• Mile 1 = 9:50
• Mile 2 = 8:57
• Mile 3 = 8:07
• Mile 4 = 7:55
• Mile 5 = 9:31
• Mile 6 = 9:37
• Mile 7 = 9:03

My knee felt good, even with pushing the pace a bit, and even on some gradual hills. I don’t know if it’s time for me to get back into speed work yet, but today was certainly an encouraging run!

Now, the aim is to get those weekday runs back in the mix. My coach has adjusted things for me a bit, to accommodate the nagging knee issue. Instead of running drills and intervals, now it’s a short run on Tuesday night, and time on the elliptical machine on Thursday night (with some intervals and HR targets).

My workout plan was to hit a main set of 4×1-mile intervals at mid zone 3, with 2mins jogging rest in between. After that, I was to complete the remaining miles in a relaxed zone 2 HR. But, the endorphins were going strong, I had a smile on my face (which got some odd looks from those I passed on the trail), and the knee was not talking to me at all. It felt solid for the first time in about 8 weeks.

So, the HR targets flew out the window, I stopped looking at my watch, ignored the beeping that told me I was over my HR target zone, turned on the music from my iPhone, and just ran. Man, it felt good! Call it runner’s high, endorphin rush, in the zone…whatever. I just know that I was just soaking it all up, floating, and felt like I could run forever!

I joked afterwards that it must’ve been the Burgundy Cheesesteak and Monster Chicken Nachos I had for dinner at the Rapids game the night before. My regular pre-run breakfast of oatmeal was no different than usual…so it must’ve been the previous night’s dinner, right? Or, maybe it’s our new mattress that we got on Friday? A couple nights of good sleep…maybe that did the trick?

Confidence in my knee is slowly returning, but now’s when I need to be ultra careful not to push it too hard too quickly. It’s so tempting to jump back into drills…but no running drills yet, no speed work yet. I’ll aim for an elliptical workout tomorrow with some high intensity HR zone intervals. I should hit the 200-mile mark in this training cycle in the next week!

After tweaking my right knee playing indoor soccer about a month ago, I’ve been taking it easy on the mid-week drills and tempo runs, giving my knee some time to recover without that kind of intensity. I’m glad I’ve been able to keep the long-runs in there, but I know I’ve got to get back into the hard efforts and speed work if I want to continue my progress towards qualifying for Boston.

Last week, I hit a new fastest-pace for my zone 3 heart rate, sustained for 3-miles. It’s good evidence that I’m not losing much by taking a leave from the mid-week runs. Hopefully, the base-building I’ve done in the first 6-weeks will see me through this patch.

This week is a recovery week, before an increase in mileage and intensity next week. So, tonight’s run was scheduled as a 3mi over distance with 4×100m repeats at zone 5 heart rate. Out the door at 10pm, and it was a good quality run, with best pace of about 4:00/mi on the repeats!

So, I’m glad I didn’t skip-out on it tonight. It’s good to know that the pull of my habit-forming is stronger than the temptation to wimp out when I think I’m wiped out.

The 9-miler had two miles in the middle where I was assigned to increase my effort to a zone 3 feel, without looking at my watch to see the actual HR. Reviewing my data later, I see that I did pretty well to get my heart rate up during those two miles, but I didn’t do as well in keeping it back down to z2 when I was done those two miles.

It seemed like the last two miles of my run had a lot of uphill, and that was throwing my HR up into zone 3 without any increase in pace. I felt like I was barely moving. It was frustrating, but I understand the importance of hitting those HR targets.

Tonight, I’ll be able to open it up a bit more during a 4-mile over distance run, including some hill repeats at a zone 5 feel. Plus, I’ll have the added motivation of trying to squeeze my run into a tight window of time between work and an evening commitment. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be running until after 10pm tonight…which makes for a difficult time winding down to sleep.

Yesterday’s workout was particularly beautiful, on the heels of a record-setting snowstorm from the previous couple of days.

Coal Creek, Lafayette, CO

I’m also needing to find new courses to run, paying particular attention to elevation (grade and duration of hills) for some focused intervals. My heart-rate monitor has also been getting a workout, as I now wear it for every workout. Although I don’t have accurate results from my lactate and fuel testing yet, I’ve good some decent guesstimates that have me keeping an eye on my watch to stay in target heart rate zones. My coach, Craig Howie, has helped me to identify the approximate zones based on reviews of my training runs.

Still, cutting 71-minutes off my PR to qualify for Boston feels like a heck of a stretch goal. I’m just crazy enough to believe I can do it!

The training will definitely be new and different for me this time around, given that my PR is 4:26 (Shamrock Marathon, Virginia), and I’ll need to finish in under 3:15 to qualify for Boston. Yes, I’ve got my work cut out for me…drop at least 71 minutes from my PR!

Despite having finished 10 marathons in the last 9 years, I’ve never done any focused or purposeful speed work or training with a time-goal in mind. My training and racing has always been quite relaxed and focused on enjoying the experience. So, to help me with this new training approach, I’m very fortunate to have partnered with coach Craig Howie, of the Howie Endurance Project.

