Mark U. to overtake Ryan Hall ;-)

At the Houston Marathon/Half-Marathon Expo earlier today I visited the Nissan booth and had fun with their "green screen" technology which superimposed yours truly against the nervous looking Ryan Hall (justifiably so, considering I'm nearly matching his pace in my street clothes and shoes ;-)

All's well in my Half Marathon preparations; I'm feeling confident and am truly looking forward to the race - rain or not!

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1.... Countdown!

I grew up in the age of NASA's highly successful Mercury, Gemini then Apollo space flights.  These were always exciting, as mankind's place in space remained a novelty until long after Neil Armstrong first planted his feet on the Moon's surface in 1969, and there remained a - completely justified - edge of danger associated with each launch.  It's hard to believe now, but for every manned space flight launch in the 1960's all three major networks interrupted their normally scheduled programming as every American's eyes remained glued to the TV screen, especially as the announcer counted down from 10 seconds until the always spectacular liftoff.

With an eye towards those exciting times I gravitated early-on in my marathons' final taper phase towards a similar count-down methodology to determine how many miles to run in the days leading to a race.  Thus, beginning five days prior to a race I run five miles, targeting the latter half of the run at or near (i.e. within 45-seconds per mile of) goal race pace.  The following day I run four miles, and so on until the eve of the race I run just one mile - to maintain my confidence and to remove the edge of nervousness as the big day rapidly approaches.

Following an effective taper strategy maximizes our energy supplies of blood glucose and glycogen (a polymer of glucose stored in the muscles and liver). Through this 'countdown' reduction in miles run and calories burned in the final days leading to a race we trigger our bodies' systems to store these internal energy supplies, especially if we:

• Have built-up our bodies' muscular strength and endurance in the months' long preparation. 
• Maintain a constant caloric intake with a diet consisting primarily of complex carbohydrates with some lean protein.
• Remain fully hydrated, as this energy storage mechanism requires large quantities of bodily fluids (consequently, don't worry about two or three pounds of unaccustomed weight creeping on the scale as this is a temporary phenomenon and an indication that your taper is proceeding properly.)

The countdown approach is both extremely simple and effective - so give it a shot before your next race launch!

Confidence critical prior to an important race

In planning for a race one's mental preparation is just as important as one's physical preparation. To help instill confidence it's important to have a good 'dry-run' of one's race roughly one-week prior with two or more late miles at, or slightly faster than one's target pace. Consequently, I was ecstatic to execute an excellent Kenyan Way 11-mile training run with a Boston-bound friend this morning, as we managed a good negative split and ran strongly throughout.

Naturally, my morning's attire, shoes and pre-race nutrition were all consistent with next week's race, and the only variable completely outside my control is weather (this morning's temperature was ideal in the low to mid 30's.) I'm hoping for the best weather next Sunday, as I hope to surpass my half-marathon P.R. time of 1:35 set in Chicago in the fall of 2009.

Five Ways To Beat Anxiety on Race Day

Great tips from Kenyan Way describing five excellent ways to beat anxiety on race day (this was sent in the final days preceeding the Houston Marathon):

Get Focused on Your Body
Good athletes know their bodies well. It is important to be present and aware of how you are breathing, what your muscles are doing, etc. Take some deep breaths. Count up to four or five as you inhale and out to five or six as you exhale. This will help you relax and stay in your body. While your competitors will be stressing out and wasting energy, you will be able to stay positive and perform well.

Trust Your Training
There is an old farm saying that goes, “The hay is in the barn.” What this refers to is that there is a time when a farmer cuts his hay, bales it up, drives it into the barnyard, and stacks it in the barn. When this is done it is a huge sigh of relief. You know the animals will be fed for the winter. The same applies to your race day. Your “hay” is in the barn. You have done all the training up to this point and have earned the right to celebrate your skills on this important day. Don’t try to sneak in any more training or try something different at the last minute. Trust that your body and mind are ready to compete and enjoy the race.

Don’t Let Yourself Get Distracted
While others may be distracted by weather or the conditions of a track or course, you should stay focused and do what you came to do. Distractions take energy away from you. Conserve that energy for the race. Stay on task by visualizing yourself running strong and fast.

Use Your Recall Button
Great athletes do not predict their next move or action based on their last failure. They stop, do a little positive self talk, replay a great race in their head, and perform in the way they know they are capable. Hanging on to a less than stellar event will affect your performance. Recalling a past successful race will help you perform at your peak.

Prepare Yourself for “Glitches”
We are good at visualizing great race strategies and seeing ourselves move up through the pack. What we also need to do is to prepare ourselves for those times when our bodies throw us a “glitch”. This might include a potty break, muscle spasm, a side ache, a fall or a slow start. Visualize this and then see yourself recover from it immediately. Having this image will help reset you on the path to success without losing ground or wasting energy.

Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

Great NY Times article worth reading: "Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious": http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/phys-ed-why-exercise-makes-you-less-anxious/

Great Boston Marathon Interactive Maps!

