Run to Win

Well, it has been a very busy day as I prepare to head down to Providence this weekend for the Cox Rhode Island Marathon. I ran an easy 2 and a half miles at lunch time to stretch the legs out, and despite my best efforts to leave work 15 or 20 minutes early I was in a groove and wanted to finish the project I was working on so I left 15 minutes late. (This is not unusual, unfortunately.)

My plans for the weekend originally called for staying with a friend and his brother down in the area. My friend decided to buy a house today, though, so he didn’t really want to go down. Not a problem, because I had another friend that was running the marathon and I was going to split a hotel room with him. Unfortunately, he got injured. So I was back to staying with the original friend’s brother, but he is now going to be out of town this weekend. I found that out tonight, so I got a hold of my injured friend and he canceled the hotel room this morning. It made for an interesting start to my evening. I did sort out my hotel arrangements eventually, though, and I’ll be staying at the original hotel after all. Hopefully I can still take advantage of the 3:00 checkout time.

If anybody is going to be in Providence this weekend and wants to try to meet up, send me an email or leave a comment on this article. I will try to check it before I leave tomorrow morning, and will probably check it tomorrow afternoon or evening after I get to the hotel.

I do not have an overly specific race plan for this weekend. My original range of goals involved an 8 minute span, but since one of my teammates did so well in the Olympic Trials that I now have about a 2 minute goal span. I am going to aim for running at around 6:00 to 6:10 pace and hoping that if I do wind up blowing up in the latter stages of the race that I at least run a PR. That shouldn’t be too tough, and if everything breaks well for me then I’ll make my goals.

As you can see from the elevation profile, there’s a few good climbers but the course never gets over 150 feet above sea level. I’m hoping that my winter hill running through the snow will make this seem like a flat enough course with just enough variation to keep my muscles from getting overworked.

I had a couple of good weeks at about 60 miles since I ran ING Georgia, but my cold came back in the past week and I have been fighting off my cough. It is mostly gone now and I don’t expect it to be a factor during the race, but it did cause me to taper a little more than I would have liked to have before this race. Better to be a little undertrained than at all overtrained, though, so let’s hope I feel nice and rested come Sunday. There have been plenty of phantom and taper pains over the past week or so, but I don’t expect any trouble from my legs on Sunday.

Wish me luck!

This week last year was filled mostly with racing news, and what wasn’t racing was related in some way to swimming.

• I offered 9 methods for counting laps in the pool. I usually use the buoys on the lane dividers.
• A revolutionary in the shotput in the early 50s, Parry O’Brien died of a heart attack this week last year while he was swimming in a masters 500m freestyle event.
• This week 2 years ago, I demonstrated how to do pushups, suggested that you ride your bike with traffic, discussed tapering for a 10k, and first learned of the Endurance 50 Challenge. I also continued my thoughts on the New Rules of Lifting with the fourteenth and fifteenth rules.

I have uploaded my photos from the women’s Olympic Marathon Trials. I have not had time to title or tag them all yet, but they are in chronological order if you’d like to browse through them.

You can view the entire set by going to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45929840@N00/sets/72157604682112162

Today was the women’s Olympic Marathon Trials.

Congratulations to all of the women that finished!

Magdalena Lewy Boulet led most of the race, building a 40 second lead within 4 miles and extending that to almost 2 minutes throughout the race. In the last lap and a half, though, Deena Kastor dropped a few hammers and sped by her to win the race in 2:29:35. Blake Russell was 3^rd and will also represent the US in Beijing.

The Maine women had great races. Sheri Piers turned on the afterburners and ran a speedy 2:38:46, finishing 16^th overall. Emily LeVan was 67^th in 2:45:45, followed by Kristin Barry in 2:46:58 and a 74^th place finish. Joan Benoit Samuelson made her 2:50 goal, finishing with a time of 2:49:08 barely a week before her 51^st birthday. Great job ladies!

I’ll have more details later as well as a link to where you can view all of the over 200 photos that I took in a few days. In the meantime, you can look at the full list of results here: Boston Trials 2008 Results Page

Just like last week last year, most of what I wrote this week centered around the Boston Marathon. This week I described what happened as opposed to what was coming up.

