NYC Half

This past weekend was the first of three big races for me planned this spring, the NYC half marathon. The other two are Cherry Blossom 10 miler (2 weeks) and Pittsburgh Half (6 weeks). This was my first road race in NYC, and while I’ve spectated a couple of Emily’s races in the last year, this was a new experience for me. Also a new experience was getting into the elite field of a big NYRR road race. I cannot say enough about their operation there; Dave Monti, Sam Grotewold and their crew really run a tight ship and at the risk of too many metaphors it ran like a Swiss watch as far as I could tell. This will be a recap of most of our experience over the weekend as well as a detailed race report.

Race Report

The weather race morning was cold and a noticeable north wind. This would likely help the times out, since the back half of the course runs straight down the west side highway and would be helped by the tailwind. I put myself near the back of the elite field at the start. Broadly speaking, the course was a 10k counter clockwise loop (or almost loop) around the main ring road of central park, down 7^th avenue through Times Square, west out to the West Side Highway, and south down the highway, through the Battery Park tunnel, up to the finish. The miles in Central Park were mostly rolling hills and I linked up with a decently sized group for much of this. Myself and a local Ethiopian ran side by side through miles 3-6 when we were joined by a couple more guys, including Chris Bendtsen who I remembered from racing against Princeton. Once we got out of the park and into the city streets, we packed up and worked together to combat the headwind on the stretch getting to the WSH. Once we got to the highway and turned south, it became a real race with the tailwind and everybody just ran to their fitness level. I got dropped by the group around mile 9. A few minutes later the Ethiopian pulled up with what looked like a side stitch and I went by him. That would be the last guy I would pass. For the rest of the race it was just about running right on the ragged edge. Coming out of the tunnel was the 400m to go sign and two turns later there was the finish.

Positives: I was very nervous going into this race that I wouldn’t have “the right stuff” anymore when it came to digging deep and getting 100% out of my body during the race when it counted. It had been so long since I last ran truly flat-out on a good day (Broad Street of last year) that I was worried I might have forgotten what it was like. I also believe I managed my effort pretty much perfectly throughout the race and was always in a good spot. The first 10k in the park was hard but controlled, working the hills and trying to relax and maintain focus on the downhills. Once we got onto the WSH with the exposed tailwind and hit mile 9 the hammer was down for everyone and we just ran as hard as we could. This good effort management is reflected in my splits:

1^st 5k: 5:14 pace (slowest segment, with rolling hills into the wind)

2^nd 5k: 5:13 pace (still rolling hills, but mostly with the tailwind)

3^rd 5k: 5:04 pace (fastest segment of the race; net downhill from the park to the WSH)

4^th 5k: 5:06 pace (straight down the WSH running on the redline)

Last 1.1K: 5:05 pace (whatever was left)

I was also happy with my taper for this race. I felt very good in the 3 days before, and part of that was probably due to nerves and general jumpiness but also due to a slightly longer and more gradual taper. I trust in the background of work over the last 3-4 months that I won’t “lose fitness” by taking training a little easier for the 7-10 days before a really big race. This kind of insecurity is something I’ve always struggled with and is one of the main reasons I think top athletes need coaches.

Negatives: Put simply, I’m not in the kind of shape I hoped I was in. In hindsight this should have been pretty clear; despite running good mileage and having a good workout progression since December, the background of shorter speed (two springs ago, I was coming off of 3:50 1500m/14:05 5000m fitness) and overall uninterrupted quality and quantity hasn’t been there in the long term. More importantly in the only real test race I had at Club Challenge I ran slower in a losing effort this year. I had hoped that I would come around in a big-time race and that on the day with a good taper I might have something special, but like pretty much my entire career it’s very predictable to a trained eye looking at the training. Looking at the splits and remembering how the race felt, I don’t think there is any single aspect of fitness that I’m lacking relative to anything else. I just need to keep working on overall specific fitness, both underdistance and overdistance work to keep getting in better 50-65 minute racing shape. Hopefully this race will be a big stimulus for the next few weeks and I can have a solid outing at Cherry Blossom and Pittsburgh, but for now the focus is on recovery and getting back into training smartly and with an eye towards Cherry Blossom, less than 2 weeks away.

