The Olympic Trials: before, during and after

Training Recap between Jacksonville and the OT:

I think when considering training it’s very important to look at context. Looking at the marathon from my point of view, I was very much overtrained on the speed end of things – my overarching goal for months had been to run 4:55 pace for  as long as possible, after all. With that in mind I neglected all training that was significantly faster than goal marathon pace, which I estimated as 5:20 miles. In the four real training weeks between the two races, I got in the following:

• 3 moderate to high quality long runs:
• 20 miler including 7 miles at MP during the back half
• 21 miles steady pace, averaging 5:40s on a rolling paved loop
• 24 miles progressing throughout, averaging 6:00 with the last 4-5 miles being 5:30-5:40

4 specific marathon-pace tempo runs or alternating pace workouts:     

• 15 miles done as 3 x [4 miles @ 5:20 + 1 mile @ 5:40] for a total time of 1:21 (5:24 avg)
• 12 miles alternating miles faster and slower than MP
• 11 miles run by feel averaging 5:24
• 8 miles in 41 minutes 9 days out (last hard workout)

Obviously in a perfect world I would have been able to get in even higher volume workouts – I don’t count many of those as being truly marathon specific. However because I only had 4 weeks I knew that was the best I could do in the situation. I also ran twice a day essentially every day and got my highest volume weeks ever with a couple in the 120 range.

Olympic Trials Race Recap:

Obviously with dropping out at around 14 miles the race did not go well. This will more be about trying to explain my rationale than actually recapping the race, which I will do briefly:

I was thirsty from essentially the beginning despite drinking all morning consistently and about as much as I could without feeling bloated. The pace never felt comfortable and after coming through 5 miles at 5:20s I decided to slow down a bit and try to feel better. Despite backing off I felt worse every mile and after mile 11 I was running 6:00 pace and had been alone for some time. By mile 13 I had run a couple 6 minute miles in a row and was continuing to feel worse. Once I saw my friends I stopped to say hi and that I was stopping at the end of the current loop.

The race started at 10 am and the official weather readings do not tell the fully story. More telling are the finish times and the attrition rate:

• 166 men started, 105 finished
• 18 men broke 2:19, the qualifying standard to which all men should have been capable of

There is a long thread on Letsrun that started as one guy wondering how anyone could DNF the Trials and look themselves in the mirror after that. It turned into a fairly well balanced discussion, but reminded me a lot of when people argue about religious views – clearly no one was going to convince someone on the other side of their viewpoint and the endgame was guaranteed to be “agree to disagree.” I did not contribute, but since I DNF’d it should be clear that I side with the people who don’t think that it’s morally reprehensible to do so. The clear difference that I saw was that many of the people criticizing the choice to DNF were not elite, and qualified themselves as such. One guy who dropped out had this to say:

“A couple posters question the ethics of dropping out of a race, which seems strange to me as an elite runner. There's not "honor" in just finishing. No one really cares about what you're doing besides you. I could have walked the last 6 miles, but I didn't want to. I considered that more embarrassing than dropping out. Please don't apply your honorable code of ethics to a level of running you don't understand…I race marathons, you complete them. They are essentially different sports.”

The knee-jerk reaction to that last bit is to call this guy “elitist.” Well you know what? In this case that is a correct label! By definition he is an elite who is in a different league than almost all of the people criticizing his decision. I agree with this logic and probably would try to soften the language if pressed to explain it in person. Another person had this to say:

“In a perfect world, a lot more than 20 years down the road, I would rather not have to tell my grandkids I dropped out. But I live in the real world and dropping out is a calculated decision. I'd rather drop out than do long term damage or get injured pursuing a crappy result. Especially if I can get a good result in a spring marathon that would not have been possible otherwise. The runners who dropped out don't take doing so lightly but understand a DNF does not show a character flaw or lack of commitment, toughness, whatever the uniformed on this thread are suggesting.”

