Ross' Last First Marathon Blog Post - probably

Date of First Marathon: Sunday 22nd September 2013
Date Today: Saturday 12th October 2013

Yup, it's taken me quite a while to get around to writing what will be my last blog post on this topic.... unless I have any further reflections, ideas, etc. Which is fairly likely knowing me reasonably well as I do.

My family and I drove up from Melbourne to Sydney (about 9 hours total), with an overnighter in a farmstay en route. The "highlight" (for the wrong reasons) of the trip up there was my 8 year lad getting the tip of his finger chewed by a horse. Not the horse's fault of course. Just that my son hasn't yet perfected the technique of offering up a flat hand to a horse when feeding carrots. Fingers were offered up first. Lesson painfully learnt.

We stayed with lovely friends (thanks Janine!) in the beachside suburb of Warriewood, about 40 minutes north of the city.

Other than cutting down on the naughty stuff (chocolate, alcohol, crisps, etc) I wasn't massively focused on my nutrition in the lead up to the run. So it was only in the last 36 hours or so that I started to load up on carbohydrates - mainly pasta. Possibly a mistake, in hindsight...

Start time for the marathon on Sunday morning was 7:20am, but participants were asked to get there an hour early. The start line was at Hopkins Park on the north side of the harbour, underneath the Sydney Harbour Bridge. To get there in time and under my own steam I had to get up at about 4:40am on Sunday morning, out the door in the dark shortly after 5pm, and then a short walk to the bus stop for a 5:20am pickup. A bit brutal, but v. minor in comparison to the marathon itself.

Everything went like clockwork. There were no last minute panics in terms of my running kit, alarm clock, breakfast, catching the bus, remembering to vaseline my sensitive bits, taking ibuprofen before and during, etc.

Of course the start area was heaving with people readying themselves for the marathon and other shorter distances. The weather was fabulous - mild temperatures, blue skies. But you can never have enough portaloos when you've got loads of very excited and very hydrated people, and so I wasn't the only one making "alternative" arrangements.

The marathon started in 3 groups - A, B, and C - fast, less, fast, and not very fast at all. In the few minutes before my C group kicked off I felt unexpectedly emotional. I was just moments away from getting stuck into something I'd been training so hard for and planning over so many months. I thought about Boris, about friends and family, sponsors, all the words of support and encouragement I've received along the way, the realisation that at last I was actually doing a marathon, and about how privileged and fortunate I was to be standing there on such a beautiful day.

Start line observation: how normal everyone looked. There were men and women of all ages, colours, shapes and sizes. Just goes to show that almost anyone can run a marathon if they set their head and heart on it.

One thing I was determined to avoid was setting out too hard and fast, carried along on a wave of adrenalin and over-enthusiasm. No chance of that initially of course as walked over the start line, encouraged by some friendly fighting talk by a local media personality over the loud speaker system.

Despite lots of pre-race stretching and the slow start, my troublesome left calf muscle tightened up almost immediately. Not good! As I jogged south over the iconic Harbour Bridge I confess I was extremely worried that all my worst injury fears would be realised, and my race would be over almost as fast as it had begun.

But I still managed to take this shot on my smartphone, the same smartphone that was tracking and broadcasting my progress using Runtastic and Glympse apps.

Thankfully, the calf pain slowly eased up over the course of the event. Or perhaps it was just because everything else started aching more?

I was wearing my long pants and long sleeved shirt. With lots of people wearing shorts and t-shirts/vests I was concerned that perhaps I was overdressed for the occasion, i.e. that I might over heat? I kept reminding myself that I was wearing the kit that I felt most comfortable in during my training runs - albeit in generally chillier conditions. This fear proved to be unfounded. Indeed the weird thing was that I seemed to sweat a lot less on the day than I'd typically perspire in training runs. Perhaps I wasn't pushing myself as hard?

Everything seemed to be going reasonably well up to about 25-30km mark. I was on for a total time of around 4hr45m, comfortably under my nominal 5hr target.  But then my energy levels started dropping. I grew up hearing stories about people "hitting the wall" when running a marathon, but it wasn't like that for me. It was more a gradually increasing feeling that my remaining energy reserves were running low, and that no amount of energy drink or gel or anything else was going to make much of a difference. Apart from stopping - which of course was never an option.

