The Accidental Runner

2009 Stone Tower 15K race report

2009-10-27T14:41:00.000-07:00

Following up on yesterday's disappointing attempt to defend my title, I thought I had enough legs for one more hard effort before shutting it down for the month of November. I texted my buddy Anuj Saturday night to see if he was interested, and he was game despite having never done a trail race. Sometimes these races done on a whim turn out to be more enjoyable than the ones you plan for!

This is the 2nd edition of Stone Tower 15K, and the course is challenging without being overly technical. This course is a next door neighbor to the infinitely more famous Great Stew Chase 15K, but it's a totally different animal. It's run in the Lynn Woods Reservation, mostly on carriage roads, but with enough single track to spice things up and test your climbing legs. It's not a technical monster like the Skyline Trail 7.2, but it's no cross country race either. I entered this trail race last year, the week prior to the NYC marathon, to add some spice to my last long run without killing my legs. I ran a 1:10:56, and finished in 6th place. This year, however, I was mostly recovered from the BAA Half and dedicated to really hammering the second half of this race to see how much I could beat my time from last year. Besides, I was still pissed about my effort level yesterday, and wanted to redeem myself.

Anuj and I arrived with about 15 minutes to spare. We had enough time to register and do a short warm-up before the start. The race started pretty conservatively, and I spotted the usual suspects (Paul Young and Chris Smith, 1st and 3rd, respectively, from last year's race) leading the charge. These two mountain goats are clearly a class above me, so I settled in at 4th or 5th place as we hit transitioned from asphalt to the trail. The first section is fairly rocky, but the footing was solid despite yesterday's soaking rain. I eased into the first climb towards Stone Tower and slowly made up ground on 3rd place before hitting the first long descent. I was passed by a different runner with long hair halfway down the first descent, and I could tell by the way he was moving that I wasn't keeping up with him for now.

As far as tactics go in trail racing, although I'm not a veteran, I have done enough races to know that my strength lies in descending and my weakness is the techinical stuff. I would think that with all the basketball I play, the lateral movement wouldn't be a problem. However, the muscles utlized are clearly different. Basically, I stay strong on the climbs, try not to lose to much on the techinical descents, and really hammer the long downhills. The first third of the race is on wide carriage trails, so it was easy to settle into a nice rhythm. My body was beginning to warm-up and I was feeling much stronger than yesterday. As we hit the Rose Garden and the first aid station, I could hear another runner behind me within striking distance and it helped me to stay focused. I was comfortably in 4th by the time we hit Stone Tower the second time, but with the more technical 2nd half ahead, I knew I had work to do.

The next segment until the third pass of Stone Tower was the deciding segment of the race for me. There was no one to key off of in front, but I was shadowed from behind by a runner who would gain on the technical sections, but fade on the long climbs. I never thought of myself as a good climber, but these techinical portions were really highlighting my strengths and weaknesses. In road races, the runner with the better engine almost always wins, but in trail racing, technique can clearly overcome a difference in fitness. My shadow was clearly in the latter category and this was going to be dogfight. I never looked back, but I could judge by his footfall how far back he was. I tried to build my lead on the carriage roads, but he would invariably catch up on the single track sections. I thought he came the closest on the swampy section just before the climb to Steel Tower. I finally dropped him for good on the last climb up to Stone Tower, and following a brief moment of confusion because the volunteer had left his post and wasn't directing traffic, I was cruising on the last downhill secure in my 4th place finish.

I smashed my time from last year, but like I said, I didn't really race it last year. If you look at the 2008 results, I ran essentially the same time as the 4th place finisher, who was also the runner shadowing me for much of the 2nd half of the race. Interestingly, I can't seem to match my effort level for a road race of equivalent time, as the average HR was lower than my half marathon pace. Anyone else have the same experience? Overall, I was glad that I trekked out to Lynn Woods for this race as I was much happier with my race effort compared to yesterday's 5K. I even managed to snag a division win! Its time for me to hang up the sneaks for a week or so and look forward to the next trail race (Fells Trail Race) before winter sets in.

Results
4th place, 1:07:03, 7:13/mile, HR - 167/176

"Born to Run"

2009-05-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

I've posted on this before, but I think the new book, "Born to Run," lends even more credence to the theory that running was a critical element in the evolution of humans. Enjoy the article:

The Running Man, Revisited

In Depth by Maywa Montenegro / March 18, 2009

The endurance running hypothesis, the idea that humans evolved as long-distance runners, may have legs thanks to a new study on toes.

Comparison between walking and running of mechanical energy expended. Credit: Daniel Lieberman

Ann Trason, Scott Jurek, Matt Carpenter. These are the megastars of ultra-distance running, athletes who pound out not just marathons, but dozens of them back-to-back, over Rocky Mountain passes and across the scorching floor of Death Valley. If their names are unfamiliar, it’s probably because this type of extreme running is almost universally seen as a fringe sport, the habit of the superhumanly fit, the masochistic, the slightly deranged.

But a handful of scientists think that these ultra-marathoners are using their bodies just as our hominid forbears once did, a theory known as the endurance running hypothesis (ER). ER proponents believe that being able to run for extended lengths of time is an adapted trait, most likely for obtaining food, and was the catalyst that forced Homo erectus to evolve from its apelike ancestors. Over time, the survival of the swift-footed shaped the anatomy of modern humans, giving us a body that is difficult to explain absent a marathoning past.

Our toes, for instance, are shorter and stubbier than those of nearly all other primates, including chimpanzees, a trait that has long been attributed to our committed bipedalism. But a study published in the March 1 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, by anthropologists Daniel Lieberman and Campbell Rolian, provides evidence that short toes make human feet exquisitely suited to substantial amounts of running. In tests where 15 subjects ran and walked on pressure-sensitive treadmills, Lieberman and Rolian found that toe length had no effect on walking. Yet when the subjects were running, an increase in toe length of just 20 percent doubled the amount of mechanical work, meaning that the longer-toed subjects required more metabolic energy, and each footfall produced more shock.

“If you have very long toes, the moment of force acting on the foot’s metatarsal phalangeal joint becomes problematic when running,” explains Lieberman. Our hominid ancestors, Australopithecus, of which Lucy is the most famous specimen, had significantly longer toes than humans. “Lucy could have walked just fine with her long toes,” says Lieberman. “But if she wanted to run a marathon, or even a half-marathon, she’d have had trouble.”

The March study is the first attempt to assess the ER hypothesis using an experimental approach, but the idea that humans have a marathoning past first surfaced more than two decades ago, when David Carrier, a runner and grad student in the lab of evolutionary biologist Dennis Bramble, convinced his mentor that running ability might explain a number of unique human features. Over the years, Bramble’s team at the University of Utah and Lieberman’s team at Harvard have amassed a small ream of physiological and morphological evidence that they believe points to a distance-running legacy. In 2004 the groups copublished a list of 26 such markers on the human body, including short toes, a hefty gluteus maximus and Achilles tendon, springy tendon-loaded legs, and the little-known nuchal ligament that stabilizes the head when it’s in rapid motion.

The paper earned the cover of Nature and generated quite a stir within bio/anthro circles. But it did nothing to answer a fundamental question: What good would endurance running have been to primitive man? On an evolutionary battleground — where the struggle is to eat or be eaten — speed, and not endurance, should be the prized trait. If a tiger in high gear could outpace Homo erectus within 10 seconds and a deer in 20, being able to run at a modest pace for hours at a time does not seem like an evolutionary advantage.

shoothead via Flickr

Christopher McDougall came up against this very conundrum in his spirited book Born to Run (Knopf, May 2009). McDougall, neither anthropologist nor biologist, is a journalist originally given an assignment for Runner’s World that morphed into a consuming fascination with feats of high mileage, particularly with that of the Mexican Tarahumara Indians, reclusive canyon dwellers reputed to be the best endurance athletes on earth. Wearing shoes fashioned from tire strips to cushion their feet, the Tarahumara cover up to 400 miles in festive, multiday events drawing runners and spectators from multiple villages. They are also the picture of health, enjoying almost total immunity to cancer and the diseases that plague modern society. For McDougall, the Tarahumara seem to confirm what Lieberman has been arguing all along, that humans are built for running. To find out why, McDougall inevitably found his way to the Harvard researcher, who shared with him an intriguing theory.

We know that roughly 2 million years ago, Australopithecus, with its tiny brain, hefty jaw and diet of rough, fibrous plants, evolved into Homo erectus, our slim, long-legged ancestor with a big brain and small teeth suited for tearing into animal and fruit flesh. Such a transformation almost certainly involved a reliable supply of calorie-laden meat, yet according to the fossil record, spear points have been in use for 200,000 years at most, and the bow and arrow for only 50,000 years, leaving an enormous stretch of time when early humans were consuming meat without the use of tools. Lieberman believes they ran their prey to death, often called “persistence hunting.”

In the book, McDougall recounts the Harvard researcher’s eureka moment, which happened on a five-mile jog one summer afternoon with his half-mutt border collie, Vashti: It was hot, and after a few miles, Vashti plopped down under a tree and refused to move… As he waited for his panting dog to cool off, Lieberman’s mind flashed back to his time doing fossil research in Africa…Ethnographer’s reports he’d read years ago began flooding his mind; they told of African hunters who used to chase antelopes across the savannahs, and Tarahumara Indians who would race after a deer ”until its hooves fell off.“ Lieberman had always shrugged them off as tall tales…but now he started to wonder. So how long would it take to actually run an animal to death?

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
By Christopher McDougall; Knopf; Out May 5 | Buy

Drawing on Harvard’s extant cache of locomotion data, Lieberman began crunching numbers comparing speed, body temperature, and body weight of humans and various conceivable prey. A deer and a decently fit man, Lieberman discovered, trot at almost an identical pace, but in order to accelerate, a deer goes anaerobic, while the man remains in an oxygenated jogging zone. The same is true for horses, antelopes, and a slew of other four-legged creatures. Since animals can run anaerobically only in short bursts before they must slow down to recover, a human in pursuit may have the final advantage. And because quadrupeds can’t pant while they run, they also quickly overheat. To run down dinner, Lieberman realized, might simply have been a matter of spurring the poor beast into a sprint enough times to make it collapse from hyperthermia.

“Running an animal to heatstroke is something that most humans can do, and that other animals can’t,” says Lieberman. “It’s a compelling explanation for why these capabilities evolved, and frankly, nobody’s come up with a better idea yet.”

But plenty of skeptics remain, some who doubt that persistence hunting was the reason humans evolved with the capacity for distance running, and some who doubt the ER hypothesis altogether. University of Wisconsin paleoanthropologist John Hawks, who researches the acceleration of human evolution since the advent of agriculture, questions how a trait that is supposedly specific to endurance running could persist today, when tools and farming have long since replaced the old selective pressures of hunting. “If these features really were distinctive to long-distance running, shouldn’t they have disappeared?” he asks.

Hawks also thinks that Lieberman and Rolian’s short-toe findings are essentially more evidence that humans are optimally designed for walking. “That’s exactly what we should expect,” Hawks says of the finding that toe-length variation does not affect walking. “If we see that toe length makes a big difference for running, that’s relatively good evidence that toe length wasn’t selected for.”

Still, ER theory has much on its side. Ultramarathoning is a cross-cultural phenomenon, and persistence hunting can be found in cultures all over the globe: The Kalahari Bushmen of Botswana, the Aborigines of Australia, the Masai of Kenya, and the Tarahumara are but a few examples of tribes whose lore includes the epic hunt. Hawks would argue this is a sophisticated cultural adaptation, but it could also mean that we have a common, fleet-footed ancestor.

Whether scientifically bona fide or not, it’s also hard to discount McDougall’s story of the Tarahumara’s supreme health and athleticism, and his sense of having tapped into something primordial — a feeling doubtlessly reinforced by his own metamorphosis from out-of-shape jogger to efficient ultradistance trekker. “They think it’s just a bunch of us crazy joggers out there who think running is important,” says Lieberman of his critics. The critics may be right about that, but it does seem that the endurance running hypothesis has legs.

What Ruins Running!

2009-05-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

Boston Globe Magazine Article

Tomorrow's marathoners who have suffered foot and knee injuries should ask: Is the problem their body or their shoes?

By Christopher McDougall April 19, 2009

I'd been plagued by running injuries my entire adult life. I'd seen the best sports-medicine physicians and podiatrists in the country, and they'd all prescribed the same fruitless formula of orthotics, ice, and injections. Nothing and no one could cure me. So a few years ago, I looked elsewhere: to a tiny tribe of super-athletes in Mexico, who taught me that it's not running that's dangerous -- it's running shoes.

That's right. Running shoes are a failed experiment. After nearly four decades of technological gimmicks and outrageous prices, they simply do not perform the function that's their only reason for existence -- protecting your feet. You can now buy running shoes with steel bedsprings embedded in the soles or with microchips that adjust the cushioning, but the injury rate hasn't decreased in almost 40 years. It's actually inched up; Achilles' tendon problems have risen by 10 percent since the '70s.

Some researchers suggest that running shoes actually cause the very injuries they're supposed to prevent. That idea has been out there for more than a decade, but it's gaining force, thanks to the work of Daniel Lieberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University who's been studying the biomechanics of the foot and the evolution of human running. Before the invention of the modern running shoe, runners couldn't land on their heels -- it was simply too painful. Doing so in today's shoes leads to excessive foot rolling, known as overpronation.

"A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are actually caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to overpronate, give us knee problems," Lieberman said on Australian radio last year. "Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented by Nike, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and probably had much lower incidents of knee injuries."

So what are runners to do? The answer seems clearer than ever: Go barefoot, or as close to it as possible. This revelation dawned on me shortly after I came across an odd photo in a Mexican magazine. It showed a man in a skirt tearing down a rocky trail, sandals on his feet and a grin on his face. He was a Tarahumara Indian, a member of a tribe that runs

150-mile races for fun.

So how do the Tarahumara, running in shoes that barely qualify as shoes, do it? Three years ago, I trekked into the Copper Canyons of Mexico in search of the secret. And once I learned how to run barefoot-style -- landing on the balls of the feet, while keeping my feet directly under my hips -- like the Tarahumara, my ailments suddenly disappeared. Plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, sore knees -- all gone. Today, I wear something similar to a rubber glove for the foot (it has the thinnest of soles to guard against abrasions), and I haven't looked back.

It wasn't a miracle, as Lieberman would explain; it was simple mechanics. He's convinced our problems began the day we tried to outthink nature and encased our feet in motion-controlling sneakers. Others agree. Gerard Hartmann, a physical therapist in Ireland who works with world record holder Paula Radcliffe and who is himself a Nike consultant, conceded years ago that deconditioned foot muscles were the biggest factor in injuries. He likened running shoes to a plaster cast that causes our feet to atrophy.

Shoe companies and podiatrists will explain the need for specially designed shoes by going on and on about the constant pounding on the foot and the benefits of support and cushion.

"We're not all built the same way, so for certain feet, a guidance system can be very beneficial," says Washington, D.C.-based Dr. Stephen Pribut, a former president of the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine and a member of the board of advisers for Runner's World magazine. "Basic structural biomechanics will not be altered by shoes."

But the unmistakable fact is that there's a trend across the shoe industry toward creating more "minimal" shoes -- those intended to duplicate the experience of, you guessed it, running barefoot. Still, those models just aren't simple enough.

Maybe it's time all of the shoe manufacturers run with the Tarahumara, too.

Christopher McDougall, a writer for Men's Health magazine, is the author of the new book Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. Send comments to magazine@globe.com.

Baby Serendipity Comes Home!

2009-04-19T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am Daddy! I still can't believe it.

Aidan Chan
April 17, 2009 - 12:30 AM
20 in, 6lb 13oz

His due date was April 21st, so he was in a serious rush to come out. Mommy went into labor just before 10 while we were out just finishing up dinner. By the time we got home to get our things, her contractions were only 3 minutes. The two of us booked it to the hospital. We got to the hospital shortly after 11, and he was out in less than an hour and a half.

We just got home this morning and its been quite a rollercoaster ride getting to know the little guy. Needless to say, I have no idea how I'm going to perform tomorrow. My training suggests I'm in sub-2:50 shape, but I haven't run since Thursday and my legs are pretty tired.

More on the baby and the marathon tomorrow. I need to catch some shuteye before tomorrow.

Ryan Hall's Last Boston Workout

2009-04-14T20:22:00.000-07:00

Really inspiring stuff. I wish him the best of luck on Monday!

Here's another video of Ryan scoping out the course. If you look carefully, you might catch me around the 57 second and 2 minute mark. I think one of the fascinating things with any sport is the immense gulf between a recreational and elite runner. I was running my marathon pace of about 6:30s and Ryan looks like he's loping along.

New Bedford Half Marathon 2009 Race Report

2009-03-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

New Bedford is here again.... and its time to do battle with the infamous headwinds and get an idea of what I can hope to achieve at Boston. Last year, I cut a minute off my PR and was hoping for something similar. If I can cut 5 seconds off every mile -- 0-4 (6:15/mile), 5-9 (6:00/mile), 10-13.1 (6:10) -- it would be a time of 1:20 and change. After two relatively high mileage weeks, I cut back on the volume this week because I thought it was worthwhile to try to get in a solid race effort on fresh legs.

I've had three straight poor sleeping nights, so I didn't feel great this morning, and this carried on into the warm-up. I felt like I was dragging during the warm-up. Hooked up with Flash, Renee, and Jared and booked it to the start line with a couple minutes to spare. I spotted John Barrett and caught up with him shortly after the start. The first mile was pretty comfortable, but I started to feel the effort midway through the 2nd mile and let John slowly pull away. The first hill wasn't bad; I tried to maintain effort going up the hill and then coast on the downhill. Pat Stumbras and Chris George pulled up to me on the next climb and I worked together with Chris to get up the hill, although he was breathing way too hard this early in the race. I could feel my effort level getting away from me, so I pulled back just short of the top of the hill and let Chris and Pat pull away. The first 4 miles were trending towards the slow end and I was hoping to make up some time.

