Aaron Linz: Fast Times are no Accident

I have had some folks approach me the last month or two inquiring why I am running so well right now. At 36 going on 37, I am performing at the same level and in some cases better than when I was a Division I athlete at UNC Chapel Hill over 15 years ago! It is pretty factual as to why I am running well so I figured I would share the numbers:

MILEAGE
March: 319.8 miles/26 runs/12.3 average, 1 bike, 4 swim
Feb: 273 miles/27 runs/10.1 average, 1 bike, 4 swim
Jan: 300.6 miles/26 runs/12.02 average, 2 bike, 4 swim
Dec: 275 miles/27 runs/10.2 average, 3 bike, 4 swim

The 4 highest monthly mileage EVER for me and I have been running since 1984!

Additional Facts:
-Best and most consistent sleep and eating I have had in my life
-Virtually no injuries, Best stretching and medical support I have ever had
-Lightest weight and lowest body fat since college
-Minimal stress in my life right now
-A great group of folks to run with that inspire me and push me to run faster

So what does it all mean? Mileage pays off but I caution, it took me 2 years to get comfortable with putting in 70+ miles in 6 days. Don't read this and decide you need to run 300+ miles in April to get better. But...if you want to take your running to the next level, the more mileage your body can handle over time and the more time you can commit to make that happen, it will pay off. Last year, right around 60 and my body would start to break down. I was doing 5 runs a week and occassionally 6. Now I can handle 6 runs a week and can push up to 80 and a little over 80 a week.

Sleep - TOTALLY under-rated. I apologize to those who have heard repeat this a million times but it is such a powerful statement. Coach John McDonnell who had more distance all americans and team championships that most coaches dream of was once asked what did all his top runners have in common. He said the only thing for sure that was consistent accross all his all americans is they all got 10 hours of sleep a night! Now I know most of us (including me) can't and probably don't want to get 10 hours a night. But I try like heck to get 8 hours when I am training hard or have a big race coming up. Try sleeping 8-10 hours a night a couple days leading up to a big race or a long run and I promise you will feel much better. Sleep is an easy way to improve your running. You just need to make the time for it.

Injuries - I am dealing with some shin pain now and I had some hip flexor issues this training cycle but for the most part, I have been healthy which means I have been able to consitently train. This is because I stretch well, do my strength exercises and when I have a problem, I find the best professionals in town to help me get over the injury and move towards preventing that injury going forward.

Weight - Ughh....nobody likes this topic but try carrying a roll of quarters in each hand and run up a hill. Now do it without the quarters. Did it make a difference? Absolutely! I have traditionally been a good downhill runner but over the past year, I would argue that I am a much better uphill runner now. I feel lighter and can motor up hills like never before. Do I explicitly diet? Not really. Instead I try to eat well. I splurge every now and then and am particularly careful the weeks were I am training hard but I can guarantee you that nobody in the world has ever put on weight from bananas and apples. If you finish your meal and you are still hungry, have some fruit. For better or worse, distance running is a sport where the less you carry the less your body has to work and hence, you should be able to run faster and further. But....don't be stupid about it! Starving yourself, getting too thin cuts into your strength so seek a professional if you are serious about finding the right weight balance.

Low Stress - Be HAPPY!!! That sounds so incredibly basic but too many folks stress about really dumb stuff. Ask yourself, what you are stressing about...does it really matter in the big picture? We are not on this planet long enough to freak out about stuff. Find ways to be happy and find activities (like running) that reduce stress. Your body won't be as tense and you won't tire yourself out by stressing about silly things. I have been reallly blessed to have minimal stress in my life lately.

The GROUP!!! - Every Monday when I read the club newsletter, I am so extremely proud of the success of our club members. I am not talking just about good times and top places. I am particularly proud for the folks who broke 2 hours for the first time in a half marathon. For the folks who completed their lst marathon. For the folks who really decided they love running and are going to do more of it. It motivates me tremendously.

