The road to Boston goes through Chicago

I gotta say, I've been nervous about my training recently. I suppose this isn't much different than any other marathon journey, but the fact that was I sick early on, then crammed my miles, I haven't had stellar tempos, and my 400s workout was even a touch slower than pre-Philly... all in, a lack of solid confidence boosters have left me a little amiss on what to expect in Boston.

Then came along the Shamrock Shuffle. One of my all time favorite races, and conveniently a prefect tune of for Boston this year. I'm still not gonna stick my neck out and say I now KNOW I can run something specific in the marathon... However, after crushing the 8K and PR'ing a key race, I can now say with confidence that I'm ready to give it a go. If all things line up properly, I can have a great marathon and potentially target a PR.

That being said, the Shamrock Shuffle was my rehearsal for things to come on Monday. Here's how it played out:

The weather was fairly typical for this time of year, in Chicago. Temps were around 50ish, which was comfortable. Winds were annoying, but at least they only effected the first few miles of the race.

Prior to the start, organizers decided to mess with the competition and do a staged elite start. This sucked, in my opinion. The elite field had slightly over 2 minutes lead on the masses. It was especially odd because a good number of us were faster than numerous "elite" runners, especially when you consider the women that started early too. (Sorry ladies, nothing against you, it just wasn't right to have staggered start and force some blood thirsty wolves to chase you down and turn you into road kill). Ultimately this just changed the whole competitive dynamic of the race. It placed a bunch of people with targets on their backs in front of us, and also limited the true competition of the race since we weren't allowed to run with people of our own caliber. Due to this timing lag, it made a mess of things a few miles in, as we smashed into the back of others.

Anyhoo, so elites went off, then the masses started 2 minutes later. Mile 1 was jockeying as usual. Clowns all around going out too fast, I tried not to get caught up in the mix. I mostly ran next to or off the shoulder of teammate, Scott Laumann. Nearby was another teammate, Verdo Gregory and running pal, Kevin Granato. Fortunately, the buildings shielded us from some headwinds for about half of that first mile. The other half, we were at the whim of some nasty gusts. Scott and I went through the marker at about 5:28. A very nice start to what I was hoping be a sub-27 race. (I actually wasn't even thinking about PR'ing at mile 1).

After the first mile, the field began to shake up a bit. We started to pick it up a touch once we got a little wind at the back. It was actually kind of cool... the four of us and a handful of others wound up leading the race of the 30,000+ masses. After another half mile, Scott took the lead and pulled a touch in front, Verdo followed. I was left with Kevin and the few other randoms scattered farther up from all of us. Everyone else fell off. We also started slamming into the back of the elite women. We blazed that second mile at 5:12.9. I just remember thinking, "Holy shit!" But it didn't actually feel that bad since we went out easier. Sick.

Mile 3 was a bitch. We turned from State Street onto Jackson and directly into a nasty head wind. Scott and Verdo did their thing, though not necessarily working together. Kevin and I stayed about 5 meters off, and we traded the lead a few times. I'd like to say that he and I were working together, but quite honestly, Kevin did most of the work into the wind. We continued to fly by the women's elite field. V fell slightly behind us. Scott gapped us... maybe 10-15 meters up now.

Looking back at it, this was very wise of me. I stayed patient, and calm... unlike other times where I try to gun it into the wind. Here, Kevin took a brunt of the blow for me. (Apparently, this is a common racing strategy?) We went nearly the fully mile into that shit. Once we turned the next corner and out of the wind, the hard part was done. Passed mile 3 at 5:27.5... though the effort was much higher than that.

Losing the wind was like a sling shot for me. I immediately dropped Kevin and Verdo. Likewise, I kept waiting for Scott to throw down and gap me even more. We kept passing women. I just hung on for dear life. My strategy became to not let Scott gap me. Then I realized I was actually gaining on him. When I saw that, I rolled whatever I could to catch him. It took that whole mile, but I finally closed it. Another blaze: 5:17.5.

I had huge momentum at this point. But the problem with the Shamrock is hanging onto that momentum. Mile 5 can be cruel and suck it out of you. Tail winds can become headwinds. You got a hill. It's a mess. I still hung on for dear life. I now had a few meters on Scott, but I felt him pushing me.

Roosevelt would be the test: If I could successfully make it up that hill without dying, then I might have a chance to PR. Once again, I played it smart. I conserved instead of hammered all in up the hill. Nobody passed me. In fact, I kept waiting for Scott and Verdo to play me for the fool. Then turned onto Columbus and I pulled the trigger. 400 meters to the finish. I passed a scattered handful of guys, guessing from the elite field. Still waiting for a challenge from behind, but it never happened. A blistering 5:09.4.