The neighborhood section was interesting. This is a long gradual downhill section and I'm used to picking up a lot of time from mile 4-8. However, I just couldn't find a good comfort level here. I was trying to keep Pat in striking distance while Chris was slowly pulling away, but I was working much harder than I wanted to. I took a gel at around mile 5.5. Somewhere between miles 6 & 7, the gel started kicking in and I quickly reeled in Pat. He said he went out too fast and I told him I was feeling pretty warm. A group ahead consisting of Lara and another BAA runner gave me another target to work towards, and I thought it might be a good idea to make contact with them once I hit the windy section. A tall guy in a Boston Community Running (BCR) jersey pulled up next to me, so we worked off each other to reel them in.

Out of the blue, things got inexplicably easier. Maybe the gel? I reeled off a series of sub-6 miles along Cove Road and finally caught up with Lara's group just as it was beginning to splinter. There was a moderate headwind along this stretch as I continued working with the BCR runner. Soon, I found myself breaking wind for the group and I was surprised that I was still feeling good. The notoriously slow 9th mile was coming up. I'm beginning to suspect that mile 8 is short and mile 9 is long on this course. Even the winner slowed more than 20 seconds. I was feeling great, but also dreading the wall of wind as we made a left turn. To my surprise, it was perfectly calm! I commented to another BAA runner next to me (think it was Carly) how weird it was with no headwind. I continued cruising along until mile 11, fully expecting that I was going to slow soon. At mile 10 (1:00:46 split), I began flirting with the idea of breaking 1:20! Also, both John and Chris were within sight and it seemed like I was gaining on them. So I focused on them instead of the clock and tried to make up ground.

By mile 12, I had cut the deficit on Chris to about 50m or so and right on cue, he craned his neck about 5 times and tried to spur me on. I buckled down and tried to reel him in, but it just wasn't happening. The effort of the previous 5 miles was beginning to show, so I focused on my turnover and just tried to get to the McDonalds that marked the top of the hill. By now, I was sure of a sub-1:20 and was just trying to stride out and get to the finish line. Alas, I couldn't pull even with Chris, but I didn't care because I had miraculously run a sub-1:20!

In retrospect, I have no idea how I pulled out this performance. I didn't think I was in shape to run a sub-1:20. My training has been wildly inconsistent this winter and I felt lousy during the warm-up and into the first half of the race. Yet, I ran a massive PR and was 2 minutes faster than last year. So my wild-ass-guess at my half marathon pace Friday night on the treadmill turned out to be spot on. This was such a breakthrough performance for me that my predicted race times off this half marathon are faster at all distances longer than the mile.

Results

Stats

Distance	Total Time	Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	6:01	6:02	160	169
2	12:11	6:11	170	172
3	18:29	6:18	172	175
4	24:51	6:22	172	177
5	30:51	6:01	170	172
6	36:53	6:02	169	172
7	42:51	5:58	169	172
8	48:46	5:56	170	172
9	55:02	6:16	172	174
10	1:00:55	5:54	172	175
11	1:06:54	5:59	172	174
12	1:12:57	6:04	173	175
13	1:19:08	6:11	173	176
13.1	1:19:46	5:42	173	173

Muir Beach 17K Race Report

2008-12-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

The soreness from last week’s foray into bona fide trail racing had largely faded and I was ready to give it another go. I signed up for the Muir Beach 32K shortly after registering for the Woodside edition, but with the beating my legs I had taken, I opted to drop down to 17K instead. Just over 10 miles sounded like a cakewalk compared to 20+ last week. The race series now had moved north over the Golden Gate Bridge to the famed Golden Gate National Recreation Area (over 75,500 acres!). I had done a midweek run down the Coastal Trail, up the Rodeo Valley Trail, and completing the loop along the SCA trail. The terrain here is a stark contrast to that found in New England. Low growing Mediterranean brush, rocky cliffs and the serenity of the Pacific Ocean just beyond. Today, I was feeling more comfortable with my surroundings and less anxious about what lay ahead.

An added twist for this Saturday’s race was this weekend coincided with my best friend’s bachelor party in SF. I had more than a couple drinks and was greeted by father hangover this morning… guess I always need a challenge. After scanning the results from the previous year, the times seemed to roughly correlate to a half marathon time, so shooting for a 1:25-1:26 would put me in contention. Although shorter than last weekend’s course, the elevation change was equally challenging. Galvanized by last week’s experience, I decided to start conservatively.

As we lined up on the dark sanded staging area in anticipation of the start, I soaked in the cool and refreshing Pacific beach air. I wasn’t sure when I’d be back to do this again, so I tried to soak in the moment. I had even toyed with the idea of bringing along my camera to capture the coastal scenery, but decided I didn’t want to risk flinging my camera down a ravine during a rapid descent. I went out easier this time (partly sticking to race plan and partly out of necessity due to the hangover) and found myself comfortably letting other runners go by on the initial ascent. There were sections steep enough on the first climb that I was reduced to a fast walk to keep from redlining. At the first fork in the trail, the course leveled off as we were treated to the morning sun reflecting off the ocean surface. After a brief descent, a steeper climb ensued paved with uneven steps.

I was beginning to wonder if the hangover would ever release its hold and whether it was a mistake to race again. I finally reached the top of the climb and could see the entire Tennessee Valley stretching before my eyes. I glanced at my watch and made a mental note that I would need to be closer to 30 min. rather than 40 min. at the first aid station to be on pace. I had no idea what place I was in and I was happy to pick-off runners on the steep descent. After my first trail racing experience, I started to dread the downhills. However, I quickly realized on this first descent that descending was my strength. I had been trying to keep pace with the only runner I recognized from last week, Will Gotthardt, who had placed third in the 50K, but flew by him on the descent. The course included a half-mile of paved road leading up to the first aid station. I took a couple swigs of electrolyte drink and set off on the 2nd loop of the course. (33:25 – 8:40/mile)

The 2nd climb started gradually for the first ¼ mile and then gets noticeably steeper for what seems like almost two miles. Fortunately, the traction was good, the grade was even, and I had some company on the climb. While the 33K & 50K runners kept going straight, we 17Kers made a sharp right turn and continued climbing. I could now clearly gauge the competition and saw 4 or 5 runners ahead that were within striking distance. If I didn’t catch them on the final climb, I would get them on the descent. I passed by a curious looking structure at the top of the climb that appeared to be part of air traffic control. I was feeling pretty good now and really started to hammer on the downhill. I’m pretty sure I was out of control on the steeper portions, but by the time I hit the Tennessee Valley aid station again, I had passed 4 out of the 5 runners, and the fifth runner was in eyeshot. (29:08 – 7:49/mile).

I caught him on the paved section and asked what place he thought we were in. He pointed to one guy just in front, a woman maybe two minutes ahead, and possibly a couple more in front. I was still feeling strong and wondered how many more runners I could reel in. From what I remember, the last climb was the steepest and it was no joke. It was steep and the top wasn’t visible, but I could at least see the next runner ahead and keyed off of him. I tried to take small strides and maintain turnover, but a half-mile in, I was reduced to a walk. The runner I had just passed slowly gained, and he said, “Wow, you’re walking as fast as I’m running.” I replied, “at this point, I don’t think it makes a difference.” With the summit in sight, I was just trying to limit my losses so that the two runners were within striking distance on the final run down to the finish line. I quickly caught the first runner shortly after the cresting the hill. The ocean view emerged before me and with the beach now in view, it spurred me on. Soon, I was in full stride, arms flailing to stay in balance. This was an instance I wish someone videotaped me because I must have looked ridiculous! Form notwithstanding, I was absolutely flying and I think I covered the last stretch (~1.5 miles) in less than 9 minutes. I caught the next runner on the last switchback and the momentum carried me through to the finish line. (23:35 – 7:58/mile)

The next runner came through only a couple seconds back, and collapsed to the ground, making some comment about young guys with fast twitch muscles. I ran this race much more sensibly, as the splits indicate my effort level rose gradually throughout the race, as opposed to the abrupt fade last weekend. Mentally and physically, it was a much better way to race. The 17K results show some impressive performances. It looks like there was a pretty good battle at the front, with two guys finishing with 7:30/mile average paces. The next finisher also had an incredible race, and she has a great blog. She was way ahead and there was no way I was catching her. In retrospect, I’m glad I dropped down to the 17K; there was no way my legs could handle another 20 miler and I found it easier to focus on the shorter distance. If I’m lucky enough to be able to do next weekend’s Rodeo Beach race, I’ll try to tweak my race strategy again and even out my pacing over the distance.

Dist (Km) Split Pace Avg HR Max HR
6.2 33:24.5 8:40 163 171
6.0 29:07.7 7:48 168 173
4.8 23:35.3 7:54 170 177
Totals
17.0 1:26:07.5 8:09 167 177

Woodside 35K - My 1st long trail race

2008-12-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

Recently, I’ve been finding races by serendipity and this one was no different. I was headed out to the Bay Area for a conference and best friend’s bachelor party and was looking for some local races. In the last two weeks, I’ve been picking up the mileage again and my legs are feeling back to normal after New York. After doing a cursory search of races in the Bay Area, I came across a promising trail race series. They organize trail races of varying lengths (8K-50K on one day) along some of the most gorgeous trails all along the Pacific coast of California. The minute I discovered this, I was sold. I immediately signed up for the Woodside 35K and reasoned that a 20 miler on trails would be much easier to recover from than one on the roads.

I cruised down 280 the morning of and tried to soak up the clean mountain air. The temperature was perfect when I pulled into Huddart Park and with about 15 minutes to spare, I quickly pulled on my racing gear, got my number, and headed straight for the bathroom to get rid of some baggage. I really had no idea what I was getting into and I approached this like a normal training run. However, I was leaving the world of the “roadie” and entering uncharted trail racing territory. Just to give you some brief background, my favorite training runs these days are on trails. However, my trail racing resume is comparatively thin, consisting of the 7.5 mile Skyline Trail Race in the Blue Hills Reservation, and the Stone Tower 15 K in the Fells Reservation a week before New York. Now, I was doubling the distance. I looked at the map and elevation profile (see below - yes the scale is in thousands) and quickly realized these hills were going to make Heartbreak look like a mound of dirt.

I went strong on the initial downhill to try to get position on the ensuing single-track and once we hit the wider trails, I settled into a more manageable pace as the climbing began. My heart rate was around 170 and I questioned whether this was something I could manage for 20 miles. The hills weren’t steep, but the first climb was LONG! It soon narrowed to single track and my heart rate was quickly getting out of control. The 35K had started with the 17K, so I really wasn’t sure with whom I was running. The climb just kept going and at some point, I stopped caring where the top was and how long I had been climbing. Later on, I saw a guy that had passed me earlier doubled over and puking his guts out. Shortly before reaching the top of the first climb and the first aid station, a strong looking guy came motoring by, who turned out to be the eventual 35K winner. Most of the front-runners seemed to be carrying water bottles and I wondered if this was going to be an issue later on in the race.

The course mercifully leveled out after the first aid station heading out to Bear Gulch and I finally settled into a more even rhythm. A bunch of runners I was with turned around (meaning they were 17K runners), so at this point I had no idea what place I was in. I cruised along this portion of the course largely on my own. It was more rolling hills rather than an extended climb, so it felt great to stride out on the downhill portions. After a longer than normal descent, the course leveled out, then entered a series of ascending switchbacks. Now I was running into other 35K runners making the turnaround and quickly deduced that I was in 3rd. An older runner was also hot on my heels as I entered the aid station. I downed some electrolyte fluid, some coke, grabbed a banana and a handful of shotblox, and began the return journey. My legs were still in reasonably good shape and so I was able to maintain a pretty good cadence. I started to put some distance over the next runner, but also passed a runner on his way out that I knew had passed me awhile back. He must have taken a wrong turn at some point.

The return trip was a little less lonely with the other 35K runners still making their way to the turnaround point. I spent most of this portion just enjoying the scenery, but in the back of my mind, I also wondered when I was going to hit the wall…. Yes, probably not the most productive thoughts to be having, but with the hard start and my low mileage base, I was just being realistically. Surprisingly, what did happen was about a mile and a half from the next aid station, I started to feel a tightening in my right medial quad. I have never cramped up during a race, and I wondered if I was starting get dehydrated. The cramp got progressively worse and eventually, the fellow who had taken the wrong turn passed me about a mile from the aid station. I tried staying with him but the cramp was preventing from opening up my stride and it was worse on downhill portion. I was in real trouble now, as the last portion of the course was mostly downhill.

I made it to the final aid station barely in front of the older runner (2:25), and he left the aid station before me, meaning I was now in 5th. Two other runners were not far back, and in my condition, I knew I was going to get passed by both of them. Uphill portions were tough and the downhill portions were aggravating the cramp. The first downhill reduced my stride to a trot and that was how it stayed for the remainder of the race. Two more runners passed me in quick succession and now I was sitting in 7th place. I spent the remainder of the run walking the uphills and jogging the downhills. When I finally hit the asphalt road, I was just happy the run was going to be over. One more runner went buzzing by about a mile from the finish and I finally struggled into the finish area with a time of 3:07:57 (8:35/mile).

So, what can I say about this race? All-in-all it was a very interesting experience for my first long distance trail race. First of all, it was a great way to get in a long training run, which was my original intent. The scenery was breath-taking and more dramatic than anything I’ve seen in the New England area. However, it was also a learning experience. No matter how much of a base I have, I cannot expect to finish strong in a 20+ mile race after averaging about 15 miles per week in the last two weeks. Also, starting out conservatively is even more critical in a trail race with rolling terrain and huge elevation changes. I took the first climb pretty aggressively and paid for it at the end (I could only manage a 9:14/mile going downhill!). Finally, personal hydration strategy is a must for longer trail races. I’m positive I was dehydrated and the ensuing cramp was compounded by my lack of fitness. Nevertheless, I was happy with a top 10 finish and found that I enjoyed the challenge and adventure of trail racing.

Results: 10th out 173, 5th in my division

Dist Split Total Pace
9.7K 54:51 54:51 9:07
9.1K 45:30 1:40:21 8:03
9.1K 45:11 2:25:32 8:00
7.4K 42:25 3:07:57 9:14

Manchester Road Race 2008

2008-11-27T20:08:00.000-08:00

Traditionally the biggest turkey day race in New England and one I wasn’t aware of until Pat Stumbras told me about it and a great tip about getting a preferred start. I was down in Somerset at my mother-in-law’s for Thanksgiving. The drive out was relatively painless and was more scenic then I expected; I left at 7:30 am and was in Manchester by 9am. The was an unexpected abundance of good parking on the side streets east of the start/finish area. I found an empty bathroom on course, dropped the kids off at the pool and then took in the start area scene. Lots of families, huge media set-up at the finish area, and great costumes, particularly the entire family dressed up as the Wizard of Oz (3 kids, dad was the yellow brick road). Once I got past the initial crowd, I took a real slow warm-up jog in reverse direction along the last ¾ miles of the course. Huge American flag draped over the finishing stretch.

I didn’t have huge expectations going into the race. My mileage has been meager since New York and the pace has been easy (nothing faster than 7:15 pace)… just enjoying fall weather and trying to heal up from various nagging injuries. I suspect I’m in decent shape, but definitely not in peak condition. The plan was to try to get close to, or break a 6 min/mile pace. I knew the course was challenging. The first mile is slightly downhill, but the next mile and quarter consists of one long hill locals dub Heartbreak Hill. The next mile is a steep downhill followed by a flat mile, and finally a half-mile gradual downhill to the finish line. The key to this course is not to redline on the first mile, go strong up the hill, try to make up some time on the ensuing downhill, and then try to hold pace to the finish line.

The ironic thing about this race was the effort required in getting to the race (3 hour drive round trip) and the sheer number of participants (20,000+) was more commensurate with a major marathon then a race that didn’t even crack 5 miles. The finish area had a huge media set-up and the energy level from the runners was really high. This was going to be an interesting race. When I finally felt sufficiently warm, I headed back to the car and got into my racing gear. One of the draws of Manchester is they offer a preferred start. Thanks to Pat, I submitted my qualifying time and was slotted into the corral right behind the elite runners. Interestingly, the qualifying times across the various race distances aren’t equivalent. A sub-30 5 mile is much easier than a sub-2:49 marathon. I’d be curious to find out who or how these times are selected.

I quickly spotted Pat in the corral area and chatted about the course. Both of us had not done this race before, and we were both curious to see just how bad the hill would be. We are consistently never more than 20 seconds apart in a race and the faster runner is usually the one who has been doing more miles. In all seriousness, I don’t ever consider beating a 50 year-old by a couple a seconds a victory, but its fun to compete nonetheless. The Flash showed up moments later, held up by long lines at the newly introduced shuttle system. In the time before the starting gun, we tried to pick out familiar faces in the elite crowd.

I didn’t feel particularly springy today so I was curious to see how I would respond. I settled into a solid, but not fast, pace on Main St., and found that I was feeling pretty good. After making the first left turn, I passed the 1st mile marker in a quicker than expected 5:35. Shortly after, I spotted a familiar figure ahead with a very distinctive stride. Could it be the famous Joanie Samuelson? I knew she was doing her first one and pulled up alongside just to confirm. She looked very comfortable and focused. Coincidentally, a brass band was playing the Olympic anthem as we ran by. I didn’t think I would be able to keep up with her and as we got into the meat of heartbreak, she started pulling away. Amazing runner! I started to struggle on the way up the hill and noticed runners were streaming by. Soon Pat pulled up and commented on how I had taken off like a rocket. It sure didn’t feel like it, but now I was really feeling it. The 2nd mile was excruciatingly slow (6:52). The hill was longer than I expected and it felt good to finally make the left turn to begin the descent. As I made the turn running the tangent, some guy actually came up from behind and shoved me in the waist. I felt a bit of runner’s rage and ran ahead to actually cut him off. Probably not worth it, but I thought the guy was really rude. I was going pretty smooth down the hill and trying to hold pace with Pat. I felt pretty recovered by the time the course leveled out and mile 3 was back on pace (5:53).

Shortly after mile 3, my race started to fall apart. My lack of fitness and the downhill running gave me a bad stitch that I contended with for the remainder of the race. I actually felt well enough to hit the rest of the course hard, but the stitch just wouldn’t let me pick up the pace. Mentally, I was fine with cruising the rest of the race, but a small part of me still wished that I could have really competed, especially since I didn’t have any plans to make the trek out for this race in the foreseeable future. I gamely soldiered on. Shortly before the last left turn onto the finishing stretching, I heard a spectator scream “Go Korea,” and my first instinct was to turn around and look for the Korean guy running by, until I realized he was referring to me… funny.

