Friday, December 23, 2016

Of Men and Mountains

I would like to start by saying thank you to everyone who read the first post and offered their encouragement. I know after that first post you're wondering if I went out purchased some black eye shadow, goth clothing, and a shit load of Fall Out Boy albums. I did not do any of those things, but anyway go grab a glass of wine, a pint of beer, or a cup of coffee and tea.... I'm at it again and here we go!



                               - After my friday 12 miler

Mountain climbing makes me feel so manly!


I started off the week with an adventurous 1500 foot climb 17 miler run accompanied by my teammates Dallas and Michelle for an annual event. 

There is something magical about running up a mountain, or running in conditions that are considered dangerous I.e. last Thursday with negative wind chills. It's invigorating to push back against the perceived constraints of nature and society. When they tell you don't do it it's dangerous I translate that to let's find out if I have as much chutzpah as I think I have! It was actually a very warm damp morning for the run with rain holding off until the very end of the run. It was quite foggy at the top which was a tad disappointing because the view from the top of thatcher looking out towards the city of Albany is spectacular on a clear day. It's not dissimilar from the view of New York from the Tappan Zee Bridge.

So yes I survived the mountain run in tact and have gone through the motions this week. I had a rough go on it on Tuesday, but that's ok. I figured I would pay and I paid my penance in full. I write this hoping I can get close to 100 percent for the Hangover half marathon on January 1 2017. It represents the beginning of my Boston chapter and an opportunity to turn the page. For once I'm really not that concerned with time especially given the volatility of a Northeastern winter. 

All I want is to run a race and feel reasonably healthy. I have run in about half dozen races since the marathon and haven't felt close to 100 percent for any of them. It's so infinitely frustrating to feel yourself held back through either circumstances, sickness, or soreness. I probably won't be an don't 100 percent for this race, but I would like to see a significant improvement from the 4th quarter of 2016.

The remainder of this week has kind of dragged with my legs taking their sweet time recovering from the mountain run. But that is ok, I did not expect to bounce back quickly from Sunday.

With that I wish you all a rewarding and most importantly peaceful end to the new year. Knowing me and my tendency to get bored there will likely be another post before I head off to face the half marathon. By the way please leave comments, questions, suggestions, and requests in the comment section. 

Monday, December 19, 2016

Reflections on Hartford

So, this is the beginning. Welcome to my blog as I begin the journey to the starting line of the 2017 Boston marathon. Appropriately enough as I write this, I am listening to a podcast with James Hetfield the front-man of perhaps my favorite band of all time Metallica. I don’t really have a template for this blog, and since it is my first one it will likely be all over the place. I am sure the posts will get better as I get a feel for doing this. I should give you a full disclaimer, I am a hyper competitive a^&hole. I am definitely addicted to that aspect of running. It will never get old throwing everything I’ve got into the field of battle against other runners and seeing who wants it more. I think the majority of competitive athletes regardless of skill feel similarly.

My first post will look back on my fall Marathon which was the 2016 Hartford Marathon which was contested Columbus Day weekend.

 The Hartford Heartbreak: 
The journey to Boston was preempted by the 2016 Hartford Marathon, or as I like to call it the worst race I have ever had. Now when I say the worst race I have ever had, that is based  on how I felt and my ability to execute my race plan or in this case my lack of ability to execute the racing plan.

A good place to start would be to discuss the day/night before the race. For whatever reason, I thought it would not be a big deal to work a mostly full day that Friday and drive down that night with my friend Tanique. Of course we hit multiple traffic jams on the way down and I got spectacularly lost trying to find the hotel. Right there off the bat that’s 2 major strikes. You are under no circumstances supposed to be active and under stress the night before a marathon. That’s disrespecting the marathon. A marathon isn’t just another race when you’re trying to crush it, it is a F@#$ING marathon and it deserves  respect.  

Anyway we eventually find the hotel, park, and I go to sleep. Well that’s not really accurate, I attempted to go to sleep. There was one tiny problem. I was sleeping on a bed the communists wouldn’t sleep on. I have slept on dozens of beds and this magical bed had the distinction of being the most uncomfortable I have ever slept on. To make things worse every hour I would wake up in discomfort toss and turn desperately in an attempt to go back to sleep, then get upset that I couldn’t sleep. This went on all night until eventually it hit about 4:30 and I just got up. I knew immediately that I was fucked. Some people don’t need sleep, but I do, generally at least 8 hours a night.

