Kurt's sub-46 10K

On a relatively cool 65 degree morning in San Francisco, Kurt laced up, found a hill-less six-mile stretch and destroyed his old personal best (50:12) for a 10K. The new PB: Just under 46 minutes, around a 7:25 mile pace. According to all the expert coaches I'm following, that means Kurt's VDOX is around 44. Potential marathon time around 3:32 to 3:40, depending on who you read, if the endurance training is in place and weather permits. Weather is always the biggest factor in reaching potential.

More important, the 10K time translates to a 8:37 MP pace at a comfortable 75% effort, or even an easier 9:03 at 70% effort, just to break four hours. However Kurt wants to run Chicago, the potential is there for a fast time if he stays uninjured (doesn't overtrain) and puts in the remaining longs -- a couple more 20s and a couple more mid-distance runs in the 13 to 15 range. Followed by a good taper. Should be good to go.

Boston qualifying time for late 40s is 3:30. That's a game day decision, based on weather, and a dangerous one at that. Running at that fine line between aerobic and anaerobic thresholds (80% effort) brings the Wall into play around 20 with lactic acid-soaked legs. You could end up at 4:15. But if you can drive that 10K down to 44-45.....the potential is there. I tried once from there (40:30 10K), ran 8s through 20, hit the Wall and ended up with a 4:02. You take your chances.

Training note: With a month to go before the taper, the tempo runs and longer MPs, where my legs are learning to efficiently move out lactic acid, would be key weekly runs, along with the longs.

Ten from hell

There are bad runs, and then there are bad runs. Last night was the latter. I decided to replace the 8 MP on the schedule for an easy 16, get it out of the way this week. I felt like running.

As I said months ago, the wild card for training hard in the summer would be the heat; and wouldn’t you know, South Florida is in the midst of one of the worst heat waves in decades. Mornings, nights, the humidity and temperature produce a “real feel” heat index of over 100. During the day, it spikes to 110. Weathermen are advising to make sure you hydrate well if walking to your car. It’s ridiculous.

So I head out to run16 miles, at about 7 pm. Real-free 100+. But I'm well hydrated, carrying Gatorade. First couple miles were okay but by three, things started failing. By six, I'm toast. As bad as the end of any marathon, shuffling, cannot breath, feeling dyhdrated, utterly spent. Sometimes I stop to suck oxygen from the moist air every 100 yards. Six miles and I'm in serious trouble. I cut off the run and make it home by 10, unable to talk by then and tell Lorraine I'm near death.

After 7 hours sleep, I still haven't recovered. The residual effect of that run has left me dizzy and fatigued and generally beat up. Shuffling in last night, all I could think about was never doing that again. Fuck the whole marathoning thing. It got me home.

I was set up for a bad run, though, having run or cross-trained for 10 of the last 11 days. When I recover from this, I'll probably head back to the treadmill, which isn't getting my legs rugged enough for a marathon. But this kind of heat can't be run through, not by me. It's just too much, and too dangerous. This morning, I actually feel lucky I didn't get in more trouble than just feeling bad.

Drafting

Kurt has offered to shield me and my foot from the winds off the lake. Here's a peak at the turn back to the east, a view of left shoulder drafting....

Into the pool

I read somewhere a running equivalent for aqua-jogging is your in-pool heartbeat plus 13 beats per minute, due to the fact the water keeps you cooler and your heart pumps less blood to your skin. My pool is 80-some degrees, so I'm not sure I can add the beats. Without them, I kept my in-water BPM in the 120 to 150 range, with spikes to 160 during four 2 1/2-minute killer aqua-intervals. I also figured out some abdominal exercises with beats in 130 range. Stayed in the pool for 80 minutes, comparable to an 8 mile run, with easy and interval segments. After rolling out of the pool, I stretched quite a bit and did more core work, which I usually don't do after my runs but seemed to fit nicely into the workout. My body is so tight and inflexible, this cross-training may be what it needs.

On the right-heel: It's sore, stepping out of bed. No change. Will ice all day again, take 1800 mg of ibrurophen.

PF history
In 1996 and 1997, I broke down with PF during the early Boston and mid-summer NY campaigns. Both times I tried to run through it and it took 8-9 weeks before it went away. I'd get a long or mid-distance run in and have to stay off my feet for 2-3 days. That pattern kept repeating. Lots of icing and ibrupropehn and hematuria during runs from the NSAIDs. Speed runs were few and far between, mainly I was trying to stay on my feet to get the mileage in. In my notes, I mention numerous hip and back problems, possibly from altering stride. Most often, the heel warms up and hurts after the run, and for the next day or two.

I ran both marathons. The Boston PF bout cleared up in the fall, well before the April run (4:05). The NY bout, which started in week 12, began to clear three weeks before the race when I began tapering (4:25, IT band and monsoon) and didn't seem to bother me during the run.

Stopped running

I’m stopping running for at least a week. After three days of off and on discomfort in my right heel, I ran 8 yesterday on the treadmill with a mild discomfort early in the run, but it warmed up. Last night at Nick’s baseball practice I ran after two fly balls, and that was the end: I limped off the field. I keep hoping it’s a heel bruise but all the references say plantar facitis. It's acting like PF, sore in the morning, sore in that cushy spot under heel, and sore all around it. I'll go on 7-10 days of heavy ibruprophen, icing. Switch to workouts in the pool, lift 3X this week. I'll reconstruct the last 5 weeks of the schedule before tapering, pushing my next 20 off a week or maybe two. If the foot heals, I can still fit two more 20s in. I doubt I'll be able to run hard for two weeks, except in the pool. I don't know if that's optimistic. I'm reading that it takes considerably longer; hopefully I'm catching it early.

Good news

It hurts up to a point and then it doesn't get worse.
--Steve Prefontaine

Ed's doing it

Just do it, so he is. Ed has entered Chicago to speed-walk the loop from downtown to Wrigley to Comisky and back, his second marathon of the year. He walked Nashville in April. Lorraine and Nick have decided not to go, as Nick has finals for his first quarter 8th grade that week and possibly some baseball games that weekend.

So Kurt, Ed and I will be staying in the McCormick Hyatt, at 70 bucks a night, complements of Lorraine's brother, Doug, who works for Hyatt. I think the rate otherwise would be up in the $250-300 range. The McCormick Hyatt overlooks the lake and is next to the expo, a 4-stop subway ride to the Start/Finish.

Seven weeks of conditioning left

Where we're at
Kurt has run a 16 mile long and turned in a quick 50:12 10K; I've reached my first 20 miler but haven't run a time trial in weeks due to the heat and travel to North Carolina (the last time trial was in early June, a 7:44 pace 5K, my fastest 10K a 50:28 in late April). Today we both ran half-mile intervals, averaging seconds just below and above 7:00 paces (3:30 halves). I don't think we're that far off; Kurt has successfully overcome the stress fractures, adjusted to the orthotics, and gotten on track with a program that has little room for downtime; I've avoided overuse injuries so far, in particular the IT band, with extra rest and an elongated program.

Driving down 10K times
Seven weeks to go before tapering. Despite what some of the calculators say, I'm not confident we can take current stamina levels, add several 20s, and make the sub-4:00. Assuming I could run a 50:00 minute 10K, I think we need a bigger cushion -- maybe drive the 10K times down between 47:00 to 48:00. Why? At the current 50:00 10K times, Coach Bensen's effort-based training charts say we'd be running our 8:45 targeted marathon pace at 80% effort, which the coach says is not likely sustainable over 26.2 miles for rec runners. A more realistic and sustainable effort might be around 75%. If you can run a 48:00 10K, a 75% effort translates to a 8:49 pace. For 47:00 10k, it's a 8:37 pace. So you can see the effort becomes less -- and easier to sustain -- as you drop your 10K times. This assumes you've put the endurance part of the equation in place; in other words, run your 3-4 18-20 milers.

The biggest risk
The main thing is to continue to do the once a week intervals/tempo runs, the marathon pace run, and the long -- WITHOUT overtraining. If I feel tired or have a strange tightness, I will drop any thought of a fourth run for extra rest, and sacrifice building mileage that week. The biggest risk in trying to drive down the 10K times is getting hurt by doing too much and being too aggressive. But I think we're on the right path.

Running intervals

From: Kurt
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Today's run
Ran half mile intervals each around 3:20. 5 of them with 1/2 mile slow jogs / walks in between for a total of 5 miles. I gave it my all. The best I can do right now. It was a little humid this AM which I'm sure factored in to the times.

From: Steve, later in day, ran:
3:23
3:25
3:29
3:32
3:46 At this point, you were not my favorite person for this workout.

Subplot: 90 degrees, 105 real-free, 70% humidity
Sun came out for #’s 4 & 5.
I wanted to see if I could keep them all under 3:30s but that’ll have to be another day.

