Today was my annual running breakdown. I pushed my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday workouts back one day each meaning today and tomorrow make it 5 day straight without rest.

I woke up at 6am and fought the idea of running for 15 minutes before heading out. As soon as I started running I felt dreadful - dead legs and no enthusiasm at all. Usually this passes after a mile or so but today was different and a classic sign of over-training. I hit the lakefront (here in Chicago) at around 1.5 miles in and found some inspiration when I saw the sun hanging low, bright orange over the lake as it began it's hike across the sky.

The usual path was too familiar so I decided to try to distract myself and took a detour along Montrose beach past the bird sanctuary all the way to the end of the pier at Montrose Point. The scenery was just perfect as the low sun lit up the buildings along the lake front and the trees at the edge of the beach. As I turned around I saw what has to be the most perfect view of downtown Chicago as the sun worked it's magic reflecting off the tall skyscrapers. The route is here "Scenic 8 miler".

I reached my 4 mile mark according to my Garmin so turned around and headed back home. Instantly my mood dipped again and as soon as I hit the familiar part of my route I switched back to grumbling and complaining to myself about how hard this all is and how little fun I was having.

Running the 1.5 miles along Foster Avenue back to the apartment was tough. The traffic, the traffic lights, the pedestrians, everyone was a target for my mental grumbling. It was only in the last half mile that it dawned on me - I've run around 450 miles since June so it's no wonder I'm tired!

I got back and told my wife about my little breakdown and she reminded me it was this time last year at the same stage in my training that I hit the same breakdown. The spring vanishes from my step as I get one week out from the peak week of training and the visions of running through the fall and winter to hit another marathon or two disappear in negative thoughts.

I looked at my logs for the 14 weeks of marathon training and got the confirmation about what I've achieved so far. I've logged 439.79 miles in 14 weeks. At a 9:14 average that's 67.6 hours of running and, for my weight, around 68,000 calories. For some perspective that translates to around 19 pounds! I've climbed over 24,000 feet based on elevation change and lost 14 pounds!

If you don't keep a diary of your training, I recommend you start. Be it in a spreadsheet, a log book, online or even sending yourself emails it's a crucial training tool to remind yourself of your accomplishments from time to time. Days like today come and go and you're not alone - it happens to every runner who follows a challenging training program. It felt awesome to tell the clerk at the Drivers License renewal facility I'm 14 pounds lighter than my last license and when she said "you're turning 35? You don't look that old" I nearly kissed her. Running is hard but it's rewarding and worth every minute.

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It's easy to do - you're running a race and things aren't going right, you get to the end and look at your GPS and see that the race was too long and feel justified for the way you feel. But don't be so hasty to email the race director, especially if you're running in a city like Chicago with long underpasses and skyscrapers.

A Bridge too Far

Last year in Chicago it turns out the Chicago Distance Classic was an extra half mile than the 13.1 so they adjusted the times accordingly to help people trying to qualify for Chicago Marathon, so this year people were anxious to see how the race measured up under the Rock n Roll brand.

The New Rock n Roll

The race starts in Grant Park, a nice open space but within a quarter mile we go underground for a quarter mile to just before the river. From there we proceeded up to Grand, down Rush to Hubbard then down State Street back into the loop. As you can see from the first WalkJogRun screenshot, this clocks in at 1.6 miles from the pedestrian bridge over Columbus around to Calhoun Place.

The second screenshot shows the points recorded by Garmin 305 GPS. It clearly shows the route up Columbus until we hit the Aon Center (the start of the underpass) and it's pretty clear the GPS is beginning to make guesses about where I'm heading ;-) You'd expect any device relying on satellites to struggle to gain line of sight in this environment! It's basically a quarter mile tunnel so it places me on the parallel street stetson and predicts I've even crossed the river! As you emerge at the other end of the tunnel by the river it quickly snaps back to Columbus as it finds the missing satellites again and we're fairly good from there but note the "wiggling" of the route. It's a small variance but I promise I wasn't drunk or weaving around my fellow race goers - just interference caused by the tall buildings of downtown.