The finishing stretch was actually a lot of fun, a bit reminiscent of Boylston St. The stitch had finally started to subside and I tried to pick off a couple runners on the finishing stretch. My final time was nothing to write home about (28:52 – 6:04), but it was quite an experience being involved in one of the largest and oldest Turkey Day races in the country. Around the finishing area, I heard stories like, “I’ve been doing this race since my Dad took me in 6th grade” or “My dad hardly runs anymore… he’s had bypass surgery, but he still does this race every year.” While I had made the pilgrimage out of sheer serendipity and curiosity, most runners were doing this out of tradition and a desire to build new family memories. Or in the case of Joanie, “I’m looking forward to coming to Manchester because it is one of the few traditional New England road races that I have not attended. I’ve heard that it’s a true runner’s race.”

Splits
5:35.3 164/177
6:51.5 179/181
5:53.3 178/181
6:04.6 179/181
4:27.5 178/183

Results: 163rd overall and 29th in my division.

I also found some low resolution race day coverage of the race. You can see me about 12:30 into video 2. Enjoy!

Big news in American marathoning!

2008-11-18T14:05:00.001-08:00

I'm really psyched about this development! There's been so much speculation about Hancock making a competitive offer that its nice to see it come to fruition.

Hall Running Boston

JOHN HANCOCK FINANCIAL ANNOUNCES

TOP AMERICAN RYAN HALL

TO RUN 2009 BOSTON MARATHON

Olympian and U.S. Trials Champion Ryan Hall seeks American win in Boston

BOSTON, MA
November 18, 2008—In its 24th year as the principal sponsor of the Boston Marathon, John Hancock Financial today announced the signing of Olympic marathoner and American half marathon record holder Ryan Hall for the 113^th running of the race on April 20, 2009.

The fastest American marathoner in 2007 and 2008, Hall has quickly proven himself as one of the best distance runners in the world. He seeks to become the first American winner of the race since Grey Meyer in 1983.

“I am grateful to have the opportunity to compete on the John Hancock elite team at the 2009 Boston Marathon,” said Hall. “The Boston Marathon is the grand daddy of the World Marathon Majors, to win here would mean as much to me as winning any marathon in the world, including the Olympic Games. To win in Boston would show the world that American distance running is indeed back to the days of Salazar, Beardsley, and Rodgers. I hope that I can contribute to bringing American marathoning back to the forefront. There is no better place to do that than Boston. What is done in Boston lives on for all time.”

A 2005 Stanford graduate and three-time All American, Hall quickly found his greatest potential on the roads. In late 2006, he set the American 20K record at the World Championships and in early 2007 broke the 21-year old American half marathon record at the U.S. Championships. His 59:43 win marked the first time an American had ever broken the one-hour barrier.

Hall's American Record Run

Turning to the marathon, Hall made his debut on the London course in 2007 and stayed with the African leaders until the final miles. His 2:08:24 was the fastest debut ever by an American. A few months later at the U.S. Olympic Trials, he set a course record as he cruised to a nearly two-minute lead over one of the best U.S. fields ever assembled.

Continuing his meteoric rise Hall returned to London in advance of the Olympics and ran a remarkable 2:06:17, making him the second fastest American of all time. At the Olympics Hall placed 10th, and although he had some disappointment in that showing, he is young and eager to build on his potential.

Hall after London 08

“Ryan’s Boston Marathon debut will be a highly anticipated performance throughout the sports world,” said Executive Director Guy Morse, of the Boston Athletic Association, which oversees the race. “As an American Olympian recruited by our principal sponsor John Hancock Financial, his commitment to race in Boston, combined with his record of outstanding performances are indicators that he will add great excitement to the 113th Boston Marathon as he challenges some of the world’s best athletes on the world’s most famous course.”

Hall Leading up to the Olympics

Hall is married to professional runner Sara Bei Hall and the couple resides in Mammoth Lakes, California. The Halls are active with charitable groups such as Team World Vision. They worked on a campaign this year, “More Precious than Gold,” that raised nearly a million dollars to help bring clean water wells and irrigation systems to poor communities in Zambia.

New York Marathon Results!

2008-11-02T10:49:00.000-08:00

It was a cold start, smooth middle, and a tough finish. But wow, what an experience, my 1st NYC marathon. Here are the splits:

5094
1:46:05

0:20:30
1:51:37

0:40:42
1:58:12

1:01:07
2:04:48

1:21:22
2:11:32

1:25:46
2:18:17

1:42:05
2:25:10

2:02:25
2:32:05

2:23:37
2:39:20

2:45:13
2:46:13

2:54:35
2:53:05

2:54:35!

More to come later! It's time for a shower and a little R&R

Race Report - New Charles River Run v3.0

2008-06-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

This is a race that I seem to keep coming back to. Now that this is my third consecutive year, I've developed a level of comfort and familiarity with this race that now allows me to race rather than just running a time trial. One of the wrinkles this year is the BAA added this race to the summer race series, which meant that I signed up for race that I could have done for free (doh!). It also meant that the level of competition was going to be a couple notches higher, with most of the guys I train with on Tuesdays toeing the line.

Race day dawned with stifling humidity. I looked out the window and everything was enveloped in a thick layer of fog. We were in for a humid day of racing.....at least the temps were comfortable in the low 60s. I was feeling more nervous than usual. I didn't sleep well two nights ago, but went to bed before midnight last night and felt decent in the morning. My mileage has been really low since Boston. My aerobic fitness has been sufficient for shorter races, but I wasn't sure how I'd handle a longish race. I was hoping to set another course PR and maybe even tickle a time in the low 45's for the 7.5 mile course.

I ran into the BAA gang and ran down to the first bridge, then back to the start in time for the gun. Still feeling nervous, but looser after the warm-up. I was particularly pleased to see Pat at the race, as he has become a great training/racing partner over the last year. After talking over last year's results, we thought a low-6:00 pace would be a good starting point and he would key off of Ephraim, last year's 50-59 age group winner in a sub-45. I started easy and the 1st mile felt really comfortable. Lara went by me and I thought for sure she was doing the 5K. After the 1st underpass, Pat caught up and we paced each other for the remainder of the race. Splits were ridiculous consistent in the middle of the race. I think we pushed each other, which kept the pace consistent. The first 3 miles were all sub-6:10.

I started feeling crappy from about mile 3-4. The pace started to feel like a reach, and thoughts of not being able to hold the pace started creeping into my head. Fortunately, I found a nice groove again once we crossed back to the Cambridge side. We started catching up ground on two guys in blue and also a larger pack with Ben Schersten in the mix. I went fairly hard up the hill at mile 5, but then was passed by Pat on the downhill. This time I made an effort to stay in contact with Pat and was feeling pretty good by the 6 mile marker. I made my move with about 3/4 of mile left to go and surged past the guy in blue that was hanging with us. Probably went to early as I started to feel it just after passing the start line with 1/2 a mile to go. As a result, I was passed again by the guy in blue. Now I was just trying to maintain. Ben's pack was in sight but not catchable with the way I was going. Really struggling by the time I hit the marsh post, but tried to maintain form to the finish line. I was suprised to notch another PR and found some striking symmetry to my improvements: 47:27 to 46:29 to 45:31, all 58 seconds improvements. Means I should be able to run a 44:33 next year....

Type

Distance

Time

Total Time

Pace

Avg HR

Max HR

1 Mi

5:58.5

5:59

157

169

2 Mi

1 Mi

6:08.9

12:07.4

6:09

172

177

3 Mi

1 Mi

6:05.4

18:12.8

6:06

174

176

4 Mi

1 Mi

6:06.7

24:19.5

6:07

176

178

5 Mi

1 Mi

6:04.4

30:23.9

6:05

177

179

6 Mi

1 Mi

6:03.6

36:27.5

6:04

177

179

7 Mi

1 Mi

5:58.4

42:25.9

5:59

178

181

7.5Mi

0.5 Mi

3:05.5

45:31.4

6:11

181

184

Course:	New Charles River Run 7.5m
Distance:	7.5 miles
Duration:	45:31
Pace:	6:05 / mile
Shoe:	ASICS Gel-DS Racer VI (2006)
Weight:	165 lb
Heart Rate:	Average: 174 / Max: 184
Misc:	Quality: 9/10, Effort: 9/10
Field Placement:	19 / 1096 (1.7%)
Age group:	30 – 39
Group Placement:	8 / 182 (4.4%)
Weather:	66° F, Overcast, Humid

What would you trade, to be able to run a sub-3-hour marathon?

2008-05-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

This poll from Runner's world was too funny not to post:

What would you trade, to be able to run a sub-3-hour marathon?

My sense of smell for one year.		2 %
24 hours of my lifespan.		8 %
Television privileges for one month.		50 %
Any human contact for one week.		9 %
All of the above.		21 %
None of the above -- I already CAN run sub-3!		9 %

Total Votes: 2394

Race Report - 2008 Boston Marathon

2008-04-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

I awoke to cloudy skies and absolutely perfect temperatures. I drove to the Herald St. lot to catch the BAA bus, and almost missed my ride waiting for the train of Hopkinton-bound buses at the pike on ramp. The minutes were ticking away and the stream of buses seemed to unabating. With about 10 min left, I had to tempo it to the bus. Not the best way to start the morning. As always, I have to be thankful for the ride out to Hopkinton... there is nothing more crucial than worry-free transportation to the start of a marathon.

For this marathon, I tweaked my pre-race prep a bit. Due to the 10 AM start, I decided to have another 1/2 a powerbar and quite a bit of gatorade, but cut myself off from all liquids 45 min. before start. It's taken me 8 marathons to figure it out, but this was the first one with nary a pit stop! The other change I made was with regard to GU intake. In the past, I've been taking a GU at 10, 14, 18, and 22. This was probably ok at a 7:15 pace, but at a 6:30 pace, 4 miles is cutting it too close. So for Boston, I shifted to 5 mile intervals, with GUs at 6, 11, 16, and 21. With about 25 minutes to go, I headed down to the corrals and tried to find some familiar faces. By the time the gun went off, the sun was already peaking through.

At the marathon expo, I printed out a Boston-specific pace band for a 2:50 goal time and decided to carry it with me. My initial plan was to hold 6:30s for as long as I could. The 1st mile was congested, but the road opened up by the 2nd mile and I was on pace. I ran into my buddy Yuneng who, after spending 2 weeks in Nicaragua on medical missions, was very unsure of his fitness. His last 14 miler was painful.... still, he ended up running a 3:00, which shows how much natural talent this guy has. I wished him good luck and picked it back up to 6:30s. By mile 3, I sensed the sun was getting strong; despite temperatures in the 50s, the sun was making it feel warmer. A 2:50 was going to be a tall order. My HR was already hovering around 163-165, which is a few beats higher than my typical average of 160 at marathon pace. I still felt confident of my fitness and decided to see if I could ride the fine line. It helped that I was pacing along with Gary, since we had had similar race results in the past.

After cruising along through Ashland and Framingham, I started hearing a lot of Lance chatter shortly after the train depot. I knew he was capable of running anywhere from a 2:45-2:50, so I was a little surprised that he would be here. Sure enough, I looked up and saw a cluster of runners around a rugged looking guy with a yellow singlet and sunglasses. I pulled up slowly and for the next 2.5 miles or so, joined up with the Lance train and I have to admit was momentarily starstruck. I wondered if he had a posse with him, but it soon became clear that he was grabbing his own fluids and the groupies were just a bunch of runners either trying to get some camera time, or pacing with Lance with the idea of beating him on the finishing straight in Boylston. This whole scene was a nice distraction, complete with inane questions like, "Lance, what do you like better, running or cycling?" or "Are you going to take GUs every mile like last time?" It was very impressive to see the throngs of Tufts supporters and volunteers revving up for the forthcoming onslaught of Tufts Marathon Challenge runners.

I reached mile 10 feeling fairly comfortable, but I knew the next 5 miles were going to be critical. I usually go through a bad patch between Natick and Newton, most likely due to the cumulative effect of running downhill for 15 miles. I pulled ahead of the Lance & peloton, but I think he slowed down to soak in the Wellesley scream tunnel. ;) As always, the scream tunnel was incredibly energizing... replete with signs (the most creative of which read, "Kiss me, I'm gay!") and eager high-fives. The peloton eventually caught up with me at mile 13 and we went through the half in just over 1:26. Realistically, a 1:24 2nd half was not something I could do, so I chucked my pace band and decided to run the 2nd half by feel. The usual bad patch never materialized, but I slowly lost contact with Lance. After he dropped a split in the low-6:20s at mile 14, I decided it wasn't worth blowing up later, so I eased up a bit. I was counting on making up some ground in the hills. Despite really holding back, mile 16, a notorious downhill stretch, still ended up being my fastest split of the day (6:17).

Now the real work began. Shortly after going over Newton Lower Falls, I pulled up to Pat and did a quick status check with him. He's been a great training partner on long runs, and even though we never really work together during races, he usually finishes about 30 seconds or so ahead of me. He was battling some stiffness, so I surged on through the first hill and felt pretty good cresting the hill at the Newton-Wellesley hospital. I was very focused now, intent on getting over the hills. The first hill felt good and I made it up at a strong pace. In fact, I felt pretty strong through the hills and didn't fade much going over Heartbreak. However, no sign of Lance. I grabbed a cup of gatorade and saw my friend Anuj who was volunteering at the fluid station. I cruised through the downhill and felt like I was in good shape with 5 miles to go.

Pat pulled up even with me during cemetery mile and we chatted for a bit. At around mile 22, I started fatiguing for the first time. Fatigue for me, as it relates to marathons, is this full-body malaise that zaps my will to push the pace. I started losing contact with Pat and was looking forward to running by my cheering section in front of my apartment. Mile 23 was considerably slower, but my cheering section really gave me an energy boost that got me over the next 2 miles. Even so, I was in survival/maintenance mode... no cramps, blisters, or injuries... just tired. I didn't lose much time at mile 24, but lost focus over mile 25; my heart rate indicates the intensity level had dropped. I drew into my remaining energy reserve and pushed on through Kenmore Square and under Mass Ave. I had stopped looking at my watch now, although I guessed I was in the 2:53 range. I made one last push down Boylston St. and came in under 2:54 with a couple seconds to spare.

Overall, I had a great marathon. My half marathon splits were within 90 seconds of each other and I feel like I ran a smart race despite pushing my heart rate above the usual level. This was as near perfect a marathon as I think I can get... perfect temperatures, very little wind, no pit-stops. I'm still not pleased with how I finish out marathons, as I let the pace slide over the last 4 miles in Philly, as well. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has any suggestions besides becoming mentally tougher. But again, we're talking at most a minute. Anytime you set a PR at Boston, it's a beautiful day!

I want to thank everyone who came out to support me, you have no idea how much it helps me knowing there's something to look forward to during the race. As in life, there's nothing better than having a friend to lean on when you're in the depths of marathon solitude. I am especially thankful to all who supported my efforts to raise money for The Sharewood Project. I also want to thank my BAA teammates (Mike, Pat, Josh, John, Ben, and Chris) who have dragged me through some fast runs this winter and really set the stage for a quality performance on Monday.

2016

Chan, Wayne W.

Brookline

USA

Checkpoints	5k	10k	15k	20k	Half	25k	30k	35k	40k
Checkpoints	0:20:18	0:40:39	1:01:14	1:21:47	1:26:10	1:41:54	2:02:34	2:23:43	2:44:35
Finish			Start Time Offset	Pace	Projected Time	Official Time	Overall	Gender	Division
Finish			00:00:40	0:06:38		2:53:47	632	610	463

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg. HR	Max HR
1	6:44	6:44.4	144	163
2	13:08	6:23.6	162	166
3	19:38	6:30.2	162	168
4	26:00	6:21.8	164	169
5	32:43	6:42.7	164	169
6	39:15	6:32.2	163	168
7	45:49	6:34.4	164	167
8	52:27	6:38.0	165	169
9	59:08	6:40.3	164	168
10	1:05:51	6:42.9	164	168
11	1:12:29	6:38.0	164	168
12	1:18:56	6:27.6	162	166
13	1:25:29	6:32.9	163	166
14	1:31:57	6:28.4	165	168
15	1:38:30	6:32.3	165	168
16	1:44:47	6:17.5	163	167
17	1:51:30	6:43.2	166	168
18	1:58:15	6:44.5	165	170
19	2:04:57	6:41.9	164	167
20	2:11:49	6:51.7	163	167
21	2:18:50	7:01.7	165	169
22	2:25:23	6:33.0	163	166
23	2:32:08	6:44.9	163	167
24	2:38:47	6:38.5	162	166
25	2:45:39	6:52.8	160	165
26	2:52:13	6:33.6	163	165
26.2	2:53:47	1:34.0	165	165
Total	2:53:47	6:37.8	163	170

'Twas the night before Boston....

2008-04-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

...and everything seems to be coming together. The weather doesn't get any better than this:

Time

Condition

Feels
Like

Chance
Precip

Dew
Point

Humid.

Wind

10am

Mostly Cloudy
53°F

51°F

20%

38°F

57%

From E 6 mph

11am

Mostly Cloudy
56°F

54°F

20%

38°F

51%

From E 7 mph

12pm

Mostly Cloudy
58°F

57°F

20%

38°F

47%

From E 7 mph

1pm

Mostly Cloudy
59°F

58°F

20%

37°F

44%

From E 8 mph

2pm

Mostly Cloudy
60°F

59°F

20%

37°F

42%

From E 8 mph

3pm

Mostly Cloudy
60°F

59°F

20%

37°F

42%

From E 8 mph

The only thing missing is a 20 mph tailwind! I finally started feeling rested and ready this week. Right now, I'm feeling more eager and excited, as opposed to nervous. For the first time since Austin 2007, I didn't get sick the week leading up to the marathon, so I imagine that's contributed to my zen state. As I look back on my preparation for Boston, it hasn't been as consistent as my build-up to Philadelphia. I've had a couple minor injuries, so my mileage has not been as high (Aug-Oct. versus Jan.-Mar.)
The difference in mileage can largely be attributed to doing fewer base/recovery runs. This time around, I have less tempo mileage, but it has been balanced by longer races that are hard tempo efforts. My long run mileage is there, and I've been more consistent with intervals this time around. I suspect I replaced a lot of Monday/Wednesday runs with cross training, but I can't be sure without looking at my log more closely.
So that brings me to time goals. The drop in mileage did not seem to affect my half marathon times, as I set a 1 minute PR at New Bedford. However, you can't fake fitness in the marathon. My last long run over the Boston course did give me a tremendous amount of confidence, so I'm going to set two fairly ambitious goals:

1. PR, i.e. faster than 2:55:31
2. Get as close to 2:50 as I can.

With those time goals in mind, I'm going to set out at 6:30 pace and do an assessment at the halfway point, and then again as I head into the Newton Hills. Look out for me tomorrow... yellow jersey... #2016.