If you know 15 folks are going to be at the Dowd Y at 6am in a cold wet rain, you feel guilty if you decide to slack and sleep in so you get up and make it out to the run. I would NEVER do this on my own but knowing other folks are out there has helped me be consistent with my training.
He/she did that so I can too! - I am competitive so when I see runners in the club perform at new levels that are better than me, it feeds my competitive fire to want to beat them in my next race! I have seen alot of this occurring this year and I believe this healthy competition is terrific! It makes us all want to do better. What is the best thing for Kobe Bryant? Lebron James and Dwayne Wade. I guarantee they are very aware of each others performances and are always striving to be better than their competitors.

So.....if you made it this far, hopefully I put some thoughts into your head and unfortunately, eliminated any dreams that I have some magic potent which allows me to run faster. For 99.9% of us running his a hobby and we must juggle it with family, work, and other interests. So, we all have a judgement call about how much we can commit to the sport. Again, I am blessed at this point in my life that I can commit a lot of time to running. The good news though is the more you can put into it, our sport rewards you handsomely with better results. If you do have the opportunity and desire to take your running to a new level, please keep the facts in mind that I have listed here and you will see improvement.

Happy Running!!! - Aaron

PRs

My father always says PB (personal best) but the more widely used term in Personal Record. I thought I would take a few minutes to congratulate so many folks who had PRs this weekend at the Corporate cup 5k, half marathon and half marathon relay. By design, I requested to run the 2nd leg of the relay. It afforded me the opportunity to see the start of the race, compete myself, and then see as many folks as I could the last 5 miles of the course as I needed to get back to the start/finish after my leg.

What was so much fun was to find out how folks were doing mid race and then be able to share in their happiness after the race. I tried to run a bit with Jay Holder after my leg but he was turning 5.35 miles so I knew he was in route for a PR! Chad Crockford was cranking up the hill next to Myers park and I just knew by where he was in the race and how strong he looked that he was on time for a big PR. Michelle Hazelton came by in 3rd overall and was assisted by club member Thomas Eggar. They were working as a team to get Michelle thru the finish line in a 2 min and 30 second PR. Danielle Walther and Alice Rodger were neck and neck when I saw them with whole entourage of dudes (most were CRC members) pacing them along. Danielle had a 5 minute PR! I know I just scratched the surface of success out there. As an example, after the race I learned that Emily Barrett PRed thru 10k and half (1.50.31).

We send out a lot of praise to the folks up front who routinely place in the top overall spots. Those accomplishments are excellent but to some extent they are expected as the individuals obtaining them are very serious runners who are blessed with a boat load of talent. What I find really inspiring and satisfying is how many of you set a goal and crushed it this weekend! That means you worked hard in training and then delivered during the race to run a time faster than you have every run before! Pat yourself on the back for that as getting a PR is ALWAYS a great accomplishment.

Obviously we can’t PR every race, but I think the general trend in 2010 will be more and more club members achieving their goals and finding new levels of fitness they never thought they could achieve. Speaking from experience, I was so inspired by the Winter Flight crew 2 weeks ago that when it came time for me to race a week later, I had the confidence that I was going to do well because I run every week with that group. I also wanted to impress every one of them with a better performance of my own J I knew there were lots of you who were supporting me and curious/anxious to see how I would do. That gets me pumped up along with my own personal ambition and drive to improve.

To be totally honest I had folks today cheering for me and yelling my name that I do not even know and probably should! I sincerely appreciate their support and look forward to meeting them as they are a big reason I ran so well and was able to PR myself on my 5 mile relay leg (fastest I have run 5 miles in 17 years…XC back in sophomore year of college…that was a different chapter in my life so I am counting today as a PR J ). Throughout the race, I saw club members helping each other out by pacing each other, cheering at the end, and or our fabulous bike support crew that zig zagged up and down the course while shouting support.
It is hard for me not to gush about all of you each time I pump out a blog but so far, it has been totally deserved. Thank you all and congratulations! I look forward to sharing in your athletic progression all year.