All in: 26:35.7

Scott followed a few seconds later, then Verdo and Kevin about 10 seconds back. I didn't realize it until just now... but the results show that I placed 4th out of the masses. Let's say that again so it sets in, remove the elite field that had over a 2 minute advantage on of us, and I placed 4th in a field of 33,000 runners. The winner was a mere 6 seconds in front of me.... and there lies a nasty rub... I had no clue that only 3 guys, which were very very close in front of me, started with the masses. Had I known, I might've been able to do something about it in the last half mile. Regardless, absolutely incredible.

It's days later and I'm still jacked about this. My best race in a year (potentially one of my best ever), 11 second a PR, I negative split by about 10 seconds, 4th age group, 4th in the race of the masses.

Fuckin bring it, Boston!

Split recap

1- 5:28:4

2- 5:12.9

3- 5:27.5

4- 5:17.5

5- 5:09.4

= 26:35.7 / 5:21.2 avg

20x 400s... DONE.

At this point, my Boston Marathon training is as complete as it's gonna get. I don't feel totally comfortable with everything that I've done, and the training was significantly short changed in the belly, but I at least have this to show for it...

Last night's pinnacle 20x 400 @ 72.88 avg, w/ ~75-80 rest:

1-5: 74.86 avg

5-10: 73.44 avg

10-15: 72.46 avg

16-20: 70.76 avg

That compares to this one from pre-Philly:

20x 400 @ 72.5 avg, 80sec rest

1-4 avg 73.7

5-8 avg 72.7

8-12 avg 73.4

13-16 avg 72.3

17-20 avg 70.6

20x 400 is my monster pre-marathon workout. Much similar to the Yasso-800s, it's become a hugely important workout for me in order to toe the line for any goal race. Basically, if I can hammer 400's for 5 miles under somewhat limited rest, then I should be able to gain confidence in my training. I may or may not be as fast as I was back in the fall, but at least now I know that my speed is back in check.

Last night, we purposely started a little slower and eased into the workout. Overall averages were still pretty close compared to Philly. However, last night had much more of a progression to it, and still finished the same: final several around 70-71, and last hit down to 68.5ish. Out conservative and hammer at the end. What's more is that I finished rather comfortably... very much like racing a big negative split, and I wasn't destroyed by the end of the workout.

That's what separates the men from the boys in Boston. NOBODY runs a negative split on the course. And you all know that I LOVE my negative splits.

Next up: Shamrock Shuffle on Sunday.

Happy Anniversary!

On March 23, 2003, I did something that I thought was a complete one-off... something I could've cared less to do ever again... something that pissed me off, because it meant that I couldn't go out drinking the night before. Something that I merely did only because some of my other friends were doing it too. 
~ I ran the Shamrock Shuffle.

I wasn't competing against anyone. I didn't care about time or placement. I was just participating in something that a shit ton of other people my age were doing. Oddly enough, it turned out that I did OK at it too, in spite of having to run half of the thing on the sidewalks because the masses on the course were so overwhelming. I finished the 8K in about 33:30.

I quickly added it up in my head, and realized that I had hardly trained at all for this stupid thing... probably a couple weeks, at best. It was one of the longest distances I had ever run too. I realized that if I had actually put in a little effort ahead of time, then I could run it a lot faster. Not knowing that the city of Chicago had countless other races throughout the year, I decided that I'd come back to the next year's shuffle and compete against my 33:30... and beat it.

That was 10 years ago, to the day over the weekend. 
Happy Anniversary, self.

Since then, I've become an obsessive addict. Competing against myself and others has propelled me though thousands upon thousands of miles, and countless races. I've met some incredible people along the way, seen the world, and done thing's that were incomprehensible to my 25 year old self back then.

My 10 year anniversary present over the weekend was a 23 hilly miles in Barrington on Saturday, which capped off a 100 mile week and 49 miles in about 40 hours.

In three weeks from today, I'll be toeing the line for my 3rd Boston and 16th marathon. 10 years ago, I didn't even know how many miles were in a marathon.  (I was definitely one of those guys.)

Like I said, I hit 100 in the last week. I'm cramming, and it certainly feels like it. I'm tired and want a day off, but it's not gonna happen. I'll shoot for another hundred this week, then pull back. It's been a far cry from the training that I had intended following Philly. I just couldn't do it once I got sick. I think I'm still able to pull together a respectable marathon though. I'll have one chance to truly test myself in a couple weeks with this year's Shamrock Shuffle. From there, I'll be able to better gauge what happens in Boston.

