Boston Marathon: race report

It has taken me a while to post this race report from the Boston Marathon, mainly because my day job keeps me very busy at this time of year. But I also needed some time to reflect on the race.

I set a small (22 second) PR of 3:06:04. Both the course and the weather (headwind and rain) were more difficult than I’ve experienced before in a marathon – certainly in comparison with my previous PR, which was set in perfect conditions on a mostly flat course in Philadelphia a year and a half ago.

Since I was on pace to finish 10 minutes faster than that last December in Pisa before dropping out at 35k, I can’t say I’m all that excited about the time itself, even if it is a PR. What I am very happy about, however, is that I felt and ran much stronger in the second half of the race than I ever have before in a marathon, and that I did it after missing a lot of training.

Here are side-by-side splits from the previous three marathons I’ve finished. On the left is my previous PR race in Philly. In the 16 weeks before Philly I averaged 64 miles per week. The erratic early pacing and my poor fueling strategy may have contributed to my falling off pace early in Philly, but at the time I was still pleased about not completely falling apart. After Philly I never fully got back into training mode and averaged only 36.8 miles over the 16 weeks before Grandma’s, which is in the middle column. At Grandma’s (another mostly flat course) I fueled much more wisely but eventually fell apart big time. In the 16 weeks before Boston, represented on the right, I averaged 38.7 miles per week – about the same volume as before Grandma’s, but my training is much smarter now that I’m working with Ryan Vail. (In the 16 weeks before Pisa I averaged 55.7 miles per week, but I don’t have mile splits from Pisa since my watch was set on km.)

Philly 11/17/13   Grandma's 6/20/14  Boston 4/20/15


mile 1:   7:04                   6:53                     7:11


mile 2:   6:37                   6:46                     6:54


mile 3:   6:42                   6:45                     6:55


mile 4:   6:44                   6:48                     6:52


mile 5:   6:48                   6:51                     7:15 (quick pee break)


mile 6:   7:07                   6:49                     6:48


[10k:     42:01                 42:29                   43:37]


mile 7:   6:34                   6:51                     6:50


mile 8:   6:55                   6:52                     6:56


mile 9:   6:45                   6:52                     6:56


mile 10: 7:05                   6:44                     6:57


mile 11: 6:47                   6:59                     6:59


mile 12: 6:46                   6:48                     6:57


mile 13: 6:55                   6:49                     6:57


[Half:    1:29:27              1:29:56                1:31:37]


mile 14: 6:49                   6:45                     6:57


mile 15: 6:49                   6:54                     7:04 (stomach trouble after gel #4)


mile 16: 6:55                   6:57                     6:53 (downhill then Newton hills begin)


mile 17: 7:17                   7:06                     7:18


mile 18: 7:36                   7:09                     7:14


[30k:     2:08:42               ------                   2:11:05]


mile 19: 7:29                   7:06                     7:04


mile 20: 7:36                   7:31                     7:15


mile 21: 7:36                   7:35                     7:39 (heartbreak)


mile 22: 7:34                   7:34                     7:00


mile 23: 7:41                   8:21                     7:13


mile 24: 7:32                   8:44                     7:05


mile 25: 7:39                   7:57                     7:15


mile 26: 7:42                   8:05                     7:21


finish:   3:06:26              3:10:33                3:06:04

During the first 10k, I just tried to warm up and get rolling comfortably, whatever my pace turned out to be. After a few miles I started settling into 3:00 pace, around 6:50 (not factoring in a quick pee break). From the start through 7 miles or so it was raining lightly and the wind was barely noticeable with all the other people running around and in front of me. 

But then around 8 miles it started raining more moderately and the wind became more noticeable. I maintained roughly the same effort level, but the worsening conditions meant that I slowed down to just under 7:00 pace. Things stayed this way through 14 miles or so. I remained comfortable and was deliberately erring on the side of taking it too easy. Instead of being bothered by the conditions, I was pumped up by the cheering crowds of spectators and looking forward to the second half.

