I Love this Part...

A couple of weeks ago I had a post titled, "I Hate this Part."  It had to do with the end of the hard training and start of the taper.  Well, the taper is over and all that separates me from race day is tonight and Saturday.  Why do I love this part?  I'm starting to feel rested and relaxed and enjoying the cool fall weather.  I'm excited to go to the TC Marathon Expo and pick up my packet.  It's by far my favorite ritual of the whole ordeal.  I love going out for pasta Saturday night.  I still get a thrill laying out all my stuff the night before and pinning my number to my singlet.  I always sleep well on Friday night, thank God, because I never sleep well on Saturday night.  Its also these two days where I have the hope that I'm going to end the week-end with a shiny new PR or a milestone time.  Anything is possible.  I don't feel fatigued or cranky, aches and pains are few and far between.  I can't wait to run.  It must be all the pent up energy from the taper, but whatever it is, I like it.  Of course this will all give way to nerves and "edginess" Sunday morning, but it's all seems worth it.  In short, it's a very special 48 hours.

Here we go!

Happy Running!

One Week to Go Time!

Capped off week one of the taper with a very fluid 12 miler this morning.  Beautiful late summer morning in the 40's; nice to have one of those "this is why I run moments" so close to the marathon.  That's not always the case this deep into a training cycle.  I am going into this marathon with a better mental perspective then last year.  I was reviewing my training log last year and this same run was noted as "slow, sluggish and not a confidence builder."  I also had a cold within the last two weeks of the marathon and have managed to stay healthy this taper.  My foot was acting up this week, so I think I will make one more trip to the chiropractor for some ultra-sound and a bit of tweaking.  I followed up today's run with an ice bath, followed by a hot bath with Epsom salts, followed by putting my feet up and resting.  I'll be doing lots of that this week.  I hope to get a couple 8 to 10 hours per night sleep-fests!  I'm thinking only my foot can stop me at this point.

I spent some time on my run this morning thinking about what I'm going to do after the marathon.  I was getting pretty excited thinking about all the free time I was going to have.  Outside of the season ending cross country race at the University of Minnesota in November, I plan on cutting back on my running.  I still will run everyday, but will leave my Garmin at home and run for fun only.  Every year I say I'm done with the marathon and this year is no different.  I'm thinking I may focus on shorter distances, as I perform better at 10K and shorter races anyway.  How fast can I run a 10K in my 50's? it may be fun to find out!  The other type of running that intrigues me is trail running.  I like the idea of spending the week-end camping and going for long runs in the wilderness.  Kinda of a running recluse.  Maybe I'll even grow a beard!  To be honest though, I don't see myself becoming a scruffy, granola-eating, flannel wearing, philosophical, laid back running hermit, but stranger things have happened.  I'm just glad I can still run and have these options; its actually kind of fun to think about it.

So, what have I learned in this training cycle?  I've learned that at 50 I don't recover as fast.  I did increase my mileage by over 20% over last cycle, but my average time went way, way down.  After some of those mid-week 15 mile runs or two-a-days it was a huge struggle to follow up with any type of speedwork.  Also, I am at a point with my running where I require a huge amount of warm-up.  There is no more heading out the door and settling into a good pace within a block or two.  Most days, my first mile or two were spent at my recovery pace.  I also learned to become a more social runner.  This helped keep things fun and fresh.  Lastly, I've learned that this 3-hour goal is not the end-all or be-all of my running.  Sure I want to get there and I want to get there very badly, but if it doesn't happen it won't be a huge fail.  I can honestly say that I have done everything I can to make it happen.  If some outside observer were to look at my plan and determine that I could go sub-3 if I were to increase mileage by another 5%, I think I would have to accept the fact that I'm a sub 3:10 guy and be happy with that.  In other words, I've gone all in and am satisfied with what I have done.  Now lets run!

Thanks to everyone who has followed me over the past 20 weeks or so and also thanks for the words of encouragement from many of you.

Happy Running!

I hate this part...