Race Road Trips

Since helping found Charlotte Running Club, I have had the pleasure to participate in four running road trips for races. If you have never had the opportunity to do so, I highly encourage you to find some folks and make a trip this year. There are always folks looking to carpool to out of town races. To name just a few coming up this year (among lots of them), Tobacco Road Full and Half, Tarheel 10 miler, Army 10 miler, Cherry Blossom ten miler, Marine Corps marathon, Shamrock marathon, ING marathon.

WHY?
Let me describe my experiences from all four to answer why.

1) Army 10 miler – myself, Caitlin Chrisman and Matt Jaskot made the trip from Charlotte to DC together. It is about a 6.5 hour drive so lots of time to talk and learn more about folks outside of a running. We arrived in DC and hit the expo the night before where we met the rest of our party, Dan and Val Matena and Matt’s brother. We got a great group shot of us in front of a army attack helicopter. Dan being from Australia had never been to DC and me having grown up there knows the town well so we darted off to the Lincoln memorial and I threw everyone out of the car to go take a peak and snap some pictures while I hunted around for parking.

That night, my folks had us all over to their house for a pasta dinner. My Mom is all about a full course meal every night so in addition to the homemade sauce and homemade meatballs, we had a couple vegetables, bread, salad and ice cream cake after. The group experience more talking, laughs and sharing of our goals for the race the next morning.

We met each other in the morning and warmed up together. We had some logistical challenges as the Army 10 miler has over 20,000 participants and we found ourselves on the wrong side of the pentagon face to face with soldiers with rifles telling us we were in a restricted area and had to go back around. The Pentagon is massive like over a mile back around it so banding together as a group on the jog helped to calm some nerves. Two of us took everyone’s gear for bag check in while the others attempted to make their way to the start line. We all got positioned in time and everyone ran pretty well. As each of us finished, we hugged the others, got some pixs together and anxiously awaited all of our group to finish. Once we had all crossed, we met up for a post race breakfast at a nearby restaurant before departing back to DC. On the drive back, we talked about everything and kept our tired bodies company on the long drive.

2) Marine Corps Marathon – Flew up this time on my own but met up with Jason Holder as he was staying with me at my folks house. We headed over to the expo and met up with Todd Patterson and Shenna Kevorkian. Adam Mayes met up with us as did Justin Breland and we pumped into several more Charlotte folks which is amazing considering the expo had several thousand people attending. More pasta dinner the night before, more meeting folks at the start line and wishing them well. More waiting for folks to finish and congratulating them on their performances. In addition, for this trip, we had organized a post race party at the Cowboy Café, a friendly little bar and grille in Arlington, VA that is owned by a high school buddy of mine that ran with me back in the day. We had a mix of 20+ folks from Charlotte and several of my friends from the DC area. Again, more talking about running but a lot of just learning about other folks and hearing their stories.

3) Frosty 50k – 6 months ago, I was convinced that all ultra folks were complete nut jobs. I still think that but sadly, I think I might be drifting that way as having experience one now, I see the attraction. For this road trip, we had to get up pretty darn early to make the drive over to Winston. We ended up arriving about 1.5 hours before the 8am start. Salem Lake is a fantastic place to run if you have not had the opportunity. The Salem Lake 30k is very popular and run in October of every year. Ultras are different. There is not the same type of mentality as a road race. Folks are way friendlier and most everyone is out there not necessarily to compete against each other but because they really, really love running and want to challenge their bodies to finish such enormous distances.

I had the pleasure to run with Michelle Hazelton for the first 18 miles and got to chat about all things in life. Meanwhile, ultra veteran Thomas Eggar was blasting away somewhere near the front and Matt Jaskot was trying to keep up with him as long as he could despite not having run much recently. Mo Campbell made the trip to cheer for us and soak in the experience. She ended up running 15+ miles with Thomas. In 20 degree temperatures, having company out there was awesome. Ultras have the best “Aid Stations”. They include not only Gatorade and water but cookies, donuts, bagels, M&M’s, pretzels and other types of junk food. I can tell you first hand that dreaming about a handful of M&M’s when you are at mile 16 and the stop is not for another 3 miles in route to a 31 mile race is really helpful. Your body definitely needs the calories and energy in the longer events but mentally to “reward” yourself with M&Ms is cool.

