Road To The Sham Part 3: Street MAF vs. Track MAF

So yesterday I did a track MAF session where my MAF average speed was 8:17/mile. Today I did a 5 mile "street MAF" session and my average speed was 9:20/mile. More than a minute different per mile. There were some hills and clearly there were some 'undetectable" gradients that assisted in this drop. So now I have a baseline street and track MAF speed to compare progress (I hope) against.

I can already see why MAF training is popular with those who now swear by it. Firstly, it makes running fun again in that you have something to do other than beat on your legs (and heart). These slow miles "fly by" because you're paying close attention to your heart rate.

The next interesting thing was that I felt 'fat burn" in my legs. I don't usually feel burn in my legs unless I've taken time off due to illness or even changing to cycling. To have felt that during a slow run tells me that my body is using a different source of energy.

And it bears repeating that it is very nice to not be totally knackered at the end of a run. VERY

Road To The Sham Part II: MAF(fing) A!

So I put the MAF to the test this weekend. Not going to work. The standard 180 minus your age as top HR during a run had me walking. We're talking 42 minutes to cover 3.4 miles and that's with me deciding at mile 2.5 to up my "max" by 10 BPM.

No way, no how I take a "long run" with that kind of pace. I simply do not have the time for that. at the rate I was walking, cause that's what I was doing, it would take me 2.6 hours to complete 13 miles.

Absolutely not having that.

Why was I walking so much? I had read that when people start out they do a lot of walking so I did expect to do some walking. I particularly expected it at hills. Level ground though? I was going so slow it was impossible to jog much less run.

So the next day when I took my usual walk I noted my heart rate because I wanted to know why I was having this issue. Lo and behold my walking HR was 20 beats lower than my calculated MAF rate. Explains a lot. There is no way that I could maintain a MAF rate of any speed that did not involve extremely poor form running (shuffling).

So what to do?

So in my self-imposed "slow" runs I had put a limit on my speed which corresponds loosely to a modified MAF of +15 BPM over MAF calculations. For me this is a very easy jog. since I am prone to "discovering" that I'm running 30+ seconds per mile faster than target pace, I'll be paying far more attention to my heart rate for the remainder of my runs.

I've watched other runners say they do something similar, in terms of modifying their MAF calculation to accommodate their fitness levels so I don't think my mods are unreasonable. The principle is to run aerobically and that's what I'm going to do.

As a side note, Just so you know just how much easier it is to run on a treadmill, I did a MAF run on a treadmill. My pace there was FAR faster than what I did over the weekend ( by 4 minutes/mile). So clearly the miles done on a treadmill do not match what you do on the road, by a long shot. -Update So this afternoon I went and tried my MAF test on a track. Completely different results; ~8:20/mile which is about what I had determined as a good slow pace for me. I'm going to guess that the street route that I was on was a problem and perhaps I was anxious. Also I'm not sure my walk heart rate is as high as I thought it was. Perhaps because it was early and I hadn't drunk much or eaten.

So I'm satisfied with that result. If, during the next few months I can drop 20 seconds off that rate I'd be very happy.

Road To The Sham Part 1: We're In!

So I'm officially running the 2020 Anthem Shamrock Half Marathon. This will be my third run. I was supposed to run last year..umm this year, but I was not in a good mental place to do the training and I don't like doing things half-assed. My last run, in 2018, I did far worse than I should have due to a couple of major mistakes that I'm fixing this time around. First mistake was my training.

Too FAST:

I am a natural sprinter so I came into running from doing 5ks. Also being naturally impatient, every, and I mean EV-ER-Y training session was done at or above race pace. For like 20 years. In addition I was undereating for the calories and sugar I was burning and was crashing. At the time I had no idea. I thought that you trained hard so you were used to it on race day. Oh so wrong.

Of course I also injured myself. A lot. Knees, lower back, foot pain, Achilles pain.

Professional runners know my mistake: No aerobic base. I didn't know about that. Anyway, my race pace goal was 7:39/mile. My training took me below that many many times during my long runs...for the entire run. Boo.

Blew Up On Race Day:

So on race day I made many mistakes. First I changed my morning eats including neglecting my morning coffee. I have one cup a day. Caffeine helps with fatigue. If you train with it then you need to run on it. Dont go changing your regimine on race day. You may eat earlier than usual but you better EAT!

