Reality check 1, 2...1, 2.....

I've been doing this long enough to know that I'm gonna have good workouts and bad workouts.  You can't "win" them all. I hate that about training.  Training isn't just a test of ones physical limits, but it takes a strong mind as well to go out and give it everything you have. 

I'm now 4 weeks into a 20 week transformation.  I've run 152 of 834 miles, and this past weekend was a reality check.......

My last training plan was tough, but I'd never done it before so I was blissfully ignorant in what was coming. Which workouts would be tough, how the holidays, weather, eating, etc would play out.  Now I know.  This is good, and bad.  I know it's ok to shuffule things around some, I know what kind of meals to eat before long runs.  BUT, I'm operating now on some razor thin margins if I wanna hit 2:56.  Before I was training for 3:30, and on my pace runs, I struggled some, but I always ran at least 10sec below.  Now, with a more advanced plan, and a more aggressive pace, I'm battling each workout to hit the numbers.  It's been a huge dose of reality..........this ain't gonna be a "just do the workout" ride. 

The toughest workouts so far have been the "run for ___ min at goal pace".  Seems easy enough, running 45 minutes or 60 minutes at 6:40 is waaaayyyyy less than a marathon, WRONG!!  For whatever reason, this workout has eaten my lunch twice thus far.  First time was in week 2, run 45 min at goal pace.  I should have been able to run ~7 miles and ran 6.61.  I struggled so bad at one point I stopped at mile 3.5 screamed a few expletives into the sky and had a mini pep talk with myself just starring back at the road until I had the confidence to finish the workout.  I finished 9sec off pace, and was pretty pissed off.  I thought I had things figured out for the next time this workout showed up......wrong. This time I was 1,000 miles from home over a holiday and felt like I was training for an eating competition, not a marathon.  I had mastered the art of over eating.....which, if you want to know, the secret is to eat til you almost throw up, then lay flat on your back on the floor to take the gravity off your stomach.  Taking a nap while performing this workout works too :) Anyway, I digress.  Saturday after Eats-giving, I had to run 60 min @ goal pace.  I knew I needing something flat so Maura and I drove to a nice rail trail close by.  We'd run this last year so I knew it was "flat-ter" than her neighborhood.  I'd fueled up, temps were good, I was ready to do this.....redemption time.

Started out good, first miles were in the 6:40 range, not perfect, but acceptable.  Then, I hit a couple rolling hills.  Shit. A sure sign that this isn't gonna go well is looking down and seeing 7+ in the pace section of my watch.  Reality SMACKS me in the face.....6:40 is F-ing fast and is gonna be a battle all day.   The trail was beautiful, and I wish I had some pics, I was a better cameraman than runner today.  Tall trees, a bubbling brook, sun peeking through the branches and lots of people all out trying to better themselves.....usually a receipe for a great run......YOU HEAR THAT RUNNING GODS!!??? AH-HEM!!!  "RECIPE FOR A GREAT RUN!!!"  No answer.  Fine, I'll do this on my own today.  Stupid trees, stupid inclines, stupid......bah!

This is my kryptonite......mentally I build myself up so much before a big run that I have a hard time holding on if things sputter for too long.  I start to doubt things, start calling Manning-like audibles on my goals half way through..."pace 6:42, watch the hills, check that heart rate, I think we need a stretch, laces too tight!..." Lame. Mile 7 of 9 was at 7:10!.....heart rate was like 185, way too high for that kind of pace.  A this point I wanted to just be done.  I didn't have anything left.  Maybe I didn't eat enough, drink enough before I went out.  Maybe I need to adjust my pace.....not an option yet.  I'm on unfamiliar ground....I wanna destroy every workout.....but maybe that's not how this works. Maybe I need these struggles because that shows me that it IS the right pace...I'm not that far off, and most workouts I do kill.  Great things are accomplished under stress.  Do I wanna weather the storm....or BE the storm?  Week 5....looks like it's time to make it rain!

 

The thrill of the hunt.......

Fresh of my new found motivation of NOT getting into Boston I knew my next steps were to stalk a victim and sharpen my tools.  Quickly I started stalking silently through the tall grasses of the internet in search of the perfect race to set my sights on.  Being the dork I am, I created a spreadsheet to evaluate my potential kills, who doesn't love a good spreadsheet?  Communists, that's who.  I wanted something fast, flat, preferrably driveable, and with a good crowd.  Fast and flat for the physical part of running, and a good crowd for the mental part.  I will NEVER forget how the crowd in Jax motivated me and literally moved me to tears.....I craved that again.  I also wanted something early in 2012 so I could start training relatively soon.  I reviewed many, many races, but in the end I found "The One".  The Yuengling Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, St. Patty's day weekend 2012. I've run in Va. Beach before, it's nice and flat, and this race was big enough that a rowdy crowd was a given. 

