Yesterday I ran the “Trail du Confluent” (13km), a lovely countryside race in Pinsaguel which I had already run last year. I had one of the worst experiences ever while doing sport, if not the worst. I suffered what in Spanish we call “pájara“ and in English would be collapse.
From the km 4-5, I started feeling weaker and at the end I was almost incapable of running. I had only had one such previous experience cycling about 13 years ago, when after biking for 60km we made a pause and my cousin Unai had to literally push me on my bike from his for over 10km back to home as I could not cycle anymore.
These collapses happen from time to time to runners or bikers, and to avoid them it is recommended to eat and drink well before and during the race. I ate and drunk but I guess it was not enough. Other possible causes could be:
I was not well-trained, having only ran since the last marathon few days this past week.
The weather was extremely hot making us lose lots of liquid.
Heart rate during the race.
In fact, during the race and feeling already weak and underperforming I noticed that I was not the only one in such low condition. Last year with 1h22′ I came in 103th in the end (among 237 finishers), this year the 103th needed 1h32′ (the winner also need 1h compared to 56′ last year). With my disastrous time, 1h36′, I came in 141th of 254 finishers.
Nevertheless, it is not worth it to worry much about it. This is sport: there are days for glory and days of wandering around like an underdog. Continue training, sleeping, drinking and eating well and the next race will be a different story.
During 2000 and 2001 I ran 3 marathons in Madrid. The best time I achieved then was just slightly above 4 hours, 4:00:41. Then I didn’t train much for them and I paid for that during the races.
Running in Paris (@ km ~26)
Last Sunday, in Paris, I ran together with my friend Serna and my brother Jaime my 5th marathon. For this one I had a training plan to go through for 17 weeks. That training plan amounted to over 1,100 km running, and a series session per week. I started a bit late with it, then I had trouble in the adapation to the new soles, injures… in the end, during the last 4 months I ran almost 500 km, or about 45% of the plan and did only 5 days of series.
Even if I was under trained, I managed to recover from the injure about 2 months before the race. I run as much as I could during the weeks following the recovery: 330km in 7 weeks, including 4 consecutive Sundays with a run over 20km in each of them.
The result: I completed Paris marathon in 3h45’35”, just at my target time before starting. My first sub-4-hour marathon. You can’t imagine how happy I am for that.
Some curiosities related to the race. You may find the route we followed in the diploma below. Some of the views while running were superb (Eiffel Tower, Place de la Concorde, Les Champs-Élysées, Place de la Bastille…), even if when running a marathon you don’t get to enjoy much the views. In the diploma you will see as well two times and positions. This is due to the fact that it took me 11 minutes to reach the starting line. Positions are calculated taking into consideration net times (deducting time to starting line, “real”) and arrival order (“official”).
Paris 2012 diploma.
You can also see below a small graphic prepared from the info recorded by my Garmin. There you’ll see how until km. ~29, I managed to run below my target pace to achieve 3h45′ (that was 5’20” per km). There are some kilometers before km. 29 in which it took longer, that is due to stops (“WC”) or slowing down to take drinks at every 5km. From km. 30 it was hard to maintain paces even below 5’30”. In the last 12km I burnt the 2-minute buffer I built in the first 25km.
In order to keep the rhythm in the last kilometres, it is extremely important not only the long runs (I got the one and only “muscle warning” at km. 39) and the series training, the famous Yasso’s to keep “speed” and endurance.
Villemur-sur-Tarn is a small village by the river Tarn, about 40km North from Toulouse. Last Sunday I went there early in the morning to take part in the Course des Rois, a 10km race that was organized there.
Last time I ran a race in January it was in 2002, in Torrelodones, another “King’s Race”. I remember that a week before I had missed the 2001 San Silvestre due to a sprain in the ankle. By the time the race in Torrelodones came I could not rest anymore and I ran it with the bandage still on.
Villemur-sur-Tarn is close to the wine-region of Fronton, another village about 10km South from it. The first runners that were subscribed to the race received a bottle of red win. Yeah, I won something at a race! Even before starting!
