Training Feb. 16-23

Monday - AM 10 PM 5
Tuesday - PM 10
Wednesday - 15
Thursday - AM10 PM 4
Friday - 10
Saturday - Workout with Georgetown Running Company team. 2 WU, 3 times 2 miles in 10:30-40 on C&O Canal Towpath with one mile rest, 4 CD -14
Sunday - 18

Total - 96

Now is the time to believe in what I am doing.

I finished 98th at US XC Nationals. 12k. 43:11. Not a great time -- that's a 5:44 avg -- but it put me in a respectable part of the field. Some really good runners were in the 41s and 42s and if I had a little more the last 4k maybe I could have been there.

It was a rolling 2k loop with a slippery downhill where many runners wiped out. No comfortable spots. Finished with a long muddy hill. It was the kind of race in which you had to leave a little something in the tank; going to far into oxygen debt meant a kind of death.

Meb K., 2004 Olympic Silver medalist in the marathon, a national champ at various distances, held off Tim Russell at the line.

Results: http://www.usatf.org/events/2009/USAXCChampionships/Results/om.asp

Video taken by Georgetown Running Company: http://vimeo.com/3146164?pg=embed&sec=3146164

The next morning I got out with some Georgetown Running Company guys for a 17-miler in hilly Rock Creek Park. Monday and Tuesday I felt post-Marathon sore. I did nothing but easy running and strides until Saturday, when I raced a 10k in Alexandria, the last good area race before the National Half Marathon March 21.

It was a prize money race with a couple of the best D.C. runners and some Ethiopians. I let the top five go and ran with the chase pack.

Weather was ideal and I felt smooth running 5:20s. The course ended up being long, 6.4, and I wound up finishing 6th in 34:10, which means about 33:10 for 10k. An encouraging effort.

I am in the second week of a month-long block of 100 MPW. The fifth week will be a down week and then I will do four more 100-mile weeks. Then it will be time to taper for the Frederick Marathon, May 3.

Training Week of Feb 2

Monday - AM 6 PM 4

Tuesday - 8 with strides

Monday - 10

Th - 6

F - 6 with strides

S - 3 WU, 12k race, 3 CD - 13

S - 17

Total - 70

Week of Feb 9

Monday - AM 6 PM 6

T - 12 with 5 by 30 seconds

W - 15

Th - AM 12 PM 5

F - 13

S - 3 WU, 10k race, 4 CD - 13

S - 19 in Greenbelt Park (wish I could call it 20)

Total - 99

One week until USA XC Champs in Derwood, Md.!

Training for week of Jan. 26

A tough week for training. We had a small snowstorm which left behind sheets of ice where I usually train.

I tested the cross country course in Derwood, Md. on Saturday. It is a rolling, difficult but fair 2-K loop course. The true difficulty will be the terrain, which is frozen over in parts, slippery throughout and bumpy. Hard to say what it will look like in a week, but with the open 12k race the last of the day, any ice left on the course will probably get ground up. Looks like it could be a mud bath.

M - AM 6 PM 6
T - 10 with 4 times (2 hard, 1 easy, 1 hard, 1 easy, 30 seconds hard, 1 easy)
W - 10 on treadmill
Th - 10
F - 10 - progression run on treadmill. Started at 7 minute pace, 6:00 by 2 miles, 5:45 by 4 miles, 5:30 pace miles 5-8, 6:30 pace miles 8-10.
S - 10 on and around XC course
S - 20 - 2:15
Total - 82

Training since NYC Marathon

(My weeks start on Monday)

Week of Nov. 3 - no running
Week of Nov. 10 - 30-40 minutes every other day
Week of Nov. 17 - 5 runs at 45 minutes, 1 run at 60 minutes
Week of Nov. 24 - 50 miles with 12 for long run, one day off

Dec. 1, M - 8, strides
T - 6
W - 8 with 4 miles in 22:05, 10 strides
Th - 6
F - 9
S - 9
S - 14
Total 60

Dec. 8, M - 8
T - 8, strides
W - 10 with 4 miles in 22:20, 10 strides
Th - 10
F - 9
S - 10
S - 15
Total 70

Dec. 15, M - 10
T - 10, strides
W - 11 with 5 miles in 27:38
Th - 10
F - 12
S - 10
S - 16
Total 80

Dec. 15,
Dec. 8, M - 8
T - 8, strides
W - 10 with 4 miles in 22:20, 10 strides
Th - 10
F - 9
S - 10
S - 15
Total 70

Dec. 22
M - AM 6 PM 6
T - 10
W - 10 workout spoiled by ice
Th - 8 with Dad
F - 10
S - 10
S - 18
Total - 78

