AIDS Walk 2006

Not a racewalk, but a walk none the less. Let's call it a 10K "recovery" walk and put it down as part of my marathon training.

Here we are before the start. That's me, Rosie and Joshua in the picture.

The course was the usual 10K going from West Hollywood to Hollywood and back. It wasn't a race, just a fund raising event, though I did see some runners taking advantage of the streets closed to traffic. It was a leasurly stroll but after that messed up 20 mile attempt yesterday it was a good recovery walk--though I was feeling stiff, my heel still hurt and I was really glad when we finally finished. I didn't check the time, but it took all morning to to the 6.2 miles.

Oh and it was a dog friendly event so Natty joined in too.

20 mi LST DNF

Don't you just love acronyms? So I tried to do the 20 mile long sub-threshold walk but did not finish. Too bad, I was doing so well but I've got lots of excuses.

Let's start with rest the night before. Rosie worked a location job all week and she got home at 2am. That was bad enough, but she must have taken something to sleep because she started snoring and I had a difficult time waking her up so she could put on her CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) device. So much for a good night's sleep.

When I did the eight mile run last week I got a rash from my thighs rubbing. I don't have huge thighs but the shorts I've been using combined with my racewalking gait causes some friction right below my crotch--ouch! At about the eight mile mark I started hurting and I remembered that I brought along a tube of petroleum jelly, which was in the car--ugh. So, I stopped the chronograph on the Timex Ironman and did a slow recovery walk to my car at the half-way point. It was parked was several blocks away and had way too much of a cool down. By the time I started mile 11 I had a hard time getting my pace back.

Finally, just past the 11 mile mark I was feeling a pain in my right heel. I'll confess, I switched to a new pair of shoes, New Balance RC550WB's. I got them on Monday and used them during the week, they fit better then the New Balance 111's and didn't have any problems so I wore them for today's 20 mile walk--bad decision. I stopped to check out my heel and it was a bloody mess. I tried applying some petroleum jelly but it stung and that's when I stopped the workout. I didn't want to stop it, but there will be plenty of other long workouts--no point overdoing it today.

So I guess I learned a few lessons, which I should have known anyway, but maybe they will sink in this time.

The 11th mile is the last mile I kept track of, 13:28, but I'm going to throw it out because that was after stopping. Here's how I did on the other 10 miles:

Mile  1 - 12:38                          Mile  6 - 11:56
Mile  2 - 13:04                          Mile  7 - 12:02
Mile  3 - 13:14                          Mile  8 - 12:49
Mile  4 - 11:55                          Mile  9 - 12:32
Mile  5 - 12:51                          Mile 10 - 12:07

Average Pace - 12:30 minutes per mile
Total Workout - 2:05:13

I was surprised that my pace was this good. I wasn't trying for a 12:30, I thought I'd be closer to 13:30. Since this was supposed to be a 20 mile walk I started out slow and kept checking the heart rate monitor trying to stay close to the 153 bpm easy distance effort. The Santa Monica Pier bridge crossing came up on mile 5 and it was much easier than last week because I was warmed up. My heart rate did go up to 168 bpm on the bridge, but I was able to recover quickly once over the crest.

Something new I tried was to drink only water for the first 4.5 miles and switched to Gaterade after crossing the bridge. This is a marathon tip from one of Dave McGovern's books to "trick" the body into burning fat instead of carbs as early in the workout as possible. Actually, Dave recommended water for the first 90 minutes, but I was doing a shorter workout. This is supposed avoid hitting the wall near the end of a long effort. I was feeling like I was burning out near the end of the 18 mile walk a couple of weeks ago, though I did manage to put in a 12:13 final mile. Maybe I'll try this again on the 22 mile walk in two weeks and see if it works for me.

Do Winners Really Walk Negative Splits?

Negative splits means doing the second half of a race faster than the first half. Using the data from the 2006 L.A. Marathon racewalking results, I wanted to see if the top walkers did negative splits.

There were only three racewalkers who were able to pull of a negative split between the first half and the second half of the race and they were not the top finishers. They were the 28th, 32nd and 50th place walkers. That's out of the 53 finishers that are on my list.

