My carmelized onion, blue cheese and BBQ burger at the All Star Sandwich Bar and the tap list at The Lizard Lounge in the basement of Cambridge Common. Pretty much sums it up.
Week 42 - Week ending 18OCT2026
1 week ago
Friday, May 14, 2010
Epilogue: Now that all the running is done
My carmelized onion, blue cheese and BBQ burger at the All Star Sandwich Bar and the tap list at The Lizard Lounge in the basement of Cambridge Common. Pretty much sums it up.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Hopkinton to Boston
Funny, just as I started to type this, a song called 'Marathon' by the French Canadian group Poirier started playing on the podcast I'm listening to. Weird.
The one thing that stands out to me when I remember the race in Boston is the influence that other people have had on my training and on my race. The blogger community has been so instructive and supportive that I hardly get embarrassed at all anymore when I refer to my 'internet friends'
I would never have attempted to qualify if it weren't for my friend Brian who believed that I could do it. Once I had been convinced, reluctantly that I could make a legit attempt at a BQ, I signed on with Tim, who trained me up enough to put up a qualifying time in Vegas December 2008.
And so, almost 2 years later, I found myself rolling through the hills of New England.
The most memorable thing about Boston is the amount of people who come out to support the race. There really isn't a single spot on the race course without spectators. In some places they were two, three rows deep on the fence and in downtown Boston they were stacked four, five rows deeps on the sidewalks. Really incredible support.
First mile was packed and I felt trapped. Were moving slow and I was constantly looking at my watch. First mile was about 7:20 and I knew I had to make up time.
I remembered some advice from Kerrie who told me to find a group that was running my pace and let them carry me along to a good time. Trouble was I started a few corrals back from anyone running 6:50's so the first 10 miles I spent running alone trying to hide from the wind on the rare occasion it blustered up and looking for a pack. I had the Garmin set to show only current pace, elapsed time and average pace. I kept pressing hoping to get that average down to 6:50 before half.
At halfway is Wellesley College and the sound gave me goosebumps. Yes, you can hear it before you get there. Yes, it sounds exactly like what you think it will sound like. One side of the road for 1/4 mile with screaming girls separated from the course by a crowd control fence. Adidas has seized on the marketing opportunity and many of these screaming collegians had branded signs that said 'Kiss me I'm_________________'. Kiss me I'm Irish, Kiss me I'm from Georgia, Kiss me I'm a senior (my vote for 'most likely to work'), Kiss me we're on TV (my vote for 'least likely to work'. Hello, I have a wife!). Loud, crazy, unbelievable. Chicks dig runners. Honest.
For me, Wellesley unofficially marked the end of 'things to look forward to'. The rest of the course had Heartbreak Hill, the stupid flippin Citgo sign and the last 6 miles, other wise known as 'things I would later realize I was right to be worried about'.
Halfway was also the next time a blogger's words popped into my head. I passed through half in 1:30:30, a 2 min PR for the half. I remembered Kerrie's post about her crushing defeat at the hands of GG in their last open marathon and Glenn's quote popped into my head 'I just set a PR in the half, I better slow down'. Kerrie's advice to GG, which would later come back to bite her in the ass, was that it was a race, and in a race you don't slow down on purpose. Well, i didn't slow down on purpose, but I did slow down. By mile 17, I was starting to fatigue and Kerrie's advice popped into my head again "Just turn off your brain and run". By the time I hit the rollers at mile 18-ish the downhill first half and aggressive pacing had taken their toll.
My quads were cooked and there was no turning off my brain. I started to cramp in the quads and calves and was bleeding speed all over the course. I was still moving but a sub 3 time slipping away.
Halfway up Heartbreak was the first and only time I stopped to walk in the race. My legs were done and I was losing it a bit mentally. For the last time that day, another person influenced the outcome of my race.
I was walking, staring into space trying to collect myself and will the legs to get going. The hill was half done and my legs were hella sore from the downhill pounding and cramping. Then, from the corner of my eye I noticed movement and a lady who I remember mostly as a voice and tiny 5'2" shadow takes a full step off the sidewalk onto the race course and angrily shouts into my ear, her surprise, disappointment and near disgust booming:
YOU'RE A TRAINED RUNNER!
C'MON!!!!!
I'd be willing to bet my next week's salary that she has experience coaching track athletes. Exactly what I needed to snap me back to reality.
Or course, the only thing I could do was start running again and as I chugged up the rest of the hill I could hear her shouting encouragement behind me.
Whoever you were, thanks for that.
By the top of Heartbreak, it was obvious the 3 hours had come and gone. I took a shot and it wasn't my day. I was okay with it but there was still a lot of race left. I'm sure that fatigue played a role in my decision, but with that goal gone I decided that I had two options: kill myself to run a 3:08 or try and enjoy the rest of my day in Boston as much as possible. I went with plan B.