To me it was a simple decision. There was no value or “face” to save by slogging out a 2:40 marathon or worse – just completing a marathon is not my goal. I can go run a 2:40 marathon any weekend I choose by myself – I essentially ran that or faster 2 weekends prior to this in training. My goal in running is to run fast and beat people. Neither of which I was going to be able to do. I am not a masochist and I have no desire to metaphorically kill myself just to be able to tell other people (who know nothing about running) that I finished a race miserably and took myself out of commission for who knows how long. My self-esteem does not depend on what hobby joggers or nonathletes think of my results – let them look down their noses at a DNF if they want.

I only went to this race because this was the Olympic Trials.I would not have signed up to seriously run the LA Marathon the next day. I know there are better opportunities to run fast and I am not in the business of training hard to throw it away because of weather or any other factor. If I were in the hunt of making money at this race it would have been a different story, but I am not in that league and, again, there was nothing to be gained from brute-forcing my way to a terrible time.

Where to go from here: spring 2016

Now that that’s over and I’m not too beat up by the experience, I can look ahead at some spring races. Emily already has some good races lined up, so for the sake of convenience I will likely piggyback on her schedule, while adding some money races when I find them:

•           Club Challenge (low-key 10 miler for the Falls Road group), 2/27
•           Tim Kennard 10 miler (low key race with the group, has a bit of money), 3/6
•           St. Patty’s day 5k in Baltimore (has a bit of money), 3/13
•           Cherry Blossom, 4/3
•           Broad Street, 5/1

In terms of the training, I want to get back to basics. More general fitness training and less super-specific work, although I will be generally focusing on the 10 miler distance because I know I can race well over shorter stuff while doing strength work. It will be a good opportunity to maintain the fitness I’ve gained from half- and full-marathon training while bringing back a bit of the speedwork I’ve neglected.

Because I've basically been training very hard for big races non-stop since June, I will take this spring as a time to back off a little and mentally recharge a bit. Cherry Blossom and Broad Street are big races, but compared to pushing for an OTQ and then actually going to the Trials, they will be more low key and less of a pressure environment. I think it will be a fun spring.

Jax Bank half recap (OTQ) and the next 6 weeks

Well I guess the time says it all: 1:04:27 to punch my ticket to LA for the Olympic Trials. It definitely hasn't sunk in that I ran a 70-something second PR to get under the standard with time to spare, but as the race recap below shows there has probably never been a better chance to run a OTQ race.

http://www.1stplacesports.com/jm15halfres.htm

Race Recap...

The race was January 3rd, 2016 at 7am in Jacksonville, FL. At first glace probably not the best spot to have a distance race - I know I assumed it wouldn't be great weather since it's Florida, after all. Vacation spots and beaches are what comes to mind. However the weather in Jax at that time of year is, on average, perfect for this kind of race. The days leading up to Sunday were awful for running, but a couple cold fronts rolled in just in time and the weather on the day was about 50 and showers. Perfect for us, bad for spectators.

With 60 guys in the elite field (15 had already qualified) and a more than qualified pacer in Tyler Pennel, we started off and ran to my recollection perfect pace. 4:55 was Tyler's goal pace which would give us a slight cushion as 4:57 is the required average for 1:05:00. I started off at the back of the pack and very gradually moved up throughout the race as allowed to stay a few meters behind Tyler and the rest of the spearhead. I recall seeing about 15:27 through 5k, 30:40 or so through 10k and 49:33 through 10 miles. Right on pace for the OTQ.

As for me and how my personal race was going, I felt good. I struggle to attach any adjective to that word, because no word I can think of really encapsulates just how I felt good. Nervously good? Worryingly good? I was relaxed and within myself, but at the same time apprehensive and bracing for when it was going to get tough. The effort crept upwards from about 3-7 miles, when I expected it to start to get really tough. Surprisingly, it leveled off there and I was still able to draft off of a pack that was slowly but surely getting smaller with each mile. The next few miles passed uneventfully (never a better word than that to use in a race) and I knew I had the OTQ in the bag at around 10 miles. I still felt strong and able to respond to a move if I had to, so I just sat in the pack and let the remaining guys pull me down the highway through the remaining miles. To be sure, the mile markers seemed farther apart now than before, but I was not turning myself inside out like it was at Philly. I was working quite hard and really feeling it, but knew I was not over the red line. At about mile 12 I decided to take a pull at the front and push a little harder to see what I could do, and held that effort all the way in to the finish. No big kicks once I could see the clock - I wanted to savor it a little bit, and there was a big group around me all finishing. Officially I was 10th, but the place was, for once, secondary to the time today.

