Despite what the falling mercury, snow covered tracks, and treacherous icy roads, there are still a few days left of fall. As my favorite season winds down and turns into my least favorite season, here is a recap of what I was up to this fall.
My fall racing season did not live up to the new high standards I set for myself last spring. There were many factors that led to this, but the primary was the fact that I pushed my body beyond its limits in the spring, and I spent most of the summer getting my legs back under me. In the excitement that came with reaching a new level of running this spring, I got caught up in wanting more and more. It was not the best approach, but I learned a lot from it. There is a need to take risks and put yourself out there in big races, but too many, too close together will make for a rough couple of months. When you are running well, you often begin to feel indestructible. As the results poured in this spring and I reached levels which I previously felt were out of my reach I just got too aggressive.
I realized I had really torched my body after racing the USA Half in June. I was able to PR in the race and ran 1:08:04, but my hamstrings were shot. They would have made functional guitar strings they were so tight, knotted, and strained. For the next month or so, it seemed a monumental task even to roll my chair into my desk at work. I knew things were really bad when I could barely break 16:00 for a low-key 5k in the Harrisburg area. Despite all the warning signs, I pushed ahead on my training, thinking I could still get myself in shape to run 2:18 at the Philadelphia Marathon in November. There was never a cataclysmic injury that forced me to take several weeks off - only a nagging weariness that forced me to have several 5-10 day stretches with no running.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have taken at least 3 weeks off completely from running after the half marathon, but that is not how I am wired. I could have even run very easy during my recovery phase. Again, that's just not how I am wired.
Part of what makes me a good runner, my grit and stubbornness, is also my downfall. I want the best out of myself on a day to day basis, and sometimes the need to recover gets lost in my desire to turn every run and workout into a personal competition hurts me, as it did this fall.
I finally got back to feeling good in September. By this time, however, I had less than 8 weeks to get ready for my target fall race, the Philadelphia Half Marathon. My workouts all fall were not spectacular. Having learned my lesson all summer, I did not want to rush things in workouts trying to get ready for a race that likely would not be spectacular with even the best workouts. My mileage hovered in the mid-80's and low 90's and I kept my workouts to threshold intervals with very short rest.
As I prepared for the half marathon, I sprinkled in a few shorter races, with good results that led me to believe I was getting into good shape. I raced the York White Rose 5 Miler with very little real training under my belt and ran 25:58 (to put my improvement since college in perspective, my 8k PR in college was only 26:30). This race was on a tough course, and I definitely had to work for the final time, but it served as a hard effort to jump start my training.
As I continued building up for Philly, I put in a hard effort two weeks out of the race. The Keystone Track Club puts on a 5k cross country race each year. I went into the race with the goal to just run as hard as I could with no real idea of my fitness. I came through the mile in 4:52 and never looked back, finishing in 15:19 on a tough grass course. I believe I could have run at least 10 seconds faster with some competition up front to race with. I've always felt cross country courses are at least 30 seconds slower for 5k when compared to a track, leading me to believe I was in at least 14:50 shape. Not bad for 6 weeks of training and no speed work!
I did not really make an effort to taper or peak too much for the half marathon given my delayed start to training. My race plan was to go out with the chase pack off the back of the Africans and hang on as long as I could. As long as I could turned out to be 5 miles. I came through 5 miles in 25:20 and feeling like crap. Luckily for me, the toughest hills in the race still laid ahead of me! I knew it was going to be a rough finish, and it did not disappoint as I struggled home in 1:09:22.
At the end of the day, although it was a terrible race, all it was was a hard effort to keep me moving on the right track to regaining my spring form. I took a few easy days after the half marathon as a precaution, but the race did not really take too much out of me. I got back to racing pretty quickly, running a good Turkey Trot in Palmyra. I was surprised to find myself running stride for stride with a professional runner, Darren Brown at a small town turkey trot. He kicked away from me with his sub 4:00 speed the last mile, but I ended up running 15:05 coming off a very slow first mile on a cold windy day.
The real highlight of my fall season finally came the first weekend of December at the Christmas Dash for Cash 10k in Chambersburg. Here, I really gutted out an excellent race on a rolling course. I finished in 31:01, very close to my track PR. It was in this race where I finally felt like my old self in a race. When I am on my game, I am able to relax for much of the middle portions of the race, covering moves of the runners around me, feeling in control of the effort. I ran tough here, but ultimately came up a little short of another very good runner with just a little bit more finishing speed than me.
This last race of the fall really left a great taste in my mouth and was just the spark I needed to get ready to put in a good block of training for a spring marathon. Despite all of the setbacks of the summer and early fall, I was able to get myself back to a high level. I learned you can't fake a half marathon, and have more respect for the distance. You won't see me going into a half marathon unprepared ever again.
As always, thank you to the Keystone Track Club, my fiancee, and my family for supporting this crazy addiction of mine. It was a good season of racing that left me hungry and wanting much more this winter and spring. Hopefully, 2014 will bring a real break through in the marathon for me.
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