Back on the road. After 6 weeks of rest and rehab from four stress fractures, Kurt showed off his bike-spun VO2 this week with his first 5K time trial -- a speedy 24:30, under 8 pace. Now the careful transition to 20-30 mile weeks this month, and hopefully some custom inserts soon -- and he's back on track.

Treadmill vs land running

Cranking the treadmill up to a 1% grade is equal in the effort of a land run. So says this bit of research, A 1% TREADMILL GRADE MOST ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE ENERGETIC COST OF OUTDOOR RUNNING, J Sports Sci Date Of Publication: 1996 Aug. The study demonstrated equality of the energetic cost of treadmill and outdoor running with the use of a 1% treadmill grade over a duration of approximately 5 min and at velocities between about 9:00 and 5:20 per mile pace. You can't substitute substantiatial treadmill workouts for the road -- but in the plus 80/90 heat and humidity, it works for me. I recover faster and can run harder longer. Crank her up...

Still dizzy and queazy from severe dyhydration an hour after NY 2003. Shortly after this shot, I slumped on a curb in west Central Park while Lorraine flagged down a taxi. Couldn't function. Ate chicken dumpling soup in our hotel room and passed out. It was the second NY marathon that wrung me out, two out of two disaster runs. Eating the dumpling, I swore the marathoning was over. Yesterday I got picked in the lottery for some future 26.2 mile lap through the five boroughs. My memory, obviously, is still bonking. (Kurt was not selected, neither was Marabelle, Roy is guaranteed. We may roll the guarantees until we're all selected.)

Training Zones CALCULATOR

Just plug in your max heart rate and resting heart rate, and it gives you the ranges for the 5 training zones. MHR is genetically predetermined and lowers by 1 beat a minute as you age--not much you can do about this number; but resting heart beat indicates fitness level and lowers as you get fitter. This marathon guide suggests a few ways to determine MHR, including running some uphills. A monitor is probably the only way to get an accurate number. Otherwise, they tweek the formula, suggesting: 214 - (.8 x age).

http://www.marathonguide.com/FitnessCalcs/HeartRate2calc.cfm

The link to the training zone article gives some good information on this whole approach to training and what to look for if in the market for a monitor. I'm getting close. Taking my pulse with my finger isn't cutting it.

Training zones & MHR

Here's a better way to figure max heart rate. This is important in figuring training zones – how fast to run intervals, longs, tempos.

217 – (.80 x age) = MHR (for running)

Max heart rate is also sports specific. It will be different running than spinning.

To figure heart rate for training zones:
MHR x Intensity % + RHR (resting heart rate).

For me:
173 MHR – 54 resting heart rate = 119 X intensity (ex. 70%) = 83 + 54 RHB = 137
137 now equals 70% of max heart rate.

Calculating MHR helps you establish the training zones for different kinds of runs.
1. Easy/Recovery = 60 – 70% (long runs up to 75%)
2. Endurance/Strength = 71 – 80% (MP goal is 76-77%)
3. Strength/Long hills = 81 – 85% (tempo runs, just below lactic threshold)
4. Intervals/Hills/Race pace = 86 – 90% (5K and 10Krace pace) (intervals 880s)
5. Speed/Racing (short) = 91 – 100% (sprinting, short races)

RW calculator for training zones
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=1676&V=1&SP=

Pace killer: Heat/humidity

Curious about how S. Fla.'s high temps and humidity were impacting my runs in the summer, I looked everywhere for this. More science: Above 70 degrees, heart rate increases 1 beat/min per degree F. Interestingly, the oxygen demand doesn’t increase in the heat (the sucking wind portion), but your cardio system must pump more blood to your skin to enhance heat dissipation and cool you down. Higher humidity also increases heart rate, because it decreases your sweat evaporation rate. Research shows a 10 beat increase in 90% humidity, compared to 50% humidity.

My heart works very, very hard on those 90/90 days, which is why it takes so long to recover. Treadmill lets me run faster longer, and recover quicker, without the knee pounding. Boring as it is.

Lose weight pick up the pace

For every pound you lose, you are one minute faster in a marathon. Science.

At 182 (4:29), if you could get down to 152, you wouldn't have to do anything more than you did last year. Theory.

Crosstraining/Running Equivalents

You can minimize the wear and tear on your body by replacing up to 25 percent of your mileage with biking, swimming, deep water running, elliptical training, or other aerobic non-weight bearing exercises. Do these activities at a pace that will get your heart rate in your training range and count how many miles you would have run during the time spent doing the alternative training as “running equivalent mileage.” This according the NY marathong training recommendations.

Kurt, what is your heart rate in a spinning class for an hour?

Heart rate formula

Here's the most common and simplistic formula to measure effort based on heart beats:

220 - your age = maximum heart rate (MHR)

For Kurt, 220-48=172 MHR.
77-78% MHR for marathon = 132 beats per minute

See Coach Bensen's site (below) on effort-based training. He says 77-78% MHR is realistic for running a marathon, so we need to get our fitness level in that range for 8:45 pace. Once heart rate and pace matchup, and we put in the longs, we're realistic for the sub-4.

INTERVALS: He also suggests never to run your 800m repeats (intervals) over 90% MHR (155). So anything that approaches 155 MHR would give you a maximum VO2 benefit, without risk of overtraining. Recovery jogs of 400 meters should be around 70% (120 beats).

My desktop. New York's blue line through Central Park. Lottery in mid-June, both Kurt and I are in the pool. 2006?

Now the fun starts

I once read a ditty in RW that said you know you're a marathoner if 18 weeks is an important block of time. So here we are -- 18 weeks to showtime. Everything up till now has been prep.
So how did we do?

Me first: Did I work out in the gym as often as planned? No way, but better than usual. Averaged less than 2X a week when 3X was the game plan. Did I run consistently? Absolutely. Followed the 14-week basing buildup to 25 mpw, plus the long 12 miler. Hills? Nope, only a couple sessions. Speed? At least once a week-- a tempo, interval or time trial for 10 weeks, which produced pretty good results: Completed a 5K time trial this week at 7:44 pace, a 36-sec/mile improvement. Best of all, I managed to run faster and consistently for a total of 14 weeks during baseball season -- and without injury.

Which brings me to Kurt.

A nasty kidney stone and 4 stress fractures sent Kurt to an alternate Winter/Spring Training Plan, spinning on the bike for cardio and no running to let his tibia bones heal. In the next week or so, his 6-week rehab is over and he transitions back on the road, with custom arch supports from his doctor. We may not know till late June whether an October marathon is realistic or not--but it's doable. Not just finish-doable, but break-the-3:59-barrier doable. A lot depends -- no, it all depends -- on whether he was able to spin his VO2 Max to something that can deliver a roughly 25-minute 5K (8:05p) in June. Then his VO2 is in the ballpark, and maybe his lactate threshold. The goal is to get our 5k times to around 22:45 (7:20 pace--which should give us a nice VO2 cushion for a marathon) by mid-September, while racheting up the longs every other week. He has time for three 20s or longer. Weekly runs include 1 long, 1 easy, 1 speed, 1 marathon pace run.

But yeah, Kurt's stress-fractured legs have to hold up. Enter the orthotic. My bet is that does the trick. Other potential problem areas? Well, there's not a whole lot of room for any extended downtime. But getting it all done is always a tight fit.

18 weeks to go to 3:59. Stay healthy, stay tuned.

Calculating weekly tempos/intervals

Great site for calculator. Plug in your latest 5K or 10K time trial....and it tells you how fast you should be doing your easy runs, tempos, and intervals to increase VO2.

http://www.fasterrunning.com/oldsite/calculator2.htm

Work backwards from your marathon goal time, and you can figure out where you need to be in 18 weeks. I'm using this calculator to figure weekly speed runs after time trials. This should help notching up speed safely.

Now stress fractures?

I've always said the toughest part of marathoning is getting to the start line. By that, I mean it's so difficult avoiding the minefield of injuries, sicknesses, weather calamities (hurricanes come to mind), and anything else that forces you off your training schedule. Downtime is especially deadly to a goal time.

Kurt is a perfect recent example. He's already suffered through a kidney stone and suspected chronic shinsplints, although we now have a correct diagnosis after a bone scan -- four stress fractures along both tibia bones. His orthopod recommends eight weeks off the roads, two of which are completed. He can't run until early June, at which time he'll be fitted with a custom orthotic and hopefully that fixes the biomechanical problem causing the fractures.

So what now? Six weeks off the road, with this 3:59 time goal looming, is tough to overcome. So do we give up Chicago (Oct 9)? Move to another marathon down the road -- NY (Nov. 8), Palm Beach (Dec. 4), or Disney (Jan. 8)? A later run makes a lot of sense to sensible people, just ask Kurt's orthopod -- but my first question is, is Chicago salvagable? And still run 3:59.....