After several pains in the Autumn, I went to the doctor and got an x-ray of the waist. It showed a difference in the length of the legs of ~7mm. Then I went to a podologue who made a couple of orthopedic soles for me. They partly correct that difference in length plus improve my stepping (I tend to supinate or under-pronate).
I started using the soles about two weeks ago. The podologue told me “start using them little by little, don’t go and run on them 15km at the first trial”. Well, I ran 7km. Then other 7km, etc… These days I am having pain in the left knee. I guess that it was not used to the level of effort it is required now. While it gets used to it, it hurts as hell every time I start running.
On Sunday, when I arrived to Villemur, I started warming up about 20 minutes before the start of the race. I almost couldn’t bend the knee. Then I was jogging very softly, and the pain was that that my body wanted me not to take part in the race. I felt like crying. Luckily I was alone in the race and didn’t have to talk to anyone in those moments. Only in my head I was thinking “it’s ok, some minutes of pain while warming up and then it’ll get better”.
It got better. During the 1st kilometre I could stand it so I continued with the same rhythm until km 2.5, when my body broke into sweating and I stopped feeling cold. From then on, feeling warm and more comfortable, I looked at the rest of the race with a more positive look.
I went along with some groups of runners until feeling comfortable with them and going ahead to catch another group. I repeated this process about 3-4 times, with a final increase in the pace at about km 7.5, when I tried to make it below 47′. In the end, I did 47’09”.
I’m very happy with the time. Had I launched the pace increase before I might have made it. This is nearly 1 minute faster than in Brax 6 months ago and some 20 seconds faster than the end of the half marathon of Toulouse last September. I’m training with more difficulty these days, but it seems that I haven’t lost punch for the races. This race also helps me to measure the level of fitness with the McMillan calculator I use, in order to estimate training paces.
Running the popular San Silvestre Vallecana is, no doubt, the best possible farewell event for the year.
Some of you may think that it is too cold, that running is too hard, that you are not prepared, that you would have a hard time running, etc. All that may be true and still you would enjoy it, laugh in it and want to come again. I have seen that once and again with family members and friends.
This time we run together with 6 other friends: Jaime, Nacho, Pablo, Kike, Jon and Gonzalo (for the last two I believe it was their first San Silvestre, it won’t be the last one). All of us had been training more or less during the year, and this year even though the pace we run (1h4’30”) was more or less the same as we did last year, we felt much better, we laughed more.
Jaime was running is 13th San Silvestre in a row. Impressive! I was doing my 11th (I missed three along these years). Pablo & Nacho must have done around 3-5, but they’ll complete many more.
Luca wants to spend next Christmas at some hot and sunny island somewhere (obviously Madrid & Vallecas don’t fit in that). I’d better find one island in which a San Silvestre race is organized, I don’t want to miss that :-).
You may find some data about the performance of the race in the Garmin record of it.
Let me share with you a brief recap of my 2011 (as I already did last year).
If I then characterized 2010 as a learning year, I would say 2011 was a year on the run.
At the beginning of the year I set out my objectives for 2011, of which I have achieved 71.4% (just above my 70% target!). One of them was only to “become again a frequent runner”, for which I set up some modest steps, e.g., buy new running shoes, run 3 days before mid-January, run a 10k popular race before November, lose some 10kg by June… If there was a yearly objective which I widely met, it was this one:
Last kilometre at the ultramarathon "100km de Millau".
I ran over 170 days along the year, covering over 1,800 kilometres.
I took part in 11 popular races, including 6 of 10km, 2 half marathons, 1 marathon (42km) and 1 ultramarathon (100km). More races and more kilometres than ever before.
I found myself running in Granada, Villa del Río, Madrid, Torrelodones, Luarca, Rijswijk, Wijchen, Toulouse, Luz Saint Sauveur, Chicago, Washington DC, Des Moines, Montreal…
Learning. After taking some classes in Madrid, I continued studying French and now I feel more confident when facing shop attendants :-). I had to learn and continue to learn lots of new things every day at the new job where I landed about a year ago.