Good luck to all you Boston hopefuls tomorrow... its definitely PR weather!

The Future of American Men's Marathoning

2008-04-14T21:35:00.001-07:00

Permit me a brief rant. An American-born 25 year-old gives the top marathoners a run for their money at the London Marathon, places 5th with the 15th fastest marathon of all time and barely makes a ripple in American sports media. A 2:06:17 (a ridiculous 4:49/mile!) and not even a 30 second blip on Sportscenter. Lance Armstrong will probably get a 5 minute profile for his Boston appearance and he'll be lucky if he breaks 2:40. Such is the sorry status of distance running greats in our country. I'll make my contribution to spreading his accomplishment:

U.S. Marathoner Has Impressive Showing in London

By LIZ ROBBINS

Published: April 14, 2008

LONDON — Ryan Hall was flying through the London streets Sunday, alongside six of the world’s fastest marathoners.

Skip to next paragraph

Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press

Felipe Trueba/European Pressphoto Agency

It was not enough for him to realize that he belonged with the sport’s elite in the 28th London Marathon; he wanted to go faster.

Hall, a 25-year-old from Southern California, moved to the front of the pack in the 16th mile and asked the two pacesetters from Kenya to go a little faster than 4 minutes 58 seconds a mile.

Martin Lel of Kenya, the defending champion in the London and New York City marathons, said he thought Hall looked too strong and relaxed. He recalled wondering: “Am I not running, or what? I had to ask myself many questions. I think, Now it’s a race.”

The pacesetters promptly sped to a 4:39 pace and left Hall behind. Angry at himself for his overconfidence, Hall briefly stormed back to the pack in the 21st mile. Then the cold rains and wind slowed the pace.

But Lel, a 29-year-old veteran, shrugged off the field’s every move and outkicked 21-year-old Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya in the final 385 yards to finish in front of Buckingham Palace in a course-record 2:05:15. Wanjiru finished nine seconds back.

Abderrahim Goumri, the runner-up to Lel in London and New York last year, finished third in 2:05:30, making this the first time three men finished under 2:06 in a marathon.

Hall finished fifth in 2:06:17, becoming the second-fastest American marathoner. This was only the third career marathon for Hall.

“It’s pretty exciting to run just three marathons to join that kind of company,” said Hall, whose most recent marathon was his victory in November at the United States Olympic Trials in Central Park, where he finished in 2:09:02. He ran 2:08:24 in placing seventh last year in London.

“I thought: ‘This is a classic move. I tell the pacemakers to go faster and they drop me,’ ” Hall added, laughing at his impertinent request.

Still, the race was critical for Hall in his preparation for the Beijing Olympics in August. “I think it was important for me to establish that I could run a fast time,” he said. “I’m definitely within striking distance.”

Khalid Khannouchi, who was born in Morocco and became a United States citizen in 2000, holds the American record of 2:05:38, set here in 2002. That time was the London record until Sunday.

Lel shattered the London record by 23 seconds and lowered his personal best by 1:26.

As a result of a 62:12 first half, which was well below the pace of the world record (2:04:26), six men ran faster than 2:07 — also a marathon first.

Emmanuel Mutai of Kenya finished fourth in 2:06:15 and Deriba Merga of Ethiopia finished 21 seconds behind Hall.

In the women’s race, Irina Mikitenko of Germany, 35, crossed the finish line in 2:24:14 in a downpour. Svetlana Zakharova of Russia finished second in 2:24:39.

The prerace favorite, Gete Wami of Ethiopia, finished third in 2:25:37 despite falling over another runner at the water stop 18.6 miles into the race. She crashed facefirst to the asphalt and banged her right knee.

“This is the first time I’ve ever fallen in a race,” Wami said. “I was happy I was able to come back.”

Lel was also pleased, if not surprised, with his dominance, considering the disruptions in his training since winning the New York City Marathon and watching his country plunge into tribal violence after elections in December. Lel, who lives near Eldoret in the Rift Valley, left his house to train in Namibia.

“It was a great day for me to be a champion,” Lel said.

After Hall and then Mutai dropped from the lead pack in the 23rd mile, Lel, Wanjiru, Goumri and Merga ran four abreast for two miles. Merga was the next to trail off, then Goumri, leaving only Wanjiru and Lel as the first to pass under the banner that said “385 yards to go.”

That is where Lel is best. “In my mind I am going to fight,” he said.

Hall is trying to put himself in position to do that in Beijing, and he has shown remarkable progress while racing in London. In July 2006, he ran the 5,000 meters at a track meet in the Crystal Palace. Slogging in last place, he looked up at the stadium monitor to see Bernard Lagat already winning.

Soon after, Hall and his coach, Terrence Mahon, decided that he would be better suited for distance running.

“I feel like I belong,” Hall said. “Last year it was like, ‘These guys are my heroes and now I’m running with them.’ This time I was more trying to figure out how to win the race. It was fun to mix it up with those guys.”

Another article

An inspirational video featuring Ryan Hall as he prepped for the Olympic Marathon Trials. The guys is so fluid doing a 5:00 mile.

One week to go!

2008-04-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

This was a rough week for me. After a very positive 1st week of tapering, I struggled through this week. Work was particular demanding this week and instead of catching up on rest, I found myself spending a couple of late nights in lab with only the mice to keep me company. Here's the rundown:

Mon: 30 min. basketball, legs pretty sore after
Tue: 5 miles @ 7:38; easy treadmill run
Wed: 7.6 miles @ 7:07, 30 min. core work; gorgeous run by the Mystic lakes
Thu: 10 miles w/ 2 x 3 miles @ 6:31; solid tempo run, just trying to get in some MP work
Fri: off
Sat: 4.5 miles @ 7:44; really tired from lack of sleep, but run felt good, first real spring day
Sun: 10 miles @ 7:37; trail run in Cutler Park.

I think it all started with basketball Monday night. I haven't played in months, but am slowly transitioning into league play after the marathon for a change of pace. I didn't go all out, but felt especially tired that evening. As a result, I passed on intervals Tuesday and just did an easy treadmill run. Wednesday's run felt great. My HR was holding steady, but I was going faster than I thought. I've noticed that this happens during the taper and is probably a sign the body is recovering. Thursday was a solid marathon pace effort that went as expected, but I followed that up with a couple late nights at work. By Saturday, I was bushed and the run felt crappy. Fortunately, I made up my sleep deficit Saturday night. I felt recharged and ready for my run on Sunday. Cutler Park has become my favorite place to run because I get such a sense of solitude and wholeness as I make my way through the woods. It was great way to end a challenging week.

Marathon Sports City Run 5m Report

2008-04-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Following up on a great training week, I really eased into it this week. On Monday, I did a 30 min spin, although I'm not sure it was even fast enough to be called spinning. The past few marathons, my 1st taper week has typically been about a 20% cut in mileage, but I've tried to keep the intensity up. Fortunately, Marathon Sports was sponsoring a 5 miler, so I could take a good shot at my 5 miler PR while still getting in a good training session. Here how the week went:

3/31-4/6
Mon: 30 min. bike, 30 min. core; legs tired, but not totally shot
Tue: 9 miles w/ 2x2000m @ 5:56; 1st one sluggish, 2nd one smoother, easy c/d on the track
Wed: off
Thu: 9.7 mile @ 7:39; nice to be finally back on the trails. Legs feeling recovered
Fri: off
Sat: 5 miles @ 7:28; relaxed base run
Sun: 15 miles including 5 mile race
Total: 38.7 miles

The weather forecast had called for a sunny day in the 50s, but it was overcast and in the low 40s. I just got our new BAA uni's, so it was a good day to test them out. As I still wanted to be in the high 30s for the week, I did an easy 5 mile run to the river and back, and then did a few more just before the race. I lined up with my teammates and was looking forward to taking a large chunk out of my 5 mile PR. Here's my log entry:

"Wasn't sure how my legs would react to racing after the long w/u. Headed out reasonably fast behind some crazy high school kids trying to get some camera time on CCTV before crashing a quarter mile into the race. Tucked in behind brett ely by mile 1. 2nd mile was windy. Broke wind for awhile, then decided to let the 2nd woman and another guy do the work as we rounded by Mobil station. Made the turn into the fresh pond and felt relatively comfortable and moved past the guy who had passed me. Mile 3 was sheltered and it actually felt warm. Worked off of 2nd woman. Passed her shortly after mile 3 and tried to keep Brett and guy in red shirt within striking distance. Starting to feel it by 4 mile split with dirt path uphill section. Made the turn back to the roads and was surprised by the uphill. Brett put in a surge and I couldn't catch her. Tried to reel in the next guy, but legs were dead and weren't responding. Last mile was the slowest. Still a PR by 14 seconds. Based on HR, could have pushed harder, but just couldn't access the upper gear."

So I managed a 29:36 (5:56/mile) under windy conditions, good for 14th overall and 3rd in my division. Here are the results. I wanted to run a fast final mile, but something in my head told me not to drop the hammer. Coming off a hard training week, and with two weeks remaining until Boston, I think a low 2:50s in the marathon is within reach provided race day conditions are ideal... always a crapshoot with New England weather!

Splits:
1 - 5:48 (157/167)
2 - 5:58 (170/173)
3 - 5:51 (174/176)
4 - 5:58 (175/177)
5 - 6:00 (174/176)

Week of Redemption

2008-03-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of Easter, I thought I'd share an injury update and how I've recovered from it. Few are the training cycles during which one doesn't encounter some sort of injury. During the build-up to Philly, I was able to avoid serious injury, although I was battling a sore plantar for a couple weeks. This time around, I have not been as fortunate. As I warned in my last post, I had aggravated a mild injury (tibialis anterior tenosynovitis for you medical jockeys) during the New Bedford half and it was throbbing by the time I got home. I had raced against my better judgment and now I was paying for the PR!

During the following week, I laid a big goose egg in the running department. As you can see from the graph, I haven't done this in over a year.

3/17-23
Mon: 30 min. core work; irritated tendon
Tue: 45 min. stationary bike (14 miles); good workout and no pain.
Thu: 45 min. elliptical; tendon still inflamed.
Sat & Sun: rested.
Total: 0 miles

This injury is a familiar foe, as it popped up just before New Bedford last year. Anyone else ever experienced injury deja vu? Fortunately for me, the tendon stopped protesting by the beginning of this week, just in time for me to get one more quality week in before tapering. Rationally, this rest week was probably a good thing, but I had to convince the irrational demons in my head that my fitness would still be there. Here's a quick summary of the most recent week:

3/24-30
Mon: 1 hr elliptical, 30 min. core work; great workout and no pain
Tue: 11.2 miles, including 2x4x800 @ 5:32/mile, best interval workout in a long time
Wed: 30 min. elliptical, 30 min. core work
Thu: 10.5 miles @ 7:37; energizing trail run, no problems with the tendon
Fri: off
Sat: 6 miles, including 5 @ 6:03; solid tempo effort
Sun: 22.7 miles @ 6:45, didn't plan on doing a 22 miler at marathon pace, but that's what happened. More below.
Total: 50.4 miles

Now you understand why I titled this blog entry "Week of Redemption." After not running for more than a week, I came back with a vengeance and had 3 really solid workouts. I cranked out my best interval workout in 3 months and then followed that with a solid tempo effort at the weekly Fresh Pond 5 Miler. I'd be lying to you if I said I planned on doing 6:03 miles, but after the 1st 2.5 mile loop, I found the pace comfortable and decided to pick it up slightly. Hard to believe I missed my PR by 23 seconds on a tempo run. However, this was only a preview of what was to come on Sunday. I think my log entry will suffice:

Crewed Dead Runner's Society run

Beautiful day for a long run. Lots of other marathoner's doing their long runs. Ran in a well organized pack with BAA guys (Josh, Mike, Pat, Chris, and John). Felt comfortable for the 1st 6 miles. Had to concentrate a little harder from mile 6-10 to keep up, then hit a nice 2nd wind from Natick to the Wellesley downhill. Still holding pace pretty well over the 1st hill after the firehouse, but really cracking on Heartbreak. Only later did I realize it was because the guys were dropping the hammer (some 6:15s i think) over the hills, while I was probably just holding pace. It was nice with all the well-stocked aid cars! Can't believe I was only seconds off Philly marathon pace. Probably should add about 10 minutes for water stops, but still a ridiculously fast run. Didn't feel completely thrashed after the run, but tomorrow will be a light day. Is this a sign of things to come?

Splits:
7:11, 6:59, 6:43, 6:48, 6:54, 6:40, 6:45, 6:41, 6:33, 6:46, 6:54, 6:40, 6:41, 6:52, 6:50, 6:38, 6:42, 6:47, 6:29, 6:15, 6:16, 6:25, 6:44 pace for .7mi

Alright, time to taper, folks!

2008 New Bedford Half Marathon Race Report

2008-03-17T12:21:00.001-07:00

Whenever the New Bedford 1/2 rolls around, it signals the beginning of the spring.... even though the times I've run this race, the conditions have been decidedly un-spring-like. At least the fish chowder is good enough for seconds (although many of my fellow runners detest this post-race tradition). I've run well here in the past, although in the interest of full disclosure, this race has never been a good indicator of future performance at Boston:

2006 - 1:28:54/3:30:07
2007 - 1:26:54/3:12:35
2008 - ?/?

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I had a race strategy and the weather seemed to be holding up, so no reason to make any game time changes. After last week's 23 miler, an old anterior tibialis tendinitis injury flared up, so I spent most of the week diligently cross training and trying to stay off my feet. I went out for short test run Saturday morning and emerged pain-free. I may end up paying for racing on top of an overuse injury...

As the starting time approached, the forecasted snow/rain mix seemed to be staying away, so the conditions were as close to ideal as we were going to get. It was time to take another crack at a half marathon PR! I took a brief warm-up jog with Flash, then squeezed my way to the front of the pack as the national anthem started. I found Pat in the crowd and we decided to work together. We cruised along for the 1st two miles, generally hiding behind packs to stay out of the wind. The first hill was relatively easy and we ran by John Barrett, who seemed to be moving along comfortably. I was also trying to keep GCDavid in sight, as I knew from past races he was slightly faster. We took the 2nd hill starting at mile 3 a little harder, but I still felt under control when we crested the hill and turned into the neighborhood section.

I was starting to feel warm and had untucked my shirt just to get some extra ventilation. Around mile 4, Pat started to pull away ever so slightly, but with the mile 12 hill looming in the back of my mind, I decided I wasn't ready yet to push the pace. He picked up about a 50m advantage on me, and the gap would stay the same for much of the race. I was averaging just under 6:20 at this point and wondering how much the pace would drop on the downhill miles. GCDavid was still rolling along looking very comfortable, and I focused on trying to hang with him. My tibialis tendon started to uncomfortable around mile 6, but it was more pressure than pain and my gait was unaffected, so I decided to press on. I took my GU here and downed it with water. I think I saw a girl with a pet rabbit on a leash, although I could have been hallucinating... Things were feeling pretty smooth when we swung a left on Cove Rd and hit our first unobstructed headwind of the race. I tried to pull up on GCDavid to get some shelter, but the wind made it very difficult to make up ground. I decided to hold off until we hit the peninsula and hope I could use a tailwind to my advantage. As we hit mile 8, I was comforted by the fact miles 5-8 had been in the low 6:00s and I still felt reasonably fresh with the headwinds and finishing hill still to go.

I still can't figure out what happened from mile 8 to 9. My plan was to pull even with GCDavid and work with his pack through the tough portion from mile 9-11. But for whatever reason, I found myself losing focus and running my slowest split of the day for mile 9. This would be my biggest tactical mistake of the day. Now I had the tough job of making ground into a headwind. I felt strong throughout the tough headwind stretch and passed a lot of runners. However, I wasn't making up any ground on GCDavid's group. A BAA runner from his group had gradually dropped back and as I passed him, he decided to hitch up with me. He turned out to be a really disruptive running "partner." At the next water stop, he veered off to get water, then veered back and cut right in front of me. His breathing was pretty ragged, so I couldn't figure out why he didn't tuck in behind me. As he slowed, I moved to pass him, but he responded by surging and cutting me off again. I couldn't believe the lack of teamwork this guy was showing, especially another BAA runner! I moved to pass yet again and this time he sidled up beside and threw a couple light elbows in my direction. This pissed me off and I surged to gap him and was eventually running solo into the wind. Soon, I heard footsteps, but it turned out to be a different runner who was happy to use me as windshield. At the least, the episode had kept me occupied until reaching mile 11. Miles 10 and 11 had been just under 6:20, so I was in good shape for a PR.

I still hadn't made up the gap on GCDavid and I think he started pulling away at this point. I focused on reeling in Pat so that hopefully he was within striking distance on the last finishing stretch. When I hit mile 12 and the finishing hill, I tried to shift to another gear but found that I couldn't. Instead, I could only manage to maintain the same effort level. I felt low on energy, and wasn't sure if it was because I needed another GU, or that I had expended too much energy fighting the headwind. I probably would have been fresher if I had made contact with GCDavid's pack, but now it was a moot point. A PR was still well within reach and it was time to put the finishing touches on the race. As I crested the hill, I stretched out my stride to try to catch a couple more people, and do the same going through the final downhill stretch. Rounding the last right turn leading into the finishing stretch, I spotted Pat and another runner about 50m ahead. I ramped up to a finishing kick and started reeling them in, but ended up about 2 strides short of the next runner and about 8 sec. back from Pat.

