Or better yet, put it in a bottle for me.

My running buddy Leah had set her goal at a sub-4-hour marathon, which would be besting her PR by, oh, about 52 minutes.  All right then!

Twelve weeks before the event, the MCM, she wanted to do an 8-mile run at noontime on the Mall as she started to ramp up for it.  We couldn't finish the run and had to walk much of the seventh mile.  (Leah training for the MCM.)

This didn't bode to well for running a marathon in eleven weeks with plans to smash your PR by increasing your previous-best marathon pace by over 2 minutes per mile, but she did have some medical issues which were cleared up through the power of Western medical magic although she lost another couple of weeks of training while her RX took effect.  I want a bottle of those pills.

We still ran at work, our normal six miles, and she reported her weekend long runs to me, sometimes doing them with her husband who is faster than her.  Still, I was concerned about her ability to even finish the race without crashing and burning as her weekend long runs as the race approached went something like this towards the end--14 miles; 16 miles; 18 miles; 20 miles; 14 miles; 10 miles; race weekend.  (Leah at her pre-race dinner party at her house, an event for runners only and which doubled as her law school reunion.)

 

   

Please chart that training course for me.

When my running buddy at work Leah killed her half marathon a year ago with a 1:50, a PR of over 25 minutes, she immediately started thinking 3:59 for the 2015 Marine Corps Marathon.  After all, there was plenty of time to train, over a year.

Never mind that her marathon PR was 4:51, she now had a substantial base and a plan.  She asked me to coach her, which was very flattering since she had just beaten me by almost four minutes in the half.

I thought she could do it, with the proper training.  Ah, there's the rub!

We ran the year round, but there were certainly no 15-milers, or even any 10-milers in there, and her base reverted to the 6-mile base we both normally have which is the maximum distance we can run at noontime and get back to work without being too delayed.  She hyper-flexed her knee in a hockey collision over the winter, an injury that bothers her to this day, and she couldn't run for many weeks, but she didn't ask me for any running advice and I saw no training plan emerge as spring turned to summer, and suddenly her 26.2 mile race was a mere 12 weeks away.

My first marathon

In 1970, I was a high school senior at an all-male boarding school, full of vim and vinegar, and I thought it would be cool to finish the Boston Marathon. I always looked for challenges that were different.

I was a wrestler in high school, but otherwise I had abandoned two years of running JV cross-country in order to play house (recreational), and then Fifth Form (club), football. You'd have to be a preppie to know what I'm talkin' about.

I think that high school cross country meets back in the 60s were 2.6 miles. The Boston Marathon had been in the news because that's where a male accosted a woman athlete and tried to drag her off the marathon course to ensure the "purity" of the sport of long-distance running, which hardly anyone even cared about back then. You see, women's constitutions were considered to be delicate, a myth I knew to be ridiculous, even in my youth. (Right: The way it was in 1967.)

I would be over 18 on the day of the race. I thought that I could do 26.2 miles, thanks to the energy of youth, even though my longest runs up until then (other than 5 mile training workouts which consisted of twenty quarter mile laps interspersed with 220 yards of walking) were those 2.6 mile cross country meets. I think a couple of meets might have been 5Ks. All I had to do was run the distance I was accustomed to, times ten. If I had to walk a bit in the latter stages, what was the big deal? Such is the brain of a teenager.

My guidance counselor at the school turned me down flat. Maybe he was wise and knew that I couldn't make 26 miles, no way no how, without a base.

I was irked because otherwise I was doing whatever I wanted on weekends. Meaning I'd sneak away from school for weekends in NYC while my stodgy stay-at-school roommate "checked" me in with the housemaster on Saturday nights. ("Oh Peter's here too. He's asleep.") Those were the late Vietnam years, when authority sort of adhered to "don't ask, don't tell" when it came to youth.

The problem was that the Boston Marathon was run on a Monday (Patriot's Day in MA) and I couldn't finagle being absent from school on a Monday in NJ without securing permission from a responsible school official. Permission was not forthcoming.