The bottom line is that within what should have been 1.6 miles the Garmin is out by 0.69 miles reporting 2.29 miles vs actual. Fortunately the rest of the race through the loop is on wider streets so the variances decrease and by mile 4 we're heading out of the downtown area heading south on Lake Shore towards Hyde Park where the sky is mostly open (except for a few underpasses under McCormick Place). The actual Chicago Rock n Roll 2009 Half Marathon route is mapped out at WalkJogRun if you need to see the actual course without the wiggles.

Go with your gut

So what can you do? I was using this race as a training run for the Chicago Marathon so I wasn't digging for a PR and decided to listen to my breathing. If it was too labored I slowed down, if it was too easy I picked it up and continued this way until around mile 8. I looked at my time at each mile split and realized I had been maintaining my desired pace anyway - a very natural pace for me. It's a great feeling to be letting go of my reliance on my GPS and other gadgetry. I even ditched my iPod this year and it's been very liberating. After mile 8 my GPS was giving good readings and I felt so good I picked up the pace for the last 5.2 miles of the race to finish just 2 seconds slower than last year when I was pushing hard, but I felt so much better this year.

WalkJogRun iPhone App

Given the story above I wanted to turn back to our iPhone Application, WalkJogRun Routes. We get a lot of requests about incorporating a GPS route mapper into the iPhone application and I understand why. There are a couple of other companies who have added GPS tracking centric apps and they've sold a lot of copies. Understanding how a dedicated device struggles to track your route and your pace, it's obvious that a device with an embedded GPS would be useful but not accurate. If you're a slave to the data you get out of your GPS or iPhone you'll be disappointed by the accuracy. If you're the kind of person who is just curious, you'll be happier but very few will be satisfied.

We held off on our GPS embedding for this reason - accuracy on the website is a big priority and hence the iPhone app strives to maintain that integrity. We believe that if we can show you a route wherever you are and give you an accurate distance, you have everything you need to run. We also got a lot of feedback that tap to zoom on a route wasn't what people expected but the truth is, we tried pinch to zoom and it just wasn't as easy to accurately zoom in on the point of the map you need versus a single tap, so we made that choice. Another factor was the responsiveness of using static maps, which was our only option for the first release. We're working on using the embedded google maps so once that is done, we'll have a better option, but again - accuracy for us is key.

How do you train? Obsessive about your gadgets or a natural born runner happy to follow your gut?

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

I'm happy to say that with only 2 weeks to go to the Chicago Marathon the only exhaustion I'm facing is mental and not physical. I know it sounds strange but it's a relief because I know that as part of my taper I'll be backing off the mileage and will start to feel stronger, have more time to sleep in and be ready to go.

Last weekend we did our 20 miler and I was more nervous than usual. The week before when we ran 14 miles, supposedly a back off week, I felt a phantom knee pain around mile 6. 3 miles later I felt sick to my stomach and ended up dry heaving by the side of the path. So psychologically, it wasn't the best preparation for a 20 miler! Fortunately for me, the weather was ideal for the 20 miles and I had prepared well with sleep and pasta the night before. I took 2 Power Gel pouches during the run: one at 7.5 miles and another at mile 13 and felt really strong when I finished. It was the ideal end to the incremental mileage phase and a great way to head into the three week taper.

Yesterday we ran 12 miles and again it was cooler than the rest of our summer training and I felt strong. I ran with a guy from the Team in Training crew all the way and maintained a healthy 9:20 pace until the last half mile where we picked it up to give us a run average of 9:14 per mile. My goal for the marathon is an 8:45 pace based on my Chicago half marathon time of 8:18 per mile so we'll see how that pans out ;-) Truth be told I'll just be thrilled to come in under 4 hours to beat my personal best of 4:06 two and a half years ago in the San Francisco marathon.

