After a decade of a heavily sedentary lifestyle I decided to get my life in order and take up running. These are my stories as I run farther and faster in my 30s than I ever have before.
Summertime for me has turned into marathon training season. The typical training cycle is 18 weeks which means starting in June for a fall marathon for most folks. I'm a little behind on the times and am actually wrapping up week 4 of my training plan. My goal marathon is Twin Cities on October 4th. I'm actually running 4 marathons and an ultra this fall, but that's a different story.
The past 2 years I trained for Chicago using different methods. I first used the Hanson Marathon Method in 2013 and failed miserably at keeping up with the plan and fell short of my goal. In 2014 I tried a different approach and basically came up with my own plan roughly following the weekly mileage guidelines of Higdon intermediate while sprinkling in speed workouts from Hanson and Yasso. I did meet my initial goal last year, but some gastro-intestinal distress left me short of my full potential. I've run 6 more marathons since Chicago without following a training plan at all, basically just maintaining fitness in between and have managed to excel and get faster.
This year I decided to return to using a defined plan. I chose the Pfitzinger 18/70 plan as something that will challenge me and hopefully take me to the next level. The plan is 18 weeks long and peaks at 70 miles in a week. The mileage from the plan would be 400 more miles than during my training cycle last year. I'm hoping the additional mileage will help my body adapt and stay strong through the whole race in addition to preparing me for the rigors of a 50 mile run.
So what have I done so far? I didn't quite follow the plan exactly the first 2 weeks. I was starting just 3 weeks after my last marathon so I did a reverse taper. Week 1 wound up being 43 miles instead of the planned 53. Week 2 was 54 instead of a planned 56, which is actually damn impressive given that I did this in spite of running 17.5 miles entirely too fast during Ragnar. Week 3 I was finally in sync with training and ran 58 miles.
The current week has been a bit different. I changed my routine and am now starting to run before work. It is definitely much cooler and peaceful running 14 miles on a Tuesday morning. Yes, I ran that much on Tuesday and it was only my mid-week medium long run. I still need to do a long run of 18 on Sunday. The plan is not for the timid. I won't drop below 55 miles until I taper. If you're curious to see what the schedule looks like, someone made a calendar that is just a week off from my plan. http://www.negativesplits.net/files/longbeach09.pdf
So what is my goal for Twin Cities? That's hard to say at this point. I seem to make improvements by leaps and bounds. My last 2 marathons both featured blazing fast starts followed by 2nd half fades. With smarter pacing I would likely be somewhere between 3:20 and 3:25. I would love to make the improvement to BQ, but that would likely require a time around 3:03 for my age group. I'm not sure if I can make that jump in this time frame, but I'll definitely train hard and smart and see what happens. I need to stay healthy to make it through all my fall marathons.
When I last left you my van was due up to be active. We did some quick decorating, putting our name on the back window - One Man Perv Per Van, and got our runner to the exchange zone to start our adventure. I was bad an accidentally missed the hand off since I ran into 2 other friends in the exchange area and spent a few minutes catching up. It was crazy how many people I knew were running Ragnar this year. After our runner was off we rallied the troops and hit the road for the next exchange. I had some time being the last runner in our van so I played navigator and played with my GoPro.
Ragnar changed it's legs and some of its routes this year. Last year I was runner 7 and had only a 2.9 mile first leg. This year being runner 12 I got stuck with the short leg again, but it was at night. That said, our runner 7 this year had the optional exchange zone leg. There was a mile long stretch of road the vans would park along and the exchange could happen wherever the runners liked. It wound up being a blessing in disguise since it shortened the leg for our runner who was hurting and the next runner took the extra distance like a champ.
So one by one the runners went and then finally it was my turn. Suzy slapped the bracelet on my wrist and away I went. It was a little awkward at first given that I always start too fast and I was trying to get comfortable running while carrying my phone in hand which I never do. I normally use a pouch, but since I'd have to text my team with a mile to go I didn't want to be digging for it during the middle of a run. My leg went well and I finished well ahead of planned pace. I get to the exchange and see people from both vans there to greet me. There was a round of high 5s and then an immediate let's go get dinner. We went to Noodles and Co. and it was glorious. The girls missed the show though since they headed into the restaurant while I changed out of my wet clothes in the parking lot. They suggested I used the bathroom in the restaurant, but I knew better, it was lined up with runners from all the various teams.
After dinner we prepped for our night time runs. We got our safety gear out and looked all sexy in our vests. The girls all made it through their runs without much issue, except for Krista who had some creepy moments. Once I was up I was off and running once again. I got lost not much after when the road split and there were no signs. I slowed to check my phone for directions and let a runner catch me to figure out where to go. It didn't help that this was a section that doubled back on on the runners coming in for the exchange so all the blinky lights in the dark through me off. This was my slowest mile of the entire event. Finally I was back on track and passing runners once again. The last stretch of the run was along a lakeront trail. There was a steep downhill that I decided to just go with and started flying when a rabbit darted in front of me. I definitely let an expletive fly as it truly startled me. I soon made it to the finish where our van 1 teammates were waiting after having napped in tent city.
Van 2 decided to get out of dodge and avoid sleeping in tent city given the noise, distance from where the van was parked, etc. We headed over to North Chicago High School to see that no volunteers were there yet and everything was pretty much in lock down. A few of us camped out on the porch of the school and the rest in the van. The porch was a good move since the overhang protected us from the thunderstorm that came through during the night. One of the guys on the sidewalk was starting to get wet so he decided to get a little cozy next to me. After a few hours of sleep we grabbed some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and prepped for our final legs.
