• Monday — 8 miles, easy pace: 8:35-9:00
• Tuesday — 12 miles, threshold pace: 7:55-8:00
• Thursday — 12 miles, tempo pace: 8:00-8:10
• Saturday — 10 miles, easy pace: 8:35-9:00
• Sunday — 18 miles, just a bit slower than marathon pace: 8:10-8:20

Sixty miles this week, then I begin to taper down to the marathon.  I’m going into this marathon even more confident than I did in October.  This has been a fantastic training cycle all around.  No injuries to speak of, the weather has been unusually nice here in the midwest, and I’ve pushed myself harder than ever.  I’m feeling strong and confident.

Glass City Marathon Course

Once I get past Sunday’s 18 miler, I’ll be focusing on getting to the start line rested.  Do Know Harm.

I’ve got a bunch of friends running the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16th, so I’ll get to start what will be marathon week for me by cheering for friends doing what I hope to be doing on Patriot’s Day 2014.  I can’t think of a better motivator.

As I was thinking through all of this (and cursing the 20 MPH wind), I thought about a conversation I had last week with a good friend of mine.  She had worked hard to BQ, made it, and got to run the 2011 Boston Marathon and just absolutely loved it.  The entire experience.  Recalling that conversation helped me refocus my own thoughts from, “How on earth will I get there?” to how I’ll feel when I am there.  A far more positive picture can do wonders.  And then I started to think about when I’ll be there.  Since I’m running my (hopefully) qualifying race in December of 2012, if all goes well, I’ll get to run the 2014 Boston Marathon.  Here’s the rest of the conversation in my head:

“2104.  Wow.  I am getting old, yessir, I’m damn near a geezer.  Well, at least my mind in still sharp. Hey look a squirrel!  Geez, I’ll be 45 years old by the time I actually toe the line in Boston.  How can I already be 45 … WAIT A MINUTE.  I’ll be 45 damn years old?!  45?!  That will put me in a different age division!  A new age division, a new age division!”

Yep, it hit me in mid-run last night.  When I got home, I immediately looked up the qualifying standards again, then just stood there with a smile on my face.  I still doubted it a bit, so I asked my Twitter friends to confirm and sure enough, it’s true.  All along, I’ve been thinking I needed to run a 3:15:00 to make it to Boston, but really, I need a 3:25:00.  That’s ten more minutes for crying out loud.

Now this doesn’t mean I plan to slack my way through my training by any stretch, but that subtle shift in my head from thinking I need to run 7:26s to needing to run 7:49s for a whole marathon is a big deal.  Now, as I do those threshold runs, it will feel more like practice.  I’ll really get to know the feel of that particular pace, and that will be a huge help.  It really is the little things.

I’m so happy to be bad at math.  And for getting old.  And for squirrels.

I had signed up for the Cincinnati Heart Half Marathon quite a while ago, but I really looked at it as a training run. This weekend is the end of a ‘step-back’ week in my marathon training, so prudence would have told me to just take it easy. But a few weeks ago, I surprised myself at the Ragnar Relay by turning in all three of my legs at under 8:00/mile paces. And I felt strong and healthy afterward as well. That left me feeling pretty confident about the progress I’ve made in my running. Earlier this week, a gorgeous March day motivated me to try a short run at a faster pace and I came away from that feeling good as well. I know a fast four mile run doesn’t mean I can handle a long run at that pace yet, but I did come away thinking it wasn’t completely out of the question either.

After that run, my friend (and Ragnar teammate) Steve Speirs, who is just an outstanding runner, suggested that based on my recent running, I could be capable of a 1:45:00 in the half this weekend. This is the same guy who just set a 50K PR by 30 minutes while coming in 3rd overall, and is the two time defending champion of the Cayman Islands Marathon, so he knows what he’s talking about. I have to be honest, good recent running or not, it wouldn’t have ever entered my mind to attempt a half marathon averaging better than 8:00/mile had he not said it.

So this weekend, I decided to race the half rather than just run it. I exchanged messages with Madison Gerstle, a local runner who told me she was gunning for a 1:45:00 in order to secure a corral spot at the upcoming Kentucky Derby Half Marathon. Her plan was to line up near the 1:45 pace group and see what happens. Great idea! So I copied it. Sure enough, just a few minutes before the gun, we saw each other hanging out near the pace group, exchanged good luck wishes and off we went.

It took me a couple miles to really find a groove, but once I did, I thought I actually had a shot at holding this pace. While I knew I was working, I felt smooth and strong, so I just kept hanging with the pace group. My wife and sons came to cheer me on, so each time I saw them, I got a little boost of energy, which is huge in a race like this. The weather today was kind of cold and drizzly, so the fact that they kept out there cheering was great.