Sh*t, since I was already 1-A (that's draft lingo, I was draft-eligible because I refused to take a student-deferment as being an unfair entitlement), I thought, How could anyone refuse a request of mine?

I always regretted that missed opportunity to participate in the Boston Marathon before the advent of qualifying times.

My last marathon

I was in Boston yesterday, and I ran a marathon. Yeah, that Boston and yeah, that marathon. The bottom line: 4:15:35 (9:45).

Running it was a last minute opportunity for me and I certainly hadn't trained for a marathon. My last 20-miler was in September and when I tried to do a 16-miler in October, I crashed and burned at 12 miles. I ran a 10-mile race in January but then I hurt my toe and I had been taking it easy ever since. Lately I have been running low mileage on Saturdays at a 12-minute pace with the 10K Group Training Program that I coach for. Recently I did an hour of serious running before one such meeting with a friend, followed afterwards by four more 12-minute miles with the group, but that's been about it for my base.

Predictably, the wheels came off after 11 miles. My per-mile time slipped out of the eight-minute range into the nine-to-twelve minute range, and I started run/walking. However, approaching Heartbreak Hill, I told myself that I would never again be at the bottom of the most famous hill in all of runnerdom after having already traversed twenty miles on foot, and I was going to run all the way up it to the top, no matter what. Mentally fortified, I ran the next three miles and then I had a couple of more brief walking forays before running the last mile and a half to the finish.

I'm not embarassed about my time although my placement sucks, about 18,173/22,849, in the bottom twenty percent. My forever favorite marathon is still New York City, which I considered to be deceptively hard, but a Boston newspaper columnist called the NYCM a "JV race" compared to Boston, adding, "This is where hearts are broken, and sometimes bodies." Second-place finisher Daniel Rono said, "Boston is the toughest of all." I agree. Those hills (mostly downhills with a few wicked uphills) are crazy. My legs are totally on fire today.

Washington's Birthday Marathon Team Relay

In its 15th (of 20) weeks, the Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program I coach for met on Sunday morning, February 15th, in Greenbelt, MD to participate in the DC Road Runners Washington’s Birthday Marathon Relay race, the 8th oldest continuously-held marathon in the country. Coach Ellen volunteered at the race and dispensed the sweet elixir of life with a beatific countenance to thirsty runners at a water table. Coach Emily ran the full marathon in 4:13 and took third in her age group. Six 3-runner relay teams were fielded by Program participants. (Right: Coach Ellen, in blue, volunteering at last year's relay race with Je, in crimson. Last year Ellen was a Program trainee, this year she is a valuable coach.)

The marathon is a basic three-loop course, with additional distance accounted for by a run to the triple-loop at the start and a slog to the finish line at the end. The relay’s first leg is 9.7 miles and runs down a big hill into a large pastoral bowl bordered on one side by parkland and by rural highways on the other side. Emerging from the sheltered park onto the highway section in the fifth mile, runners brave headwinds, traffic and hills the rest of the way to the relay exchange point. The second leg is the 7.3 mile basic loop, and the anchor leg is 9.2 miles, running back up the big hill leading out of the park to the finish line.

Belying their name, the team formed by coach Matt, Sub 3 or Bust, won the Open Division with a time of 3:00:11. Matt turned in a torrid 6:15 per mile pace on what’s known as the Princess Leg, the middle 7.3 mile leg (which is almost always assigned to the female runner on Coed teams), as Jo and a guest runner ran only slightly slower on their longer legs in claiming the second team spot overall. A pesky Coed team snuck in five seconds ahead of these swift young men to claim the top team spot. (Left: Matt after his blistering run last year, when he did the first leg for his team.)

Coach Lauren did double duty, running the first leg for the White Jackets team of K and F, which finished in 4:07. Then Lauren anchored 2 Babes and a Tall Guy to a 3:42 time, which was good for the best finish among Program teams that didn’t have the rock star Matt on them. S and Joi handled the first two legs.

Right on Lauren’s heels was my teammate Ja, running eight-minute miles for the Satellite Cowboys which was the next Program team to finish, in 3:43. Jam ran an excellent Princess Leg for us after I got swallowed up by the hills on the backside of the first leg. I was glad to hand off the red Coed sash marker after experiencing my speed fall off precipitously during the run from a 7:57 first mile to an 8:46 overall pace.