How about that last finishing kick? I compared the overall pace to the 30K to finish (about the last 7.5 miles) and four racewalkers did the last quarter of the race faster than their overall average pace. They were the 22nd, 23rd, 24th and 27th place finishers. Even fewer had negative splits when comparing the first half to the last quarter, only 3 and they were the 20th, 27th and 32nd.

Just because the top finishers didn't accomplish negative splits doesn't mean that they went all out at the beginning and went slower on each passing mile. Crunching the data I was able to extract the pace for the first 10K (6.21 miles), the middle 20K (12.43 miles) and the last 12.26K (7.56 miles). Of the top 10 finishers, five walked their fastest in the middle of the race.

As long as I was in the number crunching state of mind, here are some other interesting findings:

Average Age of Racewalkers = 53 -- I'll be 52 at the next L.A. Marathon

Top 10 Finisher's Average Age = 44

Average Pace = 14:01 minutes/mile

Top 10 Finisher's Average Pace = 11:55 minutes/mile

The winner for my age group averaged 12:10 minutes/mile, went progressivly slower throughout the race and finished 6th place overall. However, it appears that he walked with his 19 year old son (or perhaps a relative) because his times match someone with the same last name through every check point. Interestingly enough the top two finishers, aged 48 and 56, also walked side by side but at a blistering average pace of 10:40 minutes/mile.

So my 12 minute/mile target pace would put me in the top 10. I should also do pretty good in my age category, but right now I don't want to get my hopes up too high. I often wonder if keeping up a 13 minute/mile on the long runs is enough to make my goal pace. I also wonder what I'd have to do to get up to that winning 10:40 minute/mile pace--that's better than my fastest mile and multiplied by 26.2? My respects to those athletes.

What's so Easy about an Easy Day?

Today was an "easy" day though I can't say that it was all that easy. I used to take an "easy" day quite literally, but that's not actually what an it is supposed to be. An easy day means doing a workout at around 70% of maximum heart rate--pretty much the same as the long distance day. As a review, here is my heart rate table:

Workout          % of MHR     Heart Rate
Easy Distance       70            153
Tempo/Interval      85            172
Economy             90            178
VO2 Max             95            185

Looking back over the past few weeks it looks like I do the daily three mile walk at about the same pace as the long walk. I often have a better pace on my long day than the weekday easy day. For example, here are today's times:

Mile 1 -- 12:06
Mile 2 -- 12:55
Mile 3 -- 12:59
Average - 12:40
Total --- 38:02

Quite a difference from yesterday's 10:55 mile and it is was slower than Sunday's eight mile walk yet it was feeling like a good effort. In addition, the heart rate monitor was showing that I was around 70% of maximum heart rate.

Guess there are up days and down days and you can't keep making new personal records day after day.

We scheduled the long day for tomorrow--20 miles. However, there is heavy rain in the forecast and we can't postpone it until Sunday because we're taking part in the annual L.A. AIDS Walk. I would racewalk the AIDS Walk, but it doesn't seem appropriate.

Listen to the Body

So Monday was my day off--from exercise, not my job. In fact I had a hard day at work followed by two screenings. The last screening was for a movie a friend of mine edited and it was showing at the Latino Film Festival. The festival was running way late and I didn't get home until after 1:00am.

Of course that made it hard to get up early on Tuesday so I skipped the workout.

I didn't get a good night's sleep and on Wednesday I managed to do a few accelerations and stretch, but that was about it.

By now I was feeling a bit down, like maybe I was coming down with a cold or something so I made sure to get to bed extra early and finally managed to get some rest. That made all the difference in the world. This morning I decided to do a quick mile and some strength training.

*New one mile PR -- 10:55

That's a full 18 seconds faster than my best mile from last week.

The strength exercises went much better too. I guess my body was telling me to take it easy from Monday through Wednesday.

L.A. Marathon Number Crunching

For some reason the results page of last year's L.A. Marathon isn't working as it should. Fortunately, I copied the data for the racewalking results before it went down. I also did some data munging, removed some incomplete or suspect entries and came up with a list of the top 53 finishers for 2006.

This should be interesting to see where I stand compared to the 2006 racewalkers. Having this information in a spreadsheet allows all sorts of interesting analysis. Of course past performance isn't a guarantee of future results--sort of like investing, isn't it?