When I started this blog I mentioned that the marathon was my least favorite distance.  That is not completely true.  I actucally like the training and all the preparation that goes into it.  What I hate is the last two weeks leading up to the race.  All the training and preparation is done and there is nothing you can do at this point to improve your chances of runnng your best race.  There is a lot you can do to mess things up, but as they say in this marathon business, "the hay is in the barn."  These last two weeks your head starts to play lots of nasty games.  It tells you, "you could have trained harder," or "remember that Tuesday when you had a 12 mile progression run scheduled and you bailed?  You'll be sorry!"  Your brain also tells you about how bad the weather is going to be or even worse yet, "what a waste of time this all was, you're too old."  Then lots of things happen during the taper that reinforce these thoughts.  You cut back on your mileage and intensity dramatically, yet you feel lousy.  Your legs ache  and feel heavy on a simple 5-mile recovery run.  You try to knock off a few miles at marathon-pace and its a struggle.  What the hell?  I ran over 90-miles just a few short weeks ago, and now I'm struggling with 50.  Happens everytime and you can't let it get the best of you.  I just need to keep telling myself that; nevertheless, it's still my least favorite two weeks of the running calendar.

I'm happy to see so many people racing and running well.  I'm excited to see how my marathon clinic participants do in Twin Cities' Marathon.  They have been an inspiration to me and have really taught me about perservnerance and dedication.  I tend to caught up in my own training ups and downs and have really appreciated the fact that I can get caught up and hopefully help another runner with his or her struggles or play a small part in their breakthroughs.  Running is really such a wonderful activity.  It does give you back many-fold whatever you are willing to put into it.  I'm so thankful that a friend of mine turned me on to the joy of running back in 1983.  I feel blessed that I can run as well as I do at 50 and if I'm lucky, I can still be doing this when I'm 70!

Oh yeah, I won my first race!  I decided to run an 8K in my hometown.  Timing was perfect as my Pfitzinger plan called for an 8 to 10k tune up race on Saturday.  It was a bit of a windy day and it was an out and back course.  We had our wind to our backs and I knew it was going to be tough coming back.  I went out fast and ran with three or four young whippersnappers.  Mile 1 was 5:54; not bad!  If I could bank some time I could still break 30 minutes, even with the nasty headwind I knew was coming.  Mile two I settled into a 6:03 pace and also passed two of the three whippersnappers.  Just before the half-point turnaround I passed YWS #3.  He was gasping pretty good, so I knew I had this thing in the bag.  I turned around and headed back to town and "Holy Crap! What a wind!"  It had to have been over 20 MPH.  My pace slowed to 6:19 and it was a total struggle.  I did not bank enough time and finished with a disappointing 31:09.  Oh yeah, I never, ever, ever say this, but the course was long; about a tenth too long.

Happy Running!

Welcoming the Taper

It's done.  Everything that can be done is history.  Sure, there are a couple of tune-up runs and one more 17-miler, but there is nothing I can do to ensure a sub-3, outside of proper rest, nutrition and hydration.  Looking back at the last 15-weeks there is not much I would do differently.  I hit my mileage goals and even though I wish I could have completed a couple additional quality runs, all in all I'm feeling pretty good.  Outside of a sore foot I managed to get through it relatively unscathed.  Am I in sub-3 shape?  Well, we're about to find out in 20 days!  There are some promising signs.  I raced a 10K on Labor Day and managed a 37:49; a post 30 PR!  Now, if I plug that time into the handy dandy MacMillan calculator it predicts that I will run a 2:57:30 marathon.  Then there have been some troubling signs.  Take today's 25K performance (please!).  If I plug my 1:47:30 time into the same calculator I get a disappointing 3:08 marathon. (Not even a PR)  If I split the differecne between Monday's "good" performance with today's sub-par performance I end with a 3:05 and change.  A new marathon PR, but not what I'm training for.  Oh well, it's just a calculator, not a cyrstal ball.

Victory 10K Race Report - It was perfect morning, 57 degrees, no wind and low dewpoint.  I was feeling good and thought a sub-38 was doable.  I started out at 6:07, right on pace.  Mile 2 was more of the same and I was just feeling okay.  There is a slight hill to finish mile 3 and it hit me pretty hard and my pace slowed to 6:20 (ugh)  At this point I had resigned myself to a 38:15 or slower finsish.  Then a funny thing happened on the return trip.  I cruised down the hill and kept my stride as the road leveled out.  Holy cow, mile 4 was 5:56; where did that come from?  I was still feeling strong, so just decided to maintain that pace and hang on for dear life.  Mile 5 was 5:58!  I started to struggle a bit halfway through mile 6, but held on for a 6 flat mile and a 37:49 10K.  There is some crazy good comeptition in my age group and ended up 8th in my age group.

