The 2010 Cycle

The Training:
Coming off of a real test of my will to finish a marathon at OBX (November) I was looking forward to putting a solid winter training cycle together for a good bout with the Boston course. However, just after coming home from a pre-holiday work travel trip my back locked up in an unforgiving spasm leading to 3+ weeks of no activity other than physical therapy and back strengthening exercises. In addition to three zero-mile weeks, I had to rebuild my mileage which took a little longer than I expected and I was forced to sacrifice both speed workouts and race events. January turned out to be a 71 mile month or about ½ of what I normally try and bank for the month. Not a good way to start off the program, for sure. One last factor was the post-holiday fluff that I was sporting. I had managed to crawl back into the ranks of the true Clydesdales – a value on the scale I hadn’t seen in 2+ years. That was pretty depressing.
February turned out to be a better mileage month (120) although it was still only ¾ of what I had run in previous marathon cycles. Still building base and focusing on hill workouts to build my strength, I was also doing some weight lifting to build upper body strength – the running induced muscle atrophy in my shoulders gave me the feeling that my shoulders were floating in their sockets. I was mixing one or two days of core work in but still feeling like my back could give out at any time so my confidence and desire to pound out the miles were both suffering. Then my knee swelled up to twice its normal size – an obvious sign of ramping up my miles a little too quickly while carrying around a bit too much weight. I actually think the blown up knee was caused by some of the cross training lifting I was doing, specifically hamstring curls on the exercise ball. Okay, no more hamstring curls but still I lost some valuable training days and miles to yet another annoyance. My long runs were making their way into the 16-mile range but instead of ramping up, staying at a base distance to let my body acclimate, I had to press forward, increasing both the weekly base runs and my weekend long runs.
Despite being a little dinged up, March turned out to be the second thickest mileage month (192) I had ever put together. Necessity does wondrous things I guess. I was finally able to start folding in some longer distance tempo and progression runs (8-10 miles) an 18-miler and two 20+ mile runs but I still wasn’t able to drop the extra poundage as in the previous two years. This was worrisome, but at this point I wasn’t shooting for a PR come April 19 – a solid effort in the 3:30’s and avoiding a major late mile blow-up was my target. I was also planning on a two week taper as opposed to three weeks.
April started with my last 20-miler and then I jumped into taper. Taper was okay, I didn’t go out of my mind and my resolve was pretty solid with respect to my self-induced zero booze, junk, and dessert mode. My cheats were one glass of wine, about 20 M&M’s and a few potato chips here and there. I didn’t have the chance to weigh myself before and after but I didn’t feel like I had softened up with unnecessary weight. In fact, I think I lost more weight in taper than I had during training. I got a little boost when I got a note from a fraternity brother (who I hadn’t seen in quite a long time) that he was looking to run about the same pace/time and would be in the nose-bleed corrals as well. Very cool…a running partner for Boston. Something I hadn’t had in quite a few years. It was his first Boston so he accepted the offer to come down to the house (Respite) pre-race and enjoy the peace and solitude. In addition, some other out-of-town friends were coming down (some of whom were also first-timers) so I was looking forward to seeing everyone.

