XC Club Nats--A Blessed 2011

12/14/11
I'm starting to think about what happened on Saturday in Seattle.  It seemed like such an ordinary sort of day.  But I know it was not.
I don't take more than a minute off my best 10K every day.  In the mud.
Now I have a cold, but I don't care.  It was worth it.

12/22/11
On December 10, I ran a personal best by 70 seconds for 10,000 meters.  That's about 11 seconds faster per mile than a year ago at the same race, but in comparing all the data, the Seattle course with it's mud was about 20-30 seconds slower than McAlpine a year ago.  Maybe I can break 34 minutes in a year.  That would be great.

I didn't feel my best going into the race.  Travel was tough to the Pacific Northwest as we knew it would be.  As time would tell, a cold was coming on.  But I didn't feel particularly bad either.  Legs were surprisingly loose on the Friday shakeout run on the course.  I was having a great time with teammates and I just generally had my head in the game.  I felt calm and focused.  There's not much to tell about the race.  I ran the first 5K in 17:10 and the second 5K in 17:19.  I knew I would be near the back of the race and having experienced that sensation last year, I was okay with that.  I knew my teammates would do their thing and I would not be a factor in the scoring.  Basically, I knew what to expect and I didn't set my expectations too high.  Still, I was expecting to run much faster than I ever had before.  So there was plenty to keep me focused and nervous.  I went out pretty smart, maybe a few seconds too fast, but I held back as much as I could.  I consistently passed runners throughout the race and only lost ground in the final sprint.

I wanted to negative split, (run the second half faster than the first), but the course made that goal very tough.  It got muddier with each 2K lap and each hoof that trampled all over it.  I took wide lines rather than running the tangents and I think that was the fastest way around.  I wanted to push a button and really pick it up at both the 6K and the 8K mark, but the legs didn't have an extra gear.  The ground was just so soft and didn't give back much at all.  I was working harder, but still running the same splits or a second or two slower per kilometer.

Only real disappointment, I thought I was a little weak mentally in the last 2K.  I knew it was going to be a big PR, under 35 minutes, and I think I settled.  I knew I was the 7th runner and my score would not count for the team, but it was no excuse.  I should have pushed harder.  I think 15 seconds faster could have happened if I was just a little tougher mentally.  I should have raced every jersey in the last 10 minutes of the race and next time I will.

Still, the outcome was predictable.  I told the church a few days before, great day--33:59.  Bad day--35:00+.  I got out of Club Nats what I put into my training all fall--a huge PR and one of my most successful races ever.  Can I go faster?  Absolutely.  I had said all along that my intention was to take cyclocross more seriously next fall, not be in running shape this time next year, but now I am not sure.  I really love running and I want to keep moving forward, quietly, patiently, wiser for what has occurred in 2011.  Perhaps some cycling and swimming in the summer and then back to what I know and love best.


...I'm still sick, but who cares, really.  Even my immune system knew when to break down.  The only exercise I have done in the past 12 days was a long run at Uwharrie (could not pass up that opportunity) and a cyclocross race in Winston (I performed dreadfully with a smile on my face).  It is as if my body simply said, "We will not perform, not now.  It's our time off."  I think of my body as parts in case the plural seems odd.  My body has been in a hibernating, recovering, putting on weight sort of mode.  But it's time to get back off the couch.  Time to pull out of this chest/sinus virus and get back to work.  I ran 11 minutes steady today and felt terrible.  No problem.  Tomorrow I am waking up early to run with friends.  I don't expect it to feel great.  I just expect to show up.


Training goals leading to Boston...but there is no rush in the next month.  As 2011 becomes 2012, I just need to run and enjoy it.  Run fast.  Do other stuff like INSANITY: THE ASYLUM^™ which is on the way from Team Beach Body. The running goals are very simple.  Over a 10 week period from January 30-April 7, I will accumulate 1440 Kilometers (a little over 900 miles).  Flesh that out with a lot of long runs, progression runs, speed work like 400s and mile repeats and a bunch of hills.  All that and I should be able to run about 2:40 at the Boston Marathon on April 16.

I may seem overly confident, but here was my 2011.
I keep up with seven Personal Records or PR's as we call them.
Mile
5K
8K
10K
10 mile
Half Marathon
Marathon

In my 36th year on the planet, and my 28th year of competitive running, I set PR's in all those distances excluding the 5K.  I have never had that kind of sweeping success at anything.

What did I do???

