Fifteen Days To Go: My Biggest Worries

It’s getting close; I can feel it. By the time I get this up, it will be fifteen days to race day. Fifteen days to find out if I’ve got what it takes to be a sub 3 hour marathoner runner. Ironically, fifteen is also a poignant number for the marathon because that is the mile right before the onslaught of four hills culminating in Heartbreak Hill is set to begin. In a way, it is the calm before the storm, a time for all the runners to assess their physical and mental state before tackling the toughest part of the race.

So where am I physically, emotionally, and psychologically with the race now just fifteen days away?

Well, physically, I feel fine, or as well as I could hope for given all the heavy mileage (for me) that I’ve asked this body to train through. I’ve suffered many injury scares over the past several weeks, a pulled hamstring here, an Achilles’ tendonitis there, but they’ve all subsided to the point where it’s not noticeable or only barely so even as I’m running at marathon pace. As long as I don’t push hard and remember to run constructive miles (which builds confidence) rather than destructive miles (which break down muscle) I should make it through the taper with a realistic change to physically run a great race.

Emotionally and psychologically however, it is somewhat of a different story. For one reason or another, I’ve been having a hard time visualizing my personal success in the Boston Marathon. Maybe it’s from the lack of support from those closest to me (like my parents who only recently found out I’m heading to Boston to run a marathon and isn’t so pleased with my decision) or just my own inability to see myself as a good athlete, but I’m having a hard time coming to terms with what I’m hoping to do on April 20^th. In a weird way, I feel like a career minor leaguer suddenly getting the call to pitch Game 7 of the World Series. Does this even make sense?

In an effort to “build up ammo” and strategize my attack on all the frailties of the mind that will threatening my chances on Marathon Monday, I’m going to confront my fears and list the ten biggest psychological stumbling blocks I have heading into race day. I figure if I know what I’m dealing with now, I have a few days to prepare mentally to put up a good realistic fight.

In no particular order then, my biggest worries for the Boston Marathon are:

1. I’ll forget my underwear come race day. Not really, but wearing inappropriate clothing is always a concern.
2. I don’t run well away from home. It’s not a coincidence that in the last four marathons that I’ve run, I’ve averaged 3:05 at home, and 3:12 away.
3. Weather is always a crapshoot in Boston. If it’s rainy, windy, snowy, hot or humid, I can forget about sub-3 and just hope that I don’t break an ankle or end up in the hospital.
4. Catching speedsters. Did you hear Kara is running the race. And so is Ryan Hall. And so is this guy and this guy. If I find myself running with any of them at the start, I’m. So. Dead.
5. Hills and me: not such BFFs? Like the setting sun, hills have been a constant companion on all my training runs. But what if on race day, those treacherous speed bumps along Miles 16-21 decide out of the blue to pick a fight with me? Will I have the mental fortitude not to be flustered by the dispute?
6. I will meander off the course or meander off the pace. Ooh, look at that pretty statue there…or ooh, look at those beautiful houses…Hey, hey, where did everyone else go? Or…6:49, 6:45, 6:50, 7:30…hey, where did that come from? You get the picture.
7. I will forget why I’m running. It always happens. Somewhere in mile 21,22, or sometimes 23. I start to lose focus and forget why the hell I’m running. So, why am I running this race anyway?
8. I can’t say no to a kiss. If some pretty lady offers, can I not oblige? And if I just happen to fall off my pace by twenty seconds running through Wellesley, can you really blame me?
9. I will be emotional…at mile 2. Again, if I have the sniffles even before my first water stop, I am not sick nor will I have tears of joy at mile 26.
10. To spite me, they’ll cancel the race when I reach Boston. Who knows? It might happen.

Hope you all are having a good weekend.

Fast or Slow, Who’s To Know?

Speed is relative, that we know. Unless you are in the top 1% of the best athletes on the field that day, or have aspirations of carrying home a trophy, an age group award or a moment of public recognition, there really is no incentive to try so hard to race your very best, when it’s obvious that there will always be someone who finishes ahead of you and behind you in every race, unless you’re striving for your own personal goal. From that perspective, comparative racing terms such as fast and slow really ought to have no meaning, if you’re really racing for your own sake. To put it in another way, if we were to enter a race with no other participants, and we ran in accordance with our own perceived effort with no garmins, watches, or digital clocks, would we know if we were running fast or slow that day?

I’m been thinking quite a bit about that the last couple of weeks after two new members in my running club was introduced to me earlier this month on a group run and as if on cue, the first words out of their mouths were “Oh wait, yeah I know you, you’re that really fast guy right. No I can’t run with you…” It was at least annoying if not bordering on the totally inaccurate. First of all, they can’t know me, since I don’t know them. Yes, they might have heard of me, but even if so, since when does hearing about someone (celebrities not withstanding) equate to knowing someone. Secondly, since fast is a relative label, how do you know I’m fast (much less really fast) without knowing the company I keep or people I race against? In my world, 2:50 marathoners are fast, 2:40 guys are really fast, 2:30 people are sub-elite, and 2:20s are the truly elite, and since I’m not even within striking distance of fast yet, I feel quite uncomfortable being associated with those guys. Finally, I resent the fact that just because I fit a certain stereotype because of an inaccurate perception that others have of me, I am ostracized because of my speed. Arrrgghh…this drives me crazy because it is so contrary to why I train myself to run fast in the first place.