Just before a crazy hill at mile 6, I pulled away from 8:00/mile pace group after passing a water stop.  This hill is just ¼ of a mile long, but climbs 109 feet in that short distance.  I’ve done a pretty good job of mixing hills into my marathon training since the Flying Pig has lots of them as well, so I powered up, then cruised back down.  At the end of the hill, I got to see my family once again, so that little burst got me going again.  After that, I never looked back.  While I was nervous about leaving the pace group, I knew if I could just keep my turnover consistent, I could hold the pace I was running, which was just about 7:55/mile.  Madison and I continued to see each other on the course, so I knew she was ahead of her goal and had some time in the bank.  We had a quick laugh about being glad to be past that killer climb and she also told me that every time I saw my family, I got a little pep in my step!

The rest of the race is a bit of a blur.  I know we made our way into to downtown briefly, then headed over one of the bridges to Kentucky, then quickly back over to Ohio on a different bridge.  While briefly in Kentucky, I know I saw my family again, but that’s about the extent of what I remember.  After heading back into downtown Cincinnati, I knew we had a little over a mile and a half left to the finish.  I glanced at my watch and saw something in the neighborhood of 1:30:00, so I knew I was going to beat my goal.  With a smile on my face, I decided to see what I had left in the tank and push hard to the finish line.  As I tapped my Garmin, I looked down and saw 1:42:44.  My chip time was 1:42:43, more than 9:00 minutes better than my previous PR at the Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon.  Madison also got her corral spot by running a PR and getting her sub 1:45:00.

After making my way through the finishing shoot, I found my wife and my boys and got giant hugs.  I had tears in my eyes as I hugged Michelle, because she alone knew I wanted to run this race to shake off a few demons from last year.  I had not yet shaken the feeling of guilt for running the mini marathon at this race last year and then missing being with her as her father slipped away from us.  I had run the race, then immediately hopped on a flight to get to her, but he died while I was in the air.  The race today, with Michelle there cheering for me, has given me a bit of closure.  I thought of her dad a number of times throughout the race today, and I’m sure she did too.  While the sadness never completely goes away, this little step today helped.

Joe’s help has been invaluable already and we’re only into week 5 of the 18 week plan.  We’ve made changes to the weekly schedule to make sure I’m making the most out of the important runs, we’ve added tempo and hill work (both new to me), continued to focus on cross training, and even made adjustments to my shoe choices to make sure I get to the starting line on May 1 in the best possible shape.  His attention to detail is tremendous and that helps me keep focussed on doing the work and really getting it right.  My confidence grows week by week and that alone will pay dividends come race day.

Here’s what I said one year ago about why I began running again.

Lately I’ve gotten so completely disgusted with myself, my laziness, but most importantly, the example I am setting for my family that I have (re)committed to running.

I ended that post with a promise. “This time, it’s for real. I promise.”

I then went out and start the Couch to 5K running program to help get me started. One of the big differences between previous attempts to start running and this one is that I consciously decided to take it slow and easy, and C25K really helped with that. The first day of C25K has you alternating between 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking. Here’s me after that first day:

And there I was wheezing my way around, wondering how 60 seconds could feel so damn long. Sixty seconds. Seconds.

That whole first week of running felt like hell, and I was only doing one minute at a time. Today, one year later, for the first time ever, I ran 20 miles and it took me about 3 hours to do it. Day one, one minute. Today, 182 minutes.

I’ve admitted it before, and I will again now. When I started, I was driven by many self-centered factors: I felt lazy, I felt (and was) grossly overweight. And honestly, I had been both for the better part of a decade. While those first days were mostly about my appearance, there was one other big factor: the example I was setting for my wife and my two young boys.

As for the physical changes, they’ve been pretty drastic.  When I started, I weighed 218 pounds, which put me in the obese category according to BMI (I’m 6’0″).  And while I never had my body composition measured, I can’t imagine that my fat percentage was any less than 30%.  My resting heart rate was somewhere in the 80s and I was just generally unhealthy, getting pretty much every cold or sniffle my kids brought home from school.  Today, I weigh 171 lbs., my resting heart rate is on the low 50s, and I had my body composition measured at the beginning of July and found that my fat percentage is just 7%.  In the past year, I haven’t been sick at all, even with H1N1 having made its presence known in my family.

I’m proud of the changes I’ve made in my body.  But what really makes me feel great is how proud my wife and boys are.  Just this afternoon, my younger boy said, “Dad I’m so proud of you for your 20 mile run.”  That alone felt like gold, but  I asked him why he was proud and he said, unprompted, “You’ve been running for a whole year to be able run 20 miles!”  I am not ashamed to tell you that I cried a bit when I heard that.  For an eight year old to recognize that hard work has to be consistently practiced over a long time to get to goals is priceless.  No amount of saying those words to him would have done it, but actually going out day after day regardless of how I was feeling allowed him to grasp a lesson that will serve him for his entire life.  I feel like I earned a Dad badge today.