Second mistake was that I ran the race backwards. By that I mean that rather than have negative splits as planned, I had positive splits AND a total bonk at mile 12 where I walked 50 meters. *hangs head in shame*

I ran the first mile of the race at near 5k pace ~7:05/mile. While I can keep that up for about 5 miles I cannot do that for a full 13. By the time my average pace got down to 7:30 I was already 8 miles in and the damage was done. Miles 8-10 are my transition miles. I generally know how I feel at that point. Either fatigue sets in or I'm good. I was not good.

As I now know, I basically burned sugar or glycogen over the too fast portion of the race and had nothing left at the end. I still PR'd for that particular race but it was far from my goal which was 30 seconds faster than my overall PR. So what am I doing differently?

Firstly I'm already at 11 miles for my long runs. The intent here is to be very comfortable with the distance before race day. Being impatient I need to mentally prepare to run that distance and that amount of time without losing focus, getting bored, etc. So I'll be doing 13 miles throughout February.

Second, I'm running slow to run fast. I had heard this phrase a number of times. But me being impatient could not keep myself from seeing a person ahead of me and having a "look squirrel!" moment and chase them down. So I'm running long runs at a pace no faster than 8 min/mile and closer to 8:20./8:30/mile. This is still in my aerobic zone but well away from 90 or even 80% effort. It's around 60% max heartrate. That's a guess because I don't actually know my max heart rate but I know the old 220-age does not apply to me at all. My Amazefit says that at a 6:45/mile pace I'm pushing 188 BPM and I can run faster than that.

I've already seen benefits of this. I haven't injured myself. I'm not crashing after the long runs. Still a bit tired by none of the "I feel like crap" feelings of overexertion.

My overall schedule is 5K speed work, Half long run distance 10-15 seconds per mile slower than race pace, and then long...slow...run.

I've also incorporated dead lifting. I read somewhere that Meb (who will be at the Sham!) used deadlifts to win Boston. Supposedly he (or Bolt) dead lifted 1.7 their body weight. That's my goal. I started out below my body weight. I'm up at 1.4 now. I don't necessarily need to go to 1.7 but it's a goal. If I can go there without injury I'll do it, but I'm not killing myself. This has addressed an issue I've long had: Weak lower back and glutes.

Race Day Plans:

So the plan on race day is to address problem number one: Wrong pace! The Sham employs people to pace different finish times. I'm going to hang out with whomever is close to the pace I want to keep. The most important thing for me is to not overrun the first 8 miles. If I'm burning fat rather than sugar (or glycogen) for the first 8 I can lift my pace for the last 5. That's the plan.

Crown Royal

After experiencing negative variance at Blackjack, this shows up:

It's always good to have multiple *positive expectation* options at the casino.

Funny thing about it was I thought it was just another flush and was trying to hit deal. lol

Banging The Draw Button Is Not A Winning Strategy

So this past weekend was a casino grind. Total of 18 hours of time spent. about 9 of which was playing Bonus Poker. As usual, I take the time to watch other people play and note the varied ways they give money to the house.

Example 1: A woman was playing what I believe is "wheel poker". In this game you play a normal Jacks or Better but the last card (the one on the extreme right) is marked. There is a wheel that has two portions. The inner portions determine the suit and the outer the "denomination". If the wheel matches the card, the player is given a bonus. So I watched this player who did what I call the "insurance play". That is, If they got a pair of 2s and 1 high card, they held the pair AND the high card. The logic being that you don't get paid for a low pair but if you get pair on the draw you get paid. For someone unfamiliar with the math, it sounds good. Indeed when I first played Double Bonus Poker, where you get paid quite a bit for Quad Aces through 4s. I would hold any low card that dropped. Of course, I soon lost my buy-in. The math doesn't work out like that. And this player also had a rapidly diminishing bankroll. They got frustrated and changed to the next machine. Same play, same results.

Example 2: A man decided that there was no point in using any skill whatsoever. He treaded the Double Bonus Draw Poker machine like a slot machine and simply kept mashing the draw button in the hopes that he would hit something big. Yes. He left disappointed. Or maybe not disappointed. Example 3: A man who insisted on talking to himself, rather loudly and smashed the draw button as hard as he could. Every time I hit a combination that game a longer "just got paid" sound than the usual pair "paid" sound. He would pause, mutter and then resume slamming the draw button. I had been down 3/4 my buy-in before hitting a series of quads that put me up overall. I cashed out and left the machine. Mutter-Smasher decided that the machine I was playing on was "lucky" and went to sit at it. Well, first problem is that statistically speaking, it was unlikely he was going to get any more quads out of that particular machine (simple probability per 1000 hands) since about 4 dropped in the space of 20 hands prior to his sitting. But also because he apparently was not playing correct strategy, he was only likely to get dealt [enter combo here] rather than drawn hands.