Three things of note about the race course from mile 20 in:
1) It's downhill again. Not great news for the quads.
2) Boston College does not get the credit it deserves for the fan support. The course narrows and you essentially run through a tunnel of screaming college students. It was sweet, although a runner who went through before me later mentioned that he saw a soccer ball pop out of the crowd and onto the course. Hmmmmm.
3) There is a Citgo sign that is well, well, publicized for marking the last mile of the course. Well, what is not so well publicized is that you can see that freakin sign for 2 miles before you actually get there. Yeah, it's huge and you run at it, and run at it, and run at it and it never seems to get any closer. I get that it's an icon, and although I don't even know what Citgo is, I'm boycotting their products. ;)
Last 6 were coasting with the occasional burst to see if the legs were finished cramping. They weren't.
Jamie was waiting near the finish. I had my head on a swivel to try and spot her. Good luck, city was packed out. Grandstands at the finish line against the building in the middle of the frame.
She did snap a great shot of me just after trying to throw down a surge to the finish. Legs cramped and I basically stiff-legged it to try and keep moving and run out the cramps. Couldn't have timed it any worse! Gives a good idea of what the last few miles felt like. I'm mid screen in the red.
Smoooooth...
And that was it. The race was done and the goal of running Boston had been accomplished. Collected my medal, grabbed my food which was cleverly preloaded into a branded lunch bag, got changed, met Jamie.
Once back in Cambridge I realized that other people's influence over my race was done but influence over my day was not.
I had promised my Mom that I would get a photo of myself in my race bib and I hadn't done that yet. So, like any good son, I put my wet singlet back on and ran down the streets of Cambridge painfully recreating the race to get a photo for mom.
The one thing that stands out to me when I remember the race in Boston is the influence that other people have had on my training and on my race. The blogger community has been so instructive and supportive that I hardly get embarrassed at all anymore when I refer to my 'internet friends'
I would never have attempted to qualify if it weren't for my friend Brian who believed that I could do it. Once I had been convinced, reluctantly that I could make a legit attempt at a BQ, I signed on with Tim, who trained me up enough to put up a qualifying time in Vegas December 2008.
And so, almost 2 years later, I found myself rolling through the hills of New England.
The most memorable thing about Boston is the amount of people who come out to support the race. There really isn't a single spot on the race course without spectators. In some places they were two, three rows deep on the fence and in downtown Boston they were stacked four, five rows deeps on the sidewalks. Really incredible support.
First mile was packed and I felt trapped. Were moving slow and I was constantly looking at my watch. First mile was about 7:20 and I knew I had to make up time.
I remembered some advice from Kerrie who told me to find a group that was running my pace and let them carry me along to a good time. Trouble was I started a few corrals back from anyone running 6:50's so the first 10 miles I spent running alone trying to hide from the wind on the rare occasion it blustered up and looking for a pack. I had the Garmin set to show only current pace, elapsed time and average pace. I kept pressing hoping to get that average down to 6:50 before half.
At halfway is Wellesley College and the sound gave me goosebumps. Yes, you can hear it before you get there. Yes, it sounds exactly like what you think it will sound like. One side of the road for 1/4 mile with screaming girls separated from the course by a crowd control fence. Adidas has seized on the marketing opportunity and many of these screaming collegians had branded signs that said 'Kiss me I'm_________________'. Kiss me I'm Irish, Kiss me I'm from Georgia, Kiss me I'm a senior (my vote for 'most likely to work'), Kiss me we're on TV (my vote for 'least likely to work'. Hello, I have a wife!). Loud, crazy, unbelievable. Chicks dig runners. Honest.
For me, Wellesley unofficially marked the end of 'things to look forward to'. The rest of the course had Heartbreak Hill, the stupid flippin Citgo sign and the last 6 miles, other wise known as 'things I would later realize I was right to be worried about'.
Halfway was also the next time a blogger's words popped into my head. I passed through half in 1:30:30, a 2 min PR for the half. I remembered Kerrie's post about her crushing defeat at the hands of GG in their last open marathon and Glenn's quote popped into my head 'I just set a PR in the half, I better slow down'. Kerrie's advice to GG, which would later come back to bite her in the ass, was that it was a race, and in a race you don't slow down on purpose. Well, i didn't slow down on purpose, but I did slow down. By mile 17, I was starting to fatigue and Kerrie's advice popped into my head again "Just turn off your brain and run". By the time I hit the rollers at mile 18-ish the downhill first half and aggressive pacing had taken their toll.
My quads were cooked and there was no turning off my brain. I started to cramp in the quads and calves and was bleeding speed all over the course. I was still moving but a sub 3 time slipping away.
Halfway up Heartbreak was the first and only time I stopped to walk in the race. My legs were done and I was losing it a bit mentally. For the last time that day, another person influenced the outcome of my race.
