Two weeks til Chicago

Well, it's finally taper time before the big race. I realized that this might be the part of the training cycle that I'm the most unsure about how to do, especially for a marathon. Formulating everything else throughout this cycle has been pretty simple, because the philosophy of all training is basically the same, regardless of what distance you're training for. Now, I need to consider the physical demands of the marathon and taper from a little farther out than I'm used to. This will probably bring some anxiety and insecurity, but I know that it's much easier to overtrain the last 2 weeks before any big race than undertrain.

One big update that I haven't said anything about here is how I raced at Philly. The answer, as I suspect for pretty much everyone not named Deena, is "frustratingly." The weather did not cooperate, and within a two week stretch that had great weather every day that Sunday just happened to be warm and foggy. 67 degree dewpoint was the official data at race time on the nearest weather station to the Art Museum that I could find online. As a result the race was pretty miserable and disappointing. After being immediately upset after finishing, I asked other guys how they felt in the race and no one was very pleased with it. I also did some perusing of the results of the guys around me and pretty much everyone ran well off their PRs. 

I estimated that I had a good shot at PRing and thought that low 1:05s was a distinct possibility, assuming an ideal day. I ran 1:07:16, which was 95 seconds slower than I ran last year. That was pretty consistent with other results that I found so I can pretty safely rationalize that result and chalk it up to the weather. Besides the disappointing time, I felt that it was a great workout for Chicago. 

Back to Chicago prep. My last hard workout went very well on Sunday (exactly 2 weeks before) so now it's all easier workouts from here on in. I am not sure exactly what I'll do for the next couple hard days but now it's all about keeping my body in tune and avoiding that sluggish feeling that a lot of people tend to get with tapering. I don't plan to drop mileage drastically or completely stop working out, but the workouts themselves will get easier. I will try to maintain the same frequency and schedule of running just to maintain some routine and not through my body off. Finally, the last few days will be very easy light jogging and the final variable to hope for is good weather the morning of the race. Chicago can be iffy, but it has had a pretty good track record the last few marathons so hopefully it all works out. 

My plan for the race: I think I'll try to start at 5:20-5:25s and see how that goes. Ideally I would like to have a group to run with so I can reserve mental energy for the last 10 miles or so, get in the draft and settle in to that pace without having to push at all. I expect the first 10 miles to go by pretty quickly, but somewhere between 10-15 I'll start to get a little tired. Between 15-20 I need to be mentally prepared for a bad patch or two, and somewhere in that stretch I'll need to start pushing hard. The last 10k, of course, is all about running as hard as possible. If I can run smartly and evenly through halfway in 1:10 I think that will set me up for a good 2nd half. This is all uncharted territory for me though, so all of this in most definitely conjecture. Looking back, I can confidently say that I have prepared to the best of my ability. I've put in the long efforts a bit slower than goal pace, I've put in good speedwork, and gotten in two runs of almost 3 hours. Mileage has been relatively low for me, and doubling regularly has been out of the question, but judging by the workouts I think that I have a good base of marathon-specific work behind me. Next Sunday I'll find out exactly how prepared I am. 

Getting into the racing season

After training seriously since June for Philly half and the Chicago marathon, it's almost that time. Philly is next weekend and Chicago is three weeks later. What that means for training is that all of the hard work is basically done and there just isn't much more fitness to be gained.

Philly will function as a serious, all-out race, as a final blow-it-out workout before Chicago and as a marker to see where I'm at. I am very curious to see what I am able to run at Philly, because it will be my third time there. Since I've done it before, and last year ran well, I can compare this year's performance against last year. Hopefully the weather is comparable so that I can eliminate as many variables as possible to really see where I'm at.

Speaking of comparing Philly to past races, I really can't make an accurate prediction of what kind of shape I'm in. On the one hand, my workouts have gone well, probably better than ever as far as half marathon and longer specific fitness is concerned. The workout I did two nights ago (5 x 2 mile @ 10:10 w/ 400 jog/2' rest) is something I have never been able to do, and even though I did it on a slightly faster course than the bike path (where I have always done that workout) I believe it is still better than what I have done in the past. For reference, last fall before Philly I ran 4 x 2 mile w/ 3' rest @ 10:10 and that was very difficult for me, even though I ended up running 5:00 miles for the half.