Name                    Bib#  Age  Sex  10K         Half        30K         Finish      Pace
MARIO LOPEZ             326   48    M   01:05:57    02:17:23    03:15:19    04:39:34    10:40
ERIC FISCHER            351   56    M   01:05:57    02:17:22    03:15:19    04:39:34    10:40
JOHN MURDZEK            325   46    M   01:10:02    02:27:44    03:33:57    05:07:06    11:43
JUAN MORENO             366   41    M   01:12:07    02:30:19    03:36:50    05:12:24    11:55
ROBERT COLLINS          332   19    M   01:10:29    02:30:32    03:40:21    05:18:48    12:10
STEPHEN COLLINS         327   51    M   01:10:30    02:30:33    03:40:21    05:19:01    12:10
MARY SCHOENBAUM         320   50    F   01:17:02    02:42:06    03:50:23    05:24:37    12:23
DEO JARAVATA            353   41    M   01:14:38    02:39:05    03:50:09    05:25:29    12:25
RAYMOND BILLIG          302   49    M   01:18:45    02:43:26    03:52:39    05:28:37    12:32
LINDSEY GOLDBLOOM       312   38    F   01:18:44    02:43:24    03:52:37    05:28:38    12:32
NANCY WILDING           346   52    F   01:15:48    02:41:01    03:51:00    05:28:52    12:33
BRANDYE SMITH           308   45    F   01:18:45    02:43:25    03:52:38    05:28:59    12:33
ADENA WRIGHT            315   52    F   01:18:46    02:43:26    03:52:41    05:29:12    12:33
AL CAZAS                323   46    M   01:22:16    02:44:09    03:52:00    05:29:12    12:33
CHARLES CUTTING         301   68    M   01:13:18    02:37:46    03:51:51    05:34:21    12:45
MARTHA FITZPATRICK      310   63    F   01:18:46    02:43:34    03:57:54    05:39:44    12:58
BERT JOHNSON            369   66    M   01:14:10    02:40:34    03:55:00    05:40:18    12:59
RUSTY DERUITER          345   65    M   01:17:15    02:46:39    04:02:10    05:42:38    13:04
VICKI KRYSZAK           316   59    F   01:17:34    02:44:25    04:01:42    05:43:03    13:05
PETER DOGGETT           334   48    M   01:21:57    02:52:41    04:06:05    05:45:26    13:11
SYLVIA ELLIS            352   58    F   01:21:57    02:52:42    04:06:04    05:45:49    13:11
JOE EDWARDS             344   68    M   01:21:02    02:49:31    04:06:45    05:46:14    13:12
PATRICK BIVONA          335   65    M   01:16:07    02:46:09    04:00:51    05:46:24    13:13
ERNEST CLARK            307   54    M   01:18:44    02:43:24    03:52:37    05:47:17    13:15
DONNA DAWSON            329   55    F   01:15:10    02:43:35    04:00:18    05:48:16    13:17
MICHAEL MIZOTE          322   48    M   01:15:49    02:41:02    03:55:18    05:48:20    13:17
CHRISTINA PEREZ         364   43    F   01:23:35    02:56:56    04:14:34    05:56:10    13:35
WILLIAM CARTER          365   60    M   01:26:27    02:59:19    04:12:56    05:57:18    13:38
DEBORAH SALARI          340   41    F   01:23:31    02:50:32    04:05:34    05:58:43    13:41
MARIA FERNANDEZ         318   58    F   01:23:26    02:57:14    04:15:33    06:04:22    13:54
ERIC NEUMANN            348   29    M   01:20:58    02:54:45    04:15:03    06:11:05    14:09
MAUREEN HERNANDEZ       314   55    F   01:27:33    03:06:13    04:23:50    06:11:11    14:10
KATHLEEN MCAVOY-JAHRAUS 317   55    F   01:25:59    03:02:28    04:20:04    06:12:11    14:12
PHILIP PRATT            303   59    M   01:29:22    03:06:29    04:28:01    06:21:04    14:32
MICHAEL BLUM            330   67    M   01:30:38    03:12:25    04:33:34    06:30:15    14:53
DELIA ORVANANOS         361   53    F   01:30:25    03:10:30    04:32:45    06:30:46    14:54
ENA DUBNOFF             359   68    F   01:30:27    03:10:32    04:32:38    06:30:47    14:54
ESTHER SOZA             319   64    F   01:28:24    03:08:54    04:33:02    06:33:43    15:01
CAROLE NELSON           349   60    F   01:30:08    03:09:42    04:34:54    06:34:17    15:02
KAY TYLER               357   14    F   01:30:54    03:11:40    04:36:13    06:35:00    15:04
DEBORAH GAL             354   45    F   01:30:55    03:11:38    04:36:14    06:35:00    15:04
IRIS PEOPLES            313   44    F   01:34:09    03:17:24    04:42:46    06:39:09    15:14
JOHN SOUTH              347   66    M   01:25:14    03:04:20    04:30:41    06:39:55    15:15
JANE ADAMS              328   53    F   01:34:45    03:19:31    04:47:36    06:45:13    15:27
CONSTANCE KOENIG        324   47    F   01:34:47    03:19:33    04:47:36    06:45:14    15:28
DIANNE BAUER            362   63    F   01:22:08    03:07:24    04:40:21    06:45:20    15:28
KATHLEEN HAMPTON        341   52    F   01:32:34    03:20:37    04:47:51    06:49:35    15:37
KATHY CURETON           358   57    F   01:36:31    03:24:46    04:59:25    07:14:45    16:35
LINDA LOISELLE          367   52    F   01:40:25    03:31:21    05:06:55    07:22:46    16:53
RICHARD MAY             331   58    M   01:51:48    03:49:32    05:25:31    07:38:54    17:30
DICKSON YAGI            321   68    M   01:45:36    03:53:22    05:37:13    08:00:09    18:19
PHYLLIS GOLDSTEIN       336   71    F   01:29:59    03:13:36    05:12:15    08:04:52    18:30
REVA WALLACE            306   71    F   01:47:21    03:55:57    05:46:37    08:11:52    18:46

