2014 Chicago Marathon

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Where do I start? Maybe with a unified slap in the face from all my athletes that I tell to be conservative in the first half!

High Expectations:

I ran the Houston Marathon in January after barely surviving the worst winter in recorded history of the universe. The result was a very respectable 2:16:34, a Olympic Trials qualifier and a new lease on my career. Since January, I had been healthy, run some decent times, and felt able to take on a challenge for a big fall marathon.

The training segment itself went very well. It was the most consistent segment I had had in a long time. For instance, my average weekly mileage was about 95 miles per week for the 12 weeks leading into Houston. The 12 weeks leading up to Chicago was about 115 miles per week, on average. I was hitting workouts that I hadn’t in a long time. So, I thought I was really ready. In retrospect, I was ready to vastly improve upon the 2:16:30 I had run in January.

The race itself:

At the end of the day, I was simply out too hard. I just don’t know if I was ready to run 5:03-5:05 pace yesterday. However, looking at results, I don’t know how different I could have played it. The group I was with was 1:06:49 (I probably should have been 1:07:15-1:07:30). However, looking at results, I had the group I was with, or be at 1:08 something. That would have been slower than my first half at Houston. The last thing I really wanted was to be in no man’s land for 23 miles. I’ve done that enough to know that it is miserable, especially if you are fighting the wind.

The second half was brutal. I don’t know if I truly hit the wall, because I was still coherent. I just couldn’t move my legs. And after seeing my pace fade, mile after mile, I just think the motivation was slowly fading along with it. It was plain old, TOUGH. The end result was a 2:18:13 and a tough day at the office.

While disheartened, like we all are after a tough one, I still wanted to find the takeaways of this experience. So, here you go:

My takeaways:

• You have to be conservative when riding the fine line of trying to run a great race
• If you want to hit a home run, you have to know that there’s an increased chance of striking out
• The fitness you gain from being consistent for a very long time (more than just one segment) is crucial to making big jumps in performance
• Be patient and have faith in what you are doing. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, you’ll never be successful.

I made a somewhat calculated risk and it didn’t work out. In hind site I should have done things a little differently. However, I do think that all the advancements I made in training this segment will only be beneficial the next time around. And, you know, sometimes you just need a good reminder of how not to do things. They are painful lessons to be reminded, but so very valuable!

What l wanted to add yesterday: Why despite good training, I wasn’t quite ready:

One thing I wanted to discuss with all of you yesterday was why I probably wasn’t quite ready to run what I set out to. 

• Long runs: when I’m really fit, I’ll be able to get close to 1:50-1:52 for 20 miles. The same type of effort was about 1:55 for this segment. When we had hard miles at the end, I struggled. That was a big sign that the strength wasn’t quite there yet.

• So, my general endurance was good, but the strength wasn’t really where it should have been. To me it does really make sense after looking back.
• For instance, I finally could handle 120+ miles per week on a consistent basis for the first time since the last Olympic trials. For me, that’s a big deal. Basically it means I’ve had 3 years of reduced mileage and consistent training. I simply had lost a little bit of those gains I had worked for over the years. Not much at all, but enough to have a pretty decent impact. It seems silly now to think that it’s all going to come back in a 12 week segment. Now, if I can do that a couple more times I think that I would be right there again.
• Goal MP never really felt comfortable. It always felt that I was right on that edge. If I would have backed it down to 5:08-5:10/mile, I would have felt much better and I think something around 2:15:30 would have been much more reasonable.
• Again, I truly think that another segment backing up this segment will maybe not make 5:03 pace feel good, but 5:05 pace would feel a lot more comfortable. Another consistent year and 5:03 pace seems more reasonable.