So another half marathon and another PR! My half marathon times seem to be much more consistent than my marathon times, which may just point to the unpredictability of the longer race. Here are the race results. Today's effort was good enough for a 1:21:46 (a PR by exactly 1 minute) and 164th place. I have to hand it to fellow BAA runner GCDavid for a strong effort and stronger finish. Overall, I'm ecstatic about the time, although I'll be the first to admit I could benefit from better race strategy in the future. My tibialis anterior is a little tender today, so I'm going to closely monitor it this week. Oh, and the fish chowder was excellent as always.... I needed to exercise some self control to keep from having a third bowl.

Splits:

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg	Max
1	06:19	6:18.6	153	169
2	12:35	6:16.6	166	168
3	18:55	6:19.9	169	172
4	25:16	6:20.7	172	177
5	31:18	6:02.6	169	173
6	37:21	6:02.6	168	171
7	43:28	6:06.8	166	171
8	49:24	5:56.6	170	173
9	55:47	6:23.1	167	170
10	1:02:03	6:15.7	171	173
11	1:08:23	6:19.9	171	173
12	1:14:43	6:20.1	169	171
13	1:21:06	6:22.9	169	172
13.1	1:21:46	0:40.0	168	171

Total	1:21:46	6:14.2	168	177

F**kin' New England Weather!

2008-03-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've noticed since becoming a more serious runner is that I've become acutely aware of the weather, but at the same time less concerned with how it will impact me. I know... it sounds a bit of an oxymoron, but New England winters do make your skin thick. Nonetheless, these last two weeks have really tested my patience. Since I've lived here for 7 years now, I think I've earned the right to a paragraph of reproach.

Here's a summary of the weather over the last two weeks:
Nice, rain, rain then windy, cold, really cold, heavy snow, very windy, nice, heavy rain, windy, nice, rain, heavy rain, windy. We got fall, winter, and spring covered in two weeks, no? As a result, I've gone through my entire running wardrobe. Usually the weather doesn't bother me, but there were three runs in particular that I was not prepared for. I ran home from work one day and grabbed shorts and T thinking it was going to be a nice day, but instead was greeted with a steady cold headwind along the Charles River. The next time was on a cool-down run after intervals at MIT. I had brought my jacket knowing it was raining, but on the way back I was faced with the choice of staying dry and overheating, or staying cool but getting wet. I chose to get wet... no soaked. The last was an out and back run up in Maine... there was some intense wind gusts following the weekend's snowstorm and I spent the out portion running at what felt like 8:00 pace, but in reality was closer to a 9:00 pace. It felt like I was "pissin' into the wind" (as the Irish say), and wind was so loud I could barely hear myself breathing. Anyway, that's enough protesting from me. I've aired my wet laundry....

Weather aside, this has been the most consistent two weeks of this training cycle and I finally put in a 60+ mile week.
Mon: no pool run, 30 min. core work-out
Tue: 10 miles, 3x(800,400,800) @ 5:34, forgot shorts so running with shirtless with sweats; looked ridiculous
Wed: 30 min. pool run, 30 min. core work; 7.7 miles @ 7:27, parts against a bone-chilling headwind
Thu: 6.8 miles @ 7:39; moderate run
Fri: off
Sat: 7.3 miles @ 8:3, easy run in the snow near Sunday River
Sun: 11 miles @ 7:5, longish run in Newry, ME, ridiculous headwind
Total: 42.7 miles

Mon: AM - 30 min. pool run, PM - 5.9 miles @ 7:40 on the treadmill, 30 min. core work
Tue: 11.4 miles including 4x2000m @ 5:50, tough workout, no bounce in the legs
Wed: 7.7 miles @ 7:38, very comfortable run after yesterdays workout
Thu: 10 miles w/ 8 miles @ 6:30, great MP workout, some 6:20s, but slowed with the headwind
Fri: off
Sat: 3.1 miles @ 6:54, cruising on this run, good shake out run in preparation for Sunday's long run.
Sun: 23 miles @ 7:11, long run starting in Hopkinton, fast, tempo from 10-15, then eased back on the hills. Hills were tougher than two weeks ago.
Total - 61 miles

I'm psyched to be back over 60 miles and I believe I'm in great shape for Boston. This next week will be a lighter week as I look ahead to New Bedford. I PRed here last year, and I hope to do it again this year. Its a fair and moderately challenging course. The first 4 miles are hilly, followed by 5 miles of gradual downhill. After mile 9, in the peninsula, we usually get a pretty solid headwind, and the last mile is uphill, with the last 200m or so a straight shot to the finish line. I'd like to start in the 6:20s for the 1st 4 miles, drop down to a 6:00s for the miles 5-9, and then try to hold 6:15 for miles 10-12 before giving it all I have over the last part of the course. This should get me something in the 1:21s. If I'm feeling really good, I may shoot for the 1:20s.

Six weeks to Boston!

Running and Alpine Skiing: a new kind of duathlon?

2008-02-26T14:12:00.000-08:00

After struggling through my last 20 miler, I was primed for an easy cut-back week. Ordinarily, I would have taken this opportunity to get in a race, but the opportunity to go skiing in Lake Tahoe was too much of a temptation to turn down. Last year, I was so focused on qualifying for Boston that I turned down all manner of ski trips so I could focus on getting in quality long runs. This winter, with the sub-3:00 in the bag, the name of the game has been squeezing in medium long runs between ski days and hoping skiing counts as a hard core workout. I have to admit my recovery on the weekend has suffered, but its hard to turn down the sheer hedonism of cruising down a soft powder run. If there was a competition involving running followed by a timed run on a downhill course, I'd sign up for it faster than you can say Haile Gebrselasse.

Here's a quick run-down of the last two weeks (Feb. 11-24)

Mon: 3 miles @ 8:33, easy shake-out run, then 30 min. core work-out
Tue: 10 miles, including 1600m (5:53), 3200m (11:36), 1600m (5:31), really strong workout
Wed: 2 miles @ 8:00, easy treadmill, was going to go longer but ran out of time; core work
Thu: 5 miles @ 7:19; moderate run, surprised a 7:19 comes this easily
Fri: off
Sat: 7.13 miles @ 8:03, easy run up in Tahoe
Sun: 11 miles @ 7:56, longish run along Lake Tahoe

Mon: off, travelling
Tue: 10.6 miles, including 2x4x800m @ 5:33, tough workout, no bounce in the legs
Wed: 6.3 miles @ 7:34, legs feeling much better after Tuesday's intervals
Thu: 10.6 miles w/ 7 miles @ 6:34, great MP workout, building up to 10 miles
Fri: off
Sat: 3.1 miles @ 8:03, fun run in the snow around the reservoir; played some laid-back pick-up basketball for about an hour
Sun: 23 miles @ 7:28, long run starting in Hopkinton, great run and felt strong over the Newton Hills

There were a couple highlights over the last two weeks. I was really surprised by how strong I was in the 1st interval workout (1600, 3200, 1600). I was feeling so good that I dropped a 5:30 on the last interval. This feels like a pace I can hold for a 5K, in which case my 5K time is due for a rewriting. We'll see come summer time. Maybe I'll jump in a 5K two weeks out from Boston....

It goes without saying that Tahoe was amazing. This place will always hold a special place in my heart. I learned to ski here in Kirkwood when I was 7, and our families makes an annual pilgrimmage almost every year. Last year, I celebrated qualifying for Boston by spending a week in Tahoe skiing. This time around, we only managed to squeeze in the long weekend. But this view is always worth the six hour flight. I think I tanned over lunch because it was almost 50 degrees on Saturday.

Finally, I rounded out the last two weeks of training with a strong long run. My running club, periodically organizes long runs and this one in particular, dubbed "Down the Hatch" for obvious reasons, tries to simulate race day. We get bussed out to Hopkinton from Wellesley and then, in a kind of masochistic way, we have to "run home." I had a good group of guys to work with and by the time I got back to my apartment, we had clicked off fairly consistent 7:30s for the entire 23 miles. It was a great denoument to my first 50+ mile week of this training cycle.

Down for the count!

2008-02-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Its been an up and down last two weeks. Two weeks ago, I finally got my mileage back in the high 40s and I was aiming to push into the 50s the following week. I recovered relatively quickly from the hard effort up in Derry. I was expecting to have really sore hamstrings from the poor traction but ended up battling some quad soreness for about two days. In general, I've been feeling run down lately and just low on energy. My running log entries have lately been populated by a lot of "really tired this morning," which is surprising considering I haven't really upped the mileage yet. I've been running the interval workouts a bit harder than usual, but I don't know if that's the whole story.

Here's a summary of my workouts from the last two weeks (1/28-2/10)

Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, legs tired, so skipped the core workout
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 3x2000m intervals @ 5:54; ran out of fuel on the c/d jog
Wed: AM - 4.9 miles @ 7:50 pace, easy run, legs feeling better; PM - 30 min. core work
Thu: 9 miles @ 7:29, moderate run on a hilly course, good energy today
Fri: off
Sat: 6 mile @ 11:09, easy trail recovery run
Sun: 17.5 miles @ 7:43, tempo & hill run along the Boston course, tough workout but good variety of paces and terrain
Total: 48.2 miles

Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, 30 min. core workout; legs beat up from Sunday's run
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 4x1600m @ 5:43, strange workout, felt some heart flutter
Wed-Fri: out with a bad reaction to a vaccine, felt pretty lousy
Sat: 5.2 miles @ 7:15, 1st run after lay-off, legs feel good and run felt easy.
Sun: 21 miles @ 7:33, tough long run, ran with some faster guys at a comfortable pace, but lack of mileage showed in the closing miles.
Total: 36.4 miles

The first long run is one my favorite BAA scheduled workouts. It consists of an easy 4 mile warm-up, 2 mile tempo up the last two Newton Hills on the Boston course, then we turn back and do 6 repeats up Heartbreak before finishing up with a long cool-down. This workout goes by quickly, and after you go up Heartbreak hard 7 times, it just doesn't seem so bad anymore. I managed to hold a 6:15 pace through the tempo portion, which I was frankly surprised I could hold.

Last week started off well on Monday. Then Tuesday, I went for my annual physical and found I needed to get a TDaP (Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis) booster. I proceeded with the Tuesday evening speed workout and found in the middle two mile repeats, my HR was shooting up over 200 and I could feel my legs going into oxygen debt because of the lack of circulation. This was a little worrisome, but it went away during the last interval. I was feeling particularly gassed during my cool-down jog and my left shoulder (injection site) was really starting to hurt. By Wednesday morning, I felt like I had the flu minus the cough and runny nose. The vaccine safety sheet outlines the symptoms, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad! I was bedridden on Wednesday, felt only marginally better on Thursday, and really didn't feel great until Saturday. At least I don't have to deal with this again for another 10 years.

I was a little concerned with my condition going into Sunday's long run. I was meeting up with some guys from my running club and we were planning on doing about 20 miles. These guys are about 25-30 seconds per mile faster than I am, but under normal conditions I would be up for the challenge. However, given the week that I had, I wasn't sure how my body was going to handle it. I cruised through the 1st 14 miles pretty comfortably, but my lack of fitness started to catch up with me over the last 4 miles and for the 1st time in awhile, I found myself struggling to finish a long run. On the positive side, I was still holding a ~7:30 pace. A couple caveats also help me feel less discouraged: I was coming off sick week, my mileage was low, and I haven't done a 20 miler since Philly.

Gotta go catch up on some rest! Lets hope the next couple weeks are better.

Boston Prep 16 Miler Race Report - 2008 Edition

2008-01-28T14:42:00.000-08:00

This race will always have a special place in my heart as it was led to my 1st official post of this blog. Its shocking to think about how much running I've done since. But.... back to this week. Here's the week in a nutshell (1/21-27):
Mon: did nothing.
Tue: 8 miles @ 7:25; crappy treadmill run, avg. HR was 154, almost my marathon HR
Wed: 30 min. pool run; skipped the usual core work thanks to my sore legs
Thu: 9.1 miles @ 8:05 including 5 Summit Ave. Hill repeats; legs still sore
Fri: off - YES!
Sat: 4.6 miles @ 7:23; finally recovering after two good nights of sleep, first easy run in a week
Sun: 18 miles; Boston Prep 16 miler
Total: 39.7 miles

After putting my legs through the ringer last weekend with a hilly 10 mile run sandwiched between two days of skiing, I was absolutely bushed on Monday. I'm still puzzled as to why this took so much out of me because I wasn't skiing that hard and the run wasn't that long. I'm going to chalk it up to synergistic fatigue: not skiing for a year + ridiculously hilly run + a few runs on the slalom race course = what I felt like the day after my first marathon. The rest of the week was a struggle: Tuesday's easy treadmill run sent my HR skyrocketing and the pull of a group workout with Flash convinced me to do a hill workout I probably shouldn't have done. My legs didn't really start turning the corner until Saturday... it was the first time in a week that a run had felt effortless.

Race Report
So... keeping the lousy week I had in mind, I was feeling a little trepidation going into this race. My weekly mileage totals have been pretty pedestrian over the last two months. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say its in the low 30s. Don't get me wrong, this was mostly by design. However, it made me wonder if my aerobic engine could handle a long race. On the positive side, I have been doing a lot of hill work lately; no hill could be as daunting as the hill I ran up in Jackson, NH. I had a couple goals going into Boston Prep this year. I ran this this race at a respectable 7:00 pace last year, so at the minimum, I wanted to get a PR. This marks the beginning of the ramp up towards Boston, so it would give me a pretty good indication what kind of condition I'm in.

Sunday morning arrived and I picked up my buddy Chris and headed up to Derry. There was a sprinkling of snow on the ground from last night, but the weather was clear until we hit the NH border. By the time we arrived in Derry, there was a good inch of fresh powder on the roads. They moved the overflow lot this year to a school lot about a mile from the start line, so we were left with the choice of A) shiver in line for the shuttle bus and hope we can catch the next bus or B)jog it to the start line. We were stupidly optimistic that they would allow standing passengers, but when the bus filled up, we took off at a slow trot to the school. The temps were a good deal warmer than the ripping cold of last year, but I could tell traction was going to be an issue.

When we arrived at the gymnasium, the place was buzzing with pre-race excitement. I tested the temperature outside and decided to go with a short sleeve under a long sleeve zip-top. No race jersey for me today; just didn't feel like being a moving target! I gave Chris a brief overview of the course and told him to save his energy for the long hill starting at mile 10.5. He muttered something about not having run 16 miles in awhile and getting kicked of the course for running too slow. Just like last year, the race director announced a 15 minute delay and taking a cue from last year's mistake, I made one more pit stop before heading to the start line.

At the start line, there was a lot of chatter about the snow and I wondered how much it was going to affect me. This winter has given me ample opportunity to run in the snow, but running 7:30s in the snow seems very different from 6:40s. I spotted Bill "Mucci" at the front, and when the gun went off, I caught up with him to see what he was planning on running, to which he replied, "as fast as I can." The initial sprint caused my HR to rocket up, but I soon settled back into a more comfortable rhythm and tried to hold my HR around 165. Indeed, the traction was pretty lousy and the race turned into something reminiscent of a cross-country ski race. Runners were in single file, either following another runner or a fresh tire tread. Passing was done sparingly and judiciously. I overheard another runner saying that these roads were probably going to be the best we see all day. Great... the downhills are going to be interesting!

The race unfolded much like last year's race. I missed the 1st mile marker, hit the two mile mark right around 14:00, and then blazed through the 3rd mile. I began to notice that although the traction was pretty iffy, my effort level felt about right. By mile 5 I had settled in behind a solid looking runner dressed in all black and for the first time during the race, felt comfortable. I cruised along for the next 3 miles... well cruising as best as I could. Sometimes I would follow a tire tread and it would abruptly end, forcing me into a mad scramble for the next bit of clear road. I felt like I was running in place at some points. Between the rolling hills and slush, there was no semblance of rhythm to be found. On the positive side, all the aid stations were carrying water in its liquid form, so there was no crunchiness standing in the way of getting well hydrated.

At mile 8, I took a gel and looked ahead for the water station preceding the 1st steep hill of the course. I was running solo now, having left my trusty pacer. As I made the sharp left turn and onto the steeper gradient, I saw a couple runners behind me that were starting to gain ground. I focused on maintaining a good cadence up the hill and then cruised on the downhill, concentrating on taking short smooth strides so I could stay in balance. I could hear two guys behind me chatting the whole way up the hill and wondered why the heck they weren't gassed going up the hill. This time around, I was actually surprised by the hill at mile 10.5 as it was steeper than I remembered. I could see two guys ahead of me struggling up the final hill and thought I was gaining on them. However, I was also passed by the chatty fellow at the crest of the final hill. He was tall and his green jacket was completely soaked with a mix of snow and sweat. His stride was more of a lope; I thought I had a long stride but this guy had me by about a foot. This is when the race started to get interesting.

Last year I decided to shut it down at mile 12 and just cruise in, but after catching my breath, I took physical inventory and realized I was feeling pretty decent. I slugged another gel, grabbed some water at the next aid station and seeing the first flat section of the race, decided to push it. I was in rhythm and reeling in the chatty green giant. I gapped him, but he caught me again about mile later. We passed the half marathon timing mat in just under 1:30. I could sense him trying to pass, but knowing the conditions weren't ideal for passing, I kept picking up the pace just enough to force him to stay behind. This obviously forced me to run hard, but I was feeling ok and it helped that we were pulling in the two runners in front of us. At around 14.5 miles, shortly after the hard left on Cemetery Rd., chatty green giant surged hard and I just didn't respond. I'm not sure what I was thinking at this point, but I was probably saving it for the last mile or so. Over the next steep downhill I tried to stay within striking distance and passed another struggling runner. With about a mile to go, I picked it up and saw that chatty green giant was slowing, which gave me enough of a boost to pass him with 800m to go. I made one last surge on the last uphill to catch GCDavid, but I ran out of real estate. Wow... a 1:48!

So, I managed to sneak into the top 30 with a 29th place finish. Here are results. I can't believe I ran 4 minutes faster than last year in such crappy race conditions.

Kicking off 2008!