Maybe -- and a wild and fascinating experiment it could be. The first key is that Kurt spins on the bike like a maniac for the next 6 weeks (improving his oxygen uptake, effectively substituting the bike for hard speed runs), then acclimates to the road during June (run and walk on soft surfaces, continues spinning) , then starts a 14-week program in July that builds to three 18-22 milers and includes two weekly speed and marathon pace runs. Total mileage tops off in the high 30s to 40. Doable?

"I have to be perfect," Kurt says this morning. "There's no margin for error."

True enough. Of course, any hope of success rides on the custom orthotic. Kurt's body is not efficiently distributing the stress of his footplants, hence the fractures. But I'm optimistic. I had a suspected stress fracture a year ago after not wearing my custom orthotics. After months of battling what I thought was a shinsplint, I took a couple months off, then trained and ran Chicago in my orthotics without another problem. Good chance a custom orthotic for Kurt will do the trick too.

No, it's anything but an ideal situation, but if successful, Kurt's second marathon will be that much more powerful. And I'll have someone to run with.

Spinning to a sub-4

Kurt is officially chronic with another bout of shin splints, and heading to a sports physician next week, probably ending up with a new pair of $300 custom orthotics—but in the meantime, more downtime. So now what? Kidney stones, shin splints, he can’t get out of the blocks. Schedule is going to hell. Well, he’s hitting the weights and took his first spinning class. Can you get there with X-training? Consider

Back in 1996, the year Roy and I ran the 100th Boston, his knee was acting up badly during training and he headed into the gym and skipped a bunch of running, focusing instead on strengthening the knee with weights and increasing aerobic capacity on the bike. I did my normal running, building longs, up to 24 miles for the first and only time in training. No speed work to speak of, just racking up miles.

Flash forward to race day: After a few jammed up miles early, we settled into running 9s, threw in a couple 8s to make up some time, and kept the pace until mile 21, Heartbreak Hill, the fourth of the Newton hills. Lots of people were walking, but Roy and I ran up it. About two-thirds the way, however, I began to lose it. After 4 hills, I just didn’t have the strength to maintain that pace, and Roy shot ahead. His weights work and biking obviously gave him an edge that I couldn’t match. So I fell behind, finishing at 4:05, short of our goal for a sub-4. At the finish line, Roy was waiting. I looked at his watch. 3:59:52.

Up Missouri Hills/Florida Bridges

Hills (for me, bridges over the Intracoastal and I-95) start this week on our schedule. Here's suggestions from Jeff Galloway, for sub-4 guys. Run these hill workouts, once a week, over the next 4 or 5 weeks; maybe we try to run 4 of these during this six-week session:

4-6 hills in a 5-7 mile run
7-8 hills in 7-8 mile run
9-10 hills in 8-9 mile run

Pick a hill 400 to 800 meters long, gentle grade and run at 10K speed or a little slower (8:50 to 9:00's is probably reasonable), don't sprint. Run up and over, and walk down.

He insists hills build leg strength that weights can't duplicate (static vs dynamic), and that hills should be done early in the schedule (he's scheduled hills 23 to 28 weeks before race, which is where we are now, taking out the rest weeks) and before speed work starts.

Cement legs antidote: Tempo runs

You know that feeling at the end of a marathon or long runs where your legs tighten and grow excessively fatigued, like you're running in cement? Blame it on lactate acid, a by-product of burning sugar for energy in your leg muscles. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? So they say: It's training at a "lactate threshold" pace.

What's that? It's more or less your 5K pace, plus 20 to 40 seconds a mile, or your 10K pace, plus 10 to 20 seconds. Top coaches believe you should regularly do 20- to 40-minute runs at your LT pace (tempo training), to increase your body's ability to transport lactate out of the muscles and prevent cement legs. For example, yesterday I ran 4 miles at 9:00 pace (36 minutes), a pretty good tempo run at this stage--and jogged home another 4.

In our schedule, I built in intervals (3rd session) and time trials for speed work, but not enough tempo runs. Tempo runs should be another option to mix in. The upcoming Marathon Pace runs (we have two 4-milers this session, at 8:40 pace) will serve as rather quick tempo runs for this session. (See Runners World, May 2005.)

Obviously, if tempo runs help the body become more efficient at moving lactate, the last 10K shouldn't be as stressed.

Wrapup Session #1

The first 6-week session down, four to go. Just like that. We had a kidney stone, illness, shin splints, bought core ball, new shoes, and started this blog. Kurt and I ran our last week 5K time trials at a 8:18 to 8:07 pace, respectively. I averaged 16 miles a week (about right, a 19 and 20 the last couple weeks); and a disappointing 2 weight-workouts per week. That will not get the results needed to sustain harder-faster running later. Ran four 8s, still my favorite distance, in last three weeks, trying to run fewer days a week to accomodate baseball.

Strangely, Kurt, after being off his feet with the stone, has developed shin splints after one week back, which suggests he tried to do to much too soon.

Times talk:
Based on our 5K trial times, Coach Bensen's training model makes these assumptions: My current 9:20p 8-milers are being run at 75-80% effort, which is exactly where we should be for the marathon and very comfortable now. But the time needs to drop to 8:40 MP at that same effort, and be equally comfortable. So I'm a long ways off.

Our 5K time trials -- and these, again, are just markers to see where we are in relation to where we need to be to run under 4 hours -- are way off as well. It says to run a realistic sub-4 at 77-78% effort at a 9:05 MP -- we need to run 8:14 pace for 10K (51:00). However, because we're really shooting for 8:40 MP, to accomodate delays from all the people and water stops, the 5K time should get down to 7:18 pace (22:38) -- or 10K time at 7:34 pace (47:00).

So, after Session One, we're both looking at dropping roughly 1-minute off 5K times and around 40 seconds off comfortable (77-78% effort) MP runs.

Looking ahead to Session #2:
Mileage up--18-20 per week, basing. Starting a hill workout every other week. My goal is still 3X weight workouts per week. 10K time trials at end of each of the 3-week cycles. Introduce 4MP runs at 8:40p. Long is still only 6-8 each week. I may start substituting 880 intervals for a couple of the 5K trials on schedule--there's 4 of them.

Leftovers, Week 30

Progressing nicely with running/workouts till this week5, when baseball took over. Five-game tournament over the weekend, and a couple more games during the week, pretty much ruined the routine. Tactic between games and practices: Running 8s to compress two days into one. *** Kurt is back on the beam, traveling but working out in his room, he tells me. Sounds like he's fully recovered from kidney stone, counting down the days. *** I'm looking at 9 weeks of strength 3x-week workouts, before ratcheting up the longs. *** Looking, also, at 5 to 7 pounds of blubber that needs to go. *** Bought one of those big balls for core work. Leaning against it and rolling down a wall for quads and knees. *** Roy is planning to have the broken cartilege floating in his knee taken out. *** 80/80s this week (80 degree temp/80% humidity) for summer preview....

Jogger's hematuria

Blood in the urine. Who wants to read about that? Well, for years, I couldn't read enough about it. I couldn't talk to enough doctors about it. Because I couldn't figure it out. And it got so bad and so frequent, it threatened all my runs over 8 miles. It burned, it nauseated, it slowed me during marathons, it could even stop me. And then I started bleeding after just 3 miles.....so what the hell was going on?

Spotting of blood in the urine is actually fairly common among runners. And it scares the, well, okay, piss out of you the first time you see it. A couple drops mixed in with urine turns it the color of a California Bourdeaux. Pre-Running Boom, hematuria was known as Marcher's Syndrome (WW II), because soldiers would pee red after long marches. Dyhydrated, the walls of the bladder would slap together, breaking capillaries filled with small amounts of blood.

I thought my problem was that simple so I followed the recommended Rx of staying well hydrated and using liquids as a cushion for the bouncing bladder walls. Didn't work. I tried cutting out coffee. Spent hundreds of dollars on special supplements. Consulted and spent hundreds more on an "alternative medicine" doctor. No, no, no.

Last fall, the light finally turned on: My Vioxx. Even the doctor who prescribed me the Vioxx for assorted aches and pains never put it together. Earlier this week, just to make sure, I performed a scientific test: My arm killing me from throwing 500 baseballs in batting practice at 13-year-olds, I ate a couple Vioxx tabs. Within two days, yep, there it was. My burning Bourdeaux.

For anybody interested, all of those NSAIDS and Cox-2 inhibitors, as great as they are for pain and inflammation, can wreak havoc on the urinary tract and cause bleeding. I still have a Vioxx stash for a really bad day, but basically....back to icing. And no Vioxx 48 hours before a run over 5. Another damn rule.

You know you're a marathoner when....