I still enjoy as learning moments the print weekly issues of The Economist or the monthly issues of Scientific American. I delivered the necessary speeches to become ACB within Toastmasters (though lately I’ve missed more meetings than I should). Finally, I read a dozen books along the year (a bit less than in previous years, though some in the new eReader!), being the ones I liked the most the following: first, second and third.
Investing & helping others. I set myself a high objective of saving and investing: I overachieved it by around 50%. I once mentioned it in Twitter: the best thing behind investing is the discipline of saving that is behind it. I not only dedicated a percentage of personal income to savings but as I announced in a post at the beginning of 2010, I directed a percentage to different charities. I initially set it out to be 0.7% of my income, but after raising some funds and contributing others to charities related to the races in which I am taking part, in the end this percentage has been well over 1% in 2011.
Travelling. We together visited Montreal, Ottawa, DC, Chicago, Omaha, and several places in the south of France and throughout Spain. The moment that I liked the most was attending the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, no doubt.
Javi 2.0. I continued to often write in this blog with some remarkable posts. I admit that my twitter account is one of my biggest sources of information / distraction.
our friends Teresa & Alberto, María & Óscar, Isa & Pedro got married,
we welcomed the newborns Mar, Hugo, Luis and Eneko, while another of our friends is pregnant today (that we know),
my sister Beatriz started working as an intern; my brother Jaime continued to enjoy his job in Airbus and moved to a new apartment; my mother Fidela continued to take several courses (and to give wonderful massages) and my father Juan Bautista finally and happily retired (after working for 43 years!).
Luca completed all the requirements to become a full-fledged lawyer, winning some court cases in the process.
Now it’s time to update the objectives setting for 2012. This year the exercise will be easier as I already have the methodology and the habit. If the objectives are well chosen and challenging enough, next year’s account will be even shinier.
Finally the 23rd of October came and with it the marathon of Toulouse, an event I planned to run as much as 8 months ago. An event I wrote about twice before in this blog, when I announced that I would run it and on the 23rd of October to publish the funds we raised for the charity I ran for, “Vaincre la mucoviscidose”.
To set the stage, I must say that in January I only had the objective of running some 10km races along the year and subscribing to a half marathon, not necessarily to be run in 2011. But then, on February I started thinking of actually going for a full marathon before year-end. I locked on the Toulouse marathon.
Time went by, and I took part in many races along the year, went from casual running to running a lot, to engaging myself in a formal training plan for the marathon… and to subscribe myself with a friend for an ultramarathon which we completed back in September, a month ago.
In September I completed the half marathon of Toulouse in 1h42’30”, my personal best time ever in the distance, ending with very good feelings. With that reference in mind, and taking into account a “running calculator” that I had been checking from time to time, I had in mind a marathon pace of 5’08″/km for the marathon… that would make a 3h36′ marathon. 24 minutes down from my best time 10 years ago.
One week after the half marathon, a friend and I took part in the 100km of Millau, more than 15 hours of racing. A great experience as I described in the post about it, but it brought some collateral damage in the form of a peroneal tendonitis that hasn’t been healed a month afterwards. During the last 30 days I only ran 3 days: One test prior to the race “Ronde des foies gras”, that race and short test run prior to the marathon.
Knowing that the injure wasn’t yet healed and that I hadn’t trained in a month, I decided to ease a little with the pace for the race: I set the objective in 5’20″/km, that would make a 3h45′ marathon…
Before leaving my home I put a special surgical bandage to strengthen the ankle that had given trouble in the last month. I put some anti inflammatory cream around and took a couple of analgesic pills. Ready for the race.
The marathon started very close to my place so I went to the starting lane jogging, as a warm up exercise. I got acquainted with the departing blocks by times and left my bag to the organization. I started with the group of 3h45′ as was my objective.
The first ~9km went through the centre of Toulouse, already with lots of people cheering in some parts of the city, especially in my neighbourhood, Saint Cyprien, despite of the early departure time.
After the first 10km, and feeling well, I decided to go a bit faster and I went ahead of the 3h45′ group, running by my own, finding another pack of runners going at about 5’10″/km. Everything went fine until km 19 more or less, then I started feeling some stiffnes in the right leg.
