got chocolate milk?

So I heard rumors about chocolate milk (CM) as a recovery drink for a little while now. I decided to give it a try and have been on my CM kick for about 2 weeks. My result. I am feeling stronger than ever while closing up my 2nd week at 80+ miles. I’ve done this much mileage before, but only haphazardly with no consistency. Not sure how much credit to give my delicious chocolaty beverage, but I am not about to abandon whatever’s working. Furthermore, I am not missing those nasty ass synthetic recovery drinks like Endurox.

For a little bit more of the science, check out this article which discusses the details of the study from Dr. Joel Stager of IU Bloomington. One amazing finding is that time to exhaustion was increased by 44% for the group consuming chocolate milk vs. Endurox or Gatorade. Synopsis: Chocolate milk is the bomb digity yo.

Week 3, or is it 4, in spain

The image in the left has nothing to do with what follows. maybe it does. it is a place i was yhanging out at for a few days... The decAY is setting in fast. Today I ran that race with Vince. I had to get up at 4 AM. yesterday i attended Sonar, an all day music festival, drank profusely since noon and smoked herbal products. I got to bed at 1 AM. I woke up hungover, and not fit for racing purposes (or any other purposes for that matter). I put on my race shorts backwards, stumbled into my shirt and shoes and got out of the house. Vince was perky and well groomed at 5:00 AM, looking like he stepped out of J Crew's centerfold. i looked haggard, drunken, unshaven, amd generally unfit for good company. We proceeded to the race, a 5k with some farmaceutical gurus and doctors. There were about 200 runners. Really, only 10 - 20 looked remotely like runners. The rest was an assorted group of sweat pant banadana wearing walkman listening jawgers. Amazingly, the race was chip timed, well marked, accurate and well organized.

When the gun went off, I felt like throwing up right away but managed to keep it in. Vince darted ahead and took the head of the pack at a slightly sub six pace. I followed him, keeping my eyes on his perfectly matched ensemble. I was trying to catch up with him to work out a deal by which we would both slow down until the last quarter mile, since there was nobody immediately behind. No such luck, Vince cranked and I held on. Finally, he started slowing down after we passed the 2 mile mark and I went by him. I broke the tape (first time) in the not so fast time of 18:47.

Now its back to bed.

See yall soon,

Ed

New Training Plan

I’ve recently put together a new training plan for this summer. The plan is designed to fit well on your fridge to be a constant reminder to get out there and run. Of course, you can easily adapt this to your own specific training needs. This planner is the culmination from several sources to blend in with our already existing races and training runs:

• From Pfitzinger I took the overall phase development and long run target mileage.
• From the McMillan Calculator I set the intensity levels (adjust to your needs)
• Incorporated the major Chicago medium long tune up races
• Incorporated our CARA Tuesday evening LT runs.
• Incorporated our Friday morning "Ledesma" Montrose Hill Workouts
• Threw in a few “over-distance” runs.

Hope you find this useful. Also, I am hoping that we can at least get our schedules in synch enough for a field trip or two to knock out the over-distance runs. Please let me know if you have suggestions for improvement. Download here.

North Shore Half

Congrats to Richard on an outstanding race at the North Shore Half on Sunday.

Though his 1:23:54 is likely not a PR at this distance... it was an outstanding time in the heat and humidity in Highland Park. Rick has the burden of being in the ultra-competitive 35-39 age group. As a result, his great finish was still only good for 7th in that age group.

Here are the race results:

http://www.northshorehalf.com/results/2007results.php

It's a nice course with some rolling hills and one steep but short hill around 9 miles into the race. We were serenaded throughout the race by the calls of cicadas. It's really amazing how loud those bastards are.

Jordan Dubow won the race. The race finishes with a lap around the track. You may recall that Jordan's brother Jeremy's favorite story to tell is the one where Jordan was arrested while running on a track some years ago when some old bag claimed he brushed her while trying to get around her. She called the cops and they arrested him - forcibly removing him from the track. Well ... this was the same track. Jordan avoided arrest on Sunday and cruised to an easy victory. Though there may have been some offensive touching during the race -- that was done mostly by Cahn.

Great race Rick.

When I was 25 and 143...

The current issue of Runner’s World has an article on finding your optimal running weight. It discusses various aspects about the cost of carrying dead weight. I like the simple heuristic that each pound of extra weigth will cost you 2 seconds per mile. This seems consistent with the popular rule of thumb that a percent decrease in extra weight yeilds a percent improvement in race time.

Another feature of the article is mention of a University of Dayton guy, Paul Vanderburgh, who came up with the race performance equivalence calculator. This calc takes your race time, age and weight and adjusts your race time to the equivalent of what it would be if you were an optimal 25 years old and weighed 143 pounds. Last I checked the USATF is not accepting this equivalent value, so for now it remains just a self esteem booster. Might be useful in handicapping race wagers.

Holding on....

Week 1 in spain, I ran 4 days for a total 35 miles... Next week I hope to do better. A lot of those miles were on a 500 foot elevation change course.

Glad to hear yous all doing the Hill!

Pfitzinger 18 Week Schedule...

If you want the original Excel file for your own customizations let me know.

Standing Friday Hill Run

While on Cricket Hill this morning, I was pleased to see Rick buzzing by and he happened to join me and "B" for a few rounds on the hill. Moving forward, you can count on a weekly Eduardo Ledesma Memorial Hill Run which will be taking place around 6a on Fridays. As the heat begins to beat down, this likely will move forward, but you can count on company (not responsible for the quality of company) on Fridays on the hill. This was previously requested via an annoying email string that went nowhere, but put it in your books.

Ed, we'll expect to hear about the hills you run up in order to get to the bar on Fridays until your return.

Relay -- Interested?

Since we were snubbed by the Nike Hood-to-Coast Relay this year - despite our strong performance and tremendous enthusiasm and spirit - I was wondering if you guys would be interested in getting the band back together for a relay in late August.

Matt has all those mullets and banjo music that he's dying to use -- and this looks like a pretty good event. (LaCrosse, WI to St. Paul, MN)

Don't know if this conflicts with anything on the race schedule of the triathletes - it's after the Distance Classic, prior to the Chicago Half and should be prior to Ed's return to Harvardland.

Check this out and let me know what you think: http://www.ragnarrelay.com/greatriver/index.php

Muffin Top Update

I decided to include a status report per Rick's request. See photo.