Good Day For A Run

This morning Steve Schroeder, Brian King and I headed over to Bear Creek Park to meet up with David Minken for our attempt at 15 miles at 3 hour marathon pace (6:52). The conditions this morning were nearly perfect. I would take what we had this morning for the day of the marathon anytime. A little wind but overcast and 45 degrees.

We started with two miles to warm up. But I really wasn't feeling it this morning, and neither was Steve. It wasn't until we had struggled for a few miles that we realized that maybe we still weren't fully recovered from the hard tempo on Wednesday. Whatever the reason, the 6:50 first mile was very uncomfortable, as were the subsequent miles. I never could settle into a groove but soldiered on. All of our miles were sub 6:50 (as best I can remember) but we did have three stops in there and I kept my watch running for those in order to get a true duration and true average pace.

At about seven miles of the marathon pace portion, Steve announced that he would target 10 miles at this pace then cool down. I was continuing to struggle with the 6:43s we were turning but told myself, "just focus on getting 10 miles done and worry about the rest from there." That worked pretty well because we soon hit mile eight, then nine. At some point before mile 10 David mentioned that we should be able to do 13 to 15 miles at that pace. Well, now that the idea had been introduced that we might call it a day after 13 I was more comfortable trying to continue on, although I did hope in the back of my mind that we'd do more than that.

We crossed over into Cullen Park for the final few miles and I asked David to let me know when we hit 13 miles so I could mentally calculate our average pace. It was clear that we weren't going to stop at 13 miles and I wanted a mental diversion to let my mind work on. I could sense us picking up the pace a bit toward the end of mile 13 and we seemed to continue to go faster in mile 14. I was dropping back just a bit and knew I'd drop back even further if we kept this up through 15 miles. But as we approached the Highway 6 crossing David let us know that we'd just hit 14 miles, right at the intersection, and it was a job well done. Brian King and I were pretty gassed so we didn't argue. We treated ourselves to a two mile cool-down and I let Brian know that according to my watch we'd just posted a final mile of around 6:15 or so. David, who had doubled back briefly at Highway 6 for some reason, eventually caught up to us on the cool-down and confirmed.

Our overall pace for the 14 miles was 6:53, including three stops. Steve got in his 10 (plus warm-up) and Brian and David and I got in 18 miles total. It was a good morning but I was pretty worried about why I was struggling with that pace until I thought about what we'd done on Wednesday. Now it's taper time.

Man, That Was Tough

I met up with Brian King and Steve Schroeder this evening for an attempt at something Brian and I have done only once before. Two years ago, at the peak of our fitness before Houston, we covered the 3.55 mile Greatwood loop twice plus a mile out and back in under one hour. Now, before you go calculate that it would require only a 6:35 pace to achieve such a feat, the Greatwood loop is not flat, not straight, and is not easy. If we cover our standard two loops in under 50 minutes that's a good day indeed. Under 49 is very rare. Under 48 happens about twice a year, and always one of us alone. It's almost impossible to have two people ready for that on the same day. And we don't do the 9.1 distance that often. When we do it's 1:04 at best. Except two years ago. But today we tried it again.

When Brian and I did it two years ago we hit the first loop in 24 minutes flat, then 23:03 on the second loop, then 6:21 going out, and 5:57 coming back in. We've since re-measured the mile out and found it to be about 20 or 30 feet short so I knew the mile out and back today wouldn't be the place to make up ground, or at least not like when we turned the 59:21 two years ago. So we wanted to do the first two loops in no more than 47 minutes, if possible. Keep in mind, my 2nd best two loop time is only 46:56, so it was going to have to be all business from the first step - and it was.

Steve and I were red-lining near oxygen debt from the beginning but tried our best to hang on to Brian, who must have eaten his Wheaties this morning. He set a furious pace and we hit the first loop in 23:15, a 45 second improvement over two years ago. Brian was maybe five seconds in front of me after one and Steve was maybe five seconds behind me. I felt like we had a little wiggle room and could actually slow down a bit on loop #2, but apparently no one told Brian. He ran stronger and stronger and I was helpless to answer. I ran as hard as I could without blowing up and could only watch him pull away. Halfway through the second loop he was 20 seconds ahead of me and it only got worse from there. The good thing though, was that I wasn't slowing down - he was just on fire. He was 33 seconds ahead of me at the completion of loop 2. He turned a 22:39 (one of only three sub 23 minute loops that any of us has ever posted). I clocked a 23:12 for loop 2 but just didn't have another gear for the mile out. I hit the turn around at a disappointing 6:35. By my calculations I would need about a 6:16 to equal my time from two years ago. That was gonna be tough but at least I was pretty sure that sub one hour was in the bag. It certainly was for Brian, who was so far ahead I could barely see him. Shortly after I turned around for the final mile in I saw Steve heading in to the turn. He probably wasn't going to make it under one hour but dang, he was giving it his best shot. I hadn't seen him behind me in some time so I wasn't sure how he was doing.