With all that positive talk out of the way, the one variable that I am a little worried about is overall mileage. Last fall I was putting in 105-110 a week consistently in training for Philly. Now that I'm working full time, I have time commitments from 7 am when I leave for work to 6 pm when I get home. I just don't have the time to train as much as I did when I was just bumming around. I am still able to get in 80-90 a week (athleticore tells me I've run 347 miles in the last month). This is where the analysis of how mileage affects fitness gets tricky in my opinion.

Benefits of higher mileage: Undeniably, there is some more fitness to be gained just from putting more easy mileage. Particularly running doubles often; two stimuli a day are great for keeping metabolism high, keeping your racing weight low, producing beneficial adaptations via hormones and other stuff. Another good side effect from higher mileage is that it gets you used to training and working out (and racing, if you choose to train through) on tired legs, which allows for a more dramatic gain in racing ability during a taper.

Costs of higher mileage: One thing about training that a lot of people gloss over is that mileage is important, but only as a support system for the race specific workouts. What that means practically speaking is that people should run as much mileage as they can handle without it affecting the real training that is directly related to the goal race. To be even more blunt: too many miles is when you are too tired to hit the paces in workouts that you need to run to race well. I definitely fell victim to this in college and I believe I would have run better had I not gone overboard with mileage my junior and senior years. Too many miles = too tired in workouts = not getting the designed benefit from the workouts, especially when you're trying to hit paces. Hard-core lydiard disciples disagree with this, saying that effort is the only thing that matters when you're working out and that the taper will allow you to race well if you've put in the big base beforehand. I believe that a good amount of race specific training is necessary to do well (well is defined as meeting your ultimate potential, not just running fast), and if you're tired from easy mileage you just can't work out well enough to get enough specific work in.

I think last fall I found my sweet spot in training was just over 100 mpw to be able to work out well and still accumulate mileage. However, that was in training for the half and I recall the longest workout I did was 11 miles as a tempo run. Now that I'm doing more marathon-specific work, the workouts can be even longer and more intense, so they require more recovery before and after (geeks would call this "modulation"). In this regard I think doing less mileage helps, because it allows me to hit the workouts very hard and try to get big adaptations. But like I said, there is going to be some fitness lost from not putting in those extra mileage. The elusive sweet spot in training, that is different for everyone, is where you personally are able to work out hard while maintaining as much easy mileage as you can fit in without sacrificing the serious work.

So basically, I don't really know where my fitness is because a few variables have changed since last year when I raced a half. I'll find out in black and white where I stand in two weekends.

Marathon training update (Chicago 2014)

I'm about 10 weeks out now from The Big Race this fall. The summer training has overall gone fairly well. I have been in dedicated training since June, so about 10 weeks so far. 

I started with a basic Canova plan for the marathon, in which I would balance workouts targeting speed, stamina and long endurance. These workouts included shorter fartleks such as hills and timed reps, medium and long intervals, medium and long tempo runs, and long runs that changed between straight paced, fast, or varied paces. I did not have any idea going into the program how I would react to some of the sessions, especially the long fast runs. I had some experience with long fartleks before, and have done long intervals and tempo runs for years, so stepping up the distances was a fairly natural progression there.

As it stands now, I feel like I have some handle on how my body is accepting and reacting to the training. I have really surprised myself; it seems like my strength is actually better than my speed (note that these terms are all contextual to the marathon and a goal pace of approx. 5:20). I am actually ahead of schedule in the long runs, but am not able to run the intervals and tempos quite as fast as I would be happy with. 

This is very surprising for me. I come from a much more speed oriented background, having focused entirely on paces substantially faster than marathon pace. I assumed that this background would allow me to train more easily for the "speed" workouts and that I would have a much easier time with those. False: My long runs have gone surprisingly well, but speed workouts (marathon pace and under) have been a bit lacking. I can confidently attribute some of this to the summer weather - in years past training for fall races, especially the years in which I trained for Philly RnR half, the workouts in the summer predicted slower times than I was able to achieve in the race, which was typically held in great weather. I try not to use that as an excuse, but it is always in the back of my mind when I struggle to hit the paces I think I should be running. 

It is interesting to me that the heat seems affects the shorter faster workouts more than the longer runs. This is sort of the argument against why I might be in better long distance shape. I don't have a good explanation why this might be the case for me. It's probably different for different people, but it something that annoys me. 