City of Lakes 25K - much warmer and higher dewpoint than Monday's race.  I don't want to make that my excuse, but the heat (74 degrees) and humidity were a factor.  I was shooting to beat last year's time of 1:45, but it wasn't meant to be.  I started out way too slow (7:10) and had trouble finding my marathon pace gear.  I finally started to run 6:52's after mile 5 and then was able to start knocking off 5 or 6 6:48 miles.  My legs were not feeling strong. so I was not able to make up much time on the back half.  I decided to settle into a 6:50 pace and hang on.  I ended up with an average pace of 6:55, which is pretty disappointing.  I had enough gas left to propably run another 10 miles at 7 minute pace, but that don't add up to sub-3.

One more tune-up race next Saturday then I get to back-off for real.

Happy Running!

Only 4 Weeks!

One more week of heavy training, one cut back week, two weeks of taper and then its off to the      race(s).  Its all pretty much a mental game at this stage.  I've been reviewing my running log for this training cycle and broken down some of the numbers and done a general review of the training so far.

• Weekly Average - 76.28 - I was hoping to be over 80 for the cycle, but two weeks of bad Plantar Fasciitis pain had me cut back mileage to 55 and 59 miles.  I did set a weekly mileage PR of 94 miles back in July.  I was not able to break 100 miles.  I thought about this, but why risk injury or fatigue for a secondary goal.  I remember an old rule of thumb that said you can determine when you will hit the wall by dividing your weekly average mileage by 3.  Well folks, 76.28/3 = 25.42.  I'll take it!
• Long Runs - I have had 7 runs of 20 miles or more, with the longest being 24.65 back in week 11.
• Speed - this training cycle was definitely one of "quantity over quality."  I don't track things this closely, but I would be surprised if my average pace of all runs throughout the entire cycle was much faster than around 8:20 to 8:30.  The range was 5:41 to 9:44.  I ran no matter what (only one day off the entire cycle) and did a lot running by feel.  I did manage to PR in the 5K back in May with an 18:31 and the mile in January with a 5:27. 
• Injury and Health - the Plantar Fasciitis was my only real problem, but it was and is a significant one.  If I don't make my goal this will be the culprit.  Not only did it hinder me from making my mileage goal, but was definitely the major factor in limiting the amount of speedwork I wanted and needed.  I did learn a lot about perseverance though.  I've been relentless in my treatment of this.  Icing, stretching, massaging etc. have been non-stop.  A big thumbs up to Dr. Ross, who has been a huge help in helping to manage the pain.  Overall health is good right now.  It was a bigger challenge to consume the amount of calories needed (some days over 4,000) and always eat right.  I'm not as dedicated to nutrition as I need to be, but I made huge improvements over previous training cycles.  Sometimes that big cheeseburger or pepperoni/green olive pizza with a beer or two was too hard to pass up.  How else is a growing boy going to get his calories?  Conditioning was strong in the first half, but took a backseat to mileage and PF treatments in the second half. 
• Mental Game - this is why the marathon is not my favorite distance.  You can train for a 10K and not do your best, but there is always another 10K you can do in a couple of weeks.  The marathon is so different because you are putting all your training eggs into one training basket.  18 plus weeks of preparation go into 1 day.  It's hard not to stress a little; okay a lot.  I know, this isn't the Olympics and I won't win any prize money.  No one really cares, but me, if I break 3-hours or not, but this self-imposed time can be tough to get mentally.  Today, I feel pretty good about everything I've done, but the nerves and butterflies are starting to appear.  Can I break 3-hours?  I'd say I have about a 75% chance.  If the weather is good, I have a good taper and simply just have a good day it will happen.  I'm 90% sure that I will PR (3:06 or better)  There is also still a chance that I totally bonk, but I think I have virtually eliminated that chance with the amount of miles logged.

So there you have it; lets put in one more good solid week of training, enjoy the next three tune up races and have some fun!  As I said in one of my first posts, this is supposed to be fun, right?

Happy Running!