My right quadriceps muscles started to get pretty sore around the same time as my energy levels were noticeably dropping, which didn't help. I probably could and should have stopped and done some stretching in an effort to ease the quad pain, but that wasn't going to change the basic v. low energy equation.

So it came down to this: start walking at a sustainable pace, or keeping jogging and start to feel a bit faint and slightly nauseous. Not a hard decision to make. So the last 10-12km was mostly speed ('ish) walking, with brief stints of jogging now and then just to check in case my energy reserves had magically recovered (they hadn't).

Check out the guy in white, race number A10383, alongside me with the Sydney Opera House in the background. He introduced himself as "Big Chris". I asked him how many marathons he's run. "110 - not including triathlons". WHAT!?!? I thought he was pulling my sore leg, but he was straight up. 57 years old. What a legend! He told me that his last marathon was about 4 years ago, and because of work commitments he'd not been able to train much for this one. But what a huge reservoir of experience to draw from! We jogged up alongside a VERY old boy who looked 80+. He asked Chris the same question and was similarly blown away by Chris' answer. "I thought I was doing pretty good on 33!" he said. Wow. How humble did I feel alongside these athletes?

Finally the end was in sight as we closed in on the Sydney Opera House. The course narrowed as we passed lots of sightseers and holidaymakers wandering around and sitting at harbourside bars and restaurants. Lots of encouraging shouts and cheers helped to keep me jogging the final 1km. Right next to the finish line was my wife and 4 gorgeous kids who'd been waiting patiently there to see their crazy Dad for 1 hour. My race time didn't matter, so I took the chance to hug and kiss them all before crossing the line and finishing my first marathon in the shadow of one of the most iconic and beautiful buildings on the planet. 5hrs15m.

Post-marathon Reflections

THANK YOU to my sponsors. Nearly $2k raised for Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick kids. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Screenshot from Runtastic

I didn't get a single blister or any chaffing problems. A testament to good equipment and preparation.

In many ways I'm not surprised I ran out of steam after about 3.5 hours. This was the longest time I had ever run in training, as dictated by the training plan I was sticking to when I wasn't inured. So anything longer than 3.5 hours was always going to be in the realm of the unknown. From a physiological perspective I'd love to better understand what I could have done differently to have kept my energy levels up for longer. I'm thinking a combination of 1) More training. I managed to complete just under 70% of the training sessions on the plan. 2) Better nutrition in the week leading up to the race, i.e. more consistent carbo-loading.

It took me about 7-10 days for my body to feel post-marathon 100% normal again.

Will I run another marathon? Never say never, but probably not for a while. For me, the #1 reason for not running another is the time commitment required to train properly: a minimum of 3-4 sessions per week, taking perhaps 8-12 hours per week if you include preparing to train and the post-session activities (stretching, showering, etc.). When you've got your own small business and, more importantly, a wife and 4 kids, that's a lot of "selfish" time. I want to keep on running (hip problems notwithstanding), but now I want to share it with my family on less insane runs of 5 or 10km.

Screenshot from Runstatic

Spare calf anyone?

My calf muscle problem... is a problem again. Didn't want to say anything (hoping that by not talking about it, it would go away) but on my 1 hour run last Sunday, I tweaked it.

I was jogging along a street on a mild downhill incline and I spotted something out of the corner of my left eye. It was nothing... just something that caused me to twist my body to my left while bringing my left leg down onto the ground and thereby twisting it too. And that was enough to feel a fairly sharp pain in my calf muscle. I was able to jog on, but only by taking shorter stride lengths.

I went for my last, gentle, pre-marathon run this morning (5 days after the above), and I could feel the calf muscle niggling away in the background, taunting me to run a bit harder so that it could give me a full-on TWANG.

On one level I'm incredibly annoyed and frustrated, for obvious reasons... like, I don't know, running a marathon in less than 36 hours. Yeh, that could be it.

On another, I don't care. I'm "bored" of getting injured. There's no time to do anything about it, so it's time to just suck it up, and get on with it. It's a feeling of resignation, of acceptance.

