I am now only two weeks away from the Shamrock Marathon, and it is officially time to enter the tapering phase of my training. The past 12 weeks of training have gone incredibly well - probably even better than I could have ever hoped. I ran over 1200 miles, consistently hovering between 105 and 110 miles for the better part of the time. I dodged snow storms and arctic temperatures nearly every week, but managed to work around whatever Mother Nature threw at me.
Last weekend, I did my final long, marathon specific workout - 3 x 4 miles with a 1 mile recovery jog. Like many of my workouts this winter, I did not enter the workout with a specific pace in mind for the intervals. I have come to realize that I have surpassed by far, my own estimations of my capabilities as a runner. I have run some times in workouts this winter that I would scarcely have considered possible in the past, for instance, 3 x 2 mile in an average of 9:30. Going into that workout with the goal only being to run hard and consistent effort allowed me to run faster than I would have if I had started the workout with the goal being just to run 5:00 pace for example. I am a big believer that the body and the brain are capable of far more when you do not give yourself limitations. If you let it, your body will take you to the right pace.
For the workout last weekend, I mapped out a 4 mile loop with several small hills to make me work a little. I had a rough idea of the mile marks on the loop, but I wasn't too concerned about getting a split each mile. I was more concerned about running a hard, consistent effort each time. I finished the first interval and was taken aback by the time on the watch - 19:50. I was a little worried I had gone too fast on the first one and would ruin the rest of the workout. I turned out that the 19:50 had not been stretching my body a little too far, and I ran each of the next two in 19:45. It was an incredible workout and has left me with incredible confidence heading into the marathon.
From here on out to race day, I will be dropping my mileage considerably. This week should be in the 70-80 mile range and next week I will only be doing around 45 minutes of running a day getting ready for the race. All the hard work has already been done and there is not much I can accomplish in two weeks of training. Now, I just need to rest up and let my body absorb the pounding I have put it through for the past 12 weeks.
Training - Week of 2/24 - 3/2
Monday - OFF - This was the first day off I had taken since mid-January and it definitely came at the right time as I was coming off a very hard 20 mile run
Tuesday - 12 miles @ 6:10 pace w/ 0.5 miles of strides post run
Wednesday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 4 x mile, J 2:00 @ 4:42, 4:39, 4:39, 4:35, 2 x 800, J 2:00 @ 2:15, 2:08, 2 mile cooldown
Really a great workout! As I close out training, I will be starting to run some faster workouts just to sharpen up my legs.
Thursday - 13 miles @ 6:13 pace
Friday - 10 miles @ 5:55 pace
Saturday - 18 miles total - 2 mile warmup, 3 x 4 mile w/ 1 mile recovery @ 6:30 pace, 19:50, 19:45, 19:45, 2 mile cooldown
Sunday - 16 miles @ 6:00 pace
Total - 85 miles
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
3 Weeks to Go!
Last week was another solid week of training as I prepare for the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach. We had a slight break in the winter weather at the end of the week, and I made the most of it. Towards the end of this week, I was definitely noticing a little weariness building up in my legs, but I pushed through it knowing that once this week was over, my training load will start to lighten as I begin to taper and freshen up for race day. I did my last hard 20 mile run this weekend and have one more key workout to look forward to next weekend, 3 x 4 mile. From there out, it will be mostly easy running and several short workouts and tempo runs just to keep the legs loose. The bulk of my work is now behind me and I just have to relax and trust in the hard work that I have done the past 3 months.
Monday - 12 miles @ 6:20 pace
Tuesday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 12 miles - 3 mile warmup, 3-2-1 mile in 14:57-9:50-4:45, 3 mile cooldown
Wednesday - 15 miles @ 6:16 pace
Thursday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 10 miles @ 5:58 pace
Friday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 12 miles - 2 mile warmup, 8 mile tempo @ 5:11 pace, 2 mile cooldown
Saturday - 11 miles @ 6:16 pace
Sunday - 20 miles @ 5:38 pace - progressive run on a rolling, hilly loop - first 5 miles around 6:00 pace, from 5-10 miles @ 5:40 pace, from 10-15 miles @ 5:30 pace, from 15-20 miles @ 5:25 pace with last 3 miles @ 5:20 pace
Total - 105.5
The overall pace of my training runs was very good this week. From here out, I will try and keep things in the 6:30 range on non-workout days. My tempo run on Friday felt very comfortable, and I was surprised when I looked at the final time that I had averaged 5:11 as the effort felt more like 5:20-5:30 type effort. I am also incredibly pleased with my long run on Sunday. I have done faster long runs, but not on loops with the amount of hills that this one had. Given the terrain I was running on, I am very pleased that I was able to run near marathon pace the last three miles and close my last mile in 5:11.
Monday - 12 miles @ 6:20 pace
Tuesday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 12 miles - 3 mile warmup, 3-2-1 mile in 14:57-9:50-4:45, 3 mile cooldown
Wednesday - 15 miles @ 6:16 pace
Thursday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 10 miles @ 5:58 pace
Friday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 12 miles - 2 mile warmup, 8 mile tempo @ 5:11 pace, 2 mile cooldown
Saturday - 11 miles @ 6:16 pace
Sunday - 20 miles @ 5:38 pace - progressive run on a rolling, hilly loop - first 5 miles around 6:00 pace, from 5-10 miles @ 5:40 pace, from 10-15 miles @ 5:30 pace, from 15-20 miles @ 5:25 pace with last 3 miles @ 5:20 pace
Total - 105.5
The overall pace of my training runs was very good this week. From here out, I will try and keep things in the 6:30 range on non-workout days. My tempo run on Friday felt very comfortable, and I was surprised when I looked at the final time that I had averaged 5:11 as the effort felt more like 5:20-5:30 type effort. I am also incredibly pleased with my long run on Sunday. I have done faster long runs, but not on loops with the amount of hills that this one had. Given the terrain I was running on, I am very pleased that I was able to run near marathon pace the last three miles and close my last mile in 5:11.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
It's Grind Time
It is now just under a month to go until the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach! The race is so close I can almost feel the warm ocean breeze and smell the salty air. It could just be the brutal winter we've been having here in the Northeast or it may be the fact that I am confident I am in the best shape of my life, but I cannot wait to get to the starting line!
The next two weeks of training will be crucial as I wrap up the heaviest portion of my training. The last two weeks before the race I will be tapering and not doing any hard workouts. At this point, I have already done the bulk of the work that I needed to do in training. These next two weeks will just be about really grinding through two more weeks of high mileage and marathon specific workouts with an increased focus on rest, recovery, and health. I have one more long progression run to do this weekend, and one more key interval workout, 3 x 4 mile to do before I can really relax and enter my taper content that I am ready for a marathon.
As I enter the final month of training before the race, there are several minor tweaks I will be making to my weekly routine as I try to feel as fresh and sharp as possible. I will begin eliminating the double I had been doing on Monday after my long run. I will still be doubling the next two weeks on days before workouts because I find that my legs feel fresher for a hard workout after a morning run. During my taper I do not plan to do any doubles. I have always found that doubles help to boost my energy on the main run of the day while also serving to give me an additional 10-15 miles of running a week. I also plan to run much slower on days between workouts than I usually do. One thing I have done differently during this marathon buildup is not hold back on my daily training runs. Building up for Vermont last spring, I held myself back a lot on training runs, rarely running below 6:30 pace. This time around, I have upped the intensity of my training runs considerably, approaching 6:00 pace on most days. I am very pleased with the results, as I think running at a higher intensity day in and day out has made me considerably stronger than I was last spring. I did not worry too much about feeling tired the day of a workout after a hard run the previous day, because in the second half of a marathon, I will definitely be feeling tired. I think the general fatigue associated with training hard on a daily basis with very few true easy days has served me well as I get ready to race hard for 26.2 miles. Now, with not much more to be gained aerobically in a month, I will be dialing it down to make sure my legs are ready to race.
One other thing I have done this training cycle is do as little supplementary recovery such as ice bath, epsom salt bath, and anti-inflammatories. I read about a theory of Jerry Schumacher utilizes with his group where they avoid using these type of recovery tools right up until the very end of training. The thought is that not using these recovery aids during the hardest part of training will increase their effects when finally used during the taper. I also believe this is a good idea when marathon training, because as previously stated, I think doing the bulk of my training with slightly tired legs will pay off in the long run once I dial things back. When training this way, it is extremely important to be very aware of your body at all times, because you really are right on the limit of what your body can handle. Luckily, I have made it through the hardest part of my training relatively unscathed and feeling good. Time to nail down my final hard weeks of training and then relax!
Here is a breakdown of my training last week:
Monday - AM run - 4.5 miles @ 6:30 pace, PM run - 12 miles @ 6:10 pace
Tuesday - AM run - 4.5 miles untimed, PM run - 12.5 total - 3 mile warmup, 4 x mile with 1:00 jog - 4:55, 4:55, 4:53, 4:51, 4 x 800 with 2:00 jog - 2:19, 2:18, 2:17, 2:15, 2 mile cooldown
This was a very good workout. The mile repeats were meant to be at lactate threshold pace (for those of you wondering what the heck that means, the lactate threshold is the point at which lactic acid is being produced by your body faster than you can metabolize it - lactic acid = heavy legs = bad), and I felt that even with the short rest, I was not crossing over my threshold.
Wednesday - PM run - 16 miles @ 6:25 pace
Thursday - AM run - 12 miles - moderate progressive run on the treadmill as what I hope was the last snowpocalypse of the season hit - started @ 6:30 pace and worked down to 5:45 pace - averaged 6:08 for entire run
Friday - 17 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 3 x 3 mile with 5:45-6:00 rest mile - 15:13, 15:12, 15:13, 3 mile cooldown
This was one of the better workouts I have ever done. Last spring when I was training for Vermont I did this workout several times and averaged between 15:30-15:45. The effort I was putting out today felt the same as my effort last spring. A great sign for sure!
Saturday - AM run - 11 miles @ 6:20 - it was snowing again...grrrrrrrr
Sunday - AM run - 20 miles @ 6:08 pace - 90 mins of easy running followed by 30 mins of 30 second strides @ 4:20-4:30 pace with 2:30 rest @ 6:00 pace
Total for week - 109.5 miles
The next two weeks of training will be crucial as I wrap up the heaviest portion of my training. The last two weeks before the race I will be tapering and not doing any hard workouts. At this point, I have already done the bulk of the work that I needed to do in training. These next two weeks will just be about really grinding through two more weeks of high mileage and marathon specific workouts with an increased focus on rest, recovery, and health. I have one more long progression run to do this weekend, and one more key interval workout, 3 x 4 mile to do before I can really relax and enter my taper content that I am ready for a marathon.
As I enter the final month of training before the race, there are several minor tweaks I will be making to my weekly routine as I try to feel as fresh and sharp as possible. I will begin eliminating the double I had been doing on Monday after my long run. I will still be doubling the next two weeks on days before workouts because I find that my legs feel fresher for a hard workout after a morning run. During my taper I do not plan to do any doubles. I have always found that doubles help to boost my energy on the main run of the day while also serving to give me an additional 10-15 miles of running a week. I also plan to run much slower on days between workouts than I usually do. One thing I have done differently during this marathon buildup is not hold back on my daily training runs. Building up for Vermont last spring, I held myself back a lot on training runs, rarely running below 6:30 pace. This time around, I have upped the intensity of my training runs considerably, approaching 6:00 pace on most days. I am very pleased with the results, as I think running at a higher intensity day in and day out has made me considerably stronger than I was last spring. I did not worry too much about feeling tired the day of a workout after a hard run the previous day, because in the second half of a marathon, I will definitely be feeling tired. I think the general fatigue associated with training hard on a daily basis with very few true easy days has served me well as I get ready to race hard for 26.2 miles. Now, with not much more to be gained aerobically in a month, I will be dialing it down to make sure my legs are ready to race.
One other thing I have done this training cycle is do as little supplementary recovery such as ice bath, epsom salt bath, and anti-inflammatories. I read about a theory of Jerry Schumacher utilizes with his group where they avoid using these type of recovery tools right up until the very end of training. The thought is that not using these recovery aids during the hardest part of training will increase their effects when finally used during the taper. I also believe this is a good idea when marathon training, because as previously stated, I think doing the bulk of my training with slightly tired legs will pay off in the long run once I dial things back. When training this way, it is extremely important to be very aware of your body at all times, because you really are right on the limit of what your body can handle. Luckily, I have made it through the hardest part of my training relatively unscathed and feeling good. Time to nail down my final hard weeks of training and then relax!
Here is a breakdown of my training last week:
Monday - AM run - 4.5 miles @ 6:30 pace, PM run - 12 miles @ 6:10 pace
Tuesday - AM run - 4.5 miles untimed, PM run - 12.5 total - 3 mile warmup, 4 x mile with 1:00 jog - 4:55, 4:55, 4:53, 4:51, 4 x 800 with 2:00 jog - 2:19, 2:18, 2:17, 2:15, 2 mile cooldown
This was a very good workout. The mile repeats were meant to be at lactate threshold pace (for those of you wondering what the heck that means, the lactate threshold is the point at which lactic acid is being produced by your body faster than you can metabolize it - lactic acid = heavy legs = bad), and I felt that even with the short rest, I was not crossing over my threshold.
Wednesday - PM run - 16 miles @ 6:25 pace
Thursday - AM run - 12 miles - moderate progressive run on the treadmill as what I hope was the last snowpocalypse of the season hit - started @ 6:30 pace and worked down to 5:45 pace - averaged 6:08 for entire run
Friday - 17 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 3 x 3 mile with 5:45-6:00 rest mile - 15:13, 15:12, 15:13, 3 mile cooldown
This was one of the better workouts I have ever done. Last spring when I was training for Vermont I did this workout several times and averaged between 15:30-15:45. The effort I was putting out today felt the same as my effort last spring. A great sign for sure!
Saturday - AM run - 11 miles @ 6:20 - it was snowing again...grrrrrrrr
Sunday - AM run - 20 miles @ 6:08 pace - 90 mins of easy running followed by 30 mins of 30 second strides @ 4:20-4:30 pace with 2:30 rest @ 6:00 pace
Total for week - 109.5 miles
Monday, February 10, 2014
The Train Rolls On
The 100 Mile Express continues to roll on, bound straight for Virginia Beach. Last week, I put another 105 miles of work into my legs as I get ready for the Shamrock Marathon now only 5 weeks away. I came into this week off of a very tough weekend the week prior. On Saturday I used the Frosty 5k in Lewisburg as a hard tempo run, breaking the tape in 14:56 before cranking out 10x300 meters at 3k pace which ended up being between 46-48 seconds. It was not quite a race effort, but it was the first time I had asked my body to work a little harder than normal tempo pace in a long time. I came away from the workout feeling very pleased with the fact that I could run 14:56 as a controlled effort and follow it up with some fairly quick intervals. Following this workout on Sunday, I set off on a 2:30 progression run. This would be the longest progression run that I had ever done, and it went very well. I gradually worked the pace down until I was hitting close to marathon pace the last 20 minutes of the run. The final tally for the day was 24.5 miles with the last 3.5 miles run at 5:20 pace. What wound up being a 37.5 mile weekend left me very tired entering this week, but with under a month of real training time left before the marathon, I had to keep the train rolling along.
I am not typically very conscious of the pace I run on a given training run, even an easy day. My philosophy has always been that the body will settle in at the fastest pace it is capable of on a given day, whether that is 6:00 or 7:00. For me, it has always been closer to 6:00, but last week, I was very careful to take my foot off the gas pedal a little more than normal on my easy days. As I enter the heaviest volume workouts of my training cycle such as 3 x 3 mile and 3 x 4 mile, it is of the utmost importance to be feeling as fresh as you possibly can in the middle of a 100+ mile week.
I did 3 key workouts last week. On Tuesday I did 5 x 2k with a 2:00 recovery jog between reps. The goal for this workout was to feel comfortable right around 5:00 pace. With only one full day of recovery after my hard 24.5 miler, there was no reason to push this workout extremely hard. I ended up averaging 6:11 for the reps, which put me just under 5:00 pace. This was a good workout for me, and I am confident I could have handled one or two more reps at the same pace, always a good sign when targeting threshold pace. On Friday, I cranked out a very good 6 mile tempo run in 30:40. I like to start my tempo runs at marathon pace, and gradually work the pace down to the very edge of my areobic threshold. I was pleased that I could comfortably close the last 2 miles of the tempo in under 10 minutes, and did not come away with my legs feeling too heavy and sore on Saturday, always a good thing when you are trying to avoid lactic acid production as you should in a tempo run. On Sunday, I did my favorite long run workout. As I have previously written, when training for a marathon, I feel it is imperative that your long run be more than just a basic 20 mile run. There needs to be variation in pace, as the long run is as close to marathon simulation as you can get. I began with an easy 10 miles at 6:30 pace on a rolling out and back road. From there, I went straight into a 10 mile fartlek alternating hard miles and moderate miles. I ran the hard miles in 5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, and 5:00 all on rolling hills. The moderate miles between were all comfortably done around 6:05 pace, and I felt more than ready to go at the end of my recovery each time. Overall, I hit the last 10 miles of my run in 56:00. I have done this workout several times in the past, and this was by far the best I have felt doing it.
