Well, Week 1 of my Team VW Chicago Marathon training plan is in the books. It started off shaky but quickly found a groove. It’s nice getting back in the running seat, but I can tell I’m thoroughly out of running shape. It’s true my swimming abilities have seen some exponential improvement, apparently at the cost of my running fitness. That’s OK though! Week 1 in the books and things can only go up from here.
I’ll be brief. I’m feeling much more comfortable now that I have returned to marathon training. The workouts are consistent, I understand what needs to be done, and I’m hungrier (both figuratively wanting to work hard and literally wanting to eat more). It’s a good feeling and I’m excited to get deep into the
training schedule. The hardest part is leaving this little support crew member behind. Talk about comfortable.
I'm comfy. Deal with it.
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Oh, Life, you have such a tendency to get in the way. Case in point,
my Chicago Marathon training plan was supposed to kick off today with an 8 mile tempo run. What did I do instead? 1500 miles on a plane, zero in my running shoes. After a whirlwind of a trip to New Jersey for my dad’s birthday (30 hours between leaving Austin and returning), there just wasn’t time to get out for a run. Traveling early Monday morning and going to straight to work doesn’t offer much flexibility. Fear not! While life may not be flexible, I am (figuratively). It’s not a big deal to push my run until tomorrow, but this better not become a regular occurrence. You hear me, Life? Stay out of my way.
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Now that I’ve joined Team VW for the Chicago Marathon I need a goal for the race. That goal would determine how I train between now and October 9th. The big question is (not-so-)simply: How aggressive should I be with this race? Run it for fun? Run it, but still secondary to my triathlon goals? Run it for a new PR? Let’s look at each of the obvious options first before making any rash decisions.
Promise you won’t get mad, ok? Promise? Promise? Good. So you know how I was all like “hey I’m going to do triathlons.” and you were like “yea, cool I guess.” and I was like “heck yea, running is so cliché.” and you were like “Totally.” Well, we might need to pretend like that never happened, at least for a little bit. Like until October 9th. You see, I entered a contest who knows how many weeks (months?) ago on The Facebook and then promptly forgot about it. And now I’m signed up for a marathon. Yep, I know. But you promised.
Chicago! Land of Opportunity! Might’ve made that up, but it got the ball rolling. Just got back from the Chicago Marathon and there’s lots to tell. Let’s back things up a bit: exactly 15 days before the race we started checking out Accuweather for the preliminary weather report. Nice! 50* and clear skies. As the race approached, the weather was all over the place, so we gave up. All told, it was unnecessary worry. Race day came and the sky was clear. Clear and 31 degrees…as in -2*C. We headed out of the hotel in our gloves, hats, and 55-gallon trashbags for warmth. We looked like a black, shiny Grimace.
Colin and I were in Corral B, starting in a reserved area for the top 5,000 runners. That means we’d be chased by 35,000 people! Talk about motivation! We got special treatment by “qualifying” in a previous race, and not on our good looks like you probably assumed. Understandable. Our goal for the race was 3 hours 30 minutes. My previous best was 3:37 and Colin’s was 3:43, both from last year’s Marine Corps. We saw the 3:30-pace group (8-minute/mile) and decided to stick with them, no matter what. Early on we focused on staying with the group and keeping warm. Starting in downtown we got to run through the enormous buildings. Unfortunately about half of the first mile is underground, effectively incapacitating all GPS watches and throwing off any reliable splits.
Luckily, we chose a hotel right on the course, so Ev and Brittany were able to fall out of the hotel to see us at mile 1.5. They could scurry 3 blocks over to mile 2.5, and then run inside to stay warm. Yay fan support! (Note: After the race, they said we looked like crap early on. We blamed it on the cold.) Speaking of fan support, the entire 26.2 miles reminded me of the finish line of other races. There were just so many people cheering the whole time, even in the semi-Ice Age weather. The first 7 miles took us from skyscrapers to the burbs up by Lincoln Park. To this point we were both feeling strong, but I pointed out that we should be feeling strong after only 8 miles, with another 18 to go.
On our way back into the city Colin and I found we were getting a little too far ahead of the pace group. We took the opportunity to refill water bottles around mile 10 by walking the water stop and reloading. By the time we were back up to pace, the group was only a few steps in front. The pace group was less than consistent early on, which worried us a little; not so much that we’d be going too slowly, but more that we didn’t want to use too much energy early on. I guess they felt our fears through some running ESP because they started hitting their splits.
We saw Ev and Brittany again at mile 12.5 for a much-needed boost! From there we hit the half way point at exactly 1:45, which made me a little more nervous considering our track record of finishing long races (read: fall apart and struggle to walk…). Into Greektown we saw some generic-named restaurants, Agora-this, Zeus-that. It was actually the quietest part of the course as we got out near Malcolm X College. Colin dropped back again to… get more comfortable, while I stuck with the pace group. He actually caught up pretty quickly, around mile 16. If I remember correctly, not much happened until mile 20, when Colin said that we can wait about 2 miles to see how we’re feeling and maybe pick up the pace.
BAM! Felt like I got hit in the face with a 2-by-4 by the ridiculous crowd support entering Chinatown. For a second I thought we actually ran into the REAL China based on the number of people. I estimated there were anywhere between a few thousand and 1.4 billion people cheering us on. Well that was all the motivation we needed to pick it up.
