Bump in the road

My quest for 4000 miles and 40 marathons has come to an end. Over the past 4 months I have noticed a steady decline in performance and every day activities are now an issue. I am experiencing general fatigue in all aspects of daily life. No answers yet though a lot of people want to guess. Tests still need to be done but until then I will not run a marathon. Right now I barely can run 4 miles without feeling exhausted. For someone who loves to run, this is very depressing and fustrating. Especially watching friends run marathons as j sit on the sidelines waiting for answers. Hopefully in time I can return to my normal training regimen. Until then it's one day at a time. This is definitely a tough time but more importantly I need to take care of my health so that I can run for the rest of my life. Thanks to my RWOL friends who have been a tremendous help in supporting me and understanding the pain I'm going through. Hopefully 2012 will see the return of this marathon maniac!

115 days and its over!

saturday june 11th i ran my 32nd marathon: hatfield - mccoy marathon. in some ways it was a success and others a small failure. for those who dont know i have been unemployed over the past 115 days making it a real stressful time for me. i know that their are millions others out there still unemployed and my heart goes out to them. i am used to working. with the stress and fustration, my training was inconsistent and combined with the heat the quality wasnt always there. during that period i managed to run 10 marathons with varying degrees of success. good news came on friday as i headed down to kentucky, i recieved a job offer that i readily accepted. relief was an understatement. so saturday i simply ran for fun. it was a tough course, hot and humid, the 3 H's as i say. i was reminded that running is to be fun and enjoyable. if it isnt then why do it.. we all have stress from outside and unfortunately i let that stress affect my running. running is suppose to relieve my stress not add to it. so for the next 18 days i am going to simply run for fun. no speed, intervals or hill workouts, just easy runs for fun.i will let the legs dictate the pace and distance. if they feel good i will let them go but if not just enjoy being out there. my next marathon  is sept 17th. setting no goals, just going to run  the question is why do we run? i run for fun and the enjoyment. i also like to challenge my body

May 16th - #31 in the books

So may 15th I ran my 31st marathon, which tied me with my father. This was also my 10th marathon of the year! My expectations were hopefully a new PR or maybe sub 3. The weather was not an issue. Gun goes off and it's right to business. Hit first mile in 7:09 as planned then settled into my goal pace of 6:45/6:48. Hit first 5 in 34:16, ok so far. Next five miles in 34:04. Felt good and seemed to find a groove. The next five was 34:09, again pretty consistent
The next five is where the wheels slowly started to wobble. Split was 34:51. Fatigue seemed to be creeping in. Started to rethink goal and simply try to finish sub 3:05 giving me my 10 minutes for my Boston registration. The next 6.2 miles is where the wheels really began to come off. When I reached the 26 mile marker I realized I needed to kick to get under 3:10, so I sucked it up and gave all I had left. Crossed line in 3:09:45. A not so pretty sub 3:10. Ok so what went wrong? two things: the first was I switched my normal day off of Monday to Friday which meant by that Friday I had run 10 days in a row. I oppose any type of running streaks. No more than 6 days in a row, you need a day of rest. Why now I run 10 In a row was just a careless mistake. The second mistake was I did not carryout a proper taper. I finished the week with 83.11 miles(includes marathon). Should have run 30-35 miles less. I know better, just didn't listen. Moral of this is that I did not set myself up for success. Ran just a little to much therefore I was tired from the start. This marathon is NOT a failure. I learned a valuable lesson and therefore I won't repeat the same mistake. Live and learn. Still find great enjoyment in running 26.2 miles.

May 1st - #30

Gettysburg marathon was my 30th marathon overall, 9th of the year! Now though this was technically my slowest marathon to date (3:48), it was one of the most satisfying races. You see running is far more than just an arbitrary number, running is the bond between two runners. Today I had the pleasure of running with good friend Ricky. We had hoped go run 3:24 but by the halfway point it was evident that it just was not going to be our day. The course turned out to be hillier than expected and thus we had to adjust. The 2nd half was simply determination on my friends part to finish. Though I am sure he was disappointed, we had a great time running with each other. Once we finished, I turned around to head back out on the course to find our friend Billy who by that point I knew was also having a tough day. He had hoped for a PR of 3:35 but Ms. Marathon had other plans. I soon found him and ran him into the finish. The whole time trying to help keep his spirits up. This is only his second marathon, and though he did not run a PR, he gutted out a great race. Think positive, and use this to motivate you in the future. All marathoners know that we will gave our good and bad days, we sometimes learn more from our bad runs than we do our good runs. Being able to help two good friends today finish a tough marathon makes my 30th marathon very special. I am just glad that I have the ability to be able to help, I logged 31.25 miles today and didn't think twice. This is what friends do for one another. This is one reason why I have decided to start a new venture: personal running coach. I want to be able to pass my love and passion for running to other runners and play a role in helping them achieve their goals. Whether this venture succeeds or not I don't know, only time will tell but there is no harm in trying. Dreams never come true if you don't try! Now it is time to enjoy my SRD tomorrow then hammer out another solid week of training. Cleveland is 5/15 and another possible sub 3 attempt! Regardless running is ALWAYS fun. If it is not fun then ask yourself why even bother do it! Run strong my friends!