Other than RICE between now and the start of the marathon (which might help a tad), I plan to strap my calf very heavily on race day. Bring it on. Worst case - I walk the remainder of the course. So long as I don't take longer than 6 hours I won't get disqualified for being too slow.

More lovely sponsors please!

4 days to go, sitting at 41% towards my self-imposed fundraising target of AUD$3k.

http://www.justgiving.com/Ross-Gerring

Perhaps my offer to wax my hairy chest and post the video to Youtube if I hit 100% by race day is proving to be a DIS-incentive for people to sponsor me?! I hope not!

Can you spare a few quid, dollars, etc? The cash may be going to Great Ormond St Hospital in the UK, but of course a treatment breakthrough at GOSH is, ultimately, a treatment breakthrough for kids the world over.

All currencies are welcome.

Thanks so much.

Tapering and Taped

Apologies to small children and those of a nervous disposition for the following bum shot. But in the spirit of "a picture is worth a thousand words" I thought I'd stick this one in. What you're seeing is a result of my local physio deciding that my hip pain is due to my "side bum" muscles being weak relative to my "back bum" muscles, allowing excessive lateral movement in my hip joint. So he taped me up very tightly, like a belt, in an attempt to reduce that lateral movement.

It seems to have helped a bit. I've done two short runs since getting taped - a 40 minute and a 30 minute - and the pain is manageable. And by manageable I mean that ibuprofen is, and will be, my best friend.

I'm in the "tapering" phase of my training program... the winding down, the calm before the storm. The theory is that all the hard work is done, and now it's about ensuring that I'm in the best, most rested shape I can be in for race day - which is a week today as I type.

Despite the hip issues, I'm feeling excited and strangely confident about the marathon. That said, I think there's a huge amount of naivety in my confidence :-)

Hip pain

On my 2hr30m run last Sunday I picked up a niggling pain in the lower right side of my back, but perhaps in the hip joint region. I was hoping it was just fatigue-related and that it would quickly better with a couple of days rest like a few of my other aches and pains have. Bad news... it feels like it's getting worse. Not good. I had a 30m jog scheduled on my training program today, but my gut feeling is that running on it will do more harm than good. So I've cancelled the run and booked physio for tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed it's a minor injury with only about 12 sleeps until race day! I will not be denied!

Why haven't I lost more weight?

So a few months back I weighed in at 100kg, and I was expecting to lose at least 5kg, perhaps as much as 10kg. But I've got down to around 96-97kg, and haven't budged from there. A bit baffled.

• I've burnt loads more calories through exercise in the last few months than I've done for a very long time.
• Unless I'm in complete denial, I don't feel that I've increased my calorie intake over the last few months. Indeed I reckon if anything I've reduced it. 
• I've (almost completely) cut out chocolate for the last month'ish.
• I was a moderate drinker of alcohol in the first place, and I'm purposely drinking even less now.
• All my coffees are "skinny".
• I normally eat a healthy, high fibre breakfast with fruit, typically more fruit for lunch, and a good home cooked meal in the evening (thanks wifey!).

Bearing in mind I'm no expert in this area, the only rational explanations I can think of are:

• The old "muscle weighs more than fat" reason, i.e. the effect of my running has been to increase muscle relatively more than it's burnt fat.
• At my age (45) muscle mass/density is a lot less than when I was in my 20s, and you need muscle to burn fat, therefore with less muscle to do the job, burning fat requires a lot more effort than it used to.

Statistics

Here are my running stats (NOT including cycling and swimming), i.e. total distance covered, according to Runtastic:

April - 8.74km
May - 8.71km
June - 31.73km
July - 73.28km
August  - 156.59km

June and July should have both been 100km+ had I stuck to the program, but injuries dictated otherwise. So a poor/slow start, but in the zone now.

Moving house

This past week (and probably 1 or 2 more if you include packing) has been all about moving house, which is pretty "full on" with the 6 of us. So out of convenience I substituted Tuesday's scheduled 30 min run with a 26 minute swim, and Thursday's 50 min run with, well, moving house, which was roughly equivalent IMHO to a day-long gym session. So feel totally fine about that.

Yesterday, Saturday, was a 40 min run in the dark. Aerobically I felt great, but my troublesome calf muscle started playing up. Again. Manageable, but a little worrying. Sooooo frustrating that I feel that I could run a lot faster, but feel very held back by this recurring issue. Grrrrrr.

