The Next Step

It was really cool this morning (38) but sunny.  I just ran a few easy miles to warmup and shake the legs out.  I did some strides at around tempo pace.  Afterward stretched good now heading to the airport to fly out to Boston.  

My first Boston turned out to be a rough one.  I knew going in that I was not in as good of shape as I was for my last marathon so decided to reduce my goals.  I was thinking going in that if I ran between 3:10 and 3:15 I would be happy.  The weather today was perfect with temps in the 50's and some wind but it was mostly a cross wind.  I definitely learned a lot just dealing with the whold Boston experience.  I came in yesterday and ended up rushing around all day trying to get my packet, food for breakfast and finding a place to eat.  Spent way more time on my feet than I wanted to.  Slept good last night and woke up early to catch the buses.  An added bonus was getting to meet up with Dave Rockness and riding the buses out with him.  As many of you already know from the blog he is a great guy! 

Hanging out before the start wasn't as bad as I expected mainly because of the nice weather.  I can imagine on a nasty day that it would not be much fun.

I planned to start off slow and then based on how I felt get into a pace around 3:10 or so.  I did take it easy the first few miles which are downhill and then picked it up some through the middle miles.  Around 12 the legs started to have that fimilar feeling of being heavy and sluggish so I started to worry some.  I stayed in pretty good shape up to around 15 or 16 and then knew that it might get ugly the rest of the way.  I slowed down on the hills through Newton because of this but didn't really have much trouble on the hills.  The thing that was getting to me was the down hills because I was started to feel a cramp in my right thigh.  I was slowing down but felt it was manageable through the hills.  I made it up Heartbreak pretty good then hit the downhill on the other side.  This is where it all started to go bad.  Right after I came off of the downhill I got major cramps in my right thigh and left calf.  I slowed down to see if that helped and after about a 1/2 a mile it got better so gradually picked the pace back up.  I made it about a 1/2 mile before the cramps hit again so I slowed down and recovered then it got better and I picked it back up.  This went on for a few times and it bacame apparent that I was going to have to slow down or I was going to make it in.  Around 22 I got the worse cramp and it almost brought me to a walk but I was afraid if I stopped I might not get going again.  I settled into a basic slow shuffle the rest of the way in.  I had some spots where I though I might be able to recover but those were short lived.  Once the cramps hit I started thinking maybe I could at least break 3:20 and requalify but running as slow as I was that quickly went out the window and I thought I should just focus on finishing.  Amazing enough even as slow as I was going I got another really bad cramp about 400 yards from the finished but basically ran stiff legged the last little bit because there was no way I was stopping there in front of thousands of screaming people.  It was a huge relief to cross the line and staggered around for a while until I could get somewhere to stretch out the legs and try to recover.

Even though I didn't have a good race, Boston was an amazing experience.  The fans are awesome and they run such a quality event.  It is also cool to have that many great runners in the same race.  At this point I don't know what holds for my marathoning future.  Until I can dedicate myself to putting in the mileage I don't want to commit to another.  I don't want to repeat today.  For those of you that like to see the damage unfold, here are my splits:

1st - 7:24

2nd - 7:13

3rd - 7:18

4th - 7:08

5th - 7:17

6th - 7:13

7, 8, 9 - 21: 36

10th - 7:18

11th - 7:16

12th - 7:09

13th - 7:14

14th - 7:16

15, 16 - 14:46

17th - 7:43

18th - 7:51

19th - 7:40

20th - 8:02

21st - 8:35

22nd - 8:01

23rd - 8:50

24th - 9:19

25th - 9:07

26.2 - 11:25

3:22:45

Woke up this morning pretty sore and stiff.  I took about a 1 mile walk and that seemed to help loosen the legs up some and reduce the soreness.  This is probably the most sore I have been since my first marathon and I was not really ready for that one.  My left calf is really sore because that is the one that totally cramped up in the race.  Both thighs are more sore than I remember for a marathon which is probably from the downhills. 

I was looking back on the training and numbers never lie.  I went into this marathon running around 30 to 40 less per month in the 3 months prior than I did for the Huntsville PR.  Probably more significantly is that the number of MP and tempo miles was much much lower.  I am definitely going to have to get that back on track if I am going to run another marathon.

Well I am actually more sore today than yesterday especially my left calf.  It feels like it really needs some work done on it.  Maybe a massage when I get back home.  I did a lot of walking today.  I finished up my business meetings and walked around Boston this evening which was probably good.  I starting to feel like I want to take another crack at Boston.  My time in Dec qualified me for 2011 so who knows maybe I will come back and try to redeem myself.

Well finally felt like I could run a few miles.  The last couple of days I was still sore and did some walking each day but didn't want to push it.  I ran real easy today and my legs were sore running especially my thighs.  The good news is my left calf is better now and didn't cause any problems.  It was good to get out and hopefully it will do the legs some good.  I will probably take the day off tomorrow and then try to get back to training on Monday.

Now the wife and I have a date night.  Going to dinner and then the symphony.

32:33 (8:08 avg)