For the immediate future, I’ll probably get in a workout this week, maybe Thursday, which will be by feel and definitely without pushing too hard. Something longer on Sunday, but again not anything super strenuous, then the usual taper routine and midweek workout on Wednesday.

Overall Trip Experience…Report

Emily and I left Baltimore on the train around 5 pm Friday afternoon. We arrived at Penn station and, thanks to the race’s elite director Dave Monti, got to the hotel easily on a short subway ride. We dropped off our bags and got a quick dinner spot from the front desk. Dinner was a Ramen place, a typical tiny NYC basement eatery where we sat at the bar and watched two young Asian guys crank out bowls of meat-and-noodle based soups.

The next day we got up, had breakfast in the hospitality suite (penthouse of the hotel with great views) and went for our runs in Central Park. This hotel had a great location just three short blocks away from the park, so even with the snow still on the sidewalks it was an easy jog over. Apparently it was a popular time for the elites to get in their pre-race runs because I saw guys like Callum Hawkins, Chris Derrick, Amy Cragg and others I didn’t recognize out there.

After an easy run and strides we hung out in the hotel and watched some March Madness until lunch. Emily and I both went up and while I checked in and got my finances straightened out she had lunch and headed out to meet her sister and brother in law at the movies. I went to the bank, came back and went to the USADA meeting followed by the race technical meeting. We all had to sit through lots of lecturing and talking about the race details.  After I got out of there, I met Emily, her sister and husband for dinner at a place near Central Park. Pretty good spot, could have been a really expensive dinner but we stuck to burgers. By the time we got out of there it was getting late and we just headed back to the hotel and tried to get to sleep early.

I never sleep well before races and I was especially nervous for this one, so I tossed and turned all night and finally woke up 1 minute before my 5 am alarm. I headed up to the suite to get some breakfast and got my stuff together for the 6 am bus departure. Short bus ride but long walk through security to get to the elite staging area. Hung around for not too long before we had to go warm up; even though our race started at 7:30 we were to be at the line (with our warmups on, thank God) just after 7. I warmed up with Jared Ward and Noah Droddy and had a funny exchange in which Noah told us he wasn’t even getting free shoes so he had to wear old, beat-up flats. Jared told him he should at least be getting free gear…this proved especially prescient after the race was over.

I wrote a detailed race report above, so I’ll skip that here. After the race, Emily found me immediately and we made our way to the India House, a restaurant near the finish that served as the VIP area. I got some coffee and food here and went for a short, pretty painful cooldown with a few other guys from the elite field. We got on the first bus back to the hotel, which took seemingly forever due to the combination of race fatigue and Manhattan traffic. I had a rough period of feeling really sore and drained once we got back to the hotel but after Emily we walked to St. Patrick’s Cathedral for church at noon, which was a pretty amazing building inside and out. We got back to the hotel, packed up all our stuff and eventually left from the lobby as a big group to the post-race lunch.

This lunch was one of the most surreal and fun race-related social events I have ever been to. Surreal in that Emily and I got to rub elbows with some of the elite athletes in our sport and talk to them as regular people, and fun because the food and wine was never ending and was all comped. Sitting at a table with Olympians and record holders from around the world was fun and cool, I’ll leave it at that.

After lunch Emily and I headed for Penn Station, just a few blocks away, and went home our separate ways. She was going to her parent’s house and I was headed back to Baltimore so I had a 2.5 hour train ride to sink back into fatigue and enjoy some quiet before being back in the real world. 

Pre-Spring 2017 season

After wrapping up what I consider to be a distinct training block this past weekend, I wanted to consolidate my thoughts on the past three months as well as the upcoming spring season. 

The last 12 weeks of training have been at least as good, if not better than, any 12 weeks of base training have ever been in my career. I averaged over 100 mpw, with workouts gradually building up from short and easy in the beginning to race-specific by the end. Most importantly, I still feel mostly on top of the training, instead of buried under it. I consider this to be a wrap to the base phase because of the impending 10 mile race at Club Challenge this weekend, which in my mind kicks off my spring season. The races I have on my calendar currently are: 

2/26: Club Challenge (10 mile)

3/5: Tim Kennard (10 mile)

3/19: NYC half

4/2: Cherry Blossom

4/23: Pikes Peek 10k

4/29: Race against Racism (5k)

5/6: Pittsburgh Half

Races in bold are peak races. 

