The response to the clinic at John’s Run Walk Shop last week was even better than we could have imagined! The number of people that showed up (approximately 55 runners) along with the people that stayed longer to ask questions and then the emails we have received since that night.

We would like to continue this discussion with as many of the local runners as we can. The best way I see to facilitate that is by using this blog. If you have questions, comments or thoughts regarding the topic of strength training and running – just leave a comment in this blog.

To get you thinking about the ideas we covered, here is a summary of the clinic’s points and then a few links to previous posts we’ve written that address the idea of foam rolling and hip stability and strength:

Clinic Summary:

1. Think : Health – Fitness — Performance

2. Health is multi-dimensional (emotional, mental, social, spiritual, physical) and all components impact performance at some level.

3. Fitness is developed by implementation of consistent exercise, not from incorporating a short term application of “optimal program”.

4. A dedication to becoming a “fit” runner must precede a desire to become “fast” runner.

5. A runner’s physical health involves: muscular durability, skeletal structure/durability, functional movement, flexibility / range-of-motion, cardiovascular fitness, metabolic fitness and immune/endocrine/hormonal integrity.

6. Self Myofascial Release (foam rolling) + Strength Training = ability to address specific muscular imbalances, movement dysfunctions, range-of-motion issues and muscular/skeletal durability.

Relevant Articles:

Hip Strength in Females and Patellofemoral Pain
The article that I reviewed today discussed the question from another angle, Is there a difference in hip strength in females that have patellofemoral pain versus those that don’t?

Click Here to read more of this article

Patellofemoral Pain and the benefits of Physical Therapy and Strength Training
One of the first things I found interesting was that in the introduction they say that patellofemoral pain is the most common diagnosis cited by many authors. And that while it is a common issue to be seen and treated, the “pathologic origin of this disorder is not clearly understood.”

Click Here to read more of this article

Risk Factors and Injury Prevention Interventions for Patellofemoral Pain and Achilles Tendinopathy

Risk Factors they associated with this are: 1. muscle weakness and imbalance and inflexibility including quadriceps shortening  2. trauma, overuse, training errors or previous injury  3. patellar hypermobility 4. hip muscle weakness

Click Here to read more of this article

The Flying Pig was my second marathon in 8 days, as I ran the Country Music Marathon the Saturday before. I have been asked a lot of questions about why I would want to do this, especially because of the training I was doing prior to these runs (i.e. lack of specific marathon training).
I want to answer some of those questions, but I would like to address those in a separate post. I’ll title it; Things I learned by running two marathons in 8 days: And how these lessons can help you. (I’ll write that post soon and come back here and link to it.)

Right now, I want to focus on the Flying Pig Marathon itself. The course, the race organization, how I ran and how much I enjoyed it.

The basic statistics for my run are here: Flying Pig Marathon Stats

The Flying Pig Marathon Course:

There is no doubt that the marathon course is not the easiest course that I’ve run. I ran the marathon back in 2003 and remember it being challenging. This past weekend it did not disappoint. The one change since the last time I ran it was that the Kentucky loop was at the very beginning of the race, opposed to being at the end. This is a welcomed change because running over the bridges at the beginning on fresh legs was much easier than I remember running them on tired and weary legs towards the finish. Even though they weren’t demanding on my legs, they posed a challenge for me to keep my heart rate down where I wanted it – so I had to incorporate a lot of self-restraint during that section.

As you run back into Ohio, the course doesn’t get forgiving. The hills keep coming in a continuous pattern, and once you get to mile six, you have a pretty steady uphill run for approximately 2 miles. This early into the run, it is essential to not get too excited (or discouraged) by the hill. It’s way too early to spend all your extra energy.

Looking at the elevation chart they have of the course, you would think that after the half way point, you would be gradually running downhill the rest of the race. While there are not as many climbs as the first half, the second half still has it’s challenges and is by no means a flat or fast finish.

The two things that I really love about this course is the scenery. Having just run the Country Music Marathon, I can make a pretty decent comparison to it (and similarly to the Rock N Roll in Arizona), and personally I think the Flying Pig is the most scenic and appealing course of the group. The other great thing about the course was the crowd support. If you listen to the podcast, I will mention a couple spots during the course where it just feels like miles that people are stretched out on both sides of the run. I don’t remember getting too lonely at any particular time during the run (opposed to the Derby Festival Marathon), even though a few periods were more sparse than others.

Overall, I have to rank the marathon as difficult to run, but worth the work. (Hard to believe that my marathon PR is still on this course?).