I ate a gel with water around miles 4, 7, 11, and 15, usually taking another small swig of water at the next fuel station a mile later in each case. Everything went down fine until the fourth gel in mile 15, which caused me some stomach discomfort. Otherwise I still felt ok, but this worried me. I briefly slowed a bit in mile 15 and took a small swig of water at the next station in mile 16 to help settle things, after which I resolved not to put anything in my stomach for a while. Luckily this stomach issue seems to have worked itself out during the long downhill in mile 16 just before the Newton hills begin.

Once I hit the hills, the race was on, the crowds were loud, and I was pumped again. Supposedly there are four major hills, but I found the first and last (heartbreak) to be the hardest and was surprised by how much downhill there was during that 5 mile stretch as well. On the first hill I pushed a bit and was passing people, but it went on long enough and I was tired enough at the top that I decided to take it easier on the next couple hills in order to save something for heartbreak. My splits don't seem to reflect this, perhaps because the next two hills weren't as hard and there was a lot of downhill to balance them out. By the time I reached 20 miles, before heartbreak, I knew that I had judged my energy reserves well and was feeling stronger than ever before at that point in a marathon. Heartbreak is the steepest of the Newton hills but not radically steeper than the others and not longer. I put in about the same effort as on the previous two hills, which meant I slowed down even more because it's steeper, mainly just making sure my form held together and biding my time until I reached the top. By this point I had started drinking a little gatorade at some, not all, of the fueling stations.

After heartbreak I felt euphoric but remembered people saying that the last 5 miles can be the hardest on this course. They're mostly downhill, but you still need to run 5 more miles after already having run 21. You expect and want the finish line to come sooner than it does. So I got back into a rhythm and resisted the urge to push too hard. This was the first time, in my ninth marathon, than I still felt solid and smooth after 20 miles. Knowing this, I was pumped but didn't want to screw it up. Soon the weather worsened further - again both the rain and the headwinds picked up. Perhaps that's why my 23rd mile split is slower, but I maintained the same effort level. Around 23 miles, I hazarded eating half a gel with water, which went down fine. I figured that I was on 3:04 or 3:05 pace, which is faster than I had hoped going into this. But most importantly I wanted to stay strong all the way to the finish. I concentrated on just keeping my form together and getting through one mile at a time.

It wasn't until I saw the Citgo sign, which is a mile from the finish but which you first see about a mile and a half from the finish, that I allowed myself to think that I was almost there. With the heavy rain and strong headwind, though, and after running 25 miles, I wasn't able to speed up at all. I just held it together and kept on going. After 25 miles I realized that in fact I was only on 3:06 pace. So it was really only during the last mile that I thought about time, when I was aiming at least to get under my then-PR of 3:06:26 and maybe to get under 3:06 if possible.

I did set a small PR, which always feels good. But the time isn't what feels best about how my race went, even when I speculate about how much faster I could have run on a flatter course in better conditions. Again, what I feel best about by far is how strong I stayed in the second half, which was my main goal going into this race. In every one of my other eight marathons (well, seven, not including one that I just jogged) I fell off pace somewhere between 13 and 19 miles and never recovered. In my better marathons, before Boston, I fell apart later and slowed down less than in my worse ones. But in Boston, for the first time, I merely had a low point (in miles 15-16), from which I recovered. Otherwise my pace variations mostly correspond to terrain and weather. This is a big deal for me. 

It came just in time too, because I was starting to sour on the marathon. If Boston hadn't gone well, then I may have finally concluded that I just don't have the capacity to store enough fuel for the marathon. But apparently I do after all. So that's not what's keeping me from running a marathon faster, so far.

I’m not sure why I was able to hold it together better than ever before in Boston of all places, on tough hills and in rough weather, and after less-than-optimal winter training, with precious few long runs in particular. Maybe the slower first half enabled me to run stronger in the second half. Maybe the hills actually helped me avoid muscle tightness. Maybe the incredible crowds carried me along. Or maybe my training is just sinking in and I’m starting to get better at this stuff. Perhaps it’s some combination of these factors. In any case, I think this race justifies me (and my coach) in expecting a big PR in my next marathon, which is going to be Philadelphia (again) in November. 

Before then I’m going to switch my focus to shorter distances over the summer. I’ve already set a marathon PR in 2015. Now I want to take a crack at my 5k PR of 17:58, my 10k PR of 37:23, and then my 10 mile PR of 1:02:49 in early Fall. My upcoming races are listed on the right, and I’ll post an update on my training before the PRR Twilight Festival 4 miler on June 13.