As I've become more competent at my gambling the ways in which people volunteer to part with more money then they have to is that much more evident to me. My last example is from Blackjack:

Example 4: A guy who I've seen before had probably $500 in bankroll. His opening bet was $25. I already knew he was going to lose it all. His strategy was to vary every other bet between $5 and whatever number he felt would get him paid. Sometimes it was 25. Other times it was $100. He had a $100 bet out and was dealt a 20 to a dealer's 2. He stood and walked away (I see this a lot). The dealer made 21 and he said: "that just wasn't possible". It just did.

He proceeded to lose the rest of his bankroll in about 10 minutes. I was going to advise him but thought better of it. If I was bright and motivated enough to learn basic strategy (he was making all kinds of playing errors), counting and whatever else to give myself an edge, I don't see why anyone else who's going to frequent a casino couldn't do the same. If they haven't then they don't mind losing money. I mind. I mind a whole lot.

Ok I know I said last example but one more: Example 5: ATM madness.

Another thing I see often are people who are tapped out and go to the ATM to get 14% to 25% interest advances from their credit cards. You add that to the .5 to 8 percent edge the house has at the start and the player is losing a whole lotta money prior to even placing a bet anywhere. And I say "at the start" because in the cases where strategy is required the maintain or overcome the house edge, the house's edge can balloon due to player mistakes.

Beautiful Boy

Saw Beautiful Boy over the weekend. Wanted to see it in theatres but the opportunity didn't present itself before it was tossed out. I suppose the depressing nature of the film was the primary cause. Unlike Flight which covered the same topic, "Boy" was far darker with little in the way of ambiguity. In Flight one could debate whether Flip's alcoholism was a proximate cause of the accident while following the storyline. In "Boy" you basically know the kid's toast. You just get to see how it happens.

The preview had the most poignant line of the movie and perhaps the only real reason to watch it: Nik, during a group session tells how when he OD'd he was asked by another patient what his problem was. He replied that he was an alcoholic. The patient told him that his alcoholism and drug abuse was how he was treating his problem. The real problem was the hole/emptiness/whatever that was driving him to use alcohol and everything else.

I think that's one of THE conversation pieces from the movie. And it doesn't just apply to drugs. A lot of us do things and develop habits that are responses to "holes" in our lives. These things can be foods, relationships, TV, a lot of things. Sometimes those "compensatory behaviors" are very destructive and sometimes they are benign. Only the person doing them will know. One of the problems with these behaviors, depending on what they are, is that they can cost us the one thing we don't get any more of:

Time.

When we are younger most of our lives are ahead of us so we don't view missing a year or even 5 as a big deal. But as we go forward, the time ahead of us eventually becomes less than the time behind us. And that's when the cumulative effects of "compensatory behaviors" make themselves known: Bad health, Bad or non-existent relationships, etc. So even if the druggie (in this case) gets off the drugs, they have still lost the time. I guarantee you that the regret from THAT loss hurts as much as the recovery.

The second discussion point from the movie was watching the father try to help his son. The very real lesson being that you cannot help those who do not want to help themselves. If they haven't kicked the habit it is because they do not want to. In the end the father had to say no to his son. We see the pain he felt in having to do that. Of course his son thought he was the meanest mofo in the world. That's typical of those who we have to say "no" to. They only see what it is they want from the other person, rather than the hurt they are putting on the other person.

The father was only able to get himself together when he let go and stopped trying to "fix" his son and "fix" their relationship. He finally understood that there was nothing he could do. Nik, the son, after what I assume was a suicide by drug attempt, realized he was going to lose everyone he loved (including himself) and did what he had to do. When he did, he found his father there for him.

Lesson(s)? If you're hole filling with behaviors, address the hole and the behaviors will eventually cease. If you're trying to help the "hole filler", there's nothing you can do for them and they'll probably hurt you in the process. You'll have to let them go until they figure it out. Don't be collateral damage. The sooner you figure that out the better.