The next 6 weeks...

...I have to work on totally change my body over to the marathon. To any outside observer or casual runner, this doesn't sound like a big deal. It's just going up one distance right? As anyone who has had success at shorter distances and then jumped in a full knows, going from the half to the full is not at all the same as moving up from the 5k to the 10k or from the 10k to the half. The biochemistry and physiological (not to mention psychological) demands of the event are totally different than the half, or any other shorter distance races. I fully realize that 6 weeks is not even close to enough time for me to successfully realize my potential going from the half to the full, especially because I have done almost zero marathon specific training. No long runs, only a couple long sustained tempo runs. Lots of mileage but broken into relatively little pieces.

Going to LA will be more of an experience than a race. Obviously I am going to do my best in the race and in the next 6 weeks to see if I can at least PR - the weather looks like it's typically pretty good and it IS the Olympic Trials - but I have no delusions of being able to run the "equivalent" performance as indicated by this last race. Getting near 2:20 would be an excellent mark.

The training will be more of a crash course in long runs and long workouts. I'll fit in as many long runs (20+ milers, hopefully) as my body will allow and the density of the training will suck. Mileage may drop to allow for quicker recovery from those workouts, but I'll have to feel out the training and see what my intuition tells me. It's going to be a rough next few weeks, but realistically it's only going to be 4 hard weeks of training. How bad can it be?

Overdue late-cycle update

I've been meaning to put my current thoughts and feelings down on how my preparation for Jacksonville is going for a while and have given it enough time to turn over in my head. Quite honestly I am confident but still not sure if I have what it takes to get the OTQ in just under 3 weeks. I am confident because I've been training as hard as I ever have in my life since Philly, but still, 60 seconds over 13.1 is a lot to gain in terms of fitness in 9 weeks. I hope that I will get a little bit better pacing this time around and not go out too hard - I'll be right on the edge, so this might be all the difference I need.

Anyway, the training: all summer and fall I was running 90-100 a week with typically 2-3 workouts per week of varying intensity, all focusing on different facets of the goal race. My philosophy is no different now, but I am running about 15 mpw more than I was before (higher frequency of runs + better weather than summer/early fall), and the workouts themselves are of at least the same quality if not better. I had a rough period of adjustment to the higher workload and was feeling a lot of muscular fatigue, but I've been in a good patch for the last week and have run two of the best workouts of my life. With 3 weeks to go, I will keep training hard for another 1-1.5 weeks, with a race this weekend (5 miles) that I will run hard but train through, and then it's taper time.

This race looks like a once in a lifetime opportunity. The director has put together a huge field full of guys like me on the bubble, a good pacing group and has a fast course at the right time of year, both for weather and relative to the OT marathon. I think the most important thing about this race, and what makes it unique for a road race, is that it is a big group of fast guys all coming in with the same goal. It's the Stanford Invitational of the roads. Hopefully the weather cooperates and the pacing is good, because if I can get to 10 miles in something between 49:30 and 50 flat and not dying I give myself a good shot at running the OTQ.

Philly RnR 2015 recap

Obviously this run was not exactly what I was hoping for given that I ran exactly 60 seconds slower than the OTQ. After Army 10 miler a couple weeks back where I ran about a minute slower than I knew I needed to run to have a realistic shot at the OT, I knew right then it would take a miracle. But as the saying goes, there are no miracles in running. And I know there are especially no miracles with my running – I’ve always been the most consistent person I know since about 2005. I am also a little miffed that I didn’t even get  PR out of it – I ran 18 seconds faster 2 years ago. Comparing my training then, I was running slightly less fast in workouts but about 15 mpw more. I also ran that race in a style that suited me perfectly, rather than going out hard and minimizing blowing up like today.