I clocked a 6:24 final mile into the wind, which was not very helpful tonight. I was totally spent. I didn't quite equal the 59:21 from two years ago, but came close, wind and all. Brian posted a 58:37, I posted a 59:28, and Steve got in just a bit over 1:01. I could not have gone one second faster. I'm still whipped. But what a workout. Now it's some light milage tomorrow, off Friday, then tempo Saturday.

Reviewing The Last Few Days

After my speedwork last Thursday I took Friday off in preparation for the Strider's Longest Long Run that was held last Saturday. I ran 21.5 miles at a consistent 7:25 or so pace, though I don't have exact numbers. I ran much of the route with David Minken and Matt Wright. It was easy-paced conversational mode. I had a few aches and pains during the run, but nothing alarming, and all were fine the next day. I skipped Sunday in order to recover, then did 7.3 miles (tempo paced but not timed) on Monday, Christmas eve. On Christmas day I managed to get away from the house for 5.1 miles at an easy pace.

Today my running buddies, Steve Schroeder and Brian King, are joining me to attempt something I've only done once before - 2 Greatwood loops plus the mile out and back in under an hour. Brian King thought of this challenge two years ago when, at the time, our best time was 1:03 something. He and I pulled it off during the week between Christmas 2005 and the New Year. It's sort of the Holy Grail of our Greatwood running landmark efforts in that it's the most challenging when I think of duplicating an effort from the past. So the three of us are taking all this fitness we've accumulated over the past six months and are gonna see if we can do it again.

I'll do some more miles Thursday but will take Friday off in anticipation of the hard tempo we've got scheduled for Saturday morning. Steve and Brian and I will be meeting up with David Minken at Bear Creek for 15 miles at about a 6:45 pace. Chip Maxa may be joining us. Then it's full speed taper for the Houston Marathon. I'm gonna try to improve upon my 2:58 from Dallas, but of course, the weather will have to cooperate.

Ahh, Speedwork Again

For various reasons I've done only one speedwork session in the past five or six weeks. I'm not happy about that because I think it's just as important to marathon training (at least time-goal marathon training) as it is for the shorter stuff. But with marathon taper and recovery it's understandable why I've been missing them. So, I made my way out for speedwork tonight.

I didn't go to the track because I wasn't able to get free to run until 8:30 PM, so naturally it was dark, and the nearest track has no lighting and a rough surface. I didn't want a twisted ankle. So I headed over to my old subdivision for an old favorite - intervals on the .4 mile oval block that I used to live on. Let me tell ya - if you didn't run tonight, you missed perfect running conditions, at least for a 40 minute workout. The temperature was upper 50s, the humidity was low, and there was zero wind. Not one weather feature compromised what I wanted to do. It was one of those rare times where you were limited only by what your heart and lungs would allow you to do.

So I took advantage of it and cranked out six fast ovals, with a mixed walking/jogging recovery of .2 miles between. Add in my warmup and cool-down milage and it was six miles tonight. Here are my .4 mile times:

2:16, 2:09, 2:13, 2:12, 2:11, 2:07

Those times aren't quite in the same league with the kind of times I turn when I'm really focused on speed and doing twice-weekly speed sessions, but given that I've not been even been doing one speed workout a week lately, and given that I'm still only 11 days out from my Dallas marathon, I'll take them all day long.

Post Marathon Update

Not much to report in the days since the Dallas marathon. They made my time official last Friday (thanks Wayne Cohen and Steve Karpas). I've run a few times but still haven't fully recovered, which is just amazing to me. I went out last night for 9.9 miles. It was the best I've felt in any of my post-marathon training runs, and certainly the farthest I've gone. I managed a 6:50 pace and ran negative splits on the three loops I did here in New Territory but my legs were whipped by the end of the run. They felt like they did in the last few miles of Dallas. Except today they are fine. Hopefully I'll be up for the 20+ mile long-run this weekend. I'll run a fair amount next week then begin tapering again for Houston.

Training Your Brain to Get Through The Last Few Miles

An excellent article here

Kind of deals with what I went through yesterday. But the suggested workouts are still a little on the easy side. 16K at or near your marathon goal pace isn't far enough. That's not even 10 miles. One of the comments below the article mention that.

Dallas White Rock Marathon

My goal today was to hold a 6:40 to 6:45 pace and hopefully come in somewhere around 2:55 to 2:56. That proved impossible for at least two reasons. One, we made a significant mistake by not warming up. The front came through last night, actually during the pasta dinner. When I was in line to get food the temperature was 73, then an hour later it was 64. At 3 AM this morning it was 54 and at race time it was 49 or so, with significant, swirling wind. I chose to wear just shorts and the Strider singlet. That proved to be just barely enough to keep from freezing my a&* off. I had a trash can liner on, and for some reason someone dropped a sweatshirt at the start before the race even started. I put that on and didn't take it off for the first couple of miles. We really should have done a warm-up run, given the temperatures and biting wind. For some reason we ended up not going out to the start line until about 7:30 or so (8 AM start), and it was pretty crowded already. I guess we just wanted to huddle to try to stay warm. I think it really cost us all early on since it wasn't until mile six or seven that I started to slip into a groove.