Race Day: Great weather…check.
Pre-race pancakes…check.
Pre-race purges…check.
To kill time in the corral, I made my way around and was wishing all other Respite runners well. After the 2nd wave start sounded, I ended up having to wait for 3 corrals to pass before connecting with Alan so that meant an additional 3,000 runners that would be on course in-front of me. Great. We walked up to within 15 feet of the starting line and off we went. I actually started my watch early…by about 3 seconds. Time in the bank for me. Heh.
To say the course was crowded is an understatement. It didn’t seem any worse than previous years but still the amount of energy I am having to burn to get some form of pace started up, find space to run and avoid the slower milers is just ridiculous. I don’t feel taxed, never lost my breath and Alan and I are able to stay within line sight of each other. There was no chance at running tangents or even staying on one side of the course. We were constantly switching sides trying to find the open road. I started drinking at mile 3 and was happy to see the 5K mark pass. After an expected slow mile 1 we inadvertently dropped the pace into the low/mid 7:40’s and tried to find our way back to the 7:50 – 8 mpm range. Funny thing, we never really discussed a goal pace and I think we both just let comfort take control of our race. There were times that the crowd barriers necked down causing some pretty bad bottlenecking and really limited the space to run (Framingham @ the 10K especially). We were able to find some room after Framingham and start to run some tangents but we were still dodging a lot of runners and wasting precious energy. Coming into mile 10 a female runner decided to break left for the port-a-johns and pulled a rear leg sweep on me. I nearly Supermanned into the pavement only to catch myself before touching down with my hands. WTF?!? I’m just lucky I didn’t pull or pop anything.
I got a pretty good boost from the Respite Center crowd at mile 10 (and a Powerbar). Alan and I stayed together for the next several miles and I was giving him some cues on what was coming, we checked each other’s pace and told a story here and there. We made it up the Rt 128 (mile 16) hill with a pretty even pace and entering the 2nd hill I told him I was going to back off a bit. I lost sight of him around mile 18. It was here that I had my first communication with my right quad – a slight quiver waiting to cramp. I focused on cutting all tangents, took my Gu and tried for force fluids down (I wasn’t feeling much like drinking). I passed an acquaintance at mile 20 and wished him well. My hamstrings were now starting to talk so I had to constantly switch my stride, short to long and vice-a-versa to keep from cramping. I was able to hold off the cramps until mile 24 which I was pretty happy about. I did run through a lot (cramps & pain) more this year than in races past so if anything my experience was helping to manage the muscle fatigue. I was forced to take my first walk break on the uphill for the Mass Pike bridge – I knew I’d lock up on the uphill if I tried to power through it and I figured I’d save some for the last mile +. I took a few more very short walk breaks to fend off leg cramps that would have been completely stymieing. The last walk break I was intending was at the top of Hereford Street, the final turn, and I was trying to lube up my legs enough to make the jogging motion for the last 3/10ths of a mile.
I was able to hold it together for all but the last 30 feet. I was almost passed the VIP stands and in the paint for the finish area and my legs totally locked up forcing me to stop or fall over. I chose to stop – not wanting to make the 6 o’clock news. After a quick hamstring stretch I put together the last few rigid steps of my marathon and no sooner did I cross the timing pads and finish line, I locked up once again and froze in place. A volunteer was trying to get me to move but any movement felt like dozens of daggers being sunk and twisted in my quads and hamstrings. I pleaded for a few seconds to bend and stretch before I moved to the side adjacent to the finishing stands. Finished. I was finished and I felt finished.

I knew the last few miles were going to be especially difficult given my abbreviated training cycle but standing there rigid in pain, I just wasn’t feeling satisfied or like I had accomplished anything. I chuckled to myself that I almost ran the perfect race for my training but I was 30 feet shy. I started to make my way down Boylston to get my foil blanket and vittles and Tracy was waiting for me on the barrier fence. We chatted for a while, said hello to another Respite runner (qualified), took a few pictures and parted ways to meet up at the post-race meet-up.

Seeing everyone after the race was great and finally having my better half meet some of my virtual friends was nice. Now I can put a few faces with names and it won’t seem as foreign to her.

Fighting the crowds in the back of the pack is getting old…really old. I know I burn way too much energy and attention having to weave and bob, changing pace and moving from side to side on the road. I have been saying that it’s good inspiration to try and qualify but after enduring such a cataclysmic collapse at the end of the OBX marathon I don’t care to relive that pain anytime soon. I have to evaluate where I want to go and what I want to do over the next few weeks, while starting my short cycle to get ready for Mt Washington. I’m debating on early registering for a fall race, buying a coach (garmin) and seeking some advice on training tips to put forth an effort to give a 3:20:59 a shot. I don’t think I was very far off last year but as with anything, the last 10% will take 90% of the effort. Shaving an additional 10 minutes off of my PR will be a stiff task.

Splits:
8:35/7:42/7:48/7:49/8:02/7:51/16:10/8:00/7:55/7:55/7:47/7:51/
7:50/8:00/7:59/16:18/8:03/8:26/8:55/8:15/8:22/8:29/10:01/10:31/2:29