Since it has
been nearly two months since I’ve written anything here, I won’t conform to my
past practice of posting all of my training details, which are pretty boring
anyway. Instead I want to reflect a bit on this entire “season” of summer
races. After the Boston Marathon, I decided to focus for the summer on 5k-10k
training and racing, before shifting back into marathon mode in the fall. My
ambition was to attack my PRs of 17:58 (5k) and 37:23 (10k), which as it turned
out I got nowhere close to this summer. Here are all my racing results from this
summer (defined as June-July-August):
2015 summer
races:
6/13/15 – PRR
Twilight 4 miler (DNF)
7/4/15 – PRR
Firecracker 5k (19:11) – some hills
8/1/15 – Crime
Solvers 5k (19:19) – hilly
8/15/15 – PG
Running Club 5k (18:41)
8/23/15 – South
Lakes 10k (39:15) – hilly
These times are
slow for me. Granted, I was recovering from an injury scare on July 4 when I
ran the Firecracker 5k; and I was jet-lagged on August 1 when I ran the Crime
Solvers 5k, having just returned from spending three weeks in Greece. Both of
those courses were hilly as well, especially the Crime Solvers 5k. Still, I
didn’t expect to have trouble breaking 19 minutes in a 5k even on a hilly
course. The next 5k was a little faster because it was flat. I was in good
shape for that and for the South Lakes 10k, which again was hilly. I wimped out
in the PGRC 5k and didn’t push as hard as I could have in the final mile, but
in the South Lakes 10k I ran hard the entire way. Still, my times in those
races ended up being only my 6th fastest at each of those distances.
What the heck? Is age catching up with me? (I’m 40).
Well, when I
looked back at the five faster races I’ve run at each distance, I discovered
that only one race at each distance occurred in the summer, and not surprisingly
neither of those was hilly. Both were from 2012, which is the last time I ran
any short races in the summer. Here are all my results from short races in the
summer of 2012:
2012 summer
races:
6/9/12 – Lawyers
Have Heart 10k (38:49)
6/17/12 –
Dash4Dad 4 miler (24:08) – some hills
6/30/12 – Semper
Fi 5k (18:26)
The Lawyers Have
Heart 10k course is mostly flat. So I think my 39:15 at South Lakes is pretty
clearly superior to 38:49 at Lawyers Have Heart. My 18:26 5k at Semper Fi was
at the time only one second off my PR from a few months earlier, and it was a
hot day. But I think that’s roughly equivalent to 18:41 on the PGRC course,
which has more turns and registered on my Garmin as slightly longer. Four miles
in 24:08 is basically equivalent to those 5k times. So on the whole I think my
summer race results this year were actually not worse and may be slightly
better than any I’ve had before, such as they are.
But let’s put
all this in a bit more context. I really started running in 2009 but
concentrated at first on running further, not faster, until my first marathon
in October 2010. That was far enough for me, and I shifted my attention in 2011
to trying to get faster (mainly at shorter distances, but while still running
marathons). I knew very little about how to train properly at the time. My idea
of training in 2011 was basically to run a race almost every weekend and to jog
when possible during the week. I ran 17 5ks in 2011 in addition to many longer
races. My initial goal in the 5k was to break 20 minutes, which I first
accomplished in June. Then I broke 19 minutes in July and shifted my attention
to trying to break 40 minutes in the 10k, which I did in October, two weeks
before my fourth marathon (3:19). Two weeks after that marathon, I was back to
running 5ks every weekend, but at that point I started doing track workouts
during the week from Jack Daniels’ Running
Formula book. This led to a breakthrough in early January 2012, when I ran
18:25 for 5k, and shortly after that to a hamstring injury, which still plagues
me today.
I soon recovered
from the acute phase of that injury and got back to following a more realistic
training plan based on Daniels’ book and focused exclusively on 5k through 10
miles. I did not run a spring marathon in 2012. But I ran 37:48 for 10k and
1:04:42 for 10 miles in April, then two 5ks just under my then-PR (18:27 in May
and 18:26 in June, which is listed above) before shifting my focus to the
marathon in the summer. This is the context for my summer 2012 races listed
above: they came at the tail end of a long period focused on training for and
racing shorter distances.
Since then my
PRs at shorter distances have improved slightly. I ran my current PR of 17:58
for 5k in January 2013, after a short burst of track workouts following my 2012
fall marathon (3:12). A few months later, in April 2013, I ran my current PR of
37:23 for 10k, as well as 1:03:01 for 10 miles, which I improved to 1:02:49 in
October of 2013 (my current 10 mile PR). But starting in the summer of 2012, my
main focus has been the marathon, as it continues to be today. After recovering
from marathons, I have put in a few periods of intense track workouts aimed at
improving my PRs at shorter distances, especially just before the 2012 races
listed above and in early 2013 before my current 5k and 10k PRs. But those
short bursts of intense training were not sustainable and led to injuries in
short order. The present summer of 2015 has been the first time – under the wiser
guidance of my coach since July 2014, Ryan Vail – that I’ve taken some time out
to focus on speed in a more sustainable way. I did have a minor injury scare in
late June of this year, but that was mostly a consequence of less intelligent
training in past years and the chronic injuries that resulted from it. Now I’m
in it, more intelligently, for the long run.
Viewed in this
context, the fact that my results in shorter races this summer are comparable
to those in the summer of 2012 is very encouraging. My summer 2015 times are
way off my PRs, just as they were in the summer of 2012, because temperature
and humidity make a huge difference. But these times on hilly courses in the
summer are basically equivalent to my shorter distance PRs in ideal conditions,
which is to say on flat courses at any time of year other than summer. I’m
running these times now off of training that is less intense, less likely to
lead to injury, and more focused on long-term results than what I was doing
before. Moreover, the long-term results I’m focused on now are mainly at the
marathon distance that has captivated me since the summer of 2012. I’ve been
having fun with a summer season focused on shorter distances, but the real work
of marathon training is about to begin again in earnest now. Getting good at
anything takes longer than a few months. It takes years of the kind of training
that one can sustain not just for months but for years without injury. I didn’t
really expect the payoff to be PRs at shorter distances this summer, although
that was a useful short-term goal. The fact that my results this summer have
been comparable to my best ever at shorter distances in the summer indicates
that I’m on track to take some big steps forward this coming fall.
PRs are set in
ideal conditions, and ideal conditions in distance running are usually found in
the fall and spring. It sucks that one must train mainly in the summer and
winter for races in the ideal conditions of fall and spring, but it is what it
is. The season with the best conditions for distance running, namely fall, is
upon us. I have some speed work under my belt, after which I’ve taken a week to
recover mentally and physically. Ahead of me is a marathon build-up that, I
expect, will finally take me to a new level – to the level that my training and
racing have pointed to for years but that I wasn’t smart or patient enough to
reach on my own. My coach has consented to allowing me to run some shorter
races this fall during my marathon build-up: a 5k in mid-September, a 10-miler
in mid-October, and a 10k in early November. Optimist that I am, I hope to
challenge my PRs in each of these races – especially in the 10 mile race, which
I’ve long dreamed of running one day in under an hour.
But when the
chips are down, I’m all in for the marathon. I was on 2:56-7 pace last fall in
Pisa before dropping out, and wow do
I regret not slowing down and hanging on until the finish. After that I had a
rough training block over the winter but still ran strong in Boston for a small
PR. My next marathon will be Philadelphia in November, and I will be
disappointed with anything less than a big PR there. Training for Philadelphia
begins today, twelve weeks out from
the race. I hope to run some fast times and hopefully some PRs in shorter races
before then, but I’ll take anything less than that in stride as I build up to
the main event.
