Marathons #7, #8 and #9: officially a maniac

TL;DR: I did a lot of running earlier this fall. Three marathons in 23 days, with a shiny new PR of 3:20. Which means, I'm officially a Maniac now.

During the summer, my training wasn't that great. I had injury after injury (calf, tibialis, even some ankles), so I cut many training runs way too short, took walking breaks to recover, etc. What was my solution? I signed up for a bunch of races in the fall, hoping that I would recover and regain some fitness by October. So, I ended up with 3 New England marathons stacked up almost immediately after each other -- Hartford on Oct 12th, Baystate on Oct 20th and Manchester city on Nov 2nd. I had no idea whether I can pull that off, but what better way to figure out than try, no?

Also, at the beginning of September, as soon as I came back to Boston for school, I decided to do another atrocity to my body for further race motivation -- I started growing a PR beard! For the unenlightened, this is a beard that you get to shave as soon as you hit a personal record (PR). The idea was that I'd be looking so bad that no sane girl would come close to me, giving me that final bit of motivation to run my best. It was more or less working in the right direction -- before I started maintaining it somewhat, a friend called me out on my "70's rapist moustache". Even after I started trimming, it was more or less a caricature of a beard, providing enough of a kick during those long training runs. By the way, I shamelessly stole the whole PR beard idea from Jim at 50after40 -- if you are not reading his blog, you are missing out way too much running-related fun...

First weekend (#7): Hartford, CT

A friend mentioned this reminded them of Baywatch...
Don't let such snarky comments distract you from the
picture's awesomeness...

Fast-forward to the first race-day (Oct 12), where I got up way too early to drive my beard and myself to Hartford. This was one of the larger races that I've done in a while and it was fun to see all the people, the whole park that was turned into a staging area, and generally to experience the hoopla of a big race. I definitely do prefer smaller ones though, so I'll keep hunting them out.

Anyways, I did qualify for a seeded start here, so I went to the corral near the front of the pack feeling like a big deal and waited for the gun. The conditions seemed perfect, so I was also fairly eager to go out. The plan was to go out fairly conservatively at a 5:00 min/km pace, push harder at the second half for around 4:40, and finish around 3:23. That would be 5-6 mins faster than my previous PR, more than enough to have a baby-smooth face again.

Do I need to say that none of that happened? After the adrenaline rush, I went out way too fast, spending most of the first half around 4:40-4:45. I was also doing large slow strides (~170 spm), and was generally thinking I was coasting. The half came around 1:40 with some banked time, but I was starting to feel that keeping that pace up for another 20 km wasn't going to be easy. At 27 km I intentionally slowed down because I was starting to feel cramps building up. I was still ahead of the 3:25 pace group, but probably not for long. The cramps started around 32 km and from there the race was a miserable walk-run shuffle (look at the chart below, it was THAT bad). I was surprised I could pull a decent sprint in the last 800 m or so, at least doing a strong finish after a bad day. My time was 3:37:33. Ugh.

Second weekend (#8): Baystate, MA

I was fairly miserable after bonking yet another marathon by starting out too fast. But there wasn't a lot of time to fret it since Baystate was just the weekend after. I was hoping to take the week in between easy to give muscle some time to recover. I did a short recovery run on Monday to get my blood going and break up some lactic acid. During that, I remember thinking that I love what marathon running has been doing to my body -- just a day after a race I could easily do ~10 km almost as if nothing had happened. I did another supposedly easy run later that week, which ended up turning ... well, not so easy.

I was just trotting around the Charles at maybe around 4:45 min/km, when I heard footsteps behind me. Now, I'm by far not the fastest runner around, but getting passed around the river doesn't happen that often. But I had a race soon, so just kept going at the same pace and let the person behind pass by. And then I saw I had just gotten seriously chicked. Ouch. I needed to assert my manly manliness and didn't let it fly, so me and my new nemesis ended up having a friendly back-and-forth for the next 6-7 km, ultimately agreeing we've ruined each other's "easy day".

Yup, certified insane...

But back to Baystate. If there is something that race taught me, it is that in my current condition, one week between two marathons is not enough time to recover. I was determined to not go out too fast this time, so just decided to stick with the 3:30 pacers and then speed up after the half mark. Running with the pace group was fun (it was my first time), but when it came to delivering my kick, I had zero energy left in the tank.

I completely ran out of steam much earlier this time, just a few km after the half point. I dropped out of the pace group and just made it to the finish... in 3:47:19. As disappointing as it was, doing two races neck-to-neck qualified me for the Maniacs (they are an awesome running club and a great source of inspiration, check them out). Oh well, at least I knew my limits for now...

Third weekend (#9): Manchester city, NH

"Pain, what pain?! Oh wait, finish line, stop Garmin..."

I didn't waste the two weeks between Baystate and my next race in Manchester, NH. Especially because some people claim two weeks is enough time for some muscle tissue to build up. I mostly focused on improving my cadence. During Hartford, I had noticed I was coasting too slow way too much, and since a lot of runners do swear by fast cadence, I decided to give it a go. I did a few long-ish runs forcing myself to a fast stride of 180-184 spm without worrying about pace (which also turned out to be quite good actually). The added benefit was that, to maintain the fast turnaroud time, I switched to a really forefoot-heavy strike (close to tiptoeing) that made my calves hurt like there was no tomorrow. A good thing right before a hilly race, without any hills in Boston to train on.

In any case, I did go to Manchester without high hopes, expecting to keep the damn PR beard for at least a few more months. I did feel in good shape, but after all, I had just run two marathons, the course was rather hilly, and the weather was chilly, to say the least. I thought I'd just run for the heck of it, not obsessing over pace, just trying to keep cadence in check.

This time, I mentally split the race in thirds. Around the end of the first one (14 km), I was chatting up someone beside me (which I rarely ever do) and projected finish times came up. I told my new running buddy that I kept bonking my previous races and I was shooting for 3:30 at best. Her response was "But we are on pace for 3:20 right now?!", with a clear subtext that the kid running next to her clearly didn't know what he was doing. Oh well, I just shrugged and kept the same effort.

By the time the second stint was over (28 km), I was still feeling fresh as salad and started thinking that maybe this time I won't hit the wall as hard as before. Somewhere around that spot the course joined the halfers for their final stretch, and I was passing people left and right, which made for a good morale boost. I was still devouring the hills as if they weren't there, so I thought I might give it all I had and push the pace up. During kilometers 38-40, when we were running through the last park section, I hit a mini-wall and someone passed me for the first time since before the half mark. I did manage to get back together though, and I re-passed them on the final stretch. I even had a little left to do an easy sprint for the last few hundred meters, finishing in 3:20:47. Yay, new PR! Also, finally a negative split of about 2 minutes, and a first no-walk marathon (it only took 9 attempts!)...

Am I happy? Of course. I knew I had roughly a 3:20 in me in the last few months, but things always seemed to go wrong during races. I totally wasn't expecting to that on a hilly course, so life is even better. Also, I finally got to shave that PR beard off, and I might even finally look like a real person (the number of people on the streets pointing at me and laughing has definitely decreased since). In any case, now it's time to build some strength up, put in many more miles and prepare for some next race... Another 4-5-6 months of good training and I might even be looking at a BQ...

More philosophically, running around New England in the fall is just plain awesome. All three courses had fairly scenic sections, with fall colours all around, some great combinations of city/suburbia, and fairly good crowd support. Compared to the sub-zero degree runs during the next few months, quite the experience...

Examples of how you (i) shouldn't and (ii) potentially should pace a race.