Today, Sunday, was a 1hr30m run. Unlike yesterday, I remembered to slip on my elastic bandage around my calf muscle and this helped a great deal. Definitely something I DON'T want to forget on race day. Even though the calf muscle moaned and groaned a bit, I felt confident enough to keep on running, i.e. to not fall back to power walking instead. Result: a fraction under 14km in a fraction over 1hr30m... which means that *if* I can sustain the pace on race day, and *if* injury doesn't stuff me up, then I'm inside my target 4hr30m-5hr window.

Talking of race day - FOUR WEEKS TODAY. Excited.

Still only 24% towards my self-imposed fundraising target of AUD$3k. Remember - if you want to see me get my chest and back hair waxed on Youtube, then I need to hit that amount by race day!

Goodbye Chocolate

That's it! No more chocolate until after race day. I really love chocolate. And I'm sure chocolate in moderation isn't going to negatively affect my marathon preparation. But moderation and chocolate don't sit comfortably in the same sentence in my world. So cold turkey it is.

Not a great session

Not a great session today.

Since mildly straining my quadriceps last Sunday, I've been resting up. The good news is that the quads seem to have recovered nicely. I went for a 30m run yesterday,  with no hint of problems. Awesome. I also puchased a pair of $29 running shorts, figuring that on race day itself it could be too warm for my long running pants, so best to take a pair of shorts for a spin, sooner rather than later.

This morning I was scheduled for a 3hr run, or around 27k'ish. I reasoned that a running machine in the local gym would provide a more controlled environment than the open road, i.e. less risky for my recovering quad muscles.

After about 1hr of running at 9km/hr and 30 mins of power walking at about 7.2km/hr, I quit. Why?

1. Wearing my new running shorts exposed the inside of my thighs to a lot of rubbing against one another, and it was starting to get quite sore, despite the application of a lot of vaseline which I'd brought along for just this eventuality.
2. My troublesome left calf muscle started feeling a bit on edge. Really hard to tell the difference between normal fatigue and actual damage
3. I've decided that I'm good with a running machine for about 60-90mins tops, but after that I find a treadmill really boring. I find myself really wishing that I was outside in the elements, wind and sun on my face, scenery changing.

Put that lot together, and my head really wasn't in the right place. So I stopped.

5 weeks to the day to go. I have a lot more work to do.

Thanks, Sponsors! Shall I wax my body hair?

Just wanted to say a huge "THANKS!" to my sponsors-to-date: Kara, Nick, John, Ben, Erica, Harvey, Annie and Itomic.

Lots more work to do on this front though.... still only 24% towards my (self-imposed) target fundraising total of AUD$3k with just over 1 month to go before the big event. Would waxing my hairy back and chest and posting it to Youtube (as was done in the movie "40 year old Virgin") help to further incentivise more people to sponsor me?! If so - done!

Just over a month still to go... the good news is that my pulled quadriceps is feeling massively better having rested it since the half-marathon last Sunday. I missed the two scheduled training sessions this week, but hopefully will be back in the saddle tomorrow.

Quadriceps and more

Some recent updates, starting with the most annoying one:

1. Strained my quadriceps (or more accurately my http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vastus_medialis) yesterday while running a half marathon. Took me by surprise, because this muscle group hasn't been a problem at all until now. A bit of googling tells me that "An imbalance between weak quadriceps and stronger hamstrings can also cause the injury, a condition that is common among runners". Also that it's more common for people who sit at a desk for most of their working day because the quadriceps is (unnaturally) extended for long periods of time. That's 2 out of 2 for me. I've done longer runs, but not suffered this pain before, so why now? I'm thinking that it's because this run was 11km mostly downhill, and the return was 11km mostly uphill,. And it wasn't until the last few kms that it started to hurt (at which point I switched to power walking). In other words it was more prolonged uphill than I've done before. QED. I'm pretty sure it's a minor injury, but doubtless will mean that, again, I'm going to be partially off my marathon programme and easing myself back onto it over the next couple of weeks.
2. Got my smartphone back from the repairers, so I'm back in business from a GPS / Runstatic perspective. Something very weird happened on my run yesterday though.... I'm running along, listening to music on my headphones, and suddenly the volume increases to maximum for no apparent reason. Ouch. So I dive for the volume button, bring it back to normal levels... and then it happens again. I thought maybe there was some physical pressure on the volume button on the phone, but I ruled that out. Perhaps some sweat where it shouldn't have been? After it happened about 5 times in a row, I had no choice but to unplug the headphones and listen to the sound of my breathing instead, which makes a change. Not quite so motivating, but not entirely unpleasant. I wonder if it'll happen again, and if I can work out why.
3. Moving forwards but standing still. Last week I had a full-on 100 minute interval training session on a running machine at the local gym. I don't remember ever seriously training on a running machine before. The weirdest bit was when I finished. It totally felt like I was moving forwards, even when I was standing still. Amazing how the mind plays tricks with you. Strolling back the short distance to my house it felt like being on one of those moving walkways you get at airports. Weird!