I do want to say that, while I am disappointed with not getting the mark I wanted, I am NOT upset with the race. The effort was truly 100% all out. I am writing this two days later and I’ve been in a mental and emotional fog with the tank since the race, and physically quite sore in places I’ve never been sore in after a half (quads? shins? weird stuff).

Where to go from here? I have not finalized everything but my plan is to go to Houston and try for 1:05 again on 1/17. That will give me enough training time to make a difference and a race on what I think is the only faster half in the US than the one I just ran. As far as the training goes from here – I’ve been doing a lot of specific pace work and I know if I just keep hammering away at that under January I will get stale and in a rut, so I have to change something. Right now I plan to go longer and slower on the tempos and faster with a little more rest on the intervals – things like 60-90 minute tempos at 5:20-5:40 and 6 x mile @ 4:40-4:45 w/ 3:00 rest come to mind. This will be refined as I resume hard training, but this week will be very easy to recharge and then I’ll get back into it. I also want to start working out in the morning, both because of the time change and because I need to get better at hard efforts in the morning when all the races are.

About the race itself: Started off well and exactly where I wanted to be in the field - towards the back of the first big pack. Actually, next to Darryl Brown from PA, who I would run with for about half the race. I chose not to wear a watch, since in years past there were clocks at every mile and I don't like the additional mental strain that comes during a race from checking the watch and worrying about splits. This was a mistake. There was a clock at the mile mark that was about 25 seconds fast (went through that in 4:25 and I asked, aloud, whether that was right. Somebody laughed and said we were about 4:50) and no other clocks on the course, despite the miles being marked, timing mats out every 5k and even the mounting brackets for the clocks were set up. It wouldn't have made any difference to me even if there were clocks on course since I couldn't have run any faster, but it still would have been nice. 

After about 4 miles I began to fall off of the big OTQ pack. Darryl, two other guys and myself would form our own unit and work together until later. Around the spot where we went past the art museum and upriver, I hit a bad patch that lasted for about 10 minutes. I think this was where the too-fast pace of the early miles hit me and forced me to back off and regroup. The guys I was with were leading the pack now and I was just hanging on trying to get back under control. Around 7 miles I recovered enough to get back in my own rhythm and push the pace myself. Doing so dropped Darryl and the other guys started to slip off. Once we got to the turnaround bridge just before 9 miles I was dropping the last of my new friends and apart from catching maybe 2 guys who had blown up off the leader pack I would be alone to the finish. The last 4 miles was simply running as fast as possible. At 20k a pace car came by with a running clock on the back that said 1:03 something, so that's when I definitely knew it wasn't an OTQ day for me.  

Splits, as best as I can get them:

1 mile – about 4:50

10k – 30:58

10 mile – 50:14

13.1 miles – 1:05:59

Army 10 miler recap - 3 weeks to go until Philly

Yesterday I ran the Army 10 miler in DC. This is a fairly competitive race, about on par with the field I ran against in Broad Street two years ago. It was a perfect day and from what I knew about the race a fast, flat course. I was hoping for a new PR beating my (downhill) Broad Street time of 49:56 and my real goal was to run 49:30, the average mile pace I want to run in 3 weeks in Philly. I ended up not running nearly that well and came in at 50:25 for 8th overall.

Thing about the race I am happy with: It was a great training stimulus for Philly on 10/31, which is the real race that matters in the end. Even if I had run 45 minutes for this race if I can't put it together for the half it doesn't matter much. I was happy with my effort on the day and I think I put forth a good honest race effort. I was on the edge after about 5 miles and did a good job sitting right on the red line.