Now that I had picked a race, the next steps were goal setting and scuplting a training plan to get me there. Setting goals with running are a double edged sword. If I set something too agressive and miss it, I'd be crushed.  Set something too easy, and I might train a little too lightly.  Something I had been using that seemed to be the most accurate and "safe" thing to do was using the Runnersworld.com calculator.  Basically you plug in a race time for any distance race you've done before and this calculates what your projected times in other races would be.  That being said, I had crushed a couple races earlier this summer, setting PR's in both the 5k and 10k by a lot.  I plugged those times into the calculator and was amazed, and terrified of what I saw..........

 
Based on my recent 5K (Human Race in Waynesville, June) of 18:24, it was conceiveable that I could run a marathon in 2:56:19!!! My first instinct was "yeah right", but I checked the projected 10k time and saw 38:21......I had run the Independence Day 10K in Boyne this summer in 38:26.....this was doable!! 2:56 was a 6:40 per mile pace......which was my best 10K pace in January of 2011...weird to think of how far I'd come in just 11 months from then. 

With my goal set, it was time to figure out just how the hell I was going to get in shape for this.  I needed a training plan that would turn me into a machine.  If Rocky, and Prefontaine had a baby with wonder woman (because we need a womb strong enough of course) and she listend to jock jams and G&R during her pregnancy and then that baby grew up training with Usain Bolt.....that's who I wanted to be. 

My plan to get there looked like this:
Monday: 5-6 easy miles during lunch, core training and heavy weightlifting
Tuesday: Speed work ranging from 6-11 miles
Wednesday: 6 easy miles during lunch
Thursday: Tempo runs / repeats at lunch, core training, and taking Maura's "power" class at the Rush
Friday: 6-7 miles easy
Saturday: Long run using the "step up, step back" approach, starting at 9 miles, then alternating weeks going up 2 miles and reaching 23 miles by week 17. 
Sunday: Rest

It was 831.98 miles in total, 20wks long.  It was gonna be tough, it was gonna take time, but I knew that if I didn't follow this precisely, I wouldn't have a chance at 2:56.........TIME TO GO KICK SOME ASS!!

As Roland would say...."are ya kiddin'?"

Nearly 7 months had passed since the marathon and every run was littered with thoughts of what it would be like to run Boston.  I thought about the crowd, the city, the fact that "little old Andy, in his first attempt, got into Boston and ran with the best of the best".  I already had friends and some of Maura's family saying they would be there IF I got in.  IF.  The new registration process got annouced just days after my race and I spent the whole summer trying to calculate my odds of getting in.  The new process worked like this:
Registration opens on Sept. 12th.  The first two days were open to those beating their qualifying time by 20 minutes or more, next two days, 10 min or  more, last two days, 5 min or more.  Then, IF (I was really starting to hate this word by this point) there was room left in my age/gender group, I could register.  HOWEVER, even then IF (grrr) I got to register, I had to wait another week while they sorted the remaining entries by who was fastest, and then capped it when it was full.  You got all this? I didn't, but I tried.

When it was time for me to sign up, I was slightly relieved to see that there was still room!!  A glimmer of hope.  I literally sat at my desk and hit "refresh" on the site until it opened on that Monday.  My fingers flew across the registration page like I thought that the faster I signed up gave me any better chance of getting in.  I double and triple checked my information.....this was it. I hit "send" and let out a sigh.  However that was the easy part.  Now came the waiting game.  I had to wait at least a week while others just like me registered all over, all of us vying for whatever spots were left like interns trying to get the lunch meeting leftovers in the work kitchen.  It was a long week.

I checked my email 100 times a day, even if I knew I wouldn't have anything yet.  It was like waiting for Christmas, but not knowing if I was gonna get toys, or coal......or if and when Santa would even show his red ass! The days went by and I kept myself occupied.  I was now in Germany for a week for work and that shifted my focus....a little.  As much as I liked the distraction from staring at my Yahoo! inbox, it left me vulnerable when the email arrived.  I wasn't even ready for it!

I woke up at 7am and groggily went to my computer and pulled up the screen.  Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and shaking off the Pils and jet lag I looked at the screen.  I had left it on my Yahoo! inbox as I had been for probably the last 8 days.   SHIT!  There it was.....I quickly shut the computer screen.  I wasn't ready for this right now.  It's too early for this.  Too late though, I knew it was there.  I saw the BAA and the subject "Your application for the 2012 Boston Marathon".  I sat there, now fully awake, heart racing while I tried to determine my fate based one the subject line....enough, let's do this.  I opened up the email, 1,000 thoughts rushing through my head.......

My heart and head sank.  A wave of dissappointment crashed over me.  I didn't get in.  This was the first real time that running and dissappointment had combined and really hit me.  Until now I had a great streak of killing PR after PR and I felt like a racing bib was a bullet proof vest.  This was a shot right to the heart.  I read it over and over again, making sure I was reading it right.......that's when I saw the salt that got rub into my fresh wound.   "Entries from applicants in your age group were accepted through, and including the time 3:08:46"!! 

ARE YOU F-ING KINDDING ME?!?!?  I missed getting in by 2 damn seconds! My mind immediately re-ran my race in my head, highlighting everything I COULD have done to squeeze 2 seconds from a 26 mile race.  I couldn't have known all this at that time, so it was useless. My "ESPN Story about lil Ando and his amazing trip to Boston" was done..........or was it? 