Oh yeah – I forgot to mention – They have the best swag of any marathon by far. They gave out towels, medals, posters, t-shirts (all typical) but they also gave out a very nice Flying Pig duffle bag. This is something they’ve given out both years I’ve run it.

How I ran the race:

I was very happy with how the race turned out, especially considering how I went into the race. The hard thing for me to accept at times is not being on top-of-my-game. What I mean by this is that I am not so competitive with myself that I can’t run a race to have fun and just enjoy the event; but when I have a day like Sunday, I have a lot of – “if I only did x” – thoughts.

There will be a lot of discussion about strategy, training and all the other performance variables in a marathon program in the “lessons I learned” post. But there is one thing that I’d like to highlight here, which will be worthy of repeating many times:

A walk – run strategy is a very effective methodology and race strategy for most runners doing a marathon, and essential (in my opinion) for first time marathoners.

I realize that this is a concept that I have talked a lot about in the past (like.. here, here, here), but it is so useful that it is worth discussing on a regular basis.  Because it is useful doesn’t mean it is an easy methodology to implement; in fact I have found it is the most difficult teaching lesson for 85% of the runners that ask me for help.  They often feel defeated when they resort to a run/walk pattern, they are sometimes told they are not “true runners” (kid you not!).

That is the great thing about this journey of endurance.  We get to learn about our bodies and what they can do physically, our minds and what it can handle, our egos and what it controls and our spirits and where they will take us.

My run walk strategy for the Flying Pig was pretty simple – walk 20 seconds at every aid station.  This was changed early into the marathon because I was having a difficult time managing my heart rate (ego) and pushed that 20 second walk to 30 seconds.  There were times early on that I felt like the aid stations were very close together and was walking too often, but I stuck to the program I decided on prior to the race.

Towards the end of the race, I moved back to a 20 second walk and skipped the final aid station around mile 25 (was shooting for 3:20 at this point).

It was a very satisfying experience.  To put myself in a race that I’ve done before, in a condition that wouldn’t allow me to have a personal best, and then be able to mediate all the negative thinking, push my ego to the back seat while I tried to develop a better understanding of how my mind interacts with my body, to take the time and enjoy the crowd, to view the scenery – and then for a few miles – allow my body to experience pain.

It was a great experience.  I have often wondered what I will do when I get to an age that it becomes unlikely that I will be able to set new personal records or race longer races – Will I continue to race?

After this weekend, I think I can say yes.  And while that answer will come one day, I have found the better (and more self-rewarding) competitions are between my ego, body, mind and spirit.  Not with a training partner or a clock.

Taking that lesson into all of my races will be a challenge, I am sure.

So I made it to the Flying Pig Marathon this weekend and did another podcast from the course. I’ll write a race report regarding why, how and all the other lessons soon. And I’ll try and get the audio edited and the podcast up later this week. For now here are the stats:

One note – they had a fire on the course and had to change the route around mile 20. I don’t really know how that changed the splits.. but it is a part of the info I guess. (If nothing else it gives us all a “I had to run a marathon that was ‘x’ longer once” story).

lap 1 – 1.02 miles / 7:48 / 7:39 pace / 170 bpm
lap 2 – 0.94 miles / 7:02 / 7:32 pace / 164 bpm
lap 3 – 1.09 miles / 8:12 / 7:32 pace / 164 bpm
lap 4 – 1.01 miles / 7:12 / 7:08 pace / 163 bpm
lap 5 – 1.01 miles / 7:39 / 7:34 pace / 166 bpm
lap 6 – 1.03 miles / 7:49 / 7:36 pace / 161 bpm
lap 7 – 1.01 miles / 8:31 / 8:28 pace / 165 bpm
lap 8 – 1.01 miles / 7:57 / 7:52 pace / 166 bpm
lap 9 – 1.01 miles / 7:41 / 7:38 pace / 164 bpm
lap 10 – 1.02 miles / 7:16 / 7:10 pace / 164 bpm
lap 11 – 1.00 miles / 7:09 / 7:09 pace / 163 bpm
lap 12 – 1.04 miles / 7:45 / 7:30 pace / 164 bpm
lap 13 – 1.02 miles / 7:24 / 7:16 pace / 169 bpm
lap 14 – 1.01 miles / 7:13 / 7:09 pace / 170 bpm
lap 15 – 1.01 miles / 7:10 / 7:06 pace / 171 bpm
lap 16 – 2.02 miles / 15:04 / 7:29 pace / 171 bpm * missed lap
lap 17 – 0.98 miles / 7:16 / 7:25 pace / 174 bpm
lap 18 – 1.05 miles / 7:50 / 7:28 pace / 170 bpm
lap 19 – 0.98 miles / 7:33 / 7:43 pace / 175 bpm
lap 20 – 1.01 miles / 7:51 / 7:46 pace / 175 bpm
lap 21 – 1.01 miles / 7:37 / 7:31 pace / 174 bpm
lap 22 – 1.04 miles / 7:50 / 7:33 pace / 178 bpm
lap 23 – 1.03 miles / 7:34 / 7:24 pace / 180 bpm
lap 24 – 1.02 miles / 7:46 / 7:39 pace / 181 bpm
lap 25 – 1.22 miles / 8:50 / 7:15 pace / 183 bpm
lap 26 – 0.23 miles / 1:33 / 6:47 pace / 191 bpm