Things about the race I'm not happy with: I wanted to be running 5 seconds a mile faster with the same effort. Much of this was because I was alone for a lot of the race. I went out conservatively because I knew the top group was going out under 4:50s and I did not want to get caught up in that. Unfortunately for me there was a big gap between the top group and the rest of the field. I was pretty much the only guy in between the lead group and guys who finished 2+ minutes back. The only exceptions were the guys who tried to hang with the front pack and blew up, which happened to a few guys that I passed and one that I didn't. The effect this had on my race was that I went out slow in an attempt to run with a group (15:15 or so through 3 miles) and then struck out alone and started running ~5:00 pace after that. There was definitely some mental deflation that occurred after the first mile in 5:05 when I realized I wasn't going to have an amazing race. Perhaps that ended up slowing down by subconsciously not letting me push 100% in the tough, lonely middle stages of the race.

Overall I am not super happy with this, but I'm confident I can improve markedly on this in 3 week's time. I am assuming that there will be some guys shooting for the 1:05 mark just like I am and I'll have company for much of the race. I'll also see if I can fit in any last-minute speedwork to try and make 5:00 pace feel a little slower in the beginning stages - I know I'm strong, but I need to work on being a little smoother and confident in the beginning of the race.

Fitness checkpoint - Parks half marathon and training update

Yesterday (Sunday 9/13) was the first race in a while. I thought that with top 5 money and a sizable East African population nearby this race would be really competitive up front. Not this year. I came pretty ready to go but ended up having no competition and ran a controlled 1:08 to win. The weather was good but not perfect - much better than it has been for most of the summer. The course was net downhill by about 90 feet, judging by the course profile, but the first 11 miles (and very much the first 2 miles) are downhill and all of it is made up in the last 2 miles. Thus, I positive-split but my effort remained pretty level, maybe I ran a little harder in the last 5k but very controlled. 

This was a good hard workout that should not knock me out of normal training. I expect to be mostly recovered by Wednesday and I'll try to resume normal workouts then. Coupled with the good weather over the next week, I think this is a good time to really start getting after the workouts before 10/31. These last 6 weeks before Philly are when the specific work counts and I need to focus on maintaining the workouts that I've been doing lately and doing what I can to do my very best and see if I can get under 1:05. 

2015 Late Summer Update

This training cycle, my big goal (and I would say the biggest goal of my career so far) is to qualify for the 2016 OT marathon. Doing that requires one of two things: a half marathon under 1:05:00 or a marathon under 2:18 (B) or 2:15 (A). For me, deciding which is easier is a no-brainer. Also a no-brainer was the choice of what half to tackle - it's always Philly Rock n' Roll.

I've been training harder than I ever have during the summer in hopes of reaching this goal, despite the race being 5-6 weeks later this year. I've done my best to blend going by feel and smart planning together to strike balance of hard yet sustainable training.

As always in my running, I emphasize long aerobic endurance to go with race specific work. Maybe that's why I like the half - at this distance, those are synonymous. Lots of long tempos, lots of 5:00 pace work, with a little track and hill work sprinkled in to make the pace feel a little easier. Typical tried and true formula, on this year the mileage is a little higher because I can get in some doubles.

I've also got a few other races planned between now and Halloween (RnR).

8/29: Dread Druid Hills 10k - this is a race that my local running store puts on and for the first time it has money. $100 for the win, and while it's supposed to be a very hard course, I'll do anything for $100.

9/13: Parks half marathon - another race with money, and always draws in a few decent Kenyans. I hear it's not a super fast course, and never has gotten great people because of the races usually scheduled around it, but I think I'm in good shape and want to see what I can do for a half sooner rather than later.

10/11: Army 10 miler - Very very high quality race. 16 guys broke 50:00 last year, so this is the one I'm most excited about doing before Philly. This should be a great race.

I might get another one in between Parks and Army, but maybe not. Those are two big races that will take some time to recover from and I don't want to have to really sacrifice a lot of training time to constantly be ready to race before Philly.

On a completely different note: I figured out how to export my running logs since May 2010 on Athleticore into excel. I compiled a summary of 2010-2014 and deleted all the extra comments, leaving only the details of workouts and comments on races:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34nWN0zJyCZLUJMeEI0MG9iakU/view?usp=sharing