2008-01-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

Wow! I have no idea where January went. As of New Year's Eve, I was still battling through some minor left knee pain but I'm happy to report that it has subsided. I don't know if it was residual pain from Philly or minor trauma from playing basketball, but the lower relative mileage seems to have done the trick and I'm running pain free again. The other hiccup in my training has been the IT catastrophe with regards to coolrunning.com's running log transition to active trainer. I didn't have the patience to see if Active would program in all the original features from coolrunning, so I've followed some of the running log refugees over to running2win.com. The interface is not as smooth as coolrunning's, but I'm happy that my running log has found a new home.

Here's a summary of my workouts from the last two weeks (1/7-20)

Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, then 30 min. core workout.
Tue: 9.7 miles, including 1 mile (5:52), 2 mile (11:45), 1 mile (5:40) interval workout
Wed: 30 min. on the elliptical followed by 30 min. core work
Thu: 8.2 miles @ 7:38, running home from work
Fri: off
Sat: 5 mile @ 11:48, easy trail recovery run with Chris, slowed by darkness and poor footing
Sun: 16.2 miles @ 7:28, great long run along the Boston course, was pushed by some other runners
Total: 39.1 miles

Mon: 30 min. pool run & 30 min. core work
Tue: 10.5 miles, including 3 x (800, 400, 800) @ 5:25; started conservatively, but then really hammered the last set, including 2:32 final 800.
Wed: 30 min. pool run/swim & 30 min. core work; tough swim, don't know how triathletes do it
Thu: 6.1 miles, including Khoury's 4.13 in 25:36 (6:11 mile), 2nd place overall!
Fri: off
Sat: skiing in Sunday River
Sun: 9.7 mile @ 8:27, ridiculously hilly route, 800 ft elevation gain in 2 miles!
Total: 26.3 miles

I'm pretty happy with my fitness level at this point, despite not having much of a base over the last 6 weeks or so. I have been surprised by my last two interval workouts, especially with how I've been able to gradually pick up the pace over the course of the workout and finish at a very fast pace. Right now, I'm just trying to establish a good rhythm during the intervals, and this strategy seems to be working as opposed to trying to hit a certain time.

The 16 miler last Sunday was also a pleasant surprise. I met up with the Tufts President's Marathon Challenge (PMC) team for the long run and hooked up with two guys that were planning on running a 7-8 minute pace. I said I was aiming for around a 7:30 and they seemed happy to oblige. Only later did I find out that they had marathon PRs of 3:36 & 3:40. Now I hope my next comment doesn't come off as elitist, because I used to make this mistake too, but these guys had no business running that fast on a long run. I wanted to say something to them, but I didn't know how to put it with out coming off harsh, so I just kept the conversation cordial. To be honest, it was nice having the company. One guy even put on a surge shortly after Coolidge Corner on the way back to Boston, but hit the wall shortly after that. The other guy was completely gassed at the end. In fact, he was a faithful follower of the Galloway run/walk regimen, and this was his first continuous effort on a long run. I really have to applaud their effort, because I don't think I could do my marathon pace for a full 16 miles. I just hope these guys aren't putting in this effort level every weekend.

Finally, the last highlight I'd like to report was a spontaneous decision to use the Khoury's 4.13 as a tempo run. This is a fun little neighborhood weekly race put on by the SRR folks and its a great way to get in a hilly tempo run with company. I first did this run about 3 years ago and I had difficulties maintaining a 7 min. mile, so it would be interesting see my progress. I met up with my buddy Anuj from Boston Fit and we did short warm-up jog. At the start, no one seemed to want to take the lead, so shortly after hitting the first and only major hill, I made a move to the front. I was alone until cresting the hill, when a tallish runner with a very smooth stride just blew by me. It occurred to me on the downhill that this might Joe O'Leary, the local speedster and clearly a different class of runner. I tried to stay within striking distance, mostly just so I wouldn't get lost on the dark streets. I found the pace was comfortably hard, not race pace, but I wasn't mentally committed to challenge Joe. The remainder of the "race" was without drama; I pulled into the finish line 17 seconds behind Joe and felt pretty good. Its another welcome sign that a 6:11 mile is tempo pace: HR numbers were 165/179. Here are the results... settling for a 2nd again behind another clearly superior run!

I'm really looking forward to this week with a solid test effort coming up at Boston Prep. It will also mark the one year anniversary of this blog, since my first entry was a race report from last year's Boston Prep 16. Very cool! I'm still trying to settle on a race strategy, but I'm thinking right now I'm going to start at a 6:45-6:50 pace and hold that until the hill at mile 12, and then see what I have left. This is definitely not a course that you start aggressively on.

Plan for next week
Mon: off
Tue: 8 miles, normal training run
Wed: 30 min pool run & 30 min. core work
Thu: 10 miles, training run with some hills
Fri: off
Sat: 5-6 miles easy
Sun: 18 miles, including 16 for the Boston Prep 16 miler
Total: 40-42 miles

2007: A golden year of running!

2008-01-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

December has absolutely flown by, and I don't have a blog entry to show for it. So, here goes my 2007 year in review.

After an up and down year in 2006 that started with my first marathon in Miami and ended with a complete meltdown at the 2006 Bay State Marathon, there was lots of room for improvement. I spent much of 2006 battling injuries, so my primary goal in 2007 was to stay healthy. I never actually wrote down my goals for 2007, but here's what I can remember from the start of the year:

1. Stay healthy, avoiding serious injuries
2. Run 2000+ miles
3. Qualify for the Boston Marathon, i.e. a 3:10 marathon
4. Qualify for the New York Marathon = a sub 1:23 half-marathon
5. Run a sub-18:00 in the 5K
6. Develop and maintain core strength

I think the biggest motivator for me this year was with the inspiration of the Flash and Ryan, I started up a weblog and have largely stuck to putting in an entry every week. I don't know if its the cathartic act of writing, or sharing training tips, or just developing community with other runners, but somehow its bootstrapped me towards becoming a better runner. So how did I do with my goals?

1. Stay healthy, avoiding serious injuries
This was a success. I didn't miss time due any serious injuries, although there were some nagging ones here and there. I remember a strange tibialis tendinitis from doing a long run in new shoes that lasted for a week. The only chronic one was some minor plantar fascitis in my right foot that I've managed pretty well, even through the Philly Marathon. I think staying injury-free, more than any training regimen, has directly contributed to my improved performance this year. Its allowed me to develop and maintain a good aerobic base throughout the year.

2. Run 2000+ miles
1974, so I fell 26 miles short on this goal, largely because I turned into a slug during the month of December and only managed about 100 miles for the month. I can't really complain because I needed the downtime after Philly to rest and recharge.

3. Qualify for the Boston Marathon, i.e. a 3:10 marathon
Austin Marathon Race Report, 'nuff said.

4. Qualify for the New York Marathon = a sub 1:23 half-marathon
To be fair, this didn't become a realistic goal until I started putting together some unexpectedly fast times during the summer racing circuit. And, if you read my race report, if it wasn't for some timely in-race motivation from my friend Ramses, I doubt I would have made the time goal. Still, this puts me in good position to run the New York Marathon in 2008, provided they don't tighten their qualifying standards.

5. Run a sub-18:00 in the 5K
My only attempt at a 5K this year was at the Lynnfield 5K on July 4th. Its probably not the best time of the year to try to set a PR, but I took a stab at it anyway. Funny thing is I just noticed I never entered a blog entry for this race. Long story short, I failed to check my watch over the last mile and started my kick too late. So, I managed a 18:02, a measly 3 seconds short of my goal.

6. Develop and maintain core strength
After spending the latter half of 2006 battling an ITB injury, I was introduced by Flash to Peter Stone, who did an incredible PT job. I came out of the treatment session bolstered with some new core exercises and they have now become an integral part of my training regimen. I'm convinced this allowed me to achieve goal #1, so maybe this should have been listed as goal #1A.

OK... 4 out of 6 a'int bad!

Races
Overall, this has been a fantastic year of running, which saw me set new PRs at distances from 5K up to the Marathon. Here's a chronological summary:

Boston Prep 16 Miler - 1/21/07 - 1:52:27
Austin Marathon - 2/18/07 - 3:09:08
New Bedford Half Marathon - 3/19/07 - 1:26:54
Boston Marathon - 4/16/07 - 3:12:36
James Joyce Ramble 10K - 4/29/07 - 38:41
Boston's Run to Remember HM - 5/27/07 - 1:27:00
New Charles River Run - 6/24/07 - 46:29
Lynnfield Athletic Assn 5K - 7/4/07 - 18:02
Marathon Sports 5 Miler - 7/12/07 - 29:50
Yankee Homecoming 10 Miles - 7/31/07 - 1:04:16
BAA Half Marathon - 10/7/07 - 1:22:46
Hartford Marathon - 10/13/07 - 3:41:52
Boston Firefighters 10K - 10/21/07 - 36:58
Philadelphia Marathon - 11/18/07 - 2:55:31
Boston University Mini-meet Mile - 12/29/07 - 4:59.16

Overall impressions
If there's one major transformation I've noticed during 2007, its that running for me has evolved from just a time goal into something that I truly enjoy. At the beginning of 2007, I was absolutely obsessed with qualifying for Boston. It may have begun to change while I was running Boston this year. It may have also been all the new forest trails I discovered in and around Brookline and Newton. It could also have been the geographic variety of all my runs: I was blessed with the opportunity to run in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, Alaska, New Hampshire, Virginia, Vermont, as well as in other countries (South Korea, Japan, Canada, and The Bahamas). There wasn't a running epiphany, but at some point I started to enjoy my runs for just the feeling of running. Its a feeling I hope to carry through into 2008. More on my goals for 2008 in my next entry! I look forward to hearing how your 2007 went as well.

Last week of 2007

2007-12-31T16:11:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly starting to ramp up my mileage and with my long run this weekend, I'm officially back up in the 40s. I've been nursing some minor left knee pain which I think cropped after a pick-up game of basketball, but the pain wasn't too bad after Sunday's run and I think I'll take it easy next week to really quash it. Here's how this week went:

Mon: 5 miles @ 7:37, easy run except for a small stretch being chased by a dog
Tue: 8.6 miles @ 7:39, nice Christmas morning run
Wed: 25 min. pool run followed by 30 min. of core work.
Thu: 7.2 miles @ 7:24, fartlek run, some sections at a 6:00 pace
Fri: off
Sat: ~5 miles, including an indoor mile race
Sun: 16.1 miles @ 7:38, tough long run along the Boston course, especially after indoor race Saturday.
Total: 41.9 miles

The highlight was the indoor mile I raced on Saturday, courtesy of some encouragement from Flash. Just to give you a little background, the mile was my first love in high school and early on I had grandiose dreams of running the mile for Stanford. I didn't ever reach those lofty heights, but a 4:27 in high school wasn't too shabby. I haven't run a competitive mile since then, so this was going to be an interesting race on so many levels. I'm not exactly in the greatest shape either, having averaged maybe 20-25 miles in the last month. I had no idea what I could run, so I entered a seed time 5:00 flat. This put me as the 1st seed in section 6... I didn't like having the 1st seed, but I felt pretty relaxed at the start. Wow, its so strange being in a track race again. I knew I couldn't just settle into a pace and cruise, especially with the tight corners indoors. I would also have to dose my efforts. Generally in short races, you need to be in striking distance at the 3/4 point (lap 6 out 8), otherwise you have no chance. However, if you expend all your energy just getting into position, you'll have nothing left for the final kick. Clearly too much to keep track.... this was going to be interesting.

The gun went off and I put in just enough effort to keep my position through the 1st turn. I probably positioned myself too close to the inside and found myself boxed in by beginning of the 2nd lap. Soon, I was getting passed on the outside and knew I had to make a move to preserve my position. Fortunately, I was getting some good race direction from the Flash, who kept encouraging me to maintain my position. I remember passing through the halfway point at around 2:34 and in 6-7th place. Breathing was starting to get labored, but my legs felt reasonably good. I made a decisive move at lap 5, swinging into lane 2 so I could get myself into 4th or 5th place. I knew it wasn't the most efficient move, but I just couldn't afford to get boxed in. By the end of lap 6, I was in 5th place but really starting to feel it. I put in a burst to get back in contact with 3rd place and then tried to drop the hammer on the bell lap. I passed the third place runner and was gaining on the top two guys but just ran out of track. I had probably made my move to late. Here are the results. There were some serious elite runners in the mix in section 1! I still can't believe I broke 5:00 and I think with a little better race tactics, I can see myself getting down to the high 4:40s. This was a real cool experience and I've forgotten how much race strategy goes into track racing. I think I'll revisit this race a couple more times this winter just to add some spice to the training.

Off to NYC for the New Year's festivities!

Philadelphia Marathon Race Report 2007 - Chasing a Sub Three

2007-11-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Things that usually take me 3 hours to do:

1. Drive from Boston to New York City
2. A load of laundry, washed, dried, and folded
3. Average length of a meal at French Laundry
4. Roasting a 9 pound leg of lamb
5. Run a marathon?

Since my goal is the break the elusive 3 hour mark in the marathon, I thought it would be fun to see what other events would take about the same time. As much as I hate to admit it, I’d rather be running 6:40 miles for 3 hours than doing any of these other things, although a three hour long meal at French Laundry does come a close second.

The final week
Hard to believe this day is finally here. This sub-3 hour goal has been my singular motivation since early summer. Unlike any other race, running a quality marathon requires the convergence of many positive factors (consistent training, cool weather, good health, and a fair course), factors that are often out of control. As a result, this pre-marathon build-up is and has felt long. I have felt ready for this marathon for about a month and hearing others’ success stories has only added to my anxiety. I know this all sounds fatalistic, but my training has gone so well over the last 3 months that I’ve been waiting for the house of cards to come down.

And come down it did… I had a restless night of sleep Monday and woke up feeling a little off. Tuesday morning, I went for my usual dress rehearsal workout around the Emerald Necklace, a 2 x 1.75 mile intervals at marathon pace. The workout went smoothly, but I wasn’t feeling better afterwards and by the evening, I knew I was coming down with a cold. This new wrinkle in my taper triggered all sorts of strange anxiety dreams. I had the standard ones of oversleeping the start gun or running a really slow race intertwined with bizarre ones of doing the race in clear molasses and falling asleep after the half marathon point and waking up the next morning sprawled along the Schuykill River. Clearly the virus was getting in my head, literally and figuratively. My sole consolation was that prior to my first marathon in Miami, I had gotten sick even closer to the marathon and run fine. The next two days found me furiously downing OJ and cooking up a large batch of chicken soup fortified with ginger, curry, ginseng, garlic, and squash (basically anything that was remotely antiviral). I took Wednesday off and by Thursday morning, I was feeling well enough for a short run. My legs were still feeling achy and stiff; I wasn’t sure if it was the taper, the anxiety, or residual from the cold.

The build-up
And so… Friday dawned full of anxiety. The cold had largely cleared, but I was still achy and very nervous. My wife came to pick me up and then we headed out to pick up my friend Chris, who was doing his 1^st ever marathon. He had come down with something on Monday, and I was trying to pump him up with my experience from Miami. We loaded up on carbs at Baja Betty’s and soon we were cruising down the Mass Turnpike. Within 20 minutes, Chris was snoring away in the backseat and we settled in for the 5 hour drive. After a brief pit stop in Jersey, we made it down to my friends place in Philly a shade over 5 hours. After seeing “Rent” the movie last weekend, we had the soundtrack playing on the ride down. “No Day but Today” became my running anthem for the weekend. Not an eventful car ride, but at least I was feeling less anxious.

We all slept in Saturday morning. I was up at 9AM and feeling antsy, but I tried to zone out and relax. After awhile, the anticipation got the better of me and got up to get a weather update. The temperatures looked good, but there was something called a “clipper system” moving in that might drop some rain Sunday morning. Great… sounds like a repeat of Boston '07. I roused the troops and we drove to check out the parking garage for tomorrow morning, as well as to check out the last 4 miles of the marathon route. This has become another pre-marathon ritual of mine; the peace of mind from knowing the topography of the last four miles is priceless. We drove from the Museum of Art along Kelly Dr. to Falls Bridge. From there, my wife drove back to the museum and I set off along with Chris on foot. It was a brisk, chilly morning and it felt good to get the legs moving. I thought I was moving at a sub-8 pace, but my heart rate was in the mid-150s. It was probably pre-race nerves, but again the high heart rate was getting me a little concerned. After doing some strides and light stretching, we made our way to the nearest Bonte Waffles. If you have never tried an authentic Belgian waffle, do yourself a favor and try one… the experience is indescribable. I had 3…. so good!

Now comes the part that still stresses me out. Since it’s a long rant, I’ve included it in a separate blog entry, entitled Philly Marathon review. Check it after you read this, as its kind of a spoiler. It starts from when we left for the expo up at the Licouras Center. In total, we spent about 2 hours to pick up our numbers, so we found other ways to entertain ourselves (see left). In a nutshell, the race organization up to the starting gun left much to be desired. They even skipped the national anthem… how can you start a major sports event without the national anthem?!?! My running theory is that the race organizers were operating without a major corporate sponsor and were hamstrung by the lack of funds. The only redeeming moment was we got to see Candeo and her husband. Kudos to her for finishing her first half marathon…no trivial feat for someone who never thought of herself as a runner! After some much needed down time at my friend’s apartment, we had dinner at Branzino’s… fantastic gnocchi, but the sauce was a bit salty for my taste.

Race Day
I was up at 3:30 and spent the next hour and half trying to get back to sleep. I remembered the same thing happened at Austin, so I wasn’t too concerned with the lack of sleep. I plopped a couple instant waffles in the microwave and washed them down with some Pedialyte, my new hydration liquid of choice. We left the apartment at 5:40 and were parked and walking towards the start line a bit before six. It was cool and cloudy, but fortunately, the rain hadn’t started. Accuweather.com was calling for cloudy skies and light showers starting at 9AM. One of the lasting images I have of the marathon was the pre-dawn walk up the Ben Franklin Parkway with the Museum of Art in the background. Too bad I didn’t have a camera. When we arrived at Eakins oval, we found massive lines for the port-a-potties, so we got in line right away. If I had known we were going to be waiting for 35 minutes, I would have looked for alternative means of relieving myself. But hindsight notwithstanding, we chatted in line. I spent most of the time debating my choice in clothing. I had run in Boston during the Nor’easter with a long sleeve and had been on the warm side. However, I feared the feeling of being rain-soaked and decided to leave the long-sleeve shirt on. It had a long neck zip, so I had some temperature control. We didn’t get out of the lines until 6:50, so from there it was a mad rush to the start line.

