Feel my pain

When I was just starting running, I heard anecdotally that the 5k was a magic distance.  We all start running a little, walking a lot, then running a little more, then eating a sandwich, then running more.

Once we can run three miles, the conventional wisdom goes, it all starts to come together, and we’re more comfortable conquering longer distances.  I think the conventional wisdom is right.  Once you hit that magic 30 minute mark, or 40 minute mark, you’re almost to an hour.  And an hour, my friends, is a real freakin’ run.

Certainly, there are many runners who follow plans designed to get them to their first 5k, the most well know being the C25k plan (wow, fancy new graphics on their website!).  And those plans are designed to get the runners to not just run 5k in training, but to run a race.  And since it’s the most egalitarian of distances, at most 5ks you see many runners and walkers just starting out and they’re having an awesome time.  Enjoying some time outside, chatting with friends, meeting new people.  Their enthusiasm is contagious, and a 5k is a great place to expose people to running, because so many people seem to be having such a good time.

Ah, the 5k.  A great place to hang out with friends.  Enjoy a short run.  Take it easy.

Denied.

The dark, dirty, secret  of a 5k that they don’t tell you when you’re starting out is that it’s a freakin’ bloodbath.  Once you’re into racing, there is nothing like it.  It’s an opportunity to race and race hard.  There’s no strategy as prevalent as just running as hard as you freakin’ can for 3.1 miles and then puking.  What’s the point of holding back?  Just kill yourself.  Best case, you have a great time.  Worst case, well, you run the great recovery jog in the sky.

So Wednesday night, I found myself at the Master’s Challenge 5k, a local race held every year by the clubs north of New York City.  Each club takes turns hosting the event.  This year it was hosted by the Rockland Road Runners at Rockland Lake State Park.  I asked around about this course, which has been run many times in the past, and didn’t like what I heard.  ”Flat.  Pancake flat.”  ”Fast.  Super fast.”  ”No excuses there.  And the weather looks like it’s going to be great.”  There’s nothing I hate more than a total lack of excuses.

My training has been going pretty well, although I’ve had trouble hitting all my numbers in the speed workouts.  That being said, I’ve been felling good, so I thought that I had a chance of getting under 20:00.  My training plan suggested I could, so why not?  Oh yeah, cause I actually have to run under 20 to get that time!

My PR in a 5k was set in 2009, on a flat course as well — I hit a 19:57, and it changed everything for me.  I realized I loved racing. It’s not that I love beating other people.  At all.  Or that I’m that fast.  It’s that I love the anticipation, the uniqueness of knowing a race is coming.  Hey, I’ve written about this before.

I showed up about an hour early, and did a nice easy warm up.  I chatted a bit with others, and said I wanted to do 6:22 miles based on my training plan.  I’ve played it both ways — not telling people your goal and telling them — I don’t know which is better.  I chatted with Bill who asked about my track work, and I joked that there is no strategy needed for a 5k.  He reminded me that I was an idiot, and that running even splits was the key to success.  But then he gave me great advice — “if you feel yourself slowing down, don’t give up.  Just hold on.”

And that’s great advice.  On a short race, it’s so easy to think any lack of speed is going to be ruinous.  If you want to do 6:22s, and you hit a 6:30, might as well step of the course, right?  No!  Keep running!  Give it your all!  Unless you’re hurt.  Or need a sandwich.

We lined up in a parking lot for the start.  I think there were 60 runners or so, and there were a lot a familiar faces.  There was very little pre-race chatting, the horn was sounded, and off we went.

I love a small race because there’s no fighting through the crowds are the start, and I was off to a good pace.  There were a lot of great runners there, so it was easy to find someone to hold on to.  I finished the first mile in 6:08, and I was feeling good.  For the entire second mile, I also felt good, and hit 6:09.  Our numbers had thinned out a bit, and there was a taller runner ahead of me that seemed to be slowing down.  I passed him and then realized he was going way too fast for me, and he passed me.  I read early on that if you pass someone, pass them by a lot — and now I know why.  When he passed me it put my whole race into doubt — I worried I had pushed too hard and now I was going to have to give up.

He said “There are two guys up there we can catch, stay on my shoulder and we’ll go get them.”  That dude rocks!  But, alas, I had no give to give.  I suggested, by a grunt and maybe spitting up blood, that he go on without me.

I did, however, not give up.  I thought of how little of the race was left, and did mile 3 in 6:12.  I finished the race in 19:25, beating my PR by 32 seconds.

Man I was thrilled!  Now I’ve decided that all 5ks should be run on that course.  And in that weather.  And with that guy in front of me.

I ran hard.   I had trouble catching my breath.  I did a cool down jog.  And then I ate a sandwich.

After the race. Note the smiles.

I ran the Putnam County Classic 8 miler yesterday, a race I ran last year.  A great race that I’d highly recommend — it’s a challenging distance and a tough course, but we had well over 300 runners. I was drafted into MCing the awards, which wasn’t awkward as I placed 4th in my division so I didn’t get an award.  Not that that would have been nice!

Last year I was well rested and feeling pretty good.  This year, I was kind of stressed out as I’ve been on the road, and was trapped in Argentina for an extra day due to a poorly publicized volcano.  But I’ve been training pretty hard, so I hoped to do well.

I did fine, but ran :17 slower than last year.  I was actually glad it was that close, during the race I was pretty sure I was going to fall apart.

I’m using a Run SMART training plan this year and the plan had me running a 6:49 pace.  It’s a hilly course, with 329′ of net climb.  My first mile was a 6:57, then a 7:02, then a 6:44 (glee!), then a 6:59, then a 7:03, 7:24, 7:05 and 6:31.  Last year, 6:46, 6:58, 6;45, 6:51, 7:07, 7:11, 6:58, 6:32.  So freakin close.  But still :14 closer, and a full 70 seconds off my target time.  I’m a little concerned, but I don’t want this one off target race to shake my confidence.

Last year I ran with my friend Alyssa who is a great strong runner and I held on to her for the middle miles — this year, I was alone for a lot of it, showing once again I need to have the confidence to push hard with no one around to really see what I’ve got in me.  Sleep or no sleep, I want to run a little better.

The great thing about SMART is that I can reach out to the coach and cry.  I mean, ask for advice.  My next race is in mid-august, the NYRR Club Championships.  I think that’ll be a good time to gauge my progress and see how I’m doing.

The end of the race is around a track, and I was pretty beat up.  I don’t think my form has ever been that bad on a track.  Except maybe when I’m bending over to throw up.  Or something.

Speaking of the track, I’m supposed to recover today (which I’m doing) and take an easy run tomorrow.  But I’m going away on a family vacation this weekend, so I wonder if I shouldn’t hit the track a little sooner.  What harm can come of that?  I mean, running a less than perfect race and then putting in some shitty numbers at the track?  That’ll build confidence.  Right?

I’m a geek.  And a runner.  And a running geek.  This manifests itself in many ways.  I love to read a good training plan.  My running clothes look like they were picked out each moment by someone who is visually impaired.  I’m scared of new people.  And, of course, I wear a GPS.  Which I look at constantly.  And while running.

I’ve had a Garmin 305 for four years or so, a gift of a great friend.  It’s served me quite well.  I love it so.  It’s got a rocking bike mounting kit.  OK, so it’s a little big.  But only 2-3 times the size of my wrist.  But still, I love it.

Yesterday, I loved it a little less.

I rode down to the NYRR Portugal 5 miler with my friend John, who lives in the same town as me.  John is a great runner, and I enjoy training with him.  By training with him, I mean starting a workout with him, trying to hold on for five minutes, puking, and then taking the day off.  But it’s still good to carpool.

We were talking about pace and our watches and if we should set a pace threshold so the watch will bitch if we’re running too slow (or, I imagine, too fast).  For my fall marathon, I’m trying out a new training plan (see also: I’m a geek) — the Jack Daniels SMART plan, which prescribes particular paces for each and every workout.  For this distance, it suggested a place of 6:31/mile would work for me, which seemed very fast to me.  So I thought to myself, “Self, why not have the watch bitch at you so you can be stressed constantly about how you’re doing?”  Perfect plan.

While in Starbucks before the race (wait? doesn’t everyone do that?), I turned the watch on, set up a “quick workout” of 5.5 miles and a pace of 6:31.  Why 5.5 miles?  Because, of course, we all know that we run a little longer than the couse distance in a big race — it just isn’t possible to run the tangents.  The crowds are going to make the distance a little bit longer, and I didn’t want my watch shutting off at the 5 mile mark if I was short of the finish of the race

I guess, in the Starbucks, the Garmin asked “Are you inside now?”  which is code for “Answer ‘no’ or I’ll stop looking for satellites.”  I answered “yes”.

Good warmup in the park, saw a lot of other Taconics, which is always nice.  Lined up in the first corale, which is freakin’ fantastic.  Heard the nice lady sing the Portugese national anthem.  Then our National Anthem.  Then some more yapping from the race officials.  Then the gun.  I crossed the line, hit start on my watch.

Of course, I look at my watch all the time.  It was about 30 seconds later when I looked down and saw the screen say that I had been running for about 30 seconds, and had traveled 0 feet and was running at a pace of –:–.  Aw crap.  So I had never restarted my watch since the Starbucks.  No satellite for me!

There are generations of runners before us who never had GPSes.  There were thousands of runners in the race who think anyone who looks at their GPS during a race is cheating.  But I’ve almost always raced with one.  What was I to do?

I just ran.  And made a plan.  I’d reset my watch.  Ignore the time.  Note my time at mile 1, restart the watch then, or something.

Mile one came at 6:10.  Too fast.  But I was feeling good.  Watch was ticking along, but still hadn’t found any satellites.  Hit mile 2.  12:20 or so, even with mile 1, but too fast.  Watch was then working, so I tried to hold on to my 6:31 pace.

I had Tim Delaney in front of me pretty much since mile 1.  He’s a great runner, and had won NYRR Runner of the year in 2010.   I knew he was running a good pace for me, so I held on, tried to maintain contact.  I ran with him for a little bit in mile 3, and we chatted.  By chatted, I mean head said something charming and pleasant and I tried not to spit up blood.  In mile 4, I actually passed him, I think it was a rush of euphoria  because my watch was finally working.

I felt good, but found myself wanting the race to be over in the final mile.  Too much stress at the start, but I’ve got to get over that.  I imagine it was a blessing in disguise, maybe I can run a race with just a freakin stopwatch.

I tried to finish strong, but I was blown away by Tim’s finishing kick, I think he passed me with 200 meters to go or so, and he was running strong.  Strong.  Strong.  It was a great feeling to think maybe we had helped each other get there.

Although I wish it had been a little faster, I really enjoyed this race.  The 5 miler is a great distance.  It’s not the blow out of a 5k and not as much of an emotional commitment of the 10k.  This was my first race since Boston, and it was great to be running in Central Park again.

My overall time was 0:32:51 which is a 6:35.  I don’t how much I slowed down in the final mile or so, but I must have.  It’s depressing to know I won’t be able to obsess about the splits.  Not having a GPS.  Did I mention that?  Oh, yeah, I guess I did.

I don’t want to bury the lede here.  I ran Boston in 3:19:13, which is both a personal record and a qualifying time for next year’s Boston.  So I should be very happy.  With nothing to complain about.  Maybe I could write a post about meeting our goals, about enjoying the crowd, loving the gift of running.  Alas, that’s not a post I have in me.

Speaking of things I don’t have in me, I’m not 100% sure I have a marathon in me.  The last four miles of that race were the freakin’ worst of my life.  Slowest time.  Searing calf pain.  Delusional thoughts about short cuts.  Pure amazement of my circumstances and apparent self-hatred that had brought me to a first rate race in a beaten up second rate body.  Nice thoughts.  Nice feelings.  hmmm.  Salty.

Let me start at the beginning, which was pretty great.  I arrived at Athletes Village (which I shall forever refer to as “Stress Village”) early, and laid out a fantastically large piece of Visqueen, and waited for my friends to show up.  Alas, they were taking the bus, and they showed up about an hour after I did.  So I sat around like Billy No Mates for a while.  Then Karen, Bill, Ted and Paul showed up and we moved our tarp out in to the sun and enjoyed some quality time.  And by quality time we watched each other’s stuff while we lined up for the pora johns about five times each.

The heartbreak of the morning is that my friend John with whom I was going to run had gotten food poisoning the night before so he couldn’t make it to the start.  These things happen, but not to people we know, right?  Man oh man.  He’s going to run the New Jersey Marathon on May 1st which he will freakin KILL.

Lined up in my corale — I was lucky to be in Wave 1.  I really enjoy the dynamic in the corals.  Everyone is so nice and seems to have the same thing on their mind.  Not crapping.  Of course.  And the run ahead.  We heard the gun, and I think it was a good five or six minutes to the line.  Then we were off.

I was shooting for a 3:15 — based on the half I did a few weeks ago I should have been able to run a 3:13, but Boston is rough so I didn’t want to mess myself up.  I got a pace band at the expo which was elevation adjusted, meaning it gives more time for the hills and less time for the downhills and the flats.   If I were to run a 3:15 even, it would be a 7:26 throughout, so the band suggests running 7:21 for the first couple of down hills, 7:26 for mile 5 which is flat, and a 7:56 for mile 21 which has Heartbreak Hill.

For the start of the race, I was in love with that pace band.  I was checking off miles right on the numbers.  Well, I would be two or three seconds slow, but I’d think “That’s still cool, Greg, just relax.  You’ll make it up later.  You trained for this.”  Yawn.  Pathetic.