Mere seconds behind the Cowboys was the Grumpy Old Men team, led by R, who passed me in the first leg as I was walking along in the fifth mile desperately sucking down a GU. Ju was the anchoring Old Man while a guest runner handled the short duty.

The next Program team to finish was Friends of Fleet Feet (an Adams Morgan running store, a community fixture), with St leading off and K and C following to turn in an excellent 4:19.

Many of these Program participants had never done a team race before. Everyone was totally stoked after his or her leg, even those runners like me who had a bad running day. (Did I mention the course is hilly?) The laughter was loud afterwards, bespeaking of the camaraderie on the course!

Back on track

I'm back on track. Not with my running, which has been non-existent since Saturday when I ran 13 miles with my training group and hurt my toe, but with my blood donating.

Last month the blood center rejected me because my blood pressure was too high, 182/106. Hitting the the century mark on the lower number is always a fatal reading.

Fatal to attempts to donate blood, that is. Apparently they're afraid that the drop in b/p caused by decreasing your volume of blood by taking a pint of it could be too precipitous if your b/p is too high to start with, and you could pass out.

Or worse, I guess.

I'm on b/p medicine (welcome to your 50s) but my dosage obviously needed some fine-tuning. I've been working on it.

There are always obstacles though. I upped my intake of the ace-inhibitor, which meant I needed to re-fill my RX sooner. Because I'm the health-conscious sort, I ran down to Kaiser from my house with a check, my Kaiser card and, just in case, my driver's license, to get a refill. By running back as well, I would make it a 5K workout.

The orderlies brought my bottle of pills to the counter and asked for the co-pay. I gave them my check for the stated amount, along with my driver's license. They already had my medical card.

They got antsy and called the manager over. She looked at my check and imperiously refused to take it, demanding that I pay by a credit card, which of course I didn't have on me. (Kaiser takes checks.)

The problem? My check, although it had my name printed on it, didn't have an address printed on it. It's a privacy thing.

The petty official acted absolutely dumbfounded that I could have checks without an address printed on them. She asked if anyone anywhere ever accepted my checks. Pointing to the check number, 1144, I said, "Sure, eleven hundred and forty three businesspersons have so far without a problem. And besides, I'm a customer of yours, and have been for ten years. You have my address on file."

Don't you hate it when officious types just make stuff up? I only got my meds by stonily refusing to run home and come back with a credit card. My "healthy outing" definitely raised my b/p.

Anyway, I went to the blood center today in mid-afternoon so I wouldn't be so close in time to my normal jangled, caffeine-induced morning state. This seemed to work as my b/p reading was lower, 168/87. However, the nurse was sure the machine was malfunctioning because it gave my pulse as 47. He was perplexed until I said I was a runner. "Oh," he said as he pranged my finger with a needle to get a blood sample.

He released a drop of my blood into a little jar of blue solution which had a disgusting, clumpy mass of blood from prior tests covering the bottom of the jar like a giant omeba. If your blood sinks into this mess, it has enough iron in it for you to donate blood. If it floats, you 're anemic and they won't take your blood.

I'm pretty sure that every woman on the planet is anemic according to this test and can't give blood, but for guys, usually their blood sinks into this slowy swirling bottom-clinging mass. Mine stopped halfway down, suspended in perfect stasis midway. Now what.

The nurse squeezed another blood drop out of my finger and took it into the next room. He came back sans the blood drop, happy. "Fifteen over three," he said in triumph. "I tested it in the other room." Apparently 15/3 is good. That's irony, I guess.

"What's wrong with that blood," I asked, indicating the red tear-shaped drop in the tube hovering immobile just above the clotted bloody cloud at the bottom.

"Oh, I got a tiny air bubble in it when I pulled it out of your finger into the crystalline tube. That's causing it to come to rest." Oh.

So I gave blood for the 78th time. But who's counting? I just hope the bloodletting doesn't impact too much on my effort in the hilly 9.3 mile anchor leg I'm doing in a marathon relay race in 40 hours.

