New Year, New You

I was driving with one of my best friend's, Alex, in January and we read the phrase "New Year, New You" on a Wendy's billboard.  We both laughed and found it a little ironic for a fast food restaurant to be proclaiming something like this.  These words, however, have a deeper meaning for me in 2013.  I have an opportunity to train for something special this Spring.  I am running the Boston Marathon in just 9 short weeks.  I have been working diligently through the winter months of December, January, and now into February.  I have two tune-up races before Boston: a 10 miler and a half marathon.  My goals are ambitious for April.  I want to run sub-2:50 and get as close to 2:40 (or break it) as possible.  I have to believe this is something I am capable of achieving.  Step number one in reaching a running goal is having the confidence in yourself to get there.  You have to visualize yourself achieving your goal every day.  You have to want to get there.  It is easy to be intimidated of the goal you are chasing after.  This is why you need to have the faith in yourself to get there.  Surround yourself with the right people who believe in your goal too.  It is important to have the right people on your team.  I see 2013 as a new year, with endless opportunities to improve as a runner.  With Boston quickly approaching, I cannot help but think about last year.  I had one of those days where my body simply would not respond to the heat.  This is something that was out of my control.  My training had been great heading into the race.  Several great runners dropped out of Boston last year, including the defending champion Geoffrey Mutai.  Top American marathoner, Ryan Hall, dropped out of the Olympic marathon this past summer due to injury.  In a sport like running, it is impossible to control every situation.  Some days you feel great, and others are out of your control.  You can control the amount of effort you put into training and how badly you want to reach your goals.  I am fully invested in the Boston Marathon.  It is on my mind each day and I am training with a sense of purpose.  I am returning to the start line in Hopkinton with a sense of belonging.  I am now a Boston Qualifier and earned my spot in the prestigious race.  Whatever it is that you want to do with running in 2013, go out and get after it.  Do not listen to the people who tell you it cannot be done.  You may be far away from a particular goal, but you can still set smaller goals.  Running is a sport that requires patience, so RESPECT THE PROCESS.  Make 2013 into what you want it to be. 

I opened up the New Year with a local 5k race in Narragansett, RI.  I ran the Super 5k last weekend to test my speed and see where I was at in my training.  It is very difficult to race in the winter.  It was 30 degrees out and windy at the start of the race.  These conditions are not ideal for someone hoping to run a fast time or new PR.  When the gun went off, the leaders took off into a pack of about five runners.  There was then a second chase pack of about five to ten runners and then a third pack of about five runners.  I was in this third pack.  The 5k is one of the most challenging distances for me for a couple of reasons.  As a marathoner, the race feels much too short.  It also feels like an all-out sprint.  It is a painful race distance!  My final reason is that so many people run so fast at the beginning of 5k races.  Proper pacing is key to running a 5k time that you will be happy with.  After a half mile into the race I was in about 20th place or so.  I kept my pace the same and moved passed all of the runners in the third pack, caught the second pack, and then could only see the first pack in front of me.  I hit the first mile in 5:27.  I think, on the right day, that I could average 5:20/mile at the 5k distance.  This is the kind of shape I hope I am in now.  Looking back on this race, I should have started off faster and tried to hit 5:20 (or faster) for the first mile.  I probably started too slow, but I like to work myself into races.  The second mile has a slight uphill, but I knew I had slowed too much to account for this.  I reached the second mile in 5:42.  At this moment, I knew I still had a chance to try and push on and get close to my PR of 17:28.  I did my best to dig deep and push on to the third mile.  The final mile was run entirely into the wind.  At this point in the race, the field was strung out so that there were no other runners within 15 seconds in front of or behind me.  We were all running solo, racing against the clock and the elements.  I reached that final mile in 5:39, which I am fairly satisfied with because it was not my slowest mile of the race and it was run under the worst course conditions.  My kick to the finish over the last .1 miles was solid, being in the low 30s.  I crossed the finish line in 17:24 (5:36/mile), good for 8th place overall (1st age group) out of a couple hundred.  The race was won by William Sanders in 15:02.  He was followed by a local running legend named Matt Pelletier in 15:11.  It was fun to run behind these guys!  I ran a new PR by 4 seconds, but the 17:28 I ran was on a net downhill course so it was encouraging to run in the 17:00 range on a flat course in the cold.  My goal is to run sub-17:00, something I have still not been able to do yet.  I should also note that heading into this 5k race I did not taper.  I had run 80+ miles for four weeks previous and totaled the same for the week of the race.  My goal, right now, is not in the 5k but in the marathon.  My training is set up so that I peak in April and crush my marathon PR at the Boston Marathon.  I have it in my mind that I need to run faster at the shorter distances to produce a fast marathon time.  Whether this is entirely true or not, improving in the shorter distances does provide an added confidence boost in distance racing.  I do know that once I crossed the finish line, I felt I could have maintained the same pace for 10k.  I have my chance to see if I can maintain this kind of a hard pace for longer at the Old Fashioned 10 Miler in Foxboro next weekend.  I am looking forward to racing at a longer distance.  For now, I am approaching the heavy lifting of my program.  I have a few weeks coming up where I will be right at 100 miles for the week.  More marathon specific workouts are approaching too, where I will run longer tempos and strength workouts.  I am excited for this phase in the build-up!  Good luck to everyone with your winter training!  My motivation to get me outside each day is simply my goal race.  I want to do everything now to prepare for Boston.  I am fully invested in my goal.  Remember: New Year, New You.  Make it happen!