At this point, I am now under a month to go until I begin to enter my taper the last two weeks leading up to the race. At this point, all I can really do is keep doing the work and stay healthy. The majority of the work for this race has already been done over the past nine weeks. All I can do now is fine tune things and complete a couple more big workouts.
Here is a full summary of my training last week:
Monday - 12 miles easy - 1:18:00 (6:30 pace)
Tuesday - 12.5 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 5 x 2k (6:14, 6:14, 6:13, 6:09, 6:05 on 2:00 recovery),
2 mile cooldown
Wednesday - AM run - 5 miles, PM run - 12 miles easy - 1:15:55 (6:19 pace)
Thursday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles moderate effort - 1:06:24 (6:02 pace), also did a
half mile of strides post run
Friday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 6 mile progressive tempo (5:17, 5:08, 5:09, 5:05, 5:03, 4:55), 2 mile cooldown
Saturday - 12 miles - 1:13:48 (6:09 pace)
Sunday - 20 miles - 10 easy (1:05:40), 10 mile fartlek (5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, 5:00 for hard miles, 56:00 total)
Week Total - 105 miles
I am not typically very conscious of the pace I run on a given training run, even an easy day. My philosophy has always been that the body will settle in at the fastest pace it is capable of on a given day, whether that is 6:00 or 7:00. For me, it has always been closer to 6:00, but last week, I was very careful to take my foot off the gas pedal a little more than normal on my easy days. As I enter the heaviest volume workouts of my training cycle such as 3 x 3 mile and 3 x 4 mile, it is of the utmost importance to be feeling as fresh as you possibly can in the middle of a 100+ mile week.
I did 3 key workouts last week. On Tuesday I did 5 x 2k with a 2:00 recovery jog between reps. The goal for this workout was to feel comfortable right around 5:00 pace. With only one full day of recovery after my hard 24.5 miler, there was no reason to push this workout extremely hard. I ended up averaging 6:11 for the reps, which put me just under 5:00 pace. This was a good workout for me, and I am confident I could have handled one or two more reps at the same pace, always a good sign when targeting threshold pace. On Friday, I cranked out a very good 6 mile tempo run in 30:40. I like to start my tempo runs at marathon pace, and gradually work the pace down to the very edge of my areobic threshold. I was pleased that I could comfortably close the last 2 miles of the tempo in under 10 minutes, and did not come away with my legs feeling too heavy and sore on Saturday, always a good thing when you are trying to avoid lactic acid production as you should in a tempo run. On Sunday, I did my favorite long run workout. As I have previously written, when training for a marathon, I feel it is imperative that your long run be more than just a basic 20 mile run. There needs to be variation in pace, as the long run is as close to marathon simulation as you can get. I began with an easy 10 miles at 6:30 pace on a rolling out and back road. From there, I went straight into a 10 mile fartlek alternating hard miles and moderate miles. I ran the hard miles in 5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, and 5:00 all on rolling hills. The moderate miles between were all comfortably done around 6:05 pace, and I felt more than ready to go at the end of my recovery each time. Overall, I hit the last 10 miles of my run in 56:00. I have done this workout several times in the past, and this was by far the best I have felt doing it.
At this point, I am now under a month to go until I begin to enter my taper the last two weeks leading up to the race. At this point, all I can really do is keep doing the work and stay healthy. The majority of the work for this race has already been done over the past nine weeks. All I can do now is fine tune things and complete a couple more big workouts.
Here is a full summary of my training last week:
Monday - 12 miles easy - 1:18:00 (6:30 pace)
Tuesday - 12.5 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 5 x 2k (6:14, 6:14, 6:13, 6:09, 6:05 on 2:00 recovery),
2 mile cooldown
Wednesday - AM run - 5 miles, PM run - 12 miles easy - 1:15:55 (6:19 pace)
Thursday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles moderate effort - 1:06:24 (6:02 pace), also did a
half mile of strides post run
Friday - AM run - 4.5 miles, PM run - 11 miles total - 3 mile warmup, 6 mile progressive tempo (5:17, 5:08, 5:09, 5:05, 5:03, 4:55), 2 mile cooldown
Saturday - 12 miles - 1:13:48 (6:09 pace)
Sunday - 20 miles - 10 easy (1:05:40), 10 mile fartlek (5:13, 5:05, 4:50, 5:05, 5:00 for hard miles, 56:00 total)
Week Total - 105 miles
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Crunch Time
My next marathon, the Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach on St. Patrick's Day weekend is fast approaching. With under 6 weeks to go until race day, I really only have a little over 3 weeks to really make any noticeable gains in fitness. In these three weeks I will really be hitting the bulk of my longest marathon specific workouts. My marathon specific training block started 8 weeks ago, and I could not be more pleased with how it has gone.
Despite the terrible weather we have had this winter, I have found a way to work around almost everything that Mother Nature has dumped on us. I have not seen a track uncovered since late December, but I have done what I needed to do to get my workouts in, be it on the roads or treadmill. Over the last 8 weeks, I have run over 800 miles, which includes an 85 mile week in which I took a day off. It hasn't been easy keeping my training volume that high with constant snowfall and polar vortexes hammering the Northeast, but hopefully winter will be relinquishing its grasp within a few weeks. It has definitely been a grind keeping my mileage up in the low 100's when the temperature dips into the 0's, but the work has gotten done, and now it is time to really bear down.
When it comes to marathon training, I like to take a very simple approach. There are three key workouts each week - Tuesday intervals, Friday tempo runs, and Sunday long runs. The Tuesday interval workouts touch on a variety of speeds throughout the training block. I like to alternate longer intervals at marathon pace with shorter intervals at half marathon/10k pace on my Tuesday workouts. This allows me to work on different energy systems. When training for a marathon, it is important to remember that you cannot simply do all your workouts at one pace. The body needs variety to really maximize fitness. At the end of a marathon, you are going to need those fast twitch muscles to pitch in, so don't neglect them in your workouts. As I get closer to race day, Tuesday workouts will creep a little closer to 5k pace as I sharpen up. The second workout of the week for me is usually a tempo run or tempo intervals. I will either do a 6-8 mile continuous tempo or 3 reps of 3 or 4 miles. I feel that 3 x 4 mile is one of the best indicators of marathon fitness, and I will be doing that workout coming up shortly. My last big workout of the week is always the Sunday long run, typically 20-24 miles. I always try and incorporate some marathon pace running into my long runs. My personal favorite is a long progression run taking the last 30 minutes of the run at marathon pace. There are several other variations on the long run I like to use, but I hardly ever just run 20 miles at an even pace. To truly get out of the long run what you need as a marathoner, there must be portions of the long run done at marathon pace. The long run really is as close as you can get to simulating the actual race. Woven through all of these workouts are basic training runs. I have made a concerted effort to keep the intensity of these training runs on the higher side. I think it is important not to let the intensity of your daily runs slide as you increase your mileage. If you follow a mileage progression correctly, there is no reason you should not be able to run the same average pace in the middle of a 100 mile week as you were during an 80 mile week. If the 100 mile week is slowing down your daily runs, then it is too much for you. I will typically run at 6:00 to 6:20 pace on my training days. The only day I am really conscious of pace is the day after a hard long run when my legs are really sore. The rest of my workouts, while intense, are for the most part done at my aerobic threshold, and do not leave me feeling very sore or tired.
If my approach to marathon training sounds simple, that's because it is. The marathon is a beast of a race, but it is for the most part, an entirely aerobic race. Unlike the 5k or 10k on the track, you are not pushing your body into the anaerobic state. When you get tired at the end of a marathon, it is not because your muscles are filling with lactic acid, it is simply because 26.2 miles is an extremely long distance to run. Essentially, a marathon is a tempo run from hell. As I train for one, I simply throw as much aerobic strengthening work at my body as I can possibly handle and hope it sticks. It truly is a fine line to navigate, but I feel as if I have gotten a good handle on exactly how much my body can handle. Running the type of marathon I am capable of requires me to get as close to that limit as possible in my training.
My workouts have gone incredibly well the past 8 weeks and I have not walked away from a workout thinking that I had asked too much of my body. My Tuesday workouts have consisted of 1k, 2k, 1 mile, and 2 mile repeats. I like to rotate through the various distances, very rarely doing the same distance two weeks in a row. This gives some variety and keeps the body from getting too comfortable at one pace. Some examples of workouts I have done so far are 8x1k, 5x2k, 8xmile, and 3x2 mile. These workouts have gone very similarly to the ones I was doing on Tuesday as I built up for Vermont last spring, but I have dropped the pace slightly while cutting down on the rest. I believe too many people get caught up in doing their intervals faster and faster when they should be focusing on cutting down the rest. Pushing your workouts closer to continuous is more beneficial in my opinion than running faster intervals but with more rest. There is one workout that I have done that has really stood out to me as an indicator of how far I have come as a runner, and that is the 3x2 mile workout I did 2 weeks ago. I averaged 9:30 for the workout while taking a quarter mile for recovery. To put that in perspective, when I graduated high school, my 2 mile PR was 9:36. I certainly have come a long way as a runner.
My tempo runs have also gone well. The main point of my Tuesday workouts is to improve my running economy and make tempo/marathon pace feel easier, and that has certainly been the case. I have tried to get away from the tempo intervals I did frequently in my last marathon buildup, and do more continuous progressive tempos. Doing 3 x 3 mile is great, but I think that a 6-8 mile tempo run is a better workout for marathon prep as you do not give your body recovery periods. I do these tempo runs starting at marathon pace, and gradually work down at the end towards half marathon or 10k pace depending on how good I am feeling. I think you should always push the limits of your tempo pace because a 6-8 mile tempo run at marathon pace feels a little too easy. It is, after all, the pace you are intending to run for 18-20 more miles. I will typically average anywhere between 5:05 and 5:10 for these runs, but I think the extra stimulus I get from running the last mile or two at 4:50-4:55 pace will really pay off in the marathon.
My long runs have always been my favorite. Everyone who has run with me knows how much I like to hammer my runs, and the long runs I have been doing give me the opportunity to do just that for over 2 hours. I have incorporated several long run workouts into my training from the blog of Ryan Vail, the top American at the NYC marathon this fall. Some examples are the 4-10-4 workout where the 4 mile segments are done at marathon pace with a 10 mile run at steady state pace done in between. I did this workout three weeks ago now and averaged 5:12 pace for my 4's and 6:00 pace for the 10 in between. I did a variation on this workout where the middle 10 was taken at tempo pace and averaged 5:10. My favorite marathon workout will always be the long progression run. Last Sunday, I nailed a 24.5 mile progression run, hitting the last 3.5 miles on rolling hills at 5:20 pace with the last half mile all out at 5:00 pace. It was a great indicator of my level of fitness, and left me very sore, but extremely pumped about the kind of shape I am in.
A lot can happen in 5 weeks of training, but from where I stand now, I feel I am on the right track to run a fast marathon in Virginia Beach. I have my sights set on 2:18 and an Olympic Trials qualifier. If everything comes together on that day, it will be well within my reach. I will try to do a better job of keeping updates on my training coming more frequently as I really get into the final stages.
Despite the terrible weather we have had this winter, I have found a way to work around almost everything that Mother Nature has dumped on us. I have not seen a track uncovered since late December, but I have done what I needed to do to get my workouts in, be it on the roads or treadmill. Over the last 8 weeks, I have run over 800 miles, which includes an 85 mile week in which I took a day off. It hasn't been easy keeping my training volume that high with constant snowfall and polar vortexes hammering the Northeast, but hopefully winter will be relinquishing its grasp within a few weeks. It has definitely been a grind keeping my mileage up in the low 100's when the temperature dips into the 0's, but the work has gotten done, and now it is time to really bear down.
When it comes to marathon training, I like to take a very simple approach. There are three key workouts each week - Tuesday intervals, Friday tempo runs, and Sunday long runs. The Tuesday interval workouts touch on a variety of speeds throughout the training block. I like to alternate longer intervals at marathon pace with shorter intervals at half marathon/10k pace on my Tuesday workouts. This allows me to work on different energy systems. When training for a marathon, it is important to remember that you cannot simply do all your workouts at one pace. The body needs variety to really maximize fitness. At the end of a marathon, you are going to need those fast twitch muscles to pitch in, so don't neglect them in your workouts. As I get closer to race day, Tuesday workouts will creep a little closer to 5k pace as I sharpen up. The second workout of the week for me is usually a tempo run or tempo intervals. I will either do a 6-8 mile continuous tempo or 3 reps of 3 or 4 miles. I feel that 3 x 4 mile is one of the best indicators of marathon fitness, and I will be doing that workout coming up shortly. My last big workout of the week is always the Sunday long run, typically 20-24 miles. I always try and incorporate some marathon pace running into my long runs. My personal favorite is a long progression run taking the last 30 minutes of the run at marathon pace. There are several other variations on the long run I like to use, but I hardly ever just run 20 miles at an even pace. To truly get out of the long run what you need as a marathoner, there must be portions of the long run done at marathon pace. The long run really is as close as you can get to simulating the actual race. Woven through all of these workouts are basic training runs. I have made a concerted effort to keep the intensity of these training runs on the higher side. I think it is important not to let the intensity of your daily runs slide as you increase your mileage. If you follow a mileage progression correctly, there is no reason you should not be able to run the same average pace in the middle of a 100 mile week as you were during an 80 mile week. If the 100 mile week is slowing down your daily runs, then it is too much for you. I will typically run at 6:00 to 6:20 pace on my training days. The only day I am really conscious of pace is the day after a hard long run when my legs are really sore. The rest of my workouts, while intense, are for the most part done at my aerobic threshold, and do not leave me feeling very sore or tired.
If my approach to marathon training sounds simple, that's because it is. The marathon is a beast of a race, but it is for the most part, an entirely aerobic race. Unlike the 5k or 10k on the track, you are not pushing your body into the anaerobic state. When you get tired at the end of a marathon, it is not because your muscles are filling with lactic acid, it is simply because 26.2 miles is an extremely long distance to run. Essentially, a marathon is a tempo run from hell. As I train for one, I simply throw as much aerobic strengthening work at my body as I can possibly handle and hope it sticks. It truly is a fine line to navigate, but I feel as if I have gotten a good handle on exactly how much my body can handle. Running the type of marathon I am capable of requires me to get as close to that limit as possible in my training.
My workouts have gone incredibly well the past 8 weeks and I have not walked away from a workout thinking that I had asked too much of my body. My Tuesday workouts have consisted of 1k, 2k, 1 mile, and 2 mile repeats. I like to rotate through the various distances, very rarely doing the same distance two weeks in a row. This gives some variety and keeps the body from getting too comfortable at one pace. Some examples of workouts I have done so far are 8x1k, 5x2k, 8xmile, and 3x2 mile. These workouts have gone very similarly to the ones I was doing on Tuesday as I built up for Vermont last spring, but I have dropped the pace slightly while cutting down on the rest. I believe too many people get caught up in doing their intervals faster and faster when they should be focusing on cutting down the rest. Pushing your workouts closer to continuous is more beneficial in my opinion than running faster intervals but with more rest. There is one workout that I have done that has really stood out to me as an indicator of how far I have come as a runner, and that is the 3x2 mile workout I did 2 weeks ago. I averaged 9:30 for the workout while taking a quarter mile for recovery. To put that in perspective, when I graduated high school, my 2 mile PR was 9:36. I certainly have come a long way as a runner.
My tempo runs have also gone well. The main point of my Tuesday workouts is to improve my running economy and make tempo/marathon pace feel easier, and that has certainly been the case. I have tried to get away from the tempo intervals I did frequently in my last marathon buildup, and do more continuous progressive tempos. Doing 3 x 3 mile is great, but I think that a 6-8 mile tempo run is a better workout for marathon prep as you do not give your body recovery periods. I do these tempo runs starting at marathon pace, and gradually work down at the end towards half marathon or 10k pace depending on how good I am feeling. I think you should always push the limits of your tempo pace because a 6-8 mile tempo run at marathon pace feels a little too easy. It is, after all, the pace you are intending to run for 18-20 more miles. I will typically average anywhere between 5:05 and 5:10 for these runs, but I think the extra stimulus I get from running the last mile or two at 4:50-4:55 pace will really pay off in the marathon.
