Looking forward - plans for Fall 2014, Spring 2015...fall 2015?

In the past week, all I've done in easy jogging to recover from Chicago. Like every training cycle, I had things planned out up to and including the Big Race. After that, I had no idea. During my training for the marathon, if the world ended the Monday after the race I would not have cared. I never think past the current cycle. With just unstructured running, I've had some time to think about how I want to focus my training over the next cycle, which to me goes through the meat of the spring season.

First on my list of races is the USATF club XC championship in early December. This race is at Lehigh over their 10k course. I was asked to do this as part of the club team that I loosely run for, and since I had no other races planned around that time I figured it wouldn't come at any cost to me to run it. I have about 6 weeks to get ready for that, which shouldn't take much more than adapting the fitness I gained from marathon training down to more XC-style fitness.

I may also do some other low-key races around that time. Thanksgiving is always rife with races in the area, and Wilmington has a 10k turkey trot on Thanksgiving day that I've never done. These sorts of races are ones that I don't really plan for, but can just sort of crop up and I'll hop in if I have nothing better going on in my running plan.

I am still on the fence regarding racing indoors. On the one hand I do want to get back to the track, but on the other it will be tough for me to get in good racing shape over winter, likely training in the dark and without a track for most of the time. Track racing is also not great for my schedule; I would have to take time off and go out of my way, likely all the way up to Boston, to find the level of competition that I'm looking for.

With that being said, I am pretty set on trying to run fast on the outdoor track. Since I've been focusing on long distances ever since college, I think I want to try for a 5k/10k PR. My 5k PR is definitely respectable and that was maybe the best I've ever run a race, and will be challenging to improve on. My 10k PR is terrible, and I would love to knock a minute off that and get under 30 minutes. I think that I can run well at both distances by training for 10k - I ran 14:21 last spring at Swarthmore, and I felt during the race that I could have gone faster if the race as a whole had been higher quality. That was off of dedicated training for Broad Street and 5 minute miling.

Again, the drawback with racing track is that the schedule is set up for college running and most distance races are Friday night. Not that taking off work is a big deal, it's just less convenient than racing Sunday morning. I am pretty committed to racing track, though, and there are some good meets within reasonable distance from home (Princeton & William & Mary immediately come to mind, maybe even Penn Relays) and if I'm hard up for races I can always look to the roads as a backup plan.

Looking even farther ahead: My overarching goal for the next year is to qualify for the marathon trials, which are to be on Feb. 16, 2016, in LA. The best opportunity to qualify for me will be the Philly Rock N Roll half next fall. In 2011, before the 2012 trials, everybody who was near 65 minutes ran that race because:

1) it typically has great weather
2) it always has a good field
3) it's close enough to the race for up and comers to have enough time to get fit
4) it's far enough out from the race to allow for a proper recovery/buildup cycle for the Trials
5) the half marathon standard of 65:00 is easier than the equivalent marathon standard of 2:18.

I have to think that this will be the case again, and since I consider myself one of the many guys who will be in ~65 minute shape, I might as well take my shot too. Obviously if I qualify, I'll run the trials. If I don't I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, but it's far enough away to not even think about. 

2014 Chicago Marathon recap

It's been a week since I ran the 2024 Chicago Marathon. I purposefully waited to write a comprehensive look at the race because I wanted to get rid of any impulsive feelings regarding my performance.

I set the goal of running this race after the spring "season" I had. After Swarthmore, I didn't know what direction I wanted to go for the fall. I knew I wanted to race the Philly RNR half, but besides that I wasn't sure. I was in danger of falling into the same old patterns and routines as other years. I was talking about this with my roommate Dan Feeney and he suggested I look at fall marathons. My knee-jerk reaction "hell no," because I felt that I wasn't in good enough shape and didn't have enough fitness to consider a big jump to that distance. After I thought about it, I reconsidered. I decided on Chicago because it is a fast course at a good time of the year for marathons. Furthermore, after sitting down and considering how much time I should give myself to prepare, Chicago seemed to be the best choice. Philly was a bit too far away to stay focused, and anything earlier would have been too close. It also fell 3 weeks after the half marathon that I already planned on doing, making the half an excellent prep race.

My training went well all summer, except for the typical East Coast heat and humidity slowing the times down. I'll discuss this more later, but this probably had more of an negative effect on the workouts than had I been training for something shorter. Besides that, I stayed away from any injury worries and was able to train about as well as I could expect considering work.

I began summer training aiming for Chicago, of course, but without a clear indication of any time goals to set. Since I needed some sort of target to hit to base my workouts off of, I started with the goal of a 2:24 (~5:30 pace). I figured this would be a solid, conservative goal that I could always change as I got fitter and closer to race time, and had better indications of where I was at.

Moving into the late summer, I adjusted the time goal from a conservative 2:24 to a more optimistic 2:20 (~5:20 pace). I like round numbers so that the math is easier within workouts and races. As the weather started to improve and I got in better shape, I was able to get closer to 5:20 than 5:30s in workouts.

My prep races didn't go that well because I ran slower than I ran in them last year. In the back of my mind, I knew the weather was much worse for both (summer hung around) and I was focusing on marathon-based work than the half marathon focus I had last fall. The slower times didn't really affect my confidence, but it would have been nicer to run faster.