I was walking, staring into space trying to collect myself and will the legs to get going. The hill was half done and my legs were hella sore from the downhill pounding and cramping. Then, from the corner of my eye I noticed movement and a lady who I remember mostly as a voice and tiny 5'2" shadow takes a full step off the sidewalk onto the race course and angrily shouts into my ear, her surprise, disappointment and near disgust booming:
YOU'RE A TRAINED RUNNER!
C'MON!!!!!
I'd be willing to bet my next week's salary that she has experience coaching track athletes. Exactly what I needed to snap me back to reality.
Or course, the only thing I could do was start running again and as I chugged up the rest of the hill I could hear her shouting encouragement behind me.
Whoever you were, thanks for that.
By the top of Heartbreak, it was obvious the 3 hours had come and gone. I took a shot and it wasn't my day. I was okay with it but there was still a lot of race left. I'm sure that fatigue played a role in my decision, but with that goal gone I decided that I had two options: kill myself to run a 3:08 or try and enjoy the rest of my day in Boston as much as possible. I went with plan B.
Three things of note about the race course from mile 20 in:
1) It's downhill again. Not great news for the quads.
2) Boston College does not get the credit it deserves for the fan support. The course narrows and you essentially run through a tunnel of screaming college students. It was sweet, although a runner who went through before me later mentioned that he saw a soccer ball pop out of the crowd and onto the course. Hmmmmm.
3) There is a Citgo sign that is well, well, publicized for marking the last mile of the course. Well, what is not so well publicized is that you can see that freakin sign for 2 miles before you actually get there. Yeah, it's huge and you run at it, and run at it, and run at it and it never seems to get any closer. I get that it's an icon, and although I don't even know what Citgo is, I'm boycotting their products. ;)
Last 6 were coasting with the occasional burst to see if the legs were finished cramping. They weren't.
Jamie was waiting near the finish. I had my head on a swivel to try and spot her. Good luck, city was packed out. Grandstands at the finish line against the building in the middle of the frame.
She did snap a great shot of me just after trying to throw down a surge to the finish. Legs cramped and I basically stiff-legged it to try and keep moving and run out the cramps. Couldn't have timed it any worse! Gives a good idea of what the last few miles felt like. I'm mid screen in the red.
Smoooooth...
And that was it. The race was done and the goal of running Boston had been accomplished. Collected my medal, grabbed my food which was cleverly preloaded into a branded lunch bag, got changed, met Jamie.
Once back in Cambridge I realized that other people's influence over my race was done but influence over my day was not.
I had promised my Mom that I would get a photo of myself in my race bib and I hadn't done that yet. So, like any good son, I put my wet singlet back on and ran down the streets of Cambridge painfully recreating the race to get a photo for mom.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Race Recap: the failure that was a success
First, let me start by qualifying the title. I don't consider the race a failure. I'm not that guy who runs well but is always blathering about how he's slow. I have no illusions about being a 'fast guy' but recognize this run as a decent job and a major accomplishment. Certainly my best and fastest by 5 minutes. I just thought the contrast in the title was catchy, so if it's not totally accurate, whatevs. Poetic license.
Anyways, in so much as I did not meet the time goal I had set, the race did not go as planned. However, from the get go, the goal was a stretch and I knew it. The success came in that I laid it out going after it and I learned a lot in the process.
Also, let me say this: For those of you who haven't been out to Boston and have that as a goal, I encourage you to stay with the training, book the ticket, do what ever it is that you haven't done to help you get there. I'm not saying that every runner need aspire to Boston, but if you are considering it and there is something in the way, move it and get there. A very special place for a runner on Patriots Day.
Rode the bus 45 min out to the athlete's village staging area in Hopkinton with a guy who was staying at the same B&B as I was. Dude named Neil O'Brien(O'brian?), a great guy from Milwaukee who ended up running a 2:48. I'd link his blog but don't know if he has one. I could link you to his TripAdvisor review of the B&B?
Great to have company on the ride. It's a long trip even with the seamless logistical execution of transporting 27K runners 26+ miles across the state.
Even with someone to talk with the time spent on the highway driving from the finish line to the start can't help get in your head a little. Just a little. Here's Garmin's map of the run from the start on the left side to the finish in DT Boston. It's a ways.
Anyways, sit in the staging area for 2 hours then head to the runners corrals. Runners are segmented off 1000 in each corral, separated into two waves of 15,000 starting 30 minutes apart.
It's Patriots Day in Massachusetts so the race starts predictably with the national anthem. I had my hand over my heart in the port-o-potty line up simultaneously wondering why I felt patriotic hearing another nations anthem and whether I would make it through the line and to my corral by the time I was set to start. There were people peeing outside the johns but the race rule book said that doing so put you at risk of losing your start bib. I wasn't going to chance it.