In the mean time, it's nice to reflect upon how my life has drastically changed over the last 10 years. I'd give anything to have it back and do it again, but it has certainly been an incredible run.

Trying to Salvage

To begin with, I'm still not back to 100% yet. After "clearing up" my ailments a few weeks ago, I dealt with another sore throat last week and today I'm coughing up a storm with a bit of a nasty head ache. Add to it, digestive track issues that just won't chill out. This "cold" of mine has been going on for about 6 weeks now. WTF!?!

That being said, I'm trying all I can to salvage my training for Boston. I've cut too many weeks short of miles, and now I'm forcing it where I can. I hit 78 last week... a far cry from what should've been my third week in a row of around 90 miles.

On the bright side though, 78 was an improvement from the prior weeks and didn't feel all that awful. I had a reasonable (though not easy) 8 mile tempo run last Monday at about 5:55's. Wednesday night had 8x800 @ 2:37's, followed by 2x 400 @ 1:12's. And I've had 2 long Saturday's in a row with some very strong progressions.

I bombed last night's tempo as a result of digestive issues. As a penalty, I re-ran the tempo today. I did 9 with 7 averaging 5:47. That's the fastest I've gone since pre-Philly. If the rest adds up, then I'll have 90 miles on the week and 100 over the 7 days between last Saturday and this Friday night's long runs. Cary is this coming Sunday.

All of this is night and day compared to a few weeks ago, when I couldn't run 4 miles without bonking. It may not be perfect, but I do have a silver lining: a monster base from the end of last year and that's giving me some cushion. It's possible that I can still run a respectable Shamrock and Boston next month. I have one month and 3 days until I toe the next marathon.

Struggling

A follow up from last week's Sick Boy Training...

So after seeing the latest doctor last week, it turns out that I just had some sort of viral monster cold that had strangle hold on me. The good news is that it's pretty much cleared up at this point, aside from some on going nasty coughing.

The bad news is that I went on some pretty intense meds for a handful of days, and I believe they really wreaked havoc on my body. I was on a Z-pack, Sudafed, a suppressant, a nasal steroid, and lots of Ibuprofen. I feel better on the surface, but when it came to my running, everything has turned to garbage. I'm sluggish, I'm out of breathe, I'm bonking, and I've had to cut 3 out of 4 of my runs in half and even wound up skipping yesterday to to hit the reset. My mileage is a fraction of where it needs to be. Oddly, prior to any of those meds, I may have had sick boy training but it wasn't all that terrible.

That being said, I really need this to clear up soon. I'm nervous about Boston.

Sick Boy Training

This winter has been an absolute disaster for me. I haven't updated Coursing in a while, only because I haven't had anything fantastic to report from my running.

It's mid-February and I should be the throwing down 80-90 mile weeks right now training for Boston.

Instead, the flu that sidelined me back in December has been lingering havoc in my immune system. Since then, I feel like I've been dealing with random colds every other week, with the latest bout crushing me for over two weeks straight. 

I was able to get in some decent basing through January.  Then I went skiing for a weekend in VT.  Instead of coming back and picking up my training, I came back with the mother of all colds/ sore throats/ whateverthefuckitis. That was over 2 weeks ago. 

I've already seen a doctor and see another one tonight.  The one told me that I just had a really bad cold, on the heels of a nasty flu and it'll take a while to clear up.  I won't be shocked if the guy tonight tells me that I have Walking Pneumonia, Strep Throat, some sort of viral toxic infection, or who knows what else... fuck it could be cancer...? I donno!! 

Either way, I can hardly swallow, I can't stop coughing up neon colored sludge, my nose is raw from blowing it so damn much, my head feels like it's being punched on the hour every hour... I can't sleep because apparently my time is better spent coughing, hacking, and wheezing... I had a fever.  Hell, I even puked my guts out one night!  Two weeks of this shit.  WTF!?  The only time I feel better is when I'm either getting oxygen overdose from running (oddly), or when I'm doped up on a prescription cough suppressant and ibuprofen...

 

I'm stuck forcing minimal running right now (ok, and aside from another ski trip to Vail).  I haven't completely fallen apart yet, as I'm getting about 50 miles a week in when "I don't feel that bad."  But unless something changes quickly and I can pick up my training, Boston might be a bust.