After a couple minutes of being genuinely sad and frustrated, I actually found myself smiling and almost laughed a little.  "2 seconds, you gotta be shittin' me" I thought to myself.  Then I made a decision that I think I will look back on for years.  In the biggest race, the race of life, I was standing at a cross road.  Which direction was I going to take, which story do I want to tell?  The one about me falling short and giving up, or the one about falling short and taking adversity, using it as fuel and going out and kickin' some serious ass!?  Well, I'm proud to say I gave the "other way" the middle finger, dusted off my race bib and my Mizunos and headed down the trail that might be a little longer than the one I had hoped for, but this time I'm not gonna let 2 seconds stand in my way......I'm gonna run a marathon so fast that there's no way I'm gonna be out next time.  Now I just gotta pick my prey......

My first marathon....the start of something special.......

I've decided that this stuff needs to be kept on paper.  Running has given me some amazing experiences and I want to keep them logged in for reference in the future.  I'm starting with a little history here, I wrote this a couple days after my first marathon and I still read it periodically to keep me remembering why I do what I do.  This first post is the start of something I hope turns into a great story I can keep adding to for many, many years.  

Marathon #1

What an experience!!   The race was amazing and the outpouring of support was something I've never experienced.  

We were right on the grounds of the race so we could walk 5 min to start line, which was awesome.   Weather was about 40's or so and I somehow was in the first wave of runners.   I found myself standing ON the start line with my friend Nick.   Under the huge TV screen and start clock watching the police motorcade pull up in front of us, lights flashing and ppl cheering, waiting for the start.   I couldn't believe what I was about to experience, I've never been that close to the start.   The Kenyans and other "elites" eventually showed up to take their spots in front of us, which I expected, but just being around them was cool too.  

Then, tragedy struck......my Garmin watch wouldn't turn on....at all!!! It was plugged in all night, but for decided to crap out just minutes from the start!!   How could this happen, how would I know my pace, my distance, my, my, EVERYTHING!?   I held together and Nick and I calmly laid out my 5, 10, 15, and 20 mile split times and that's all I could do now, I couldn't go all "onions on my hamburger!!!??" now, it wasn't worth it.   I needed to harness all my training, trust my body and my mind and do this.  

 

I started off way too fast, as I expected....mile 1, 7:08!!   YIKES!!   I got to the beach around mile 4, still too fast, about a 7:10 or so and didn't know what to do.   Eventually a pace team came up on me, it was the 3:10 pace group.   I made an executive decision: stay with them as long as I could.   3:10 was Boston qualifying which I knew, but didn't want to recognize for fear of letting that become a new goal and a sure let down if I couldn't last.   My fastest 10 mile run was only a 7:19 pace, no way I could do 26.2 faster than that!!   The sun was coming up while we ran on the packed sand, a beautiful morning for sure!   The miles started ticking away.   5....6.....9.....10....I still felt good!!   Every time I ran over a timing strip I thought about the automatic posts and ppl sitting at home wondering why I was going so fast and I was then determined to stick this out as long as I could.   So many ppl outside their homes cheering and with signs "save the ta-ta's, I'm a survivor, thank you!" it was impossible not to stay motivated.   Ppl go through pain 1000 times worse than I would ever feel today and that's why I was there, so suck it up!!   "Pain is temporary, pride is forever" I kept telling myself.   Eventually, the group that was 12-15 was me, one other guy, and the pacer.   Every time I heard "wow, that's the 3:10 group, that's Boston time" from a spectator, I got more pumped, but knew it was too soon to accept it as a potential reality.   Mile 22 we started up a series of hills back up and over the water.......my body was a mess.   The pace group was getting away from me, maybe 20 secs ahead.   I could see mile 25 ahead, which two large hills stood between it and me, and my spirits started to fade.   Pace dropped but I made it up the final hill.   I saw my friends that had finished the half, they weren't expecting me, and when they saw the 3:10 sign, and then me, they went wild and started yelling "BOSTON" and I got my stride back!!   Coming up over the hill I caught the pace group and made it down the hill and rounded the final corner.   I could see the finish line....I could read the clock, it was 3:08!   I yelled "I WANT BOSTON, I CAN SMELL THE CREAM PIES NOW" and the three of us actually picked up the pace down the stretch absorbing every cheer I could........I couldn't believe this was ACTUALLY happening!! I crossed the finish line, hands pointing to the skies shouting "ANDO's GOING TO BOSTON!!" my hammies immediately tightened up and a trainer gave me an ice bag to cool them off.   A volunteer brought me my medal and put in around my neck and that's when I started sobbing like a fool.   All the emotion of the day I had to put on the back burner to focus came out in one eruption.   I looked around, taking it all in, tears rolling down, seeing the time above......it was totally surreal.   I'm so proud of myself.   I came wanting to finish and leave it all out there on the field and I got way more than I bargained for.   Boston 2012, here I come!!