Bail and Trail

Randy A. is on a quest to qualify for Boston. This is his latest blog posting. Check it out below or go to his blog page at : http://bostonorbust330.wordpress.com/

Just like the catchy song from the ‘80s band called “Europe” (insert drum roll here):  “It’s the final countdown!” in my marathon training.  Only 34 days remain until my date with destiny at the Tallahassee Marathon on Feb. 7.   I am in the midst of the most important weeks of my training program and everything is going disturbingly well.

Why do I say “disturbingly” well?  Because it all seems too easy.  I’m following Coach Paul McRae’s carefully crafted training plan, I’ve remained injury-free and illness-free for months even after significantly increasing my mileage (Did I just jinx myself?), and I’m seeing dramatic improvement in my performance.  After 30 years as a competitive runner, it’s about time that I achieved this “Duh!” moment – train properly, race smart, eat sensibly, and see the desired results – go figure!  It’s not rocket science and yet somehow I did it every way BUT that way for my entire competitive running career – relying on the invincibility of youth (for as long as it lasted up to my early 30’s), then relying on cross training (swimming, tennis, and rowing) as a substitute for proper running training through my 30’s and into my early 40’s, and then just plain struggling for the past few years with the challenge of aging, recurring job transitions, weight gain, high stress, low mileage, and little cross training.  Something had to give, so I figured I would do it the “right way” this time just to “see how the other side lives,” and now I wish I could reclaim those 30 misguided years and start from scratch.

Alek and I did some great training while we were on our family vacation on a Caribbean cruise during the last week of December.  We did all of our mileage on treadmills, but it felt great to run every day at or close to marathon race pace (and I didn’t feel worn down at all – catching up on my sleep definitely helped).  I ran a respectable 40 miles during our 8-day trip (Alek ran 68!), but I also felt a little apprehensive about what was in store at the end of the week:  my first 20-mile training run – ever!  But before I describe that training milestone, I should mention two other training milestones.  My mileage for 2009 was 1080 miles, which is my first 1000-mile year since moving to Florida in 2006 and, more significantly, my highest annual mileage since 1999 (which was the year I ran Boston).  In addition, my mileage for December was 133, which was my highest monthly mileage since 1999.  Unlike 1999, however, these miles weren’t largely “junk” miles – they were all run below, at, or slightly above marathon race pace, which really seems to have made a difference in my speed and endurance.

As for the “Big 2-0” (the 20-mile training run), I never dreamed of doing such a training run until joining this program (my previous long run was 16 miles several years ago and I hurt like hell during and after that run).  Even when I coached a charity marathon team five years ago, I supervised my runners’ 20-mile training run as part of their marathon training but still never dreamed of doing that distance myself (unless it was en route to completing a marathon race).  To add more challenge to my ambitious 20-mile undertaking on Sunday, the weather was incredibly cold – the thermometer was pinned at 33 degrees for the entire run, with a wind chill that put things in the not-so-toasty mid-20’s.  The only other time in my life that I had run close to that distance under those conditions was the Philadelphia Marathon in 2000 (it was 38 degrees and I dropped out at mile 14).

But wait – there’s more.  I ran the first 15 miles of this 20-mile training run by myself, which raised the challenge bar a little more.  My trusty Garmin watch was great company, though, as I was relieved to see how I was nailing almost all of the middle miles of the run at an 8:40 pace and it felt very comfortable (earlier this year, an 8:40 pace was a challenging pace for me for a 7-mile training run).  Even after starting slowly in this 20-miler to allow myself time to warm up in the frigid weather, and slowing down slightly with good conversation during the last 5 miles, I still managed a 2:58 for the 20 miles (8:57 pace), which put me on track to run about a 3:58 marathon that day, which is faster than 4 of my 21 marathon RACES in the past 20 years.  And this was merely a training run, without the crowds of fellow runners and spectators, and without sucking down a gel or other energy aid regularly throughout the run.  I went light on hydration and energy refueling during this training run to see how I would feel and I felt really good.  Of course, it will hurt much more to hold an 8:00 pace on race day for that distance, but that’s where the “race-day intangibles” come into play:  getting propelled by a healthy dose of good old-fashioned adrenaline from the electric “game day” atmosphere on marathon morning, ingesting copious amounts of high-octane energy drinks, gels, and chews throughout the race, and enjoying the pacing services of my relentless coach for the day, Alek (who will shout in my ear incessantly that I’m a slow, cowardly sloth while he runs next to me effortlessly for the entire second half of the race). With all that good karma on my side, the elusive Boston-qualifying time of 3:30 should be within my grasp.

Perhaps most encouraging in the wake of my 20-miler was that my legs weren’t sore later that day, or the next day, or the day after that.  Huh?  Can you say that again in my good ear?  I had to pinch myself to make sure that my muscles and nerves were still working.  How could I have run that obscene distance at that respectable pace under those nasty conditions and not feel like I had been beaten to a pulp with baseball bats by a gang of hoodlums?  To drive home my point, on the day after my 20-miler, I ran a two-mile shake-out run at an 8:26 pace and it felt great.  I could have danced all night.  So, above all else, the quality and quantity of training that I have done since August has produced one extremely valuable quality in me – the ability to recover quickly, both during and after a race, which is something that I have never experienced in my competitive running career.  Prior to this year, I always paid dearly during and after my races as a pupil of the “wing it” school of moronic distance running training.  But those 30 years of ultimate human suffering (like the torture Wesley endured on the life suction pump in the classic movie, “Princess Bride”) helped build my character, and almost killed me in the process.  If I had a dollar for every minute that I spent as a patient in a medical tent after a marathon, I would be filthy rich.

I just hope that this surreal sense of invincibility lasts for the Tallahassee Marathon.  I keep expecting to wake up from this euphoric state and see these delusions of grandeur dissolve instantaneously, just as one loses the thread of a dream as soon as the alarm clock pierces the morning silence.  As far as I can tell, though, the “signpost up ahead” bears the name of the street where I live, and is not the detour exit ramp for “The Twilight Zone.”