You say you're going out for a short run, and come back two hours later.....You shower 12 times a week.....You start buying energy gels in bulk.....Eighteen weeks is an important block of time. (RW 10-02)..... You start thinking about a morning run a year or two in advance....You pee blood and shrug.....

Kurt's stone

Postscript on yesterday's post: The docs decided the stone was too close to the kidney to obliterate it with shock waves. So Kurt opted for them to "go up and get it," a non-medical term for -- oh, forget it -- rather than going home and passing it in his spare time. Forget that! Training is now on hold until, well, until his thing works again without the flaming fire below.

Upside of having a stone: You try your damndest to stay hydrated before, during and after runs. Dehydration of the kidney creates an environment for calcium crystals to form, grow and eventually pass. If you're doing a good job at hydrating, your kidney is flushing the calcium out of your system before stones can crystalize. Obviously, long distance running is constantly using up liquids for cooling, and it's sometimes hard to keep up with, especially on hot or humid days. After passing a stone, however, this idea of hydrating properly has your full attention.

Marathon vs. kidney stone

Which hurts more? It's not even close, actually. Take your worst-ever ending of a marathon, the one where you're bonking badly, dehydrated, cramped with a screaming hammie or two, immersed in a fatigue that weighs on you like warm death, throw in a dizzy spell with flashing bright lights, the "wall" is as thick as the 10K you still have to run....

Now compare that to the passing of a silly millimeter kidney stone, and you'll take the dehydrated bonk any day.

Kurt's passing his first stone as we write. Or make that, the doctors have decided it's a a bit chunky to pass on its own, so they're going to puverize the little beast with some shock waves. No big deal. The hard part is behind him. The part where you crawl up in a ball as some alien beast attacks from the inside. The part where you think you're gonna die and say hurry up. For Kurt, dopey on demerol and soon to have a sore ab from the shock waves, this part is like the long walk in mylar. You're weary, but the rage is over.

For the record, I've run 12 marathons and passed 4 kidney stones, so I write this with some authority. Kurt finished his inaugural marathon in October and now the first stone. I'm not sure if he's just trying to keep up or compete in the Worst Pains Ever Department, or what. If he gets pregnant soon, I guess we'll know.

Plaguing shinsplints

Back in 1983, my first serious bout of shinsplints sidelined me only weeks before my second Orange Bowl marathon with Roy. Talk about disappointing. I didn't know any better and tried to run through them, big mistake. Anyway, I may have had another bout or two since, but generally, shinsplints have not been a problem. Until the last year.

Now they've popped up twice for extended periods, in the December to February timeframe. I'm assuming my legs are just breaking down after fall marathons, continued hard running and some races. So my problem is probably lack of strength and flexibility, rather than shoes. However, switching to a new shoe is always easier than taking time to strengthen and flex.

Kurt suffered shinsplints last summer, in his first marathon campaign, which coaches say is not unusual for a new runner. It takes a gradual build for the tendons to strengthen along the shin, and that takes time for somebody new to the roads. Strength is probably the issue for Kurt too.

I've found two good exercises to strengthen the lower legs and prevent shinsplints. 1) Get one of those big rehab rubber bands, attach to your toes, and stretch against the resistance while watching late night reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond. 2) Hang your legs over the bed, and raise your toes with a weight attached to your foot.

Other tips: Get a good orthotic. Warm 'em up and stretch 'em out a bit, especially before intervals and time trials. For my current nagging bout, I'm also going to go out and buy a new cushiony shoe....

Your 10K target for sub-4

Bingo! http://www.coachbenson.com/images/8090.pdf This Coach Benson site is great. This particular chart gives you the 10K time (51:00 min/8:14 pace) you need to be running, in order to run a realistic sub-4 marathon, without stopping. It also suggests that 77-78% effort is where you need to be for running 26 miles--that's about a 9:05 to 9:09 pace. With walk breaks and congestion of a big marathon, I think we need to be around 8:40-45. (Roy, tell me different???) So move up the middle "pace" column to 8:45, slide to the left, and you can see that your 10K time needs to be 49:00 min/7:54 pace. Those are probably pretty good targets, assuming all sorts of things on race day: cool weather, no injuries, max 20 second stops per mile average including bottlenecked turns, no excessive pissing, blood on the highway, no stopping for a beer in Wrigleyville, etc.

For pacing (effort) on other runs (like recovery or intervals), see chart in earlier post on Effort Based Training. I really think these charts give you a model to gauge effort without overtraining. Keeps you focused on the gradual build. Yet, it provides goals to hit. I'd really like to see the pacing information above related to 5K times as well.....maybe it's too short of a distance.

Spiffed out in mylar and Breathright. (Kurt, Chi04)

Squeeking orthotics

It's pre-dawn, still dark out, wife's asleep, you put on your shorts, tank, socks, shoes. Squeek! Like you're killing a mouse with each step. Squeek, squeek, squeek. You leave the house. Oh hell, forgot something. Back inside. More squeek, squeek, squeek. Years this has been going on....till this weekend's discovery: Just sprinkle some baby powder, baking soda or, in my case, Gold's powder underneath the orthotics. You can move around again like a burgler.

Effort Based Training

Based on 5K or 10K times, how fast should you run on an easy or recovery run (60-75% effort)? Or a 20-minute tempo run (80% effort)? Or hill repeats (80-95% effort?) Or an interval, like a series of 880s or miles (90-95% effort) Or the recovery jog after (70%)? Here's a handy chart: www.coachbenson.com, then look in Book Forms, Section B. Obviously, as the 5k and 10k time trials get faster, you move along in the chart. Great way to push at a graduated level, without over doing it, and especially easy to monitor with the GPS on your wrist. Full of tips today.....this Running Times mag, which I signed up for at the PB Marathon and got a free jacket, is pretty good.

Rethinking the wall

Hitting the wall may have less to do with running out of glycogen, more to do with damaged muscles that send signals to the brain to slow down. The body, smart as it is, sends that signal in a package of extreme fatigue. New research suggests eating protein on the run to prevent some of that muscle damage. Several times I've wondered why when I've drank a lot and eaten plenty of Gus that I've still bonked. Maybe this is it. Also, plyometric training (jumping drills) helps increase muscles' resistance to damage. (See April's Running Times)

Leftovers, Week 34 (first week)

Germs from traveling left Kurt sick all week, an occupational hazard. As new training gear, he's thinking about wearing a white surgical mask through airports. *** Will Roy's wife Marabelle be running? Is her year-long bout with plantar facitis behind her? She puts us all to shame, perrennial 3:45er *** Overhead lunges suck. Wabbly footing; hurts my knees. Returning to hanging weights at my side. *** Ed says he's walking his first marathon in April, in Nashville. Figure 6-6:30. That's a looooong walk. Unaided by GUs, would you still hit the wall around 18-20, like a typical runner, or would glycogyn stores run out earlier? *** Looking way ahead: Kurt and I applied for the NYC lottery in June; Roy has guaranteed entry. Marabelle? for 06? ***NY has delivered two of my worst ever runs. An ITband painfest in a monsoon (4:25 in '97) and last year's cramped, dehydration shuffle on a humid 75-degree day (5:07). I'd like to do it comfortably just once. *** I caved on managing baseball. Reluctantly took a Junior League (13-14yo) team this spring. So I'll be mixing in running with practices/games twice a week, plus three days of Bandits baseball (13s), plus basketball for another month. I agree, it's too much. Thank God the Vioxx is coming back....

NEWS BLAST: Vioxx coming back?

AP, CNN and others reporting this morning that Vioxx may be coming back out on the market. New science shows the unique benefit of the drug outweigh the risks (I coulda told them that), and Merck may bring it back. I was willing to sign a waiver that I wouldn't sue the company if my heart exploded, in exchange for a handful, but this is too good to be true. Hopefully by spring those golden tabs will be back. I've got just enough left in my stash to get me through the winter.

This news also greatly enhances Roy's chances of getting to the Start, as Vioxx is his drug of choice for all things related to the knee (see below).....

Rabbit Roy?

Imagine a knee so screwed up, pieces of cartilage, about the size of a quarter, float around freely, unattached, in the joint's fluids, occasionally surfacing in the kneecap -- and which need to be excised. This happens about as often as the rest of us get flu shots. A knee permanently bloated with godknowswhat. A knee that hasn't straightened for over a decade. A knee protected from bone-on-bone scraping by the last sliver of cartilage, about the thickness of a ply of Charmin.

That's Roy's knee, and he now tells me this morning that he's in. In for the 26.2 mile lap around Chicago in October. And no, despite having the most deranged knee you've ever seen, he's not in the wheelchair division.

