Boston Predictions

Boston is so close I can taste it.
For the very first time, I'm actually stoked to do this race! Yeah, I ran a long and hard race less than two weeks ago, but besides a little residual fatigue, I feel good... really, really good...

And fast.

This is a totally new concept and experience for me. As I sit here, I'm full of confidence and mentally prepared to run low-6 minute miles for an entire marathon. Wait, I had to just re-read that... I'm having a hard time believing what I just wrote and that I honestly think I can go sub-2:50 (or faster). I say this because less than two years ago, I had already run numerous marathons in an attempt to just qualify for Boston, all of which had been failures from a time perspective. (My first 6 or 7 road marathons where all between 3:15 and 3:35.)

And now, having only run one road marathon per year the last two years, I've managed to shave 10 minutes off my PR at each, putting my current best at 2:55. It's hard to quantify what finally clicked, but it's an exhilarating feeling to have finally gotten to this point. Surely, it's just strength and consistency that did it.

Anyway, for the sake of making me accountable, I'm going to show some cards and mention some of my goals/predictions.

• D-Goal: Just Finish
• C-Goal: Sub-2:55 (new PR)
• B-Goal: Sub-2:53 (JT's PR and lots of smack-talking rights)
• A-Goal: 2:45-2:47

JT and I have an over/under bet on whether or not I'll beat Joan Benoit Samuelson. Considering she ran a 2:47.xx last October - setting the over-50 female world record - I consider this a lofty goal. JT has 'over', and there's a good chance he'll be winning a 6 pack on this one, but I love the challenge!

Sub-2:46 also has a nice ring to it since it's the women's qualifying standard for the Olympic Trials, and Karl Meltzer did think I was a woman going into Hardrock last summer, so why not? This will be another goal in the back of my mind.

Oh, and Andy, who clearly has more confidence in me than I do, thinks I'll break 2:40. He's a good friend, but he obviously needs to get off the LSD. No offense.

This should be fun. At the very least, I like my chances of breaking the 'Skinny Guy with Cystic Fibrosis and Gout' World Record...

January 2011 Recap

My month in a nutshell:

• # of days I ran = 29
• # of miles run = 188
• Average miles per run = 6.48/day

After taking virtually the entire month of December off, the theme for January was consistency. Even though my mileage wasn't super impressive, I quickly started to get strong again and for the first time in almost two years, I'm running pain free! Somehow, I just woke up one morning and the Plantar Fasciitis pain was gone. And by averaging just over 10k per day, I'm nearly running the mileage I was at in July/August last year.

Overall, I'm pleased with where I'm at fitness wise, and the fact that I successfully avoided the most recent wave of sickness (chest cold/flu) that's been going around my office.

Highlights of the month:

1. Back-to-back long run weekends (32 mile and 23 mile days).
2. Beating JT at the Winter Series II 8 miler. (He'll deny it since I registered as 'Dirk Diggler', but it still happened. Oh, and ignore the slow times, we'd run 15 miles before the race.)
3. Running into a rabid squirrel who was chasing its own tail.
4. Meeting and (briefly) running with Scott Jurek.
5. Making page 21 of Runner's World.
6. Being touted as the featured athlete on the Brew to Brew race website.

With just over two months until I begin my 'official' race season, my main goal is to steadily increase the mileage while starting to incorporate speed work, tempo runs, hills, and interval training. Both of my April races are going to be more about leg speed than endurance (Brew to Brew, and the Boston Marathon), so it's time to get my butt moving.

Last but not least, my good friend Andy Henshaw just laid down a 2:26 marathon in Miami last Sunday, which has also inspired me to run fast! With a little help from him and others, I'm putting together a training plan that will hopefully have me in sub-2:45 shape by Boston.

Brooks

Boston Bound (Finally!!)

With my summer race schedule becoming filled up quickly with ultra's, I didn't know when I could fit in a fast road marathon (and hopefully PR and qualify for Boston) until late last week when I found what seemed to be the perfect solution: The Colfax Marathon in Denver. It is relatively flat (700ft vertical gain), it was only 3 days away (5/17) and I have had a couple of restful weeks since my last race, so why not?! Everything seemed perfect...

...and then Saturday arrived. I woke up with a nasty sore throat that ended up being the precursor to a head and chest cold I would be fighting for the next 5 days. Super!

Race morning arrived and I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed and feel sorry for myself, but I was already committed and had some friends who were going to be at the race so I dragged my butt to the race start and filed into the starting grid at the 8:00 minute pace area (I was NOT feeling optimistic at that point) just before the gun went off.

I felt good for the first 3 miles, but by the time miles 4-6 came rolling around I was suffering (and from experience this is a bad sign in a 26 mile race). My nose wouldn't stop running, it hurt to swallow, and I couldn't stop coughing. Just before the 10k mark I was passed my a handful of runners and this just added to my low mental state. And then something amazing happened! Almost every runner within my sight went veering off the course and just then it dawned on me: Most of the runners on the course were doing the marathon relay and not the full thing! Once the dust had cleared from this first exchange point I realized that I was actually among the leaders at the front of the marathon pack. Talk about the mental and emotional boost I needed! Now instead of feeling sorry for myself I was getting more and more energized every time I passed another runner (especially when it was a relay runner with fresh legs).
At this point I adopted a new motto: If I am sick and this is going to hurt, why not go hard and have it hurt for a shorter period of time?! I might even place in the top 25!

At the halfway point I was in 15th place and besides the cold symptoms, the rest of my body still felt strong and we had a few miles of gradual downhill to enjoy. By mile 17 I started to feel some tightness in both calves but I was still keeping about a 6:50 pace! Between 18 and 20 I started to feel the fatigue but two things kept me going. 1) I heard some people screaming my name and I soon saw that it was my good friends Grant and Katie Willemarck causing the comotion! I don't think I have ever felt such a boost from hearing cheers. At this point I remembered that I wasn't in this thing alone and didn't want to disappoint my friends or myself by giving in to the pain. 2) I was only 10k away from the finish and I was only at 2:20. This meant as long as I kept putting one foot in front of the other, I would be Boston bound! No amount of pain was going to stop me!

With three miles to go I new that I would finish sub 3:10 so the rest of the race felt like a hard earned victory lap. All the disappointment of missing the qualifying time yet again was gone and I had the goosebumps to prove it! Finishing was surreal; it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. I have never enjoyed being sick so much!! After almost 2 years and 8 marathons I am finally going to Boston!

RESULTS: 3:05.32, 11th Overall, New PR

(I won't dwell on it too much since it has been resolved, but until Wednesday the correct results weren't posted and I was not even shown as having finished. I was livid. Here I had pushed myself sooo hard and accomplished something so memorable and I wasn't going to be able to run the Boston Marathon because of a faulty timing chip?! Needless to say there were a couple of sleepless nights while this issue was getting resolved!)