Flying Blind

My otherwise lovely smartphone, my Samsung Galaxy S3, has been playing up of late in the crashing and freezing department. Could it be the alleged Android 4.1.2 bug? Maybe.

Factory reset didn't resolve it.

The last straw was last Thursday when it crashed just towards the end of a 1.5 hour run, thereby stuffing up my Runstatic app stats for that session.

So off to the repairers for my SGS3, and I've dusted off my old HD Desire HD running Android 2.3.5. But there's a problem: the GPS on this is hopeless relative to the same on my SGS3. It has great difficulty in picking up and holding a decent GPS signal - unless perhaps I'm holding it high above my head as I run, which ain't going to happen. Therefore it's wildly inaccurate for tracking my training sessions.

Until I get my SGS3 back, all I can do is to ensure that I'm putting the right training times in, without knowing too much about distance and speed... unless I want to go pre-GPS "old school" and attempt to work it out a bit more manually and after each event. No deal!

Interview with Itomic

AN "Interview with Itomic" has just been published over on the Itomic website. Take a peek!

Ross the Boss raising money for GOSH
http://www.itomic.com.au/ross-the-boss-raising-money-for-gosh/

COMPLETE REMISSION

Yesterday, July 18th 2013, Boris' parents received a copy of letter sent to their GP and oncologist from Dr Peppy Brock. Peppy is one of the world’s leading experts in neuroblastoma, in fact she helped design the trial Boris is on.

In the letter were two phrases:

"No evidence of the disease" and "Complete Remission"

Beyond awesome.

Still over 150 doses of chemo/medication to go, the last planned for December 2013.

 

Confidence builder - speed walking

So nursing a sore back and recovering calf muscle, I decided to give power-walking a go. Here's what I learnt:

1. I'm a slower runner than I thought
2. I'm a faster speed walker than I thought
3. Speed walking feels like it 'bashes' my calf muscle a lot less.

So last Thursday I walked 8km, no problem. Saturday 9km, Sunday 10km. All very good and easy. My fast walking pace? A little under 8 mins/km versus a little under 7 mins/km for when I'm jogging.

Talking on the subject with a few others, I've learnt about people who intentionally employ a "run-walk" approach to long distance running. The idea is that while you're jogging you're giving your walking muscles and break, and vice versa. I heard that some people can "run" a marathon using a run-walk technique in around the same time - and perhaps with less strain and risk of injury - than if they were to non-stop run the same.

Historically I've associated walking on a fun run as a cop out. I've now revised my opinion on this! 

Back to Back Pain

I should have been a headline writer!

Last Wednesday I thought I'd go for a run early on Thursday morning to see how my calf muscle would hold up. On Wednesday night I laid out my running gear on the sofa downstairs so I could get up (in the dark) and get changed with the minimum of fuss.

But in settling into bed on Wednesday night my lower back felt a bit 'awkward'. During the night it got worse to the point where I realised that I wasn't going to be running in the morning - so I switched my 6am alarm off.

My lower back has been extremely uncomfortable ever since (it's now Sunday morning). What did I do to it? On Wednesday evening it was junior rugby training for two of my boys. My gorgeous girl (age 4) likes to come along with us sometimes, and I spent a fair amount of time piggy-backing her around the sidelines as my boys got down and dirty. I don't remember doing anything particularly silly with her on my back (certainly nothing that I've not done before) but I must have tweaked something - and quite badly.