This, of course, may not be the greatest idea. But this is a guy running a nuclear power plant, so hey -- who am I to judge. But still, reasonable people will ask, Why take the risk? Have you lost your mind? Well, I suppose it's a little hard to fathom, unless you've been running for 25 years and now sorely miss the regularity of it all. So, you pick your moments and take your chances. Roy, also 52, after reading this blog yesterday, decided to pick Chicag04 and join Kurt and me. No, his orthopod is probably not onboard. Actually, the orthopod wants to replace the knee, or at least a major section of it. So Roy's thinking is, if it's a throw-away part anyway, well...

Roy believes he can super-strengthen the knee in the gym for the next 16 weeks, run through the summer, and give it a go. He's done it before. Back in '96 (see post Boston '96), the knee was a globe of excess fluids and adrift cartilage chunks, but strong enough to leave me halfway up Heartbreak Hill and squeeze out a 3:59:52. Planning is everything. Since then, he's also finished a hilly San Francisco and a couple Disneys, basically on one good leg.

Okay, so he ain't no bullet-train anymore (PB 3:14, back in the First Boom, in '83). But if I breakdown, damn good chance Roy -- if he can just get to the startline -- will be there to pace my mid-life-crising brother Kurt to his sub-four.

Backup has arrived.....

Kick my butt with (overhead) lunges

My butt feels like somebody poured concrete in my glutes. Or whacked the hell out of it with a two-by-four. Sore sore. Tenderized. I need one of those foamy-thick cushions that look like a toilet seat for my ass, just to sit here. Last week, I'd been doing a not-too-strenuous 100 feet or so of lunges with a pair of handweights hung down by my side. No no no, that's not the way to do it, Kurt tells me. Raise those hand weights overhead, now do your lunges. Now walk up and down what would be the length of a basketball court a couple times. Yeah, okay. Now see what it feels like to literally get your ass kicked.

Neck (and upper back) takes a royal beating too. Definately a runner-specific exercise.

Where's my Vioxx?

Shorter on marathon training specificity

Sounds boring already, and I promised. But it's been bugging me. Do we get faster by training longer at marathon pace? Or should we stick to the old formula of running long a minute or two slower than MP, mixing in an interval once a week, and believing it'll all come together on race day?

So I asked Frank Shorter at the Miami Tropical Marathon Expo in February, what's the deal? Shorter definately came down on the side of the old school formula, of slow slow longs, which he explains in his new book. When I mentioned Kalid (and other elites) endorsed up to 15- or 16-mile MP runs, he either frowned or was genuinely surprised. He must not read RW. Shorter was quick to point out that Kalid surely was not divulging his whole training regimen, which I'm sure is true. Still, Kalid says it's a key component. (Frank frowns again.) I'm assuming Shorter was dismissive of long MPs, because they were contrary to the LSDs he recommends in his new book.

Of value, he did say most people run too long in weekly intervals. He kept his intervals at 3 miles/wk when he trained for Olympic Gold in '72. A surprisingly small percentage of his weekly total of 140 miles. (Before he hit it big, we use to see Shorter logging his mileage around Gainesville with the Florida Track Club when we were undergrads at UF.)

Training for Chicag05, Kurt and I are going with Khalid's longer MPs at mid-distances up to 12-13 miles (somewhat of a compromise) and Shorter's shorter intervals.

I won't be buying Shorter's new book, he said there's nothing really new in it anyway (which I'm sure his publisher loves, if he's saying that at Expos across the country). However, I definately will check it out at Books-A-Million, because he said it had lots of pictures in it, mostly of his girlfriend in running shorts, who was standing in the back of the Expo in skintight jeans and spiked heels, a mid-30ish dropdead strawberry-blond with a gold medal stack.

Thirty-three years after Olympic glory, it's still good to be Frank Shorter....

First day

Three easy miles (8:56 pace), thirty minutes lifting/situps, nine chocolate chip cookies before bed. Two steps forward, one backward. Lance Armstrong says lifting and aeorobic training are like water and oil, they don't mix. Neither does carving off eight pounds and a nightcap of cookies....

3:59 Chicag05

Running under 4 hours? C'mon....what about my age, my limited running abilities (other than I keep going), my history of chronic injuries, training in the South Florida's oppressive heat and humidity through summer, my slow mid-pack times over the last decade (4:25-5:07, save an odd 4:05 in Boston in 1996) and the fact that the last time I slipped into the 3's was 23 years ago (3:38, thank you) -- c'mon, this is nuts.

And not my idea, by the way. It was my brother Kurt's. The guy in the photo above, who ran his inaugural 26.2 in October 2004, and apparently became infatuated. This, despite the usual and grievous distress he experienced with three miles to go. I could see it in his eyes. The what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here look, followed by the this-is-much-much-worse-than-I-imagined grimace. For 23 miles, I was waiting for him to bonk and glazeover and experience the cruel fatigue of the stretch run; he did, and I was satisfied. But then, days later, he shocks me with the 3:59 gauntlet thrown down. Yeah, let's do it again, just faster, he says. Under four. I gotta go under four. Running 26.2 wasn't enough, clearly. He's on the clock. Forget a 26.2-mile tour of the big city marathons -- Chicago, New York, D.C. As he emailed me, "I don't need to sightsee."

Okay. Now, I can appreciate someone wanting a respectable Personal Best, and for some, like my brother, 4:29 (Chicag04's time) isn't it. Not by a long run. Not by 30 minutes, anyway. No, anything with a four in front of it puts you in a category of what? of being somewhat whimpish. Seems a severe judgment, in my opinion, seeing that you've traveled a fairly impressive distance on foot. But there it is. For Kurt, now 47 and over halfway there, deep midpack in a marathon ain't gonna cut it. It's a race, for god sake. Gotta break four.

Now it's true, I've been looking for someone to run with anyway , ever since my 25-year running buddy Roy wore down his cartiledge in his knee to a paper tissue. This whole marathon thing was getting kind of old without him, running off to cities by myself, or dragging my wife Lorraine with me, who tries to spot me running by at some remote corner on the course for, oh, maybe, five seconds and seeya later. She hates it. Running marathons is much more fun doing it with a friend. Your brother. So sure, I'm in. Under four. Against all reason. Freakinuts.

I designed a rather extended program for the both of us that includes a lot of weight lifting, marathon pace runs, intervals, time trials, and so on, all building to a morning's run in October. Today, officially, the training kicks off.

As my brother emailed me this morning, "34 weeks to go. Game on."

Me, 26.2 seconds after finishing Chicag04.

My brother Kurt, marathon virgin no more, unsure about doing a second.

Soaking it up, poolside at Buckingham Fountain

Run on, NY97

And it rained. And it rained. And it rained.
My best memories of running the New York City marathon, the race I’d wanted to run more than any other for the last 15 years including Boston, are in the rain. Sopping, drenching, thunder-clapping, sky-falling-in, monsooning, nasty rain. Getting my race number at the Coliseum Expo, it rained. Catching a cab, it rained. Walking down Broadway, it rained. Going out for bite to eat, it rained.

Running the race, it rained. Buckets.

And I loved it. Nothing like a foul, nasty ol’ rain run….

I head off in the rain to get my all-important race number. It’s at the Coliseum, at the west end of south Central Park, near the race finish. What a five-block walk that is.

Bathing on Broadway.
Everywhere you look, ripped and inverted umbrellas blow down Broadway like so many urban tumbleweeds. I don’t have one, but what does it matter. The rain seems to be coming from the ground up, down and sideways. Raining in my jeans. Of course, that could be over-hydration too. I’m drinking like a madman now. My whole existence is about water. Drinking it, peeing it….walking in it. Did I mention the ear infection? I’m putting drops in my ear, so the world echos like I’m 10 feet under water. Drowning is a theme.

The night before.
Feel like shit. Feverish, fatigued, woozy. I take my temperature, nothing. Maybe it’s all the pasta all week, sprinkled with anxiety. Maybe I need more therapy. Lorraine has her opinion. But real or imagine, I am plainly miserable.

This happens every night before a marathon. Making things worse, the Gators are being humiliated by Georgia on TV. I can’t watch. Take an hour to decide which shirt to pin my number to. Weighing all the possibilities of what to wear – in the event of changing cold or hot temps, sun or rain.

I lay out my gear on a chair. Shoes at the foot of the chair – ready to run off. A bunch of other stuff gets packed in a little red UPS bag; UPS trucks will haul the extra things, like dry sweats, from the start to the finish.

I obsess over all this for hours. Then Lorraine and I have one last pasta dinner, in the Hilton. Later, I fall off to sleep during a rented Julia Roberts video for 7 good hours – which is the one big plus of being a head-case the night before marathons. You sleep like a baby.

The Big Day arrives.
At 5:30 in the morning, I am walking down the Avenues of Americas, through shadows and street lights – carrying my little red UPS bag. The air is 50s fresh, cool, dry. The feverish feeling is gone, as is always the case the morning of.