8-Miles, Not Quite As Planned

So the plan to do the first half at 160 bpm heart rate and the second at 170 bmp didn't work out quite as planned.

It was fairly cool, in the mid 60's, and the route started near the Santa Monica Pier. There wasn't enough of a warm up going from the mile marker, the bicycle rental shack, to the start of the Santa Monica Pier bridge and even though I made it over just fine, my shins were hurting through the first couple of miles. By the third mile I was feeling better but another trip over the bridge at mile seven kept going through my mind all morning.

The bridge crossing at mile seven wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but once I was over the crest I got a call on my cell phone. Yeah, I carry a phone just for emergencies, but it wasn't an emergency. Rosie called to say that she and our nephew, Joshua, were at the Coffee Bean. OK, I could go for that after the walk, but then she told me that she was at the Venice Beach Coffee Bean--way at the other end of the route! No way, I told her to meet me at this end and I'd call after I finished. That took some time out of mile seven.

The last mile was all down hill, I was doing pretty good time and halfway through it the phone rang again, this time it was my nephew. When I pulled out the phone everything in my carry pouch fell out. I had to stop, pick everything up and told Joshua that I'd call when I'm finished! Still, that last mile turned out to be the fastest.

As for the heart rate, it fluctuated between 145-165 bpm but most of the time is was around 150, it seldom got over 160 bpm. Maybe my legs got too tired right from the start or maybe the cool weather had something to do with it. Then again I might have been subconsciously holding back in anticipation of crossing the bridge on mile seven. In hindsight there is nothing to be concerned about, my goal was unreasonable. According to the heart rate chart I made a few days ago the easy distance walks should be done at 153 bpm and that's pretty much where it ended up.


Mile 1 - 12:37
Mile 2 - 12:24
Mile 3 - 11:50
Mile 4 - 12:54
Mile 5 - 13:03
Mile 6 - 12:10
Mile 7 - 13:28
Mile 8 - 11:41
Average Pace - 12:30

Still hanging onto that pace even with the hill work, worrying and the phone calls. In fact it was six seconds per mile better than the 8 mile walk I did a couple of weeks ago.