Riverside Raincross 5K at Fairmount Park

I couldn't catch the guy in blue, but my 20:19 finish (I'm in the yellow) was good enough for second in my age group. Photo by Amber Trotter

I made a deal with myself last night. If I woke up this morning without chest congestion, then I would go ahead and run the race. Lucky me, 6 a.m. arrived and it was all above the neck.

There was no information on the course online, so I couldn’t plan a strategy as I like to do. The maps that were passed out at the start had no elevation information, so even last-minute planning was out of the question.

The best I could do was talk to some older guys while looking on in disbelief at some of those mommy workout leaders tried to lead us in some warm-ups. (The women were initially confused by our lack of enthusiasm, then realized the high knee, side kick and side step moves they were showing us weren’t exactly safe in a crowded starting corral.) They told me there was a pretty good hill in the middle, followed by another slight hill at the end and a good downhill section leading into the finish line.

They even had gold-, silver- and bronze-colored medals. How Olympic.

Even though I’ve been fighting a cold for several days, the first mile was great. I hit the marker at 6:10, feeling like I was running much slower.

Then I got to the hill – steep and muddy. And it was followed immediately by another uphill section on pavement. It was a long climb and took more energy than I’m used to. Maybe that whole racing sick idea wasn’t a good one.

When I hit mile 2 at 15:10, I figured it was a little off. There was no way the second mile took nine minutes, even with those hills! I was right, because I hit mile 3 right around 20 minutes in. I mean, unless I actually ran 6:10, 9:00 and 4:50 splits. But I don’t think so.

The last uphill part wasn’t that bad, but it slowed me down enough for one guy to pass me up. I tried catching him on the downhill through the finish line – even though he wasn’t in my age group – but didn’t have the energy to push that much.

After waiting around for about 15 minutes, the results started being posted. My official time was 20:19, and even though that’s my worst 5K time so far, it was good for second place in my age group.

My wife pointed out that it was second out of three – because she understood it quicker, not because she’s mean – so I had to look for the third finisher to make myself feel better. If he had come in over 24 minutes, I probably would’ve felt a little less satisfied, but he finished under 22 minutes. First place? Some guy decked out in blue-and-white 2-inch split shorts and a singlet from the Running Center in under 17 minutes. I haven’t been running long enough to be that good, but finally placing still felt pretty good!

2009 running bling!

I'm going to need a bigger torso.

I finally received the last of my medals from races in 2009 and figured I might as well wear them all at once before putting them in a box forever. (Let’s face it – unless you won a gold medal in the Olympics, there’s no point a medal around after you get it. And sometimes that’s not even a good decision. What happened? Did they leave them out in the sun?)

What are they all for? I’m glad you asked. Let’s start from the left:

• Palm Springs Half Marathon, Feb. 15, 1:37:22 finish.
• Rock ‘N’ Roll San Diego Marathon, May 31, 4:36:46 finish. (My first marathon and a total let-down.)
• Run the Bear Half Marathon, Sept. 12, 1:51:06 finish. (Who knew altitude and hills were so tough?)
• Rock ‘N’ Roll San Antonio Marathon, Nov. 15, 5:31:01 finish. (This is where I realized running in humidity doesn’t agree with me.)
• Silver Note Heavy Medal for finishing two Rock ‘N’ Roll marathons in a calendar year.
• Rock ‘N’ Roll Las Vegas Marathon, Dec. 6, 4:03:39 finish. (I kept it around training pace just to verify high humidity is my problem, especially with San Antonio just three weeks before.)
• Gold Note Heavy Medal for finishing back-to-back Rock ‘N’ Roll Marathons.
• Triple Crown Heavy Medal for finishing three Rock ‘N’ Roll events in a calendar year.

I’m hoping to add some medals for placing this year, but I didn’t get my first chance at it two weeks ago. Tomorrow is supposed to be my first race of 2009, but I’ve been under the weather this week and don’t know if I’ll be well enough for it.

Run for Russ 2010

He must have washed his hair out in the rain on the 60 freeway.

My first race of 2010 didn’t go as planned. In fact, it didn’t go at all.