My long runs have always been my favorite. Everyone who has run with me knows how much I like to hammer my runs, and the long runs I have been doing give me the opportunity to do just that for over 2 hours. I have incorporated several long run workouts into my training from the blog of Ryan Vail, the top American at the NYC marathon this fall. Some examples are the 4-10-4 workout where the 4 mile segments are done at marathon pace with a 10 mile run at steady state pace done in between. I did this workout three weeks ago now and averaged 5:12 pace for my 4's and 6:00 pace for the 10 in between. I did a variation on this workout where the middle 10 was taken at tempo pace and averaged 5:10. My favorite marathon workout will always be the long progression run. Last Sunday, I nailed a 24.5 mile progression run, hitting the last 3.5 miles on rolling hills at 5:20 pace with the last half mile all out at 5:00 pace. It was a great indicator of my level of fitness, and left me very sore, but extremely pumped about the kind of shape I am in.
A lot can happen in 5 weeks of training, but from where I stand now, I feel I am on the right track to run a fast marathon in Virginia Beach. I have my sights set on 2:18 and an Olympic Trials qualifier. If everything comes together on that day, it will be well within my reach. I will try to do a better job of keeping updates on my training coming more frequently as I really get into the final stages.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Midatlantic Runner of the Year
I am extremely proud to announce that this weekend I will be honored as the 2013 USATF Midatlantic Male Distance Runner of the Year. I think it is fitting to reflect on the year that was 2013 for me running and racingwise and how I earned this honor. Without a doubt, 2013 was one of, if not, the most successful years in my running career. I logged more miles and more 100+ mile weeks in a year than ever before - 3,629 miles in total (coming up just short of averaging 10 per day for an entire year) and experienced the success I always knew I could at the longer distances. I am very grateful to the USATF Midatlantic for selecting me amongst many other talented runners in our region as well as for their continued support of my running pursuits.
There are certainly many people I need to thank for helping me to achieve this award. First would be my future wife, Madeline for putting up with my running obsession. My parents have also been incredibly supportive of my running and still scarecly miss a race. Between my parents and fiancee, I never lack for support at a big race, and you cannot underestimate the value of that. Having your loved ones behind you and supporting you really makes the training feel easier. I would also like to give a big thank you to Henry Klugh from the Keystone Track Club for keeping me in shoes. You would be surprised at how quickly a pair of shoes gets worn out when running over 15 miles a day. Lastly, I would like to thank Robin Jefferis at USATF Midatlantic for really helping me navigate the world of road racing and encouraging me to enter challenging races.
It was certainly a banner year for me, but it almost never got off the ground. Following my first attempt at the marathon in the fall of 2012 at the Philadelphia Marathon, I really struggled to get myself training hard again. At the time, I knew what potential I had as a marathoner, having run the first 20 miles of that race at 2:18 pace. Unfortunately, I had not really trained properly or understood the marathon distance my first time around racing one, and I cratered hard the last 6 miles of the race, and finished in a very pedestrian 2:31. I came away from that race knowing two things, first that I had totally underestimated my potential as a marathoner. I had gone into the race with no expectations and ran at Olympic Trials qualifying pace for 20 miles. Secondly, I realized, that I still had an immense amount of work to do before those last 6 miles felt as good as the first 20.
As I entered my first winter as a post collegiate runner, I quickly realized just how much of a grind it is training in the winter while working a grown up job. The weekends are the only time for a period of over 4 months that you are able to run in daylight. I have never been one to lack motivation when it comes to running, but for the first time in my life, I found myself not really wanting to run all that much. I will be honest with everyone reading this - it absolutely sucks running in the pitch black on a 25 degree windy night. At this time, I also realized something else about myself. I do love to run, but I hate doing anything in life at less than a 100% effort. If I wasn't motivated to run at a high level, I did not feel like simply going through the motions to put in a five or 6 miler. Empty days piled up on the calender during the month of January. I was still doing around 60 miles a week with some workouts, but not really training for anything.
At the end of January, I entered an indoor 5k on a whim. I had no real expectations of myself in the race as I had not really been training well. I ended up running 15:09 and feeling very comfortable doing so. I could not believe that I could run that fast off of very little training. Seeing what I could do with very sporadic training was the spark I needed to recommit to my training.
After that race, I did something that was probably very stupid at the time, but ended up working out in the end. I woke up the Monday after that race and decided I was going to run 100 mile weeks. With no real buildup to that amount of mileage, it was a risky move, but it worked out. The miles piled up quickly and I got in the best shape of my life. Sometimes in life, you just need to tell yourself you are going to do something and then do it no matter what. As I reeled off these hundred mile weeks, I found I saw in myself that ability, the shear force of will to get done what you need to get done.
As I really trained properly for my first marathon, I was doing types of workouts that I had never done before. My college team never did many tempo runs, but as the marathon is the "tempo run from hell," I found myself doing longer tempo runs than ever before. I did 3x3 mile, 3x4 mile, 6 mile tempo runs, progressive long runs with the last 5 miles at marathon pace. More importantly, I also worked on my speed. I think many people who train hard for marathons neglect their speed, thinking only of the long aerobic workouts which are certainly important. There is no getting around the fact, however, that to run 26.2 miles at 5:15 pace, you need some basic leg speed. To work on my speed, I was doing 1k repeats at 10k pace, and eventually worked up to mile repeats at 5k pace, which for me was 4:35-4:40. I followed all of these workouts with 200's and 300's all out to really hone my fast twitch muscles.
The training translated incredibly well to racing in the spring. I broke 15:00 for 5k on the roads, running 14:54 and placed in the top 10 at the nations largest 10 mile race, the Broad Street Run, in a time of 50:28. All these races were run with heavy mileage still weighing on my legs as I prepared for the Vermont City Marathon in May.
Going into Vermont, I knew I was ready to run under 2:20. I was well tapered, and everything felt good. Unfortunately, the second coming of the Great Flood coincided with the race, and we were forced to run in torrential downpours, gusting winds, and 40 degree temperatures. I felt very good through the first half of the race in 1:09:30, but could not keep the pace up over the last 10k of the race, finishing 3rd in 2:22:28. I was definitely disappointed with the final time, but not the effort. I know that effort was worth a sub 2:20 on a good day. This race was definitely the highlight of my year, as it was so gratifying to have a breakthrough marathon after months of training. I got my first taste of what it really feels like to be taken care of at a race, as the race directors looked after us all weekend. I would highly recommend this race to anyone.
Following Vermont, I made the worst decision of the year. I decided to accept an entry into the USA Half Marathon Championships only 3 weeks after the marathon. At the time, I was riding an incredible high, thinking I could keep racing at a high level, but the marathon just completely sapped my body of everything it had. Months and months of high mileage just left me worn out, but I pressed on. As I have already written, I did set a new half marathon PR at the race, but the effort triggered a full breakdown of my body. It was something I had never experienced as a runner, only heard about. There really is no way to describe the feeling other than a lingering, never ending fatigue. It hurt even to walk anywhere, and I was forced to train sporadically all summer. I barely cracked 200 miles a month for July and August. Things improved in September and I was finally able to approach the type of training I had done in the spring.
I approached my fall training rather conservatively given the state of my body after overracing at the end of the spring. I slowly brought the mileage up this time, and hovered between 80 and 90 miles a week through October and November. I raced the Philadelphia Half Marathon with only a good 7 weeks of training under my belt and the result was not pretty. I struggled to run 1:09, but in the end, the race turned out to be just a good boost for my fitness. As fall turned to winter, I capped my 2013 racing season with several good performances that left me feeling very optimistic about the things to come in 2014. The highlight of the fall was running 31:01 for 10k on a very rolling road course, a time that indicated to me that I was in better shape than my 10k track PR of 30:48. My training has gone extremely well of late, and as the first month of the new year wraps up, I will give a little update on that very soon.
Below is a recap of my top races for 2013:
5k - 14:54 at the Haddonfield Adrenaline 5k
10k - 31:01 at the Chambersburg Christmas Dash for Cash
10 mi - 50:28 at the Broad Street Run
13.1 mi - 1:08:04 at the USA Half Marathon Championships
26.2 mi - 2:22:28 at the Vermont City Marathon
I am hoping to chip away at those times this year, and even make a return to the track to run some fast times!
There are certainly many people I need to thank for helping me to achieve this award. First would be my future wife, Madeline for putting up with my running obsession. My parents have also been incredibly supportive of my running and still scarecly miss a race. Between my parents and fiancee, I never lack for support at a big race, and you cannot underestimate the value of that. Having your loved ones behind you and supporting you really makes the training feel easier. I would also like to give a big thank you to Henry Klugh from the Keystone Track Club for keeping me in shoes. You would be surprised at how quickly a pair of shoes gets worn out when running over 15 miles a day. Lastly, I would like to thank Robin Jefferis at USATF Midatlantic for really helping me navigate the world of road racing and encouraging me to enter challenging races.
It was certainly a banner year for me, but it almost never got off the ground. Following my first attempt at the marathon in the fall of 2012 at the Philadelphia Marathon, I really struggled to get myself training hard again. At the time, I knew what potential I had as a marathoner, having run the first 20 miles of that race at 2:18 pace. Unfortunately, I had not really trained properly or understood the marathon distance my first time around racing one, and I cratered hard the last 6 miles of the race, and finished in a very pedestrian 2:31. I came away from that race knowing two things, first that I had totally underestimated my potential as a marathoner. I had gone into the race with no expectations and ran at Olympic Trials qualifying pace for 20 miles. Secondly, I realized, that I still had an immense amount of work to do before those last 6 miles felt as good as the first 20.
As I entered my first winter as a post collegiate runner, I quickly realized just how much of a grind it is training in the winter while working a grown up job. The weekends are the only time for a period of over 4 months that you are able to run in daylight. I have never been one to lack motivation when it comes to running, but for the first time in my life, I found myself not really wanting to run all that much. I will be honest with everyone reading this - it absolutely sucks running in the pitch black on a 25 degree windy night. At this time, I also realized something else about myself. I do love to run, but I hate doing anything in life at less than a 100% effort. If I wasn't motivated to run at a high level, I did not feel like simply going through the motions to put in a five or 6 miler. Empty days piled up on the calender during the month of January. I was still doing around 60 miles a week with some workouts, but not really training for anything.
At the end of January, I entered an indoor 5k on a whim. I had no real expectations of myself in the race as I had not really been training well. I ended up running 15:09 and feeling very comfortable doing so. I could not believe that I could run that fast off of very little training. Seeing what I could do with very sporadic training was the spark I needed to recommit to my training.
After that race, I did something that was probably very stupid at the time, but ended up working out in the end. I woke up the Monday after that race and decided I was going to run 100 mile weeks. With no real buildup to that amount of mileage, it was a risky move, but it worked out. The miles piled up quickly and I got in the best shape of my life. Sometimes in life, you just need to tell yourself you are going to do something and then do it no matter what. As I reeled off these hundred mile weeks, I found I saw in myself that ability, the shear force of will to get done what you need to get done.
As I really trained properly for my first marathon, I was doing types of workouts that I had never done before. My college team never did many tempo runs, but as the marathon is the "tempo run from hell," I found myself doing longer tempo runs than ever before. I did 3x3 mile, 3x4 mile, 6 mile tempo runs, progressive long runs with the last 5 miles at marathon pace. More importantly, I also worked on my speed. I think many people who train hard for marathons neglect their speed, thinking only of the long aerobic workouts which are certainly important. There is no getting around the fact, however, that to run 26.2 miles at 5:15 pace, you need some basic leg speed. To work on my speed, I was doing 1k repeats at 10k pace, and eventually worked up to mile repeats at 5k pace, which for me was 4:35-4:40. I followed all of these workouts with 200's and 300's all out to really hone my fast twitch muscles.
The training translated incredibly well to racing in the spring. I broke 15:00 for 5k on the roads, running 14:54 and placed in the top 10 at the nations largest 10 mile race, the Broad Street Run, in a time of 50:28. All these races were run with heavy mileage still weighing on my legs as I prepared for the Vermont City Marathon in May.
Going into Vermont, I knew I was ready to run under 2:20. I was well tapered, and everything felt good. Unfortunately, the second coming of the Great Flood coincided with the race, and we were forced to run in torrential downpours, gusting winds, and 40 degree temperatures. I felt very good through the first half of the race in 1:09:30, but could not keep the pace up over the last 10k of the race, finishing 3rd in 2:22:28. I was definitely disappointed with the final time, but not the effort. I know that effort was worth a sub 2:20 on a good day. This race was definitely the highlight of my year, as it was so gratifying to have a breakthrough marathon after months of training. I got my first taste of what it really feels like to be taken care of at a race, as the race directors looked after us all weekend. I would highly recommend this race to anyone.
Following Vermont, I made the worst decision of the year. I decided to accept an entry into the USA Half Marathon Championships only 3 weeks after the marathon. At the time, I was riding an incredible high, thinking I could keep racing at a high level, but the marathon just completely sapped my body of everything it had. Months and months of high mileage just left me worn out, but I pressed on. As I have already written, I did set a new half marathon PR at the race, but the effort triggered a full breakdown of my body. It was something I had never experienced as a runner, only heard about. There really is no way to describe the feeling other than a lingering, never ending fatigue. It hurt even to walk anywhere, and I was forced to train sporadically all summer. I barely cracked 200 miles a month for July and August. Things improved in September and I was finally able to approach the type of training I had done in the spring.
I approached my fall training rather conservatively given the state of my body after overracing at the end of the spring. I slowly brought the mileage up this time, and hovered between 80 and 90 miles a week through October and November. I raced the Philadelphia Half Marathon with only a good 7 weeks of training under my belt and the result was not pretty. I struggled to run 1:09, but in the end, the race turned out to be just a good boost for my fitness. As fall turned to winter, I capped my 2013 racing season with several good performances that left me feeling very optimistic about the things to come in 2014. The highlight of the fall was running 31:01 for 10k on a very rolling road course, a time that indicated to me that I was in better shape than my 10k track PR of 30:48. My training has gone extremely well of late, and as the first month of the new year wraps up, I will give a little update on that very soon.
Below is a recap of my top races for 2013:
5k - 14:54 at the Haddonfield Adrenaline 5k
10k - 31:01 at the Chambersburg Christmas Dash for Cash
10 mi - 50:28 at the Broad Street Run
13.1 mi - 1:08:04 at the USA Half Marathon Championships
26.2 mi - 2:22:28 at the Vermont City Marathon
I am hoping to chip away at those times this year, and even make a return to the track to run some fast times!
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Fall Racing Recap
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.
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.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Teamplayer
This weekend I had the most fun racing in a very long time. On the schedule this weekend was the Christmas Dash for Cash 10k in Chambersburg, PA. What made this race special was the chance to compete as a team with the other members of Keystone Elite and the chance to win a nice $1200 first prize to be split between the four members of the team. My team was composed of Jeremy Brady, Katie O'Regan, and Rosie Mascoli. Going into the race, we liked our chances, but knew there would be tough competition from Team Hydroworx who was led by two pretty talented runners in Brian Fuller and Mary Dell.
We got to the race early and warmed up together and talked strategy. It was a nice change to my typical prerace routine which involves warming up by myself and getting myself nervous about the race. This was different as all the talk about the team competition and who we needed to beat got me very amped up and ready to go out and race. Going into the race, we thought that if I could beat the number one runner from Hydroworx and if Katie and Rosie could keep it close to Mary Dell and beat Hydroworx' second girl we would pull out the win. As we stood at the starting line, I felt something that I have not really felt since running cross country or racing against Lehigh in the track dual meets - a sense that I could not let my team down.
The race started out as I expected it would. I went straight to the front with Matt Gillette, a fine runner from Shippensburg who I knew would be very tough to beat. He and I led the field through a very pedestrian first mile of 5:10. I had no idea what to expect from the course as the only description I had heard of it was "rolling." With no idea what was in store ahead on the road, I was content to keep the pace comfortable, surging a little to test the rest of the guys tucked in behind us. Everyone seemed to handle the slight surges easily, so I did not try and push anything too much early on in the race. We hit 2 miles in 10:12, coming down a hill into the Scotland School campus. This was where Gillette made a significant surge to try and break open the race. I have always been a poor downhill runner, and he seemed to gap me effortlessly.
It was at this time that Brian Fuller also went screaming by me. I realized these two were significantly better downhill runners than myself. I felt like I was going all out to even maintain the gap they had opened on me. As the gap opened, I began to feel a little down on myself and had some negative thoughts. I snapped myself out of it as I remembered the team competition. I would not give up and let the rest of my team who was working hard behind me down. I put my head down and went to work on the uphills that followed in the 3rd and 4th mile.
I gained on Fuller and passed him right around the 4 mile mark. My split between 2 and 4 was a very fast 9:44, and I felt that I was beginning to gain on Gillette ahead in first place. I worked hard on the uphills of the 5th mile and had the gap down to around 5 seconds. At this point, all that was on my mind was trying to put as much ground on the runners behind me to help out in the team competition. I was still trying hard to make up ground for the individual win, but just couldn't match Gillette's downhill running ability (the kid is 6'-6" so I don't really feel to bad about it). I closed the last 2k of the race in 6:01 to finish in 31:01. I really did not expect to be so close to breaking 31 for a road 10k as my track PR is only 30:48. Had I been paying more attention to my watch I would have sold out a little more for those 2 seconds.
