Tuesday, October 22, 2013

What was I thinking?!

During a recent Northwestern football game viewing, my best friend, Richard (no, it is not myself speaking in third person... it really is someone else), commented on how difficult it is to get back into shape.  He's been struggling to regain his previous running form (no, seriously, this is not about me) since an injury and surgery a few years ago (really, it's not me).  While he is able to run pain-free since his Achilles surgery (see, I told you!), he has lost speed and is unhappy about this.  I mentioned that the way to get back into shape would be to pick a race, probably a marathon.  Of course, I said this jokingly.  Well, Richard thought about this, and chose the Surf City Marathon as a good target, since it was 18 weeks away, plenty of time to go through a training plan, ramping up gradually.  And of course, he figured that I'd do it with him, since I was the one that suggested it. 

It usually takes me a year or two to forget how painful a marathon is.  The training is actually not the hard part.  When you contrast marathon training with triathlon training, it's relatively easy.  You run.  That's it.  And since your body can only take so much pounding, the running is usually only about an hour for every day but the long run day.  Of course, the long run day can be a challenge.  At its peak, the long run can take up to 3 hours.  Contrast that, though, to a long bike when training for 1/2 IM or IM, and 3 hours is a breeze.  The day after a long run is usually interesting, when you can't get enough food or drink in you, and your legs are pretty trashed. 

Anyway, Richard and I decided that we would put in a month of training and see where that got us.  I gave November 4th as the day of reckoning, when we would either bail or sign up.  As for my training plan, I've used the Hal Higdon plan in the past, as well as the Pete Pfitzinger plan.  For this month, I'm kind of combining the Pete Pfitzinger plan with the Run Less, Run Faster plan with my own variation.  I figured that if I run a marathon, my goal should be to go to Boston.  To qualify as a 50 year old, I need to run 3:30.  Since Boston now uses a rolling registration (faster qualifiers relative to qualifying time register first), and the first registration cut-off is 20 minutes faster than qualifying time, that means I should aim for a 3:10.  It seems doable, since that is 7:15 minute/mile pace.  So, what I've decided is to make sure that I'm running 7:30 or better for all of my runs.  If I can do this, getting down to 7:15 should be relatively easy. 

So far, I'm doing okay.  My runs have been 7:30 pace.  I have not done anything fast yet, and my long run was 8 miles 10 days ago.  I was supposed to increase my long run by 2 miles each week with a fall-back run at week 4, but I got a bad case of vertigo this past weekend, and did nothing but lie on the couch.  So far, the weather has cooperated.  While my favorite weather is warm and sunny, I think my next favorite, especially to run and ride in, is foggy weather.  There's a bit of surrealism to running and riding when it's foggy.  I think the dampness contributes to dampening sound, so it's quieter, maybe even a bit eerie.  When I mentioned this to the boys, David even mentioned that it reminded him of "Pre" (the movie).  Of course, I don't run anything like Pre, but I could picture what he was talking about. 

Today, as I ran out in the Log Center trail in the cool fog, I was a bit uneasy, since I don't think the bears are hibernating yet.  I ran a bit quicker through the trees at that thought, and didn't really relax until I had gotten back onto the pavement.  But even as I ran uneasily through the trees, I did take the time to enjoy the way the trees looked in the fog/mist.  And I can say that the Pacific Northwest is definitely THE place to be for running right now.