After a 45-minute drive through the rain and briefly hydroplaning on the 60 freeway – that thing drains worse than Slash’s shower – I made it to Chino in time to pick up my number and jump in line for Run for Russ 2010. And I was ready to run in the rain. I remembered a hat to keep the water out of my eyes and made a note of some street flooding in the first quarter mile.

But the race organizers weren’t ready for anybody to run. They had decided the course was too flooded to proceed, so my first race of the year was off before it started.

Everybody still got their race numbers so they could get a T-shirt, but that was it. No waiting to see if the flooding subsided (which it did by the time I walked back to the car) or mention of rescheduling or refunds.

The worst part? The pancake breakfast was off, too. Fine, not running was more annoying. This morning I cranked out five half-mile repeats under 6:00 pace to make up for it. At least I’ll get my second chance at the first race of the year in two weeks. Unless it rains as hard as this weekend.

If you can watch the KTLA morning news, you can run a marathon!

OK, OK. He gave it 10 weeks of training.

In her daily segment this morning, KTLA’s Gayle Anderson was walking on a treadmill while reading “Marathon Training for Dummies.” She asked the program’s go-to personal trainer, “Is it too late for someone to run the L.A. Marathon?”

I’m hoping this bit got cut short by the producers or something. The responsible answer would have been, “Of course not, as long as you’re already consistently running about 30 miles per week with a long run of around 15 miles each week. That would give you time to build your mileage in the next four weeks and taper off for three weeks until the race March 21.”

The TV-friendly response: an enthusiastic “Not at all!” followed by several minutes of training exercises that are not running.

The race is in seven weeks. If a viewer isn’t seven weeks away from finishing a marathon training program or maintains a constant level of comparable fitness, he or she has no business at the starting line. But you wouldn’t get that feeling from the trainer’s exuberance.

To clarify, running a marathon is hard. Heck, walking a marathon would be hard if you weren’t adequately prepared.

The trainer wanted to help viewers prepare for the marathon without having to “spend a week on the couch” afterward. If they’ve been training correctly, they’ll be fine. But it’s irresponsible to make it sound as if anyone can get ready for a 26.2 mile race in seven weeks regardless of current fitness and by doing things that aren’t running.

Hey, a week in the hospital isn’t a week on the couch!

Forget about breaking two hours in the marathon. The new goal is breaking 1:30.

Slacker. Theoretically, anyway.

All these elite marathoners are hanging around, wondering who is going to have what it takes to break Haile Gebrselassie’s 2:03:59 set in September 2008.

Maybe it’s time they set their sights a little higher. In a new study, researchers estimate humans’ theoretical top speed at 40 mph.

The article mentions Usain Bolt neared 28 mph breaking the world record in the 100 meters, so that slacker was only giving it about 75 percent effort. OK, he’s not going to run 40 mph. Top speed is limited by how quickly muscle fibers can contract and apply force to the ground, and Bolt is limited by his genetics and physiology.

But as Wired pointed out – when Bolt’s record was only 9.69 – athletes seem to be ahead of the predicted curve. That model predicted a 9.69 sometime around 2030 – 22 years late – and a 9.55 around the year 2100. Considering Bolt broke his own world record with a 9.58 on Aug. 16, 2009, in Berlin, it might just be time to reconsider.

But how about the ramifications a top human speed of 40 mph has for distance running? Gebrselassie’s world record involved an average speed of about 12.7 mph, less than half of Bolt’s effort. If you use the same ratio with the theoretical 40 mph, it’s an average marathon speed of approximately 18.1 mph, or a time of around 1:26:50.

It might take some time to happen, but it would sure be fun to watch!

Faster is better.

Today wasn’t my first speed work session since resuming training, but it was the most telling in regards to how much progress I’ve made. It was a 4 x 800 session – a mile warmup followed by a hard 800 meters and a 400-meter recovery. Repeat.

I’m still rebuilding from taking a month off from running, so I assumed hitting the same pace would feel like it took more effort. I ran the first 800 less than all out but about how I remembered 5K pace feeling.