Check out the following link posted by the Boston Globe's site: http://www.boston.com/sports/marathon/course/map/ - It's a great interactive map to help you visualize the Boston course. Along the same lines, you can download from http://www.tagzania.com/kml/pt/baa-boston-marathon-race/ a "kml" file of the Boston course, which with Google Earth allows you to do a visual look-down from a theoretical airplane's perspective of "flying" above the course. Finally, here's a great link to a collection of odd-ball aspects of the Boston Marathon: http://boston.com/sports/graphics/04_17_09_the_odd_road/

It’s Time to Make a Coffee Run!; Plans for the Boston Marathon

Check out the great article in the NY Times on the benefits of caffeine in running performance of all types. I'm agreed! From now on, one hour before all my future marathons I'm going to have a Starbucks Venti drip!

I had a great confidence-building 18-mile training run this Saturday! I deliberately ran it on the treadmill (at 8:30 pace with 1% grade to replicate effort in running with wind resistance), as Chicago's weather was horrible, and as I find the springy surface helps me run easily (though thank God for the iPod and rich content!)

While my right Achilles was predictably tight during and afterwords, it never hurt, so I'm encouraged that I'll run Boston - a mere three weeks away! While it definitely won't be a personal record, I'm happy considering that I've recently come off Achilles tendonosis - and as a result haven't had the full benefit of proper training. April 20th will be my first, but not my last Boston Marathon, so my goal is to fully and totally enjoy the experience - which I know I will!

Yasso 800s - Great gauge for your appropriate marathon pace

I've made many mistakes in several of my ten marathons. Chief among them has been my tendency to start out too fast, i.e. my not appropriately pacing myself in the first twenty miles to take into account my physical shape and level of conditioning for the event. This begs the question of how I can determine my appropriate pace! An excellent technique to do so is copied below from a Runner's World article by Amby Burfoot which explains the "Yasso 800" method:

When physicists discover a new subatomic particle, they claim the right to name it. Same with astronomers. Locate a new star out there in the way beyond, and you can name it anything you want: Clarence, Sarah, Mork or even Mindy.

I think runners, coaches and writers should be able to do the same. And I'm going to take this opportunity to invoke the privilege.

Last fall I discovered an amazing new marathon workout. Amazing, because it's the simplest marathon workout you've ever heard. (And simplicity in marathon training, as in physics and astronomy, is much to be prized.) Amazing, because I'm convinced it actually works.

In truth, I didn't find this workout. It found me, through the person of Bart Yasso, our race services manager here at RUNNER'S WORLD. But Bart's not much of a proselytizer, while I sometimes am, so I'm going to seize this chance to name the workout. I'm going to call it "Yasso 800s."

Bart and I were at the Portland Marathon last September when he told me about his workout. He was training for a marathon later in the fall, so two days before Portland he went to a nearby track and ran Yasso 800s. "I'm trying to build up to ten 800s in the same time as my marathon goal time," he told me.

Huh? Half-miles in 2 or 3 hours? I didn't get it.

Bart saw that he'd have to do more explaining. "I've been doing this particular workout for about 15 years," he continued, "and it always seems to work for me. If I can get my 800s down to 2 minutes 50 seconds, I'm in 2:50 marathon shape. If I can get down to 2:40 (minuses), I can run a 2:40 marathon. I'm shooting for a 2:37 marathon right now, so I'm running my 800s in 2:37."

Suddenly things started to make sense. But would the same workout apply to a 3 hour marathoner? A 4-hour marathoner? A 5-hour marathoner? It didn't seem very likely.

In the next couple of weeks, I decided to check it out I played around with lots of mathematical equations and talked to about 100 runners of widely differing abilities (from a 2:09 marathoner to several well over 4 hours), and darn if the Yasso 800s didn't hold up all the way down the line.

Now, this is a remarkable thing. Anyone who has been running for a few years, and in particular trying to improve his or her marathon time, knows that training theory can get quite complex. You've got pace, you've got pulse, you've got max VO2, you've got lactate threshold, you've got cruise intervals, you've got tempo training, you've got enough gibberish to launch a new line of dictionaries.

And now you've got an easier way: you've got Yasso 800s. Want to run a 3:30 marathon? Then train to run a bunch of 800s in 3:30 each. Between the 800s, jog for the same number of minutes it took you to run your repeats. Training doesn't get any simpler than this, not on this planet or anywhere else in the solar system.

Bart begins running his Yasso 800s a couple of months before his goal marathon. The first week he does four. On each subsequent week, he adds one more until he reaches 10. The last workout of Yasso 800s should be completed at least 10 days before your marathon, and 14 to 17 days would probably be better.

The rest of the time, just do your normal marathon training, paying special attention to weekend long runs. Give yourself plenty of easy runs and maybe a day or two off during the week.

But don't skip the Yasso 800s. This is the workout that's going to get you to the finish on time.