• I pastored the Tobacco Trail Church.  I consider the training and racing one of the most important aspects of my pastoral ministry in God's church and my personal prayer life.  Church and running feed one another.  They always have, but 2011 was the first complete calendar year of my life when I was pastor of a church.  I don't think the athletic success is unrelated.  Others will disagree, but that gives us something to talk about, and that something is Jesus.
• I ran more miles--a lot more.  As many as 85 per week this fall with one or two hard speed workouts.  In the Spring my marathon training peaked at 100 miles in a week.
• I took Juice PLUS+ every day.  All fall I doubled the dosage.  I also drank a lot of smoothies.  I think these two contributed to less sugar consumption and more front-loading of nutrition early in the day.  I didn't lose a lot of weight, but people thought I did.  So, I guess my body changed.
• I ran with a lot of friends.  Most consistent training partner was Jason and less consistent, but still very important, the rest of the Bull City Track Club.  This whole network meant a lot of accountability, fun, encouragement, discipline, tweaking workouts and probably 20-30 extra runs that I would not have done in years when I had fewer running peers and very few faster harriers to chase.  I ran a lot those other years too, so 20-30 extra runs in a year is a decent addition.  Sometimes running with faster people can beat you down, but you skip a few runs with the group and run by yourself.  If I had to choose, I would run with the pack.  It works for wolves and such.
• I wrote more about running.  It helps me put it the experience in perspective and enjoy the process.
• I worked at a running store and I am always being encouraged and educated by others successes and even failures.  Running can get pretty lonely, even when you train with others, but hearing how it is going from hundreds of other runners really helps me stick with it.  I am a part of an extensive running community which includes Bull City Running Company and BCTC, Trailheads, Godiva, and running friends all over the country.  Runners are weird.  Most of us will admit to this fact.  But we love running and we recognize the benefits of sharing it with one another.  I've always done this, but it grows and grows as the years pass and 2011 showed a steady growth if not a spike.

Even with all this I am still scratching my head.  I feel truly blessed by God.  Like I have been struck with a gift and one that I must not take for granted. Cumulatively on my six PR distances, measuring from 2010 and earlier I improved 26 minutes and 33 seconds.  I feel like I have started over as a runner--been re-purposed.  I don't want to be greedy and I remind myself that I hope to be participating in this activity 40 years from now.  But I don't want to squander this gift either.  I think, no, I know, I am still a runner.   Maybe next fall I can shave a few seconds off my 16:25 five kilometer mark.  Easier said than done, but I can do it.

Finally--under three hours

I finally broke three hours for a marathon. It was at a tough hilly course through Umstead Park in Raleigh, North Carolina and I ran two hours, fifty-seven minutes. I went out hard from the gun with an internal goal of running to the 20 mile mark at 6:30pace (2:10). I made it there in 2:11:30. Not bad given terrain which included five miles of single track trails along with those wonderfully soft bridle trails marked by a topography of steep rolling hills. I thought that if I ran hard for 20 miles and came close to my goal time, surely I could finish the last 10K in 50 minutes. This was an unorthodox approach, but it worked. I knew my body's capabilities after six weeks of 70 miles per week. I knew I had a race plan that I could execute based on my current fitness. I did it and everything else is just details. For those interested in race details read here.

For someone who does not really consider himself a marathoner, I went back to my notes, and I have completed 11 marathons over the last 13 years. I am like the retiree who keeps going to the office. He just cannot think of what else to do with his time. On my first attempt, I was 23 years old and I thought for sure that I would begin a marathon career by breaking the three hour mark. I ran 3:36 at Kiawah in 1998. I had prepared with a grueling Fall of hard training in Breckenridge, Colorado at 9,600 feet or higher. I ran 1:30 for the first half and 2:06 for the second half. I walked more than I ran from mile 16 to the finish. I wondered if I would ever come anywhere close to 2:59. I knew how to carry a bear by the end of that first race, but running fast for 26 miles was something I knew nothing about.

Over the next decade my greatest marathon successes were on the trails. I ran well in Breckenridge and at Black Mountain, but neither were races that had much to do with speed, but more toughness and mountain climbing. I was pleased with good results the two previous years at Umstead, but still found myself eight and fourteen minutes away from my big career goal. All of my road attempts, the attempts where I really should have been able to hold a 6:51 average pace, they were disasters, and I chalked it up to whatever excuse I could come up with at the time as a I saw 3:12, 3:20, 3:10, 3:30 and so on. Secretly, that internal voice that tells us what we are not, told me, you are not a good marathoner.