Quick 2012 Recap

I just finished my final run of the year. Total for 2012 was 2,535... a new PR.

I came into 2012 with some solid fitness, having just run 2:38:14 at CIM last December. On the heels of that, I was able to coast to a 26:47 Shamrock Shuffle 8K. (In hind sight, this wound up being my best race of the year).

A week after Shamrock, I flunked a 5K and then decided to take a much needed break until a mid-year roll up for marathon training. In August, I blew myself up while water skiing, and then set my sights on November's Philadelphia Marathon.

Philly consumed a ton of miles. Unfortunately, I never really had the chance to show off that fitness. I suppose there's something to be said for a 2:39:40 on zero sleep... but I didn't get to pull the trigger anywhere else in the fall.  That alone was disappointing.

As an aside, I now own 5 sub-2:40 marathons.

So there you have it... a shit-ton of training in 2012, all for literally only a couple of "A" races and little to show for it. A very lame year of competition, in spite of being much more seasoned.

The silver lining is ahead of me though... 2013 should be quite the opposite. I'm still hanging on to some of this past fall's fitness and will use that press though even bigger miles on the way to Boston. In the process, I'm already cued up for Cary and Shamrock, and I'll ideally hit a few other spring races after the marathon. From there I reassess, but ultimately will set targets on hopefully a very active season and yet another fall marathon.

Sick and 2,500

I've been sick for the past week...

And FWIW, when I say sick, I mean epically sick. Wednesday was the first day in my 13 years of a professional career that I actually had to take a sick day. Fur real. 13 years with out a single sick day. And then out of the blue - BAM!.

The impregnable wall hath been penetrated. I NEVER get sick, and fell pretty hard this past week. The nastiest 72 hour flu I've had in ages. Probably a 3 or 4 time in my life type of illness (BTW, that's not a complaint - I just never get sick, but when I do, the world comes to an end... no pun intended as it's now 12/22/12).

Anyway, that's kind of a bummer as I was just beginning to feel better about my running since Philly. I was hitting some 40s leading into the holidays, and feeling comfortable again. Nothing fancy, but decent maintenance miles. The flu made that all come to a grinding halt.

Going into Christmas and heading back to Buffalo, I did the quick math. The good news is that I just crossed 2500 miles this week, in spite of being sick. The bad news is Boston is a mere 17 weeks away now. Of course, it's crazy to concern myself with mid-April as I'm starring at Christmas at the moment. Starting the latter half of this coming week though, I'll need to start getting rolling again.

In the mean time, I'm excited to go home tomorrow and see the family. Merry Christmas, everyone!!

The Philadelphia PHlop

It's been a few weeks since Philly. I'm over it by now, but might as well vent it out here for one last time for the record.

The unfortunate thing is, there are soooo damn many pieces that need to come together for running a marathon. If just one of those pieces doesn't work out, then the entire effort is at risk of being compromised.

There are the obvious ones: your months upon months of training, overall health (injuries or sickness), the weather, the wind, what you eat in the days and week leading into the race, digesting what you've eaten so you don't get cramps, hydrating, wearing the right fucking socks (preferably ones that don't give blisters), the right shoes, keeping shoelaces tied, remembering your gu, making sure a safety pin doesn't rub you the wrong way, anything to prevent chafing at mile 23, getting to the starting line on time, going out too fast, going out too slow, tripping on something... the list goes on.

Marathoners have nightmares because of all these things.

And then there is a far less obvious piece in the puzzle: Sleep the night before the race. It generally isn't on that list. We know we need it, but common knowledge is that you don't get 8 hours before a marathon... your nerves will keep you restless. But most people still wind up with about 5 hours of sleep. That's plenty. Being well rested two nights prior to the race is far more important. But there is a point where the lack of sleep will effect your ability to battle.

I've encountered premarathon insomnia once before, in Rotterdam. That was more due to international travel and jet-lag than anything else. I got no sleep in the flight over, then like 15 hours 2 nights prior to the race, then maybe between 3 and 4 hours of sleep the night of the race. It did effect me, and I was tired but still able to run. Hell, I even PRd it at the time.

Philadelphia was a different story.

We stayed in a really awesome, older hotel in a bustling part of the city. It would've been perfect any other time, aside from the night before a marathon. What was a really huge hotel suite at a great price, might as well have come with a curse as the streets were alive until 4am on both Friday and Saturday nights. It was like a circus out there, and I heard it all. In this case, my nightmare scenario became the inability to have a nightmare.