Come marathon weekend, I was feeling great from a solid taper and not over training in the last month. The weather was ideal and my girlfriend Emily's sister Angela, who lives in Chicago, was an awesome tour guide. I was able to keep my mind off the race and enjoy myself during the weekend.

Race day morning I made it to the tent at 6:50 without incident. I figured this would give me plenty of time, since the race info made it clear that we were to get to our corrals by 7:15, and it's not like I wanted to do a long warmup before a marathon. Of course, as soon as I got to the tent, the guy in charge said that we were heading over at 7:00. Thus I jogged 5 minutes around the tent city and hurried into my racing gear.

So there we were, in the corral 25 minutes early and we passed the time standing around, shivering, talking and surreptitiously peeing. The gun went off and the first five miles went by in a blur. I felt great, as I should have, and I was mostly focused on getting into a good rhythm, not going out too fast, and saving as much energy as possible by running economically and drafting off others. I momentarily considered running with the top women (Jeptoo ran 2:18:57 the year before) but I was running 2:20 pace and they were nowhere to be seen. I decided to stick to the pace I had thought of before (~1:10 at halfway was the goal) and on the way to that pace, see who I could work together with.

The pace was very easy through about 8 miles. Then we turned south, into the wind, which was a big annoyance for certain stretches. Afterwards, reading the writeups, all anyone talked about was how the wind slowed down the times. Personally I didn't think it had a huge impact, but that's also because it was early in the race when I was relatively fresh.

I started to feel the pace around this time as well. Not that it was getting hard, just that it was less than effortless like it was for the first could miles. Through about 15k I was right on pace, then I slipped a little and had to overcorrect through halfway. This is when I had to start focusing a little harder; the crowds of spectators were thinning out, company was gone and the grind was slowly becoming more and more tiring.

Mentally, I broke the race into chunks. "Get through the first 10, get through half, get through 15, get through 30k, get through 20, get through 35k, get through 40k, just finish" was how my internal monologue generally went, with mile markers sprinkled throughout as needed. The most challenging thing to me was that I was effectively alone after about halfway. Occasionally I would pass someone blowing up, but they provided no help and as far as pacing and drafting went I had nothing. Just me following the blue dashed line that marked the shortest possible route.

Somewhere between 15 miles and 30k, it became a real race effort. I say "somewhere between" because, for me, there was no "wall" that I hit. It was a slow, steady progressive grind that just got harder and harder to maintain. You can see how my splits inexorably slipped slower after halfway as the effort increased:

Split	Time Of Day	Time	Diff	min/mile	miles/h
05K	07:46:44AM	00:16:42	16:42	05:23	11.17
10K	08:03:09AM	00:33:08	16:26	05:18	11.35
15K	08:20:04AM	00:50:03	16:55	05:27	11.02
20K	08:37:11AM	01:07:09	17:06	05:31	10.89
HALF	08:40:44AM	01:10:43	03:34	05:14	11.49
25K	08:53:52AM	01:23:51	13:08	05:25	11.08
30K	09:10:54AM	01:40:52	17:01	05:29	10.96
35K	09:28:10AM	01:58:08	17:16	05:34	10.80
40K	09:45:30AM	02:15:29	17:21	05:35	10.75
Finish	09:52:51AM	02:22:50	07:21	05:24	11.14

My hamstrings and glutes got more and more tired and closer and closer to cramping as the race wore on. Maintaining the effort and focusing on the run fatigued me mentally, and in tandem with my legs, so that my total fatigue was mounting my willpower to keep driving was slipping. The hardest part of the race was probably the last long straight stretch. From mile ~23.25 to just before mile 26 is a straight stretch of road, but with an "S" bend at the end so that you can't see the finish and aren't sure how much farther to go. I hit the 26 mile mark (on a bridge, no less) and if it had been any other race I would have been able to outkick the guy just ahead but I was mentally and physically maxed out. I finished up and just kept walking through the finish area. 

The finish is cruelly located about 0.3 miles away from the tent city near the start, so it was a long, painful walk with 6" steps through the beer garden, the goodies bags, the mountains of bananas and water bottles back to meet up with Angela. Meeting up was easy and we slowly got back to my stuff. After much whining I eventually got a free massage (better than nothing) and a slower-than-usual bus trip back to her place to recover all day (no nap, too tired to sleep) before heading to the airport and home. 

I got back home at 1 am. I woke up just after 5 am (Chicago time). All told, I had been awake for almost 20 hours, complete with an all-out marathon. What a day. On the whole I thought I had a pretty good marathon debut. I didn't run what I wanted, but that was a rough goal anyway and it would have been exceedingly arrogant and presumptuous to set a serious time goal for a first marathon. I was just happy to not positive split too much, especially compared to some of the other guys that I was with at 10 miles. Now I need to sit down and plan out what I want to aim for thru the spring. 

As far as more marathons go, I believe that with 1 under my belt I can definitely improve. I don't want to rush it and do another one in the spring, maybe next fall I'll plan out a second try. Until then, I won't even think about it and I'll stay occupied with the next 6 months. I don't want to get stuck on any one distance, so I think I want to go back to the track and try the 5k/10k again. I've never run a good 10k and I haven't run a good 5k since 2012, so I'm overdue for that. 

So that's my next task in running: make some plans. I'll put them up here once I do.