Are You Ready for some Monday Night Footmall?

It has a catchy name, Monday Night Footmall. Sasha designed it.

Each Monday night while half the adult population in America is parked on couches or barstools sucking swill and watching Monday Night Football, a dozen runners in the nation's capital are toiling down the National Mall while looking at passing national monuments shrouded in shadows.

Sasha created an alternative mid-week medium length run for the Saturday long run in the Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program we both coach in. She directs the show out of the Fleet Feet location in the District.

She created this Monday night Mall crawl last year during the first year of the Program. The 6.5 mile evening run along the Mall leaves from her apartment building near the Watergate at 7:15 p.m., runs down 23rd Street to the Lincoln, up to and around the Capitol and comes back.

It started its second season this past Monday. I left my work late, 2 miles from its starting location, intending to join in. With only 15 minutes in which to get over there, rather than do 7:30s (traffic lights? What traffic lights? I'm a runner!) to try to get there in time, I ran over to Judiciary Square, grabbed a Smartbike, bicycled over to nearby Foggy Bottom where I dropped the bike off at a return rack over there, and ran up just as the group of twelve other runners was heading out under Sasha's tutelage. A pretty good first turn out.

We were a pretty tight bunch all the way to Lincoln, aided by the need to wait for lights at busy intersections, but on the Mall the group started to string out. It was a delightful night to be out running, cool, crisp and clear.

Up the Mall we journeyed, passing close by Vietnam and past World War Two, the Washington Monument, the various Smithsonians, the Statue Garden, and the Museum of Art. One of the group turned back here, frustrated at her lack of conditioning and the fact that she was last by a lot. I was running with her, and gave her explicit directions on how to get back, using the well-lit Constitution Avenue to achieve the diagonal street Virginia Avenue so as to travel back to near the Watergate by the most direct route.

Then I ran hard for a bit to catch up with the next couple of runners further up. Up ahead further I could see three more of our group, running together. Sasha and the lead pack were long gone from sight.

I ran with the couple the rest of the way. Both lawyers, I think they married but I'm not sure. They both were married, that's for sure. It's funny how conversations with strangers both give you information and don't.

In any case they went to law school together. And the woman had run in the same snowy marathon I had, the Inaugural Frederick Marathon in March, 2003, when it had snowed six inches during the race. My memory of that difficult run is very delightful, hers was very non-delightful. It's funny how perceptions differ.

The man was having real difficulty with the distance, so our progress was slow. The woman and I kept doubling back to collect him again. Eventually we made it up Capitol Hill, around the Capitol, and back down the Mall, cutting over to Constitution Avenue near the White House and using Virginia Avenue ourselves to shorten the distance a little. The man took a nasty tumble on a broken piece of sidewalk in the dark and, running with two lawyers who were probably married, I started thinking about liability as he lay on the ground for a bit holding his knee. But he professed to be okay and after awhile we proceeded on to the end of the run where everybody else was waiting for us. I loaded the injured party up with gratuitous advice about icing the area of discomfort, taking anti-inflammatory agents, resting the offended appendage, applying heat after 48 hours and making sure to call his doctor as a precaution. I told him my name was John Brown and I lived at 100 Main Street in Anytown.

Six and a half miles in seventy three minutes. It was a Mall crawl. I hadn't broken much of a sweat but my real workout was in getting over there on a bike, timing my pedaling on each block to make each light. DC has lights that count down the seconds left in the cycle, a device that absolutely promotes red-light running (you know, if you see the counter showing three seconds, you floor it).

I didn't get to chat with anybody in the front pack, but I sure got to know the folks in the back pack. It was fun.

Another friend breaks four hours

I want to congratulate my friends in blogland who ran in the recent 2008 Chicago Marathon, like CewTwo (who had the courage to DNF so he could come back to run another day), David, Petra and everyone else who participated. It was another hot run. The brutally hot 26.2-mile Fun Run the year before was my least favorite marathon race ever, so I know the obstacles these athletes had to contend with at Chicago.