In my mind, the key difference between this base phase and last summer is that I did all workouts and runs by effort rather than putting a watch to anything. Last summer, I feel I overtrained because I was pushing too hard every workout to hit some arbitrary goal I made up for myself. This cycle, until about 2 weeks ago, I never wore a watch or took splits in a workout. I did everything on a course that I knew the distance beforehand, such as a track or the PP loops, which made it easy. In the last 2 weeks I have started timing workouts as the races get closer and I want to be more specific in the training. 

Another aspect I added back in during the last 4-5 weeks is dedicated hill workouts. I have never really been a big fan of serious hill workouts having a long-term place in a training cycle, because I have always considered other workouts more valuable. However because this was a base phase fairly far away from the big races, I decided to add them in for variety. It's hard to put my finger on any clear changes or improvements that I might have derived from these workouts, but I feel stronger and like my stride has had small changes made that make me more powerful and efficient at speed. Again, sounds kooky and hard to nail down, and maybe it's all in my head, but the placebo effect is still an effect. 

With such a good base under my belt, I am cautiously optimistic for the 10 miler this weekend. I say cautiously because I always try to keep my expectations in check before a race, because I know it will still be a hard effort on that course, but I haven't raced in a long long time so it'll be nice at least to get a reliable fitness check. To that end I am taking the week before easy and dropping mileage a bit to not go into the race tired. Should be a good effort and a very good workout as well for the big races yet to come. 

Overdue fall 2016 update

It's been a while since I wrote down anything in here. August twenty-eighth, in fact, was my last entry, and that's because I don't like writing (or reading, or talking) about running when I'm pissed off at it. I had what was, for me, the worst season ever, which really isn't saying that much because I've been #blessed to have an almost injury- and sickness-free career up to this point. Unfortunately the weird sickness, or reaction, or full-body freak-out, or whatever it was, showed up a total of three times this summer and fall and basically trashed any chance of me putting together any good training and racing, so after the third time it happened I threw in the towel and took a total of 5 weeks either off or very easy. I think I actually took 2 weeks off and ran like 30-50-60 for the next 3 weeks.

Once those three weeks were up it was late November, and I figured I might as well see how I was doing. I bumped the mileage hard and for the next three weeks (up until now) I ran a lot and gradually increased the workouts systematically as follows:

Intervals once a week, starting with 8 x 200 and adding 100m to the length each week. So it went 8 x 200, 8 x 300, 8 x 400, etc. Recovery was adjusted to be reasonable.

Tempo once a week, starting at 4 loops around the park (4 miles) and adding 1 loop each week.

This worked fine at first until I went to Boulder to visit Feeney (who I'n sure I mention in the early entries of this log) and was on his schedule. We did a hard half marathon workout of 3 x 2 miles for him, because he is in good shape and racing Houston in a few weeks. Then we ran almost 2 hours the next  day and an "easy" 10 miles the day after. This trip was fun, but wrecked me because of the cumulative effect of fatigue brought on by altitude and hard training.

Once I got back to Baltimore, I got back into training and plan to continue on that above schedule for some time until racing starts. This was I think I can get into shape without forcing it too quickly.

The most important change I have made since getting back into it for real has been not timing anything. Since the intervals are on the track at PP high school and the tempos are around a 1 mile loop, I know all the distances and don't need to time anything to know how far I've gone. So far I've been working out 100% by feel and have been feeling pretty damn good. I know myself pretty well, and I know that if I start timing the workouts I'll start inching the pace down too hard to try and hit splits I think I "should be" hitting, or racing previous versions of myself from last year when I was in the best shape of my life. I know that that's dumb, but I also know that so much of my self-confidence and ego is based on running fitness that even despite my best intentions I'll still be stupid about it. So, I haven't been timing anything and as a result I really don't have a clue what kind of shape I'm in. But who cares? It's December, and the first really big race I care about isn't until April 2nd (Cherry Blossom). So I've got basically three months plus to get into great shape.

Great segue there into the racing schedule. I just applied for the Saucony Hurricane team, and one of the questions on the application was a tentative spring schedule so I was forced to look up races I want to do. Since those are fresh in my mind I figured I would add them here.

Big races: Cherry Blossom, Pittsburgh half marathon. These are two races about a month apart that I really want to knock out of the park.