I am discussing this issue of not being able to run faster workouts how I want to because it is an interesting departure in my thinking about the importance of training to race. In the past, once I had realized that working in warmer weather meant slower times in workouts but didn't negatively affect race performance, I was always OK with it and accepted it as part of training hard in the summer. I figured that as long as I got the adaptations from the work, it was fine and those adaptations would be reflected in the races. Higher stress due to summer heat and humidity = better workout = better races, right? I believe that this is true up to a point. That point is when the race is long enough that muscular adaptations to a specific pace become an important factor to consider. 

In training for the half marathon and below, muscular endurance and ability to contract and hold up against fatigue was never really a big deal. Training volume in workouts and overall mileage can prepare the responsible propulsive muscle groups in excess of the race distance when you're training for track races. The limiting factor is always the speed endurance. This holds true, for me at least, about up to the half marathon.

Right around the half is where things start to change. I noticed that last year when I ran 1:05, the last few miles were hard not only because I was pushing my cardiovascular system so hard, but because muscularly my legs were starting to fall apart. It was getting to the point where my posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings, calves) was running out of power and those muscle groups were fatigued to the point where they were failing. This is what I see as the major roadblock to a good marathon for me. 

I don't believe that what is traditionally viewed as The Wall will be a big problem for me. As far as pure caloric consumption goes, I think I can avoid true depletion by loading up beforehand and maybe a couple of gels or gatorade or something like that during the race. What I see as the real issue is the muscular fatigue. It gets very hard to simulate this in training because getting the fatigue of a marathon is not easy compared to shorter events. For the 1500, it's so easy to go beyond fatigue that it's not even an issue. Every workout at 1500 pace consists of well over 1500 meters of work. Not so with the marathon.

What I need to do in the next 10 weeks is 

1. Emphasize speed work such that I can speed up my comfort zone about 10 seconds per mile across all distances in workouts. By that I mean get mile repeats 10 seconds faster, get tempos 10 seconds/mile faster, get the fast long runs 10 seconds/mile faster (or more, as these are pretty uncharted territory for me). The exception is overdistance long runs, and these may get faster anyway as I get fitter. I say comfort zone because relaxation is key for the marathon and I need to be comfortable running marathon pace, especially early on. 
2. Continue to build long, specific endurance, especially muscular endurance, using fast long runs and overdistance long runs. On the Sunday workout I plan to alternate fast long runs (long runs approacing MP) with overdistance long runs (long runs of 26 miles or more). In this way I can directly extend speed and distance in both ways. 
3. Remember to taper effectively. I believe that a moderate taper (7-10 days) is probably the most effective for me, however I have not had much experience trying to race at a high level off of lower than 100 mpw. This will probably take some experimentation, but it is still 9 weeks away so a pretty lower priority. 

Update to last post: Chicago Marathon

So I got accepted as as elite in the Chicago Marathon field. That means I'm officially committed to doing this, which by itself makes me nervous. It's definitely going to be an experience. I do believe that, even if for whatever reason it is not a "successful" race (in terms of time goals), the training and the experience itself will be invaluable to future training at shorter distances. I can definitely see myself moving up and down in distance throughout the year and I have always liked the idea of being a jack of all trades. This is mostly because I have this romantic notion of the "golden age" of American running in the last 70s/early 80s when those guys would race anyone, anywhere, anytime and run well at many distances, often close together. I don't think that I'll be the next Greg Meyer but in my own little way I hope to emulate those guys in their ability to lead a relatively normal life and train/race at a consistently high level.

Fall Marathon

After Swarthmore I started thinking what I wanted to do with running. With track season over and the fall being too far away to start seriously training for, I found myself in limbo. I started thinking about race options. I realized that, with my working schedule, it makes more sense to try and focus on big races that are few and far between so that I can minimize time off from work due to traveling. Once I started thinking about my circumstances, I realized that perhaps now is the time to plan for a fall marathon. 

My first thought was to stay close to home and run Philly on November 23. It's convenient, basically no travel, a good field for someone of my level, and I would be able to get at the very least free entry due to my performances in the half marathon and 10 miler in the last 9 months. November 23 is very far away though, and I would have to find something between now and then to focus on. I decided to look for another marathon a bit less deep into the fall. 