From 53rd Street, I make my way toward the New York City Library on 42nd Street, where busses await to transport the troops to Staten Island. I venture down some side streets, and find a little café for breakfast. Buy a Sunday Times. Over eggs and potatoes, I watch little red UPS bags streaming by. Like a bunch of pod people in baggy sweats making their way to the Mother Ship.

6:15 bus ride: Seeing runners faces now, it’s more like kids on their way to summer camp – lots of anticipation but not knowing what to expect.

The Athletes Village.
Arriving at Staten Island: a tent city, runners gathering in fog and cool dampness, wearing anything from new sweats to garbage bags. More often, garbage bags – as jackets, as shoe protection against mud. These are the ones with experience, who know better, who did it last year or at some other muddy mega-marathon.

No modesty in this group, either, as some unabashedly apply Vaseline to nether parts and stick Band-Aids over nipples. Being too proud or shy is not the order of the day. The cost of not taking these precautions too high.

Pee lines are a United Nations, a horizontal tower of Babel, members of all the nations of the world waiting for port-o-potties.

A crazy thing happens
on the way to The Start
The Verrazano Bridge: Once the longest (2 miles) suspension bridges in the world, it connects New York City to Staten Island. The start of the Marathon. About 40 minutes before the gun, I’m staring up at the bottom of the Bridge, from the south side, where runners are now forming a massive crush. I don’t like this. Not only claustrophobic, I’m in the "Green" staging area. But I have a "Blue" number, which means I’m suppose to be in the "Blue" staging area. Which is way, way over there. Way, way.

What to do? I move to the edge of the crowd for air, where I find a barricade to begin stretching on.

Then this crazy thing happens: Some runners JUMP the barricade. Trotting off underneath the bridge and disappearing on the other side. Others follow. Now a stream of runners are making this move. Should I? Probably not, but I do. I jump the barricade, walk under the bridge, and within five minutes, I've not only moved in front of the 32,000-runner pack, I've hooked up with the elites and the NYPD and firemen, who lead the marathon at the start.

4 minutes to go, the announcer says….

I chit-chat with the firemen….stretch…..helicopters whirl overhead….the place is buzzing….the energy compressed in the assemblage of carbo-loaded and hydrated bodies…..ready to explode…God, would Roy love this, I’m thinking….The New York City Marathon start…..running capital of the universe for a day…..a 15-year-old dream run about to lift off…..

And look here……I’m standing in the fourth row!!!!!!

CANON BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Charging up the Verrazano Bridge with a bunch of Firemen and Cops, I’m floating up and up….running freely…..up into the damp morning mists….the pack at my heels, and I’m thinking…..how cool is this?

Running the Bridge
The bridge scene turns wild: Gaining altitude, winds whipping up to 30 or 40 mph; hats flying everywhere; I clutch mine and hold my number against my chest, the wind is tearing it off the pins.

More threatening were the Pissers. Guys hanging it off the bridge, relieving themselves – into the wind. C’mon, guys! It’s a basic rule of life, Don’t pee into the wind. It’s spraying back at the rest of us!!!

First mile, up the Bridge: 10 minute pace. Second mile, down the Bridge: 8 minute pace.

To a lesser degree, the whole race was like the Verrazano Bridge: one uphill linked to a downhill…ultimately, linked to another uphill. Flat sections seem few and far between. That makes it difficult to settle into a rhythm, to run efficienctly. You’re always adjusting pace and effort, which is exhausting over 26.2 miles. Best plan – don’t think about it. Find some level of comfort and do the best you can.

Brooklyn and Queens
Coming off the Bridge, the first crowds: All-leather rock ‘n roll warehouse bands provide the soundtrack for the early Brooklyn stretch. Older Italian and Irish neighborhoods, Latin and Chinese. Somewhat depressed and broken. But the people are pumped, excited, raucous. The little ones looking at you with big bulbous eyes, wanting to touch your hand.

By the 6 mile mark, I settled into a 9-minute pace (averaging the hills). But by 8 miles, my right knee is getting sore. Probably from running on the side-slope of the road, rather than the flatter crest. A stupid mental mistake. But the move to center is too late. I fear the ligament outside my knee, the IT-band, may be sore for the duration.

Run through the edges of Bushwick, Toni’s and Skip’s old neighborhood. More African-American faces in the crowds. More autumn trees. More steep hills. It blurs. I recall a stretch with clusters of Hassidic Jews; many fresh scrubbed faces -- I kept expecting age and saw youth.

"Why do I run?"
People always want to know this. So does Nike. So we run under a huge black & white billboard, by Nike, posing the question -- "Why do I run?" -- next to a woman’s stoney face. The answer: "So I can join a 32,000-member team."

The road is laughing all around me. It may be a stretch, but there’s a team connection between the runners: the effort to get here is individual, but the sacrifices are shared.

Or maybe Nike is just referring to the all-Nike Apparel Team…..ah, yes.


Queens: Here comes the rain
At the half-way point, I’ve fallen behind pace at 2:01. I’d hoped to be 5 minutes faster. To break 4 hours, my time-goal, I have to run a reverse split – meaning a faster second half than the first half. Could be tough: my sore knee is wobbling funny, causing a sloppy gait and stiffness in my right calf and hip. It's spreading...

Something else too: The winds pick up, dark clouds move in, and a sprinkle turns into a deluge in the space of 100 feet. The race changes: everything is chilled and soaked, shoes included.


The 59th Street Bridge
This is the bridge between Queens and Manhattan.
The symbol to a better world for the John Travolta character in Saturday Night Fever. The Simon & Garfunkle song. A bridge of dreams. The point of transition.

This is Mile 15.

Everyone here is pushing uphill, grinding it out, working hard, reaching down, being a runner…. moving through the massive complex of steel girders and cathedral-like spires, through strength and beauty, arching across the East River, one gliding step at a time, toward a fog-shrouded Manhattan skyline.

Moving toward some promise you’d made to yourself in the long hours of running to get here.

The beginning is ending. Now the idea of finishing begins.

Suspended here between worlds, everything is strangely serene and quiet. No cheering crowds. No music. No distractions. Nothing but yourself and soft foot patter, the harmony of a thousand runners, moving together.

Then:

Mile 16.
In a flash of a flash, all that internal musing stuff is gone….as you lose yourself in sudden mayhem. Thunderous, wild crowds are waiting for you, as you come off that 59th Street Bridge, they form a tight gauntlet for you to pass through before spilling out on First Avenue and you run under a giant arch of red, white and blue balloons.

As far as you can see: cheering New Yorkers, under a sea of umbrellas, throngs of them, 10 deep on each side, frenzied mania….

As the rain’s coming….harder now….
Flashes of lightning and thunder rolling in….
And the crazy New Yorkers thundering back….

Drink it in, I’m thinking…..just drink it in.


Meeting Lorraine. Part I.
The plan: Meet on First Avenue between 83st and 84nd Streets, about five blocks directly east the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Central Park, where Lorraine wanted to spend the morning. It seemed perfect.

My right leg is a mess now. Nothing serious long-term, but short-term it’s cramping and sore and tightening up. Some sciatica from my hip too. It’s all forcing me to stop every mile or two and stretch out the hamstrings, calves, hip and knee – giving away a couple minutes each time. The stretching is keeping me going, though. So I’m resigned to the stopping/starting, and a slow finish.

I’m dragging my leg up to 83rd Street, saving a nice deep stretch for the moment I see Lorraine. We found each other in Boston. Took pictures. I could use that extra shot of adrenalin seeing her now.

I’m looking….looking….looking….through dozens of faces.

Where is she? Where is she? Maybe she didn’t make it because of the rain. Where are you Lorraine? Could I have missed her?

Finding inspiration in the Bronx.
Around Mile 20, my energy is flat. Knowing I won’t break 4 hours, the bum leg, not seeing Lorraine – I have to make these mental adjustments before the final push, or pay a price. I try everything. Extra energy GU. Piece of candy. Gatorade. Anything to get my sugar up. Then there’s the Wall: It’s lurking around here. All the pain, the mental games, the legs turning to stone – up ahead, soon. I keep it out of my mind, try to stay positive….

I fall in behind a guy with a strange, chaotic gait. His right leg is circling forward, rather than stepping directly forward. I look closely. The leg….it’s not…..his. But a prosthesis, from the knee down. And he’s run 20 miles, circling it like that. God, that must REALLY hurt…..

In that moment, all my petty problems vanish. I find fresh, live, bouncing energy in this man’s courage.

Another Nike billboard. Mile 21. Why do I run? "Because I can run forever. But I know there’s a rest stop 5.2 miles ahead."