Other races added in around: club challenge, Tim Kennard, Pikes Peek, Shamrock 5k? Delaware half?? I originally assumed that Pitt and DE were the same weekend but turns around it's a weekend apart. Even so doing two half marathons on back to back weekends is a very tall order, but I might still do it...for the scrilla.

I've never done Shamrock, but if I can get those goobers at CCR to comp my entry I would like to do it. It's the most competitive Baltimore City race so I think I would be remiss not to do it when I'm in good shape.

That's it for now, I hope to continue logging high mileage, moderate workouts and feel good doing it.

Can't catch a break

Up until about 2.5 weeks ago, training was going as planned. I had resumed training in the beginning of June and gotten in some good work through most of that month and July, with two down weeks planned for vacation during which I still managed to get some running in. After getting in very good training back from those vacations, I ran probably the best workout of my life and immediately got sick. When I say immediately, I mean I jogged home from the workout in the park, showered and started getting chills and not wanting to eat. I was sick with fairly high fever for four days. I started running again, felt bad all week (not entirely unexpected, but very frustrating) and after a mediocre long run that following weekend picked up a muscular injury that has now bothered me for a week. 

I need to be rational here and take my own advice, which would be take a couple days OFF (no cross training bullshit, actually off) and treat the hell out of it and hope for the best. What frustrates me the most about this is the timing; this could not be worse unless it was right before the Big Race. Right when I want to really be crushing the specific workouts, I am hamstrung in my prep right now and can see a PR slipping away as I sit around unable to gain any fitness because I can't run. What's also frustrating is that it seems as though I can't run in the mornings but can run later in the day once whatever the problem is has warmed up/loosened up. Normally I wouldn't care and would power through, but considering the races are all in the mornings, if I don't get this sorted out ASAP I'm totally fucked for racing, even if I can work out just fine in the evening. Just trying to keep my head up and hope that this will go away quickly so I can get back to work before there's no point in even showing up to the races. 

Mid-cycle update, summer 2016

Currently I am about halfway through the Chicago 2016 training cycle.

Intermediate races planned, all hard training efforts:
8/20/16: Druid Hills 10k
9/11/16: Parks half marathon

Goal race:
10/9/16: Chicago marathon

Currently I am training well, barring a couple weeks of lower intensity/maintenance work due to two separate two week vacations. One of those I maintained well and got 80+ miles, the other I ran nearly every day but was also at high altitude (8000+) the entire time so it probably balances out.

Training from here on out barring any interruptions will be fairly straightforward. Almost all workouts will be marathon-specific or supportive, as best as I can manage in this east coast summer weather. The occasional shorter speed workout might creep in, but only if I have an awkward time gap between workouts and I haven't done something quicker in a while. The goal will be to run 14x every week and something near 120 mpw. I do not expect to do this week in and week out, but it is always the goal to shoot for.

Currently the fitness is right on track. This past week featured brutal heat and humidity with at least one day setting or tying a record. I still managed a solid long run workout both weekends and a 45 minute hill workout midweek. The bad weather ended up paying some acclimation dividends; during my long run this past weekend, the dewpoint was a normally intolerable 74, but during a long hard workout in which I took nothing in for over 2 hours I felt unaffected and smooth averaging 5:35 pace for a 17 mile workout, which converting to an ideal marathon race setting converts right to my goal pace. These consistent long workouts set the stage for the super specific workouts which will start in the coming weeks. I want to be able to get more miles in the fast long runs as well as getting some good volume in workouts faster than goal marathon pace.

I want to try and get at least 6 weeks of specific marathon work in, which ideally means 12 workouts. My goal pace for this cycle is 5:20s (2:20 marathon) so these workouts could be some of the following, with all kinds of possible permutations on these:

4 x [4 miles @ 5:20 / 1 mile @ 5:40-5:50]
6 x [2 miles @ 5:05 / 1 mile @ 5:40-5:50]
3 x [3 miles @ 5:10 / 1 mile @ 5:40-5:50]
10-13 miles @ 5:15-5:20
20 miles @ 5:30
24 miles @ 5:40

Obviously these are pretty lofty. If the summer weather keeps up at this level I doubt I'll be able to hit all of these, but I have no problem modifying them for weather because I know my goal pace of 5:20 wouldn't hold up if Chicago was hot and humid.