In the first three miles, I though I might be getting a little over heated.  I was wearing a hat and a headband and compression sleeves.  Not 100% sure what I was thinking.  So I got rid of the hat and the sleeves, and started to feel a little better.  I took water early and often — even if I could just get a little in my mouth I figured it was better than nothing.

I guess it was around mile 8 or so that I started to feel the tingling of pain — just a sense that everything wasn’t as perfect as it might be.  I was taking all in stride (literally) and hoping that I would start to feel better.

I hit the half at 1:36:49, which was about 10 seconds off the pace band, but still I was feeling great.

And I was pretty much right on track — the first major hill is in the 17th mile (meaning after the 16th mile marker) and I was right on my number there.  I crested over the top, opened it up, I felt great.  As we started to get up heartbreak hill, I was still feeling strong, thinking of all the hills I had trained on and the work that had gone into my training.  This is great, this is great.

Mile 21, supposed to do a 7:56.  Did an 8:07.  Pretty great.  A little off.  But great.

Then not so great.  It was coming off heart break hill when I thought “OK, Cohen, open it up.”  I picked up my pace and then searing calf pain.  Quad pain.  Mental anguish.  Misery.  I just couldn’t run anymore.  Or I couldn’t run fast.  Is this the wall?  It wasn’t mental — I could still remember my zip code and the name of the street I grew up in.  Or on.  Not sure which one it is.

OK, I guess it was the wall.  I just felt like crap.  I kept thinking “get through this, you’re on track to do a 3:15.  Do it.”  But my legs, they wouldn’t carry me.

I saw the mile 22 marker.  Should have done a 7:16.  Did a 7:27.  I was only a little off, but mentally I was falling apart.  The pain in my legs was horrible, and I tried all my mental trips.  ”Four miles left, visualize four miles!  That’s not far.  That’s only 4 x 4 laps at the track.  That’s 16 laps.  That’s not much.  16 laps?  What kind of a moron would run 16 laps?  That’s way to far.”  That wasn’t working.

Mile 23:  Should have been a 7:26, did a 7:48.  Maybe the mile was wrong.  This is a fairly new course, they’ve only been running it for a little over a hundred years.  Maybe no one has checked this mile.

Mile 24:  Shooting for 7:24.  Did a 7:45.  OK, two miles to go.  That’s like the top of the highest hill from my house.  Run it home you bastard.  I saw a woman I had seen earlier in the race who was running my pace at the start — hold on to her, I thought.  Don’t loose contact.  I matched my pace to her.  And then, before my eyes, she vanished into the horizon like a bike rider peddling off into the sunset.  I guess I was running even slower than I thought.

Mile 25.  8:33.  Er.  That’s like a long run.  A long slow run.  WTF.  Well, whatever.  I fell apart.  No Boston Qualifying time for me.  No PR.   Good to be running.  Lucky to be alive.

The final half mile of the course is on Boylston street, you turn a sharp left and you can see the finish.  As I was approaching that left, a looked at my total time — something I rarely look at.  3:14:something.  Man, if I freakin’ open it up, I can qualify again, and PR.

It was like magic.  The fear of having to write a sad pathetic blog post I think was a big help.  I ran like a freakin’ bastard that last half mile.  My average pace in mile 26 was 8:00.  My average pace in the .2 miles left was 6:25.  I felt such a freakin’ rush.  I crossed the line and just about puked.  Man oh man.  A PR.  3:19:13.  A qualifier.  And my impending death.  All in a few seconds of thought.

I honestly don’t know what happened.  There were period of self doubt throughout the race, but I was imaging good things until the back of heartbreak hill.  I stopped for water a lot more than I ever have before, but I wonder if I shouldn’t try to get more Gatorade in me.  It’s just so frustrating that my point of failure came at a point that there is no way to emulate in training.  Or no way I can think of.  There just aren’t races short of an ultra that can provide that level of sustained effort.

I will say that the training process was great this year — I came into the race feeling better than ever before, and I lined up with confidence.  So even though I didn’t get the time that I wanted and suffered so much, I think that the lack of pre-emptive suffering is good for me (and my family!).  Now I’m doing the marathon shuffle, walking down stairs backwards, and eating anything that looks like a brownie.  I’ve learned a lot, to be sure, but I’m not 100% sure how to apply that knowledge to the future.  There is no doubt that I’m going to think hard about my next marathon and a different way to prepare for the end.

But, of course, I’m thrilled that I PRed.  I have a great support network and a am part of a great running community.  I am lucky to have these kinds of issues to  complain about.  I am a fortunate man.  In a great deal of pain.  But fortunate none the less.