The pain wasn’t anymore restricted to the ankle but went up to the outer part of the knee. I managed to keep pace for about 2 kilometres until km 22. From then on, it proved impossible. The leg was not responding. Time was increasing between one kilometre and the next. 5’30”, then 5’50”, 6’30”, 7’00″… You may see the evolution in the following link with the performance along the race recorded by my Garmin GPS.
From that point around km 22 till the end there were some challenges. The first one was the running itself; it was increasingly difficult to move the right leg, but I knew that if I stopped for a few metres walking to calm down the pain it would only get worse, cool down and would be even harder to start again. Another challenge was to defeat the bad mood coming from the fact of knowing that I wouldn’t make the 3h45′ marathon that I aimed at, but would make a time somewhat worse, probably much worse. A final challenge was to get used to the idea of another 17km of pain while running, making some numbers in my mind at some point and figuring out that “ok, it’ll be at most about 1h40′ more of running with this pain, I can handle it”. If I took something from Millau, it was the mind management and coping with pain while running. This time it was less of a challenge.
At some point between km 25 and 27 I was overtaken by the 3h45′ group. One of the guys who lead it told me to try to follow them at the back of the pack. Impossible. I knew they were running at 5’20”, I was wandering at 5’40” by then and worsening. They were like a plane for me.
Later on, in the kilometre 33 I met my friend Juan, who was visiting me in Toulouse during the weekend. He would run the last kilometres together with me. That proved an invaluable help in the form of cheering, small talk, holding some drinks and finally making lots of pictures and videos that you may see below.
By then we were re-entering the city centre and the streets were filled by people cheering the runners. The bibs we carried had our names printed on them. This made people cheering you by your name “Allez, Javier! Courage!”. That was great. If you just had enough strength to run and look at them to thank for it…
By the kilometre 36 more or less I was overtaken by the 4h00 group. I already knew they would pass me, as I was seeing at every moment the times I was making and I had an idea of what final time I could manage. Again, the 4-hour group was like a plane for me, impossible to jump on it. They came at less than 6’/km while I was running at about 7′ by then. But it was only about 6 km to go, at most 40 more minutes. The marathon was almost finished.
I managed my way through the last kilometres seeing that in the end I wouldn’t be above 4h15′, that cheered me up a bit, and when I crossed the 41km line I made a small calculation: if I increased pace I could still be below 4h10′ official time, so I did.
During the next kilometre I increased the pace but still saving some strength to allow my self a last sprint from Wilson square to Capitol, where the finish lane was placed. By then the crowd was almost carrying you, pain was barely felt, the sight was locked on the “Arrivée” sign and the clock below… 4h09’35″… 36″… 37″…
Few more metres of sprint and crossing the line at 4h09’53” (4h08’31” net time), just below the 3rd objective, 25 minutes more than the original 3h45′, almost 10 minutes more than a sub-4-hour marathon. My second best time in a marathon.
On the plus side: I completed again a marathon, 10 years after the last one. The objective from February was accomplished. I could run the whole of it despite the injure and subsequent pain.
Nevertheless, I finished with a bit of bitterness from not having been able to meet my 3h45′ objective, nor the sub-4h one… This teaches me a lesson for the future: when you run a marathon being injured, far from making personal best times, you’ll most probably end up suffering a lot. A lot. After all a marathon is what it is for a reason, and one should never underestimate it. Lesson learned. Now it’s time to finally fully recover from the injure; 2012 will be another season.
It is 10 years since I ran my last marathon. I have been running again quite often since the beginning of 2011, and a few of you know that in October 2011 I’ll be running the next Toulouse marathon if health permits.
Some months ago, following a recommendation of my brother Jaime, I watched a movie in Youtube called “The Spirit of the Marathon” based on the experiences of some beginners during their training towards running the Chicago marathon in 2007. I strongly recommend the movie to anyone willing take on such challenge.
In the movie, I especially liked the character of Lori, who apart of conveying a positive attitude all time and sharing a beautiful story behind, is running the marathon supporting a cause.