If you're wondering what 'extremely uncomfortable' means in terms of lower back pain:

• A lot of pain/discomfort rolling over in bed. Pain/discomfort gets progressively worse during the night (yes, I have a good mattress and an orthopedic pillow).
• Very slow to get out of bed in the morning. Sharp, intense lower back pain if I don't do it gently and slowly.
• Eases off during the course of the day, but not totally.

I'm no stranger to back pain, more's the pity. I've had it on and off since my late teens. I can go years in between bouts, where sometimes the trigger for another bout is obvious, sometimes less so. Sometimes the pain can be gone in a week or two, sometimes it takes months. One bout a few years ago was being caused by my bicycle saddle (when I was riding to work regularly) being set in the wrong position. I adjusted the position, and months of back pain was gone within a week. More recently I made the pretty obvious connection (doh!) between giving my young'uns a ride on my shoulders (or soldiers, as we like to call them) and back pain, so I begrudgingly stopped that, despite it being my right as a Dad.

Yesterday I tried out the local thai health & wellness massage parlour in an initial attempt to reset or relax my back. No, they didn't love me long time - it's all above board :-) But it did involve an asian lady walking on her knees up and down my back, and unintentionally ripping out body hair. Result? Hmmm, no change. Just as painful last night and this morning as the previous 3.

In a valiant attempt to keep my glass half full, this back pain is forcing me to rest my calf muscle for longer than I intended. But the clock is seriously ticking now. I feel - I am - woefully under-trained relative to where I need to be to run my first marathon in 12 weeks time.

If I'm lucky - if I can sort this back pain out in record time - I might be back into running training in a week or two.

30km is a long way - on a bike

Wow - where did the last two weeks go of not doing any running training, and not posting any blog updates?!

Really troubled by calf muscle. Or rather, the rest is doing it good, and I've had 3 physio sessions, a swim and a big bike session... but I can still slightly feel my troublesome calf muscle when I walk. Which almost certainly means it's not healed enough yet to start pounding the streets again. Which means that I'm now well behind on the training program schedule, and it's going to be unlikely that I'll be able to fully get back on track.

Unless anyone has any better ideas, I've just got to do (but not overdo) lots of other exercise instead - cycling and swimming being the most accessible for me. Perhaps some gym work too. Lots of cardio, lots of leg work. My podiatrist recommended striding up and down the pool instead of swimming - so a similar action to jogging but without the pounding, and with more resistance. Must try that.

So yesterday I jumped on my bike on a very chilly Melbourne Sunday morning (forgot to wear gloves - ouch!) and cycled down the very lovely cycle path (the Koonung Creek Trail) on the south side of the Eastern Freeway towards the city, then back up the (less continuous) trail on the north side. It reminded me that where we live in Blackburn, Victoria, it's quite elevated. Travel in almost any direction away from Blackburn and on average you're going down. And what goes down, must come up. This is easy and barely noticeable in a car, but much harder work and very noticeable running or on a bike - especially when you're already fatigued.

Clocked up 30km on my bike in about 1hr40m - and felt very knackered! Which makes running 42.195km in 4hr30m in 3 months time feel more than a little daunting.

Calf muscle blues

Damn and double damn!

My troublesome calf muscle has started causing problems again. Warmed up well, was 10 mins into my scheduled 50 minute run this morning, pace was good, and then my calf muscle started tightening up to the point where it became too risky to carry on. Walked home.

Earliest podiatrist/physio appointment: Friday.

The good news is that the muscle didn't suddenly (in one stride, like it did the first time) get very painful. It just felt very close to getting a lot worse. So I stopped at the right time.

The bad news is of course that any disruption like this to my training program is going to make it harder for me.

If I have to walk the marathon, I will. One way or another, I'm going to do it.

Blood pressure - high normal

High-normal. I'm good.

We still have our own heart rate monitor from my wife's pregnancy days. Here's a photo from a self-test a few days ago. I'm in the "high normal" range currently, which is good. It'll be interesting to see how this changes over time.  A couple of years ago my cholesterol was bit on the high side too - just over 6, when it would be better below 5. Will get that tested again around marathon time.