If I can fit anything else in, these workouts would be supported by some of the following:

50-60 minutes of hill repeats
7-10 mile repeats under 5:00 pace
overdistance runs (26-28 miles with no goal pace or time)
And an infinite variety of shorter speed workouts to work on running efficiency at speed and make 5:20 pace feel slow.

I believe one of the important concepts with long distance workouts, in my case half and full marathon training, is the importance of no true recovery periods in the workout. In classic interval training for track races, true recovery is necessary to many sessions because it's impossible to do, for example, 10 x 400 at mile pace without some amount of true recovery. Since the marathon is so much less intense in terms of heart rate and energy systems used (specifically lactate production and oxygen debt) it becomes both possible and practical to incorporate workouts in which the "recovery" between harder efforts is only 30s a mile slower or so than the pace of the hard segments. I first started working out like this when training for my first serious half marathon in the fall of 2013 and felt that it made a huge difference in my fitness and ability to handle a hard, fast pace for a long time. That's my rationale for all of those interval workouts listed above.

Spring 2016 recap

Now that I've wrapped the spring season, taken 2 weeks off and started back up again, I can look back and evaluate how the last few months of running and racing played out. The most important thing for me to remember is the context of this season. The roots go all the way back to June 2015, when I decided to go for an OTQ at Philly RNR on 10/31. That plan failed, but carried over into a successful race at Jacksonville, which carried over to the Trials in February, which set the tone for the entire spring. To summarize, everything after the trials was gravy. If I had gotten into a car accident and broken my legs I would have still called 2016 a success after February.

After the OT, I did not have a clear path to take. I had basically gotten partway towards being in good marathon shape, and was in very good overall distance shape. The problem I had was that, in my estimation, I didn't have enough time or motivation to refocus and get in good track shape. I also didn't really want to force the mental and physical recovery after the Trials by rushing together a serious spring plan. So, I decided to compromise and race some spring races, but not trying to put together a 100% top-notch performance at any of them. Spring was to be a period of active racing, but not shooting for a lifetime PR in anything.

Because I was in good long-distance shape, I decided to target Cherry Blossom and Broad Street as my two major races. These had the advantage of being relatively local and being a month apart, which gave me flexibility on the remaining weekend. I also like to race that distance. Besides those two races, along the way I put other lower-key races on the schedule that would be good places to win some money.

In the end, the spring season was a successful one by my analysis. I won more money at races than I ever have, ran some new races, met some other runners at my level, even PR'd at 10 miles. I never felt like I was not enjoying myself, but I was glad when it was over and I had the novelty of time off (which I hated). I still haven't come up with a satisfying goal for Fall 2016 yet but I have the luxury of not having to sign up for races 8 months ahead of time. This gives me plenty of time to plan something. Maybe even another marathon? I do know that I want to get back on the track next spring. Sub 14 in the 5k would be a great lifetime PR, and after last spring I promised myself that if I ever got into as good or better shape again, I would go out west to chase a big PR.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For now, one day at a time.

Broad Street 2016 recap

This year was the second time I've run Broad Street. The first time I ran it, I surprised myself by placed 7th overall and 1st American running 49:56. I remember that as being a really tough race and that I was totally wiped out and well-peaked for that day. This year, I ran slightly better in both place (6th overall this year) and time (49:50), but unlike last time I felt that this spring was a bit more relaxed of a racing cycle, coming after the winter. Looking at it this way it's nice to see that, even at a slight depression in training and racing, I still was able to run better than I could in a perfect race 2 years ago here.

The race itself was overall a little slower than some other years. Perhaps this was due to the weather, or the lack of African depth up front - only 2 Africans in the top 8. The weather was about as bad as it gets in early May, with a cold rain lasting throughout the morning. This was fine with me during the race, but was obviously not ideal before and after.

The race itself played out pretty well. I had people to run with or to chase just ahead the entire time. My only regret is that I let a gap open up between me and a group of 4 ahead of me in the last few miles. I beat 2 out of 4, but with two guys less than 8 seconds ahead of me it leaves me thinking that if only I could have held on in that pack I could have placed 4th overall instead of 6th.

Some pictures from the helicopters. I'm in the bright green.
Early on in the race with a big group up front:


Later on after the big lead pack broke up: