November, done.

2014 miles:1,671
Trailing 365-day miles: 1,779

(Click either graph to enlarge)

The two 16 week training periods (Boston & Philly) are color coded to correspond with one another.

Notes: 1) Aug 13-Oct 13, I injured my hamstring and was spending some time at the gym on the elliptical. 2) after the Brooklyn 1/2 in late May, I began doing speed work, and I had to manage myself through greater soreness over the summer months as my body adjusted, which meant replacing many easy runs with gym work.

I'm always keeping an eye on how many miles I've run over the trailing 12 months.  My gut (and I think I've read this somewhere, but I can't specifically remember) tells me that monthly increases in the 5%-10% range are healthy, and anything higher than 10% might be pushing too hard.  So, I graphed it. 

Mile increases have been comfortable and steady.  Jul-Sep shows growth that is certainly pushing my above the 10% tolerance, but then when I look above at the limited miles I was running in Q3 2013, I'm not very surprised that the % growth for the trailing 12 is a bit higher than I would like.  I have been able to navigate those waters fine, so far, but I've already begun charting this for the Spring training cycle and because I'll be comping decent sized months during the Boston training, the growth should be very close/under the manageable 5% threshold.

Next update from me likely won't come until the end of December.  The plan for the next few weeks is to maintain a base of just 30-40 miles per week, but since I won't really be doing intense long runs on the weekend, I'll look to add a speed day early in the week, as well as participate in additional FHR runs: Tempo Tuesday, Hill/Speed Thursdays, and some medium runs at sub-8 min pace on the weekend.  I would also like to get out for Blue Hill repeats and hopefully some trail running on 1 or 2 occasions this month, conditions permitting.  Basically, less miles per week, but more speed and hill work, and mixing it up a bit with trails, more hills, and possibly some elliptical sessions as well.

Philly Marathon Training Recap

Post-Mortem to the 16 week training plan I put together back in late July:

Miles run: 690
Planned Miles: 600
Boston Marathon training miles: 589

Everything went very well: no sicknesses, no injuries, no periods of excessive fatigue, and no extensive travel to get in the way of running.  While I did keep to the general structure of a 16 week training schedule, I created the schedule in large part based on what I did for Boston with some modifications based on either items I've come across over the summer through articles, discussions with FHR runners, or just based on what didn't work for me during the Boston prep.  And then, I made a number of modifications once I started the 4 month training program.

Boston's program completed with 589 miles (including the race) and when I first created a training schedule, I ended up with more then 660 miles in it.  This 12% increase in miles seemed a bit aggressive for an increase, so I moved the miles back down to a total of 600, which was only a 2% increase.  Setting it that low left me with many weeks where I was certain I would over-achieve, so long as I was injury/sickness free.   Sickness was an issue for me during the Boston prep, with the better part of two (separate) weeks lost due to viruses, which included norovirus (at least) once.  That was in February and March of this year, and I attributed to the seasonality of sickness, fatigue from the amount of running I was doing, and of course, living with 2 small children.  I guessed I would experience something similar at least once during the Philly schedule, so it seemed fair to keep the increase in miles at something manageable.  As it turned out, I stayed perfectly healthy and I was able to come in above target every single week.

(click any of these graphs to enlarge)

That is part luck, and (I believe) part preparation.  I took great care of myself in the back-half of 2014, and I would say it showed in my ability to stay healthy.

As for long runs, my decision to run the Newport Marathon (as a training run) in early October certainly threw off my training, but not as much as I thought it might.  My learning there was that, as long as I'm prepared to run at a pace that is about a minute per mile above race pace, then chances are I can bounce back to resume regular training after 10-14 days.  I would certainly entertain marathon training runs in the future as well.

Additional thoughts on long runs: it was a valuable addition to begin incorporating a plan within my long run workouts.  Including the Newport Marathon, I was able to head out on long runs containing multiple segments at marathon (or faster) pace, and I found myself pushing my limits during these runs in ways I had not for any of my Boston long runs (aside from the half marathon racing I did in the winter/spring.)  I recently purchased a copy of Running Formula (Daniels) which I believe will help me with long run planning in 2015.  That and Steve Way's blog from his Marathon preps in 2010-2012 have plenty of long run marathon sessions that I can parrot.

I was also pleased with my ability to incorporate some doubles in my highest mileage weeks without it being an issue.  Running an easy run at lunch, and then a second easy/medium effort run in the evening really worked out fine on the two occasions I gave it a try.  This cycle I topped out at 65 miles a week, and my goals for 2015 are to ramp that up to the 70-75 miles in the peak spring weeks, and 80-85 miles in the fall cycle, and in order to do that, doubles will be necessary.  I'm already reconsidering when I should be hitting my peak mileage week (or, weekS, I guess....) in my spring marathon planning, in relation to my race week.  More to come on all that later...

I have become less worried about tracking my weekly pace as I have been in the past.  With Boston, that was the only way I could measure improvement levels, but this time around just the presence of Speed, Tempo, targeted long runs at MP, I had plenty of other ways of tracking my progress.  That and with those harder workouts, came more warm-up and cool-down miles at a comfortably slow pace.  I'll probably continue to monitor these weighted averages, but I'm not putting much stock in them any longer.

And speaking of weighted averages (hahaha) the final number I keep track of is lbs.  The lighter I get, the faster I get.  BUT, I'm only trying to lose weight at roughly a lb every week or two; consistent with my progress over the last 2 years as I've dropped 44 lbs at an even pace.   As this graph shows, I went from 184 down to 175 and there were plenty of non-Monday AMs (that is when I designate to weigh myself) over the last few weeks where I was at 174.  I'm actually going to start tracking my weekly weigh-in on Fridays, at the same time as resting HR, moving forward.  During my recent body metric screening for work, I still show up on the high end of the "normal" range for BMI, but they also measured % body fat and that was at 14%, which isn't too bad.  I'm guessing my optimal race weight will likely be around 160-165, and that will be a goal to reach by the end of 2015.

So, that's the story of the last 4 months.  I'm already eager to begin planning 2015 activities!

2014 Philadelphia Marathon Recap

3:16:11

Well, it took me nearly 12 years 13 years, but I finally returned to a sub-3:30 marathon, and in the process registered my first ever sub 3:20 marathon!  I worked HARD for this over the last 4 months.  I didn't miss a single training run over 16 weeks, and ended up running nearly 100 miles more than the 600 I had planned to run.  I'm feeling great about this!

Link Garmin for marathon details

Pretty decent showing!

THE TAPER:
The taper sucks and I don't even want to really talk about it.  Because I'm typically an afternoon and evening running, during the taper I did all my runs at 5am to get my body ready for the early 7am start.  Most of those days the temps were in the low to mid 20's, but that wasn't the problem either.  What bothered me is that my legs felt like lead, but even worse, I no longer had training plans to ponder on during the week.  I was left with nothing but the race to think about, which I actually did not spend much time thinking about until Friday.  So, I was left with nothing to think about during the week, and I felt like I was losing touch with something that had become incredibly important to me.  I guess I look forward to tapering, but I certainly do NOT enjoy being in the middle of a taper.

WEEKEND PRE-RACE:
This seemed destined to be a just-in-the-nick-of-time sort of weekend, starting with me making it to the airport approximately 45 minutes before my scheduled departure.  Silver Line/rush hour issues and I got a bit caught up earlier that day a) picking up my new FHR gear from the screen printer and b) following the live twitter updates from the 100k WC unfolding over a six+ hour period in Doha (USA does great!)

Joe was kind enough to a) pick me up at the Philly airport b) provide me lodging and logistical ease for the weekend and c) some much needed laughter in the face of pending stress!  Joe is easily the strongest runner I know from growing up, and proved it again a few weeks ago by extending his long training run a few extra miles to knock out a 3:18 26.2 mile training run. So...yeah, bettering my target marathon by a couple of minutes on his training run.  Damn...

Anyway, Joe was basically open to doing whatever I wanted to do, which is my kind of host!  Friday  night we topped off with some late night carby snacks, and then early to bed.  After waking up at 4:45 am all week, there was no getting around that on Saturday, even though I could have slept until 9 if I wanted.  I was up at 4:30...mind thinking hard about the next 24 hours.  Joe took me over to Haverford for a very scenic shakeout of 3 miles, which I made sure to include two 20 second strides to finish up.  Then lunch: a nice big hoagie sandwich that we split, but really should have just gotten our own, followed by more toast.  Then down to Axe's house (and on the way Joe drove me down Kelly drive so that we could see a good chunk of the back half of the marathon) to see his family, watch some Wisconsin football, more marathon talk, and then a short walk down to an early Italian dinner.  We hit the restaurant at around 4:45 (which was great timing in my book) and it allowed us to beat the rush.  Food was basic-nothing special, and I avoided ordering anything elaborate...a dark beer, lots of bread, and spaghetti with marinara sauce.  Then Joe and I scooted back out to Ardmore where I laid out my gear for the morning, and turned in for bed at around 9pm.  I fell asleep OK, but I was up by 3:30am, which didn't really upset me very much.

