Coming Back Strong
This was the first week of my marathon training for the
Carmwl(IN) marathon on April 20, 2014. I am using the F.I.R.S.T. program (3 Days a Week-“Run Less,
Run Faster”) for about the 9th time, but I have not run a marathon
since Boston 2012.
This week went well; I was wavering between the 3:30 goal
finishing time that qualified me for Boston 3 times, and 3:35/3:40, as a
concession to age and my knee surgery a year ago. The BAA did not make it easier
for me moving into the 50-554 age group either; they took away that 5 minute slower
qualifying time, effectively making me run a 3:30 from age 45 to age 54. They
even made it tougher by ranking ‘potential’ entrants. So, if there are more
50-54 qualifiers than there are slots, they take 50-54 year old guys with a
3:20 for a week, then 3:25, and finally the mere mortals like me. It seems like
2-4 minutes faster than your qualifying time has been needed the last few
years, so I would probably have to PR by 2 minutes than my 3:29:32 in 2009.
My goal for this marathon is not to PR or qualify for
Boston, but to see how my knee holds up the marathon distance, and if distance
running will be part of my future. But
the way it looks this week, the 3:30 pace might be the right one for me. My first run in this 16 week program was
speedwork on Monday, mile repeats with 400 m rest interval- 6:52 pace. I had
new shoes, and I wanted to test them out on the indoor track, in case I needed
to bring them back. (Not very likely that I would since they are Mizuno Wave
Riders, just like my last 10-12 pairs of running shoes). I hit the time for the
first 2 miles, but only did a 6:59 for the last one. On Thursday, I was supposed to do a tempo run-
2 miles easy/2 miles at 7:23, then 2 miles cooldown. For various reasons, kids schedules, no GPS
signal, I decided to only do a 1 mile warmup and cooldown. And I was not real
confident about that 7:23 for 2 miles, because I had slipped to 7minutes in
just a mile. A quarter mile into my tempo portion, the GPS kicked in. It gave me 6:45 for that ¾ mile, and 6:59 for
the second mile, so I am pretty sure I beat that 7:23.
Saturday was going to be my first 13 miler- at an 8:42 pace.
My friend John was coming over to run
with me. I have an 8 mile loop course from
my house, and we add out and back and a smaller satellite loop. The last few
times I have run this hilly course with John, he has dropped me on the toughest
hills, and had to double back or wait for me. So my main goal was to rein him
in and try to keep the pace at 8:30. I did not succeed at that, since our first
few miles were under 8:15. But just before the toughest hill, John
(uncharacteristicslly) talked about feeling fatigued or pizza and a glass of
wine the night before. We paused for a
minute, and we did pretty good up that hill, but I think caution reined him in,
which allowed me to hang with him for a change. I offered to run him back to
the house, and go on by myself, but he stuck it out. I had another good friend,
every bit as fast as John, (about the same age then) have an incident on the
trail where he had some kind of seizure. One of group stayed with him, but I
continued my run, and I vowed not to leave a friend behind again.
We held
a pretty good pace after that, and the hills were not done. We were dropping
below 7:00 for 100 yards at a time, and 7:30 was a coming number on our
watches. We did not get all the
extensions we needed by the end, and we got to my house just about to hit 12
miles. I tossed my water belt on my driveway, and bore down for a mile-point
something loop around my neighborhood. We finished running to the corner of my
block, with a 7:55 average for 13 miles. Usually with this program, they
expect you to run 13 miles at your goal marathon pace 2 weeks before your race,
not the first week of the program. So I pretty much crushed the first week’s
tempo run and long run for a Boston Qualifying time of 3:30, and did okay on
the speedwork for a 3:35 time. So I am sort of a mixed bag/schizophrenic. I don’t
get too hung up on an individual workout’s pace, and that was my first workout,
and I ran on an indoor track (more turns), and I was getting over a cold …(that
should be enough excuses), hopefully I can hit the faster speedwork paces of
the 3:30 training program. So that settles it, I will train for a 3:30 pace,
the same pace I ran in the 2007 Green Bay Marathon. Tune in during the coming
weeks to see how this works out.