On Saturday night, I tossed and turned, my mind raced, cars honked, people screamed, drunkards hooted and hollered. 11:00 became 12:00; 12:00 became 1:00, 1 became 2. ...Sirens wailed, douche bags raced their cars up and down the streets, bums bellowed, I constantly got up to pace the suite and piss out days worth of hydration (seriously, I must've peed no less than 20 times during the night)... I went absolutely fucking apeshit... The next thing I knew, I was still awake at nearly 4-fucking-am. Just before falling asleep, I started to think about pulling the plug on the race. Then by some miracle, I drifted off.

I woke up at 5:30. No more than a whopping 90 minutes of sleep. Not quite the ideal situation.

That's pretty much how Philadelphia played out. All other things had lined up perfectly well... I had great training, I was healthy, I was feeling fresh (aside from no sleep), and the weather was a perfect 40 degrees with only a touch of wind. To the best of my knowledge and experience, this should've been a gimme-PR. Unfortunately, I ran on a quarter tank of gas.

There was nothing I could do about getting only an hour and a half of sleep.

So I choked down some coffee, took a shower, flooded myself with gatorade to try to rehydrate after pissing it all out, and jogged a mile to the starting line.

I figured that I could at least gut out 13 miles. If it was horrible, then I'd have an easy out at half way.

As the race began, I didn't feel all "that bad"... However, to add to the ugly scene that was already messing with my head: The first four miles were horribly mismarked. I had no clue how fast I was going until probably the 6th mile... it felt like a 6min pace, or maybe a touch faster... but my splits came in at 540, 630, 511, 550, 558, then 6:00. By the time I settled down, it was clear that I might've gone out too fast.

Regardless, an even effort race on that course would've warranted a faster start, so I still had comfort in the first 10K. I was clearly tired, but I think the adrenaline made those early miles go somewhat smoothly.

I ran through a series of hills in miles 7 through 13, and rounded out the first half at about 1:18:20... faster than I would've liked for a negative split but oh well.

In the next few miles, I knew I would give something back. It was just a matter of how much and when. Then it hit me at about 15. What should've been an easy/sightly down hill mile became difficult. I started to get sore and stiffen up. It was way too early for that under normal circumstances. So I managed the decent. I willingly went from a 6:00 pace, to a 6:05-6:10. By miles 20, I had to pull back to a steady 6:15 in the final miles.

There was nothing I could do. I was out of gas. Not a terrible crash and burn. More like a controlled escape... an ejection, and then ride it out in the parachute.

And there you have it. Instead of blow out a sub-2:38, which in my mind should've been a gimme... I ran a solid 15 miles, then gutted out an annoying 11 miles for a 2:39:40. Out in 1:18:20, back in 1:21:20. My worst positive-split marathon in years.

It clearly wasn't too terrible though... because I crossed the finish line, walked through the crowd, and to spite myself, immediately jogged over a mile back to the hotel. Oddly, that didn't even feel that bad? I was just pissed.

It's been nearly a month now, and I still feel that I was cheated. Months and months of work and a shit ton of miles, and all for a mediocre race. Oh well.

The only thing I can do from here is take vengeance on Boston in April... and I'm gonna fucking blow the doors off that thing.

Philly Bound

This last week has been all about work and the markets, while ignoring the fact that I'm running a marathon in a few days. (It's funny how this happens to me). As the casino has been a whirl wind, I've unconsciously shut out what I've spent months trying to build up.

I can't avoid it any longer. Thoughts of miles of trials and trials of miles are over coming me. I'm starting to obsess.

I leave for Philadelphia in few hours.

On my back is a ton of training. Not very orthodox, nor the way I would've liked it. I started marathon training back in August only to blow up with my skiing accident. I changed plans/races and finally committed to Philadelphia. It wasn't easy to go from 80-to-zero, and then roll back up as quickly as possible.  In the end though, I pulled together a respectable streak. Five big weeks that culminated with 15 days in a row of living above 100 miles. What's more is that I felt great at the end of it. I've never successfully packed it on like this before.

I know my speed is there, but untested. I've had good workouts recently, but my only attempt for a time trial was blown to bits in the wind... I ran a 5K on the track the other night, and just couldn't overcome the weather. Way too windy to manage solo. (I couldn't have done it at a worse time too... a front was literally blowing through during my 2nd and 3rd miles, flurries included).

No prior races means that I'm having to wing it. I feel good though. I feel fresh and healthy.

Call it the Philadelphia Flyer. Call it Marathon XV - The Rocky Run. Whatever this race may be, here's me in less than 48 hours...