My next thought was Chicago. It's 5 weeks earlier than Philly and has arguably (with NYC) the best field in the USA. It's also an extremely fast course with good weather most years. I figured out how far away this race is, and although it's still almost 6 months away it's better than Philly. I decided to sit down and map out a training schedule for it:

Tentative Marathon Schedule - 2014 Chicago Marathon (10/12/2014)
Week #	Date Ending	Workout 1 (Midweek, no doubles)			Workout 2 (Weekend, try for doubles when reasonable)
		Type	Specifics	Total Mileage	Type	Specifics	Total Mileage
1	8-Jun	Tempo	9 mi @ 100% MP	14	Long Fartlek	8 x [1k @ 100-105% MP / 1k @ 85-90% MP]	15+5
2	15-Jun	Short Fartlek	20 x 1:00 on / 1:00 off	12	Long run	16 - 18 mi	16-18+5
3	22-Jun	Medium Intervals	6-8 x mi @ 105-110% MP	13	BLOCK	6-7 x [5:00 on, 5:00 off] + 8-10k @ 100% MP	17+8
4	29-Jun	Tempo	11 mi @ 100% MP	16	Long run	18 - 20 mi	18-20+4
5	6-Jul	Short Fartlek	12-15k of 75/85 on track	15	Long Fartlek	6 x [2k @ 100-105% MP / 1k @ 85-90% MP]	16+5
6	13-Jul	Medium Intervals	6-8 x 1.5 mi @ 105-110% MP	15	RACE	Boilermaker 15k	15+5
7	20-Jul	Short Fartlek	15-20 x 2:00 on / 2:00 off	17	Long run	20 - 22 mi	20-22+4
8	27-Jul	Tempo	12 miles @ 100% MP	16	Long Fartlek	5 x [3k @ 100-105% MP / 1k @ 85-90% MP]	17+5
9	3-Aug	Medium Intervals	4-5 x 2mile @ 100-105% MP	16	Long run	20 mi @ 90% MP	20+4
10	10-Aug	Tempo	13 miles @ 100% MP	17	BLOCK	4 x [10:00 on, 10:00 off] + 8-10k @ 100% MP	18+7
11	17-Aug	Short Fartlek	25-30 x 400 w/ 200j on track	15	Long run	22 mi @ 90% MP	22+4
12	24-Aug	Medium Intervals	4-5 x 2mi @ 105-110% MP	17	Long Fartlek	6 x [2k @ 100-105% MP / 1k @ 90-95% MP]	17+5
13	31-Aug	Tempo	14 mi @ 95-100% MP	17	Overdistance	26-28 mi	26-28
14	7-Sep	Short Fartlek	15-20 x 2:00 on / 2:00 off	16	Long run	24 mi @ 85-90% MP	24+4
15	14-Sep	Medium Intervals	3 x 3 mile @ 105% MP	15	RACE	Philly RNR half marathon	17
16	21-Sep	Short Fartlek	15 - 20 x 1:00 on / 1:00 off	13	Long run	22 mi @ 90-95% MP	22
17	28-Sep	Tempo	12 mi @ 100% MP	17	Long Fartlek	10-12 x [1k @ 100%-105% MP / 1k @ 90% MP)	18-20+4
18	5-Oct	Taper workout	6 x mile @ 100-105% MP	12	Taper	12-15 mi	12-15
19	12-Oct	Taper workout	5-8 x 1k @ 105-110% MP	10	RACE	Chicago	27

This is written for to begin serious training at the beginning of June. It is pretty daunting to look at in this condensed form, and this is a fairly detailed outline that I am not binding myself to, but it is a good start. 

If I hear back from the people at Chicago and I can get some sort of special treatment that incentivizes me enough to go, I will most likely do this and see where it shakes out. As of now, I am calling MP = 5:30 pace but that is a shot in the dark and I need to get a more exact handle on that when I gauge the difficulty of these workouts. 

My one and only track meet of 2014

After running Broad Street and hitting my goal, I realized that the annual last chance meet at Swarthmore College was only 8 days later. This meet is a well kept secret among collegiate and post collegiate runners in the region for its extremely good middle distance fields and magical conditions year after year. This is probably most famous as the meet in which Kyle Merber ran 3:35 at in 2012. I ran the 1500 in the heat after him and PR'd, but that race was something special to watch. Almost everyone ran huge PRs and it was such an amazing race that there was skepticism that the track was short or that the timing was off. 