• The website updated automatically as I ran with text alerts, notifying the site about my disappointing finishing time. I missed out on all of my goals, so while the race was a failure it was still well worth running.
• Getting home from the race was far more difficult than running the race. The Nor’Easter left a good portion of New England in a state of emergency. I couldn’t take the train home because the tracks had been ripped up, so I had to take a late bus back to Maine. When I got here, there was no power anywhere in the area except for the penitentiary and the local peeler bar. It took me 5 tries to find a way home where the road wasn’t blocked due to downed trees and power lines or due to flooding, and I only live a dozen or so miles from the train and bus station.
• I continued the April series on Mind Games by sharing a lesson that I learned during the marathon and that directly led to missing my goals during the race. You should never let fear overcome your common sense. I was afraid of the conditions that I might face rather than looking at the conditions that I was facing, and this led to overdressing and being way too warm for a majority of the marathon.
• I described my Boston Marathon experience in pretty good detail, breaking up each part of the experience into a separate article:
  1. The Athlete’s Village
  2. The Race (including a mile by mile breakdown with splits.)
  3. Post-Race
• In running news unrelated to Boston this week last year, over 5000 runners had issues with the heat during the London Marathon. (Conditions were much better this year, with finishing times amongst the leaders dropping by as much as 2 minutes.) Some shot putters saved a woman’s life during a track meet when they looked across the street and saw that her building was on fire. They had to talk her out of trying to stay in the building to find her cats and shared their warm up clothes with her since she wasn’t wearing anything other than her undergarments.
• This week two years ago, I got back to my animated exercise series by describing how to do a bridge. I later expanded on that by discussing the benefits of the bridge as an exercise. I recommended that you always run facing traffic, unless there are local laws to the contrary. I also continued the series on the New Rules of Lifting by discussing the twelfth and thirteenth rules.

This week last year was centered on my preparations for the Boston Marathon.

• I began the week by discussing my taper and race goals, which wound up not being feasible no matter how realistic they may have began as.
• I quickly began to wonder whether the Boston Marathon would be rained out or not. This led to the very relevant question, is it possible to run a PR at a race like Boston? Obviously, that is going to depend on the individual’s level of training and their previous personal best, but this article delved into some of the factors that might make it easier or more difficult to run a good time in the race.
• For a bit of a history lesson, I explained where the name “Heartbreak Hill” came from. It doesn’t actually refer to the difficulty of the hill, because let’s be honest, it isn’t that impressive. The first time that I ran in Boston I didn’t even realize I was on it and had to ask when we’d get to it.
• With 1 day before the marathon the weather forecast began to improve. It looked as though the Nor’Easter was going to go through before the race and only make things miserable while everybody waited around in the athlete’s village. I republished an email from the BAA about how to avoid Hypothermia for anybody that might be interested in the kinds of conditions that had been expected originally.
• In running news and completely unrelated to Boston, I also wrote about how Tim Montgomery was looking at jail time for his involvement with steroids.
• This week 2 years ago, I saw a dumb woman at the gym try supersetting a leg press with a calf press. That strikes me as a quick way to hurt yourself. I also continued through the New Rules of Lifting by discussing the tenth) and eleventh rules.

This morning was the London Marathon, and coming through in an impressive 5^th place was Ryan Hall with a time of 2:06:17. He came across the line over 2 minutes faster than he ran last year in the race.

Ryan Hall managed to stay with the leaders through 30 kilometers, and finished just over 1 minute behind Martin Lel who won with a time of 2:05:17.

The women’s race was won by Irina Mikitenko in 2:24:14. Gete Wami fell hard at a water stop late in the race and may have injured her hip but still managed to finish in 3^rd in 2:25:37.

(Searchable Results: http://results-2008.london-marathon.co.uk/ - Hat Tip: Runner’s World)

Maine Running Company will once again bring in a marathon legend during the week of the Boston Marathon. This year, Dick Beardsley will return once again to relive the 1982 “Duel In The Sun” between himself and Alberto Salazar. The Maine Running Company will have copies of “Duel In the Sun” for sale and Dick will do a meet and greet on April 15^th at 6 p.m., followed by a presentation at 6:30 p.m.

Last year, 75 came to hear him speak despite the Patriot’s Day Nor’easter that tore up the area. Dick will once again recount his story of overcoming almost losing his leg, his addiction to prescription drugs and his ability to survive after his historic race with Salazar.