Run Happy,
David

BU Mini Meet #3

Track!

Last Saturday, at age 20, I ran the first indoor track meet of my life.  I never ran indoor track during high school and have never competed in this way before now.  Indoor racing fits well into my winter training for the Boston Marathon.  I am in the first phase of my build-up, which includes a speed portion while building the mileage back up.  The volume for workouts is a little less than marathon training but the speeds are much faster.  My workouts have included mile repeats, 800s and 400s.  I have been trying to run these distances faster on workout days and believe this will help lower my 5k time.  I targeted two races at the BU Mini Meet: the 3k and the mile.  The 3k is a little less than a 2 mile race and I wanted a chance to run a time that would put me under 17:00 5k pace on the indoor track.  This race would help me lock into this pace.  The mile has always intrigued me.  I have never run an all out mile.  I have been curious as to what I would be able to run if I ran just one little mile as fast as I could.  Logistically, the track meet seemed straightforward.  I would run the 3k first and aim for something close to 9:45.  Then, I would double back and run an all out mile and try to break 5:00.  My training would suggest these times were attainable but I still have a lot to learn on the indoor scene.

I arrived to Boston a little later then I would have liked.  There was a long line of runners picking up their numbers that took me a while to go through.  Right away, I noticed that the runners in line varied in age from people who looked too young to be running in the first place, to college kids, to grizzled veterans of the sport.  This was an open meet, where you were placed in your heats according to time.  Age made no difference.  After finally getting my number it had reached 10:00 A.M.  This is when the first heat of the 3k went off.  I was in the third heat.  This did not give me a whole lot of time to warm up for the race.  I rushed off to the track and began my warm-up on the loop that circles the outside of the track.  It is not part of the actual track.  After about a mile, the first heat of the 3k was already finished and the second was about to begin.  I did some light stretching and drills.  Before I knew it, I was standing on the start line.  I had my new track spikes on and was feeling quite nervous.  I had no idea what to expect when the gun went off.  The start was quick.  We went through the first 200m in probably :36-37 seconds.  This put the pace under 5:00.  At this point, however, I felt comfortable, and was right in the middle of the pack.  I made a mistake here.  I raced during the first 800m of a 3k race.  Instead of settling into a pace comfortable for me, I surged ahead of a few runners during the opening laps and battled with them for position.  I went through the mile in about 5:15, it might have been a couple seconds faster or slower.  This was right on target, being right on the pace I wanted to hold.  At this point, however, the wheels started to fall off.  The pace of the opening laps began to catch up to me.  Each lap got progressively slower.  I seemed to be getting passed by a couple runners with each subsequent lap.  On my second to last lap, I was passed right at the end by the leader.  She ended up running close to 9:25, securing a US indoor standard for the IndoorTrack and Field Championships later this year.  I finished in 10:20.  This was way off of my original goal.  It comes out to 5:30 pace, which means I was struggling to hold 5:45 pace during the final laps.  I acted like the rookie I was during this race.  I went out too fast, and it killed my time.  If I had run consistent laps, I could have run at the very least under 10:00.  10:20 seems a long way from that and I do not like seeing my name next to that time.  When will I learn?

(BU Mini Meet)