Anyway, with that bit of backstory, you can see why I couldn't resist throwing my hat into the ring and running it this year, especially having PR'd at it the last time I ran. I decided to run the 5k, and I will defer to my running log for my thoughts on the race: 

Going into this race I thought that if I had a solid day I would run 14:25. I did not account for two things. Obviously #1 is the Swarthmore magic. #2 is that I seriously have never been in a race so perfectly set up for me to win. The weather was very warm and humid but by race time it wasn't too bad.

There were 93 guys on the entries for the 5k so it got split into 3 heats, which still meant that after scratches there were almost 30 guys in each heat. I was #11 seed which was ideal, since I was on the first line of guys and pretty far out on the line which meant that I could avoid traffic for the first 200m. Got out well but it was a slow start so there was some traffic jamming. After a guy at the finish line told us we just ran a 37 opening 200, the rabbit from Haverford elbowed his way up to the front and cut that shit out. I weaved my way up to the front pack that was already breaking away.

For the next 2 miles the race progressed very well. I was at the end of the front group of 5 guys including myself and the rabbit. The rabbit was consistently running 68.x which was perfect effort for me. One the rabbit dropped the pace slowed down from 68-69 to 71 and even a 72. After about two laps of that nonsense I took the lead with ~900m to go. The slow laps had let me rest up and I basically knew I had the race in the bag. Picked it up with 800 to go but not a real kick yet. With 400 to go I had dropped everybody but I kicked hard anyway and closed in 60-61.

Encouraging result and I know I can go faster, so it almost makes me want to do another one. Finding high caliber track races this time of year is tough though. 

Obviously I was happy with the way the race went, and winning is always a great feeling. Now that that's over, it leaves me wondering what the rest of my year holds, which will be told in the next entry...

Broad Street recap

So after those predictions yesterday I went out and ran 49:56, exactly what I thought I was capable of. It took a real race effort and great conditions as well as a guy right in front of me the whole time acting as the carrot.

First couple miles were very fast. I was 9:40 thru two miles, much of that due to the downhill and my desire to run in a group for as long as was reasonable. It ended up being the lead pack which was all foreigners and me. After I let them go some other Americans caught up to me and one went by. He remained a couple seconds ahead for much of the race.

Miles 3-5 were weird. I know the race it net downhill but these miles were very gradually rolling. Coming up on City Hall at mile 5.5 you make the only turn in the race and go around the building, staying on Broad st.

Miles 6-8 were my low point in the race. I was hovering just over 5:00 pace, and since I had built up that cushion on my goal time in the first two miles I was creeping over my goal average with these miles. My calves were starting to feel pretty tired and on the edge of cramping, which was not a good sign with almost half the race left. I pushed as hard as I could without going over the Red Line, but I was still by myself chasing the top American ahead.

After I survived those tough miles I kept grinding through, taking it a mile at a time. After mile 8 I started to really push, and I was slowly closing the gap on the guy ahead. After mile 9 I committed to a big move and caught him at probably 9.25. This is the point in the race where you go under I-95 and can't see the entrance to the Navy Yard so it's tough to gauge how far out you are from the finish. Once I saw the Navy Yard sign and hit the little downhill into the yard I started kicking. Not a very good kick because muscularly I was bankrupt but still as hard as I could go. I learned later it was 400m to the finish from the entrance to the Navy Yard, so a good time to go. The entire finishing stretch I was going as hard as possible but breaking down the whole way, so I was nervous the guy I passed was coming back on me. Last mile was in ~4:50.

I was pretty happy to finish just under my goal time and as (I was pretty sure even then) top American. This was definitely a 100% race effort, I was very wiped after and muscularly in pretty bad shape. Calves were used up and the cooldown was tough. Energy was OK on the cooldown trotting at 8 minute pace but even jogging in trainers was hard.

My parents and Emily came to watch (Emily was nice enough to drop me off at the start and drive my car to the finish) and we sat around for the awards, which were pretty poorly organized and took way too long (I'm still grumpy about this). I did get recognized for being top American finisher which was a big deal. However I was still 8th overall so I have room to improve. The winner was 47 low, which wasn't even near the course record of 45:51, crazy fast times.

Overall exactly what I was hoping for from this race. Now the challenge is to see if I can recover for a track 5k next Monday. Very easy recovery jogs should help but it will be a bit of a race against time.