Run to Win

After the Boston Indoor Games, Kara Goucher went for a leisurely Sunday Run along the Boston Marathon Course. Not willing to miss a chance at building a circus, the media was there to watch her leisurely 7:00/mile jog along the last 20 miles of the course.

Here’s a video that the folks at Flotrack put together in preparation for the race coming up in a few weeks:

I’m very much looking forward to watching the race on Patriot’s Day. It will be exciting to see how the Americans stack up this year against the field, with Ryan Hall running as well as Kara.

This week last year packed two very good tips in amongst all of the news and Autumn sports. I began publishing weekly NFL picks, but I am not going to do that this year since I do not plan on paying for cable and will only be able to watch a few games this season.

• Have you ever woken up with a splitting headache after drinking too much the night before? That does not happen very often to me, and almost never happened when I was in college. There were certainly some days when I drank more than I should have, but I knew the secret to avoiding hangovers. Obviously, not drinking is the easiest way, but if one if you do, then be sure not to skip your morning run the next day.
• Have you ever gotten to the gym or to a race and realized that you only have one shoe or forgot your towel or some clean underwear? You can usually avoid that problem by packing your bag the night before, but it is also important to check your gym or race bag before you leave in the morning.
• The Dan Cardillo 5k is a very fast race in Falmouth, Maine. I am running a 50k in New Hampshire, but if you are going to be in Southern Maine tomorrow morning then I recommend making your way over to Falmouth High School to put in a fast time.
• On the sports news front, a coach and 5 members of the USM cross country team went to the hospital after getting hit by a car being chased by the police. They were all released quickly, but 2 of the runners were not able to run until later in the season. In other criminal news, someone tried to smuggle fake Nike shoes worth about $16 million from China into the US. Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada were allowed to appeal their sentence after refusing to identify who leaked grand jury testimony for their book, Game of Shadows.
• Two years ago this week, I wrote about the best marathon training run…ever! Not only did I get in a good 17 miles, but my girlfriend also agreed to marry me along the way. We’ve now been happily married for a little over a year. A little less exciting but more useful to everyone else, I also wrote about losing weight by cutting out sugar water from your regular diet such as soda and sports drinks.

A training schedule is a great way to structure your training so that you are able to realize the greatest gains in your race performances. If you have a schedule, you are more likely to be ready for your race on race day rather than a couple weeks before or a couple weeks after. You are also more likely to put in the work you need because you will know what is expected of you every day.

Do not assume, however, that you need to have a training schedule that is set in stone. Sometimes you will have to swap workouts around, or skip a workout entirely and make it up a different week. Sometimes you might even skip a workout entirely and not bother making it up. Work, family, and your health are three things that can throw a wrench into the best plans, and being able to maneuver your training around obstacles will make it that much easier and less stressful to train. Here is a real-world example of changing up the training:
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When I was in college, I very rarely got hung over. Most days, I did not have to worry about being hung over to begin with because I did not usually drink a lot of alcohol at once. I was more of a, “have a beer with dinner” sort of person, and I still am. On race days, however, sometimes I drank a little more than I probably should have. After busting my hump in the race, and then riding the team van back to school, and not eating enough it was very easy to drink more than was necessarily good for you. For some reason, we always had parties those nights as well, and more alcohol seemed to be consumed than I necessarily remembered drinking. But, “quarter to eight, don’t be late” was our motto for Sunday run, and you had to show up. There was no choice. The question, then, was how did I avoid being hungover every week? Because I did.
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One of the things I miss most about college are the Sunday runs. Sunday was always my favorite day.

During the week, we would tend to run four to seven miles at six in the morning, and then seven to twelve at four in the afternoon. On Saturday’s we would race. Sunday was when we did our long runs. Thirteen to nineteen miles at whatever pace we wanted, which was usually a pretty quick pace. Certainly faster than was actually good for us. Those runs were a lot of fun though.
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