Like the others, when I crossed the finish, it was to the cheers of Thomas and Mo who had already finished and we waited for the rest of our crew to congratulate them on the performance. We decided that a huge breakfast was in order so we stopped in Salisbury for some IHOP action. I think we all tore through our omelets and then swung by Starbucks for a coffee to hold us over back to Charlotte.

Since my wife’s car is a bit pimped out, the back seat passengers got to watch Dogma on the DVD head rests while I laughed listening just to the volume of the movie (I have seen this flick way too many times). Another fantastic road trip where I got the chance to interact with runners (Mo and Michelle) that I previously did not know much about.

4) Columbia Half Marathon – driving back from this one is where I realize, gosh all these trips have really been fun! This time our transportation is super pimp (used pimp twice in this blog)! Nothing like an old school dodge van complete with solar panels (yes, matt powers the frig and interior lights with the solar panels), and comfy bench seats and captain chairs. Throw in some cool interior light, jam to a variety of tunes on the ipod and the 5.30am start from Carowinds down to Columbia blasted by in no time. We “used the force” a bit to find the starting line but ultimately found a terrific public lot right in front of a big bank of porta potties that was between the start and finish. The rest was a bit odd and had plenty of issues as an inaugural race but what I will remember most is the following.

Matt and Adam had the horribly unfortunate situation of getting lost on the course as it was full of a ridiculous amount of turns , poorly marked and lacked enough volunteers. As I was cruising to victory I heard large shouts of “Go Aaron”! I was shocked to look over and see Matt and Adam going bonkers cheering for me and immediately saddened because I knew their day must have been cut short for some reason.

I crossed the finish, got my finishers medal (I told the guy with the Puke shirt..aka Duke, on principle I couldn’t accept a medal from him as an UNC guy and he understood so I got it from the next person), did a quick interview with a local news station where I must have mentioned CRC 5 times….All of this took about 2 min or less and then the guys quickly informed me that Boriana would be finishing soon so we immediately set out in a jog back tracking on the course to find Boriana. We found her working her way up the a major hill on mile 12 and to our delight, she was the first female! We all fell in step with her and ran stride for stride with her to the finish shouting encouragement all the way. At the finish, we congratulated her on her victory and took another picture. Oh ya, we had a couple great pictures of our group before the race that were taken by a guy who turned out to be the bass player in the bad that played at the post race celebration before the awards.

The trip home did not get underway until almost 11.30am as the awards were late. We this time chose to treat ourselves to Bojangles and also discovered the most powerful hand dryer in the world at the gas station where the Bojangles was. It was my first chance to spend time with Adam Mayes and Boriana B….(I have given up on Boriana’s last name as it is way too complicated to spell or say so hence forth, she is B3). Both are smart young folks who have a wealth of knowledge not only about running but about life. I think it is safe to say that despite the DNF for Matt and Adam, they enjoyed the trip and certainly would do another one with us.

As a 36 year old father of a 7 year old and a wife who is not particularly fond of running, I don’t get too much opportunity to head out on trips nor should I as I have commitments on the weekends to my family that I want and should uphold. However, these trips have been an absolute blast for me! I get to combine my passion of running and my enjoyment of meeting folks into a day or two of non-stop fun. Knowing there are other folks at a race who are helping you prepare for a race and care about your performance really motivates you and puts you in a great comfort zone to do well. It also just makes the whole experience enjoyable.

I am not sure what my next running road trip will be this year with other folks from Charlotte but if any of you are looking to head out of town and need some company, let us know so we can help link you up with other runners. I assure you it will be an experience you will not forget.

- Aaron