You might remember H, who I coached in a couple of my club's 10K and 10-Mile Programs a few years ago. I ran with her the last six miles at last year's MCM, when she finished her first marathon in 4:07. As she limped away from the finishing line, she discovered that her car had been towed. Who said running marathons wasn't hard?

She trained hard all this year, sending out a regular weekly email and running every Saturday morning with all takers on the W&OD Trail. This dedicated runner is an inspiration. At Chicago earlier this month she ran 3:57 in the hot conditions. Congrats, H!

The bug bites deep

I have a hard and fast rule in life. I never disagree with a pregnant woman or a first time marathoner. The answer is always, Uh-huh. Peanut butter at 3 a.m? Sure. Can't do it? Uh, huh.

Sasha just ran her first marathon on Sunday, the MCM. Recently in training, she put me away in the twentieth mile of a 20-miler we did, a race. She scorched me the last mile, after I was so proud that I had HdTFU and caught back up with her from 20 meters back at MP 19.

But she still wasn't ready. Knee hurt. Lost a day. Ran slow. Was tired. Had to travel. You know.

She emailed folks saying she wanted to do 4:00 (she put it out there) but feared she only had a 4:15 inside her instead (we all should be so lucky!). She didn't know, but maybe marathons weren't her thing.

So she merely reeled off a 3:51. Whew.

And yesterday she emailed that the California International Marathon in December looked good. Maybe her BQ of 3:40 was there. This race is evidently the Left Coast equivalent of the Steamtown Marathon. Do you suppose she spent the morning after, when she should have been sore and shuffling around her house quaffing aspirins, surfing marathons on the Internet instead?

She's gone down hard. You go girl.

Hot hot hot

I ran my eighth consecutive DC Race For The Cure yesterday, in 27:54 (8:59). That time includes the two minutes it took me to get across the starting line in this gun-timed "race." I couldn't get to doing more than a lot of sideways running before the last mile because of the crush of people on the course. Actually, Race for the Cures are big social events (I've done twenty scattered about the country from NYC to Denver), a chance to get outside and move around some. They're fun.

The day tied a heat record at 98 degrees and the heat was unbearable even at 8 am. An hour earlier I had been at Iwo Jima across the river in Virginia where my club starts its SLRs, to cheer on the participants in my club's Marathon Training Program. There were about ten coaches and about 30 trainees there for their first training run that will, hopefully, lead them all across the finish line of the MCM in the fall. I don't have much to do with this program as it is run on a different model (a "mentoring" approach) than the programs I direct (which have been described by some club members as "chaperoned running groups"). The MTP is ably directed by Ben and Kristin. They put together a great-looking training sheet for it, covering all the weeks. The first run was ten miles. Off they all went in the early morning heat. Welcome to marathon training.

Then I jogged over to the start of the DCRFTC 5K about two miles away. Five minutes into the run I was sopping wet. Five minutes into the actual race I was thinking, Where is the finish line? It's never a good race for me when that thought strikes me so early.

That's what I did yesterday. That jaunt in a sauna just wore me out. It's supposed to approach one hundred degrees today.

When Pigs Fly.

I went to Cincinnati last weekend as my club's representative at the RRCA's 50th Anniversity Convention which was held there. I voted our club line, enrolled in a couple of very interesting classes on Lactate Tolerance and Sports Psychology, and attended lectures on Club Training Programs and Trail Running. (What I took away from the trail running lecture is to say no thanks. They were talking about how to get down a very steep loose scree slope that is very slippery (like ball bearings), apparently by jumping, land and turn as you slide, jump, land and turn as you slide, etc.)

This gave me a chance to run the Flying Pig Marathon. This is a very well put on marathon. The experience was a blast. The course, however, is, uh, challenging.

Before I went, I looked at its topographical map. It looks like a giant anaconda which has just swallowed a bus. Steady as she goes til MP 6, then a hellacious climb to MP 8, then down the other side and out. Sort of like National, with its climb and descent in the early mid-part of the marathon, before fatigue turns inclines into hills and hills become mountains. Very doable, on paper.

Still, one of Cincinnati's several nicknames is The City of Seven Hills. I no longer wonder why.

