Boston Marathon Training Learnings and Race Goals

With the Boston Marathon just over a week away, now is a good time to assess my training and goals for the race.  I find that doing this–including writing it down–really helps to solidify the things I have learned, and of course sharing goals publicly is always good practice.  I did this before Seattle as well, and I managed to apply most or all of the things I learned from that training cycle.

What I Did

Once again, I followed Jack Daniels’ marathon Plan A very closely, with the one deviation that my formal training on the plan started closer to the actual race than last time around.  As a result, I had to skip "phase 2" entirely and part of phase 3.  Looking at my training log, I have run just over 800 miles over the 13 weeks that I have been training formally so far, an average of just over 60 miles per week.  This is less than I ran before Seattle, when I was typically over 70 miles per week.

What I Learned

Take off plenty of time after a marathon.  After Seattle, which happened at the end of November, my loose plan was to take off a little time, then start ramping up with easy base runs through the end of 2007 so that I could hit the ground running (pun intended) with formal training on January 2.  My father knows Joan Benoit Samuelson because he lives near her and they are both active with their alma mater, Bowdoin.  He introduced us over email, and she gave me what I now know is a great piece of advice: it takes one day per mile to recover from a marathon.  Since I had been running so much before the marathon, I made the rookie mistake of assuming I could take a week off, then start doing 20 or 30 easy miles weekly.  Wrong.  Attempting this, I gave myself a minor soft tissue injury issue in my calf that made running impossible until the second week of January.  I therefore set back my training cycle by several weeks.  Joanie was right, as one would expect given her vast marathon experience and success.  Rest assured that my Newtons will get a break in May and my DMTs will see a lot of use.

Winter training is hard.  I typically don’t mind running in difficult conditions, as there is something kinda cool about toughing it out when the weather is bad.  Once ramped up, the number of weekly runs I did was equivalent to what I did before Seattle.  I found it much harder, however, to toss in an extra few miles for runs when it was cold, dark and rainy.  I could still do an 8-miler easily enough, but I had trouble motivating myself to extend that easy 8-miler to 13 miles, something I often did before Seattle.  This is the main reason that my weekly mileage was less in this training cycle.

Sharing training with a family member is awesome.  My father is also doing Boston, which has been great both for fun interaction between us and for motivation.  Once or twice a week we have traded emails with training updates, bragging about workout successes, etc.  He’s following a formal training plan as well, and it has been really interesting comparing the plans and our progress against them.

Fewer races helps feeling strong.  Before Seattle, I did a number of 5k, 10k and 13.1-mile races.  As a result of this and a couple of other training errors where I ran a little too far and hard a few times, I felt worn down in the weeks leading up to the race.  This cycle, I did only one tune-up race, the Mercer Island Half, and I was much better about not going too far or too hard in my training runs.  As a result I feel much fresher right now.

Dressing for winter running requires more temperature awareness.  Early in this training cycle, I realized that I was consistently over-dressing for my training runs.  Dressing for running when it is warm is easy: just put on shorts and a light shirt.  When it is cold, comfortable dress for the start of a run is way too hot once the run really gets going.  I purchased one of those wireless weather stations which I keep in my closet, and that helped me to get much better about how much clothing to wear.  While I use the minimum shorts and pants I can get away with, I find that running gloves are great up to temperatures in the 60s.

Race Goals

My top goal at Boston is to have a great lifetime experience.  Tons of people have told me that the race is unique event, with terrific energy as they shut down the city for Patriot’s Day and mobs of people cheer on the runners.  With around 25,000 entrants, it is a much larger race than I have ever done, and I am sure that will add to the energy of it.  Several family members, my wife Lynn and my friends Cam and Lara Ferroni will all be out there.  It will be awesome supporting and cheering on my father.  We’ll get to see the US Women’s Marathon Olympic qualifier the day before our race, and Joan Benoit Samuelson will be running in it.  Maybe we’ll see Lance Armstrong, who will likely be running a little ahead of me.

Of course, I have a time goal as well: finish in under 3 hours, a 6:52/mile pace.  I think that I have the fitness to do this, based on recent training runs like an M-pace workout of 15.3 miles two weeks ago where I averaged a 6:21 pace and didn’t feel all that hurt.  There will be a number of challenges, though: an unfamiliar course, a cross-country flight two days before the race, the general randomness of really long runs, the plethora of distractions before the race, potentially hot weather (although the current forecast is fine), and the number of other competitors in the race potentially making the start slower.  One of the cool things about a marathon is the amount of unpredictability in a performance.

The Plan

I have a really simple race plan: dial in to a 6:45/mile pace with HR in mid to upper 150s and hold it there for the first 20 miles.  Then, if I am feeling good, power up Heartbreak Hill and adjust pace to whatever I think I can do for that final 10k.  Consume as much water as I can handle, and down a gel and an Endurolyte every 20-25 minutes.

Tracking

The Boston Marathon web site is going to have a tracking mechanism that will allow people to see athlete’s progress during the race.  They track and post chip times every 5k.  I will be starting in the 10am EDT (7am PDT) wave on Monday, April 21.  If you want to track my bib number of 3263 against my time and pace goals, here’s a table that may help:

Distance	Cumulative time with 6:52 pace	Cumulative time with 6:45 pace
1 mile	6:52	6:45
2 miles	13:44	13:30
3 miles	20:36	20:15
5k: 3.1 miles	21:17	20:55
4 miles	27:28	27:00
5 miles	34:20	33:45
6 miles	41:12	40:30
10k: 6.2 miles	42:34	41:51
7 miles	48:04	47:15
8 miles	54:56	54:00
9 miles	1:01:48	1:00:45
15k: 9.3 miles	1:03:52	1:02:47
10 miles	1:08:40	1:07:30
11 miles	1:15:32	1:14:15
12 miles	1:22:24	1:21:00
20k: 12.4 miles	1:25:09	1:23:42
13 miles	1:29:16	1:27:45
13.1 miles	1:29:57	1:28:25
14 miles	1:36:08	1:34:30
15 miles	1:43:00	1:41:15
25k: 15.5 miles	1:46:26	1:44:37
16 miles	1:49:52	1:48:00
17 miles	1:56:44	1:54:45
18 miles	2:03:36	2:01:30
30k: 18.6 miles	2:07:43	2:05:33
19 miles	2:10:28	2:08:15
20 miles	2:17:20	2:15:00
21 miles	2:24:12	2:21:45
35k: 21.7 miles	2:29:00	2:26:29
22 miles	2:31:04	2:28:30
23 miles	2:37:56	2:35:15
24 miles	2:44:48	2:42:00
40k: 24.8 miles	2:50:18	2:47:24
25 miles	2:51:40	2:48:45
26 miles	2:58:32	2:55:30
26.2 miles	2:59:54	2:56:51