I told myself I was still strong enough to overcome the lack of sleep and had a light breakfast and began my final pre-race preparations with a sense of pure excitement. I had trained 4 months to get back there, I had fought off a winter knee injury and made it all the way back to the starting line after I was denied that opportunity over the winter. In the winter I signed up to run a marathon president’s day weekend and got injured 3 weeks out with a bad knee that knocked me out for almost 2 months.  I spent many nights during my brief injuring period wondering if my racing career was over.  Regardless, I had made it to the start line.

When the starting horn blared, I was expecting to run the course in 2 hours and 53 minutes(6:35 pace), with an outside chance of breaking the 2 hour and 50 minute barrier (6:29 pace). Unfortunately for a variety of reasons some of which I am still searching for that turned into a 3 hour and 5 minute (7:01 pace) performance on race day.  The time I ran was not a reflection of the effort I put forward. I left everything I had on that course.

My game plan was to cruise through the first 13.1 miles and try to rally on the back end. My teammates and I were obsessed with the concept of negative splitting, which is where you run the 2nd half of a marathon faster than the first half. I reached 13.1 feeling pretty fatigued, but able to hold it together at about a 6:40 pace. I found that I was working very hard to maintain pace which is alarming because generally it should feel pretty easy until about mile 18. I decided to try to pick up the pace at mile 15, but even though my effort was increasing, my pace remained the same. At about that time I came to the realization that I was in the fight of my life just to hit the time of my first marathon of 2 hours 55 minutes and 35 seconds. I was able to hold it together until mile 17, when my pace slowed down. I remember my watch clicking off at mile 17 with the figure 7:00 minute mile. That’s when the panic set in because I could feel my body shutting down.

There is no more deflating feeling that feeling your dreams slip away from your grasp. I knew immediately that it was over. I was desperately out of breath putting forth the effort to run a 6:15 pace and all I could do was 7. At that moment I decided I had to readjust my goals and just try to fight to get under 3 hours. I was doing the math in my head, and I still had some wiggle room. I was able to get back to a 6:43 pace for mile 18 running for my life, but after that things fell apart and they fell apart quickly.  By mile 19 I was back at a 7 minute pace and fading fast. It’s amazing what happens when you slam into the marathon wall. Your body will just crumble to pieces right before your very eyes and it becomes more of a fight just to survive. As the miles wore on and my pace continued to plummet, it became clear that even a 3 hour marathon was not in the cards that day.  Even as I write these words, tears percolate in my eyes thinking back to the feeling and remembering the pain and the loss.  But I decided I had come that far, and that I had to finish. I would rather DIE than be known as someone who would give up when the chips are down. So from miles 21-26 I essentially jogged a slow painful jog of defeat and despair and intense pain. When I hit mile 26, I knew the suffering would soon be over, so I decided I would finish this on MY TERMS and no one else’s. Fuck everything at that point. I threw down a 6:30 last quarter of mile in my own way waving my middle finger to the forces that had brought me down. I crossed the line in a desperate finish to get the race over with. I crossed the line with tears in my eyes and stumbled to the waiting area to begin to deal with the defeat I had just suffered.


I immediately was overcome by a sense of failure. A failure to live up to the expectations I had placed on myself. This was supposed to be my pièce de résistance of an intense summer training program, of countless nights spent in crushing heat and humidity. Yet I crossed the line at 3:05 and on this day the marathon won, there was no question about that. I found solace in the fact that almost everyone who goes after the marathon suffers days similar to mine. Elite athletes who are capable of running a 2:40 marathon sometimes run a 3:20 marathon. I had the worst racing day of my life and only was 15 minutes slower. The only way Hartford could have been any worse was for a race ending injury to have occurred and fortunately that did not happen.  With that bitter taste of defeat that I begin the road to Boston and that’s fine. I will always remember that day and how awful it truly was as I train for Boston.