I finished 30 seconds ahead of the Hydroworx leader, but the race for the team title was far from over. I turned into the biggest cheerleader in Chambersburg and started going crazy as I saw Jeremy come over the final hill several seconds ahead of the 2nd runner for Hydroworx. I was running around yelling and cheering him on as he kicked in for 33:51. I really felt proud of the fight he showed the whole race to bring in a solid #2 finish for our team. Our girls then clinched the victory for us with two really great races. Katie kept it very close with Mary Dell who is a national caliber runner and PR'ed by a ton to run 35:07. Rosic sealed the victory by beating the 2nd Hydroworx girl by over 30 seconds in 36:27, another very good time on a tough course.
As we added up the times, we knew we had won the race. It was great to celebrate the win on the cooldown together. I had forgotten how much of a boost running for a team gives you. Some of the biggest kicks I can remember while running came on the high school 4x8 relays. With that stick in your hand, you cannot accept defeat as easily as without. Running is such a solitary sport, and it can be selfish at times. What time did I run? What place did I get? Who did I beat? But when you run for a team, there is a totally different feeling. There's and extra fight in you and a refusal to be beat. It isn't about you, but rather the team. When I finished the race, I hardly cared that I had nearly broken my track PR on a hilly road course. All I wanted to do was cheer for my teammates and see how they finished.
I was really reminded what I first really loved about running. I started out in high school as a cross country runner only, and always ran my best in races where I knew I was counted on to help clinch the victory. I actually believe some of my gutsiest races came when I was just a mediocre #3 or #4 high school runner on a good team. In this position you just can't let the seniors down. In college, I just never really had that feeling. In a big invitational, I knew my team wasn't going to place very high and neither was I. It just didn't seem to matter as much, and I missed the pressure to win as a team. It just doesn't feel that important to fight for 120th or 140th place in a big time D-1 invitational. Even in a big road race when you are running by yourself doesn't feel the same. The "You are not beating me no matter what" feeling is a little harder to find (although the cash payout does help bring that out). Growing up playing team sports has wired me much differently than athletes who have primarily focused on individual sports. There is no describing the feeling of winning as a team. My all time favorite team moment came when my Lafayette College Leopards XC team finally exited the Patriot League basement my senior year. In a blizzard, our top three pushed each other the whole race and then turned to go crazy as the rest of our scoring runners fought to the line. Finally not finishing last as a team felt so good. Our pack ran so well that day because we knew what was a stake that day (the fact that there were Andre bottles in the fridge waiting to be popped after a good race might have motivated us a little bit too. Andre would have been pissed at us if we finished last, and you can never let Andre down.).
There is truly something special about racing as a team. Your time doesn't matter. All that matters is putting it all on the line for your teammates. I can't wait for the next time Keystone Elite toes the line together!
We got to the race early and warmed up together and talked strategy. It was a nice change to my typical prerace routine which involves warming up by myself and getting myself nervous about the race. This was different as all the talk about the team competition and who we needed to beat got me very amped up and ready to go out and race. Going into the race, we thought that if I could beat the number one runner from Hydroworx and if Katie and Rosie could keep it close to Mary Dell and beat Hydroworx' second girl we would pull out the win. As we stood at the starting line, I felt something that I have not really felt since running cross country or racing against Lehigh in the track dual meets - a sense that I could not let my team down.
The race started out as I expected it would. I went straight to the front with Matt Gillette, a fine runner from Shippensburg who I knew would be very tough to beat. He and I led the field through a very pedestrian first mile of 5:10. I had no idea what to expect from the course as the only description I had heard of it was "rolling." With no idea what was in store ahead on the road, I was content to keep the pace comfortable, surging a little to test the rest of the guys tucked in behind us. Everyone seemed to handle the slight surges easily, so I did not try and push anything too much early on in the race. We hit 2 miles in 10:12, coming down a hill into the Scotland School campus. This was where Gillette made a significant surge to try and break open the race. I have always been a poor downhill runner, and he seemed to gap me effortlessly.
It was at this time that Brian Fuller also went screaming by me. I realized these two were significantly better downhill runners than myself. I felt like I was going all out to even maintain the gap they had opened on me. As the gap opened, I began to feel a little down on myself and had some negative thoughts. I snapped myself out of it as I remembered the team competition. I would not give up and let the rest of my team who was working hard behind me down. I put my head down and went to work on the uphills that followed in the 3rd and 4th mile.
I gained on Fuller and passed him right around the 4 mile mark. My split between 2 and 4 was a very fast 9:44, and I felt that I was beginning to gain on Gillette ahead in first place. I worked hard on the uphills of the 5th mile and had the gap down to around 5 seconds. At this point, all that was on my mind was trying to put as much ground on the runners behind me to help out in the team competition. I was still trying hard to make up ground for the individual win, but just couldn't match Gillette's downhill running ability (the kid is 6'-6" so I don't really feel to bad about it). I closed the last 2k of the race in 6:01 to finish in 31:01. I really did not expect to be so close to breaking 31 for a road 10k as my track PR is only 30:48. Had I been paying more attention to my watch I would have sold out a little more for those 2 seconds.
I finished 30 seconds ahead of the Hydroworx leader, but the race for the team title was far from over. I turned into the biggest cheerleader in Chambersburg and started going crazy as I saw Jeremy come over the final hill several seconds ahead of the 2nd runner for Hydroworx. I was running around yelling and cheering him on as he kicked in for 33:51. I really felt proud of the fight he showed the whole race to bring in a solid #2 finish for our team. Our girls then clinched the victory for us with two really great races. Katie kept it very close with Mary Dell who is a national caliber runner and PR'ed by a ton to run 35:07. Rosic sealed the victory by beating the 2nd Hydroworx girl by over 30 seconds in 36:27, another very good time on a tough course.
As we added up the times, we knew we had won the race. It was great to celebrate the win on the cooldown together. I had forgotten how much of a boost running for a team gives you. Some of the biggest kicks I can remember while running came on the high school 4x8 relays. With that stick in your hand, you cannot accept defeat as easily as without. Running is such a solitary sport, and it can be selfish at times. What time did I run? What place did I get? Who did I beat? But when you run for a team, there is a totally different feeling. There's and extra fight in you and a refusal to be beat. It isn't about you, but rather the team. When I finished the race, I hardly cared that I had nearly broken my track PR on a hilly road course. All I wanted to do was cheer for my teammates and see how they finished.
I was really reminded what I first really loved about running. I started out in high school as a cross country runner only, and always ran my best in races where I knew I was counted on to help clinch the victory. I actually believe some of my gutsiest races came when I was just a mediocre #3 or #4 high school runner on a good team. In this position you just can't let the seniors down. In college, I just never really had that feeling. In a big invitational, I knew my team wasn't going to place very high and neither was I. It just didn't seem to matter as much, and I missed the pressure to win as a team. It just doesn't feel that important to fight for 120th or 140th place in a big time D-1 invitational. Even in a big road race when you are running by yourself doesn't feel the same. The "You are not beating me no matter what" feeling is a little harder to find (although the cash payout does help bring that out). Growing up playing team sports has wired me much differently than athletes who have primarily focused on individual sports. There is no describing the feeling of winning as a team. My all time favorite team moment came when my Lafayette College Leopards XC team finally exited the Patriot League basement my senior year. In a blizzard, our top three pushed each other the whole race and then turned to go crazy as the rest of our scoring runners fought to the line. Finally not finishing last as a team felt so good. Our pack ran so well that day because we knew what was a stake that day (the fact that there were Andre bottles in the fridge waiting to be popped after a good race might have motivated us a little bit too. Andre would have been pissed at us if we finished last, and you can never let Andre down.).
There is truly something special about racing as a team. Your time doesn't matter. All that matters is putting it all on the line for your teammates. I can't wait for the next time Keystone Elite toes the line together!
(L to R): Jeremy Brady, Rosie Mascoli, Katie O'Regan, yours truly
Money to the Cielin, Money Over Errythin, FBGM...you know the deal
The whole KTC contingent who raced at the Cash Dash
Saturday, November 23, 2013
I Pity You, Mr. Stafko
Last week, Chad Stafko wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal entitled "OK, You're a Runner. Get Over It" with the subtitle "Running a marathon is hard enough without also patting yourself on the back every step of the way." I won't do Mr. Stafko the favor of posting a link to his drivel, as I'm sure it has already far exceeded the number of readers it actually deserves.
In his piece, Stafko calls out runners for being insufferable, skinny showoffs. He calls us out for having our own magazines, clothing, and even specialized stores in which to buy that clothing. Worst of all, he calls us out for being proud of our accomplishments as runners. I imagine he would like to rip that extremely obnoxious 26.2 sticker off of your bumper sticker. Even worse, he decries the act of running as only a chance for the highly narcissistic runner to parade throughout their neighborhood rubbing their fitness in the faces of their sedentary neighbors. I know this is the only reason I continue running and I am positive it is the same reason that gets so many runners out the door.
I cannot believe this article made it to the Wall Street Journal, but somehow it did. This piece gives us as runners a chance to defend our sport against a highly ignorant American. Running is so much more than a chance to show off, and this is what someone who has never given the sport a chance fails to understand. Anyone who finishes a marathon accomplishes something to be proud of. I have stood at the finish lines of marathons after finishing to cheer on my fellow runners. After I finished the Vermont Marathon this spring in 2:22, I felt extreme pride in what I had accomplished. I have seen pictures of myself as I crossed the finish line and saw my time. The look of pride on my face is undeniable. As I stood around the finish cheering on everyone else, I realized that every finisher had the same look on their face.
Maybe Mr. Stafko has never tried running and has no idea why people would do it. I would be glad to offer some insight to this poor man. I run because I love it. I don't give a damn who sees me or congratulates me on a race. I have loved to run ever since I discovered I had a talent for it. There is no feeling in sport that compares to the freedom and clarity you can feel on a run, out by yourself and your thoughts, your body flowing over the ground. Yes, training makes you incredibly tired at times, and there are plenty of times I question why I keep pounding myself into the ground. The reason - that indescribable feeling of pride and accomplishment that comes at the end of a well run race.
Do we as runners toot our own horn sometimes? Hell yeah. Should we? Hell yeah. Runners are some of the most humble athletes I have ever been around. I have played baseball and football. Athletes in those sports do not compare to runners one bit when it comes to team spirit and camaraderie. There is something to be said for the bonds that are formed between runners as they push through their training together. You will never find a runner who will not sincerely ask another runner how their race went. When we do this, we are not simply performing lip service. We really care. I would rather listen to a friend tell me about their great race than brag about my own. We do not beat our chests and spew bravado like other athletes. We simply perform the most basic mode of human transportation because it feels good.
When you view running through such a cynical lens, you miss a lot. You miss the stories of injured soldiers and firefighters returning to the starting line, prosthetics and all. You miss the story of a California runner who crawled through the final straightaway of the race, struggling to finish and clinch a state title for a team whose coach is battling ALS. You miss the story of Joey Stoltz, a member of my club, who has battled back from heart trouble to finish several marathons.
So, to you, Mr. Stafko, I say give running a chance. You could even stop into one of those silly specialty running stores. I'm sure the workers of the store won't recognize you and would be more than willing to help you into a new pair of shoes and shorts.
In his piece, Stafko calls out runners for being insufferable, skinny showoffs. He calls us out for having our own magazines, clothing, and even specialized stores in which to buy that clothing. Worst of all, he calls us out for being proud of our accomplishments as runners. I imagine he would like to rip that extremely obnoxious 26.2 sticker off of your bumper sticker. Even worse, he decries the act of running as only a chance for the highly narcissistic runner to parade throughout their neighborhood rubbing their fitness in the faces of their sedentary neighbors. I know this is the only reason I continue running and I am positive it is the same reason that gets so many runners out the door.
I cannot believe this article made it to the Wall Street Journal, but somehow it did. This piece gives us as runners a chance to defend our sport against a highly ignorant American. Running is so much more than a chance to show off, and this is what someone who has never given the sport a chance fails to understand. Anyone who finishes a marathon accomplishes something to be proud of. I have stood at the finish lines of marathons after finishing to cheer on my fellow runners. After I finished the Vermont Marathon this spring in 2:22, I felt extreme pride in what I had accomplished. I have seen pictures of myself as I crossed the finish line and saw my time. The look of pride on my face is undeniable. As I stood around the finish cheering on everyone else, I realized that every finisher had the same look on their face.
Maybe Mr. Stafko has never tried running and has no idea why people would do it. I would be glad to offer some insight to this poor man. I run because I love it. I don't give a damn who sees me or congratulates me on a race. I have loved to run ever since I discovered I had a talent for it. There is no feeling in sport that compares to the freedom and clarity you can feel on a run, out by yourself and your thoughts, your body flowing over the ground. Yes, training makes you incredibly tired at times, and there are plenty of times I question why I keep pounding myself into the ground. The reason - that indescribable feeling of pride and accomplishment that comes at the end of a well run race.
Do we as runners toot our own horn sometimes? Hell yeah. Should we? Hell yeah. Runners are some of the most humble athletes I have ever been around. I have played baseball and football. Athletes in those sports do not compare to runners one bit when it comes to team spirit and camaraderie. There is something to be said for the bonds that are formed between runners as they push through their training together. You will never find a runner who will not sincerely ask another runner how their race went. When we do this, we are not simply performing lip service. We really care. I would rather listen to a friend tell me about their great race than brag about my own. We do not beat our chests and spew bravado like other athletes. We simply perform the most basic mode of human transportation because it feels good.
When you view running through such a cynical lens, you miss a lot. You miss the stories of injured soldiers and firefighters returning to the starting line, prosthetics and all. You miss the story of a California runner who crawled through the final straightaway of the race, struggling to finish and clinch a state title for a team whose coach is battling ALS. You miss the story of Joey Stoltz, a member of my club, who has battled back from heart trouble to finish several marathons.
So, to you, Mr. Stafko, I say give running a chance. You could even stop into one of those silly specialty running stores. I'm sure the workers of the store won't recognize you and would be more than willing to help you into a new pair of shoes and shorts.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Philadephia Half Marathon Recap
In running, like life, it is important to operate with a healthy dose of confidence in everything that you do. The problems arise when that necessary confidence gets mixed with too much cockiness. In my opinion, a healthy bit of cockiness isn't always a bad thing. When I step on the line to race, and I look over at my competitors, I always think I can beat them (unless they weigh 110 pounds and hail from Eldoret). I was not always so cocky when it comes to running, but in the past several months as I have entered the road racing scene, where seed times and past performances are not so well known, I find myself looking at all runners on the line with me and expecting to beat them. I also have heightened expectations for myself as I continue to chase truly elite times. It's ok to be cocky - and most elite athletes are - so long as you are prepared to back up that cockiness with preparation.
This Sunday at the Philadelphia Half Marathon, I just simply wasn't ready to back it up.
My training leading up to the race was solid, but there just wasn't enough of it. The delayed start to serious training caused by the long recovery from the USA Half and the problems with varicose veins that affected me in August left me a little bit behind in terms of half marathon fitness. Without sufficient long and tempo runs under my belt, my body was ready to shut down right around 10k - not good when the race is double that distance.
The race started out well enough. The pack of East Africans jetted off the line, leaving the Americans to sort themselves out. I found myself in an unenviable position of not really having anyone to run with. There was a group of runners on sub 1:05 pace, myself and another runner running 1:06 pace, and then a wide gap back to the runners running 1:08 pace. Early in the race, I decided the best opportunity to run well would be to try and stick on 1:06 pace with my fellow runner as long as I could. The first mile was hit right at 5:00 and I still felt fairly good, but I could tell it was unlikely that I could sustain 5 flat pace the whole race. I tried to back off a little to the 5:05-5:10's I was shooting for, but the runner I was with did not back off and chased down the next group ahead. That left me alone at a very early stage in the race and put me in chase mode far earlier than I had hoped. I maintained a gap with the group ahead of me and came through 3 miles in 14:55. It was at this point that I began to feel the effects of running alone as I was not able to relax and get comfortable in a bigger group and just coast. I kept things together reasonably well through 5 miles in 25:20 and 10K in 31:44, but the wheels were off at this point as I hit some inclines in Center City Philadelphia and University City.
My race ended for all intents and purposes when I hit the steep incline near Drexel University. I felt like I was crawling up this interminable hill. The 8th mile passed in 5:35 for me - essentially a crawl after previously running 5:00-5:15 pace. The 9th mile was a little better as I coasted downhill past the zoo. The 10th mile, however, was the real kicker. I managed an abysmal 5:40 as I climed through Fairmount Park. At this point, I did not really see the point of finishing the race, but dropping out of races is something I refuse to do so long as I am not injured. To me, dropping out is a true sign of quitting on yourself.