Final five weeks of Boston training, or How I learned to love the hilly fartlek

March 9-15
Mo: off
Tu: 7
We: fartlek: 12 x 1:30 moderate effort with equal recoveries
Th: 7
Fr: 5
Sa: Rock n' Roll DC half marathon in 1:28:07
Su: off
Week total: 42.5

March 16-22
Mo: 5
Tu: 8 plus 8 strides
We: 8
Th: fartlek: 10 x 1:00 light effort with equal recoveries
Fr: off (sick)
Sa: off (sick)
Su: off (sick)
Week total: 29

March 23-29
Mo: 6
Tu: 9 plus 8 strides
We: 7
Th: fartlek: 3 x (3, 2, 1 min.) hard effort with equal recoveries
Fr: 6
Sa: off
Su: Aborted marathon pace run after 3 miles (felt off)
Week total: 42

March 30 - April 5
Mo: 6
Tu: 9 miles at 6:57/mi. over rolling hills
We: 5
Th: 6
Fr: fartlek: (5, 4, 3), (4, 3, 2), (3, 2, 1 min.) hard effort with equal recoveries
Sa: off
Su: 16 at 7:42/mi.
Week total: 55

April 6-12
Mo: off
Tu: 7
We: 6
Th: 4 x 2 miles at 6:34, 30, 32, 26/mi. with 2 min. rests
Fr: 4
Sa: off
Su: 90 min. at 7:37/mi. (11.8 miles)
Week total: 42 miles

These last five weeks of training for Boston did not go as well as I'd hoped when I wrote my previous entry. Initially the weather and my body did not cooperate, and by late March this seemed to be affecting my mind as well. The first week above was my Spring break, and my body has a tendency to fall apart when I relax after a period of stress. Given my line of work, these low points typically correspond with breaks in the academic calendar. So my planned tempo run that first week was scaled back to a moderate fartlek, and this ended up being the pattern for the next few weeks as well: instead of progressively longer tempos, I did progressively harder fartleks over rolling hills each week. The weather was cold and rainy for the Rock n' Roll DC half marathon on March 14. Given the conditions (and the course seemed hillier than I remembered), I just ran by feel and tried to maintain a slightly harder than marathon effort. My time is nothing special, but I still felt strong at the end and could have continued at that pace for some time. So that was encouraging enough. But the effort in the cold rain left me fighting a losing battle against the latest germs that my son had brought home from school. By the end of the week I was down for the count with flu symptoms, from which I was recovering for much of the following week as well. That doesn't fully explain whatever was wrong with me on March 29, though, when I aborted a planned 15-16 mile marathon pace run after just getting started. Whatever the deal was physically, clearly my mind wasn't in the right place that day. I tried again two days later but, in a fit of what my coach called excessive zeal, elected to run over the rolling hills in my neighborhood where I do fartleks. The hills chewed me up and spit me out after 9 miles or so. It was still a good training run but left me without a long tempo beyond the half marathon a couple weeks earlier. That ended up being my highest volume week of this entire cycle: 55 miles! My longest run was 20 miles on March 3, and my overall low volume has left me a tad heavier than my standard racing weight for the past few years. Nevertheless, I'm very excited for Boston and remain optimistic about running well. I'm confident about my hill training and felt strong on my 4 x 2 mile tempo this past week. My overall low volume and shortage of long runs (although I at least felt strong on my 16 miler last weekend) will incline me to run conservatively during the first half in order to remain strong for the Newton hills in miles 16-21 and then take advantage of the downhills to the finish, which is precisely the strategy recommended by most people with experience on the Boston course. Given my suboptimal training, I won't be disappointed by a slower time and will enjoy soaking up the experience of running the Boston marathon in any case. But I'm far from ruling out a good time. I'll simply put in the best effort I'm capable of that day all the way to the finish line and see what happens.