The second reason I was unable to hold the desired pace was the wind. All other conditions were ideal (unlike here in Sugar Land this morning!). It was overcast the entire race, no rain, and temps in the 40s. In fact, the temperature dropped to about 40 by the time we finished. But the wind was a bi+ch. I think there may have been a total of about three or four miles where the wind was at our backs. It was in our face going out, it was in our face going to the back side of the lake, it was in our face coming around the lake, and it was in our face coming back in. Lots and lots of turns but somehow the wind always seemed to be coming right at us.

I had planned to run with Doug Schroeder, and take turns leading, so as to block the wind. Doug ended up leading most of the way. At about mile six I got a little too close to Doug and his shoe came down on top of my right shoe. It was no big deal (or so I thought) but it did trip him up for just a second. Little did I know how costly that mistake would turn out to be. I'm just about positive that's where I lost my chip. His shoe just pulled it right off. The only split that the mats out on the course picked up was at mile five. Lance Collins, #2416, is technically still out there on the pavement somewhere around mile six. Yeah. It sucks. Big time. Thank God I had my watch on and got accurate splits. And I have witnesses to every mile I ran.

At about mile 13 I offered to take the lead from Doug. After a quarter mile or so I noticed that he had slipped back. In another half mile or so I saw that he had slipped back even farther. But a welcomed surprise was our buddy Jake Tonge, who was targeting anything under 3 hours. Doug and I hadn't really figured Jake for running with us, but I guess given that our pace wasn't what we planned it's no surprise that Jake was there. I lost Jake for the next three or four miles but noticed him again out of the corner of my eye at around mile 18 or 19.

By this time the lactic acid build-up in my legs was working hard to impact my pace. I didn't have much of a cushion for coming in under 3 hours so I simply told my self I would flat refuse to slow down. I was going to go down swinging if it meant emptying every ounce of energy I had. The miles between 17 and the finish were brutal. Painful. Not fun. Unpleasant. In fact, this entire run today was no fun. My pace was all over the place and I was only in my happy place for about four miles between miles seven and eleven. But again, I decided that I would stare the pain down, may the best man win.

I passed a few people, which felt good. Talked to a few too, just for the distraction. Somewhere around mile 21 or so I started to try to calculate how much of a cushion I had on the 3 hour mark. I was wearing a 3 hour pace band so that made it relatively easy. At mile 22 I noticed that I had just a little over a minute cushion, which ain't much when you can feel your body trying to slow down. Mile 20 had been a 7:18 (the Dolly Parton hills) but mile 21 wasn't great - 6:59. I looked up ahead and noticed a slight downhill in the course. I made the fateful decision that it was time to strap on the hard-hat and go to work. I decided to try to gain some time on the 3 hour mark and was successful, as I posted my third fastest mile of the day, a 6:32. Passed a few poor souls too. So at mile 23 I had a 1:27 cushion on 3 hours. But three 7:30 miles would wipe that out. In fact, with 2.2 miles to go my cushion was down to 1:06 so I couldn't let up for the same reason - two 7:30 miles would wipe that out. I clicked my watch at mile 24 but never saw mile marker 25, which really screwed things up. I had no way to know whether I had eaten into my cushion further. And it's hard to tell whether you're maintaining pace that deep into the race, and with that much pain. All I could do was continue to try as hard as I could to hold pace. At mile 24 the half-marathoners joined us, and they were pretty thick, but not really too much of an obstacle.

I didn't get to evaluate my time again until mile 26. At that point I was at 2:57:27, with just .2 to go, and breathed a sigh of relief that was probably heard all the way down here in Houston. It turned out that I covered miles 25 and 26 in 13:39, a 6:49 pace, and faster than the 14:03 I covered 23 and 24 in. I did the best I could for the final .2, though it sure seemed long, considering that it took me a minute 30 to cross the line, which is a 7:30 pace. Anyway, I watched the gun clock tick ever closer to 2:59:00 and did my damnedest to get in just under that. It was 2:58:58 or 2:58:59. My watch said 2:58:57.