Race Result Splits:
6.8 – 53:16
12 – 1:32:52
13.1 – 1:40:16
19.7 – 2:28:36
25.2 – 3:13:35
26.2 – 3:20:40

Other Notes:
1. I walked every aid station but the very last one (wanted to go for 3:20). I used a mixture of 20 second and 30 second walk breaks. To learn more about this, you’ll have to check out the podcast. It is something that I mentioned several times.

2. I actually negative split a marathon! This is a first time… well…. I ran 1:40:16 the first half and 3:20:40 for the marathon. I guess this is the “if only” story I get to tell about this marathon. If the marathon was only 26.2 miles and not 26.x miles, it would have been a negative split – right?

Gary and I left Lexington around 11:30am. On time, for once. We got to Nashville, went straight to the expo and were in and out in less than an hour. We even got to see Denise Austin up close and personal. Now that’s not someone you see every day. We escaped the expo just as the lines started to form.

Off to the hotel. Oh dear. After hours spent on travel websites and hotels.com I picked a total crapper. It smelled worse than my feet after a marathon, and the noise from the highway was deafening. (I know I’m complaining, but I actually slept on the floor of the bathroom for a few hours to try to get some rest and relief from the noise) I even put the empty bags from my Luna Moons on the pillow next to me so I could smell the sweet smell of blueberries instead of rancid feet.

We woke up in the morning to some pretty serious rainfall. (this is the last complaint of this report, I promise) It was expected, and it also looked like it wasn’t going to last the entire morning. After taking the shuttle to the start line, and waiting in the long line for the potty, Gary and I met up with Jill in Corral 4. It stopped raining! A few anxious minutes later we were off. I was glad to have found Jill as we had planned to run the first 11 together. Then she and Gary would split off and run the rest of the full marathon.

I felt comfortable with our pace for the first few miles, but at mile 2 I realized it was because it was around an 8:30 pace. A little slower than I planned, but I felt like I could make it up. I really enjoy running a race with my friend and husband. It makes the miles go by a lot faster. We walked 30 seconds through each aid station and I was feeling great until mile 8 when Gary told me I was no longer allowed to walk through the aid stations. I heard this as “you’re off pace, pick it up, no more fun”. It was what I needed to hear because I did have a goal of 1:45 in mind. So we picked it up until mile 11. Gary and Jill went to the left and I went to the right. It was a little sad to see them go, but I was SO grateful not to have to keep up with the two of them for another 15 miles. I only had 2 to go! I kept seeing the flag for the 1:45 pace group getting closer and closer. I told myself I’d be happy with 1:47, but each time we turned a corner the flag seemed that much more reachable. I really think I gave the race my all, and I think I ran smart. I guess I could have run faster in the beginning, but I like the way I ran, and still reached my goal. I crossed the finish line in 1:45:18.

The crowd support was fantastic, and the bands were great. The course was a little more rolling than I expected, but it helped me to really enjoy the downhills. I highly recommend this race to anyone, first timer, or not. After I got through the finish line, food, etc. I headed to the marathon finish line which is just a few steps from where I finished. I picked up my gear and realized that the car was probably pretty close to where I was and set out on a search that only took a few minutes. One huge benefit to running a half marathon compared to running a full marathon is that you can actually move around afterwards. I got to the car, changed my clothes and headed back to the finish line to watch the finishers and wait for Gary and Jill. The convenience of the race, and gear check, and parking for this event was all really great.