Things rebounded slightly as I hit the final 3 miles along the river. I managed to bring the pace back down to 5:15-5:20 as the hills were finally over. I made a pact with myself that I would pass as many people as I could before the finish. If there is one thing I hate more than losing, it is losing to people I know I should never lose to. It may sound arrogant to say, but I expect too much from myself to accept losing to 1:09 runners when I know my ability lies in the 1:06-1:07 range. The anger I felt about losing lit a little fire under me and I passed 3 or 4 runners before the finish in a final disappointing time of 1:09:21.
What did I learn from this race? Well, for one, I learned that you can't fake it in a half marathon. I am certainly very fit as I was able to run close to 5:00 pace for close to 5 miles, but being fit for 5 miles is nowhere near the same as being fit for a half marathon. I do believe I was on the right track to running a good half marathon this season, but was just a few weeks and a few long tempo runs away from being really ready to race a half marathon. I also learned I can't just step on a starting line and expect to beat everyone even though I have the ability to be highly competitive on the elite road racing scene. There are simply people out there who are faster than me, especially when I am not on my A-game.
Overall, I can't be too displeased with the result of the race. I got an idea of where my current level of fitness is, got a hard effort in which will only help me improve, and fought hard to the finish. I am going to take a somewhat easy week to let my body bounce back a little bit from the race, and then get right back to training at a high level. One good thing about only having 6 weeks of good training for this race is that my body won't need a very long time to rest before I can return to hard runs and workouts. My next big race will be the Virginia Beach Marathon in March and I am very excited to try some new workouts as I get ready for another marathon.
This Sunday at the Philadelphia Half Marathon, I just simply wasn't ready to back it up.
My training leading up to the race was solid, but there just wasn't enough of it. The delayed start to serious training caused by the long recovery from the USA Half and the problems with varicose veins that affected me in August left me a little bit behind in terms of half marathon fitness. Without sufficient long and tempo runs under my belt, my body was ready to shut down right around 10k - not good when the race is double that distance.
The race started out well enough. The pack of East Africans jetted off the line, leaving the Americans to sort themselves out. I found myself in an unenviable position of not really having anyone to run with. There was a group of runners on sub 1:05 pace, myself and another runner running 1:06 pace, and then a wide gap back to the runners running 1:08 pace. Early in the race, I decided the best opportunity to run well would be to try and stick on 1:06 pace with my fellow runner as long as I could. The first mile was hit right at 5:00 and I still felt fairly good, but I could tell it was unlikely that I could sustain 5 flat pace the whole race. I tried to back off a little to the 5:05-5:10's I was shooting for, but the runner I was with did not back off and chased down the next group ahead. That left me alone at a very early stage in the race and put me in chase mode far earlier than I had hoped. I maintained a gap with the group ahead of me and came through 3 miles in 14:55. It was at this point that I began to feel the effects of running alone as I was not able to relax and get comfortable in a bigger group and just coast. I kept things together reasonably well through 5 miles in 25:20 and 10K in 31:44, but the wheels were off at this point as I hit some inclines in Center City Philadelphia and University City.
My race ended for all intents and purposes when I hit the steep incline near Drexel University. I felt like I was crawling up this interminable hill. The 8th mile passed in 5:35 for me - essentially a crawl after previously running 5:00-5:15 pace. The 9th mile was a little better as I coasted downhill past the zoo. The 10th mile, however, was the real kicker. I managed an abysmal 5:40 as I climed through Fairmount Park. At this point, I did not really see the point of finishing the race, but dropping out of races is something I refuse to do so long as I am not injured. To me, dropping out is a true sign of quitting on yourself.
Things rebounded slightly as I hit the final 3 miles along the river. I managed to bring the pace back down to 5:15-5:20 as the hills were finally over. I made a pact with myself that I would pass as many people as I could before the finish. If there is one thing I hate more than losing, it is losing to people I know I should never lose to. It may sound arrogant to say, but I expect too much from myself to accept losing to 1:09 runners when I know my ability lies in the 1:06-1:07 range. The anger I felt about losing lit a little fire under me and I passed 3 or 4 runners before the finish in a final disappointing time of 1:09:21.
What did I learn from this race? Well, for one, I learned that you can't fake it in a half marathon. I am certainly very fit as I was able to run close to 5:00 pace for close to 5 miles, but being fit for 5 miles is nowhere near the same as being fit for a half marathon. I do believe I was on the right track to running a good half marathon this season, but was just a few weeks and a few long tempo runs away from being really ready to race a half marathon. I also learned I can't just step on a starting line and expect to beat everyone even though I have the ability to be highly competitive on the elite road racing scene. There are simply people out there who are faster than me, especially when I am not on my A-game.
Overall, I can't be too displeased with the result of the race. I got an idea of where my current level of fitness is, got a hard effort in which will only help me improve, and fought hard to the finish. I am going to take a somewhat easy week to let my body bounce back a little bit from the race, and then get right back to training at a high level. One good thing about only having 6 weeks of good training for this race is that my body won't need a very long time to rest before I can return to hard runs and workouts. My next big race will be the Virginia Beach Marathon in March and I am very excited to try some new workouts as I get ready for another marathon.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Ready to Race!
I know my posts have been a bit sporadic the past several months, but my life has been very busy. I've started a new job, bought a house, and have been working on planning a wedding with my fiancee. Trying to squeeze in 90 miles a week with all that going on doesn't leave too much time for blogging about those miles. All that aside, my training went very well as I prepared for the Philadelphia Half Marathon.
Last spring as I trained for the Vermont City Marathon, I was consistently putting in close to 110 miles per week. I would have loved to keep my mileage at that level, but with everything going on, it would have just been too much for me. I also don't necessarily think I need to run that many miles a week to succeed. I have always loved running hard day in and day out. Averaging low 6:00 pace for an entire week of distance runs is not uncommon. When I was hitting over 100 miles a week, I was often too tired to train the way I preferred. I believe toning down my volume to 80-90 miles a week with the intensity raised back to a level I prefer has the same benefits of training 110 miles a week. I feel much fresher and don't feel like I am constantly on the verge of breakdown like I did this spring.
My expectations for the race this weekend are not extremely high, and I am not putting too much pressure on myself given the fact that I have had only 8 solid weeks of training leading into the race. My training this summer got off to a late start due to how long it took me to recover from my spring races. My legs did not feel good running until the end of August. Part of this was due to over-racing in the spring and then taking on new responsibilities with my new company. I spent much of July and August inspecting bridges in Maryland. Being on your feet for 8 hours a day in the sweltering heat is not exactly good for the body's recovery!
But my body did finally come around, and my desire to train hard and race at a high level was as strong as it ever was. My training was very simple. I ran twice a day 3 or 4 times a week and took one day of decreased mileage. My workouts were primarily aerobic - threshold pace intervals with short rest and tempo runs - and my training runs were run comfortably hard each day. I believe this type of training has prepared me very well to race well for a half marathon. I kept the rest very short on all of my workouts and felt very comfortable running at 5:00 to 5:05 pace. I also touched on some shorter speed intervals at the end of my workouts and felt very quick which should serve me well for the later stages of the race when it's time to call on the fast twitch muscles to carry some of the load and keep me moving forward.
Last spring as I trained for the Vermont City Marathon, I was consistently putting in close to 110 miles per week. I would have loved to keep my mileage at that level, but with everything going on, it would have just been too much for me. I also don't necessarily think I need to run that many miles a week to succeed. I have always loved running hard day in and day out. Averaging low 6:00 pace for an entire week of distance runs is not uncommon. When I was hitting over 100 miles a week, I was often too tired to train the way I preferred. I believe toning down my volume to 80-90 miles a week with the intensity raised back to a level I prefer has the same benefits of training 110 miles a week. I feel much fresher and don't feel like I am constantly on the verge of breakdown like I did this spring.
My expectations for the race this weekend are not extremely high, and I am not putting too much pressure on myself given the fact that I have had only 8 solid weeks of training leading into the race. My training this summer got off to a late start due to how long it took me to recover from my spring races. My legs did not feel good running until the end of August. Part of this was due to over-racing in the spring and then taking on new responsibilities with my new company. I spent much of July and August inspecting bridges in Maryland. Being on your feet for 8 hours a day in the sweltering heat is not exactly good for the body's recovery!
But my body did finally come around, and my desire to train hard and race at a high level was as strong as it ever was. My training was very simple. I ran twice a day 3 or 4 times a week and took one day of decreased mileage. My workouts were primarily aerobic - threshold pace intervals with short rest and tempo runs - and my training runs were run comfortably hard each day. I believe this type of training has prepared me very well to race well for a half marathon. I kept the rest very short on all of my workouts and felt very comfortable running at 5:00 to 5:05 pace. I also touched on some shorter speed intervals at the end of my workouts and felt very quick which should serve me well for the later stages of the race when it's time to call on the fast twitch muscles to carry some of the load and keep me moving forward.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
#investinUSAtrack
One of my favorite professional runners, David Torrence, added his two cents to the debate over track and field this week. I need to preface this post with a little back story on just what makes Torrence one of my favorite athletes. Torrence became one of the favorite runners of my college team after we watched and heard the story of his journey from unattached post collegiate searching for his first contract to one of our country's best milers (by end of season rankings alone, his 3:33.23 is the 2nd fastest in the country this year and has won several national titles in the road mile). David is an incredibly accessible athlete who takes the time to get to know his fans and interact with them. At the 2011 New York Diamond League meet, my Lafayette teammates and I were lucky enough to meet David after witnessing his first victory in the Diamond League. He was incredibly grateful for our support at the meet and did more than just pose for the customary athlete photo-op. David further cemented his favorite athlete status two summers ago. My friend Matt and I were in San Francisco, Torrence's training base and home. We sent out a tweet to him asking to set up a downhill mile in the hills of the city (although since Budweiser had become the official drink of Matt and Josh's West Coast trip I don't know how well such a race would have gone). He responded to us right away trying to set up a place for us to race a mile downhill. Alas, my noob status on Twitter caused me to miss out on his direct message (who knew the direct message feature could be used for more than sending explicit pictures?). I made up my blunder to Matt later in Eugene when Torrence was gracious enough to share several pitchers with us at the Wild Duck. I believe the highlight of the trip for Matt will always be discussing South American politics and economics while slightly inebriated with a professional runner.
Torrence's comments on letsrun.com came in response to Runner's World columnist John Bingham calling on elites to show more interest in the back of the pack runners like himself and do more in general for the sport. Certainly, Bingham believes that would make them beloved by their waddling, tutu wearing brethren. I do not believe there could be a more misguided opinion. Torrence is just one of many professional track and field athletes who does an incredible amount of work to interact with his fans. Duane Solomon flooded my Twitter feed yesterday retweeting possibly every person who tweeted about meeting him at a cross country meet. Could you imagine LeBron James trying to set up a pick up game with two random fans and then meeting up with them in a bar?
So, no, Mr. Bingham, track and field's problems will not be solved by having professional athletes wait for everyone else to finish their 5 hour marathon (sorry if I sound snarky here, but a marathon is a race to me, not a bucket list item). Many athletes in the sport set up races where they live and make appearances at local running stores and running club meetings. Yet, they still go unrecognized in almost every city in America (except for Eugene - a city in which I did not see a single person with a waist measurement exceeding their inseam. Could it be possible that the sport is embraced there because the people are actually in shape?).
The answer is not simply sending our runners out to cheer on the average Joes and hobby joggers, because to most of them, David Torrence is just a skinny dude with a beard who maybe looks like he runs fast (or at least really cares a lot about looking like a runner with all those matching warm ups and fancy shoes). What really needs to be done first is to build the athletes we in the sport (and I'm talking track and field here because road racing is an entirely different beast) follow and root for into figures that the average person would recognize or feel excited about meeting. I don't really know how that can be done in our football obsessed nation where a man pushing 400 lbs. is considered more athletic than a runner like me, but since the only way we can get there and improve the sport is to try. David Torrence asked his followers to contribute using #investinUSAtrack and here is my best attempt at investing in the sport that means so much to me.
1. Ditch the meters. We run miles here in the good old US of A. I know everyone else in the world uses the metric system as does the sport's governing body. However, if you want to be relevant in the US, you need to use units that most fans understand. Yes, I know that 5,000 meters is 3.1 miles and that a 12:55 5k is 4:09 per mile, but if you race 3 miles instead, many more people would understand that a time of 12:30 is absolutely hauling ass.
2. Add more domestic meets. If you are a fan of professional track and field in the USA you have two or three chances to go to a really big meet each year. There are two Diamond League meets and a national championship as well as several small indoor meets. That's it. If you don't live anywhere near Oregon, your best bet is to go to New York City for its Diamond League meet. That's great for me since I live on the East Coast, but for most fans of the sport there are absolutely zero opportunities to attend a professional track meet. Contrast that with the fans of a professional baseball team. Those fans have 81 chances to see their team play every year. We are never going to see 81 elite track meets in a season, but we have got to get away from sending our athletes to Europe every summer.
I believe adding more big races on native soil is the number one way to grow the sport in this country. NBC and ESPN are never in a million years going to pay big money or use resources putting together a broadcast for a meet in Doha, Oslo, Monaco, or Rieti no matter the quality of the field. I realize these are all very good meets, but if they are not happening on US soil, casual fans do not care. Give more people a chance to attend a meet and I believe they will become more interested. They need to see and experience the speed and feats of raw human strength track and field athletes are able to push their bodies to. Live sports of any kind are always fun to watch for any red blooded male. Domestic meets are also a great opportunity for young fans to discover the sport. Track and field is one of, if not, the most participated in sport in high school athletics, but most of those runners will never have a chance to attend a professional meet. As a high schooler, I could not have named five professional distance runners and I was 3rd in the state my senior year.
The European meets work well because travel is so much easier between cities and countries thanks to their rail system (Eisenhower really screwed the pooch with that Interstate system). Europe also has better stadiums for track and field given that many of their track stadiums also house soccer teams. You cannot have a track meet in a 65,000 seat football stadium which we are so fond of in this country, but the small stadiums in Europe are perfect for hosting track meets. We cannot either host meets in this country at small college tracks with basic metal bleachers. That does not look professional; it looks amateurish. The MLS has taken off with numerous soccer-only facilities. These types of stadiums would be perfect for hosting track meets if a track could be squeezed in.
3. Increase the emphasis on winning. The "A" and "B" standards have got to go. They turn most meets and races into boring rabbitted affairs. Who could possibly forget the Oxy High Performance Meet or the Peyton Jordan Inivte? These races are great to serious track nuts like myself who will sit in front of their lap top to watch a live stream, but they hardly register on the national scale.
It is difficult to run 13:00 for 5k without someone sacrificing themselves to make the pace fast and still try and race well. Look what happens in championship races - no one knows how to race once the rabbits are gone leaving us with what are essentially one lap races. We have become so focused on fast times that winning sometimes becomes secondary. Would training suffer if athletes were forced to race more often? Probably, but there is something to racing yourself into shape, and if the emphasis is on winning, then time won't matter so much anyway.
Instead of standards to hit, points could be accrued towards world championships and Olympics. I love the idea of giving an automatic "A" in the 10k to the top 15 guys at World Cross. It makes guys want to run it. Runners could earn points by finishing in the top 5 or 10 in meets with quality fields. I am not certain what determines a quality field - for example, a 5k race in which the mean PR of the runners assembled is below 13:15 could qualify as a quality field. Runners in this race could then earn points towards qualifying. This would allow runners to race to win, not hit a time.
4. Be more open to talking about your training. You're not guarding the secret formula to Coca-Cola. You are doing workouts and running 70-130 miles a week. See, I follow the sport extremely closely, and yet I still have hardly any idea exactly what it is you are doing. If just a handful of professional athletes would openly share their training like Donn Cabral does, everyone would benefit from it. I know I would benefit from being able to read the training logs of marathoners like Ritz and Teg. High schoolers and their coaches who want to understand what they should be doing could learn and get better and the average person could see just how hard you are working and grow in respect of the sport. They would see just how exceptional professional athletes are and have slightly more respect for a 2:10 marathoner.
Your racing results will not suffer, and if someone beats you it will not be because your training is posted somewhere online. It will just be because they are better than you.
5. Show some personality. This one is directed at you Galen Rupp. You know what I'm talking about. You have interests outside of sitting in your altitude tent playing Fifa. Or actually, maybe you don't. But I'm sure there are plenty of other runners who do but we just don't know it. Don't be a monk, post some goofy pictures of your Settlers of Cataan board a la the Schumacher group or make some ridiculous bets like shaving an eyebrow like Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson did. If you get around to reading this Andrew Wheating, please bring back your Behind the Stands videos. Guys like Torrence and Nick Symmonds have this nailed.
6. Start a league. Track and field needs a real, centralized league. Track and field is a team sport at every single level of the sport except the professional. We grow up competing on a track team starting in elementary school, through high school and college - why does it have to stop there? The Diamond League is an after thought. It doesn't even have a sponsor anymore. Guys go all over Europe and run fast times at random meets that are not part of any bigger league. It's awesome to run 3:33 or 13:10, but it is almost impossible to keep track of when the races will be run and where your favorite athletes will show up to compete. The PGA Tour could be a great model. It ties far flung tournaments all over the country into a circuit.