From mile 21 until the finish, every mile split got faster. We realized that’s how you’re supposed to run a race, and not do what we did in Nashville. The miles (for me) went 7:53, 7:48, 7:47, 7:42, 7:29, 7:28. Yes, I was able to finish the race with two sub-7:30 miles. Makes you wonder if I had more in the tank. Well stop wondering. I didn’t. During this time, Colin took off on me. I could see him the whole time, but I couldn’t make my legs go fast enough to catch him. He ended up finishing 34 seconds ahead of me. In order to minimize his victory, it took him 12,448 seconds and it took me 12,482 seconds. Virtually identical.
I finished in 3:28:02, a full 2 minutes ahead of my goal and 9 minutes faster than my previous best! Wow! Amazing! Out of sight! Tubular! Radical! Colin finished in 3:27:28, an unheard of 16 minutes faster than his previous fastest time. The race was great, the weather cooperated, and we both did exceptionally well! Next on the docket is likely the Miami Marathon at the end of January.
The picture is straight, we just can't balance right now.
The Details:
2009 Chicago Marathon:
| Distance: | 26.2 miles |
| Time: | 3:28:02 |
| Pace: | 7:56 min/mile |
| Average HR: | Didn’t wear HR Monitor |
Pfitz Pfitz Pfitz. Looks funny no matter how many times you write it. Pfitz.
I’m halfway through week 3 of the Pfitz 55/18 training plan (18-week plan that peaks at 55 miles per week) and it’s pretty taxing (like corporate bonus taxing after all the bailouts). I’m sure the reason is that it’s a pretty big increase in miles for me since the Country Music Marathon. After running the last three days in a row, tomorrow’s rest day seems to be a Pfit-ting reward. So much, in fact, that I think I might even take Friday and Saturday off too!
Gasp!?!?!
Yes, 3 (planned) days in a row. Of not running. Maybe. With the Fairfield Half Marathon coming up on Sunday, I’m certainly not running on Saturday. Friday is supposed to be an easy 4 miles. Thursday is a day off. So all I’m really missing is 4 miles and moving my Saturday long run to the race on Sunday. Knowing me (and I like to think that I do), I’ll probably run the 4 miles anyway. That said, if I don’t run on Friday, I’ll look back at these three days as a crash taper cycle in preparation for the race. Undeniably I want to be fresh so I can beat Colin and regain the title of “winner of the most recent half marathon: the Mike and Colin story – as told by Mike”.
Also going with the theme of the title, I just bought some new shoes! Well, they’re the same Brooks Beasts that I’ve been running in since Marine Corps, but a new pair! Picked them up at Running Warehouse for a pretty price and even got an additional 15% off my order! Even better, they give free 2-day shipping and it’s being shipped today! Wow!!! Exclamation point.
This morning’s run was a little bit brutal mixed with a dash of ouch and a smidgen of when-will-it-stop. Falling under the category of Lactate Threshold (which Ev found hysterical), it involved running 4 of the 8 miles at half marathon pace. How fitting considering there is a half marathon coming up. Well, hopefully it isn’t a precursor to the race, because it did not go as well as I would have liked. For 4 miles I was struggling and burning. Some may be attributed to running the previous two days, but overall I’m going to need to slow way down for the race if this is what it’s going to feel like. If I remember last year’s course (and I most certainly do), it is a hilly beast. (Aside: Maybe my shoes and the course can be friends (if you didn’t catch my subtlety, my shoes are the Beast and the course is a beast. If you did catch it, bravo, and I apologize for such a pointless aside).) Anyway, we’ll see how the race goes and I’ll be sure to report back. I’m sure you can’t wait to hear all about my victory.
The details:
| Distance: | 8.0 miles |
| Time: | 1:02:52 |
| Pace: | 7:50 min/mile |
| Average HR: | 163 bpm (179 bpm max) |
| Splits: | Mile 3 – 7:08 Mile 4 – 7:21 Mile 5 – 7:20 Mile 6 – 7:19 |
So after a bit of a what some might call a vacation (actually, I think everyone would call it a vacation, and an amazing vacation at that!),
<<Side Note – Ev and I went to Greece (not Grease) and got to leave all responsibilities behind! Pretty much every stress-maker was left in Eastern Daylight Time, and everything that is amazing was waiting for us in Greece. Except for a comprehensible language. Greek is impossible! But the trip was amazing and I got another reprieve from running.>>
I’m back and re-energized to run. Today was the first day of training for the Chicago Marathon! I haven’t run very much since the Country Music Marathon for a number of reasons:
1) Basking in glory of beating Colin 😛 ;
b) Travel (see above about vacation);
3) Still basking in glory.
I was also ever-so-slighly under the weather this weekend (excuse alert!), so hopping right back into training wasn’t going to necessarily be like riding a bike. Maybe more like hog-tying a pig. Actually it was nothing like hog-tying a pig. It was like running.
It was harder than I wanted, but I got ‘er done. The surprisingly hard part were the 20-second sprints. At the 44-minute mark I would sprint for 20 seconds and then recover (run normal pace) for 40 seconds, and repeat ten times. My heart rate shot up and I felt drained. Here’s where I’ll hold onto that excuse for dear life. I blame it on not feeling 100%, the humidity, and the economic crisis. All told, it wasn’t terrible, and I’m looking forward to all 800 or so training miles lying in front of me for Chicago.
The details:
| Distance: | 7.68 |
| Time: | 1:04:44 |
| Pace: | 8:25 min/mile |
| Average HR | 167 bpm (185 bpm max) |