Not only was this the first indoor track meet I have ever run, but I signed up for two races.  I had about two hours in between races.  This put me in a position I had never been in before.  I needed to recover from the first race and prepare for the second.  I surprisingly did a decent job at this.  After the first race, I went outside to do my cool-down.  The fresh air gave me a little break from the dry air indoors.  After the cool-down, I simply watched some of the 400m races and early mile races.  I was in the 9th heat for the mile and had some time to wait.  I drank a lot of fluids, as I could not get the dry feeling out of my mouth.   I had half of a cliff bar, hoping the calories would do me some good.  After the first couple mile heats, I went down to the outside track to warm-up again.  This time, I got in a full two miles and then used my remaining time stretching and doing some light drills.  I threw in a few striders and felt alright going into my heat.  I knew my mile time goal was probably not in play because of the hard effort I had put on my legs with the previous race.  I also was assigned bib #12 of 12, which meant I was seeded last going into the race.  If, for example, another runner had shown up to the meet with a faster pr than me, I would have been moved into the next heat and would have been the fastest runner there.  When the gun went off, I decided to run a smarter race and simply try to run consistently.  I allowed myself to fall into last place, running right off of the person in front of me.  I never tried to move up in position during this race.  I went through halfway in 2:32-33 and finished in 5:11 without any sort of kick.  I was not as disappointed with this race because of the cumulative effort of the day.  I think that I could have broken 5:00 if I had been fresh going into the race.  I learned several tough lessons on this day, the first being that running track hurts.  You feel pain and stress not only in your legs, but in your upper body too.  You have to be mentally and physically strong to run well.  I do not think I had either of these two things going into the races.  My body was tired, running these races in an 80 mile week with no taper.  Mentally, I let the nerves get the best of me.  I got intimidated and then had no response when the running felt uneasy.  I also learned that I should probably keep my focus on one race if I want to hit time goals.  Overall, I had a lot of fun at the meet.  It was a new experience for me.  I talked with a few new runners, many of whom approached me because I was wearing my Rhode Runner singlet.  I hope to use these races as a good base moving forward.  It should not be too difficult to set indoor pr's after performances I am not so satisfied with.  I am excited to run more indoor races this winter and hope to really see the gains in the spring!

Keep working,
David

Beat Santa 5k Win!

Coming off the Philadelphia Marathon, I jumped back into training right away.  I am looking to improve on my speed this winter.  I am currently targeting an indoor mile and 3k at the BU Mini Meet on 12/29.  I have been doing shorter track workouts to sharpen my speed.  In my mind, I have to hit faster times at shorter distances in order to run a faster marathon.  This makes perfect sense.  I ran the Beat Santa 5k in Portsmouth, RI last weekend.  How did the race go?  I won!  I should rephrase that.  I won, but was not completely satisfied.  I ran in this local 5k with a field size of about 200 runners.  I looked at the results from the past couple years and a few runners went under 17:00, so I figured the competition would be there.  Also, the fun part about this race is that someone runs dressed as Santa.  If you beat Santa, you win a prize at the end.  It's a nice race put on by the Rhode Island Road Runners, a local club.  My goal for this race was to try and break 17:00.  When the gun went off, I ran out and did not look back.  I stuck to my race plan during the first mile and went through it in 5:26, which is a little under sub-17:00 pace.  At this point, there were no other runners within 20-30 seconds of me.  I was running alone and did not know what to do with it.  Do I keep hammering?  Do I back off and run for the win?  I do not often find myself running alone, even in most local road races.  There will still usually be a few other runners for me to chase or work with.  This was not the case with this race and is why I think I did not finish as strong as I would have liked.  The second mile of the race was into 15 mph of wind on a brisk 30 degree day.  I had nobody to tuck in behind or share the work with.  I lost focus of my time goal and my mentality shifted to finishing the race and securing the win.  My second mile was in the 5:50s and then I put it in cruise control to the finish.  After mile 2, there was a turnaround.  My lead was still around 30 seconds and I knew I just had to maintain the pace I had slipped into.  I did not know the course well and did not kick to the finish line.  The race course was not accurately measured, being closer to 3.2 miles.  I ended up running 18:30, which on a 5k course that day would have put me sub-18:00.  It was a tough day for racing but it was still a good learning experience.  I hope to win more local road races and found that I learned a lot from this day.  It was a unique experience to pull away from the rest of the runners in the first mile and then race against yourself.  I need to learn how to maintain my pace while running solo.  I did not do that in this race and was not happy with my end time.  The post-race festivities were a lot of fun.  I saw one of my old cross country coaches from high school and he gave me a lot of praise and encouragement.  It was a great feeling beacuese I was never running in the front of cross country races during high school.  I am excited to train this winter, which brings me to the point of this post: motivation.  It is very difficult to stay committed to running in the winter.  It gets dark out early.  It snows.  It gets cold out.  My suggestion is to pick out your goal race for the spring.  Start your preparation now for it.  Make a list: what steps do you need to take to reach your goal?  Write them down.  It will help give your training a purpose during these winter months.  You have to ask yourself if you are going to be able to tough out each day of training and find out if it is worth it.  It is.  Have confidence and train safely.  Make sure to have fun with it, there is nothing like running in the snow!  Right now, I am maintaining relatively high mileage (70-80s+) and working on my speed.  This is the beginning phase for my marathon build-up for Boston.  The training I am doing now is just as important as the marathon specific workouts and mileage I will do in March and in April.  It will help to bring down my marathon pace and allow me to run faster in the spring.  I am motivated now so that I will be ready to set a big PR in the spring and conquer Boston.  That's all I have.  Train with a purpose this winter and be safe!

Merry Christmas,
David