much you should be drinking by doing a simple sweat test.

1. Weigh yourself with no clothes.
2. Get dressed.
3. Run for an hour or whatever kind of exercise your normally do.
4. Weigh yourself again with no clothes after completely toweling off.

If you drink anything between the weigh-ins, then you need to measure what you drank. Your weight in ounces that you lost is equal to your sweat rate in ounces/hour for that type of exercise and exercise conditions. In my case, my sweat rate for running in the middle of summer is at least 64 ounces/hour.  In Boot Camp, it’s about 30 ounces/hour when we’re indoors in the winter.

What about sports drinks?

Sports drinks contain lots of sugar and are useful for staying fueled during a long run but for now, stick to water. That’s what they were developed for. We’ll talk more about fueling at a later time.

How Much Should I Drink?

It’s not really complicated. I try to make sure I am fully hydrated before I go to bed and I drink 16-20 ounces first thing in the morning to replace what I’ve respired out overnight. During the summer, I am really vigilant about drinking water in the evening and I don’t really care if I need to use the bathroom multiple times in the middle of the night. Better that than to be dehydrated when I start out in the morning.

I try to consume at least 28 ounces of water an hour while running if I’m running more than 90 minutes. That’s what most sources claim to be the maximum amount your body can process in that hour. After I run, I consume at least one ounce for every minute I was exercising because my sweat rate is approximately 1 oz every minute. I try to do that within the first hour after I’m done and I’ve been known to completely consume two 24 ounces bottles immediately after running.

Coach, I have one more question: I’ve heard that cold water will cool me off quicker than tepid water. Is that true?

Yes - but not so you would notice. The cooling effect is very minimal. However, if having your drinks cold will induce you to drink more and more often, than drink cold drinks.