Welcome to Sam Mackenzie's Training Log

Today was the last day of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, which held the 1500 as its last event of the day.  A little over two years ago, I had set a goal to qualify for this meet, but instead of dropping the ten seconds or so it would have taken to punch my ticket, my improvements came in tenths and hundreds of seconds rather than chunks of seconds each time out.

I am well aware that this is the way the game works a quite often if not the majority of the time.  These are the stories that don't make the cut for the feel-good commentary prior to a race, that commentary where the announcers already have a good feel for who's going to Beijing.  Keeping this in mind is important.  For many, several years' worth of work only brings injury and heartbreak, so in some respects I'm thankful for what I have achieved:  no devastating injuries, a heart filled with good memories, and many friends along the way.  I am training again because I am 25 years old and I have the ability to achieve more.  Also, it's fun!

For the first two years out of college, running was my top priority.  Was it enough of a top priority to bring me the results I wanted to see?  In other words, did I truly put everything I had towards achieving my goal of getting under 3:40?  Certainly not.  I received a Master's degree in that time and maintained a healthy albeit long-distance relationship with my girlfriend of now more than six years.  I was a good son and a big brother.  I read books.  I volunteered.  Here's where somebody who's philosophically inclined makes the argument that certainly a balance is necessary for the human condition and fulfillment won't come from running in and of itself.  I agree.  In order for running to bring us anything of value on a higher level, we need people to share it with.  We walk along this two-way street incognizant of the fact that it does indeed go both ways:  We pretend that love is partially conditional for the sake of motivation.

Then again, I like to think that I don't run for any sort of metaphysical fulfillment.  I've been running instead to see how fast my body was born to move over 3 and 3/4th's laps given the fact that I'm going to do everything I can to make it what it needs to be.  I suppose that it's for this reason more than anything else that I feel like I have unfinished business.

For anyone who knows me or read my blog in the past, I spent the last year of my life in medical school in Syracuse.  Despite the mental burn-out with track and the inescapable sensation that I had repeatedly lost my money in a vending machine over the course of the last year, I ran 3-4 days a week so that I wouldn't get fat.  When school ended for the year, I upped that to 5-6 days a week.  Most recently, in the past month gotten my consistency to the every day level (but still no doubles).

I have very little base from the past year, only that from the seeds I have sown over the course of my career.  I've been racing myself into shape, most recently running a 4:21 mile. In my last two races, I lost to two guys I shouldn't have lost to by a second each.

The gist of this blog, like most blogs out there I would imagine, is that I know where I'm going but I'm not sure how I'm going to get there.  The good news is that there's another four years to figure it out.

Ran with Steve in the quarry.

SU track.  Warmed up with Steve and a couple other guys but worked out alone.

300, 400, 500 // 500, 400, 300

1:30 or so between reps, 4 between sets

46, 62, 1:19, 1:16, 61, 45 

Feeling yesterday a bit, I just jogged lightly around town.  Basically a day off.

Very short warmup since I was running late.  Did 2 x 5k around Green Lakes just under 6 minute pace with about 3 minutes easy jog in between.  It still felt tough!  This is where I am WEAK!

Easy run up to and around Barry Park.

Off day to recharge.  Drove to Saratoga for David's opera, which was great.

Ran south and east of Jefferson Towers and found some great trails in Elmwood Park.  On the way back, I ran by Onondaga Park through some pretty nice parts of town.  Very humid day but felt good.

Very easy run up and around the SU campus.  Legs are feeling good.  I'm going to enjoy the rest of this week, as I probably won't have to many more runs this short in the coming months.

5 x 200 w/ 200 walk recovery (wore road flats).  I did this at the SU track with high school girls playing field hockey in the infield.  It started getting dark about half way through, and the nearly full moon was out in force by the time I cooled down around the playing fields.  There's a lot of time for thinking on cool-downs, but you have to be careful to take the time to listen to your legs, too.  My legs are feeling good, and I'm trying to block out all the mental negatives surrounding the lack of base over the past year.  Workouts have been progressing nicely, and I can't really complain.  I'm in the shape that I'm in right now, and nothing is going to make me more fit for this weekend, which is largely a way to say thank you to my team.  I'm still unsure about whether I'm doubling or not, but the 1500 will be my first event on Friday regardless.  That's also the only race I've played out in my mind.  Again, without really having a time goal (the idea is to compete and be around at the finish), I'd like to take another step toward getting back where I was.  3:55, for example, would probably make me happy.  Splits for tonight were 32, 30, 29, 29, 32--rather than blasting the last one, the goal was to relax as much as possible.  It felt fine.  Let's see if I can comfortably carry 31's with spikes and a little adrenaline.