Workout #1 last night was a short run (3mi over distance) with 4×100m repeats thrown into the middle. Although I don’t have a clear idea yet of what my HR zones should be, I estimated based on perceived exertion and pace. I surprised myself by running my speed-up sections at a sub-5-minute-mile pace…kinda didn’t know I still had that in me! Granted, it was only maintained for 100 meters at a time, with the knowledge that I was only going 3 miles in total, but still a good confidence booster.

I’m hopeful for a solid lactate profile and fuel test soon that will give me (and Craig) more indicators of the best training zones and goals, as well as some nutritional strategies. More to come on that topic.

For now, I’m just glad to be “engaged” again, with a race in my crosshairs, and a big, hairy, audacious goal of qualifying for Boston! Stay tuned!

What an unforgettable experience this was! I finished the New York City marathon on Sunday, for my 10th marathon, and 10th state completed, and it was remarkable for all kinds of reasons. Records were broken all over the place, with the top three finishers all coming in under course-record time, and total number of runners (almost 48,000) and spectators both shattering records. I also broke a personal record, but not the way I wanted to.

Although I didn’t have a time goal, I really didn’t expect this to be my slowest marathon finish ever…especially at nearly 90-minutes slower than my PR! But, with a fractured thumb that was more of a bother than I expected, and training that wasn’t my best, I ended up making the most of the 26.2-mile party in the big apple. Since I knew I’d get the same medal as the fourth place finisher, why not make it last as long as possible, right? Sure, I got beat by notable celebs such as Mario Lopez, Apolo Ohno, Christie Turlington, and Mark Messier, but I got to meet some inspiring people in the back of the pack.

One of those was Melissa, an Iraq war veteran, with her left leg amputated at the hip. She was running on a prosthetic running leg, and finished in 6:36!

Another was a guy wearing a sign proclaiming “15 NYC finishes and going strong!” He told me it was his 78th birthday, and he ran his first NYC (and first marathon) at age 63. He beat me too.

There was also a constant flow of mobility challenged athletes with guides, including the marathon world-record holder for mobility-challenged athletes.

It became increasingly difficult to complain or feel any self-pity about my painful thumb.

So, I shuffled across the finish in 5:54 (unofficially), for a painfully slow 13:22 average pace. The race itself was intense, challenging, inspiring, and overwhelming in many ways. Never before have I experienced the support of what seemed like the entire host city. Almost the entire course was lined with cheering fans packed 25-deep or more, on both sides of the course. The parts that didn’t have fans were the bridges, where instead of fans on the sidewalks, there were helicopters hovering next to us and above us.

The fans were in a frenzy, and almost painfully loud in many areas. It was almost too much stimulation, and I found myself wanting to tune it out sometimes. But, maybe that’s because I was in so much pain, and so frustrated at the kind of run I was having. My fractured thumb seemed to be absorbing the impact of every step. It was really painful, and I could often feel the sensation of my bones moving against each other in my thumb. I’m sure I adjusted my running posture and stride, because I experienced all kinds of pain and discomfort that I’ve never experienced in my previous marathons. My feet were killing me at mile 8…yes, eight! My shoulder and neck were screaming by mile ten (I must have been holding my arm differently because of my thumb). The crowd of runners was so thick, for most of the race, that I struggled to find any kind of rhythm or comfortable stride, and was soon paying for it with blisters forming on both feet (forefoot)…another new experience for me. I must have been adapting my stride to the crowd, and landing very differently than I usually do. I’m sure it didn’t help that my shoes were near the end of their mileage life.

The high points were many too, however. There were bands, gospel choirs on the steps of many churches, neighborhood cheering squads, taiko drummers, dancers, creative and funny signs (my favorite was one held by two little kids that said, “This parade sucks!”), and always lots and lots of cheering and high-fives from kids (which eventually forced me to run the middle or left side of the street, to avoid giving a high-fives with my broken thumb). When there weren’t bands, there was always someone in an apartment up high with their stereo speakers blaring out their windows, often so loud it was distorted, and usually it was a song from Rocky, or a 70s disco tune.

The bridges were brutal, and eerily quiet compared to the rest of the course. It was a strange sensation to hear the roar of the crowd ahead getting louder and louder as we reached the bottom of the bridges. Sometimes, it picked me up and carried me on that energy. Other times, I shut down entirely, almost feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and claustrophobia, especially in the narrow sections of the course.

Aside from the bridges, there were plenty of other hills too, long gradual ones, and short steep ones. All of them seemed to catch me off-guard, even though I had studied the course and knew they were coming. I just couldn’t ever gain a sense of running the course…it was running me instead…and running me into the ground at that.

The start and the finish were two pretty emotional moments though. After a frustrating 2-hour wait in the runner’s village before being allowed into the starting corral, hearing a New York firefighter sing “America the Beautiful” at the start was downright awe inspiring, standing at the bottom of the longest suspension bridge in the world, with the iconic skyline in the distance. And the approach to the finish gives me chills even now, just thinking about it. It was like I somehow blocked everything out while simultaneously giving in to all of it. After almost 6 hours on the course, it was almost a tear-jerking moment to reach the finish line amongst the roar of fans, hoopla of announcers, TV cameras, and photographers all over the place.