Is this Harlem?
I had to stop, ask a black women: "Is this Harlem?" And she smiled back, rain streaking down her face, "Yes, honey, THIS is Harlem." Maybe what I expected was a broken, graffiti-scrawled ghetto. But what I found on Mile 21 was alive and rich and beautiful. The Harlem of elegant old brownstones. Sprawling open parks. Funky stone churches. And the glowing, welcoming faces of hundreds of African-Americans, some with umbrellas, most without, standing out in the hardest rain yet. Torrents of rain. Flashes of rain. A cold rain. And with every sudden downpour, harder than the last, their cheers only grew louder and louder. And, during the worst of it, when the streets splashed at your ankles and the rain pelted your skin, there they were…..a Harlem Baptist church choir in electric blue-and-yellow robes, singing and swaying under an elevated church portico, like some kind of Rain Angels, who knew all about rising up in a hard rain, who sang it big and sang it loud, who filled the streets with their soaring soulful gospel rhythms, who lifted everyone passing by to some other heavenly place beyond the pain and rain, uplifting to a free space, above it all….just for a moment.

Thank you, Rain Angels, thank you….over 26.2 miles, including the finish, and perhaps including all five other marathons I’ve run, nothing has touched me quite like the beauty and grace and joy in your chorus of voices, warmly embracing us all as we ran by.


Central Park.
Among Algonquin Indians, Manhattan means "island of the hills." The killer hills are in Central Park, where the last three miles are run. Now add rainwater rolling off the rocks and into the streets, and you’re running in a stream. Upstream. Like suicidal salmon. Add a wobbly leg, depleted energy resources, losing body heat – and hey, this is why you run. To see what you got.

There’s no other way to explain the end of these things. Why are people doing this? Why go through the agony? Why am I?

Don’t think. Think later. You’re within reach. Push on….

Everything here is basic. Nothing cerebral. Mainly, you’re confronting all physical and mental limitations….and trying to push them further out. Rain or snow or sleet or cold or heat or humidity, forget it. Mere distractions. It’s much more primal now; existence stripped to one elementary thing: your Will.

How much are you willing to take. You can walk if you want. Nobody cares. People walk. So what. Nobody gives a damn….in fact, nobody here sees beyond themselves and their own struggle. The last miles of a marathon is total self-absorption. A tunnel of Self. So whether you stop or walk or pick up the pace, it’s personal. And frankly, it’s the thing you’re here to find out about your-Self.

When every fiber, every impulse is screaming Stop, You Idiot!……what will you do?


Meeting Lorraine. Part II.
The back-up plan is to meet Lorraine at Mile 24, behind the Met Museum, on the right side of the road. She’s wearing a 100-watt orange poncho – can’t miss her.
So as I approach Mile 24, I am thinking.…seeing Lorraine will be a perfect excuse to stop this insane madness. A lot hurts: IT-Band stabbing, sciatica shivering down my butt, calves tightening like snare drums.

I’m thinking…..you know, to hell with all this bullshit about persevering during the Big Struggle, about proving something, about the steeliness of my own Willpower and the triumph of Self, about toughing out these stupid marathons, all that garbage.

Damnit, I wanna stop….. So where is she? Where the hell is Lorraine???

I almost grab a Chinese girl in jeans and a 100-watt orange poncho. Along the roadside of a marathon, we’re all searching for something, someone.


The Big Finish.
Rounding the last bend, going uphill (of course), I spot banner Mile 26, at last YEAH!, so I juice the gas pedal one more time…..and now, the most amazing thing of all happens. Breaking through the rain and clouds, a blue hole opens in the sky. A soft Monet blue.

Two-tenths of a mile to go, I run in sunshine.

Crossing the finish line is The Photo Op. Make sure nobody’s blocking your number or next to you. It’s Over. Got a medal and a rose for Lorraine. As the long silver snake of tin-foil blankets wends another three-quarters of a mile north through Central Park, no one talks. Just 32,000 painfully quiet celebrations, amid the sounds of vomiting.

My time: Four hours twenty-seven minutes four seconds. I can’t think about it. Very disappointing for someone looking to break 4 hours. On the other hand, it was an extraordinary day: I was about the 16,000th finisher. With 32,000 in the race, I’m a true middle-of-the-packer. Same thing in Boston. Dead middle in mid-life.

And, because I started in the fourth row, it’s true 16,000 passed me -- but hey, I held off another 16,000.


Extra mustard, please.
Lorraine and I find each other, finally, under the giant "V" (first letter, last name) sign in the Great Lawn of Central Park, where families meet the runners. Turns out, heavy rains turned her back from our rendezvous at First Avenue. And, at Mile 24, she was standing in the rain – but on the left side of the street. (I was looking on the right side.) She was very worried too; watching thousands go by long after my anticipated arrival. She thought the worst.

"I’m out there for two hours in the rain," she says to me. "What’d you think I ducked into a café or something. I thought about it, but I took a bath in Central Park instead, and worried to death about you. How could you miss me….I mean, I’m ORANGE as orange gets!!! I said the left side of the street, not the right, how could I be on the right side, the museum’s on the left….boy….I’m glad that’s over."

Me too.

So together, we lock hands and begin a nearly 3-mile walk back to the Hilton. But before leaving Central Park, we sit down on a park bench, the sun dropping on what has become a clear, crisp autumn afternoon in Manhattan. I have my little finisher’s medal around my neck. I have my wife. And, from a street vendor, we have a couple steaming New York hot dogs ladled with sauerkraut and mustard. The best I’d ever eaten. The best.

Why do I run? Well, now you know…..the hot dogs taste better.

####

Boston96

The day before the race
Sitting in a small cafe on Boyston Street, the heart of downtown Boston was looking rather grim. Darkening clouds, drizzling rain, cold.....the pervasive greyness. Grey wet sidewalks. Grey wet buildings. Grey wet streets. Grey gloom everywhere.

Two blocks from the finish, my wife Lorraine, was sipping on a steamy cup of New England clam chowder. "It's just nasty out there," she says.

I shrugged. The lousy weather was my least concern for tomorrow's Boston Marathon. I had a miserable low-grade fever. An allergic reaction had caused the skin on my face to burn and flake off. Worse yet were the chills spiking up from my bladder, the result of drinking gallons of water and Gatorade to hydrate my body. It was horrible. But it also made you forget everything else. The cold and wet and fever and burning face and looming 26.2 miles. None of it mattered like finding the closest bathroom.

Caught a bus to Hopkington
That night, the fever left me so wasted, I skipped the nervous-anticipation part of a typical marathon and slept like a rock. At 5 a.m., I jumped out of bed feeling better. My running buddy Roy and I scarfed down a breakfast of oatmeal and bananas, then caught one of 800 busses that rolled from Boston Commons, transporting over 35,000 people to the start, 26 miles west to Hopkington. Incredible logistics. But it went smooth for us.

We came prepared for the worst weather, too. Rain, snow, sleet. We had extra running shoes to toss. Layers of extra sweats and rain gear. What we didn't expect was the day we found outside our bus, at dawn. A coolish 46 degrees. Not a wisp of clouds. The forecast for blue skies and a high of 55. You talk about ideal running weather. I was so excited, I forgot how much I had to pee.

At the Athlete’s Village, behind Hopkington High
Runners from around the world gathered under two sprawling white tents the size of football fields. Here and there, you saw scribbling on T-shirts. "Boston 96. The Runner’s Woodstock." Sure enough, it came complete with mud. The snow from the week before had melted, plus all that rain over the weekend. Straw was spread around, the qualifiers tent had Astroturf -- but everywhere was a soggy brown mess.

I packed some jumbo hefty bags which we laid over the cool mud. For several hours, we camped out -- read the morning Globe, talked to our neighbors, listened to a group Boston Soul on a bandstage, as the throng multiplied before our eyes. The 40,000 strong, lean and gaunt. Drinking Gatorade. Trying to stay warm, clean, dry, relaxed. Visiting the long rows of plastic Port-a-poddies. The runner’s Woodstock. For one day, the muddied center of the running universe.

Waiting in the starting line.
Eight helicopters whirled overhead, skywriters spelled GOOD LUCK against the bright blue sky. It’s 50 degrees. It’s dazzlingly perfect. Roy and I had been given armbands that designated us at the front of the 12,000-person Open Division and 3,000 unofficial runners. A terrific spot. Only the 26,000 Qualifiers ahead of us.
Only.

We crowded into “Corral B.” The streets were electric. Buzzing. Ahead of you is 26 miles, but you’re not thinking about the distance, not here. You just want to get going. Let loose. You’re body is humming, fully juiced and carbo-loaded. A finely-tuned engine idling at high RPMs. You feel the vibration. It’s time to see what you got -- time to let it go. Or is that vibration the overwhelming urge for one more pee. I find a bush in an empty field between houses with 50 others.