My father ran 3:04 for his personal best so I knew it was inside my bones to go faster. I had the genetics, but what else was missing? He had not begun running until his late 30s. I was successful by the end of middle school, running close to 18 minutes for the 5K when my tiny body had not even seen traces of puberty. Why couldn't I achieve this elusive goal in what was edging toward 30 years of competitive distance running? Was it toughness, health, training??? I could never say for sure, but time after time, race after race, I crossed the finish line in 3:12, 3:33, 3:20, 4:15. Some of these were trail marathons and not realistic places to even consider running under the three hour mark, but no less than five of my double-digit attempts at 26.2 miles were relatively flat and I crossed those finish lines scratching my head and quietly dejected. I'll be honest, I have lived a charmed life in the social world of running. Folks have given me more credit than was due and it seemed from other performances many just assumed I had run two something for the marathon many times over. Dern Frank Shorter, why did you have to make everyone care so much about the marathon? I pretended I did not care, but I did. I always did.

At least four of the last thirteen years, I did not attempt a marathon and I can faithfully say, I do not regret those lapses. It was so tiring to keep coming up short of my goal. I turned to the trails and had great successes and joys. The contrarian in me wanted my running to be something different than the masses on the roads, but I have always known that while I love the trails, there was an extra secret reason I sought them out. It was not just the beauty, serenity, and rhythm of the trails. There was a hidden agenda, an edge of self-deception and self-loathing. I was simply tired of dejectedly scratching my head while marathon prediction charts estimated something in the mid 2:40s for me. My pride kept me quiet in an endeavor which I could not give up. I had to return to running shorter and faster races again on faster surfaces. I could not hide in the woods forever. I had to strive for personal bests that I knew went untapped inside me. I could no more give up my version of running fast than I could arrest my need to breathe.

Perhaps I am just not a marathoner and similar words were my punishment for years of under-performance. Someone will be saying, what is he talking about, I wish to God I could run those times. I get it, but we each have our story and they are not solely for comparison with one another. That just won't do. It is useless to make apologies over the simple fact that we all have different internal engines, goals, and realistic expectations. Running has a universalism to it, but not in the details. The runner who completes a marathon in 4:30 is no less a runner than I was last week or today. In fact, he is out there dealing with hydration, nutrition, and fatigue another third of the time. In many ways, slower pace brings with it far greater difficulties. Still, we all have different skill sets and expectations. Keep in mind, if only I had leaned at the tape 54 minutes earlier, I could have snuck under Geb's marathon world record. There is always somebody faster and slower.

As for me, a finishing time beginning with a two alluded me for more than a decade and I was growing weary of not meeting what seemed a very attainable goal. But I kept at it. What else was there to do? I am a runner. A week ago at this time I was not planning to run a marathon, but now, even with an infection in my chest and sinuses, I have done what I so longed to do. It is strange to be on this other side. I feel good. I'm sure I feel many more things, but I am still sorting those emotions out.

Here's one reflection. Now that it is done, I feel vindicated in distance running, in this goal that was more important than I hopefully let on so it would not consume me. This need loomed over me like a cloud, but no more. As Florence and the Machine belts The Dog Days are Over. Oh, I have many more races to run, but I'm not sure the marathon is a top priority to me. It never really was. Only in the most indirect ways do I get paid for running. My performances have to be for enjoyment and the marathon is not my favorite. Give me ten miles of technical trails and you will see the face of swine in muck. I struggle to race for such a long period of time and to be honest, I get a little bored. I know my heart and mind find solace between five and fifteen mile races--long enough to enjoy oneself, but not so tedious. The marathon has become the marker in our running culture, but it is far from my favorite. Funny that I have so much to say about something I claim as a lower priority. Oh well, you figure me out.

I held myself to the goal that I would never go to Boston without a sub-three no matter the qualifying standards of the day. It was my own personal standard as a nod to the historical years when men my age needed a sub-three, and for a brief time even a sub-2:50. Looks like we are now returning to 3:05. I believe the standard should return to 2:59, and I have held this opinion for some time, but no one is asking me. Umstead will not get me there, because it is not certified, but now I know I can break three because I have done it and on a difficult course. Someday I will do it on a road course and I will go to Boston. I am in no particular rush. Boston and New York are on my list of must-do races, but no rush. There is time.

What's next???

I've had a great Fall/Winter season and now I am off to a great start for a 2011 season of racing. I have recently set personal best's in the 8K, the 10K, and now the marathon. Based on the one road effort of these three, 27:46 at an 8K in Charlotte on Thanksgiving Day, here is my vdot information for the techies out there. You know who you are. To summarize: it is a useful tool and a great website for your own exploration and training. Vdot tells all kinds of things about training and racing and it can help you with your running plans. For instance, I might expect to break five minutes for the mile or run about 58 minutes for ten miles. I might just try both of those and some other races this year. 2011 is shaping up to be my best year yet as a runner. I love writing that as I roll into my 36th birthday this summer. So many will tell you why age and children and work keep them from being what they once were. I guess I have always been a late bloomer and now is my Spring, just rolling into Summer.

Perseverance paid off in the marathon and I am sure it will at many other starting and finish lines in races and endeavors to follow.