Here I am. Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009, 54 days to go before I test my fitness again at the marathon distance. Last year was my first attempt at the marathon. At age 34, I felt it was time to venture into the unknown. As you may know (from previous post), I’ve been running for most of my life, but usually 5k, 10k races. In 2007 I started running more 1/2 marathons, which at the time was about the distance of my longest long runs.
Last year, 2008, I decided to run the NYC marathon as my debut at the distance. I felt that I trained consistently but not as focused as I needed to be, in hindsight. I only really did one “long run”, during training, I now consider anything 18 miles or over a long run. The problem was my mileage build up was not sufficient to support these longer runs. Ideally you want long runs to be about 25% of your weekly mileage, mine were 50%. Needless to say a developed an injury, guess….stress fracture of the lower leg, right shin to be exact. And it really became noticeable in my 18, which turned into a 20 miler in Sept 08. It was a formal training run hosted by NYRR in Central Park. 3 loops of the park, it ended up being 20 because I needed to pick up my number and when I got the the park I was told the numbers were at the NYRR office, about 1 mile away. So my day of running started with a sprint back to the NYRR office and then back to the start line. The run was going well pace wise and body wise thru about 13, 14 miles then I started to slow, cramps and tight hamstrings started to become more prevalent, shins started to hurt more. I ended up with a 2:12:51 effort, which is a 7:22/mile pace. Not bad for the first time running that far, but health wise I was whipped. I would have loved to continue with my 40 mile weeks and get up to 50 before the taper, but I decided it would be better to take it easy and not get a full blown stress fracture and be unable to compete come November.
So, my training from then on consisted of easy runs in the 3-8 mile range, with the last 3 weeks before race day of minimal running. I felt rested but not very fit, and not very confident about the task of 26.2 miles. Race day arrived and I psyched myself up mentally, I was ready. My father flew out from Cali to watch and my girlfriend would be cheering me on. They traveled around the course by subway to see me in 3 locations, very impressive. They saw me in Brooklyn, near our apartment, then on 1st Ave and 50th, then again in Central Park for the last few miles.
