Downhill Running

As the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon approaches I find myself starting to fret over some of the important details, things like:

• Where will I park?
• What will they be serving for the post race spread?
• How should I handle the downhill course?
• What if it’s really hot that morning?
• Should the timing chip go on my right or left shoe? - (This is a trick question. Everyone knows that the timing chip always, ALWAYS goes on the right shoe.)
• What shirt should I wear?
• Should I wear a hat?
• Compression shirt or band-aids to protect the nipples? Or both?

Of course all of those questions are important but the one that has been weighing on my mind the most is the issue of post race food. Is it going to be the same dry bagel and bananas that they had last year or will they upgrade to something better? Since there’s not much I can do to affect the post race spread (you can only e-mail pictures of bacon to the race director so many times before you get added to the junk mail senders list), I’m going to focus on something I can affect; learning how to run a race that is mostly downhill. As with any major life decision the best people to ask for advice on such topics are anonymous internet commenters, which is why I seek y’all’s counsel on this.

Last year I failed miserably at downhill running and had to slow way down at the end of the race. You can read the race report and see the splits here if you’re into reading about other people’s pain. Basically I think there are two strategies when it comes to running downhill. 1) Apply the brakes and control your pace and 2) give in to gravity and let yourself go. Last year I opted for number two because it felt so good (for 10 miles) and if Sheryl Crow has taught me anything it’s that if it makes me happy it can’t be that bad, right? Wrong! If it makes you happy, it’s probably only temporary and then the pain and leg cramps start, but that’s a little too wordy for song lyrics so I can see why Ms. Crow went with what she had there.

Anyway due to last years catastrophe, I’m obviously giving serious consideration to reigning in my pace a little more during the early miles of this race and trying to remain controlled on the hills, but in the interest of analyzing my running ad nauseam how should I do that? Run with a vertical posture? Slightly forwards or backwards lean? Gangsta’ lean? Chin up or down? Longer stride or shorter stride? Land on my heels or my midfoot? Hat on forwards or backwards? I just don’t know, which is why you’re here. Let me hear in the comments what you’ve heard or what you know about downhill running so that I can ignore you and do it my own way anyway. It will make it that much sweeter for you when you can tell me “I told you so,” after I fail again this year. Positive thinking, schmositive thinking!

The Hills

I’ve started to focus my runs lately on preparing myself for the torturous Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon in early August which has an elevation profile that resembles your 401K as of late (see here). The scenic route, made all that much more scenic when I am running on it, winds gently down the Clear Creek Valley and drops nearly 1000 feet between the start and finish. According to the race website it is “one of the most pleasurable races in the western US and one of the fastest,” what they don’t tell you is that it will completely shred your quads.

I’ve been getting myself ready for Georgetown by running a lot of the hills in and around our neighborhood. One evening last week whilst running the hills I had an epiphany, or maybe I just sharted, it’s so hard to tell the difference, but all of a sudden I realized why they named that MTV show The Hills: It is just as insufferable and uppity as actually running the hills. Both are equally painful, although I do feel good about myself after running the hills and that definitely cannot be said after watching The Hills.

In the hopes of staving off the quad shredding as long as possible I’m focusing on running down the hills during my training runs, but the crappy thing about running down a hill is that it usually means that at some point you’re going to have to run ‘uppity’ one. I suppose you could say that my training has been up and down, but not figuratively, literally. The other aspect of this race is that it is run at a high altitude which you might think that I would be used to since I’m in Denver but I just like to remind you all every now and then that I run at high altitude and you don’t. Although, even in Denver we’re only at an altitude of 5280 feet, and this race starts at 8500 feet and doesn’t get below 8000 feet until past the half way mark.

In order to better acclimate myself to the higher altitude I’ve been doing all my runs using only one lung. When I told Candis this she looked at me incredulously and said “what do you mean that you’re only using one of your lungs?” so I had to explain to her that there was less oxygen at higher altitudes and she was like “I know that, but how are you only using one of your lungs?” which completely surprised me that she didn’t know how to use only one of her lungs. I mean everyone knows that your right nostril goes to your right lung and your left nostril goes to your left lung. So I told her that I just breath in through one nostril instead of both and she rolled her eyes and called me an idiot, but she was the one that didn’t know how to breath into just one lung. Then, as if that wasn’t enough she tells me that using one nostril sends the air to both lungs and I cracked up laughing because clearly she thinks that people only have two lungs and I was like “well if we only have two lungs, one for each nostril, then where does the air go when I breathe in through my mouth?” She just shook her head and walked off, obviously realizing that she was wrong and couldn’t argue with my superior logic. So yeah, I’ve been practicing breathing with just one lung, that way when I run the race using all three lungs it will feel the same because there’s less oxygen at higher altitudes (because oxygen is afraid of heights).

It’s not too late, it’s never too late

I’ve been getting quite a few e-mails lately asking me if it’s too late to enter the 2009 Shave Your 5K Challenge and as you might have guessed from the title of this post it’s not too late, it’s never too late. I was going to respond to all your e-mails individually but frankly that sounded like a lot of effort, so instead I’m writing this post to answer your questions which has the added benefit that I don’t have to come up with a real post for today.

Here is a list of the most common inquiries that I’ve been receiving, or frequently asked questions if you will:

Q. Is it too late to enter the SY5K?
A. No. There are no time restraints for your running your Stubble Time or your Smooth Time this year. The only requirement is that you complete them both by January 1st, 2010.

Q. Isn’t that a time restraint?
A. Shut up.

Q. If I submitted a Smooth Time to you last year and I want to use that for this year’s Stubble time do I need to e-mail you to tell you that?
A. No. If you ran a Smooth Time last year and sent it to me you are automatically entered in this year’s SY5K, whether you want to be or not.

Q. If I didn’t run Smooth Time last year can I use last year’s Stubble Time as my Stubble time for this year?
A. No. That would give you 2 years to shave your time which is not the point.

Q. I ran a 5K with a friend at their pace, can I use this time as my Stubble Time?
A. No. You’re missing the point again, we’re not trying to determine who the biggest sandbagger is, we’re trying to see who can legitimately improve the most.

Q. I haven’t run a 5K yet, can I use my 5K split from my marathon as my Stubble Time?
A. No. I highly doubt that you ran the first 5K of your marathon the same way you’d run a 5K race, but if you did I would have loved to watch you from miles 20 through the finish.

Q. It seems from this here list of FAQs that your answer is always no, is that true?
A. No. If you look closely you’ll see that one of my answers was “Shut up.”

At some point I’ll tally up all the results that I’ve received thus far and get a list of entrants posted. In the meantime, if you have any questions that have not been answered above then please feel free to e-mail them to me. Then when my inbox is sufficiently backlogged with SY5K questions I’ll do another post just like this.