Feeling the Marathon Groove

For most of my life, most of the people who have known me, know that I'm a runner.  And man, if I had a dollar for every time I heard:

How many marathons have you run?
Oh you so run a lot of marathons?
What's your fastest marathon?

I always kept a few snarky responses in my repitoir like "I like to run fast, not far" or "Oprah ran a marathon, real men run fast."  Usually I would be far more gracious and briefly explain how I like traing to get faster at shorter distances (as if running 5K's and 10K's makes me a sprinter).

In 2005 - when I was 3 years out of college, I felt like I needed a project outside of work.  It's not terribly far from the truth to say that I finally realized it would be less work to just go run a marathon rather than keep explaining why I've never run one.  I turned my 3 - 4 days a week of afternoon 4 or 5 mile runs into the same distance 5 days a week plus a weekend long run.  I showed up at the California International Marathon, and dispite some digestive complications ran a solid 2:43.  That 20 mile bonk never happened, in fact I didn't slow at all in the later miles, it just started to hurt worse and worse!

After that 2005 CIM I was excited to run another, but as other interests crept into my life, I was running less and less...  A few years later, I joined the West Valley Track Club & started training again, but I was having so much fun working on getting my speed back, that I never looked toward the 26.2 distance, at least not in the near term.

Heading into this fall's cross country season, I knew I needed more overall endurance.  The couple years I have been comfortable rolling on fast intervals on the track, but couldn't hold paces anywhere close during races of 5K and longer.  I always like hearing what elite runners have to about their races, and something that my college teammate Lauren Fleshman said really struck me.  Lauren finished a very impressive 7th at the World Championships 5,000 meter race, staying in contact with the leaders until 2 laps to go!  Afterward she was asked if she would work on her speed so that she could run a 60 second last lap like the best in the world could do.  Her response (paraphrased) - I've run 60 seconds at the end of a 5K before, but off a slower pace.  I don't need more speed, I need more strength so I can tap into my speed at the end of a fast pace like this. 

I had been realizing the same thing about my running.  All the track speed in the world won't help me run a 5K or 10K if the wheels are going to fall off after 10 minutes of hard running.  I also looked back at prior seasons and just saw myself taking way too many short cuts.  I needed that true pyramid style training program.  First build the volume, then the endurance, then after the foundation was in place start working on the higher quality work. 

Over the summer I looked to build my mileage to consistently be at 60-70 miles per week, with frequent tempo and progression runs, and finally long runs around 2 hours (~17 miles).  Other than occasional strides, I wasn't worried about tapping into speed and fast interval work until well after the cross country races started in late August.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had the thought - if everything goes well, let's look toward finally returning to the Cal International Marathon, 6 years later.

Building endurance (or as runners call it "strength") over sharpness worked well.  Out of the 6 PA cross country races I ran, I hit my fastest times ever on 4 of those courses.  In late September & early October, when it came time to add more race specific fitness, the workout paces felt fast, but I found myself just not getting as tired toward the end of workouts as I used to. 

Encouraged by my mileage, and the consistency of my longer workouts, I decided to pull the trigger and enter this year's CIM.  Still I felt the need to cap my training cycle with a good 3 weeks of high volume, and marathon specific workouts.  Over the previous three weeks, I hit weekly mileage over 70, and long runs of 20, 20, 23, 21 miles.  Toward the end of last week, the training was taking it's toll.  I was tired most the time, and ALWAYS sore.  I told my wife that I was loving the feeling of being fit, but really looking forward to starting my taper. 

Finally last Sunday, the last day of that three week (plus one day counting the previous week's long run) stretch, was the day to do my toughest marathon workout.  The idea was to run 8 miles, starting slow then progressing the pace, then finishing with 12 miles at marathon pace - targeting 5:50 to 5:55 per mile.  I woke up super early to eat so that I could start the workout at 7am - the time the race would be starting.  Sawyer Camp in San Mateo is a favorite place to work out with it's half mile distance markers and scenic views.  The first 8 miles went smoothly, I started at 7 min per mile and ended just over 6 min pace, averaging 6:25 / mile.  Back at the car I quickly changed to some lighter shoes, ate a gel, and headed out for the fun part.  The excitement got to me quickly as I rolled through the first mile in 5:35.  That was lesson 1 of what not to do in the race.  I settled down and then ran between 5:45 - 5:50 for the next 3 miles. I was going faster than I intended but felt comfortable enough.  Miles 5 and 6 were uphill, so I wasn't worred the pace was slower than 6:00.  At the turn around, I let gravity do the work running 5:25 and 5:30 for 7 & 8.  I knew the last 4 miles would be tough as I'd be tired and going from downhill to flat running again.  Regardless the pace never wavered as I hit splits of 5:34 - 5:38 for the last 4.  My average pace for the 12 miles was 5:43 pace - exactly 2:30 marathon pace! 

It's great when you have that one workout that gives you a huge confidence boost heding into a big race.  I was feeling the marathon groove.  The race is 15 days away, I'm ready to go!