Five wintry weeks

Feb. 2-8
Mo: off
Tu: 7 (plus strides)
We: 6
Th: 10 x 200m @ 40 sec. average on track (200m jog recoveries)
Fr: off (hamstring/groin tight)
Sa: Hilly 8k DCRRC race in 32:26 (7th overall)
Su: 17
Week total: 45.5

Feb. 9-15
Mo: off (groin sore)
Tu: 7
We: 6
Th: fartlek: 3 x (3, 2, 1 min) with equal recoveries
Fr: 5
Sa: 3 x 2k @ 6:32 average (2 min. rest), 50 min. easy, 3 x 2k @ 6:24 average (2 min. rest)
Su: 5 on treadmill (snowstorm)
Week total: 50

Feb. 16-22
Mo: off
Tu: 9 x 1k averaging 4:04 (6:32/mi.) on rolling hills w/ 90 sec. rest
We: 7
Th: off (fighting off cold)
Fr: 5
Sa: 5 (aborted long run because of very cold weather)
Su: 8 (again skipped long run because of snow)
Week total: 33

Feb. 23 - March 1
Mo: off
Tu: 16 mile progression from 7:35-45 to 6:45/mi. on rolling hills
We: 5
Th: off (fighting off cold)
Fr: 6 (plus strides)
Sa: off
Su: 5 on treadmill (skipped St. Patrick's 10k because of ice storm)
Week total: 34

March 2-8
Mo: off
Tu: 4 miles @ 6:38, 1 hour easy, 4 miles @ 6:38
We: 7
Th: off (snow storm)
Fr: 7
Sa: 6 miles easy, 6 x 40 sec. (about 200m) hills with jog back recoveries
Su: 3
Week total: 46

From one point of view, I've run disappointingly low mileage especially beginning in the third of these five weeks, given that I'm in a marathon training cycle building up to an April 20 race. That's true. But from another point of view, this has probably been my best late winter training period since I started running. Rules number one and two in distance running are: don't get sick or injured. For the first time in several years, I managed to follow those rules during this most difficult time of the year. When something hurt or I noticed cold symptoms, I backed off or took a day off - often thanks to the sound judgment of my coach, Ryan Vail. That, plus the additional days I took off because of winter storms during this period, meant that my overall mileage was lower than desired. True. But still I avoided illness and injury, managed to get in some good workouts every week, and am on track to pick things up now that the weather is improving. New England really got hammered this winter, but down here in DC this winter was actually pretty mild until these five weeks. On the whole, last winter was much worse here, because it was basically like these past five weeks for three full months. And last year I was quite sick for most of February, so it seemed like I was starting from scratch again at this point in early March. This year, although I'm not in ideal shape right now and haven't been running a lot of miles, at least I'm healthy and have gotten in some good workouts recently. I look forward to testing my fitness at next weekend's Rock n' Roll DC Half Marathon. After that my sights are firmly set on Boston. Lately I've had several good workouts on hills, both long and short, and I'm eager to find out what those Newton hills really feel like from miles 16-21 of the Boston course. It has not escaped me that from the start line in Boston to the top of heartbreak hill is roughly the same distance to where I dropped out in Pisa, after which it's mostly downhill to the finish line on Boylston Street. If I'm strong enough to negotiate both the downhills and the uphills in Boston, and just enough stronger than I was in Pisa to hang on for those last five, mostly downhill miles, then on April 20th I might run my best marathon to date. That's the goal, anyway. With the snow melting and the first signs of Spring beginning to appear, I'm feeling optimistic.

January base

Jan. 5-11
Mo: 5
Tu: off
We: 7
Th: 6
Fr: 7
Sa: off
Su: 10
Week total: 35

Jan. 12-18
Mo: off
Tu: 10 x 40 seconds hill repeats
We: 7
Th: 3 x (3, 2, 1 min.) hilly fartlek with equal recoveries
Fr: off
Sa: 7
Su: 11.5
Week total: 41

Jan. 19-25
Mo: 6
Tu: 3 x (60, 40, 20 seconds) hill repeats
We: 7
Th: (5, 4, 3), (4, 3, 2), (3, 2, 1) min. hilly fartlek with half recoveries
Fr: 7
Sa: off
Su: 13
Week total: 48

Jan. 26 - Feb.1
Mo: off
Tu: 8 x 60 seconds hill repeats
We: 7
Th: 2 x (1, 2, 3, 4 min.) hilly fartlek with half recoveries (before ice stopped me)
Fr: off
Sa: 6
Su: 10 mile tempo @ 6:45 pace
Week total: 42