Starting a real league could go hand in hand with number two on this list. A domestic American track and field league would be awesome. Instead of guys running for Nike, they could run for New York, Boston, or Portland. Let the runners put their names on their jerseys and sell them. We would no longer have to watch a few indistinguishable guys in light blue Nike or red adidas kits lope around the track. Team Schumacher vs the Nike Oregon Project could finally really throw down and use real team tactics against each other in a race. How awesome would that be?
This doesn't just have to be an Americans only league either. We have Dominicans and Europeans filling our baseball and basketball leagues. Bring in athletes from all over the world to fill out the teams. A league like this would be an incredible stride for track and field. As it exists now, track and field is relevant to the majority of the world every four years when the Olympics roll around. I love the Olympics as much as anyone, but they hinder the sport immensely. Imagine playing the Super Bowl every four years.
Having a real league with teams would also help athletes take their fate out of the hands of the shoe companies and the national governing bodies who wield all the power. There could be a union of sorts to protect the runners. If you get a contract from a team with a general manager and a president instead of a company with a CEO there will be significant benefits in terms of stability and financial backing.
Seriously, if the WNBA can still exist, a track and field league can exist.
7. Be Creative. This is really the final point I can add. There are so many things you can do to make people running in circle around a field more interesting. The Olympic Trials in Eugene was an incredible experience and I never once felt bored in the stadium. Fans were into the races, the festival atmosphere was great, athletes were accessible. This could be replicated easily at other meets. Why not have novelty races every once in a while in a non Olympic year or have a road race finish on the track as part of the meet and broadcast it on the screen in the stadium? I saw a great race on Flotrack in which runners raced a 5k, but whoever was in last place at the end of each lap was pulled off the track. Imagine what an epic race that would turn into if you got the country's 12 best 5k runners in a race like that. Use all that body tracking technology that is being developed. Monitor heart rates during races and put it on the big board. It would be awesome to watch that as sprinters are held in the blocks or a chase pack gains on a lead runner who went out too fast. The sky is literally the limit when it comes to ways to make professional track and field meets fun for even the casual fan.
Who knows - maybe track and field will always be a niche sport in this country. We are after all the land of the super size Coke and the Dallas Cowboys. Those of us who care about the sport cannot let that stop us from trying to think of any possible idea to grow the sport. Track and field is a wonderful sport and it has done so much for me in my life. I hope somehow I can return the favor.
Torrence's comments on letsrun.com came in response to Runner's World columnist John Bingham calling on elites to show more interest in the back of the pack runners like himself and do more in general for the sport. Certainly, Bingham believes that would make them beloved by their waddling, tutu wearing brethren. I do not believe there could be a more misguided opinion. Torrence is just one of many professional track and field athletes who does an incredible amount of work to interact with his fans. Duane Solomon flooded my Twitter feed yesterday retweeting possibly every person who tweeted about meeting him at a cross country meet. Could you imagine LeBron James trying to set up a pick up game with two random fans and then meeting up with them in a bar?
So, no, Mr. Bingham, track and field's problems will not be solved by having professional athletes wait for everyone else to finish their 5 hour marathon (sorry if I sound snarky here, but a marathon is a race to me, not a bucket list item). Many athletes in the sport set up races where they live and make appearances at local running stores and running club meetings. Yet, they still go unrecognized in almost every city in America (except for Eugene - a city in which I did not see a single person with a waist measurement exceeding their inseam. Could it be possible that the sport is embraced there because the people are actually in shape?).
The answer is not simply sending our runners out to cheer on the average Joes and hobby joggers, because to most of them, David Torrence is just a skinny dude with a beard who maybe looks like he runs fast (or at least really cares a lot about looking like a runner with all those matching warm ups and fancy shoes). What really needs to be done first is to build the athletes we in the sport (and I'm talking track and field here because road racing is an entirely different beast) follow and root for into figures that the average person would recognize or feel excited about meeting. I don't really know how that can be done in our football obsessed nation where a man pushing 400 lbs. is considered more athletic than a runner like me, but since the only way we can get there and improve the sport is to try. David Torrence asked his followers to contribute using #investinUSAtrack and here is my best attempt at investing in the sport that means so much to me.
1. Ditch the meters. We run miles here in the good old US of A. I know everyone else in the world uses the metric system as does the sport's governing body. However, if you want to be relevant in the US, you need to use units that most fans understand. Yes, I know that 5,000 meters is 3.1 miles and that a 12:55 5k is 4:09 per mile, but if you race 3 miles instead, many more people would understand that a time of 12:30 is absolutely hauling ass.
2. Add more domestic meets. If you are a fan of professional track and field in the USA you have two or three chances to go to a really big meet each year. There are two Diamond League meets and a national championship as well as several small indoor meets. That's it. If you don't live anywhere near Oregon, your best bet is to go to New York City for its Diamond League meet. That's great for me since I live on the East Coast, but for most fans of the sport there are absolutely zero opportunities to attend a professional track meet. Contrast that with the fans of a professional baseball team. Those fans have 81 chances to see their team play every year. We are never going to see 81 elite track meets in a season, but we have got to get away from sending our athletes to Europe every summer.
I believe adding more big races on native soil is the number one way to grow the sport in this country. NBC and ESPN are never in a million years going to pay big money or use resources putting together a broadcast for a meet in Doha, Oslo, Monaco, or Rieti no matter the quality of the field. I realize these are all very good meets, but if they are not happening on US soil, casual fans do not care. Give more people a chance to attend a meet and I believe they will become more interested. They need to see and experience the speed and feats of raw human strength track and field athletes are able to push their bodies to. Live sports of any kind are always fun to watch for any red blooded male. Domestic meets are also a great opportunity for young fans to discover the sport. Track and field is one of, if not, the most participated in sport in high school athletics, but most of those runners will never have a chance to attend a professional meet. As a high schooler, I could not have named five professional distance runners and I was 3rd in the state my senior year.
The European meets work well because travel is so much easier between cities and countries thanks to their rail system (Eisenhower really screwed the pooch with that Interstate system). Europe also has better stadiums for track and field given that many of their track stadiums also house soccer teams. You cannot have a track meet in a 65,000 seat football stadium which we are so fond of in this country, but the small stadiums in Europe are perfect for hosting track meets. We cannot either host meets in this country at small college tracks with basic metal bleachers. That does not look professional; it looks amateurish. The MLS has taken off with numerous soccer-only facilities. These types of stadiums would be perfect for hosting track meets if a track could be squeezed in.
3. Increase the emphasis on winning. The "A" and "B" standards have got to go. They turn most meets and races into boring rabbitted affairs. Who could possibly forget the Oxy High Performance Meet or the Peyton Jordan Inivte? These races are great to serious track nuts like myself who will sit in front of their lap top to watch a live stream, but they hardly register on the national scale.
It is difficult to run 13:00 for 5k without someone sacrificing themselves to make the pace fast and still try and race well. Look what happens in championship races - no one knows how to race once the rabbits are gone leaving us with what are essentially one lap races. We have become so focused on fast times that winning sometimes becomes secondary. Would training suffer if athletes were forced to race more often? Probably, but there is something to racing yourself into shape, and if the emphasis is on winning, then time won't matter so much anyway.
Instead of standards to hit, points could be accrued towards world championships and Olympics. I love the idea of giving an automatic "A" in the 10k to the top 15 guys at World Cross. It makes guys want to run it. Runners could earn points by finishing in the top 5 or 10 in meets with quality fields. I am not certain what determines a quality field - for example, a 5k race in which the mean PR of the runners assembled is below 13:15 could qualify as a quality field. Runners in this race could then earn points towards qualifying. This would allow runners to race to win, not hit a time.
4. Be more open to talking about your training. You're not guarding the secret formula to Coca-Cola. You are doing workouts and running 70-130 miles a week. See, I follow the sport extremely closely, and yet I still have hardly any idea exactly what it is you are doing. If just a handful of professional athletes would openly share their training like Donn Cabral does, everyone would benefit from it. I know I would benefit from being able to read the training logs of marathoners like Ritz and Teg. High schoolers and their coaches who want to understand what they should be doing could learn and get better and the average person could see just how hard you are working and grow in respect of the sport. They would see just how exceptional professional athletes are and have slightly more respect for a 2:10 marathoner.
Your racing results will not suffer, and if someone beats you it will not be because your training is posted somewhere online. It will just be because they are better than you.
5. Show some personality. This one is directed at you Galen Rupp. You know what I'm talking about. You have interests outside of sitting in your altitude tent playing Fifa. Or actually, maybe you don't. But I'm sure there are plenty of other runners who do but we just don't know it. Don't be a monk, post some goofy pictures of your Settlers of Cataan board a la the Schumacher group or make some ridiculous bets like shaving an eyebrow like Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson did. If you get around to reading this Andrew Wheating, please bring back your Behind the Stands videos. Guys like Torrence and Nick Symmonds have this nailed.
6. Start a league. Track and field needs a real, centralized league. Track and field is a team sport at every single level of the sport except the professional. We grow up competing on a track team starting in elementary school, through high school and college - why does it have to stop there? The Diamond League is an after thought. It doesn't even have a sponsor anymore. Guys go all over Europe and run fast times at random meets that are not part of any bigger league. It's awesome to run 3:33 or 13:10, but it is almost impossible to keep track of when the races will be run and where your favorite athletes will show up to compete. The PGA Tour could be a great model. It ties far flung tournaments all over the country into a circuit.
Starting a real league could go hand in hand with number two on this list. A domestic American track and field league would be awesome. Instead of guys running for Nike, they could run for New York, Boston, or Portland. Let the runners put their names on their jerseys and sell them. We would no longer have to watch a few indistinguishable guys in light blue Nike or red adidas kits lope around the track. Team Schumacher vs the Nike Oregon Project could finally really throw down and use real team tactics against each other in a race. How awesome would that be?
This doesn't just have to be an Americans only league either. We have Dominicans and Europeans filling our baseball and basketball leagues. Bring in athletes from all over the world to fill out the teams. A league like this would be an incredible stride for track and field. As it exists now, track and field is relevant to the majority of the world every four years when the Olympics roll around. I love the Olympics as much as anyone, but they hinder the sport immensely. Imagine playing the Super Bowl every four years.
Having a real league with teams would also help athletes take their fate out of the hands of the shoe companies and the national governing bodies who wield all the power. There could be a union of sorts to protect the runners. If you get a contract from a team with a general manager and a president instead of a company with a CEO there will be significant benefits in terms of stability and financial backing.
Seriously, if the WNBA can still exist, a track and field league can exist.
7. Be Creative. This is really the final point I can add. There are so many things you can do to make people running in circle around a field more interesting. The Olympic Trials in Eugene was an incredible experience and I never once felt bored in the stadium. Fans were into the races, the festival atmosphere was great, athletes were accessible. This could be replicated easily at other meets. Why not have novelty races every once in a while in a non Olympic year or have a road race finish on the track as part of the meet and broadcast it on the screen in the stadium? I saw a great race on Flotrack in which runners raced a 5k, but whoever was in last place at the end of each lap was pulled off the track. Imagine what an epic race that would turn into if you got the country's 12 best 5k runners in a race like that. Use all that body tracking technology that is being developed. Monitor heart rates during races and put it on the big board. It would be awesome to watch that as sprinters are held in the blocks or a chase pack gains on a lead runner who went out too fast. The sky is literally the limit when it comes to ways to make professional track and field meets fun for even the casual fan.
Who knows - maybe track and field will always be a niche sport in this country. We are after all the land of the super size Coke and the Dallas Cowboys. Those of us who care about the sport cannot let that stop us from trying to think of any possible idea to grow the sport. Track and field is a wonderful sport and it has done so much for me in my life. I hope somehow I can return the favor.
What's Wrong With Track and Field (Part 2)
This post has been a long time coming, but I am glad I waited until now to start writing it since there have been conversations started by the decision of Competitor Group to cut its funding of elite athletes. I wrote earlier this summer that the numerous doping scandals and cloud of suspicion hanging over our sport was one of the big problems hindering the sport's continued development, but it is far from the biggest. The biggest problem for track and field is that the sport simply would not exist without shoe companies. Shoe companies hold all the power in the sport, forcing athletes to essentially work as independent contractors.
Shoe companies keep the sport alive, plain and simple. Not to say that cannot be changed, but in its current state, track and field would die if Nike decided it really didn't need its track and field athletes to sell shoes anymore. Competitor Group decided it does not get enough return on its investment in elites, what is stopping the shoe companies from doing the same? Does anyone really think that Nike saw a giant uptick in sales of spikes last year because Galen Rupp won a 10k silver medal in London? Probably not.
I believe there is some benefit for Nike to associate itself with elite athletes. After all, the only spikes I have ever bought have been Nike. I'm no psychologist, so I could not really tell you whether I do that because I think they provide the best product or because I associate them with elite athletes. A marketing guru somewhere in Oregon knows the answer to that question.
To avoid sounding too dire, I do not believe Nike or any of the shoe companies are on the verge of cutting funding to elite athletes. Deep down I do believe there is some value for Nike being able to have its athletes all decked out in their Nike kits consistently smoking the adidas or Brooks athletes. I believe we actually would see a surge towards a different company if its athletes were the most consistently dominant. The problem, however, is that Nike consistently snaps up the best of the best America has to offer, and the power of their brand allows them to get whoever they want and pay them whatever they want.
We saw this all year with the sad case of Leo Manzano. Leo is the defending Olympic silver medalist. He is one of the most clutch racers this country has ever seen. His PR's are not really all that impressive, and he often tanks in the rabbited Diamond League races. But, when it's time to show up at a national championship or a world competition he always performs. He has not missed a US team since 2007 (for those who don't realize what that means, Leo has represented the US at the 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013 World Championships and the 2008 and 2012 Olympics). At a time when US men's mile running has seen the most depth and talent ever, one runner has risen above all the rest to make the team, and that runner is Leo Manzano.
That runner is also unsponsored, essentially unemployed.
This to me, should have been the ultimate wake up call for track and field. Our country's first medalist in the men's 1500 since 1966 cannot find a job. While I realize I was not privy to the negotiations between Leo and Nike, it still boggles my mind that a contract could not be worked out.
This situation would never happen in any of our American ball sports. Could you imagine an MVP caliber baseball player having to worry about not having a job at the end of the season? Leo Manzano is an MVP caliber American runner, but he has no contract and therefore, no job. Our ball sports have leagues and players unions and we have shoe companies. Runners for Nike are essentially no different from any other employee for the global brand. There is no union looking out for track and field athletes the way that MLB's players union looks out for its players and make sure they are getting a fair share of the league's revenue. Anyone know where all of that billion dollar Olympic broadcast contract is going? It's definitely not going to the athletes.
You would think the national governing body of track and field in the US, USATF would be able to have some impact in this situation, but they do not because they are in bed with Nike. Nike makes a lot of money for the USATF. Nike makes all of the officially licensed Team USA and USATF gear and buys much of the advertising at major US meets, making USATF beholden to the shoe company.
The sport needs a new business model where runners are under a legitimate contract with a team rather than a business. I could go online right now and tell you exactly how much money each of the players in the NFL game I am currently watching makes per season. Track and field? Yeah right.
That lack of transparency keeps the power in the hands of the shoe companies, not the athletes. Without any knowledge of how much professional runners make, how can the public have any voice in determining whether athletes are underpaid and undersupported? Without a shift away from the current shoe company driven state of the sport, track and field athletes will not see any improvement in their pay or the condition of the sport.
Shoe companies keep the sport alive, plain and simple. Not to say that cannot be changed, but in its current state, track and field would die if Nike decided it really didn't need its track and field athletes to sell shoes anymore. Competitor Group decided it does not get enough return on its investment in elites, what is stopping the shoe companies from doing the same? Does anyone really think that Nike saw a giant uptick in sales of spikes last year because Galen Rupp won a 10k silver medal in London? Probably not.
I believe there is some benefit for Nike to associate itself with elite athletes. After all, the only spikes I have ever bought have been Nike. I'm no psychologist, so I could not really tell you whether I do that because I think they provide the best product or because I associate them with elite athletes. A marketing guru somewhere in Oregon knows the answer to that question.
To avoid sounding too dire, I do not believe Nike or any of the shoe companies are on the verge of cutting funding to elite athletes. Deep down I do believe there is some value for Nike being able to have its athletes all decked out in their Nike kits consistently smoking the adidas or Brooks athletes. I believe we actually would see a surge towards a different company if its athletes were the most consistently dominant. The problem, however, is that Nike consistently snaps up the best of the best America has to offer, and the power of their brand allows them to get whoever they want and pay them whatever they want.