A few stats to wrap things up.

• 1237 total miles run.
• Longest run to date.: 20 miles, 3:02:30
• Mason Mini 5K: 11/8/09, 5K, 30:22
• St. Ursaline Run for the Lions: 11/15/09, 5K, 29:34
• Thanksgiving Day Race: 11/26/09, 10K, 1:04:24
• Flying Pig Half Marathon: 5/2/10, 13.1 miles, 1:56:14
• Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon: 8/29/10, 13.1 miles, 1:51:48

I still have about a month to go to reach the goal I’ve been thinking about since I was in high school:  to run a marathon.  On October 10, 2010 I’ll be running the Chicago Marathon.

Well, August has begun and the heat from July has decided to stick around for one (hopefully) last hurrah. As of today, I am two months away from an attempt at achieving a lifelong goal: complete a marathon. The Chicago Marathon is on October 10, 2010, and I’ll be there toeing the line with roughly 44,999 others. I’ll be the one in running shorts.

This past Sunday was the longest run of my life: 17 miles. I was so nervous about it that I didn’t sleep well the night before and awoke in the morning long before my 5:30 alarm went off. After grabbing a quick bite to eat (my pre-long run traditional banana with peanut butter), a drink or two of water and doing some stretching, I set out at 6:05 AM. As I started down the road I live on, it turns east and I had a picture-perfect view of the moon with just the tiniest hint of a sliver. The sky was still pre-dawn dark blue and as I looked up at the moon I saw a meteor streak by. I figured that had to be a good omen. For the next couple of hours I wound through the streets of my hometown, try my damnedest to maintain a steady, even cadence and pace. All in all, my Garmin tells me I did a good job at that. At about mile 13, my wife met me to give me fresh, cold water bottles and good conversation to keep my mind off the running. Both the water and the talking helped a ton. I finished up in 2:33:03, or a pace of 8:59/mile. Now this week’s 18 miler doesn’t seem so daunting.

I’ve found running to be like a parent watching their children grow. The growth happens in tiny, almost imperceptible, little increments, every day. But every once in a while you get a glimpse of some startling, new capability and you just smile. When I could only run 30 seconds at a time without getting winded, 17 miles might as well have been to the moon. When I finished my run on Sunday, I allowed myself a little smile in recognition of how far I’ve come.

But, I’m not done yet. I’ve got more buidling to do if I’m going to make it to 26.2, so that little smile is all I get at the moment. Now it’s back to building up the milage in the heat and humidity of August.

Here they are, my stated goals for the Chicago Marathon, in order of priority:

1. Finish the race without injury.
2. Finish the race within 5 hours. (avg. pace:  11:25/mile)
3. Finish the race within 4 hours. (avg. pace: 9:09/mile)

I believe I can attain all three of these goals, so now I need to do the rest of the work to get there.

1. Marathon training really kicked into gear.  While my official training plan started at the end of May, I had already been running the types of weeks that the plan called for up until the end of June.  That last week of June and then all of July has been pushing further than I had gone before, both in terms of absolute mileage as well as the other aspects of training.  Towards the end of July, two of my long runs were personal records for me in distance since they both went further than the half marathon I ran in May.
2. The weather.  I’ll admit it:  the weather kicked my butt for the first few weeks.  Since I only really began running last September, I had never experienced a real summer training.  So far I can say that I prefer the winter.  I’m an educated man, yet it never occurred to me that running in the heat and humidity would be more difficult.  I had a handful of runs that I just considered failures because I just couldn’t finish, and that really took a toll on my motivation and confidence.  As I sit here today, with just a couple days left in the month, my confidence is back and I attribute that to figuring out how to overcome this new challenge.  While I doubt I’ll ever love running in the oppressive Cincinnati summers, I now know how to handle it.
3. Travel.  I’ve had to deal with fitting my training schedule around more travel than usual, so I’ve had to juggle days and times for my runs.  I do better when I’m on a more predictable schedule.

One cool thing that happened this month was a run through Central Park in New York City.  Running in Central Park and Golden Gate Park are two that I had put on my mental running bucket list, so I was very happy to make one of them happen.  I had to fit a long run (15 miles) into my travel schedule, so I figured, why not make it in Central Park?  When I run early in the morning at home, I may see one or two other runners out there but not many.  Running through Central Park was more like running in a race.  I got to the park at about 6:00 AM and I was shocked to find hundreds of runners out on the paths and their were dozens of cyclists too.  I had been worried about doing 15 miles all on my own without anyone for motivation/support/pacing, but with so many people out there, I always had someone to keep up with, or try to beat to the top of some of the long hills.  The time and miles flew by like they have during races.  Here’s my run:

Careful observers will note that the Garmin distance shows 14.82 miles, not the 15 I claim.  If you watch very closely, you’ll see a bit of a jump during mile 11.  I stopped to get a drink of water at the fountain, had to wait in a bit of a line, so I stopped my watch. When I started running again, I forgot to turn it back on for about 2 minutes, so I estimated that to be somewhere around a quarter of a mile.  MapMyRun.com helped confirm it.