april 21st - disappointment!

patriots day, april 18, 2011 did not turn out as i had hoped. after months of training and pushing myself i felt ready for a top notch race. mentally i was ready and had what i thought was a solid race strategy. race day started out just fine. grabbed the first bus to athlete's village and staked out a nice place to relax. soon i was joined by 2 fellow RWOL friends, Nick and Karyn. it was a great pleasure to be able to chat with them since it helped me stay relaxed. 10am race started. 1st 5 miles went well. split was 34:19 and remained consistent. the next 10 miles i clicked off miles at an even pace. legs felt good and i seemed to be in a good rhthym. the next 5 miles i hit the newton hills and yet i still managed to hold court. hit 20 in 2:16:51 @6:50 pace. if i finished the last 10k in 6:55 pace i would have been under 3 hrs. at that moment i definitely felt that was a reasonable goal. legs still had some left and i was ready to go. then disaster struck, a sharp pain in my right chest just underneath my rib cage. i could not breathe. simply put i ran till i could not breathe then i was forced to walk till i could catch my breath. the last 6.2 miles was a slow death march. to keep me going i high fived the fans who offered there cheers and great support. the fans there were absolutely magnificent. as i approached the finish, my friend Nick came up to me and we finished together. 3:22:40. not what i had hoped but i did finish the greatest marathon.

some takeaways from this experience. breathing is important to running. my training was dead on. i know i have the endurance. i would not change my training regimen one bit. i was definitely ready. its time to look forward, not backwards. nothing to be gained by dwelling what has happened. focus on what lays ahead. gettysburg on 5/1 and cleveland 5/15. as a sticker on my car says: 26.2 miles- what could possibly go wrong.  alot can happen, you just have to move on. focus on the positive, not the negative. i live to run another day!

April 7th - 11 days!

11 days out from the holy Grail of all marathons! That old saying 'the hay is in the barn' is ringing through my head yet I can't help wonder if I have trained hard enough! I have logged 1172.62 miles so far since 1/1/11! I have run 7 marathons so far and logged 3 consecutive 100+ mile weeks! Each of those marathons had a specific goal and I did not alter my training at all. The last 3 marathons were all run during those 100 mile weeks. Everyone wants to know goal times and all. Yes, I would be lying if I said I did not have a goal time. But in my opinion to judge each marathon simply by time is not fair. Running is to be fun, if it is not fun then why do it? Yes I enjoy my 20+ mile runs, progressive runs and speed workouts! I enjoy the pain that is associated with the marathon. I love all aspects of marathon training! I thrive on challenging my body to the limits! Shirts and medals are nice to have but I do not need them to run a marathon! Do I want a sub 3? Yes it's been a goal of mine for the past 6 years. But it will not determine whether 4/18 is a success or failure! No matter what happens it is a success! Just being able to stand on the start line is a success! Running should NEVER be taken for granted, it's a gift! On 4/18 I will toe the line in Hopkinton and run 26.2 miles to Boyston Str and give it everything I have and whatever happens, happens! I will be satisfied.

March 27th - the completion of 6 marathons in 6 weeks!

Ocean drive marathon capped off my 6th marathon in 6 weeks! Coming into today I had low expectations, I had logged 80 miles the previous 5 days with runs of 26.2 and 22 miles on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. Throw in solid 15 and 12 milers my legs were just a tad tired as I planned. Plus I was on my 3rd consecutive week of 100+ miles. So I went out the 1st half relatively conservative and hit 1:40 for the half. Not feeling great I simply focused on maintaining pace. Yet somehow I fell into a groove at mile 15 on. Around
mile 22 I passed this guy but instead of putting distance between us, he stayed right on my shoulder. Without knowing we began to push the pace and all of a sudden my competitiveness took over. Then at mile 25 I surged and that was enough to put some distance between us. I pushed the pace to the finish crossing the line in 3:15! 2nd split: 1:35! The last 11 miles in 77:26/@7:02 pace. The last 6 miles in 41:46/@6:57 pace and the last 4 miles in 27:13/@6:48 pace! The splits of those last 4 miles were: 7:07/7:02/6:38/6:26. I finished the week with 107.40 miles. With 4 days remaining I have 404 for the month. I will set a new mileage record for most miles in a month. More importantly I am feeling stronger than I have ever felt. I running and having fun. In 22 days I will see how this all pays off. I am feeling confident and I know I will be toeing the line on April 18th in much better condition than I did in 2010. It's time to stay focused and not loose my edge. Still plenty of time to fine tune some things over the next several weeks. this is not the time to all of a sudden become complacent, keep pushing the envelope! Eye of the tiger!