I haven't updated for a long time (today is the 26th) since I've been away in Kansas City and at the beach so here to today might be a little hazy on the training details.

After driving to Philly (4 hours), flying out to KC, and driving another hour to the hotel, I ran around the hotel parking lot.  A long, tedious, law lecture of a run.

First day of Club Champs.  My first race was the 1500, which started innocently enough:  a very slow first lap followed by another lap at an even slower pace.  We came through 800 in 2:14 with almost everyone getting nervous about the fast close, I'm sure.  I felt pretty fresh and was keeping my head down in the middle of the group.  The third lap picked up significantly and I accidently kicked Will trying to get out from the rail and move myself into position.  With just under a lap to go, I bumped him again and swung wide.  Neither move was intentional, but I think it ended up slowing us both up a bit in that it broke up some rhythm at a crucial spot in the race.  Regardless, the fault was mine both times.  At 300 to go, the only three guys with seeds under 3:50 (mine was a modest 3:56 from last year) were just a bit in front of me with teammate Brian Gertzen.  I moved up and caught Brian before the turn thinking I'd have a solid shot at 2nd with a decent close--maybe even a win if I could hold off a tie-up.  The last 800 was somewhere in the 2:01 ballpark.  I ended up 5th, .04 behind Brian, who I tried like heck to pass if only to get a crack at 2nd and 3rd who were not far in front of us.

Following the 1500, I cooled down with the other 1500 guys.  We all discussed the race.  No one was stoked to run over 4:00, but no one was devastated with their place either.  It wasn't the prettiest race, but I don't think I would have changed much (though being more fit would have been nice!)  The 800 came about an hour and a half later, I believe.  Nothing to report there, really.  I was really slow off the line and settled into last for the first 300 or so, moved up on the homestretch before the bell, and finished third in my heat, a few tenths from placing overall.  Time was 1:57.24, I think--almost dead even splits.

Day 2 of Club Champs was all about the relays for me.  Things kicked off with the 4x800.  I split something abysmal in the 1:58 range.  (If you notice, the trend you see over multiple races in two days is not a pretty one when you don't have a good base.)  The DMR was more fun as I was running the 1600 leg and got the baton in 2nd with about a 10 meter lead over 3rd.  Though I started at a decent clip (64 first lap), he caught me pretty quickly at which point I had the option of speeding up dramatically or slowing up just as dramatically.  Since I wasn't going to catch the 1st place guy and thought the only way our team would move back a place in the whole meet was if I totally blew up, I slowed to 70's for the next couple laps.  The guy tried to move around me a couple times, but every time he moved out in lane 2, I'd let him come even with me and speed up so that he couldn't pass.  (This is an old trick Bruce Hyde used to talk about in regards to Barton Hall at Cornell:  Run the straights hard and relax on the turns.  Guys will have a heck of a time getting by you and waste energy in the process.)  The last lap, I let him go by so that I could save a little bit for my kick.  I give him credit for running with a lot of guts, as he was clearly working harder than me the whole time (especially with the initial move to catch me) but was gamely trying to move his relay squad up a couple points.  With 150 to go, I was right on him and saw his form completely fall apart.  He went from a sprint to a near jog in the matter of a couple steps, which is an incredible sight to behold.  I moved there and moved hard, securing a bush-league 2nd place by a wide margin with a very, very slow anchor leg to boot.

To wrap up the meet, the women's team won and the men's team finished second for a combined team title.  Everyone was happy, and I decided on a week of recovery before launching the base phase.