We saw this all year with the sad case of Leo Manzano. Leo is the defending Olympic silver medalist. He is one of the most clutch racers this country has ever seen. His PR's are not really all that impressive, and he often tanks in the rabbited Diamond League races. But, when it's time to show up at a national championship or a world competition he always performs. He has not missed a US team since 2007 (for those who don't realize what that means, Leo has represented the US at the 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2013 World Championships and the 2008 and 2012 Olympics). At a time when US men's mile running has seen the most depth and talent ever, one runner has risen above all the rest to make the team, and that runner is Leo Manzano.
That runner is also unsponsored, essentially unemployed.
This to me, should have been the ultimate wake up call for track and field. Our country's first medalist in the men's 1500 since 1966 cannot find a job. While I realize I was not privy to the negotiations between Leo and Nike, it still boggles my mind that a contract could not be worked out.
This situation would never happen in any of our American ball sports. Could you imagine an MVP caliber baseball player having to worry about not having a job at the end of the season? Leo Manzano is an MVP caliber American runner, but he has no contract and therefore, no job. Our ball sports have leagues and players unions and we have shoe companies. Runners for Nike are essentially no different from any other employee for the global brand. There is no union looking out for track and field athletes the way that MLB's players union looks out for its players and make sure they are getting a fair share of the league's revenue. Anyone know where all of that billion dollar Olympic broadcast contract is going? It's definitely not going to the athletes.
You would think the national governing body of track and field in the US, USATF would be able to have some impact in this situation, but they do not because they are in bed with Nike. Nike makes a lot of money for the USATF. Nike makes all of the officially licensed Team USA and USATF gear and buys much of the advertising at major US meets, making USATF beholden to the shoe company.
The sport needs a new business model where runners are under a legitimate contract with a team rather than a business. I could go online right now and tell you exactly how much money each of the players in the NFL game I am currently watching makes per season. Track and field? Yeah right.
That lack of transparency keeps the power in the hands of the shoe companies, not the athletes. Without any knowledge of how much professional runners make, how can the public have any voice in determining whether athletes are underpaid and undersupported? Without a shift away from the current shoe company driven state of the sport, track and field athletes will not see any improvement in their pay or the condition of the sport.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
What's Wrong with Track and Field (Part I)
Last week, the world of professional track and field was rocked by another doping scandal, as Tyson Gay, the fastest American sprinter ever at 100 meters and three time gold medalist at the 2007 world championships, and Asafa Powell of Jamaica, former world record holder at 100 meters and also owner of 88 sub-10 second finishes in the 100 meters. The positive tests, Powell's for a stimulant and Gay's of a still unknown substance, set of a hale storm of of media vitriol deriding track and field as a sideshow sport with false times and world records fueled by performance enhancing drugs. Nearly every sports talk radio show I listened to last week at one point accused Usain Bolt, by far the greatest talent that track and field has ever seen, of being a cheater.
It is a sad state of affairs for track and field, leaving even the truest of fans, including myself, questioning the direction of the sport. How long until the sport is controlled by a team of doctors, testing concoctions on their guinea pig athletes? Of the 12 fastest men in US history at 100 meters, 7 have been linked to some type of doping scandal. One of our nation's top female sprinters, Carmelita Jeter nicknamed Pharmalita Jeter by many, continues to associate herself with people tied to doping. Marion Jones, the Olympic darling of the 2000 Sydney games, was embroiled in the BALCO scandal and was ultimately stripped of her five Olympic medals. No one wanted to believe Jones could possibly be cheating as she was trumped up as a role model for young girls everywhere, but we should have seen it coming, as she was accused of doping in high school!
The one athlete drawing the most scrutiny, and the one I most believe to be competing clean, is Usain Bolt. Those accusing Bolt of doping, specifically the sports talk hosts who have never watched a professional track race in their life, do not understand just how special an athlete he is. As a skin and bones 17 year old, he ran 20.13 for 200 meters.
Bolt is simply a once in a lifetime athlete. A 6'-5" sprinter dominating a world of 5'-11" to 6-1" sprinters. Most sprinters at the world class level are short, compact balls of muscle. Being small and compact makes it easier to come away from the blocks well, and this is the one thing that has always held Bolt back. It just takes him longer to get up to top speed, but when he does, his stride is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. His utter domination of the 100 meter final at the 2008 Olympics remains one of the most indelible sporting images of my life, and I am praying it is never tainted by a doping scandal.
As a distance runner, I would be mistaken if I only addressed the doping problem in the sprinting world. Distance running also has its fair share of doping problems to address, perhaps more so than sprinting. Sprinting success is largely inherent to the talents you were born with and technique, but in distance running, success is governed by continued accumulation of mileage and workouts, all geared towards equipping your body with the ability to function aerobically while in an extreme state of physical distress. This can all be accomplished through years and years of hard work, or the process can be speeded up through the use of a nifty little substance called EPO, which is a naturally occuring hormone in the body. Just by looking, you could never detect the use of EPO in a runner on the surface. You do not grow gills while on it and your muscles do not pop out of your skin. Your body just produces more red blood cells and more red blood cells equals more oxygen to the muscles. Just ask Lance Armstrong - EPO works wonders for an endurance athlete.
I believe, more so than any other sport, track and field is a science. It is unlike football, baseball, or basketball in that way. Pitchers have been throwing the ball at about the same velocity for years. We are not on the verge of seeing a pitcher throw the ball 110 mph. We will never see a quarterback capable of lofting 100 yard spirals or a basketball player discovering a jump shot that never misses. All of those skills are governed largely by your natural talent. Humans are not born with the ability to run 9.8 seconds in the 100 meters or 12:50 in the 5k. Those marks require specific training, and we are still learning what type of training leads to those performances. This is why records gradually fall in distance races. We have come a long way since the days of Emil Zatopek training for his races by running 100 meter sprints in combat boots!
This is also why I believe track and field will always have problems with doping. Athletes always want an edge. This is true in every sport. In baseball pitchers doctor the baseball with illegal substances. Linemen in football are always looking for creative ways to hold without getting caught. That is the nature of competition.
Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have been used for years in all other sports as well, most notably in baseball. But these are team sports, and one player juicing up does not guarantee success. Barry Bonds never won a World Series and neither did Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa during the height of their steroid use. Did they make millions more than they would have otherwise? The answer to that is a resounding yes, but they did not drastically affect the outcome of the entire season. In an individual sport like track and field, one doped athlete can alter the entire landscape of an Olympic Games, a la Marion Jones or Ben Johnson.
I cannot quite explain the outrage over the use of performance enhancing drugs in endurance sports like track or cycling. There was hardly outrage over the use of drugs in baseball in the late nineties, and even today, a positive drug test by a baseball player sparks a day of fire and brimstone rhetoric by the talking heads on ESPN before the player goes onto his next multimillion dollar contract (Melky Cabrera anyone?). No one questions the rapidly growing size and speed of NFL linebackers. If you think all of those 6'-5" 260 pounders with 5% body fat are not using something than I've got some nice real estate on the moon you might like to purchase. Why then, should it be seen as indicative that the sport of track and field is dying or failing when a couple of sprinters test positive?
I believe what is at the core of such beliefs is the fact that track and field is such an organic sport. It is one of the oldest and most primal sports in the world. It is two men lining up to see who is fastest, who can jump the farthest, or who can throw the farthest. We have all engaged in these activities ourselves. Racing one another is one of the best ways that children assert their dominance. Everyone wants to see where they stack up against each other physically. When we watch track and field, we want to believe that we are watching the best in the world push their bodies to the brink against each other. Naturally and without the aid of any drugs that we ourselves could not take. Track and field record books are not just an homage to those whose names grace the pages, they are an homage to what the human body is capable of when pushed to its utter limits. When records are falsely held by dopers the entire human race has been cheated. Without strict enforcement of doping rules our record books will not be a true measuring stick of what our species is capable of.
Sadly, I believe track and field will always have a doping problem. Doping has been an issue in the sport since the East German and Russian she-men dominated the sport in the seventies and eighties. Doctors and scientists will always have a hand in who wins the Olympic gold. Again, if you think Mo Farah became a transcendent distance runner at the age of 30 after stagnating for years we can talk about that lunar property I mentioned before. The rewards are simply too great for those who choose to take drugs, and the risks not great enough. Most runners make little to nothing competing in the sport. One good season, fueled by drugs, could provide enough winnings to live off for the rest of a young Kenyan's life. Get busted, and you just head back to your home country to sit out your ban, making just about as much money as you would have anyway.
My enjoyment of the sport comes largely from watching the athletes fight and claw their way to the finish. I want to see fast times just as much as the next person, but I would rather watch a race in which 10 men battle the entire length of the bell lap than a sub 12:30 5k in which the winner is doped to the gills. That is not what the sport is all about, but I fear that without the strictest enforcement of drug testing rules, that is what it will devolve into. I long for a day when world records can be set and fast times run without red flags being raised. Or the day when a previously unheralded athlete can emerge from obscurity to win a gold medal without scrutiny. I hate the fact that even as a die hard fan of the sport, I still take world leading performances with a grain of salt. I want to believe that someone like Farah could drastically improve from second rate to world beater through hard work alone or that an unknown like last years 1500 Olympic champ Taoufik Makhloufi could shock the world. Things like that inspire me to pursue my own personal greatness. Instead Makhloufi's victory came with a widespread helping of disbelief. Sadly, he has not been heard from this year, and I fear what many believed about him was true.
I will continue watching track and field no matter how many positive drug tests there are. It is the sport I love the most, despite its warts. What I fear, is that I will be among the few, lost in a sea of doubters and disinterested. Those who love the sport most must fight to keep it clean, be they athletes, fans, or drug testers.
It is a sad state of affairs for track and field, leaving even the truest of fans, including myself, questioning the direction of the sport. How long until the sport is controlled by a team of doctors, testing concoctions on their guinea pig athletes? Of the 12 fastest men in US history at 100 meters, 7 have been linked to some type of doping scandal. One of our nation's top female sprinters, Carmelita Jeter nicknamed Pharmalita Jeter by many, continues to associate herself with people tied to doping. Marion Jones, the Olympic darling of the 2000 Sydney games, was embroiled in the BALCO scandal and was ultimately stripped of her five Olympic medals. No one wanted to believe Jones could possibly be cheating as she was trumped up as a role model for young girls everywhere, but we should have seen it coming, as she was accused of doping in high school!
The one athlete drawing the most scrutiny, and the one I most believe to be competing clean, is Usain Bolt. Those accusing Bolt of doping, specifically the sports talk hosts who have never watched a professional track race in their life, do not understand just how special an athlete he is. As a skin and bones 17 year old, he ran 20.13 for 200 meters.
Bolt is simply a once in a lifetime athlete. A 6'-5" sprinter dominating a world of 5'-11" to 6-1" sprinters. Most sprinters at the world class level are short, compact balls of muscle. Being small and compact makes it easier to come away from the blocks well, and this is the one thing that has always held Bolt back. It just takes him longer to get up to top speed, but when he does, his stride is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. His utter domination of the 100 meter final at the 2008 Olympics remains one of the most indelible sporting images of my life, and I am praying it is never tainted by a doping scandal.
As a distance runner, I would be mistaken if I only addressed the doping problem in the sprinting world. Distance running also has its fair share of doping problems to address, perhaps more so than sprinting. Sprinting success is largely inherent to the talents you were born with and technique, but in distance running, success is governed by continued accumulation of mileage and workouts, all geared towards equipping your body with the ability to function aerobically while in an extreme state of physical distress. This can all be accomplished through years and years of hard work, or the process can be speeded up through the use of a nifty little substance called EPO, which is a naturally occuring hormone in the body. Just by looking, you could never detect the use of EPO in a runner on the surface. You do not grow gills while on it and your muscles do not pop out of your skin. Your body just produces more red blood cells and more red blood cells equals more oxygen to the muscles. Just ask Lance Armstrong - EPO works wonders for an endurance athlete.
I believe, more so than any other sport, track and field is a science. It is unlike football, baseball, or basketball in that way. Pitchers have been throwing the ball at about the same velocity for years. We are not on the verge of seeing a pitcher throw the ball 110 mph. We will never see a quarterback capable of lofting 100 yard spirals or a basketball player discovering a jump shot that never misses. All of those skills are governed largely by your natural talent. Humans are not born with the ability to run 9.8 seconds in the 100 meters or 12:50 in the 5k. Those marks require specific training, and we are still learning what type of training leads to those performances. This is why records gradually fall in distance races. We have come a long way since the days of Emil Zatopek training for his races by running 100 meter sprints in combat boots!
This is also why I believe track and field will always have problems with doping. Athletes always want an edge. This is true in every sport. In baseball pitchers doctor the baseball with illegal substances. Linemen in football are always looking for creative ways to hold without getting caught. That is the nature of competition.
Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have been used for years in all other sports as well, most notably in baseball. But these are team sports, and one player juicing up does not guarantee success. Barry Bonds never won a World Series and neither did Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa during the height of their steroid use. Did they make millions more than they would have otherwise? The answer to that is a resounding yes, but they did not drastically affect the outcome of the entire season. In an individual sport like track and field, one doped athlete can alter the entire landscape of an Olympic Games, a la Marion Jones or Ben Johnson.
I cannot quite explain the outrage over the use of performance enhancing drugs in endurance sports like track or cycling. There was hardly outrage over the use of drugs in baseball in the late nineties, and even today, a positive drug test by a baseball player sparks a day of fire and brimstone rhetoric by the talking heads on ESPN before the player goes onto his next multimillion dollar contract (Melky Cabrera anyone?). No one questions the rapidly growing size and speed of NFL linebackers. If you think all of those 6'-5" 260 pounders with 5% body fat are not using something than I've got some nice real estate on the moon you might like to purchase. Why then, should it be seen as indicative that the sport of track and field is dying or failing when a couple of sprinters test positive?
I believe what is at the core of such beliefs is the fact that track and field is such an organic sport. It is one of the oldest and most primal sports in the world. It is two men lining up to see who is fastest, who can jump the farthest, or who can throw the farthest. We have all engaged in these activities ourselves. Racing one another is one of the best ways that children assert their dominance. Everyone wants to see where they stack up against each other physically. When we watch track and field, we want to believe that we are watching the best in the world push their bodies to the brink against each other. Naturally and without the aid of any drugs that we ourselves could not take. Track and field record books are not just an homage to those whose names grace the pages, they are an homage to what the human body is capable of when pushed to its utter limits. When records are falsely held by dopers the entire human race has been cheated. Without strict enforcement of doping rules our record books will not be a true measuring stick of what our species is capable of.
Sadly, I believe track and field will always have a doping problem. Doping has been an issue in the sport since the East German and Russian she-men dominated the sport in the seventies and eighties. Doctors and scientists will always have a hand in who wins the Olympic gold. Again, if you think Mo Farah became a transcendent distance runner at the age of 30 after stagnating for years we can talk about that lunar property I mentioned before. The rewards are simply too great for those who choose to take drugs, and the risks not great enough. Most runners make little to nothing competing in the sport. One good season, fueled by drugs, could provide enough winnings to live off for the rest of a young Kenyan's life. Get busted, and you just head back to your home country to sit out your ban, making just about as much money as you would have anyway.
My enjoyment of the sport comes largely from watching the athletes fight and claw their way to the finish. I want to see fast times just as much as the next person, but I would rather watch a race in which 10 men battle the entire length of the bell lap than a sub 12:30 5k in which the winner is doped to the gills. That is not what the sport is all about, but I fear that without the strictest enforcement of drug testing rules, that is what it will devolve into. I long for a day when world records can be set and fast times run without red flags being raised. Or the day when a previously unheralded athlete can emerge from obscurity to win a gold medal without scrutiny. I hate the fact that even as a die hard fan of the sport, I still take world leading performances with a grain of salt. I want to believe that someone like Farah could drastically improve from second rate to world beater through hard work alone or that an unknown like last years 1500 Olympic champ Taoufik Makhloufi could shock the world. Things like that inspire me to pursue my own personal greatness. Instead Makhloufi's victory came with a widespread helping of disbelief. Sadly, he has not been heard from this year, and I fear what many believed about him was true.
I will continue watching track and field no matter how many positive drug tests there are. It is the sport I love the most, despite its warts. What I fear, is that I will be among the few, lost in a sea of doubters and disinterested. Those who love the sport most must fight to keep it clean, be they athletes, fans, or drug testers.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Quick Thoughts from a Qualifier: Matt Pelletier
As much as I know you are all dying to read about my training, I also see my blog as a chance to do more than just write about the weekly ups and downs of training. I am hoping it can be a resource for other runners like me trying to make the most of their potential down the road. To that end, I am going to start putting together interviews with past Olympic Trials qualifying runners. It will be a great look into what they have gone through to reach that level that should help those of us trying to reach that level. I also see it as a chance for these guys to get a little of the recognition they deserve, since so many people are unaware of the level of commitment and dedication it takes to be a 2:18 type of marathoner and balance the rest of your life. After all, not many shoe companies are handing out contracts to 2:18 guys.
