Ryan Kleimenhagen's Journal

March 12, 2007 Entry (Posted March 14, 2007)

I just realized that I haven’t written a journal entry since October, so I have a lot of ground to cover. I will be doing this entry in two parts with this part being “the rest of my fall training” and the next will be “my indoor season.”

Last October I was building my mileage up into the 90s and doing the team’s off-season strength training program. The workouts were going very well and I was able to lower my times from week to week with long intervals and long tempo runs. With the added hills here and there, I felt that I was a lot stronger than last year.

Thanksgiving day I decided to test my fitness, so I registered for a local 5K in downtown Minneapolis. This race was the Turkey Day 5K that is put on by one of our sponsors, Life Time Fitness. The race is Thanksgiving morning and brought in about 8500 runners. I trained pretty hard the few weeks leading up to the race and really didn’t “taper” for it. I was just hoping not to throw a wrench in the whole system and see what I could do.

The race went out pretty hard. At least it felt hard because I really hadn’t done anything that fast in awhile. I just tried to stay relaxed and try to keep my momentum over the wet bridges by the river. The last mile, I took the lead and pushed the pace a little bit. I was waiting for the last-mile-5K hurt to come along, but it never did. I finished the race first and ran a time around 14:51 or so (official times were not kept), which is a road PR for me.

I was happy with the outcome and continued my streak of 100 mile weeks for the next three months. I’ve never really done straight mileage for that long before, but I felt that I was getting very strong and it would pay off in the future. At this point, I was very satisfied with my training during the fall and looking forward to getting on the track.

My Indoor Season

After a long fall of hard work, I was extremely eager to get on the track. I kept my mileage high through the month of December and started doing mile and 5K workouts. They were all going very well and I could definitely tell that I was stronger than last year.

I went home (Milwaukee) for Christmas and took a week of no workouts and dropped my mileage down a bit to freshen up my legs. When I returned, we continued our routine and I was feeling fantastic. I was literally “steam rolling” all the workouts. I would finish all of them very strong and have a little left over, so I knew I was ready to race at any time.

We decided to kick off the indoor season with a mile at the Jack Johnson Classic at the University of Minnesota. The race was set with a rabbit to go out in 1:58, which he did. My teammate, Brad Lowery, went through behind the rabbit and I was in third behind him. As we came through about 1100 meters still on sub-4 pace, I knew that I just wasn’t going to have it today and my legs started to completely fill with acid. I still finished second behind Brad, but he had a great race and I had a very disappointing race. I realize that we had an incredibly hard week leading up to the race, but I figured that I could still run pretty fast.

I shook off the race and decided to go down to Notre Dame and run the Meyo Mile two weeks later. I wasn’t sure how to go into this race after my sub-par performance at Minnesota. I went into the race feeling good and the Meyo Meet has such a great atmosphere. The leaders went out in around 2-flat and I went out in a more conservative 2:03+. At a little over 800 meters, I really got boxed in and bunched up with a few other runners, so I slowed down and swung out into lane 3 and took off. I can guarantee that my third quarter was my fastest quarter with all the adrenaline going. As I passed a few runners, I was slowly closing in on the leaders. Down the homestretch, I was right with them, but just couldn’t pass them. I ended up running high 4:02 and feeling pretty good about my race.

After a few more weeks of good workouts with a lower weekly mileage, I decided to run an 800-meter race at the University of Minnesota for fun and gear up for USA Indoor. After running so many 1500s and miles this year, the first 100 meters seemed like a dead sprint. I settled into last place and after hearing that I was behind goal pace at the 200 meter mark, I decided to start moving up. I proceeded to move out into lane 2 and run the last 600 meters (or more) as hard as I could.

I finally tucked in behind the leader on the second-to-last turn and recharged for a second. Then, around the last turn, I gave it everything I had for the big finish. I pulled dead even with him down the last straight, but couldn’t gain any ground. We crossed the line at the exact same time running completely different races. He led most of the race and I ran a dumb race out in lane 2. Even through I didn’t run as fast as I wanted to, I still had a fun time and figured that I was ready for USAs the next weekend.

After a few days of being sick, I flew out to Boston for the Indoor USA National Championships to run the mile in a very packed field. After feeling crappy the week before the race, I really felt good on race day. I went into the race ready to do some damage. The race is always very physical at the start, so I ended up being toward the back for the first few laps after getting off the line slow. When I heard that we went out in around 64, I knew that I needed to start moving up and get into position.

So, I moved out and slowly moved my way up and all of a sudden I’m bumping elbows with Alan Webb. I really had nowhere to tuck in, so I moved into the lead to stay out of trouble. I led for 3 laps, but I could feel my legs start to tire very quickly. All of a sudden, I saw Gabe Jennings fly by me, followed by the rest of the pack. I went from first to second to last in about .00589 seconds with nothing left in my legs. I tried to go with them, but it just wasn’t going to happen. I ended up death marching it in the last few laps in last place.

After such a great fall and so many great workouts, I figured that I would be ready for a tactical indoor championship such as this. After getting over the disappointment and scratching my head about it the next few days, I came to the realization that I am just tired from all of the training over the last seven months. My coach, Dennis Barker, and I decided to take some time off and get ready for the Furman Mile in South Carolina on April 7.

For my week off, I went home and spent some time with my family and did some wedding planning. I just relaxed and ate some good home cooked meals. It was a great week and I think my mind and body really really needed it. Now, I’m ready to get back into the routine and hopefully things start coming around. I, once again, have very lofty goals for this upcoming outdoor season. Along with those and getting married in August, it should be a great year.