In February, when I decided to take part in the marathon in Toulouse, I thought it would be nice to do as Lori did and try to raise some funds for a cause, for a charity. However, I didn’t know which one to choose nor how exactly to set it up. In the meantime months have passed by, I have not started raising any cash, but luckily my Airbus Running club has sorted out which charity I could run for.
This year, all Airbus runners taking part in the Toulouse marathon are encouraged by the club to raise funds to help the association “Vaincre la mucoviscidose” which helps families of children suffering the illness and creates awareness about it. I think this is surely a worthy cause to run 42.195km for and raise some funds during the training period.
How can you contribute to such cause?
Easy, I have set up an ING savings account for that purpose. All contributions received in that account will be transferred to the associations bank account by 21st October.
Bank account: 1465 0100 91 2021356780 (ING Direct)
IBAN: ES68 1465 0100 91 2021356780
BIC / Swift Code: INGDESMMXXX
Beneficiary: Javier Irastorza
Since in France, contributions to charities are deducted from taxes up to a 66% and I do not want to get any tax benefit out of possible contributions from friends, I will double any contribution that you make so as to offset possible benefits and thus contribute myself to the cause as well, i.e.: if you give 5€ for the charity, I will put another 10€, making a total of 15€ for the charity, out of which 10€ would be tax-deductible, equal to the disbursement I had made.
What’s in it for you?
Apart from contributing to a worthy cause, I will explicitly dedicate my marathon in this blog to all those who have contributed to the cause (if they haven’t requested anonymity).
What it’s more, in line with crowd funding initiatives, I have been working since January on a special project that will only be unveiled after the marathon. That project will also be dedicated to the contributors to that cause who will have the chance of enjoying it before the general public.
Summing up
I’ll do:
100% of the training in these months (~1,100km in 17 weeks),
100% of the running in the marathon (42.195km on October 23rd),
66% of the financial contribution to the cause…
All you have to do is give some euros to make up for that 33% that we will contribute to the children suffering from mucoviscidose. Let’s do it together!
Running at "Corrida Pedrestre" in Toulouse, July 1st 2011.
A month ago I went running with a friend early in the morning before we attended a wedding in Granada. This gave me the idea of bringing the running shoes with me to the next holidays to Canada & USA. So did I.
In the end I went running just 4 days (2 less than planned) and I must say that I enjoyed it a lot. Here are the tracks I did in the different cities.
In Montreal I went with my friend and then host Pablo to the Mont Royale. The climb up there was tough, but running through the trees and squirrels was wonderful. The mount was full of runners in a Sunday morning.
Running track in Montreal.
In Washinton DC, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I was impressed by the hundreds of runners that you encounter in the Mall. Other than that it’s shocking to find yourself running in the middle of so many landmarks.
Running track in Washington DC.
In Chicago Luca and I went with a guide into a running city tour at 7am. The weather was horrible: cold and raining. However, the run was very enjoyable: soft and full of stories told by our guide (find the picture of Luca and me by the riverside).
Running tour track in Chicago.
Luca and I running by the riverside.
In Des Moines I went running in the surroundings of the motel we stayed in. It was looking very much like any village of American movies: small wooden houses, small green open garden, mail box on the front… it was a pity I was not carrying newspapers to deliver…
Running track in Des Moines.
It goes without saying that I recommend doing this in your holidays: take your running shoes and go out for an early run some days, you’ll see the city from a different perspective and will start the day much earlier than otherwise!
Last week I, together with 8 friends, ran the popular San Silvestre Vallecana as a farewell event for 2010 year.
The first time I took part in it was back in 1998. In the 1999 edition I ran together with my brother, that year we were less than 9,000 runners inscribed. This year there were 34,000 inscriptions available (though we did not inscribe ourselves). It took us 45 minutes to start running, by then the winner had finished long before (the winner finished in 29 minutes).
I believe that this has been the time have gathered more friends to run it; 9 of us. Also this year was different in that some of us were using Twitter till the last minute, smartphones to track the route, meters to check heart rate… quite a tech sport event.
The Blog by Javier 