Until then I'll be taking every opportunity to get off my feet, get plenty of sleep and eat and more responsibly...

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

I ran the Chicago Distance Classic yesterday as part 2 of my 3 race season with Team in Training. After my Indy Mini PR of 1:58:20 I had a good head start on my training with 14 weeks between races to see how much faster I could get. The Team in Training Summer program features speedwork, stretching and ab work on Wednesday nights and so I pushed those sessions pretty hard.

Over the last 14 weeks we've done hill repeats, yasso 800s, strides, intervals and pickups around one of Chicago Lakefront's only hills at Montrose harbor. My pace had gradually been increasing while my heart rate was dropping over the same easy runs week to week and I felt really strong.

After studying my runners world training diary and pouring over the Garmin workout logs I decided to start with the 8 minute mile Chicago Endurance Sports pace group for a finish time of 1:45. I started in the first wave as a consequence and left with the first batch of runners. I stuck it out for the first four laps with splits of 7:46, 7:55, 7:46 and 8:02 but realized I was out of my league when I peaked at my Garmin to see a Heart Rate of 175 bpm, a rate typical towards the end of my workouts so I slowed down to 8:13, 8:01, 8:05 and 8:06 for the next four. At that point I hit the gusting wind from the north and was pegged back to 8:17, 8:54, 8:02 and 8:17 for the next four miles. The last mile and change to the finish I had nothing left in the tank and slugged through at 8:54 to finish with an overall chip time of 1:48:38 - another PR!

I'm really excited because it's one day later and I don't feel like I've been hit by a bus and ready for the next 9 weeks of training to take me to the Chicago marathon where, through my time in this race, I have secured a corral start! I'll throw it out there now so I can remember it but the Greg McMillan Running Calculator predicts that based on my half marathon time, my current level of fitness would indicate a 3:49 marathon. That would be 17 minutes faster than my 2006 San Francisco marathon finish and a PR so I hope it works!

Anyone else run it? What did you think of the course, the weather and the organization?

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Sunday was a huge red flag for me and after a bad year of running I have decided to back out of running the Chicago marathon. It started in January with tendonitis holding me back from starting my training early. I trained for the San Diego marathon but lacked the discipline of last year when I ran San Francisco so my marathon suffered, turning in a time nearly an hour slower than last year at 5:00:49. After the race I suffered another injury that kept me off the path four or five weeks into my half marathon training with my wife. I was able to pick it back up however and we ran the Chicago Distance Classic in 2:12 but it still didn't feel great.

I laid out a careful plan to increase my mileage up to the full including a taper but I failed to hit my mileage week 2 while on vacation. On Sunday I broke the golden rule of 10% per week mileage increases and tried to push on with my program despite a bad week 2 and at mile 13 I was spent. I struggled through 3 more miles and then had a rough couple of days with tired legs and nausea. I woke up at 5:50 this morning to run 5 to try to push on and couldn't do it. The sickness in my stomach and dead legs a sure sign of overtraining, I decided to cut 5 miles down to 3 and pull the plug on my Chicago dreams for this year. Living in Chicago and knowing how flat it is I was hoping to beat my 4:06 from San Francisco but at this rate I'd be lucky to finish.

For the time being, I'm backing right off to 3 miles on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a long run of 9 miles on Saturday. I'll probably still add 1 mile a week to that long run as we push into winter and see if I can find some 10k races to keep me motivated.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App

Nearly three weeks ago I posted about a training plan to ramp up from the Chicago Distance Classic to the Chicago Marathon on October 7th. It's over a month to the race and I'm reconsidering. I did the 6 miles and 4 miles on the 15th and 16th of August but that is where the training got stuck.