The first athlete I reached out to was Matt Pelletier, who I had the pleasure of racing against and meeting in Vermont this spring. Matt is a two time Trials qualifier, but he wasn't always an elite runner. Matt attended the University of Rhode Island, where he had very modest success as a runner. In his own words, he ran times, "that an average high school kid would laugh at," but he stuck with it and kept grinding away. Now, the runner who graduated college having broken 29 a few times for the 8k, has run 2:17:17 for the marathon and posted a top 20 finish at the 2008 US Olympic Trials. Matt lives and trains in West Greenwich, RI. He works as a teacher at Pilgrim High School in nearby Warwick, RI and lives with his fiancee Jill. Thanks again Matt, and hope our paths cross out racing the roads sometime soon!
Q: Not everyone who has success running 5k and 10k on the track is able to translate that ability to the marathon distance. When did you realize you had the ability to become an elite marathoner?
A:
I was never very successful at the shorter distances. I always new I would run my best at the marathon. All of my PR's at the other distances have come during marathon training. (Matt has lowered his 5k PR to 14:36 and has also run 49:05 for 10 miles and 1:05:42 for the half, so the wheels have certainly come around) I just don't have the form or leg turnover (or talent) to compete at the shorter faster distances. I like the marathon where you just grind along for two plus hours and try to maintain a consistent faster pace.
Q: How many tries did it take you at running the marathon before you feel you really had a feel for the distance?
A:
My first marathon was 2:32:52 in Boston in 2003. I ran it for a friend of mine who was killed while out on a training run for Boston. I approached his wife after the funeral and told her I wanted to run Boston with his bib number on so we could say he completed what he was training for. That was only 2 weeks before the race so I really didn't have any marathon training at that point. I ran 13 miles the day before Boston helping a friend out with a tempo run. Six months after Boston I ran my "first" marathon with training involved and ran 2:24:18. My coach at the time and I decided to shoot for the trials standard of 2:22 and see what happened, so it was an all or nothing shot. Our main focus was qualifying for the 2008 trials, but decided to give one attempt at qualifying for 2004. I fell a little short, but knew it was possible.
Q: Where did you run your first Olympic Trials qualifying time and how did you feel crossing the line knowing what you had accomplished?
A:
I first qualified for the trials in Chicago 2006. We had a huge pack on a perfect (but windy) day, all shooting for 2:20. We stayed together for the most part until the later miles. I really started to fall off around 23 but held it together and ran 2:20:26. It was the B standard but I was in. Seven months later, I ran 2:19:00 at KBVCM (Key Bank Vermont City Marathon) all alone and got the A standard. My goal since 2002 was to make the 2008 trials, and I was finally going to realize that dream. Crossing the line in Chicago wasn't exactly celebratory. There were so many people running times right around 2:20 that it was a mad sprint to the finish. There was $1500 on the line for being in the top 25 Americans, and I was sprinting trying to pass as many people as possible coming down that stretch. I finished 25th American. In the KBVCM, I had no plans of running the A standard, but it kind of just happened. I had no idea what pace I was on until I saw the clock coming down the finishing stretch. I probably would have been 2:18:58 but I was celebrating the entire way in. It felt great to run under 2:20, knowing I could have gone faster.
Q: Could you describe your experience at the 2008 Trials where you finished in the top 20?
A:
My coach (Matt is coached by Ray Nelson) and I always have a sit down meeting a few days before the race. We had gone out and checked out the course in August, so I knew that it was a very challenging course against the country's best runners. My goal was to not finish last. He wrote my time down in an envelope and sealed it. He would tell me what it was after the race. He did tell me not to be scared to run faster than I thought I could, and to leave it all out there. The time in the envelope was 2:17:xx. He knows me better than I know myself. The trials experience in itself is worth all the training and heartbreak. They make you feel like you are the best runner in the world. Walking around the hotel, and going to meetings with guys who I had only seen on tv made me completely starstruck. I rode in an elevator with Ryan and Sara hall. I sat on the bus across the isle from Alan Culpepper. I had a nice chat with Sage Canaday. It was amazing. Once the gun went off on race day, I blocked all that out and focused on running my own race and running by feel. With so many up and down portions in Central park, I focused on maintaining the same effort. Downhill miles were faster and uphill miles were slower, but I was running consistently by effort. I had no idea what place I was in at any point of the race, or what my time was going to be. Just trying to move up from group to group, run the tangents as best as possible, and not let anyone break away from me. Steve Sundell (15th place) and Chris Raabe (16th place) were the only guys from my pack who broke away from me. I wish I had gone with them. The only guy who passed me was Clint Verran (18th place) and he passed me at 26 miles like I was standing still. Everyone else that I had started with once we entered Central Park finished behind me.
Q: What kept you motivated to keep training at a high level coming out of college and what drove you to return to running after dealing with your injuries? With work and the demands of the real world how have you been able to work running into a busy schedule?
A:
My coach and I are on the same page as far as training goes. We both like high mileage, long tough workouts, and not racing too often. We like to put all the eggs in one basket and focus on 2 marathons a year and race sparingly in between those marathons. He sends me a schedule at the beginning of the week and I give him feedback after every day's training. Having the schedule and a coach to answer to makes skipping runs tough. I figure it's not too hard to squeeze in two hours a day of training. Plus Jill is very understanding of my training. Not having kids helps too. I'm motivated to be the best I can be. I don't want to look back one day and say "I wonder what I could have run if..." When I finally give it up, I'm confident I'll be able to say I got the best out of myself that I could, and don't have to wonder "what if". Coming back after the injuries was tough. I had two knee surgeries over the course of three years, and retired about 100 times during those three years. I kept having setbacks that made me think I would never be able to train like I wanted to ever again. Really, it was the people around me (friends, family, PT's, chiro's,) that kept telling me that I wasn't done that got me to keep trying. By myself I think I would have been retired for five years now.
Q: What do you consider to be the number one key to success for post collegiate runners looking to continue their development and transition to the marathon?
A:
The key to success for post collegiate runners is not to give up. Money will come later in life and so will family. The best training in your life has a very short shelf life, and that expiration date is coming up fast. Once the ability to run your best is over, then you can move on to normal people things. People have always asked me if my running keeps me from being "normal". We're not normal. Competing at our level isn't normal. If it was, everyone would do it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices to achieve great things. In 2000 there were only a handful of people willing to do this, and our distance running in this country showed that. Now more and more people are willing to chase the dream, and we have the results to prove that it is working. The other thing is to find a coach who knows the marathon well, and find a training group to suffer with. Leading up to the trials, I had a group of five guys and one girl who I ran with at least twice a week. We did our workouts and long runs together. Having other people on the track who know EXACTLY how bad the workout you are doing hurts helps you tough it out week in and week out. Now, I train mostly by myself. I can't find a group to meet up with with runners of similar ability. I feel like my training is missing that one essential piece.
Q: Do you agree with the USATF's decision to tighten the qualifying standards for the 2016 Trials? Note - The USATF standard has been set to 2:18 for 2016, a drop from 2:20 in 2012.
A:
I do agree with the tightening of the standards. 2:15 is the IAAF standard, so it should be the standard all the qualifiers are aiming for. What's the point of going to the trials if you can't even make the Olympic team? That being said, 2:15 is pretty friggin tough to run, and I really need to step my game up AND have the race of my life just to make the trials now.
Q: Favorite race? Either favorite course or one individual race experience that stands out?
A:
Favorite race? As for marathons I would have to say my favorite marathon is the KBVCM. From fans, to course, to coordinators, they just do an excellent job of putting together an excellent race. The Trials might be my favorite race ever though. Just an experience that I will never forget, and hope to experience one more time.
Q: Favorite workout?
A:
My favorite workouts are the ones that are really tough, and I know will help me run a great race. 12 X 1 mile comes to mind as one that really sucks at the time, but in the long run is a great race. We've also done 10 miles at a comfortable pace, 10 miles at race pace, 5 miles at a comfortable pace, and the last mile all out. That's a tough one. We also do some dynamic surge (DS) workouts. Basically a workout like 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile on a track, but every 3rd lap is significantly faster than the others. For example, here's one from 10 days before this year's KBVCM:
3 miles w/ 400 m. DS every 3rd lap
78, 78, 72, 78 (5:09)
78, 72, 78, 78 (5:09)
72, 78, 78, 72 (5:00) = 15:18
800 rec.
2 miles w/ 400 m. DS every 3rd lap
78, 78, 70, 78 (5:04)
78, 70, 78, 78 (5:04) = 10:08
800 rec.
1 mile
73, 73, 67, 73 = 4:46
The first athlete I reached out to was Matt Pelletier, who I had the pleasure of racing against and meeting in Vermont this spring. Matt is a two time Trials qualifier, but he wasn't always an elite runner. Matt attended the University of Rhode Island, where he had very modest success as a runner. In his own words, he ran times, "that an average high school kid would laugh at," but he stuck with it and kept grinding away. Now, the runner who graduated college having broken 29 a few times for the 8k, has run 2:17:17 for the marathon and posted a top 20 finish at the 2008 US Olympic Trials. Matt lives and trains in West Greenwich, RI. He works as a teacher at Pilgrim High School in nearby Warwick, RI and lives with his fiancee Jill. Thanks again Matt, and hope our paths cross out racing the roads sometime soon!
 |
| 2008 Trials qualifier Matt Pelletier breaks the tape at the Vermont City Marathon. |
Q: Not everyone who has success running 5k and 10k on the track is able to translate that ability to the marathon distance. When did you realize you had the ability to become an elite marathoner?
A:
I was never very successful at the shorter distances. I always new I would run my best at the marathon. All of my PR's at the other distances have come during marathon training. (Matt has lowered his 5k PR to 14:36 and has also run 49:05 for 10 miles and 1:05:42 for the half, so the wheels have certainly come around) I just don't have the form or leg turnover (or talent) to compete at the shorter faster distances. I like the marathon where you just grind along for two plus hours and try to maintain a consistent faster pace.
Q: How many tries did it take you at running the marathon before you feel you really had a feel for the distance?
A:
My first marathon was 2:32:52 in Boston in 2003. I ran it for a friend of mine who was killed while out on a training run for Boston. I approached his wife after the funeral and told her I wanted to run Boston with his bib number on so we could say he completed what he was training for. That was only 2 weeks before the race so I really didn't have any marathon training at that point. I ran 13 miles the day before Boston helping a friend out with a tempo run. Six months after Boston I ran my "first" marathon with training involved and ran 2:24:18. My coach at the time and I decided to shoot for the trials standard of 2:22 and see what happened, so it was an all or nothing shot. Our main focus was qualifying for the 2008 trials, but decided to give one attempt at qualifying for 2004. I fell a little short, but knew it was possible.
Q: Where did you run your first Olympic Trials qualifying time and how did you feel crossing the line knowing what you had accomplished?
A:
I first qualified for the trials in Chicago 2006. We had a huge pack on a perfect (but windy) day, all shooting for 2:20. We stayed together for the most part until the later miles. I really started to fall off around 23 but held it together and ran 2:20:26. It was the B standard but I was in. Seven months later, I ran 2:19:00 at KBVCM (Key Bank Vermont City Marathon) all alone and got the A standard. My goal since 2002 was to make the 2008 trials, and I was finally going to realize that dream. Crossing the line in Chicago wasn't exactly celebratory. There were so many people running times right around 2:20 that it was a mad sprint to the finish. There was $1500 on the line for being in the top 25 Americans, and I was sprinting trying to pass as many people as possible coming down that stretch. I finished 25th American. In the KBVCM, I had no plans of running the A standard, but it kind of just happened. I had no idea what pace I was on until I saw the clock coming down the finishing stretch. I probably would have been 2:18:58 but I was celebrating the entire way in. It felt great to run under 2:20, knowing I could have gone faster.
Q: Could you describe your experience at the 2008 Trials where you finished in the top 20?
A:
My coach (Matt is coached by Ray Nelson) and I always have a sit down meeting a few days before the race. We had gone out and checked out the course in August, so I knew that it was a very challenging course against the country's best runners. My goal was to not finish last. He wrote my time down in an envelope and sealed it. He would tell me what it was after the race. He did tell me not to be scared to run faster than I thought I could, and to leave it all out there. The time in the envelope was 2:17:xx. He knows me better than I know myself. The trials experience in itself is worth all the training and heartbreak. They make you feel like you are the best runner in the world. Walking around the hotel, and going to meetings with guys who I had only seen on tv made me completely starstruck. I rode in an elevator with Ryan and Sara hall. I sat on the bus across the isle from Alan Culpepper. I had a nice chat with Sage Canaday. It was amazing. Once the gun went off on race day, I blocked all that out and focused on running my own race and running by feel. With so many up and down portions in Central park, I focused on maintaining the same effort. Downhill miles were faster and uphill miles were slower, but I was running consistently by effort. I had no idea what place I was in at any point of the race, or what my time was going to be. Just trying to move up from group to group, run the tangents as best as possible, and not let anyone break away from me. Steve Sundell (15th place) and Chris Raabe (16th place) were the only guys from my pack who broke away from me. I wish I had gone with them. The only guy who passed me was Clint Verran (18th place) and he passed me at 26 miles like I was standing still. Everyone else that I had started with once we entered Central Park finished behind me.
Q: What kept you motivated to keep training at a high level coming out of college and what drove you to return to running after dealing with your injuries? With work and the demands of the real world how have you been able to work running into a busy schedule?
A:
My coach and I are on the same page as far as training goes. We both like high mileage, long tough workouts, and not racing too often. We like to put all the eggs in one basket and focus on 2 marathons a year and race sparingly in between those marathons. He sends me a schedule at the beginning of the week and I give him feedback after every day's training. Having the schedule and a coach to answer to makes skipping runs tough. I figure it's not too hard to squeeze in two hours a day of training. Plus Jill is very understanding of my training. Not having kids helps too. I'm motivated to be the best I can be. I don't want to look back one day and say "I wonder what I could have run if..." When I finally give it up, I'm confident I'll be able to say I got the best out of myself that I could, and don't have to wonder "what if". Coming back after the injuries was tough. I had two knee surgeries over the course of three years, and retired about 100 times during those three years. I kept having setbacks that made me think I would never be able to train like I wanted to ever again. Really, it was the people around me (friends, family, PT's, chiro's,) that kept telling me that I wasn't done that got me to keep trying. By myself I think I would have been retired for five years now.
Q: What do you consider to be the number one key to success for post collegiate runners looking to continue their development and transition to the marathon?
A:
The key to success for post collegiate runners is not to give up. Money will come later in life and so will family. The best training in your life has a very short shelf life, and that expiration date is coming up fast. Once the ability to run your best is over, then you can move on to normal people things. People have always asked me if my running keeps me from being "normal". We're not normal. Competing at our level isn't normal. If it was, everyone would do it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices to achieve great things. In 2000 there were only a handful of people willing to do this, and our distance running in this country showed that. Now more and more people are willing to chase the dream, and we have the results to prove that it is working. The other thing is to find a coach who knows the marathon well, and find a training group to suffer with. Leading up to the trials, I had a group of five guys and one girl who I ran with at least twice a week. We did our workouts and long runs together. Having other people on the track who know EXACTLY how bad the workout you are doing hurts helps you tough it out week in and week out. Now, I train mostly by myself. I can't find a group to meet up with with runners of similar ability. I feel like my training is missing that one essential piece.
Q: Do you agree with the USATF's decision to tighten the qualifying standards for the 2016 Trials? Note - The USATF standard has been set to 2:18 for 2016, a drop from 2:20 in 2012.
A:
I do agree with the tightening of the standards. 2:15 is the IAAF standard, so it should be the standard all the qualifiers are aiming for. What's the point of going to the trials if you can't even make the Olympic team? That being said, 2:15 is pretty friggin tough to run, and I really need to step my game up AND have the race of my life just to make the trials now.
Q: Favorite race? Either favorite course or one individual race experience that stands out?
A:
Favorite race? As for marathons I would have to say my favorite marathon is the KBVCM. From fans, to course, to coordinators, they just do an excellent job of putting together an excellent race. The Trials might be my favorite race ever though. Just an experience that I will never forget, and hope to experience one more time.
Q: Favorite workout?
A:
My favorite workouts are the ones that are really tough, and I know will help me run a great race. 12 X 1 mile comes to mind as one that really sucks at the time, but in the long run is a great race. We've also done 10 miles at a comfortable pace, 10 miles at race pace, 5 miles at a comfortable pace, and the last mile all out. That's a tough one. We also do some dynamic surge (DS) workouts. Basically a workout like 3 mile, 2 mile, 1 mile on a track, but every 3rd lap is significantly faster than the others. For example, here's one from 10 days before this year's KBVCM:
3 miles w/ 400 m. DS every 3rd lap
78, 78, 72, 78 (5:09)
78, 72, 78, 78 (5:09)
72, 78, 78, 72 (5:00) = 15:18
800 rec.
2 miles w/ 400 m. DS every 3rd lap
78, 78, 70, 78 (5:04)
78, 70, 78, 78 (5:04) = 10:08
800 rec.
1 mile
73, 73, 67, 73 = 4:46
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