Wednesday, July 25, 2012

One Year Later...

It's hard to believe that a year went by since my last post.  I decided not to continue my blog because I concentrated on my handwritten running log, which I felt was a lot easier for me to track workouts and what I had planned ahead.  In the world of the internet and social media, it was refreshing to unplug for a year.  Did I plan it?  Yes, but I didn't expect to stay unplug for a year!

I never made it to the Niagara Falls International Marathon last October.  No, I didn't get injured, thank God!  It was a vacation scheduling conflict with work.  Oh well.  It was out of my control.  I decided to run the Goofy Challenge in Walt Disney World in Orlando.  My wife convinced me to do the Goofy Challenge instead of just running the marathon.  I remember her saying, "We're not flying all the way to Orlando just to run a marathon!"  The Goofy Challenge is running a half marathon on Saturday and a full marathon on Sunday.  It was quite the challenge, but was also quite a challenge to train for!  I formulated a training plan based on the goal of running two races back-to-back.  I kept to my normal plan of running 3-4 days a week, but these days were target runs of mixing progression and tempo runs, mixing progression runs with hill repeats, and long slow runs.  Every other week when I ran for four days, I ran two back-to-back hard runs.  One day I ran a progression run followed with a hard hill repeat workout in the gym.  I ran on the treadmill to precisely control the elevation as well as give my body a break from pounding on the roads.  I was nervous with my training at first because I never trained that way and never had a goal of running back-to-back races.  As I progressed in my training, I got more confident.  Race weekend came and I trusted in my training and preparation.  I ran the half marathon in 1:30:55 (goal was to break 1:30:00) and ran the marathon in 3:12:55 (goal was to break 3:15:00).  My total time for 39.3 miles is 4:43:54 (goal was to break 4:45:00).

After Orlando, I took four days off before starting my next training plan for Boston three months!  I stuck to the same 3-4 day training weeks, but didn't feel the same as I did when I trained to Boston 2011.  Boston 2012 became one of the hottest Boston races with temperatures in the mid-80's by the time I finished.  I pushed through the start when temperatures were already just under 70.  A nice cool wind helped, but it soon got warmer and warmer.  The spectators along the way added to the awesome volunteer hydration stations.  The spectators who were between hydration stations had their garden hoses spraying water over our heads, gave out oranges, candy, cool wet sponges and even ice!  Kids had fun spraying us with water from their water guns!

I maintained a steady pace with the goal of breaking 3:25:00, which is my Boston Age-Qualifying time.  I slowed down during miles 19 through 25, but found some energy to push through the last 1.2 miles in a 7:05 pace helping me cross the finish line in 3:18:55!  It was my 5th consecutive Boston Marathon and my slowest since running a 3:22:48 in 2009.  I almost didn't run that one due to a nagging right hamstring injury!  I also ran the last two Boston Marathons as member of the American Cancer Society's DetermiNation Team.  I raised over $3,000 to help those fight cancer and to help find a cure.  Thank you all for your support!

Now I'm focusing on the NYC Marathon this November.