As I made my way to the start line, I mulled my race strategy. My time goals again came in threes. At a minimum, I wanted to go sub-3, which I thought was doable even though I had gotten sick. A more reasonable goal was to shoot for a 2:55; its hard to argue with the symmetry of running 6:40 miles, or 20 minutes every 3 miles. No matter how low my blood sugar went, I could still wrap my brain around these times. Finally, my reach goal was a 2:53, predicted off my sub-37 10K time. This would require everything to go perfectly, but with my untimely cold and rainy conditions ahead, a 2:53 would probably have to wait another day. I decided to see how long I could hold 6:40 miles.

Miles 0-7
I squeezed into the front of the pack and spent the next 10-15 minutes watching the elites warm-up. I even took a loosen-up jog just to see what it feels like. I was waiting to get booted from the area, but it never happened. Meanwhile, the PA guy was still rambling away. He mentioned something about the delayed start because they were still towing away cars that were illegally parked on the course. What a fiasco. Next thing I knew, he was counting down to the start in English, French, German, and Spanish. Where was the national anthem? I settled into a comfortable pace. About 200m in, I heard my name and turned around to see Brian from my running club. We had talked about running together, but from what he was saying, it sounded like he wanted to match wits with a friend further ahead. We stayed together for about mile and a half, but soon eased back as I realized the pace was getting too fast. As we made the turn onto Columbus Blvd, I hit my groove and my legs were feeling pretty comfortable… looks like I had a dodged a bullet with the cold! I hit mile 3 at 19:43, ~15 seconds ahead of pace. At this point, a guy introduced himself to me as a brother of a member of my running club. He had run a 2:54 at Columbus and was looking to go sub-2:50. We ran together through downtown Philly. I don’t remember much from this part of the course as I was chatting with Brian most of the way. The crowds were enthusiastic despite the weather. We also ran by Iron Chef Morimoto’s restaurant, which brought back fond memories from my good friend’s wedding reception. I hit mile 6 in 39:50. I had pulled back a bit at mile 4, so I was back on pace. The course continued down Chestnut St., across the Schuykill, and into Drexel territory.

Miles 7-14
I was mentally preparing for the hills ahead as we made the right turn on 34^th St. and on up the first real hill of the course. It was a gradual climb, but I was beginning to lose contact with Brian. By the time we crested the hill, he had gapped me by about 10m. I let him go as I was hoping to have some gas in the tank at the end. He ended up with a tremendous time of 2:47. The downhill on the other side was much steeper and I ended up running one of three 6:27’s of the day. My 9 mile split was a little fast (59:35), but not surprising given the steep downhill, but I knew the next hill was going to cut into the time cushion. The next hill was steeper and comprised much of mile 10. Nothing too bad after training on the hills around Brookline and Newton. I took my 1^st GU. Shortly after mile 10, I saw Brian emerge from a road side port-a-potty. He said he felt much lighter, and we gave each other updates over the next mile. I lost him again shortly after mile 11 following the steep descent onto MLK Drive. Guess he was still on a mission… As I was cruising along MLK Drive, I saw the most shocking scene of the race. A tall lanky runner in a yellow race bib had veered off towards the bushes, dropped trow, and proceeded to moon everyone as he took a dump. Somebody mumbled the predictable line, “when you gotta go… you gotta go.” Still, it didn’t really lessen the shock and humor of the situation. It may also have inadvertently triggered something in me because I battled the runner’s trots for the next 6 miles. Mile 12 split was 1:19:50, perfect! I hit a pretty nice groove on West River Dr. coming back towards the Art Museum and passed the half marathon at just over 1:27. Hard to imagine this used to be an all out time for me 6 months ago and now, I was feeling pretty comfortable with another half to go. At mile 13.5, we made an unexpected detour off Kelly Dr. and up Lemon Hill. As I was going up the hill, it didn’t occur to me that this was part of the course change. I chalked it up to not remembering the course. At the top of the hill, there was a sign on the right: “last big hill.” Funny I remember seeing that at the top of the last hill.

Miles 14-21
I took another GU at the top of the hill and then went down what felt like the steepest downhill of the course. I began to wonder about the “fast and flat” course. We were now back on Kelly Drive, and the rest of the course was a predictable out and back. I reached mile 15 with a ~20 second cushion (1:39:39). My legs were feeling a bit beat up with the all the downhills, but it was manageable. Shortly after mile 15, I was passed by a tall lanky guy with a familiar “QT2systems.com” blue shirt. Déjà vu! It was the same guy that had passed me at mile 2 at the Boston Firefighter 10K. I pulled up along him and here’s our conversation:

Me: “Did you run the Boston Firefighter 10K?”
Pat: “Yeah, I assume you ran it, too?”
Me: “Yeah, I remember you passing me at mile 2.”
Pat: (sudden hint of recognition) “Yeah, but you passed me when it counted.”
Me: (slightly embarrassed) “So what time are you shooting for?”
Pat: “Not sure, this is my first one.”
Me: “Well, I’m hoping for a 2:55.”
Pat: (no response)
Spectator: “Stop chatting, you’re running a marathon!”
Me: “good luck!”
Pat: (pulls away)

OK, so he wasn’t the friendliest guy… or maybe I should have listened to the spectator and just kept my mouth shut. I settled into a comfortable rhythm and tailed a pair of guys that were sharing one water bottle. My next couple miles slowed from a 6:40 to 6:42. When I hit mile 18, I had given back about 6 seconds of my cushion (1:59:44); took a third GU. I was still holding back the trots, and I noticed that each time I took a gel, it became a touch more difficult to hold my pace. The feeling would disappear after a half mile and then I would feel much better. I was still feeling reasonable at 2 hours, but after going over the Ridge Ave. overpass, the fatigue started to take its toll. Miles 19 and 20 were really tough. The miles had been rolling by, but these two seemed to take an eternity. A little voice in the back of my head started whispering about getting sick earlier in the week. I was really happy to hit the turnaround at mile 20. I got a boost over the next mile as I was greeted by runners coming the other way and hit mile 21 right on schedule (2:20:02). I had given back all of the time cushion, but I was also feeling much better.

Miles 21-26.2
At this point, I was running for the 22 mile marker and familiar territory. My legs were getting tired, but I was still able to hold a reasonable cadence. My mile splits had slipped to 6:45s, but a 2:55 was still within reach. When I finally reached mile 22, I knew was going to make my sub-3 hour goal… now the suspense was whether I would hit 2:55. This is the point of the marathon where I usually withdraw into myself and hope the time goes by faster. My self talk consists mostly of, “OK Wayne, just keep this pace for another 20 minutes….. ok, 15 minutes to go” and so on. Fortunately, I still had "No Day But Today" still running in my head and I have to say it really kept me moving. I don’t remember much else, other than seeing Pat ahead and catching him shortly after mile 24 (2:20:22 – crap, lost 20 seconds!). I ran through some motivational things to say to him, but something lame came out instead:

Pat: “You got me again.”
Me: “C’mon, work with me, less than two miles to go.”

I didn’t even have energy to turn around to see if he would keep up. Chris came running the other way shortly before mile 25 and looked pretty good. I flashed him a thumbs up and kept on trudging. Mile 25 was one of the slowest (6:50) of the day and by now I was in survival mode. I had secretly hoped to break 2:55, but now all thoughts were bent on just finishing. The beauty of Boathouse Row so apparent yesterday, was completely lost on me now. I was just looking ahead for the last hill. I put my head down and plowed ahead. When I crested the hill, I knew I had hit my 2:55 goal. I threw a couple celebratory punches in the air (none of which were caught on camera) and raised my arms as I crossed the finish line. The impact of what I had accomplished still hadn't hit me... I was just happy to be done.

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg	Max	Comments	Avg Lap
1	6:49	6:49.5	147	160		6:49.5
2	13:16	6:26.6	162	165		6:38.1
3	19:43	6:27.2	163	172		6:34.4
4	26:29	6:45.2	160	164		6:37.1
5	33:09	6:40.1	162	166		6:37.7
6	39:50	6:41.6	162	165		6:38.4
7	46:26	6:36.2	156	169		6:38.1
8	53:07	6:41.0	165	170	hill	6:38.4
9	59:35	6:27.4	160	166		6:37.2
10	1:06:25	6:50.3	163	168	hill	6:38.5
11	1:13:18	6:53.2	155	163	pit stop	6:39.8
12	1:19:50	6:31.5	160	164		6:39.2
13	1:26:21	6:31.2	163	166		6:38.5
14	1:32:59	6:37.9	162	165	hill	6:38.5
15	1:39:39	6:39.7	162	167		6:38.6
16	1:46:19	6:40.2	161	164		6:38.7
17	1:53:02	6:42.8	162	164		6:38.9
18	1:59:44	6:42.5	163	166		6:39.1
19	2:06:29	6:45.1	163	166	overpass	6:39.4
20	2:13:16	6:47.3	162	166		6:39.8
21	2:20:02	6:45.7	161	165		6:40.1
22	2:26:48	6:45.3	162	166		6:40.3
23	2:33:34	6:46.4	161	165		6:40.6
24	2:40:22	6:48.2	161	163		6:40.9
25	2:47:12	6:50.0	162	165		6:41.3
26	2:54:03	6:50.6	163	165		6:41.6
26.2	2:55:31	1:28.3	164	165		6:41.9

Total	2:55:31	6:41.6	161	172
1st	1:27:06	6:38.6	160	172
2nd	1:28:25	6:44.7	162	167

Post-race
I waited at the finish line for Pat to cross and gave him a quick congratulatory word for breaking 3 hours on his first attempt…. then made a beeline for the bus area to find my wife. Miraculously we ran into each other; she was racing back from the car after finishing the half, camera in hand, trying to catch a finishing shot of me. We grabbed some food from the finisher’s tent (never thought hot chicken broth would ever taste this good) and took advantage of the short line at the massage tent. We then made the round trip back to the car to get some warm clothes so we could catch Chris on the finish hill. After some tense moments thinking that he’d already finished, he finally appeared around the bend looking pretty ragged. My wife and I were screaming like crazy, but he was completely oblivious. Still, he ran a 5 minute negative split and a 4:45, 15 minutes faster than his goal time. An amazing time for an orthopedic resident who hasn’t run in over 10 years, and was sick and on call every other day the week before.

In the moments after the finish, the perfectionist in me was lamenting my lack of finishing spirit. In the last 7 miles or so, I settled instead of battling. As a result, my mile splits slipped about 5-10 seconds per mile, which meant I gave up about 50-55 seconds. Part of me wonders if the motivation would have been there if I hadn’t already run a qualifying time for New York at the BAA Half and didn’t need to break 2:55. Still, I’m splitting hairs over seconds and not minutes; this was still a huge PR! A year ago, I had trouble doing mile repeats in 6:40. Right now, I’m still basking in the glow of a sub-3 hour marathon. I really appreciate all the congratulatory e-mails I’ve received. Thanks for following my sub-3 journey!

Now I can take a couple weeks off and re-evaluate my running goals for 2008.

Marathon Guide Race Review

2007-11-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

This marathon is clearly going through some growing pains as it tries to compete with other big-city marathons. After reading comments from the 2006 edition, I was initially wary of the concurrent half marathon. Miami does the same thing and it's a brain drain when you hit the half marathon and half of the field disappears. However, I was persuaded by the fast course and positive course reviews from friends that had run it.

CONS:
Pre-race organization was passable at best. The worst offender was the expo. The venue itself was a poor choice. In previous years, it was held at the Eakins Oval in front of the start line, which makes sense. This year, they moved it to The Liacouras Center at Temple University. Traffic getting there was heavy, and that was just the beginning. Once inside, we were greeted with a line that extended halfway around the interior of the stadium. It was ~45 minute wait for number pick up; I have never waited that long. We were also handed a photocopy of the course, but not told what it was. Only after running the race did I realize they had made significant changes to the course (more on this later). After getting our numbers, there was yet another line to pick up our T-shirts. The number pick-up gauntlet left me with little desire to peruse the expo. The whole process, including the round trip from downtown Philly was ~2.5 hours. We arrived at around 2:30, and it looked even worse on our way out.
The only other pre-race snafu that comes to mind was the sheer gridlock at the port-a-potties. We arrived at 6:15 a.m. and waited almost 40 min. Also, not sure why a late fall marathon needs to start 7 a.m.

PROS:
I loved the race T-shirts. Probably the highest quality wicking shirt I've received from a race with the entire course printed on the back. Very cool.

I personally liked the course. The 1st 7 miles take you through the historic part of the city and allows you to enjoy the sights while you're still fresh. The next 7-8 take you through the zoo and other parks. This is the hilliest part of the course and the steep declines were a surprise for me. The final 11-12 are out and back along Schuykill river to Manayunk, with great views of the foliage. Although it's not truly flat, my most consistent splits of the day were here. After you make the turnaround in Manayunk, you know exactly how far you have to go and how to dose your effort to the finish.

Spectators were great, even though the weather was lousy. There were a couple dead spots (16-18, 22-24) where the crowd support was spotty but overall, spectators were very enthusiastic.

COURSE CHANGE:
This I would rate as needing improvement, but neither a pro or con. When I was running, I had no idea they had changed the course. The only thing I remember was being surprised by the hill between 13.5-14.5 mile. As it turns out, the race officials knocked off a huge section of the course in the zoo, especially the Japanese Gardens. So they had make up distance by adding an extra section after 13.5 miles. Presumably this was to standardize the route for the marathon and half-marathon. In 2006, the half marathon split off at 9.5 miles and rejoined later, which confused some people. I'm ambivalent about this because I didn't run the old course, but it does seem odd that the newly added half marathon would dictate a change in the marathon course... tail wagging the dog?

Overall, I would do this marathon again just for the course. The actual race organization (splits, water stations) was excellent and having the hills at the beginning makes for relatively easy cruising at the end of the race. I ran a huge PR, so that in itself made the experience worthwhile. However, race officials really need to take a close look at the expo, which was a huge mess. If I were a first-time marathoner, I think it would be very nerve-racking.

Let the taper begin! Week of 10/29-11/4

2007-11-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

Coming off of a great training week, I was really looking forward to tapering. I've felt generally tired, but not overtrained, for the last month or so and I think I was riding the edge last week. However, this first taper week has made a world of difference and I feel the pop returning in my legs. Did about a 20% mileage cut.

Mon: off
Tue: AM - 6.1 miles @ 7:21, PM - 5.3 miles @ 10:00
Wed: AM - 30 min. pool run and core workout
Thu: 10.9 miles @ 7:31; great run, half on trails
Fri: off
Sat: 17.5 miles @ 7:17 with last 7 miles @ 6:37
Sun: 7 miles @ 7:33
Total: 47 miles

Overall, a very good tapering week. I've noticed with the weather cooling that the pace of my runs have dropped about 15 sec./mile. I was especially happy with the fast finish run on Saturday. This has become a regular tune-up workout for me two weeks out from the marathon. I do the reverse of the Boston Marathon out to Wellesley and once I pass the Newton Lower Falls Wine Co., I pick it up to MP for 7 miles. The last 10 miles were in the middle of the Noel Nor'easter, so it was fairly windy going through the Newton Hills. I was able to hold MP the whole way, so I am more confident that I can hold a 6:40 the whole way.

Plan for next week
Mon: pool run & core work
Tue: 8 miles easy
Wed: AM - pool run & core, PM - 5 mile
Thu: 7 miles including 3x1600m @ 6:20, jog 200m between
Fri: off
Sat: 12-13 miles easy
Sun: 5-6 miles easy
Total: 37-39 miles

October mileage summary

2007-11-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Here's my monthly mileage update

Weekly Distance Totals (miles) Oct 1, 2007, to Nov 4, 2007 Sport: Running Workout: all Route: all
Week of	39.49 \|	44.49 \|	49.49 \|	54.49 \|	59.49 \|	64.49 \|
Oct 1, 2007	52.18
Oct 8, 2007	56.68
Oct 15, 2007	39.49
Oct 22, 2007	59.45
Oct 29, 2007	46.80

This is my fourth consecutive month over 200 miles a month! The running gurus always talk about building a long consistent base over a couple of months; I'm hoping this qualifies.

Monthly Distance Totals (miles) May 1, 2007, to Oct 31, 2007 Sport: Running Workout: all Route: all
Month	134.83 \|	160.83 \|	186.83 \|	212.83 \|	238.83 \|	264.83 \|
May, 2007	134.83
Jun, 2007	152.13
Jul, 2007	207.24
Aug, 2007	223.12
Sep, 2007	236.12
Oct, 2007	219.20

Best week of training - Week of 10/22-28

2007-10-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

My recent posts have been far too long, so I'm going to keep this one short. Bottom line, this was perhaps my best single week of training ever. After coming off a cutback week, and not feeling any ill effects from the 10K, I was psyched to put in one last hard week of training before tapering. Here's the recap:

Summary of 10/22-28
Mon: 6 miles @ 7:40; invigorating trail run
Tue: 11.2 miles including 2x2 miles @ 6:17, comfortable track workout
Wed: 6 miles @ 10:00, easy recovery run with wife; 30 min. core work
Thu: 11 miles including 10 @ 6:33, great tempo run
Fri: off
Sat: 22.5 miles @ 7:45, nice long trail run with great scenery
Sun: 3 miles @ 8:00, easy shake out run
Total: 59.7 miles

The recent climate change has brought about some decidedly unfall-like weather. This was the first consistently cool week, and its reflected in the faster paces of my runs. I was pretty tired and not looking forward to the tempo run on Thursday. In fact, I usually have the hardest time motivating for these runs. I don't know why... Funny thing is once I get going, they don't feel so bad. I ended up dropping 3 or 4 6:20s and by the end, I had averaged a 6:33 mile for the 10 miler, including a warm-up mile. I was a little surprised I had gone that fast, and I could have comfortably run another 3 miles on my way to a 1:25 half. Things are coming together! The 22 miler started out with the sky dropping buckets, which gave me flashbacks of the Boston Marathon Nor'easter. I met up with Ramses and we ran down to Millenium Park. From there, he split off to go back home and I ran through the gorgeous trails of Cutler Park. The trails of Cutler Park are truly a hidden gem and have made my long runs infinitely more interesting. In fact, I find time flies by when I'm doing trails. I threw in one hard hill interval at the end and finished comfortably. Overall, this week has really given me confidence that i can run a sub-3:00 at Philly.

