Going the distance (Training for the Rocky Run)

I’m doing the Rocky Run this year.

Remember way back in July when I called the running community weird, said runner belts were for fags, and said I’d never run 10+ miles?

I was wrong.

After realizing that running was actually fun and challenging, I decided to go even harder at it. Those 5-6 mile runs eventually became 8-10 mile runs, and now my current pace is about 8 minutes a mile.

In fact, I now love running so much that I’ll be doing the Rocky Run on November 8th. Not only will I be doing the 5K, but I’ll also be doing the 10 mile run half an hour after the 5K. Doing both of these runs is called the “Italian Stallion Challenge”, and you’re basically running a half-marathon.

I ain’t gonna lie, training for this shit is brutal.

I didn’t really do a lot of long distance running before this. Most of my runs maxed out around 6 or 7 miles. Like I said in the other article, I never expected to be running 10 or more miles. The first time I tried to push myself, I did 9.5 miles in an hour and 20 minutes.

When I got home, I pissed blood.

As it turns out, it’s not a good idea to run for over an hour in 90 degree heat with no hydration, your bladder rubs against itself and causes you to piss blood. After that, I decided that running belts were no longer for fags, and got a pretty decent one. I fill a water bottle up with some electrolyte powder mixed in, and haven’t pissed blood after a run since.

Building up my distance was grueling. In the span of four weeks, I’ve ran somewhere in the ballpark of 70 miles total. Here’s a screenshot from my fitness watch’s app to show you exactly how hard I’ve been training:

This coming weekend I’ll be running 13.20 miles, just over half a marathon. Thankfully I get to take it easy after that and reduce my mileage a bit to conserve strength in the two weeks leading up the race.

Rather than drive to some far-off location to run, I decided to run around not only my neighborhood, but into adjacent neighborhoods. Crossing big streets can be a hassle, but I’ve learned to pace myself so I can catch the green light most of the time. The times I don’t catch the green, I run/jump in place or run in small circles to keep the momentum going. Yes, I know I look like a dipshit. No, I don’t fucking care.

Included in the Rocky Run is “Mount Drago”, a mile-plus long uphill segment. It comes about four miles in to the run (technically seven miles in since I’m running the 5K first). To train for this, I’ve been making sure my routes include every hill possible, multiple times. The steeper the better. I don’t even think the Drago hill is really that steep, it’s just the distance that gets you, and the fact that you’ve already run four to seven miles beforehand. Also, everyone thinks about hard it is to run uphill, but they forget that the downhill part can be just as brutal, particularly on your quads as you rein in your pace so you don’t gas yourself out. You should see what my leg day regimen looks like.

I’ve also had to start carbo loading the day before my long runs. There’s a Taco Bell near my work, so in addition to my usual Friday diet of 450 grams of carbs (about 3700 calories in case you were wondering; I’m also on a bulk right now), I hit that up for lunch. Want to know how to make the cashier and other customers stare at you with looks of disgust? Order this and eat it all in about 15 minutes:

I washed it down with Zero Sugar Pepsi, then had a bagel about an hour and a half later. The next day I ran over 12 miles.

During the spring I cut, so come summer I was able to do most of my runs shirtless. The upside is I get a massive ego boost from people checking me out (women and men). The downside is I need to apply a bunch of sunscreen, and my body hair decimates the area’s gnat population. Nothing like coming home from a 10 mile run caked in sweat, sunscreen, and dead bugs. This has absolutely no standing on my training for the Rocky Run, I just wanted to give you all the mental image of a shirtless AJ covered in sweat and dead bugs.

If I complete the Italian Stallion Challenge, I walk away with three medals. One for the 5K, one for the 10 mile, and one for completing both. There’s also an extra medal for the fastest 100 times on Mount Drago, but I doubt I’ll do that good. There’s about 30,000 other people running this race. I’m going up against people who have trained their entire lives and average under five minutes per mile. They’re basically sprinting the whole thing at that point. I’m just being realistic here, there’s no way in hell I’m even breaking the top 1,000 let alone winning this thing. There will be Kenyans there too, nobody can beat the Kenyans when it comes to long distance running. My previous employer fields a team every year though, so as long as I beat those dicks I’ll be happy.

The race is on November 8th, so I’ll probably make a follow-up post after then about how I did, what it was like, showing off my medals, and all that bullshit.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

See author's posts