After we got up, everything went more or less to the time-line I laid out in the previous post.  Breakfast, shower, suit-up, catch a ride downtown, porto-potty, check bag, half mile or so warm up jog, with leg swings and some dynamic stretches thrown in the middle, and the off to the coral with about 10 minutes to spare.  The race did a great job of handling the start of the race, letting the top corral go first and then waiting a full 2 minutes before releasing my (the second) corral.

THE RACE:
First of all, the conditions for this race were nearly perfect.  Cool with running temps in the mid to upper 40's, mostly overcast, very little wind.  I was at the very front of the second coral, so was able to move right into a comfortable pace, and comfortable ended up being a bit faster than planned!  I'll post the actual splits (vs my two target/range splits) below, but I'll say that I was very aware that I was running 30 seconds, of more, faster than I had planned over the entire first half of the marathon, but I felt like my effort level was where I wanted it to be at that early stage of the race.  I think I was just ready to run...after the taper, the carb loading, the pre-race warmup, I was able to get a flow going very quickly.

My two target paces with my actual pace on the right

I probably should have tried to be more consistent in my pacing...there are a couple miles I dropped down to/below 7 min/mile, and I'm not sure why that happened.  I would have LOVED to haul ass into the finish line, at close to 7 min miles, but that wasn't going to happen after running so close to 7 min miles during the first 17 miles of the race.  BUT, it was OK at that point, because I was so far ahead of my target 3:20 pacing, that I knew I could afford to have some near-8 min miles towards the end.   If the next goal is to run sub-3:10 (which it IS the next goal) then this was great experience of coming close to that pace of 7:19 through 18 miles (vs BQ of 7:15.)

Around mile 6 I think. 

Also, the hills in the first half-- things I should NOT have been as concerned about as I was!  They weren't bad at all, and I maybe they wear my legs out, but mentally the boost from climbing even a short hill is a great thing for me.  I think of myself as a decent climber, so I enjoy the challenge.  Shortly after coming down those hills,  I was relieved when all the 1/2 marathon people finished up, but only because they were mostly all pushing their pace up from miles 10-13, and it was nice to look around and just see other marathon runners to figure out which ones looked like the would be moving at a pace that might be consistent with my own, and actually I usually look for someone 5-10 seconds faster than me.

I would say things started unravel during the Fells Bridge crossing at mile 18.  I did OK to hold my 7:30 pace for a few miles after that, but up until then I had been averaging 7:19 for the run, so I knew with each mile that came in at 7:30, I was that much closer to the hurt of the last few miles of a marathon.  You just want that hurt to hold off as long as possible.  As you can see above, it started for me at mile 23.  I remember a guy on the side of the road saying "come on, it's just a 5k left, anyone can do it!" and he was totally right, and I knew I would be done with this soon.  Especially disconcerting was that on the other side of Kelly Drive are folks who are 3 hours into their marathon and still around mile 15-that is tough...and seeing it from my side of the road...there just aren't a lot of positive take-aways from watching other runners struggle like that.  Back on my side of the road, I was pulling the old "when the next mile comes, you'll only have 2 miles left" game.  I knew I was a) WAY ahead of my 3:20 pace and b) WAY behind Boston Qualifying pace, so that just left me with 3:15 as a barrier, but right now that barrier doesn't really man much to me, so I admit that I didn't push myself to the limit those last few miles.  HOWEVER, I did enjoy it a bit more because I didn't run myself in to the ground in the process.

Mile 26

Notes to future self: I did a fine job taking my three planned PowerGels, but for some reason around mile 13 or 14 I stopped taking my sport beans.  Probably a mistake there, but that is a pattern for me.  When I start to get run-down, I shy away from doing things that would likely help me down the road.  So, next time, stick to the plan!

POST RACE:
I made an effort to re-hydrate yesterday during the packer game.  As of today, I'm getting around more-or-less fine.  I'm sore and, still very tired, but in general I'm feeling pretty good.  So, that makes 10 marathons in 7 states with doubles in CA, MA, IL.  And my 10th, at 2.5 months shy of my 37th birthday, is now my fastest.  WORK.

And, I spent the day starting to put together my 2015 race/training plan.

TBD for now though.

48 hour plan

Gear Update:
A pair of nicely broken in (48 miles) 1400v2 and, fresh from the screen printer, my new NB FHR singlet!  I'll likely go with a thing long sleeve base layer, thin gloves and some kind of head covering.

my first ever club singlet!

Running tracking:  This link to sign up for tracking @ at the 10K, Half Marathon, 30K and Finish.  Somewhat annoyingly, you have to create an account to get it.  I rather liked the Boston Marathon system of just texting the runners bib number to a particular text account. 

Weather Update:  Looking very nice!  General rule is it will feel 10-15 degrees warmer than air temps.  I'm loving a) partly cloudy b)very little wind c) what little wind there is should be a quartering breeze most of the time, and very rarely a head-wind d) the finishing temp looks nice. 