Alright, taper time!

Race Report - Boston Firefighter 10K

2007-10-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have implemented consistent cut-back weeks in my training (one every four weeks) and I have to say its really helped get me through the high mileage weeks. Whether or not this strategy eventually pays off won't be evident until race day. For now, I'll just enjoy the lightness I feel after a 40 mile week. Here how it went:

Summary week of 10/15-21:
Mon: 30 min. pool run, 30 min. core work; legs feeling much better after Hartford
Tue: 12.7 miles - 2.7 mile w/u; 1600, 4x800, 1600 @ 5:38; feeling sharp today with cooler weather. Pace felt comfortable. Had a nice long cool down.
Wed: 30 min. pool run, 30 min. core
Thu: 11 miles @ 7:50, comfortable fall run on the trails of the Arboretum.
Fri: off
Sat: 5.6 miles @ 8:38; easy run around Jamaica Pond, last Boston Fit run of the season
Sun: 10.2 miles including Boston Firefighter 10K.
Total: 39.5 miles

There were a couple factors that convinced me to run a race this weekend. For one, I was coming off a cutback week, so I would be well rested. I also wanted one last test of my fitness, and with 4 weeks to go until Philly, this was the perfect time. So I set out looking for a local race, anything from 5-8 miles. I came across the Boston Firefighter 10K on the Racer's Resource, but there was no website. After some targeted web surfing, I found last year's results and the course. The course starts just south of Neponset circle, goes straight up Route 203, does a loop around the UMass Boston campus, and then comes back. I haven't raced a 10K since the James Joyce Ramble. It was 2 weeks after Boston and predictably slow (38:41). The clincher for me was the winning time of 36:55, which I thought was well within my range. Wow, I would actually have a chance of winning a race.

Race day arrived and it was sunny, but a little on the warm side (high 60s). I didn't have a specific race strategy today other than to start out behind the leaders and then try to finish strong on the way back, starting around mile 4. I had no idea about the competition, but figured it would be similar to last year's race. My wife drove me down to the start line, which was very easy to find, and I got changed with plenty of time to spare. I was more nervous than usual before a race and during my warm-up jog (which was definitely slower than an 8 min/mile), my HR was up to 155. I scouted out the last mile and didn't notice anything worth noting. After getting back to the car and changing into my racing flats, I did a quick series of strides, thanked Christina for coming with me and headed off for the start line. By the time I got there, the bagpipes were playing and they were making pre-race announcements.

After winding my way to the front, I spent the next 5 minutes just trying to stay loose. I got an intense staredown from a fast looking guy in a long sleeve shirt and figured he was competition. I looked at the flashing LED display up ahead and saw 65 degrees; warm, but not too bad. The gun went off (5 minutes early) and I went with the leaders. The front runner, whom I saw during the warm-ups, looked really comfortable. The guy in second was none other than the staredown dude. To my right was a guy who already looked like he was struggling, so I focused on Staredown as my main rival. As we rounded Neponset Circle, I felt like I was already going too fast and I let Staredown pull away. He was already starting to look less fluid, but I didn't want to blow it on the 1st mile. Still, it was way to fast for me (5:37) and I had already broken my pre-race mantra of going out slow. I found a good rhythm by the 2nd mile (5:59) and Staredown had a good 100m lead on me. Oh well, I thought, podium placing ain't bad. Shortly after mile 2, another guy wearing a blue jersey came up on me and shortly thereafter passed me. He looked pretty comfortable and it was still too early to go with him, so I also let him go by. Crap, now I'm in 4th! We made a sharp right turn on the UMass Boston campus, and I was quickly falling into no-man's land. I wasn't sure if I was paying for the fast start, but I just didn't feel comfortable (not that anyone does during a 10K). When I went by the 3rd mile marker in 6:05, I knew I was slowing down. I tried to hold it together coming out of the campus and just limit my losses. My legs felt ok, but I was breathing pretty heavily and just didn't feel like I was in a groove.

As I neared mile 4, I noticed that I hadn't lost any ground to the kid in the blue jersey and this was my first positive thought since the start of the race. When I passed the mile marker (6:13), I just decided to pick it up. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to hold it, but I reasoned that I'm in marathon shape now and should have plenty left in the tank. I slowly reeled in the kid in the blue jersey and passed him on the crest of small hill, almost at the same spot where he had passed me earlier, but on the opposite side of the road. He tried to hang with me for a bit, motivated also by the thought of a podium placing, but I could tell his breathing was getting ragged and he lasted for about 400m before fading back. I was trying to maintain enough pressure to make him work, but not wear myself out. Staredown was also back in sight, but he was a good 200m ahead of me by now, and catching him was going to require some work. I was still maintaining the same pace, and although it didn't feel good, I thought I could hold it for another mile and a half. When I reached mile 5 (5:59), I had cut the deficit in half. By now, I could tell that he was laboring as well. His stride was choppier than before, and he was carrying some tension in his shoulders. That was all the motivation I needed to just keep pounding. I don't think he realized I was catching up. Even when I was within 10m or so, I don't think he realized I was coming because of the crowds near the finish. I passed Staredown with about half a mile to go, on a curving right bend heading into Neponset Circle. I don't think he made an attempt to stay with me, but at this point, I was just focused on keeping a high cadence. I was feeling pretty lousy by now (see pic on left) and just wanted to get to the finish line. The finishing straight was mercifully short, but I felt like I was going to dry heave. I slowed briefly for a partial dry heave, and then made the last push to the finish line.

                      25th Annual Boston Firefighters 10k Road Race
PLC   Time  Pace  PLC/Group  PLC/Sex Bib#   Name                     Town, State  
1       35:39  5:45     Age?            1 M     753    Paul Hughes             Scituate,MA     
2       36:58  5:58     Age?            2 M     604    Wayne Chan            Brookline,MA    
3       37:04  5:59     Age?            3 M     509    Frederic Baillif        Saint Louis,UN

Wow... I came in 2nd! I couldn't believe it. Even though I hadn't won the race, I was extremely happy with my effort today. Besides, 1st place was so far ahead of me that even if I had tried harder... I just wasn't in the same class as him. Although I

had gone out a little fast, I didn't panic when I fell into 4th place. I was confident in my training and I pushed through the pain. After being disappointed with my finishing fortitude at the BAA Half, I told myself during this race that I wasn't going to do that again. The only crtique I have is I think I could have gone out slower. This was the first time I stuck around for the awards ceremony... so cool to get a trophy. All in all a very satisfying day of racing.

Boston Firefighter 10K by the numbers:

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg. HR	Max HR	Average
1	5:37	5:36.9	173	180	5:36.9
2	11:35	5:58.6	177	179	5:47.8
3	17:41	6:05.3	176	179	5:53.6
4	23:54	6:13.2	177	179	5:58.5
5	29:53	5:59.2	180	183	5:58.6
6	35:46	5:53.0	183	184	5:57.7
6.2	36:58	1:11.8	184	185	5:57.7

This next week will be my last hard week of training before the marathon. It will be tough, but I think with the cut back, I should be able to handle it.

Plan for next week:
Mon: 6 miles EZ, core work
Tue: 10 miles including 2x2 miles at half-marathon pace
Wed: 6 miles EZ, core work
Thu: 10 miles @ marathon pace
Fri: off
Sat: 22 miles at a comfortable pace
Sun: 4 miles recovery run
Total: 59 miles

Driving the 3:40 Bus - Week of 10/8-14

2007-10-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is now getting into the meaty part of my training program. When I was mapping out my training regimen, I was a little concerned about these back-to-back hard weeks encompassing the BAA Half and leading the 3:40 pace group at the Hartford Marathon. Primarily, I was balancing doing 26 miles on tired legs against doing it at a relatively easy pace. I'm happy to report that my legs recovered relatively quickly (thanks to a relaxing pool run), and I managed to get in a little quality work before the weekend festivities. Here how the week went.

Week in review: 10/8-14
Mon: AM - 30 min. pool run
Tue: AM - 5 miles @ 7:17, PM - 5 miles @ 7:30, 30 min. core work; both runs felt easy, but were actually faster than expected.
Wed: AM - 11 miles including 3x2000m @ 6:20, great morning track workout w/ Anuj
Thu: PM - 30 min. pool run, exhausted from intervals and basketball, so skipped the run
Fri: AM - 3.9 miles @ 8:28, rehearsal run for Hartford just to get a feel for an 8:23 mile
Sat: 27.2 miles - 1 mile w/u, then pacing for Hartford in 3:41:52, beautiful day for a marathon
Sun: 5.4 miles @ 8:14, legs stiff at first, but felt looser by the end.
Total: 56.7 miles

Overall, this was a strong week. I recovered relatively quickly, as the runs on Tuesday ended up being much quicker than expected. It's still hard for me to imagine that sub-7:30s are now a normal training pace for me. The track workout on Wednesday was solid. I wanted to get in a little speedwork, but nothing fast, so I compromised and did 2000s based on my half-marathon pace. It was also good to see my friend Anuj, who had suffered an injury that put his marathon training on hold, running smoothly again. I got a little ambitious and joined my friend for his corporate league game the same evening. As a result, I woke up on Thursday absolutely exhausted and decided a rest day was in the cards. In truth, I probably hadn't completely recovered from the half (its supposed to take at least 13 days), and the hard double Wednesday just pushed me over the edge. Lesson learned! Fortunately, I felt much fresher by Friday.

So you're probably wondering why anyone would volunteer to run a marathon for fun? Well, the seeds of inspiration were planted back in February at the Austin Marathon. If you read my blog entry, you'll see that the pacers played an instrumental role in my BQ (Boston Qualifying) effort. So, this was my way of paying it forward. Still...I had no idea what I was getting into. I also didn't have a good feel for a 8:23-8:24 because all my runs have either been faster than this, or much slower. Do I try to run even splits? What time should I shoot for, 3:40:00 or 3:40:30? These and other questions were eventually answered by the pace group organizer:

"For strategy, the safest bet is to aim for a steady pace throughout. This can be tricky, e.g. the foot traffic is slow at the start of the race, but it's simple to make gentle pace corrections over the duration of the race. Every mile of the course is clearly marked. Runners will ask you whether you're running at "gun time" or "chip time". I find it simplest to aim for 3:40 gun time, so that any discrepancies can only benefit the runner. During the last few miles, the runners in a pace group may grow tired and despair. For those trying for a Boston qualifier, it's handy to remind them that the BAA permits a cushion of 59 seconds over the stated qualifying time. So it's not a bad idea for the pace leader to slow the pace down a bit, in response to runners' pleas. This stratagem usually has the desired effect: the runners discover their second wind and speed up when the finish line approaches. And then you can finish right at 3:40 as advertised."

Armed with these pearls of wisdom, I was ready to lead my 3:40 flock to the promised land of qualifying for Boston. Overall, the course is pretty flat, but I didn't like the look of the hills over the last 6 miles. I didn't get as much as sleep as I would have liked Friday night, as I was helping a friend to prepare for his medical school interview. With an 8AM start and an hour and a half separating Boston and Hartford, I had to make sure I was out the door by 5:45. Ouch! I spent much of the second half of the drive trying to convince myself NOT to pull over and take a quick nap. The volunteer info was great and I was able to find a reasonably priced parking lot quickly. The next 30 minutes were really frenetic. It took me some time to find the convention center, then I saw the long line for number pick and decided to cut by telling a volunteer that I was a pacer and I needed to get my number ASAP. Then, it was a mad dash to the bathroom and on to the start area in Bushnell Park. I was well warmed up by now. When I arrived in the park, there were no signs for baggage check, so it took another 15 minutes before someone pointed me in the direction of the line of UPS trucks. Duh... why didn't I notice them. Finally, I was ready to run (whew!), and I tucked myself between the 3:35 and 3:45 pacers and introduced myself. Even now, I'm still surprised by the look of relief on the faces of runners when I arrived.

It was an absolutely perfect day for a marathon: partly sunny in the high-40s and almost no wind. Prior to the start, I met Rick, who had an interesting story of his own. Chicago was his first marathon, but due to the now infamous debacle, he called it a day at mile 13 and a couple days later, found that he liked the weather forecast for Hartford and signed up. The only other face I had a name for was Dean, who was running in his 20th marathon, 9th of the year! He clearly had a better idea what he was doing than I. I told my group that I was going to shoot for an even pace.. and then we were off! Its amazing even though it was a low key run for me, I still felt the excitement and anticipation as the gun went off.

It was really neat to hear the banter in the group over the early miles. Everyone looked excited, but comfortable through the 1st couple miles. There were the predictable pointed questions, born from uncertainty, like "how many marathons have you done?" and "what's your PR?" Most seemed satisifed with my answers (5 and 3:09.) There was a bizarre moment, shortly after mile 2, during which the 3:45 pace group passed us. This caused some strange looks and a couple concerned comments. I reassured the group that he was running on gun time... and sure enough we passed the group again at mile 5. The first 3-4 miles were a little erratic, but I quickly found my rhythm and we were more consistent from mile 5-12. This section of the course took us through the beautiful suburb of South Windsor. There were plenty of spectators enjoying their breakfast on the lawns. I tried to be conversational early on, but found that when I shifted focus, I also tended to slow down. This happened most dramatically at mile 13, when I ran what was probably the slowest split of the day (8:41), not including the 1st mile and a couple splits where I missed the mile marker. We passed the half marathon point just a shade over 1:50.

I deliberately picked it up over the next mile and hit this split in 7:50. This was probably my most serious mistake of the day, even though it was a mostly downhill mile. I think I may have a lost a couple of my charges over this mile. After this snafu, I mostly kept my mouth shut except to offer time updates and encouragement at the mile markers. I still had a sizeable group at this point, I'd say between 15-20 people. However, the attrition was slow and steady between mile 15 and 20. It mostly occurred at fluid stops, during which runners would slow and then have difficulty catching up. I felt discouraged for the runners. The biggest drop off was probably from before mile 20 until 21. There was long and steady incline up to the Route 2 bridge back into downtown Hartford, and the runners also had to battle a headwind on the bridge. By this point, it was down to Rick and Dean, and I was committed to getting them to the finish line.

These two guys were putting in a herculean effort in spite of the rolling hills at the finish. There also wasn't much crowd support at this point, as the route was taking us through the beautiful (but empty) Riverside Park. I tried my best to slow at the fluid stations, but ultimately, they fell off pace around mile 24. Another runner actually caught up to me at this point, and I told him we were still on pace. I said that if we got to mile 25 at 3:30, then 3:40 would be well in range. Little did I know that there was yet another long hill leading up to mile 25. This last runner was remarkably strong going up the hill, and I sent him off shortly after mile 25 because he was looking to go sub-3:40. At this point, I was alone and in a dilemma: should I hold my pace to the finish line and cross alone, or toss the pace and help some to finish? I searched in vain for someone to help across the finish line (maybe a woman in range of a BQ). When that didn't happen for the next half mile, I decided to wait for Dean or Rick. I spotted Rick with about a half mile left. He was struggling a bit, so I paced him to the finish line.

Overall, I had a great time pacing. The hardest part was mentally dealing with the attrition. I feel like I really only helped 2 people achieve their time goal. One of them looked very strong at mile 20 and probably could have done it on her own. So, I didn't make my designated time, even though it was perfectly doable. At first, when I crossed the finish line, I thought I had made some rooking pacing mistakes. But, I stuck around to wait for the 3:45 pacer and he crossed solo as well. Was this just a function of the very tough finish? I felt like the course was very unforgiving over the last 5 miles, and not as flat as advertised. I wonder if the course organizers have ever considered reversing the course to get the hilly stuff out of the way at the outset.

Here are the numbers:

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg. HR	Max HR		Average
1	8:54	8:53.5	143	157		8:53.5
2	16:47	7:53.1	143	154		8:23.3
3	24:56	8:09.4	142	150		8:18.7
4	33:20	8:23.6	139	145		8:19.9
5	42:02	8:42.1	136	141		8:24.3
6	50:29	8:27.2	140	147		8:24.8
7	58:50	8:21.5	138	147		8:24.3
8	1:07:08	8:17.2	138	146		8:23.5
9	1:15:31	8:23.6	138	144		8:23.5
10	1:23:47	8:15.8	145	160		8:22.7
11	1:32:19	8:31.8	141	145		8:23.5
12	1:40:40	8:21.0	141	145		8:23.3
13	1:49:20	8:40.6	143	147		8:24.6
14	1:57:10	7:49.5	145	148		8:22.1
15	2:05:41	8:30.8	141	146		8:22.7
16	2:13:58	8:17.3	146	149		8:22.4
17	2:22:31	8:33.3	144	149		8:23.0
18	2:30:51	8:19.2	148	152		8:22.8
19	2:39:53	9:02.5	145	152	long	8:24.9
20	2:47:45	7:52.3	148	156		8:23.3
21	2:56:00	8:14.9	148	155		8:22.9
22	3:04:49	8:48.6	145	150	long	8:24.0
23	3:13:14	8:25.3	144	148		8:24.1
24	3:21:52	8:37.7	147	158	long	8:24.7
25	3:30:03	8:11.4	150	156		8:24.1
26	3:40:09	10:05.4	146	157		8:28.0
26.2	3:41:57	1:48.4	149	151		8:28.3

I'm looking forward to a well deserved cut back week. I'm considering doing the Boston Firefighter 10K next weekend. One of my goals this year has been to race to win, and I think last year's results indicate this race is winnable. We'll see.... off to recover!

Plan for Week of 10/15-21:
Mon: pool run and core work
Tue: 10 miles including intervals
Wed: pool run and core
Thu: 11-12 miles, medium long run
Fri: off
Sat: 6 miles easy run
Sun: 10 miles including Boston Firefighter 10K
Total: 38-39 miles