Dec. 29
M - AM 6, PM 4
T - 10
W - hard 1200, 10 k tempo, hard 1200 - horrible conditions - 13
Th - 12
F - 12
S - 12, 8 by 3 minutes hard, one minute easy
S - 18
Total 87

Jan. 5
M AM 6 PM 6
T - 10 - Sligo Fartlek
W - AM 10 PM 3
Th - 12
F - 10, reps of 10 mins, 8,6,4,3,2
S - 8
S - 18
Total 83

Jan. 12
M - AM 8 PM 4
T - 8 with 20 times 35 seconds hard, 25 seconds easy
W - AM 10, PM4
Th - 1 easy, 13 at marathon pace, 1 easy - 15
F - AM 8 PM 6
S - 10
S - 19
Total - 93

NYC Marathon

My coach believes in running your first marathon as a learning experience. The idea is to choose a goal pace that provides a challenge but also falls easily within one's capabilities.

For the 2005 Baltimore Marathon, I was pretty sure that time for me was 2:35, right around 6-minutes per mile. How easy it was for 16 miles, and how quickly that feeling changed: There was a six-mile climb, the temperature spiked up, it was windy, my feet began to blister, I began to have some stomach cramps. One mile I was gliding along at a contained, calculated pace; the next I was gritting my teeth, fighting to keep my momentum.

I wound up running 2:43, and I learned that there is lot more to the marathon than simply that of running said distance at said pace. In each race new intangibles creep into the picture.

In this year's New York City Marathon, my first marathon in the U.S. since 2006, I refamiliarized myself with just how hard this race can be.

I had the privilege of participating in the sub-elite program, and in the morning I boarded a bus full of other nervous, twitchy guys like myself. Lead by a police escort, the elite and sub-elite buses left Manhattan at 6:30 a.m. An hour later we reached our staging area in Staten Island, where I saw both the women's winner (world record holder Paula Radcliffe) and the men's winner (Marilson Gomes dos Santos). At 9 a.m. organizers walked us over to the start, and I recall looking over to my right and seeing the rather intimidating sight that is the entire span of the Verrazano Bridge, the first two miles of the race, a tough climb followed by a sharp descent. When we reached the start, I jogged a couple minutes up the bridge, the biggest hill on the course. When I returned I felt the wind whipping flat against my back.

The sub elites start at the front of the bridge on the side opposite the professionals. I made a mistake in not pushing myself to the front of this start. I considered myself unworthy of the position, but when the race started I found myself getting boxed in by slower runners. After a jerky first mile of 6:15, I tried not to overstride on the downhill and passed through two miles in 11:45.

The streets of Brookyln were packed with spectators. I had been warned not to get too caught up in the atmosphere and risk beginning at an unsustainably fast pace. But the headwind one might have expected to calm down after the bridge remained in force, and it made 5:40s feel more like 5:25s. I was cold, my legs were tight and I found it hard to settle into any sort of rhythm. While I wore a wool hat and gloves, I think arm warmers would have been a help.

The thing to do on a windy day is hook into a group, and unfortunately I seemed to be out of sync with those around me, as I was simultaneously passing and being passed. My first 5k was 18:06. That's fine when you factor in the bridge. I continued to run my own race in the hope that I would eventually find a pack. While I did not seem to be running many 5:40s, naturally the split would vary with all the inclines and downhills (very little of this course is perfectly flat).

I went through 10k in 35:40, closer to goal pace, and took a gel. Then, approaching eight miles, I heard someone call my name. I took a quick look back and saw my good friend, Bill Hoffman, leading a pack on the professional side of the road.

Bill and I used to train together in New Jersey. We had the same coach for a while, and he has long been a runner I've looked up to. He works hard, knows a ton about the marathon and has a PB of 2:24, which got him 10th at the 2005 national champs.

Coincidentally, Bill's last marathon was also the 2006 Chicago Marathon, for which he had been in great shape and was aiming for a sub 2:22 Olympic trials qualifier. An achilles injury, however, hampered him on race day (he still ran 2:26) and required him to miss more than a year. While he was not able to put in the same volume prior to New York that he had in the past, Bill had nonetheless gotten himself in decent shape, and was hoping to run about 2:33.

At eight miles, when the two races merged together, Bill's group was a block ahead of me, and it became very clear to me that I needed to catch them. For two miles I basically ran as hard as I could, passing through 10 miles in 57 minutes and catching the group about a minute later.

I tapped Bill on the shoulder and we exchanged a few words. Meanwhile, the next two miles were the most comfortable I experienced in the race. Running inside a pack, the effort was much easier; I did not notice the wind as much.

We were running about 5:45-5:50 pace, and I was beginning to adjust my goal to low 2:30s.