I had done it - sub 3. It was the hardest thing I think I've ever done. Anyway, I picked up my finisher's medal (very nice) and the cap they give to the top 100 finishers (I was 67th), got a mylar blanket, then asked someone where chip removal was. I looked down at my shoe and realized that I wasn't going to need chip removal - it was gone. I'm so thankful that I never noticed during the race. It would have messed with my head something awful, and would have made it easier to throw in the towel. My buddy Wayne Cohen is good friends with Steve Karpas. Karpas is pretty tight with the race director of the Dallas marathon and is going to try to help me out. I think I might have slipped in at #10 in my age group (they go 10 deep) but I don't care about that. I just want to have my time official. It's amazing that this couldn't have happened in some meaningless 5K. It had to happen in my marathon PR, and the one where I finally broke three hours. I have reliable witnesses though for every mile. In fact, Jake Tonge, who came in at 2:59:40, saw me finish. We even got our finisher photo taken together. I did not do my best Rosie Ruiz impression today. Just bad luck. But I thank God for allowing me to do what I did, and giving me the strength to press on. In fact, Jake and I both bowed our heads once we got inside and gave credit where credit was due.

I'm really rather pleased with my time, all things considered. The wind was a real issue, and the temperature was pretty damned cold those last 10 miles. And as I said, I never really settled into a groove, other than for a few miles early on. Every mile was work. But once again, those hard training runs I do in a variety of conditions paid dividends. You find out what kind of runner you are in the final five miles, not the first five. If you never experience real, serious, discomfort in training, you're not going to know what to do when it hits during a race, other than to fold up your tent and shut 'er down.

I'm not going to bore everyone with mile splits (especially since I'm missing a couple) but here are my 5 mile splits, as well as my two 10 mile splits and 1/2 splits:

First 5 miles - 34:18
Second 5 miles - 33:28
Third 5 miles - 34:01
Fourth 5 miles - 34:26
Fifth 5 miles - 34:23

First 10 miles - 1:07:46
Second 10 miles - 1:08:27

First 1/2 - 1:28:55
Second 1/2 - 1:30:02


Now, on to Houston in five weeks. Believe me, sub 3 ain't gonna be any easier. I have newfound respect for anyone who can do it.

2:58:57

That's my time. I lost my chip somewhere between mile 5 and 10 so I'm not listed (yet) on the results. I know someone who knows the race director so hopefully they'll be able to add my time to the official results. More later.

Dallas

Leaving in the morning for Dallas and just wanted to say thanks to the well-wishers. I'm gonna do my best to break 3 hours, and possibly more. But the race temps are looking to be mid 60s, if not higher so we'll have to play it by ear. Doug Schroeder and I are going to run together with the plan being 6:40 to 6:45 pace but again, conditions will dictate pace. I'm riding up with Steve Schroeder, who is going to hook up with Avi Moss and Jake Tonge and shoot for 6:52 pace.

I'll post on Sunday the outcome.

Priming The Pump

Given that I'm in taper mode I've cut the volume down significantly but am trying to hang on to quality. I ran just over 18 miles last week, spread over three workouts. This week will be the same. I ran tonight, will run tomorrow, a light speedwork session on Thursday, then the marathon on Sunday.

Tonight I went out and did the workout I had originally planned to do last night - the 4.4 mile route in my old neighborhood, River Park. The plan was to hammer, since this isn't a lot of milage, and a hard tempo run would shake loose any dust forming, or any sluggishness from LSD (no, not the drug - Long Slow Distance).

And that's what I did. I even came close to my "Bob Beamon" time from a year and a half ago. For those of you who have never heard of Bob Beamon, on October 18, 1968, at the Mexico City Summer Olympic games, American Bob Beamon, who had barely qualified to even compete in the Olympics, accomplished what many consider the greatest single moment in the history of track & field.

The world record for the long-jump stood at 27 feet 4 and 3/4 inches. In the 33 years from 1935 to 1968 the world long-jump record had been lengthened by 8.5 inches. Bob Beamon took off running, and in just six quick seconds, broke the world record by nearly 2 feet, jumping 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches. No one had ever even come close to jumping 28 feet. Beamon jumped over 29. I think it would be equivalent to someone going out this weekend and running a 1 hour 57 minute marathon.

Anyway, I'm certainly no Bob Beamon, and will never come close to any world record, but I had my own Bob Beamon moment in May 2006. I was not particularly in PR shape, was not training any harder than normal, and conditions were certainly anything but ideal. But I lowered my best ever time on the 4.4 mile route by 22 seconds. I was stunned when I looked at my watch and to this day I don't know how I did it. Tonight, in peak shape, perfect cold weather, a head full of determination and in the midst of my taper, I came within 6 seconds of that time. It was a great run and good confidence booster but I don't know where I could go back and shave six seconds. Bob, you're safe for now, maybe forever.

Incidentally, Bob's record stood for 23 years, an unheard of span for track and field. I've seen footage of Bob when he looked at the scoreboard and saw how far he'd gone. He collapsed on the track in shock. Ah, the wonder of sport and human achievement.

Total distance: 4.4 miles, 26:36 (6:03 pace).