Less predictable was the 'fly by' of two F-14 (F-16?) fighter jets immediately following the anthem. The coolest part was realizing that a plane can't hover and in a matter of seconds they went from unseen and unheard to screaming overhead, to out of sight again. Crazy fast. Cheriyot fast. Forgive me for not knowing the type of jet. In Canada, the military 'jets' we have are still biplanes.
My corral was 7000-8000. It was on a pretty serious uphill. That didn't jive with what I had heard about this being a downhill race. You couldn't see the start line from the corral but the PA was loud and clear and so was the crowd, also unseen as yet. What you could see was about 10-12,000 runners trailing off down the hill behind us and more streaming into the corrals behind them.
The gun goes off, and it's five minutes of shuffling before we actually cross the start line. I should say the timing pad, because there's also a start line painted on the road that says 'it all starts here'. I'm reminded that this race is legit by the huge ass boom camera that swoops down from 40 feet high to just barely above our heads as we cross the line, capturing the nervous excitement on the faces of the crowd of athletes. And then, you see the crowd, all the people of Hopkinton gathered on the steps of the Town Hall, or the Courthouse, or whatever it was. I can't actually remember whether the building was either of those things but it had the essence of them. It was grand, and old, and like only buildings like that can, it had gathered its people to its steps and its lawn and the people, the people they were psyched!
And it's only then that you see why everyone is always going off about the downhill nature of the course. The first hill is immediate and is so steep that the wheelchair start is half way down to prevent the chairs from flying out of control into the New England countryside, which is pretty much what I ended up doing
To be continued...
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
3:10 in Boston
3:10:40. Very happy with the day's effort. The legit BQ time that eluded me in Vegas. Had a goal to try and go under 3. The goal was beyond me but I had my mind set on taking a shot at it. Was tracking pretty well at half (setting a 2 min PR in the process) but by the hills in Newton it became obvious that I had gone out too hard. Quads/calves were cooked and cramping from the downhill running. By the top of Heartbreak 3 hours was gone as a goal and legs were smashed. Decided to bring it in easy and enjoy the last stretch of the race. Likely could have put up a faster time with a more conservative start but I have no regrets about the decision to get after it. Posting from a PC at the B&B where we are staying thats about 10 years old. More detailed report to come.
Spilts:
0:22:04 5k
0:43:31 10k
1:04:44 15k
1:26:05 20k
1:30:43 Half
1:47:51 25k
2:11:04 30k
2:35:12 35k
3:00:03 40k
3:10:40 Finish
0:07:17 Pace
2661 Overall
2446 Gender
1646 Division
Spilts:
0:22:04 5k
0:43:31 10k
1:04:44 15k
1:26:05 20k
1:30:43 Half
1:47:51 25k
2:11:04 30k
2:35:12 35k
3:00:03 40k
3:10:40 Finish
0:07:17 Pace
2661 Overall
2446 Gender
1646 Division
Friday, April 16, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Delayed
No HR charts for Friday. Freaky wind storm made the scheduled workout impossible. One minute the wind would pick me up and blow me laterally off the sidewalk, trail, etc. and the next minute it would stop me dead mid stride.
Similar workout scheduled tomorrow. Will try and get the data then.
Similar workout scheduled tomorrow. Will try and get the data then.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Week 22 Update
Week 22, two and a half weeks to go until we leave. I guess two weeks tomorrow until the plane leaves. Things are coming together and I'm feeling pretty good. Chart above is from long-ish run from Monday. It's no Lucho-esque effort, but I was pretty happy with it and the PE for this was pretty easy until the last push.
Still trying to settle on a race pace. Gunner has been pushing me to take a shot a 3 hours and Jamie is on board with that plan as well. I'd need to run 6:50's to get there.
Because of family and work commitments over the next little while this may be the last shot I have at a marathon for a while. I'm in better shape than in Vegas and there wont be as many pre race distractions. And I have had a sub 3 as a goal.
But, there is a voice in the back of my head that keeps after me about the level of my fitness and whether I'm fit enough to run sub 3. And if I can't shut that voice up in the next two weeks I'm not going to pull it off.
Anyways, now it's time to see what I'm made of. I really don't have anything to lose by throwing it into the fire and seeing what happens. Worst case scenario, I set a new PR in the half, blow up all over the place, have a nice walk through Boston and enjoy my week's vacation. Actually, that wouldn't be so bad. At least that would mean that I went after it. Worst case scenario is putting in all the training, getting to Boston, being close and not taking a shot or letting off the gas before blowing up because I'm worried about hurting too much later.
This is the part where a fast old lady from SK stops by the comments section and blows me up.
Anyways, I'm running a 4x10 minute threshold session and I'll be wearing the HR monitor. I'll put the charts up tomorrow. If there are any amateur internet physiologists out there that can see something in there, have a go.
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