My confidence had been shaky through the windy opening miles, but the marathon, in a sense, is all about rolling through the good patches and not panicking during the rough ones. I could see we were heading for the halfway mark in about 1:15; I was feeling fluid and my confidence was rising.

We were at 12.5 miles, a silent bunch utilizing a slight downhill. I was in the middle of the pack. It happened very quickly: Someone stepped on my left heel and my shoe flew off behind me. I ran about 10 feet back, picked it up and moved toward the curb. My hands were frozen; I would have been unable to untie the triple knot. There was a guy, about my age, standing right there. I handed him the shoe and asked him to untie it. He did not even flinch; he accomplished the task in seconds and handed it back. I put the shoe on my foot.

"Can you tie it, too?" I asked. "I am sorry to ask you to do this but my hands are numb."

"No problem," he said. "It's just like NASCAR."

I do not know who this individual was, but I cannot thank him enough. Because of his help I lost 45 seconds as opposed to several minutes.

In the end, however, I think I lost a lot more than 45 seconds. The pack went through the half in a few ticks over 1:15. I went through in 1:15.46, my rythym disrupted with less than three miles before the big climb up the Queensboro Bridge. Had I been able to stick with the group, this might have been an entirely different race. Instead, the second half was a struggle.

I did not give up. Like my coach told me before the race, I tried in every mile to get as much out of myself as I could. I held it reasonably well together through 18, running about 6-flats. At 19, where I saw my dad, things got really tough, and if I did not have such a wonderful mix of family and friends cheering for me in the 20s, I am not sure I would have gotten through it.

It was surreal running through those final miles in Central Park, through a stretch of the race I knew so well from watching it so many times on television, and then the final stretch to the finish. Later that afternoon, in my parents house in New Jersey where I watched the highlight show on NBC, I would marvel at how swiftly Paula Radcliffe crossed the finish line in victory and swooped up her child as if she had just finished another Sunday training run.

Never have I been so dead tired at the finish line. My vision was fuzzy; my emotions were wacky. Again, I can't thank my family and friends enough for their support, for the cheering on the course and their kind words afterward and then their aid in walking me to the car. My lips were practically blue, and my sister gave me her sweatshirt to put on top of my jacket.

I finished in 2:41, 146th place, and I wonder what might have happened sans shoe mishap. I like to think I might have run 2:34 or 2:35. Maybe that seems like an overestimation, but on this tough day in New York, my dad, for one, noted that the only runners who did not seem to be suffering were those who found groups to work with.

The result was less than I hoped for, but I also gave it my best, fought as hard as I could. You swallow the result. You try to think of new ways to improve. And perhaps you hop right back on the horse.

Race week

I started this blog shortly after I returned from the Peace Corps. At the time, I did not have a reporting job and did not know that I would be too busy to really "chronicle" my preparation for the New York City Marathon.

I am now less than a week out. I did a mere 6 on Monday, 7 this morning and after some 100-mile weeks it feels like nothing. Some people do not like the taper: They get worried they are losing everything they have worked to gain. But I know from experience that it works -- the fitness does not go away; it improves -- and I like this phase of winding it down to the race, doing just enough to stay sharp, feeling like an athlete.

Last week was about 65 miles. On Thursday I did 3 by 1 mile with a 400 jog for rest. 5:00, 5:03, 5:10. The last rep was a struggle; obviously I would have preferred it not to be. Before Chicago in 2006 I did 5:00, 5:04, 5:04. But this workout took place first thing in the morning; it was cold and windy and I was feeling a bit drained. I see no reason to panic.

This will be my first marathon in America in two years. I chose to do this race while I was in Niger, around the time Emily and I decided we would not be staying in country for the entire 24 months. It may even have been last November: We were in Zinder and I was running through this wide open patch of hardpan near the hostel ...

Before I left for Niger in January of 2007 I was dealing with the idea that I might not be running for two years, that a few months after running 2:29 at the Chicago Marathon and feeling like I was finally getting somewhere in this sport that it might in fact all be coming to an end.

We spent our first two months in a training site. It was enclosed by a fence, perched up on a hill overlooking a village, quite literally in a bubble. My first five days there I had no choice: my luggage (my shoes) did not make it from Paris. By the time they arrived, however, I had to do something, and I had already begun to realize that training in Niger would be possible. It may be the hottest place in the world, but it is tolerable early in the morning. The people may be some of the poorest in the world and extremely conservative and perplexed by running, but the villages are surrounded by dead land rolling out and out and out. You find a way to sneak away; then you are gone, free, unseen.

There was a decrepit basketball court in the back corner of the training site (which was previously used by French engineers during the Colonial era). I started there, running some laps around the court and then carving a small loop around the site. It was difficult: I had not trained in a couple weeks, for one, but my system was in a state of shock.