My training was abbreviated because I didn't know I was running this May marathon until sometime in April, when I was offered the opportunity to go to Cincinnati. I went out and was able to finish a 20-miler so I figured I could do the Pig. The next week I ran a 15-miler, the week after that a 16-miler and the week before the marathon I did a 10-miler. Then I lined up at 6:30 am on Sunday with the 3:40 pace group, "ready" to go. I had ankle and hamstring issues, but they wouldn't delay the start til I got 100%. Go figure.

They did delay the start, however, for a fire on the course. This caused a course alteration which lengthened the course. But unlike at Army in 2005, this did NOT turn the marathon into a Cincinnati Fun Run. They adjusted appropriately on the fly. (Are you listening, Chicago?)

By the time the starting cannon was fired, however, I was really ready to go, if you know what I mean. A quarter mile down the course I was relieved to find a handy bush along the Ohio. I never saw the 3:40 group again. Left to my own resources, I soon settled into a steady pace.

A jog by the Great American Ballpark (Reds) took us onto the Taylor Bridge into Kentucky. Two miles later we were back in Ohio running through downtown Cincinnati. We ran by the sports bar where I ate dinner and hydrated the two prior nights. Tragically, this was where I watched live on TV while Kentucky Derby runnerup Eight Belles was put to death the night before. Horse racing has a real problem.

Soon we surmounted what I thought was the climb of the race. It wasn't too bad and now I was literally at the top of the world. Up there I could see the Ohio far below, glinting in the morning sun. Downtown Cincinnati and its bridges were visible behind me, and stretching out in front was the great bend of the river.

But soon I discovered that the hills were far from done. Still ahead were lots more rolling hills, inclines, and, worst of all, short, sharp hills. Little ten and twenty-yard rollers that lifted up and down like a crazy roller coaster track. Major combat wasn't over. Well, bring 'em on.

The halfway mark came and went. We toured the Cincinnati suburbs to the NE. Suburbs are suburbs but the crowd support was great. We ran down some bike paths, which I always find interesting in marathons (where does this one go? Does it go all the way to downtown?).

We were actually detouring around the early-morning conflagration and the course was being stretched out thereby but hey, we all ran the same distance. Nobody made it "unofficial" thereby. (Cincinnati did a great job. This is a great marathon.)

We ran over a controlled-access four-lane divided highway where we got the shoulder and one lane, while the cars got the other lane. A line of orange plastic cones protected us dead-tired runners from them. Do you think the cars slowed down? (This is the midwest. Actually, many did.)

And then we were on the home stretch! A large sign announced the last mile. I tried to pick it up but the last mile was long, I tell ya. I finished in under four hours on all registers, the gun time, the chip time and the adjusted time due to the course lengthening. I loved this marathon. What more can I say?

Marathons

I ran a marathon on Sunday.

Marathons are like, I imagine, combat. Intense experiences that you need time to decompress from. The closest I have ever come to a combat experience was the nine years of police work I did. Most nights I was out on my own on patrol, focused, active, confronting situations fraught with peril, occasionally experiencing fear (or once or twice, terror). It was intense and, at times, dangerous work. Twenty years after I left it, I'm still decompressing from it. Marathons are a lot like that.

You never really get over any of them. I can vividly remember each one I have run. For the several hours that you are engaged in them you are thrust deeply into their immediacy. All actions are aimed towards the solitary completion of a difficult task. Hours of drudgery and acute discomfort are coupled with an occasional uplifting moment such as when you view a magnificent vista or come upon a rehabilitating wounded veteran struggling along doggedly on injured or missing limbs.

You are limited by the possible. Do you need a 5:40 in the last mile to PR? It ain't gonna happen so enjoy the finish. Do you need a 7:40 instead? Then it's time to get a move on and hope for the best.

Like a soldier placed into the field, the whole community supports you. The supply train is loaded and people hand you drinks, food or comfort in the form of aspirin, cooling sprays or encouragement. If you falter, they will immediately succor you. But you have to go it alone. No one can cover any part of the 26 miles for you. On the race course, there is no place to hide from the elephant.