Noon gunblast.
Back in the pack, we wait. No movement. Then a slow shuffle shuffle forward. Anticipation is building big time. Thousands of spectators are yelling “Good Luck” and holding up signs with names and runner’s numbers. See ya at the finish Judy #37,873. Go for it Frank #20,406.
Nineteen minutes pass before Roy and I reach the startline, across from the old white Church. Music fills the air. Spectators crowd lawns that rise from the streets, making the place feel like a packed outdoor amphitheater.

A sign reads, “It all starts here....”

Standing on the startline, you see the narrow, two-lane Route 135 to Boston drop off suddenly for a good half-mile. It’s the steepest plunge on the course. And it opens to an incredible sight. A human river of bobbing heads, thousands of them, flowing off to a bend in the road far below.
It’s really hard to describe exactly how I felt. Elation. Joy. Utter amazement. Lightness of being.
The payoff for all the hardwork was frozen in that singular moment, standing on the start. I figured anything else I discover on the way would be icing on the cake.

With that, I took my first step to Boston.

The first half.
At the bottom of the first sweeping turn, with hundreds of others, I jump off into the trees and weeds. Everyone dropping shorts. Hanging it out, free in the breeze. Pee time. Your body is so clean it looks like spring water.

The running went slow at first. We clocked 11 minutes miles, an easy jog. But it didn’t matter. This was one gigantic glacial-moving party. Live bands played roadside. The Rocky theme. Chariots of Fire. My favorite: Allman Brothers’ Whipping Post. Families barbecued on front lawns. Kids reached out for high fives. I saw Nicholas in their faces and touched off dozens of hands.

Surprisingly, around Mile 4, we began settling into a quicker 9-minute pace. Which is where I wanted to be. At that point, I figured we’d lost maybe 4-5 minutes off the pace to break 4 hours, which wasn’t bad, considering we expected to start much slower.

Roy runs faster than I do, but there was no point for him to chase a personal best. Too many people to run around. So he hung with me and enjoyed the show.

The couple just married that morning, running in tux and gown. Freaky painted runners.
The three Pumpkin People under a single orange sheet. Bandits (unofficial runners) in black masks.

The first half of the course is generally downhill, but it undulates enough to make my calves and thighs take notice that we weren’t in the Florida flats. I was especially cautious not to let my legs fly downhill, which would punish my quads and cause problems later, in the big hills.
As the miles tick off, I feel stronger and stronger, my body becoming more efficient. Roy even threw in a quicker 8-minute mile at 10, which felt okay, but I told him I didn’t want to keep that pace. Roy said his bad knee was acting up, and he wanted to see if the faster pace felt better. It didn’t. So he settled back into 9-minute miles with me. You can think what you want about the grueling nature of the marathon, but if you run conservatively in the first half, it’s mostly about enjoying your conditioning and having fun at the pace you trained at. At Boston, the 1.5 million spectators just energized the whole experience that much more.

I kept thinking, The great part about this race is that I know it’s not going to end anytime soon. In the first half, I felt like I could run forever.

Wellsley girls
Coming up to mile 12, you can hear them a half-mile away. The Wellsley College girls.
Brainy bluebloods with shrill-pitched lungs and boundless enthusiasm for the Boston Marathon. As tradition dictates, they turned out in force, forming a gauntlet that went on for a mile, yelling and cheering and gawking at the passing runners.

Roy and I veered to the curb, where we celebrated in their faces, high-fiving hundreds of tomorrow’s world leaders and corporate execs.

I remember, “Nice buns, 30707....” from a future CEO.

The halfway-point plan.
From downtown Boston, a commuter train runs parallel to much of the course. The night before, I suggested that Lorraine hop the commuter to the half-way point -- at Mile 13, the charming campus town of Wellsley Hills -- watch the leaders blow through and then wait for us. It was risky. If she missed us, or we missed her, no one would be the wiser. Even so, it seemed like a better idea than trying to stake out space at the madhouse finish.

When we hit Wellsley Hills, Roy took one side of the road, I took the other, searching through hundreds of faces for Lorraine. At first, we thought we had run by the train station and missed her. Then....

Bingo! Standing up on the curb, behind a row of people....”LORRAINE!” I yelled out and ran to her....stopped....got a big kiss....”We’re having a blast,” I hold her....Roy flew over....we took pictures....quick quick quick....a little old lady Lorraine had befriended took more pictures....Roy checked the time, 1:59, he says....on pace to break 4 hours....GOTTA GO, GOTTA GO....a whirlwind....and we were off again.

That stop, seeing Lorraine, was a huge rush. We were soaring now, running in mid-air....floating along in a river in a dream.

Coming up to Heartbreak Hill.
Playtime was almost over. The real business of the Boston Marathon loomed just ahead. The four Newton Hills, topped off by Heartbreak Hill, between Miles 16 and 21. They had to be conquered. Or perhaps, survived.

Going into Mile 16, we felt ready. Feeling up to the challenge. “Bring it on, this is why we’re here,” we said, confidently. Naively.

The first hill we cruised up single file, not breaking pace. The second hill, we began passing more and more walkers; I was working hard to keep up with Roy, who seemed stronger, but drafting him helped. The third hill, I actually lost Roy on the ascent but pulled up next to him at the top. Three down, one to go. My calves ached, but my thighs were screaming, especially on the downhills. I took smaller, quicker steps to reduce the slamming.

Then, rounding a corner at the Newton firestation, mobs of people stacked up at the curbs, cheering very loud, with signs, and a band playing. This was the official send off.
I looked up.

An impressive stretch rose as far as I could see, under a canopy of tall trees. The river of runners leaned into the hill, pushing upward. This must be da place. Heartbreak. The most famous hill in road racing in the world. And we were at the bottom.

It may not have been the steepest of the Newton Hills, nor the longest, but by the time I started up, it sure felt like it. I fell in behind Roy, who trailed some girl, cutting through the runners like butter. Maybe one-quarter or more of the field was walking. Which made running even more difficult, because you had to sidestep them. About half-way up, Roy and the girl made a quick move through some walkers, and I got boxed out and didn’t have the agility in my legs to make my own space and follow.

I let him go. I could see Roy powering up now, and I couldn’t match it, not if I wanted to finish in one piece.

At the top of Heartbreak, Roy was nowhere in sight. We’d run 21 miles together, but for the final stretch, it looked like I was on my own. Well, sort of. The river still flowed and the spectators were thickening. Just ahead -- the crowds of Boston.

The finish.
I spent Mile 22 trying to recover from the Newton Hills. My thighs were burning pretty good. Supposedly, the finishing miles after Heartbreak were all downhill. But in Mile 23, I tried to surge several times and ran into gradual ascents that felt like Mount Everest. So I backed off.
By 24, I was not running comfortably. Everything hurt. I even developed a stitch in my side and cramps in my neck. The Newton Hills had taken a toll. I pressed when I could. But I was slowing to a 10-minute-plus pace, despite the effort.

By 25, I realized I’d fallen behind a 4-hour run by several minutes and had failed to factor in the extra 385 yards tacked on to the marathon. I wasn’t going to break it. That’s when I heard the voice.

It was Lorraine’s Mom, Gail. She told me to forget the stupid time, to soak up the last mile. Enjoy it, you earned it, she said. I said okay. Who argues with voices. So I relaxed. Suddenly, my narrow tunnel vision opened to a wider view of the city around me, the skyline ahead, the faces of strangers. My legs even picked up some life again.

I sailed into downtown.

Here, in the last mile, thoughts of Gail and my friend, Michael, both of whom died a year ago when I began training, filled me. Talked to me. Prodded me, to keep moving. It was an emotional stretch, running with the two of them, to the finish.

The course veered off Commonwealth Avenue to a short side street, shaded by two cavernous buildings. It was dark and cold in there. But at the end of the block, I ran out into the sunlight again -- and there, up ahead a quarter mile, was the giant bright blue-and-yellow banner stretching across Boyston Street. The FINISH line. I let out a huge “YES!” and pumped my fist as I rounded the corner.

The 100th Boston was mine.

Epilogue
Roy was waiting for me just over the finishline. “You get it?” I asked, first thing. But I knew he did. He grinned back, the Cheshire grin. 3:59:47 his watch read. Stole it by 13 seconds!!!!

My time: 4:05:57. It was everything I had.

We walked arm in arm up Boyston Street. Somebody shoved some potato chips, Powerbars and drinks at us. At one point, two runners collapsed into Roy. I called a Medic. It was a wild scene. We got our medals and found Lorraine. It was now around 5 o’clock -- 12 hours after jumping out of bed -- and getting cold; the temperature was dropping by the minute. Another wicked front was moving in with heavy rain and wind. But it didn’t matter anymore.

The Boston Marathon was history. And how perfect it had been. After all the miles it took to get here, we finished with the best run ever.