Twenty minutes. Thirty minutes. Forty minutes. After I week I could stand the compound no more; it was time to break out. I let myself through the gate one morning, the sun barely up as the guard said something to me in a language I did not understand and suddenly I was running again, in brown pants and a buttondown shirt, the closest thing I had to running clothes ...

I chose New York because I wanted my return to marathoning in New York to feel triumphant. I wanted a big city marathon like Chicago, only I did not want to be competing with my 2006-self in Chicago, on that flat-as-a-pancake course. I would return to the city where I was born, a city I only have vague memories of, a city that nonetheless has a certain smell and an energy that makes no other city I have ever been to truly feel like a city, a city that would carry me to back to where I was. A tough, fair, championship course with hills and difficult pavement.

As much as I was able to run in Niger, my return to truly regular training -- the kind that is not regularly interrupted by things like 24-hour bus rides, farming season and amoebic dysentery -- was humbling. My fitness was lower in March than I assumed it was. My anaerobic conditioning was depleted, and it got better, slowly, but my summer racing was nonetheless discouraging.

So now I have put myself through the rigors of a marathon buildup. I am tapering correctly. I know I know how to run this race. I believe I know what I can do. For the first time in many months I will be able to rest and be fresh and have some pop in my legs. My parents, my wife, my coach will be on the streets cheering me on.

There is more faith than hard evidence at this point. We'll see how tomorrow's dress rehearsal goes. One day at a time. Always.

Two weeks to go

VIDEO: Fred Lebow and the founding of the NYC Marathon. I am reading Bart Yasso's "My Life on the Run," and the early comments in this video remind me of his story about the Philadelphia Marathon in the early 80s, how he was pumped to run through the neighborhoods he had seen in "Rocky" only to get beaned with heads of lettuce. The vendors were mad the street was closed, barring them from the usual customers. Or my dad first beginning to run in New York around the same time, getting beer bottles hucked at him when he trained at night ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adn628NSY-c

This is a good time to be a runner. Temperatures in the mid 40s. Cool, crisp air. July, August and September are months of gritting it out, legs heavy, heat, humidity. But in October, or pehaps mid-October, the weather is often ideal for running, and when you throw a taper into the mix, one can reconnect with the pure enjoyment of putting one foot in front of the other.

Bill Dellinger once said when you are fit, running is as easy as brushing your teeth. Training for real, on the other hand, is more like getting your teeth cleaned every day.

I put in a 106 miles for the week of Oct.6-12.

Monday - 10
Tuesday - AM 12, PM 4
Wednesday - AM 13 PM 7
Thursday - AM UMD track - 3 WU, 4 by 2 mile with 2 minutes rest (10:38, 10:40, 10:55, 11:05) 2 CD, PM 7
Friday - 10
Saturday - 10
Sunday - 22

The Thursday workout was dissapointing. I did this same workout prior to Chicago in 2006 and ran 10:40 across the board. It was a huge boost in confidence.

But my legs were tired for this recent workout, and as hard as tried I could not get them to turn over on the last two reps.

Heading into this first of three taper weeks prior to New York on Nov. 2, I had reason to feel good about the volume I put in. At the same time, nothing about it leapt out at me and screamed loud and clear that I am capable of running under 2:30.

I am feeling more confident, though, after this week. My legs have responded quickly to the reduction in mileage, and on Friday I did my five-mile tempo around the asphalt track in Takoma Park in 26:42, with splits of 5:22, 5:24, 5:18, 5:18, 5:18. The effort was very smooth; I felt as if I could have continued for several more miles at 5:18 before it would have become difficult.

The three-week taper I use was created by Pete Pfitzinger, winner of the 1984 and 1988 U.S. Olympic marathon trials. I have used for it all of my marathons, and my belief in it by this point is implicit. The first week is a 25 percent reduction in mileage from my peak week. The second week, meanwhile, is a 25 percent reduction from the previous one. The taper achieves two things: it allows me to feel at my best on race day and to respond physiologically to the build-up, meaning that as my legs are getting fresher my fitness is also improving, as the rest is allowing my system to make some of the adaptations sparked by a dozen weeks of mileage hovering around 100 per week. Next week I will do a workout of 3 by 1 mile on the track; the week of the marathon I will do a "dress rehearsal" of three miles at marathon goal pace. Keeping these faster workouts in the mix helps retains one's mental and physical sharpness.

Oct. 13-19
Monday - 9
Tuesday - 10
Wednesday - 14
Thursday - 10
Friday - 3 WU, 5 miles at 5:20 pace, 3 CD
Saturday - 10
Sunday - 17
Total - 80