Until next time…

October 6 , 2006 Entry (Posted October 9, 2006)

Well, the Twins won the division, but have already lost the first two games of the playoffs and the weather doesn’t know what it wants to do up here in Minnesota. Some days are in the 80s and some days are in the 50s. However, the leaves are falling off the trees, making great running scenery.

I’ve slowly built my mileage up to 90 miles per week after taking some time off in August. I have also run a few 5Ks on the roads to gauge how my training has been going. The first one was a local road race in Minneapolis on Labor Day where I won and Carrie Tollefson took second. Go figure.

Then, I traveled to Rhode Island for the 5K champs where I went out very hard and pretty much died. The last 5K I did was last weekend during the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon where I won and set a new PR for a road 5K. The field went out very slow, so I took the lead and kept pushing the pace the last two miles. I was very pleased with my performance and I’m already ahead of pace from last year at this time.

It’s really hard to run a fast 5K off of just base work, especially when you’re not a 5K specialist. We tried going to the track for 5K workouts before the first two races and it just didn’t work for me. The last race, I kept my mileage up and did a couple tough strength workouts and that seemed to work better for me. I also got kind of sick for a few weeks before the first two races, so I’m sure that didn’t help either. I took some antibiotics and now I’m feeling like myself again. Workouts have been going a lot better and I can train like I should be training. Haven’t felt like this since March.

I probably won’t be racing much at all until December/January, so I’ll just be putting in 90-100 mile weeks of base training until then. Its nice to have another “mile” specialist on the team (Brad Lowery), because I probably did 90 percent of my workouts last year by myself. I think we’ll be a very good duo and it should be fun when we start doing faster workouts.

Introductory Entry, August 21, 2006 (Posted August 28, 2006)

Most runners out there would say, “Who the heck is this Ryan Kleimenhagen?” I’ve never even heard of him before.” Well, I figure that I would introduce myself to the running nation. I was born in a small town outside of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and moved to Wisconsin at the age of 2. We eventually settled in Milwaukee and I gained the love for running in seventh grade when I went out for cross country and track. When I went to Oak Creek High School, I decided that I would still run cross country, but I would also play tennis in the spring instead of running track. I played tennis in the summers since the age of six and that’s why I chose tennis, but it was very difficult to pass up track.

After four years of varsity cross country and four years of varsity tennis, I went to the University of Wisconsin-Platteville to pursue my undergraduate degree. With great coaching at Platteville and running year round (instead of just two months), my running career really started to take off. I slowly worked my way up the Division III ranks and finished with a few NCAA titles and PR’s of 1:48 in the 800 and 3:44 in the 1500.

I didn’t have an earth shattering college career, but it was good enough to turn a few heads, including Dennis Barker and Patricia Goodwin. With the help of those two and the Team USA Minnesota board, I was signed on with the team in September of 2005. They definitely took a chance on me without blazing PRs and the big race experience. However, I’m glad that they gave me a chance like this and I won’t let them down.

Last summer I took a full month off at the end of July through mid-August, so most of the fall was building my base up and working on strength. I only did a few races in the fall just to see where I was at as far as my training goes. Then, winter finally came and I was ready for indoor track. I was easily in the best shape of my life. I got a great opportunity to travel out to Boston for the Reebok Boston Indoor Games. This was a pretty incredible race with 11 guys going under the four minute barrier, including myself – 3:59.00 was a pretty good improvement over the 4:05 I ran the season before. This was a great confidence builder getting ready for the USA Indoor Championships where I placed fourth the year before. I ended up getting sick the night before the race, so I finished a disappointing sisth, but I did run a few tenths faster than the year before.

After that, I signed with Saucony and pretty much got ready for the outdoor season. I trained really hard for about a month before I got sick again. This time, it was worse than I thought. I tried to train right through it and found out that it wasn’t a good idea. It just wore me down and it took a few months to fully recover from my sickness. I slowly got better through the Reebok Grand Prix and the USA Outdoor Championships, but it still wasn’t great.

Luckily, I was fortunate enough to get my season extended. Thanks to a grant from the USATF Foundation to Team USA Minnesota and other programs/athletes around the country, I was off to Europe for the first time and finally starting to feel like a runner again. I was there for about a week before my first race which was a 1500 meters in Gent, Belgium. Training went really well that week and I was sure that I was going to have a good race. I ended up getting into a really slow heat, so it ended up being more of a time trial than anything. I went through the 1200 meters in 3:02 and faded very badly in the last 200 meters. I was kind of disappointed, but it felt good to finally get out there and feel good.

Next race up was a 1500 in Heusden, Belgium. This one had to go well; otherwise I would have to scratch the whole outdoor season out of my log book. I got into the “C” heat, but it didn’t really matter, because all of the races were going to be fast. Well, I went out in 3:02 again, but I closed in 42. I tied my 1500 meters PR to the hundredth of a second. Who does that? I was really hoping for a PR, but it was nice to salvage a little part of my season after having a really good indoor season.

Overall, I think I had a good “rookie” year and I definitely learned a lot from my experiences. I met a ton of running idols this year and I found out that runners, in general, are a great group of people no matter what caliber they are. There are a few things that I will do differently this year and there is a lot of room for improvement.

Right now, I’m building my base up and I’m planning on doing a few more 5Ks on the roads this year. With this, I’m planning on coming back stronger for the track season in 2007. I might even do a few 5Ks on the track next year. Who knows?

Til next time…