Time on my watch for the first 800: 2:46. I’ve never set the road on fire with blazing speed, but I’ve never been on pace for a sub-six-minute mile, either. And feeling like I was running 5K pace, I could’ve gone on to finish the mile.

That was all I needed to know I could back off the pace a little for the remaining repeats, and I evened it out pretty well afterwards: 3:06, 3:06 and 3:01. (I couldn’t resist finishing in under 12 minutes.)

Any of those 800 times would put me on pace faster than my 5K PR. Now I’m definitely excited for the 5K races I have coming up. I even came up with my goals for them during my cool down: 1) Finish faster than the last race, 2) Break 20 minutes and 3) Set a new PR. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll place in my age group, too. The 25-29 bracket offers a bit of a drop in competition locally.

I think I can accomplish all three at least once, and I’ll get three tries over the next eight weeks, including where I set my PR of 19:40 last year.

Feb. 6: Run for Russ, Chino

Feb. 20: Riverside Raincross 5K (PDF)

March 13: Arrowhead Regional Medical Center Run/Walk 2010, Colton (This race is free!)

Independent study? Independent of what?

Do you really want to hurt me?

A study conducted at the University of Virginia found running in running shoes can stress joints more than running barefoot or walking in high heels.

Dr. D. Casey Kerrigan, the lead researcher, had participants run on a treadmill outfitted with a force plate. Running in shoes made specifically for that activity showed a 38 percent increase in torque in areas of the knee prone to osteoarthritis compared to running barefoot. Walking in high heels showed a 20 to 26 percent increase. (Are you wondering if this result was the same for men and women? Because I am.)

What’s a runner to do? Running shoes are a no-go. Running barefoot is a bad idea, because running surfaces aren’t easy on the unsupported joints, let alone the sharp debris, chemicals that make it onto the road and sidewalks, and people who don’t pick up after their dogs.

Thankfully, Kerrigan has the answer: buy her running shoes. The main researcher for a study that found running shoes can be harmful to your joints is the chairman of a company through which she is developing her own shoe design, the first model of which is slated for release in the fall.

Besides Kerrigan having a vested interest in the outcome of the study, the experimental design has a flaw. Everybody wore the same shoe, regardless of running form.

The report says it was “selected for its neutral classification and design characteristics typical of most running footwear,” but the Brooks Adrenaline is a support shoe. Of course it’s going to interfere with the biomechanics of running! It’s designed to.

I imagine the torque effects may have been exaggerated for runners who usually wear or need to wear neutral shoes and were having their natural stride interrupted by the shoe. Paired with the dubiousness of the researcher’s interest, I think I’ll keep doing what I have been while running.

“Chi,” I’m doing better than I thought.

If it's effortless, why aren't more Tai Chi masters elite runners?

I read Danny Dreyer’s book, “Chi Running,” yesterday, and figured I could use his guidelines to check my own running form. You know, because I’d hate to be doing it all wrong after a huge running year.

My 5-mile run today confirmed what I thought while reading the book: I’m doing pretty well. Ear, hip, knee and ankle in a straight line? Check. Keeping my pelvic “bowl” level? Check. Leaning from the ankles? Check. Striking at the midfoot underneath myself? Double check.

There was, however, one aspect of running form I can work on. I have a tendency to run from the knees down, which Dreyer says is a lot more work than running by picking up your feet with the psoas. Fortunately, it’s a pretty simple change to make and easy to tell if you’re doing it right. Once you feel like your feet circling like you’re pedaling a bicycle, you’ve got it.

And although “Chi Running” would be a great read for runners with form issues, I have to argue with its tagline, “A revolutionary approach to effortless, injury-free running.” Effortless? I felt less tired today than I do after most 5-mile runs, but I wouldn’t go so far to call it “effortless.”

Things that are effortless: lying motionless, breathing (normally), blinking. Things that require effort: everything else. Just saying.

What I learned running in 2009.

The end of 2009 marked the close of my first full year as a runner. After logging just more than 1,300 miles and running eight races – two 5Ks, three half marathons and three marathons – I learned plenty of lessons to make 2010 an even better year running.