The post race experience, however, was when the real nightmare began. After getting a nice-looking finisher’s medal, and a race-blanket draped over me, I was instructed to keep walking. We were handed finisher’s bags, and still we kept walking. Almost 50,000 runners were funneled into a cattle chute about 20-feet wide, for about a mile beyond the finish line. Just walking. Only, not even walking, because it was so crowded all we could do was shuffle-stop-stand-shuffle in a repeating kind of human traffic jam.

Every 50-yards or so, there was a race staffer on an elevated stand with a megaphone shouting out encouragement like, “Looking good! Almost there! Keep up the good work!”. Funny, but wasn’t that what everyone was yelling BEFORE we got to the finish?!? Why should I be hearing that for 2 MORE HOURS beyond the finish line, in a shoulder-to-shoulder human cattle chute, bordered by 12-foot high fences draped with signage and tarps so we couldn’t even see out? Anyone who was truly claustrophobic was living a real life nightmare. I was having trouble managing my anger and anxiety at what seemed like a grossly irresponsible way to manage a marathon finish area.

While there is clearly a physical benefit to SOME walking after the finish, this much of it, in these conditions, was absurd. By the time I reached the first spot to exit Central Park, I was already shivering from the dropping temperature (it had actually started to get dark before we were even out), and hadn’t had anything to eat yet. The medical staff also had been making frequent forays into the sea of race-blanketed zombies to rescue fainters and pukers and those who were having anxiety attacks.

At this point, we finally reached the row of UPS trucks with our bags that we dropped off at the start. Here, we could recover the warm clothing we discarded in our specially labeled bags before the start of the race. It was yet another crowded shuffle, down a row of about 100 UPS trucks, numbered in descending order. Of course, my truck was near the farthest end. It meant that I didn’t exit Central Park until at least a mile-and-a-half past the finish line, and in the opposite direction from my apartment. So, I still had to walk back that same distance, plus another 10 blocks beyond the finish, before I reached the apartment…and FOOD, finally, at 8pm…even though I finished around 1:30pm. The little baggie of pretzels in my finisher bag just didn’t cut it.

So, race organizers, if you’re listening, this part of the experience needs to be fixed. Badly. It was a disappointing ending to a truly epic day. It seemed unsafe, uncaring, and irresponsible. It’s sad that the post-finish experience is casting such a shadow on how incredible the actual race experience was, despite my personal challenges on the course. As a finisher of 10 marathons now, I expected more from what is billed as the greatest marathon in the world. Your city delivered. Your race organizers did not.

I’m glad I ran it, I feel lucky to have gotten in, but I feel absolutely no desire at all to run NYC again. And that’s just sad…but I refuse to let it ruin a very memorable 10th marathon experience, overall. Thanks NYC!

Whole Foods was a zoo! It was almost impossible to move around the store, let alone get to the food on the shelves. Then, I entered the Disney-like maze of a line to access the 30-some cashier stations. It took me about 35-minutes to get to the cashier! I commented to her about how busy it was, and she said,

“This? Nah, the marathon crowd must not be in yet, this is much less than our normal crowd. We actually just let some staff go home because it’s so slow! You’re not from here, are you?”

Um, no, how’d you guess? As I walked out with my groceries, I noticed that there was now a line to get into the store, stretching out of the store, up the escalators (which were now stopped), and out into the Lincoln Center shopping plaza. I guess I made it just in time?!

As I stepped outside, the fireworks at Central Park had just started…I got goosebumps, and even a little teary-eyed, realizing that I was actually here. I was wishing Bethany and our kids could be here too.

After a good night’s sleep, and a lazy wake-up around 9am, I made some breakfast, then headed out to the marathon expo for race packet pick-up. I found the free shuttle easily, just a few blocks away, and arrived at the Javits Conference Center not long after. Walking in was when it really hit me…I’m at the NYC Marathon!!

It was crowded, but very well organized, starting with a security check and ID check just to get in. I got my packet, goodie bag and race tee, and checked out the vendors for a bit. The highlights were meeting Ryan Hall (US record holder, 2:04:58) and Josh Cox. Ryan autographed my bib. That’s about as close as I’ll get to running anywhere near him!

Another highlight was the marathon theater they had set up. It was literally a movie-theater in the middle of the expo, with a huge screen and surround-sound. They played a feature movie about the NYC Marathon every 30-minutes, and it was awesome! Parts of it gave me chills, and I really feel lucky to be running it tomorrow. It also reviewed the course from a runner’s view, so I could see where I’ll be headed tomorrow, and what the feel will be like for each section of the course. Kudos to the New York Road Running Club for a really inspiring and well-done movie!

Taking a break now, and making sure to eat and drink well, then headed to a dinner with about 35 other Marathon Maniacs who are running tomorrow. I’ve never met any of them, but we’re all part of the Marathon Maniacs club, and it’ll be fun to get us like-minded folks together tonight!