At this point in the story, I think clarification on the thought process is needed.  I dare say that most knowledgeable coaches--even the most hardcore among them--would agree that it's not the worst idea in the world to take a day off after four races in two days.  Though admittedly my performances slowed and I became more miserly about the effort I was putting in in order to secure the expected place for the team, I was also pretty tired on the second day; my quads and smaller hip muscles especially felt like the rest could be worthwhile.  That said, not being in shape and hoping for big things in the year to come, another big part of me was saying, "Hey, you know, you've only been running semi-seriously for a few months now.  Why do you need any time off at all?"

In the end, the day off was a no-brainer.  What was tougher was the more extreme decision that I came to (and input is naturally welcome on this front).  I opted to make this the first day of several days off for the sake of wiping the slate clean and starting the base from the beginning.  Most of the training I've been doing this summer has not been impressive stuff, and it's a farther cry still from the type of high-mileage that I'm going to need to sustain into late fall at the earliest. 

Thus, as Natalie (who had many a success of her own over the weekend) and I traveled from KC to Wichita on Saturday night to visit her grandmother, I came to the conclusion that I was going to start over after a week of no running.  A similar break will probably pop up for me in the winter depending on how much cross country is in my future, but this way I know I can go a full year if I decide that's necessary. 

Note that Sunday afternoon, I started the trek back to Philadelphia and ended up marooned in St. Louis for the night.  Traveling is fun! 

Finally made it back to Philadelphia where I picked up my dad's trusty steed of a minivan and drove down to Delaware to swap cars and start my week at the beach.  Hoorah!

Beach, books, and beer.

More of the same.  My dad decides Dogfish Head makes good beer but their accompanying restaurant does not make the best food.  Sarah becomes legal to drive (yesterday).  I finish my third book of the week (granted two were already started) and start on the dangerous Richard Dawkins book.

No running. 

Natalie and I stay at the rental house after we all clean it out and the fam departs.  Really, we just leave the car parked in the driveway and mosey around the beach.  I pulled a muscle in my back when I twisted strangely while carrying something downstairs.  This leaves me miserable for our final beach excursion as I sweat under the sun, immobile on the beach towel, with sand creeping across my skin, adhering the the sweat and getting embedded in my leg hairs and such.  Meanwhile, I'm afraid to maneuver myself into the ocean because of my old man back.  The beach is a blast!

Off to NYC via the Greyhound station in Philly.  I reschedule my Saturday night flightback to Syracuse (actually Natalie does this for me since I don't like dealing with "airlines," "phones," or "people") after I discover it's running late and won't cost anything to switch.  Huzzah!  Little did I know that my flight on Sunday would have us waiting on the runway for 4 hours.  At that point, however, I'm deeply engrossed in the Darwin--I mean Dawkins--book and don't really mind the delay.  But we're getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?

I call everyone I know in my apartment building for a ride home from the airport.  Finally, I rope Mike (my triathlete friend down the hall) into getting me once he finds out that he indeed is now available thanks to my four hour party on the runway.  He picks me up on his way to a run, so for my part of the deal, I keep him company for 13 miles around Onondaga Lake.  I've never run at the park despite the fact that it's fairly close to my apartment.  One nice thing about it is that the trail (unfortunately paved for the most part) moves unassumingly along the eastern side of the lake with quarter miles marked out.  Another nice thing is that it's basically as flat as Kansas.  I'm definitely going to do some tempo runs on it in the months to come.

We end up running our last 3 miles in something like 6:53, 6:40, 6:20 after holding 7's for most of the way.  This impresses me because Mike has just gotten started running this year and is a pretty muscle-y guy up top.  I as feeling a bit tired, he tells me it was one of his hardest workouts, which makes me feel marginally better about myself but does not make my quads feel better the next day about pounding so much pavement after time off.

Editor's note:  Sam switches tense constantly throughout this log, which I understand is tedious for the average reader.  For clarity's sake, all events are indeed past events at the writing of each entry. 

Back to the lab today.  I didn't sleep much last night and felt exhausted all day.  I think it's the traveling.  Aiming for somewhere in the 40's for this week, I take a day off.

Up around the quarry with Steve and Joe.  The brush is out over the trail in full-force!

Up and at 'em early this morning.  Went out to OLP again and paced Mike through 6 x half mile with quarter mile jog.  And it goes a little something like this:

2:57, 3:06, 3:05, 2:57, 2:52, 2:50 

Ran around the 'Cuse--don't remember where exactly since I'm entering this about a week late.