 Health Update:  I feel really good.  My (minor) groin issue has gotten better with the last week of rest..I'm not even sure it was a groin issue anyway...more of like a pelvic thing.  Anyway, I've survived taper week without rolling my ankle or falling down any stairs....well, actually I still have a 2-3 mile shakeout tomorrow, so...knock wood?!  Running during the taper week wasn't easy for me, I did every run this week at around 5am (as close as I could get to the 7am starting time...) and my legs felt sluggish all week.  I received excellent advice throughout the week from and FHR runner on taper workouts, specifically when and how to still incorporate speed work.  The hardest part is throughout most of the week, I found myself not thinking of running much, and that bothered me a bit.  I've gotten very used to thinking a lot about my last/next run, and what is on the 2-3 week horizon...but now that horizon is down to just a few days, with no real running until Sunday, and that void bothered me throughout the week.  I felt like I should be consumed with running (as I have been in the past) but strangely, I wasn't.  However, I'm feeling strong (mentally and physically) today and I can't wait to run hard.  

Sunday:

For future reference, I really like this pre-race marathon guide/checklist
http://running.competitor.com/2014/01/training/the-48-hour-countdown_7340

Pre-Race plan
4am Wake up
4:15 Breakfast: Coffee, juice, Oatmeal w/ brown sugar, banana, toast, water
4:45 Gear up
5:30 catch ride to downtown
6:15 bag check
6:30 10-12 minutes of slllooooowww jog.  leg swings.  dynamic stretches, couple of striders.
6:45 head to corral
7:00 race

Race plan:

I've come up with two different loose race plans (mostly based on the elevation profile.)  One gets me to a 3:25 PR, and the other gets me to my 3:20 stretch goal.  If I'm through the half marathon in 1:42-1:43, then I'm on PR pace.  If I'm through the half in 1:39-1:40 than I'm working towards the stretch time.  Of course, who knows how the back half will go.  A negative split would be nice, especially since the course favors it (imo) but not something I can really plan on.

1st Half Elevation:

Philly 1st half elevation

Miles 1-2:  Ease into the race with a pace avg that ranges from 8:08 (pr) to 7:58 (stretch)  I know those hills aren't much, but I actually like that the race starts out with some incline.  That tends to loosen up my legs, and then when I slight downhill I'll ease into an easy effort level.

Miles 3-10: avg pace target 7:58 to 7:44.   Obviously this is a net uphill stretch.  I'm just going to be looking for a normal/comfortable effort level here.  I won't be wearing a heart rate monitor during the race, but I'm willing to concede 10-15 seconds pace above my targets on the hill at mile 7-8 and 9-10. 

Nutrition Plan: The course offers a cliff shot at mile 10, and I may take a power gel at mile 6.  I plan on consuming about 30 (2 packs) of sport beans evenly throughout the race.  

Philly 2nd half elevation

Miles 11-18 Avg pace target 7:48 down to 7:36.  Mile 10-12 are a bit more concerning to me than the uphill sections that precede this down-slope.  At that point in the race, if I'm feeling comfortable, there could be an inclination to drop my pace close to 7 min/mile without thinking, but I think I'll be better served at the late stage of the race if I ease through this downhill section closer to 7:30.  I especially need to be aware of all the half marathoners who should be going all out from mile 10-13.  No need to get caught up in that!

Nutrition Plan: The course offers a cliff shot at mile 17, and I may take a power gel at mile 13.

Miles 19-23: Avg pace target 7:40 down to 7:28.  Obviously I'm planning on really feeling good over this stretch!  The turn-around of the out-and-back of Kelly Dr is around mile 20, and my hope is that when I hit that turn-around, I can increase my effort level, knowing that from that point on you're headed straight back to the finish line, and over this stretch there is a bit of a net down-hill.

Nutrition Plan: The course offers a cliff shot at mile 22, and I may take a power gel at mile 18 or 19.
My goal is to consume 3-4 gels and 30 sport beans (2 bags).  That should provide me with something like 200 in race carbs, and doesn't include what I'll get from gatorade.

Miles 24-26.2:  No plan other than run as hard as I can! My watch will tell me how I am tracking vs my goals in the form of an average pace for the run (as well as my pace for each lap I'm on.)  At that point in the race, it is very tough to "move the needle" of the average pace, so hopefully I'm at or below my target pace range of 7:37 (stretch) to 7:50 min/mile.  Hopefully I will be running near people who are like-minded/like-paced.  If I'm in a position where I'm running a negative split, then there is a possibility that I'll be passing people at this point, but I would actually rather be moving at the same strong pace as other runners.

And that's all there is to it!