Also, you can't escape from your own effort. Were you a coward, did you do your duty, or did you perform extraordinarily? Deep down, you know the answer. It's your own secret, but the knowledge is there within you.

A few years back, a friend, perhaps feeling the tug of mortality after passing the half-century mark, asked me if I had done even one thing in years that had left me feeling truly exhilarated. The way the question was asked implied that after long reflection the answer would invariably be no, sort of like when W was asked if he could think of any mistake he had made following 9/11.

The answer instantly sprang into my head. Sure, I replied, I feel that way after every marathon.

That's how I felt about it then, and that's how I feel about it now.

What is the longest word in the English language?

Smiles. It has a mile between the S's.

An old injury reared its head recently--my left ankle swelled up and started hurting, the one I sprained last summer when I stepped in a hole while training for the Chicago Fun Run. I think its recurrence is from overuse, as I put in a 40 mile week followed by (for the first time ever for me) a 50 mile week.

Over the course of several consecutive weekends, I had put together long runs of 13.1, 20, 15 and 16.2 miles. Suddenly I woke up and couldn't walk without pain, much less run a marathon on the suddenly bum-again ankle. So I have been laying off of it.

I started wearing a heavy ankle brace and running miles. As in solitary miles. As in speed work.

I have also been attending yoga classes, at the community center, Which is exactly a mile from my house. How handy.

Tuesday I ran to yoga class at a comfortable lope, in what I hoped was an eight-minutes-per-mile pace. In fact it was 7:45. I ran home afterwards, all relaxed from the savasana, in 7:24.

Wednesday my ankle was a little swollen but it also felt a little bit better. So I attended my club's weekly track workout. The schedule called for four one-mile repeats, with a brief recovery run between each mile, on the nearby hilly Custis Trail (there was a lacrosse game in progress at the high school so the track was closed). I cut down the warmup, recovery and cooldown runs to save mileage. My splits were 7:26, 7:40, 7:49 and 7:51. No negative splits there!

Today I ran the mile to yoga in 7:17. Returning home all warmed up from an hour of stretching, I pushed it and turned the mile in 6:54.

I don't feel bad about causing my malady's onset, because how do you prepare for a marathon without running long, often? Lots of people run 50 miles per week while getting ready for marathons.

My injury is getting better. I couldn't run a marathon right now but I hope to be able to soon. I'm taking it one day at a time, one mile at a time.

The National Marathon: Recap.

National Marathon Recap: Marathon Training Lite.

Now that I have signed up for the Chicago Marathon, I should analyze what I did to train for the National Marathon last month so hopefully I can improve.

I ran the NYCM on Sunday, November 5, 2006 in 3:52:34 (8:52). I was in pretty good shape for a marathon then, although I bonked at MP 21 and walked at least a half dozen times from there. In the twenty weeks between New York and National, I didn’t correct my most glaring weakness, which is my lack of a mileage base. Here’s a recap of my training between marathons.

4 Weeks of Recovery from New York:
November, 2006
Week 20: 2 runs, 3.8 miles. Yoga twice, biking once.
Week 19: 2 runs, 3 miles. Ran the monthly noontime 3K race around the Tidal Basin in 13:16 (7:07).
Week 18: 3 runs, 9 miles. Ran a tempo 3K (7:16). Yoga once.
Week 17: 4 runs, 11.3 miles. Yoga once.