After the Pisa Marathon, I returned to the US the next day, sick and sore. Two weeks later, I started running again in preparation for my next goal race: the Boston Marathon on April 20. January was spent building a base emphasizing hill repeats and hilly fartleks, while slowly building up the long run again and culminating in a 10 mile marathon-pace tempo. Though I'm not in great shape yet, my form is coming along and I'm ready to begin doing some harder workouts in February. This time around I plan to take advantage of being back in the Washington area by doing several shorter races leading up to Boston. At this point my plan is to start with a low-key rust-buster next weekend: the DC Road Runner's Langley 8k, which will be my first race shorter than a marathon since last May. Three weeks after that I'll do the St. Patrick's 10k on March 1, followed by the Rock 'n Roll DC Half Marathon two weeks later on March 14. If I manage to avoid getting sick or injured, as I did each of the previous three winters, then early Spring should be a lot of fun on the racing front. After Boston, depending on how my recovery goes, I may focus for a short time on 5k-10k speed before shifting back to longer distances in advance of a Fall marathon. That's my thinking now, anyway. 

Pisa Marathon: race report

My first trip to Italy was for a conference in Pisa in the late spring of 2010. I had run my first race (at least in modern history) in November of 2009, a half marathon, and would soon begin running more in preparation for my first marathon in the fall of 2010. Four and a half years later, I returned to Pisa for my eighth marathon and first race as a masters runner.

We arrived in Pisa on Thursday afternoon, three days before the race on Sunday, December 21. My wife and son started coming down with cold symptoms that same day, and I began showing symptoms as well by Friday evening. Still we spent much of Friday exploring Pisa and Saturday walking around the nearby town of Lucca. The evening before the race I was feverish, and in the middle of the night I woke up with such a sore throat that I initially mistook it for strep. But somehow I willed these symptoms away during the second half of the night and woke up on the morning of the race feeling suddenly and surprisingly ok. Once I rejected all thoughts of not running the race, I completely forgot about being sick until another runner coughed next to me mid-race. Aside from that brief moment, it didn't even occur to me during the race to use sickness as an excuse not to push myself as hard as I could.

The plan was to start the race with the 3:00 pace group but to push ahead before halfway if I found a group to run with at a slightly faster but reasonable pace, to go through halfway no faster than 1:29, and either to run a negative split if I continued feeling good later in the race or just to hang on for a sub-3:00 finish otherwise.

Me (106) running with the 3:00 pace group at 2km.

I had no trouble finding the 3:00 pace group at the start. Although there were just under 3,000 runners in the race, the streets were narrow and a large number of runners were tagging along either with the 3:00 marathon pace group or the 1:30 half-marathon group, which were right next to each other since the two races started together. The first water station at 5km was a bit of a mess for those of us running in this mob, so I moved ahead a bit earlier than planned, finally managing to get in front of the group just after 8km (5mi) and before the second water station.

Ahead of the 3:00 group, the road was much more open but there were plenty of other runners around, even after the half-marathon course diverged from the marathon course between 10 and 15km. I didn't latch onto any group but just ran comfortably in the mid-to-upper 6:40s (per mile pace) through 16km (10 mi). Feeling very good, I then decided to close a small gap that had formed ahead of me and to find a group to run with, increasing my pace slightly into the low-to-mid 6:40s. I closed the gap and finally settled in with a small, constantly changing group at almost 20km (12mi). We went through halfway in 1:27:52, which is 4:09/km or 6:42/mi pace.

Almost from the start of the race I noticed that the km markers kept coming earlier than my Garmin thought they should. Either the course was short or my Garmin was measuring it long. I couldn't tell which it was until I saw that split at halfway: obviously the course was short, because there's no way I was running that fast. I'd guess that my real halfway split was more like 1:28:30, a little faster than planned but not more than a minute faster. After the race someone told me that in Italy race courses are measured from the middle of the road (or the lane if the entire road isn't open), which means that you actually cover less than the official distance if you run the tangents on turns (as everyone does). His watch agreed with mine that the course was short: my Garmin showed 25.92 miles at the finish.

