My Boston Marathon Journey

My personal beginner's guide through my trip to the Boston Marathon

My First Half-Marathon . . . or Pain’s Addiction

After the 2010 cycling season, I decided to spend more time on running and see if I could try my hand at a longer race this year.  Most of my cycling races are between 2 and 3 hours and so I figured if I could sustain a hard effort at 80% to 90% of my maximum heart rate (155bpm to 175bpm) then I should be able to maintain a hard running effort for two hours.  I figured I had the aerobic base to handle a half-marathon, the only question I had was what would two hours of pounding on the pavement do to my legs; legs that normally only get pounded if I happen to kiss the pavement during a race.  I entered into the Soaring Wings Half-Marathon hoping that I would survive and not embarass myself with a poor performance.

When I got to the race, they had something new that I wasn’t familiar with . . . starting waves.  This was a new concept to me.  I had estimated that if I did everything correctly, I should be able to sustain at least a 7:30 pace and therefore I would finish in under 1:40 minutes so I got into what they called the “second wave” and prepped for the start.  I started out with a group that quickly formed from the second wave and we did the first mile in 7 minutes.  t was strange for me to start 60 seconds after the first 40 or so competitors started and it left me with no real way to gauge how I was doing.  I stayed with the group that I was running with until about mile 3.  I noticed our pace had slowed to about 7:20 and I was feeling great.  I made the, possibly foolish at the time, decision to kick it up a notch and try and leave the group I was running with.  This is an incredibly difficult task in cycling, but it doesn’t seem to be quite as potentially disastrous in the sport of distance running.  I increased my pace, and looked around about a minute later and our group of 8 had dwindled to just one lone, suffering runner.  I think it was in that moment that fell in love.  The pain was all too familiar . . . pushing myself harder than I had planned to, keeping up an attack at the cost of whatever comfort I had managed thus far in the race, reaching my limit and staying there when my lungs were begging for mercy.  The pain was definitely familiar, but the experience was completely different this time.  Instead of looking around and finding 10 people in my slipstream, which is common in cycling, I looked around and found that my suffering had produced immediate results.  I had chosen to endure the pain and distanced myself from my competition and the euphoria was truly addicting.  I would never be the same again.

About mile 7 or 8 it suddenly became time to pay the piper.  The “rush” that I experienced from my acceleration at mile 3 was now replaced by a different kind of rush.  I could actually feel my legs getting heavier with each step.  The course profile provided no relief as I found myself on the steepest incline of the day but strangely the memory of those that were behind me, running after me, kept me going.  I found it strange after spending my life racing that the concept of looking behind me and finding people actually chasing me.  Chasing me down and trying to catch me.  It was like a movie.  It was so surreal.  I used the desire to NOT be caught as impetus to push me up the hill.  I didn’t want to get caught.  I didn’t want my efforts, and small victories on the day, to go for naught.  I had to keep pushing.

I made it through the next two miles and then had an epiphany at mile 10.  I saw the marker and then realized that I had exactly 3.1 miles to go.  3.1 miles I thought?  That is just a 5k.  I can do a 5k.  The nearness of the finish line and the potential completion of my journey sealed my new love affair.  I knew from that point on that I would spend the rest of my life running.  Not just running, but running long distances, pushing my limits, encouraging myself through ill-placed hills, accelerating when I thought I could handle it, and then even when I feared I couldn’t.  This half-marathon wasn’t just a race, it was a microcosm of my life and my relationship with athletics.

I stepped up my pace as I moved past the 10 mile marker and headed for the line.  There was no way I was going to get caught at this point.  There was no way I was going to NOT finish this thing strong.  I accelerated from there and outsprinted someone that looked to possibly be around my age (he was) in the final 100 meters.  It was that “kick” thing that I learned about in my first 5k and it paid off.  I finished in 1:35:08 and got fifth in my age group.  Fifth place earned me the coolest trophy I had ever won.  I had been racing bikes for 9 years and had never won anything as cool as the handmade, steel figure of a runner with wings on his back.  I thought back to the times on the course where I “sprouted wings” myself and knew that my new addiction was going to be a lifelong affliction with no possible cure.

Coggan’s Power Intervals

One of the most effective workouts I do on a regular basis is the Coggan Power Interval. This has proven to drastically improve my power output, more so than any other single workout I have ever done. I did a LOT of searching on the internet before I found out what seems to be the preferred method for this effort.

If you don’t know your Power Threshold, then you need to determine that first and foremost.

There are a couple of methods, but what I used was a 20 minute ride at maximum sustained power output. Ride 20 minutes as hard as you can maintain, and then take your average power output from that effort. This should be your Power Threshold. The Coggan’s Intervals are very much like this test, which is why they are so painful.

You basically do 2 twenty minute workouts at between 90% and 104% of your power threshold with a five minute recovery in between. This allows you to maximize your power output during your workout without too much lactic acid and therefore allows your muscles to get their maximum workout.

My First Race – The Susan G 5k

I have been a cyclist since 1989 and have been competing in races since 2000. After the 2009 cycling season, I decided to try running as a form of cross-training and as a means of keeping my aerobic fitness level higher during the winter months. I was also planning a week-long vacation that would prohibit me from biking for that period and I just didn’t think I could go that long without a good workout.  I had heard about the Susan G. Komen 5k race and I wanted try my hand at competitive running so I decided to “give it a go” and train for it. Not knowing anything about running, I just applied my cycling workout concepts to my running efforts and took my chances. Most bike races have a series of high-intensity accelerations and attacks in the first 10 miles or so, so my body was accustomed to starting out at a maximum effort, and then recovering aerobically as quickly as possible at any opportunity that arose. I decided to apply that mentality to my 5k. I did a lot of research online for 5k strategies and the opinions seemed split between starting at a full-on sprint or simply starting at a pace that I intended to maintain throughout the race. I opted for the former. It was more like cycling.
I did the first mile at about 6:20 and then tried to hang on. I started getting passed by people that knew what they were doing at about the one-and-a-half-mile mark; a trend that continued throughout the duration of the race. As I neared the finish, I could hear yet another runner coming up behind me . . . now was the time to see what I had left. I quickly found out that my strategy had exhausted whatever “kick” (a runners term I would get familiar with later) I had.  That “kick” was apparently used up in my first mile, which explains the long line of runners that flew by, culminating in the final chaser passing me in the final 10 meters. I found out shortly thereafter that the man who passed me at the line won my age group with a 20:50 . . . two seconds faster than I managed.  Two seconds. With nice, sparkly trophies going to first-place finishers, and hearty “atta-boy”s going to all other places, I took my atta-boy, my worn-out legs, and my first lesson in running home and took a nap.