If you cared to read over my list of “why I run”, the first reason I listed was to be athletic. And while it’s true that I get some personal satisfaction of being now considered a good athlete when I was always ordinary at best in every sport I’ve tried previously, that was really only a secondary endpoint. The primary reason I train so hard is to be fast enough to run with everyone else. Ever since I could remember, whether it was snowboarding, go-kart racing, or canoeing downstream with friends, if we were out there for long enough, I was always the one bringing up the rear. On some level, it was not only embarrassing but also somewhat dangerous because I’d at times fallen so far behind the pack that I’d get lost finding my own way back. Needless to say, this traumatized me to no end growing up, and to this day, I will not go camping or hiking with friends without having a set of directions on me at all times.

That is at least part of the reason I’m motivated to run fast. I just do not want to ever be forced to bring up the rear again. I want to keep up even if it’s a group of Kenyans (or those blazing Central Park Track Club guys) that I happen to be running with. But by the same token, I will always adapt to the slower runners because I’ve been there and can empathize very readily with the helpless feeling of not being able to keep up. This is always a tricky situation for me. I struggle with having the confidence of a good distance runner while at the same time hoping to never forget how to enjoy myself if I have to run a little slow either. It’s really an up and down, ebb and flow, kind of dynamic relationship with me and speed. But truthfully, for me, I wouldn’t really want it any other way.

After some thought this week, I think that’s the mindset I want to bring with me to Boston. I want to race fast enough and well enough to justify my training, “to keep up with the guys” so to speak, while at the same time, run slow enough as if I’m hanging with the back of the pack out on a long run to enjoy the excitement and the scenery. I don’t know if this is the right attitude to have as someone preparing to break 3 hours in a marathon, but in order not to psych myself out by making the race something bigger than what it already is (it’s Boston for god sakes!), I believe it’s the most appropriate one for me.

A Frustrating Day and Life After Boston

I’m not gonna lie. Today was a craptastic day for me from beginning to end. First I got to work late because of subway issues. Then everyone at the office had “favors” for me to do, which meant doing extra work to cover for colleagues who weren’t around for one reason or another. Afternoon clinic was mayhem because a lot of kids were off for Spring Break and coincidentally needed to see me ASAP. Yet, in spite of all that, I was efficient and on a roll. I was about to get out at a reasonable hour (so I could sneak in a good run before dark) when suddenly, a complicated patient who is normally cared for by a colleague of mine who is out on maternity leave drops by for a routine visit (not realizing her doctor was out) and I had the pleasure of reviewing all of his records and seeing him on the fly, which pretty much killed any hopes I had of running before dark. And then, as I was finally leaving the hospital, contemplating of maybe doing 12 miles even in the dark because I had been resting since the weekend and hadn’t run at all, it started to rain. Great! Eventually, I chalked up the day as a loss, ate dinner and did six uncomfortable miles on the treadmill. The good news was that my friend the Achilles’ has forgiven me. The bad news? There is now a new pain in my right knee that I’d never noticed before. Sigh! Such is the life of a marathoner on the taper…

If you take a look at the right lower sidebar, you’d see that I’ve already begun planning for life after Boston. I’ve signed up for a bunch of races, including two half-marathons that will tie me over until training starts anew for the next marathon, the New York City Marathon on November 1st. After much deliberation and research, I’ve decided to NOT run a summer marathon this year but instead focus on improving my efficiency and time in half-marathons. In an effort to rededicate myself to that distance and making 2009, the year of the half marathons, I’m participating in as many of those locally as I could fine. Currently, I’m scheduled to run ten for the year, but with a little planning and persistence, I think I can make it an even dozen. I also want to set a new PR at that distance with a goal of eventually running one in under 1:25 by year’s end,

It’s weird to not think of Boston as the be-all and end-all race as it’s been on my mind everyday for the last 3 months of training. But as I was running on the treadmill today, trying to be as oblivious to the miles and the time as humanly possible, I realize that I’ve been taking this training cycle a bit too seriously. I’ve allowed some arbitrary time goal to become a bit of an obsession more than as a simple focus for training. Perhaps that’s why my body is rebelling at every turn, with weird pains in weird places that I’m not accustomed to. But oh well, there’s not much I can do about it now. The training’s been done. It’s out of my hands. I will taper the best way I know how and let whatever happens in Boston happen. I will run my best and see if it’s good enough. If it is, I will be happy. If it’s not, I’ll still be happy knowing I had a positive experience in my first Boston and shoot for it again in November in my hometown course. Either way, life will go own and there will be other races and other Boston’s left for me to run.