We flew to Boston on the Friday and after receiving an award at work I put the money to a Garmin Forerunner 305 finally. I've wanted one for the longest time but with a retail price of over $300 it was always an extravagant item. With the $100 and a $212 amazon special offer it was suddenly in my reach so I ordered one. Saturday we drove to just East of Hyannis for a week of vacation and waited for the rest of Melissa's family to join us. The next morning we got up early and ran 4 miles to get a start on the training, but clearly not the 14 miles I was planning.

On Tuesday Mike brought my Garmin from the house where he had been home so Wednesday was my first Garmin powered run. It's a lot of fun to be able to see your pace every step of the way and be able to set a pace and see your progress against it for any run. Unfortunately that was the last run of the vacation. We returned home and it was fun to install the Garmin software, upload the routes from the device and see the run plotted, comparing pace, heart rate and elevation in one graph and seeing the relationship between them all.

After the week of very little running I committed to running M,T,W,T but missed Wednesday thru some crazy work schedules. After running 4 miles on Monday I used the Garmin tool to create a 4 mile course I could use as a base for the runs for the rest of the week. The neat part of this is that you get to see your pace against the last time you ran the same course. The trouble is that my competitive nature caused my to run hard to beat myself and the Tuesday run was an average pace of 8:38 compared to Monday's 9:02. It was a fast, hard run but felt good. Thursday I ran with Melissa again and so we slowed it down to 9:48.

Friday night being the lead into the weekend I decided to push my 16 mile run to Sunday and we headed out to the beach after some work getting some new computers ready for WalkJogRun to make it run faster. We woke up this morning feeling good and Melissa decided to run the first 6 miles with me. The Garmin allowed me to keep us at a steady 10:00 min mile pace to make sure I could get all the way to the end and by the time Melissa cut out at Addison we were both feeling pretty good. Shortly after she left it was crazy time. Less than a mile down the running path I was trying to focus when a crazy man in a purple honda came flying down the running path, presumably after taking a wrong turn in the harbor parking lot. 100 yards later I learned the wonder of runners wrath. The same guy who had presumably scared the life out of the runners and cyclists I was heading towards came charging back down the path at about 20 mph! Several runners including an old Chicago guy put their hands in the air and signalled him to stop, called him out of the car and called the police! It was early in my run so I kept on chugging, leaving the guy to the vigilantes.

The first 11 miles went well and I turned near Navy Pier to head north again when I started to feel the heat on my back. Being from England I'm accustomed to cooler weather and the heat on my back was now really oppressive. The Garmin comes equipped with a heart rate monitor but I hadn't paid much attention as the run got really tough. I went from water stops every 3 miles to water stops every time I saw a water fountain. Around mile 13 I broke down and walked a while before starting out again. A little further and I was walking again. It went the same way to the finish where I finally ran 2 hours 50 minutes for the 16 miles, a pace of 10:36 per mile. It's not a bad pace but I was so discouraged to walk again. My training hasn't been ideal and I felt bad.

Here is the beauty of the Garmin. Just this evening I uploaded my data to my computer and it seems there was a very clear sign waiting to tell me that I had run too fast. At mile 13 where I had so much trouble today the graph clearly shows that my heart rate hit 100% of the maximum suggested heart rate for my age and weight. Every time I had tried to push myself to run again, my heart rate peaked at 100% again.

So the big question is whether this is a sign that I can't run Chicago or a sign I should try to slow down my average pace to 10:37 and see if this allows me to do the mileage I need. This coming week I'm scheduled for 5,7,5 and a 14 mile run next weekend. I'm going to strive to hit the mileage and see if I can make the 14 miles at a slower pace - around 10:37. If I can do that I'm going to try the 18 miles at the same pace the following week. If it works I'll be running Chicago around 4:35 - not a bad time but slower than I had hoped. I'm going to try to pay more attention on each run to my heart rate to make sure I stay lower than 170 bpm and see if I can finish Chicago.

Find Running Routes at WalkJogRun  |  Check out the WalkJogRun iPhone App