So, now I’m looking forward to slogging through the heat of August and really getting up to mileage numbers I’ve never done before:  17, 18 and 20 miles.  I’m doing a half marathon in Columbus, OH on August 29th as well.

This Sunday will bring a new milestone for me:  a personal record for distance.  My training plan calls for 14 miles and to date, the longest I’ve ever run is the 13.1 in May’s Flying Pig Half Marathon.  And it only goes up from there.  I’m looking forward to pushing myself further and further, but at the same time, I’m nervous about failing.

I have always been terrible about asking for help when I needed it.  I believe that stubbornness has an upside: self-reliance.  However, I’ve also noticed that I run better and more confidently when I’m with others.  So I think I’m going to have to reach out to running friends to see if anyone is crazy enough to run with me for some portion of these hot Sunday long runs.

Since that first experience everything I’ve witnessed since then has only reinforced my belief that runners are giving. A few examples.

I had absolutely no experience in running long distances prior to this year. None. Every single time I’ve needed the benefit of more experienced runners’ knowledge, it was not only given freely and enthusiastically, but I’d get follow-ups asking how things went. It didn’t matter how mundane (sore nipples) or important (nutrition) the topic was, runners lined up to help.  Mike B, Madison G, Ariana H, Chris B, Joe M, Rebecca B, and Erin K have been especially helpful.

When I got done running my first half marathon early this month, I went home, got some lunch then started browsing around to find some results from the race. While doing that I came across a story I had missed the day before from the ending of the 10K race. Amy Schoenfeld and Shari Klarfeld had battled for first place for nearly the entire race.  Shari pulled ahead toward the end, but then bonked badly just a few feet before the finish line.  Rather than running right by her, Amy Schoenfeld helped Kladfeld across the finish line first, then stepped across for second place.

Last month’s Runner’s World featured a story about Scott Jurek, arguably the greatest ultra marathoner in the world. After running 24hour races covering hundreds of miles, he routinely heads back into the course to encourage other ultra runners still out on the course.

In my last post, I was belly aching about a recent lack of umphhh in my running. Within minutes of posting, a local friend, Doug A., commented on the post, then got in touch with me to suggest we shake things up a bit and go for a run together to help cure those blahs. Maybe run a new route. Doldrums: cured.

But it goes beyond just advice and encouragement.

Joe M, a runner I only know virtually, has been raising money for his friend Dom who is fighting cancer. Joe had donations from countries all over the world, mostly from the running community.

Sara S, a runner from Milwaukee, just shared a very personal story about her battle with Chiari Malformation. Here are her words about why she even shared.

“What prompted me to share was that, in my own research efforts about Chiari, I came up flat. I wanted to hear stories, not medical fact-based info. I had found enough of that. I bought books, I read medical journal papers, I packed my brain with knowledge about my condition. I needed to hear someone’s STORY. I found very few. I realized that I can change that. I can share my story for the people who, just like me, need to understand the impact of their diagnosis, surgery, additional treatment, prognosis, etc.

So, I’m not afraid to share anymore. I will tell the story. I will pay forward the love, kindness and support that all of you give me by giving it to people who need a fellow “Chiarian” to talk to.”

Pay it forward indeed.

The run started out fine, but I have to admit that the last half didn’t go that well.  I didn’t feel anywhere near as strong as I did just a week ago on my first 12 mile run.  But, I did finish the run and I came very close to the goal I have set for the race.  The goal is 1:55:00 and I completed this run in 1:55:31.

There are a couple reasons for worry:

1. It was an absolutely perfect day.  Very little wind, mid-fifties, clear blue skies.  Who knows what race day will bring.
2. While there were some hills in my run, there was nothing that compares to Gilbert.

I am just deluded enough to think that there are a couple reasons to be positive too:

1. I won’t need to carry my own water around.  I hate those damn hydration belts.
2. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.
3. Other runners.  ‘Nuff said.

All in all, based on this run, I feel like I’ve set a great goal.  It’s aggressive enough that it will keep me pushing throughout the race, yet I already know I can do it.  When I ran my first ever 10K just over 5 months ago, I was blown away by the effect the crowd had on me.  And that was nothing compared to the runner support at the Flying Pig.

I’m ready.