So I was probably averaging around 6:45 pace by halfway. But still feeling good, and realizing that the course was slightly short, I started fixing my sights on finishing in 2:55. Shortly before halfway the course left the foggy farmland in which we had been running and arrived at the coastline. We ran one direction along the coast on one side of a wide road, then turned around and ran the other direction on the other side of the road for a couple km past where we had initially arrived at the coast. Before the turnaround we saw the race leader and then everyone else ahead of us running in the opposite direction, and after the turnaround I saw all the runners I had recently passed and then the 3:00 pace group and everyone behind it. Mentally I shifted into a different mode after halfway, having to concentrate on staying relaxed and beginning to break the rest of the race into small chunks. But physically I still felt good, although maintaining my pace was not as effortless as it had been before. Still I felt smooth and was confident that I had enough in the tank for the second half.

After 29km (18mi), the course turned away from the coastline, back toward Pisa, and into a strong headwind. I hadn't noticed a tailwind earlier, but that's how tailwinds are, and winds tend to be strong near the coast. The course remained completely flat, but the headwind immediately slowed me down about 20 second per mile and I now had to work much harder to maintain even that pace. Gradually the headwind diminished over the next few km as we got further away from the coast, but the first km into the headwind (30km) shook me up. I briefly entertained the idea of backing off, which would have meant slowing down to something like the 7:20s as I did in each of my previous (failed) attempts to break 3:00 around this point in the race. But I pulled myself together and continued pushing hard, although that now meant running just over 7:00 pace.

By 33km (20.5mi) I started noticing tightness on the outsides of both thighs, which quickly increased. My muscles were paying the price for the increased effort since I turned into the headwind. Soon the tightness grew worse on my right leg and I struggled to keep my stride even. I slowed to 7:15 pace in km 34 (mi 21) as all of my attention focused on that right outer thigh. Because of the misalignment between the course markings and my Garmin, I'm not sure how fast I ran the next km, but surely I slowed down further before finally stopping right in front of the 35km mark (21.75mi). I don't remember deciding to stop but suddenly just found myself standing there instead of running as I had been a moment before. At first I tried to stretch and then to start running again, but my muscles were impossibly tight, especially that right outer thigh. After walking slowly for several minutes I briefly wondered whether I could manage to jog the remaining 4 miles, but then I dismissed the thought. I've done that before and wasn't going to have any jogging this time. Certainly it wasn't worth risking a serious injury to my leg. Since I couldn't run hard anymore, my race was over and I walked to the finish line.

According to my Garmin, I averaged 4:13/km or 6:47/mi pace through 34km (21mi), stopping just short of another km beyond that, which is high 2:57 pace. On that short course it probably would have registered as a 2:56 if I held that pace to the end. Now, of course, marathons are 42.195km (26.2mi) and I stopped 7km (4.5mi) early. So it would be difficult to view my race as a success. But I still think this race was promising in several ways. With two solid months of training, I ran much faster over almost 22 miles than I've done before. With another solid block of training, building on the base I've already established, I should be able to close that gap to the finish line. It is also possible that my cold affected me during the race and that walking around in the days beforehand contributed to the tightness in my outer thigh muscles, which I never experienced during training.

In any case, I did not fail to enjoy the experience. I highly recommend the Pisa Marathon to anyone considering a race in the area. The course is beautiful, totally flat, well supported, and never lonely. You won't find a better place for your pre- and post-race meals.

Nov. 26 - Dec. 16: taper time

Nov. 26 - Dec. 2:
We: off
Th: 6
Fr: 5 plus 6 x 40 seconds hard (about 200m) with jog back recoveries
Sa: 9
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 7
Tu: 3 x 2 miles at 6:17/mi. average pace (2 min. jog recoveries), then 45 min. jog
Week total: 52 miles

Dec. 3-9:
We: off
Th: 7
Fr: 7
Sa: 4 x 2 miles at 6:16/mi. average pace (2 min. rests)
Su: 7
Mo: 7 plus strides
Tu: 13
Week total: 52 miles

Dec. 10-16:
We: off
Th: 6
Fr: 3 miles (3 min. rest), 2 miles (2 min. rest), 1 mile averaging 6:21/mi. pace
Sa: 5
Su: 6
Mo: off
Tu: 5 x 1k averaging 3:54 = 6:17/mi. pace (2 min. rests)
Week total: 36 miles