Gary and Jill came through at 3:46. A PR for Jill by 6 seconds. I don’t think she was too pleased, but considering she ran with me for a few 7:30 miles during the first half I think she had an awesome race. She is going to rock Chicago. The fact that Gary can run a marathon on a whim and run 3:46 is absolutely amazing to me. How do I get to that?

Splits from my watch:

mile 1 – 8:26
mile 2 – 8:28
mile 3 – 8:26
mile 4 – 8:09
mile 5 – 7:46
mile 6 – 8:11
mile 7 – 8:17
mile 8 – 8:08
mile 9 – 7:32
mile 10 – 7:30
mile 11 – 7:50
mile 12 – 7:57
mile 13.1 – 8:38

Actual race splits:

5k – 26:13 (8:27 pace)
6 mi – 49:28 (8:14 pace)
10 mi – 1:20:54 (8:05 pace)
13.1 (finish) 1:45:18 (8:02 pace)

This race was a little bit different for me, so the race report will be a little different. In this report, I will not include race strategy or performance details. I posted the race data from my Garmin yesterday, that should be enough to explain that side of the race.

I ended up getting into the Country Music Marathon on a last minute whim. Here’s how that happened: Nikki was planning on running the Derby Half Marathon and had trained for that race. A little over a week ago, she got an email saying that the Derby Half Marathon and Marathon was full. Her comment to me was,

“I guess you are not doing the race”

Which was fine with me because I wasn’t really excited about doing the Half Marathon anyway. Then I asked,

“I don’t think you signed up either. I don’t remember getting the receipt for your registration?”

It turned out that she hadn’t signed up. She ended up calling a friend (Jill) that was doing Country Music and decided to go to Nashville. Long story short, Nikki ended up not being able to travel with Jill… Nikki was going to go alone… I said I would go with her… I decided to sign up to do the full marathon.

The Marathon Course – the scenery

The half and full marathon runners are together until the 11 mile mark. While the first half of the marathon has some scenic areas (actually a couple different scenic neighborhoods), the full marathon offers an even better enviornment to run through.

There are two stretches after the courses seperate that were very refreshing. The first section was an approximately 1.5 mile stretch that was along a bike path that was along the river. While there were no spectators during that section, it was nice to get out of the streets and run with Jill in a peaceful and more relaxing setting.

The second section was between miles 23 and 25. That section was a loop through a park, evoking similar peaceful thoughts. A welcomed thought when you are at those portions of the marathon.

The Marathon Course – the terrain

I ran the 2004 Country Music Marathon and since that time I’ve been telling people that the course was a flat race. I apologize to anyone that I’ve given this advice. The course is not flat. It is not a particularly fast course either.

There are many sections during the course that have some type of hilly terrain – it never has a long stretch (multiple miles) of running that is forgiving or that would allow you to pull back large amounts of time lost on previous hill climbs.

Nashville as a host city

I just completed the Rock N Roll Marathon in Arizona this past January; given that the race was put on by the same race organization, I think it is fair to compare the two events. I personally enjoyed the venue, course and atmosphere of the Country Music Marathon more than the Rock N Roll in Arizona.

The one thing that made my experience in Arizona so rewarding was the Team in Training involvement, but overall, Nashville is more my style. Not only do I enjoy country music, but the downtown in Nashville and the entertainment options in Nashville are more appealing.

Lodging

We signed up late for the race and were left seeking hotel space at the last minute. We ended up staying at a Quality Inn off of Interstate 24, which was about 3 miles fromt he finish (Titan’s Stadium). A perfect location because it is easy to get to the stadium and they have buses running to the start line.

As we checked into the room I thought we had got lucky, as the lobby was clean and modern. Our room turned out to be “the worse room we’ve ever stayed in,” (a quote from my never-likes-to-complain wife). Besides the damp and mold / moist smell, it felt like it was two feet from the interstate traffic. In fact, after a couple hours of trying to sleep, Nikki got up and went and tried to sleep on the bathroom floor to get away from the noise.

That’s all I say about that. The hotel that Jill stayed in was a nice place that was on West End. I don’t remember the hotel’s name, but it was across from the Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery. A great place to get something to eat. I had the porter, which I can recommend, along with the Buffalo Burger; great post race recovery food!

Final Thoughts

I have now done the Country Music Marathon twice. It is on the top of my favorite marathon list to this point. For those of you doing a 50 States and DC challenge, I suggested making the CMM your Tennesse stop.

This race was personally satisfying. Running with my wife and a good friend and just enjoying the day is a great way to spend a Saturday – add in another 30,000(ish) runners and it becomes a party.