16 Weeks of Training for National:
December, 2006
Week 16: 1 run, 4.4 miles (7:53), running on the Mall with G, who last week ran a 3:14 Boston.
Week 15: 3 runs, 19.1 miles. LSD of 11 miles (8:46).
Week 14: 5 runs, 24.1 miles. LSD of 12 miles (8:43). Back to my standard of running five times a week. Ran my last race of the year, the noontime Tidal Basin 3K, 13:09 (7:03).
Week 13: 5 runs, 22 miles. LSD of 11.6 miles (8:48). Tempo 3.75 miles finished by running up Capitol Hill (8:09).
January, 2007
Week 12: 5 runs, 22.3 miles. LSD of 7 miles (8:27). I start leading a Saturday LSD group that is gearing up for the National Half-Marathon in twelve weeks, but none of them want to run more than 6 or 7 miles yet. Tempo 5.6 miles (8:11),
Week 11: 5 runs, 22.4 miles. LSD of 13.5 miles (8:40), achieved by running 5.5 miles (8:00) to my Saturday group run and then running 8 miles (9:07) with them. I am very fatigued during the last mile.
Week 10: 5 runs, 17.8 miles. LSD of 9 miles (9:57). Noontime 3K race 13:28 (7:13). One Kickboxing class. The weather has turned bitterly cold for the duration.
Week 9: 5 runs, 21.6 miles. LSD of 10 miles (8:40). Two tempo runs on Wednesday of 5.6 miles (8:06) and 2.5 miles (8:00).
Week 8: 5 runs, 5 miles. Very busy at work. I run a mile five times when I can. 8:00, 7:34, 7:44, 6:48, 6:44.
February 2007
Week 7: 5 runs, 23.3 miles. LSD of 18 miles (8:58), achieved by running 7 miles (9:00) and then seventeen minutes later running 11 miles (8:57) with my group. I was really fatigued the last two miles and although I rallied and passed Bex near the end, she ran me down and finished half a minute ahead of me.
Week 6: 1 run, 11 miles. LSD of 11 miles (8:55). A and Jake finished several minutes ahead of me. I hurt myself shoveling snow.
Week 5: 5 runs, 18.6 miles. LSD of 9.2 miles (8:26). I ran this distance at a Marathon Relay. (Our Washington's Birthday Marathon Relay team. Myself 9.2 miles (8:26), L 7.3 miles (8:27) and D 9.7 miles (8:06). We finished fourth in 3:36:56 (8:17), 3:40 slower than in 2006 when we finished sixth. D ran the third leg 3:24 faster last year than I did it this year.) Last year I ran 9.7 miles at the same relay at a 7:59 pace. This year the wind was brutal but I didn’t have any oomph and I wilted on the last big hill where two other relay runners passed me without any response from me. At least I didn’t walk up the hill. Noontime short 3K race 12:31 (7:07), where I couldn't hold off a late charge by a competitor. My club’s current 10K Group Training Program starts on Saturdays which compounds my mileage problem since I’ll be going 10K distances with them on weekends, not marathon distances. I’m starting to sweat the marathon coming up.
Week 4: 5 runs, 15.7 miles. I do my only track workout 4X800s (4:00, 3:25, 3:20, 3:00). Yoga once.
March, 2007
Week 3: 5 runs, 34.9 miles. LSD of 23.3 miles (10:05), achieved by running 11.8 miles (9:52) then ninety minutes later running 11.5 miles (10:18). The last five miles about killed me. 2.5 mile Tempo run (7:58).
Week 2: 3 runs, 21.6 miles. LSD of 14.6 miles (7:59). I ran this distance at a Marathon Relay with Bex, and we take first in the co-ed division. I conclude from this showing that I am capable of running the National Marathon and I finally sign up for it.
Week 1: 1 run, 1.8 miles. This is the noontime 3K race in 12:52 (6:54) on Wednesday, during which I hold off a competitor late. On Saturday I run a 3:50:22 (8:48) at National. The last 10 miles are miserable. I need more base.

Totals for the 16 week training period leading up to National:
Sixteen Weeks 64 runs (4 per week).
285.5 miles (17.85 per week). One week of over 26.2 miles (week 3). Avg. of 4.46 miles per run (including LSDs).
Long runs: Eight runs of 10 miles or more. Breakdown, longest runs first:
23.3 (Week 3, 11.8 miles, 90-minute break, then 11.5 miles)
18 (Week 7, seven miles, 17-minute break, then eleven miles).
14.6 (Week 2) (Race)
13.5 (Week 11)
12 (Week 14)
11 (Week 6)
11 (Week 15)
10 (Week 9)
9.2 (Week 5) (Race)
9 (Week 10)
7 (Week 12)
One track workout. No hill workouts. Seven races.

I think I need more miles.