Thusly have I tapered my training for the Pisa Marathon this coming Sunday, Dec. 21. For most of the first week above I was recovering from my 15 mile marathon pace run on Nov. 25. The mileage dropped down that week mainly because of my planned off day on Wednesday. But then on Tuesday (at the end of that first week on my strange Wednesday-to-Tuesday schedule) I failed to complete a workout for one of the few times this training cycle. It was no big deal, though. My stomach was off from eating too many beans or something, so I neglected to take in any gels during the 3 x 2 mile tempo intervals, which otherwise went fine. Afterwards I was supposed to run easy for an hour, but I was wiped out and could barely jog at a much slower pace than I normally do easy runs at. I didn't see much point in continuing to run that slowly when my lower back started tightening up, so I stopped early. Evidently I didn't stop early enough, though, because I've been dealing with a tight lower back and sometimes upper hamstrings off and on since then. It was fairly bad for most of the second week above, even after I got a massage on Dec. 3 (thanks to the timing of my birthday and to my wife for giving me a gift certificate). By the third week, as the mileage continued dropping and my body really set about absorbing and healing itself from the past few months' training, I was feeling pretty crappy. My muscles continued aching and I felt generally heavy and sluggish...from running less. Only on Sunday, a week before the race, did I start feeling better. Now I'm in full rest mode and have four more days to continue gathering strength. At this point the weather forecast looks good: a bit humid early on but no threat of rain, light winds, and temperatures in the low-to-mid 50s. I haven't raced in six months, and my last race was a marathon for which I was not well prepared. This time I've never been better prepared: my training has gone very well (once my plan shifted from Turin to Pisa), and my last marathon is just fresh enough in memory that I'm both able to be realistic about how hard it's going to be and eager to push myself as much as I can. It feels like I'm ready for a breakthrough race. We'll see whether the stars align on Sunday, but in any case I intend to enjoy the experience.

Nov. 19-25: top of the hill

Daily details:
We: 6
Th: 8
Fr: 12 x 400m averaging 87.7 (5:52/mi. pace) with 90 second recoveries
Sa: 9
Su: 9 plus strides
Mo: 7
Tu: 20 with 15 averaging 6:41/mi.
Week total: 67

This week ended with my peak workout of this training cycle: 15 miles at goal marathon race pace. I felt good and ended up running 2:55 marathon pace, which is a bit faster than expected. It didn't feel hard until the last 2-3 miles, and even then I had no serious difficulty hanging on. But hanging on for 2-3 tough miles is altogether different from maintaining a hard pace for the entire second half of a marathon. My coach thinks that I will be able to hold this pace for a full marathon after a few more sharpening workouts and tapering. Maybe he's right, but in any case I'll probably go out slower for the first half and try to run a negative split if I still feel good by 30k or so. Certainly it is encouraging to have run a workout like this while my mileage and intensity are still at their height for this training cycle. It's now less than 4 weeks until Pisa, and most of the hard training is behind me. My weekly mileage will gradually drop from here, and my remaining hard workouts will be of the shorter, faster variety before I enter full rest mode in the days leading up to the race. There's still more work to be done, but I'm starting to think about the race itself and to steel myself for the mental challenge of maximizing the physical capacities at my disposal on race day. In the meantime, I'm also about to reach the top of another hill: my 40th birthday is in a few days. I don't plan on descending down the other side of that particular hill anytime soon but fully expect instead to continue improving at least at distance running for years to come (which is made easier by the fact that I really started running only in my mid-30s, aside from some rare, light jogging before that and, a lifetime earlier, one half-hearted season of cross-country in high school). Running serves me in many ways as a prism through which I can look at things in a more healthy, productive light than I might otherwise be inclined to do. Seen through that prism, turning 40 is an opportunity to be more competitive as a masters-level runner. Don't get me wrong: in races I compete with everyone indiscriminately, and I always want to improve absolutely, not just relative to other people in whatever category. But still, it is more gratifying and encouraging to have a realistic chance of competing for the top spots in some category or other. I look forward to measuring myself against other masters runners in the Washington area when I return to the US and recover from Pisa.