Humidity is not my friend
After two God-awful marathons and several doctor visits, I figured high humidity is not a condition I run well in. For my first and second marathons, a 3:30 finish shouldn’t have been that hard. Actual times: 4:36 in San Diego in May and 5:30 in San Antonio in November. Humidity in those races: 80-plus and 100 percent.

To confirm the theory, I ran Las Vegas in December – 20 percent humidity! – at a conservative pace and finished in a respectable 4:03. To my credit, at least I made it halfway or farther in the other two before feeling like a sumo wrestler wearing track spikes was standing on my chest. How he did it while I was standing, I don’t know either.

Inland Southern California is not the place to train for high humidity
But if heat and hills are your thing, it’s pretty great!

Trying to balance calories in with calories expended is the best part of long runs
Why, yes, I will have fries with that! And a shake. And an apple pie. And another Monster Thickburger.

Don’t eat salad
Salad is good and usually good for you. Eating it the day before a long or hard run, however, is a sure fire way to clean house. By “house,” I mean your colon. And by “clean,” I mean eject the contents of, perhaps painfully, noisily and/or uncontrollably. Colonics? For sissies.

Go to a running store
Do it at least once, because the employees at one are the only people you’ll meet in sporting goods retail that have any clue what you need, why you need it and how to get it if it’s not in stock. It’s because of these folks I started wearing a wide width and a neutral shoe.

For fun, try asking the high school kid working the shoe department of your local sporting goods store if they carry the latest update to the Saucony ProGrid Ride series in a size 11 2E. I haven’t, but I imagine the response would be hilarious, although lacking in new shoes.

The greatest running innovations are:

• Body Glide, because nothing ruins a race like chafing.
• Polyester, because nothing ruins a race like a shirt or shorts stuck to you and chafing.
• Safety pins, because how else are you going to keep a race number on?

The worst running innovations are:

There's a reflective strip on it somewhere.

• GPS, because most runners who use it complain about races not being the exact distance.
• Headphones, because it’s hard to hear anything else.
• Black apparel, because it’s already hard enough for drivers not to hit you. Why complicate things by running around like you’re on a special ops team?

Running makes you awesome to those around you
I remember the first time somebody really asked about my running.

“How far did you run today?”

“Just 15 miles.”

“That’s how far my house is from here!”

Be prepared to throw your hand out to prevent someone’s jaw from hitting the floor at all times when discussing your feats with nonrunners, especially when mentioning double-digit mileage.

You won’t get used to the race beverage
Try all you want, but you will not be prepared for the sports drink being served at aid stations during a race for the simple reason that it’s diluted and never tastes right. If you don’t believe me, have a bottle of the same beverage served in your next race at the finish line, preferably something mixed by the manufacturer. You’re probably going to get sugar-induced jaw lock. And you’ll wonder how you ever made it through all those miles drinking something so watered-down it makes unscrupulous bartenders look like they serve stiff drinks.

By the way, if a race you’re considering serves HEED, find another race.

The best trait for a runner to have is resilience
If you’re going to run, it helps to be durable, mentally tough or quick to recover. But if you’re all of those, you’re resilient. Not everybody can be; some people get nagging injuries, some take a long time to heal and some get bummed out when things go poorly. But it’s the runners who don’t get injured much, recover quickly when they do and get past rough patches without dwelling on them who have the most fun.

Whenever possible, make reservations
What do you eat the night before a race? Pasta? Just like all the other runners? It’s no big deal unless you’re out of town and can’t cook for yourself, which happened to me and my wife in San Antonio. You don’t want to be like us and wait an hour and a half for average noodles and sauce, do you? Then do what your wife tells you and call ahead to get your name on the list. And when you show up, laugh at everybody waiting for two hours. Doesn’t that feel good?

The more you run, the less crazy you seem to yourself
I used to think running marathons was insane. Now I’ve finished three and don’t think they’re that big a deal. Then I thought ultrarunning was nuts. Guess who’s planning on a 50-miler in the next couple years? Is it hard to find time to train? There’s nobody to interrupt you at 3 a.m.! The good news is, everybody else will always think you’re out of your mind.

Have a happy, healthy 2010 running. I’ve got to get some sleep before tomorrow’s 3 a.m. run.