One by one we finished our final legs. Early cloudiness and fog gave way to clearing skies and rising temperatures. My last leg was going to be midday and I knew it was going to get rough if it kept getting warmer. My route didn't have a whole lot of shade either. As a team we made up some huge ground on our last legs and I was running a bit earlier than planned, just before 12:30PM. I took the exchange from Suzy and started running from the Northwestern Campus down the lake and Sheridan. It was a lot different from my first 2 legs since I had many pedestrians to contend with. I also had to stop at a lot of lights along Sheridan. There were stretches along the lake that made it so worth it though. I had originally intended to take things easy, especially to give the van a chance to find parking at the finish, but I was feeling pretty good in spite of the heat and just ran with it. I once again destroyed my anticipated pace. It was a bit odd running this leg since we were ahead of nearly all the other open teams. I only passed 3 other runners and was passed once by someone who had to be running in the 6 min range. I managed to capture the last 5 minutes of my leg on GoPro, including when I spotted Sara and told her to move her ass since she'd miss running across the finish line as a team.
Once we crossed the finish we waited for Sara and took a team photo.
After that we headed over for some much needed beers. And since it's never too early to plan, we started discussing ideas for next year. We joked about doing Super Troopers with the "I'm freaking out, van" and the "You are freaking out, van" , but found out later someone already did that team idea. We'll come up with something. After a couple beers and one last browse through the gear shop we jumped in the van and headed back to Mo's dad's. We made a pit stop at Mariano's to use the restroom and then crawled our way back. I dozed in the backseat. My energy was gone. We reached the house, cleaned out the vans and everyone parted ways. I went home and crashed. It was a fun time and unfortunately it had to end.
Spending 2 days stuffed into a van with 5 other strangers while barely getting any sleep, eating terribly, and having to run every few hours sounds like a barrel of monkeys doesn't it? To be perfectly honest it is actually one of the most fun things you can do and hence why I subjected myself to such torture for the 2nd consecutive year. The idea was to join forces with Mo and get together our van mates from last year and form a new team for another round of shenanigans.
As time progressed it became clear that Mo and I would be the only stalwarts and we would be joined by a new band of merrymakers. The call was put out to other running friends as well as using the Ragnar Ambassador program. We finally had a team and started planning a name and all that other fun stuff. Unfortunately injuries kept our team in flux and we had a rotating band of characters for awhile. Once things settled down we were with 2 males and thus One Man Per Van was born.
We finally got some shirts made up near last minute as well as some magnets for tagging other vans. Speaking of vans, Mo booked us some minivans to save on costs and took care of a bunch of other stuff keeping costs for the team to the minimum. Some lineup shuffling put Mo in van 1 and me in van 2 as runner 12. I would be the one who got to carry the slap bracelet to the finish.
Even though I was in a van of girls I either didn't know at all, or barely knew, I decided to break out the Lone Sausage persona and the #andEric created during last year's Ragnar given that I'd be the lone guy in the van again. Luckily the ladies were game and went along with it.
We decided to all head up to Madison the night before the race since we had a 7:45AM start time and wanted to do some team bonding over beer. We met at Mo's dad's place and started our trek from there. I met my van mates - Jessie, Susie, Beth, and Sara. The 6th, Krista would be joining us in Madison. There was a mix up and the rental place and we wound up with a Buick Enclave SUV to squeeze into. We had to play tetris with our bags, but eventually made them fit and off we went. Dinner was a Monk's and involved cheese curds and Spotted Cow. I don't think you get much more Wisconsin than that.
We headed back to our hotel and Mo hung out with my van mates and I for a bit before we finally crashed. After a restless night we awoke to see grey skies and rain clouds. Luckily the forecast called for it to clear up by the time our van was due to start, but we were supposed to go to the start for a team picture. We did and it was raining too much so we just got our shirts and hit the road to grab breakfast and chill before it was our turn to run.
We wound up at a coffee shop playing a game of Cards Against Humanity. It was the same team building game I played before the start of last year's Ragnar. What better way to get into the sick and twisted parts of your van mate's heads before spending 30 hours together. There may have been some real freaks in the group, but that's just between us. So we got notification that Van 1 was nearing so we headed to the exchange and prepped for us to be the active van.
I'm playing a bit of catch up on life right now. I went from running a marathon to closing on a condo to moving to hosting my parents and nephews for a weekend. I've barely had time to breath. Next weekend I'm running Ragnar Relay and I've already started marathon training for my goal race in October. As Ferris Bueller once said " Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around for awhile, it could miss it." And so with that missive I took the time to enjoy a weekend in Traverse City, Michigan even with all the chaos going on.
The weekend began with a Friday road trip to the mitten state with Annabelle. We cruised along and luckily only hit a couple of slow spots with it being a big travel weekend and all. We made it to TC and to packet pick up in the early evening. Afterwards Annabelle dropped me off at my hotel where I waited for Mo to show up who came pretty late after being stuck in awful traffic. After a short night's sleep it was race day.
We were going to get a ride to the race start from Jakre, but the spectator bus was at the hotel as we walked out. The driver looked at us like we were crazy, but we jumped on the bus. We got to the start with plenty of time to spare. We headed into the school to stay warm since it was freezing outside. With bathroom lines crazy long indoors we went to use the facilities outside one last time before the race began. We headed to the start line and were soon off and running.
In spite of the cold I decided to run in just shorts and short sleeves. It was going to warm up greatly during the race and I didn't want to be hindered. My conservative start soon gave way to recklessly fast miles much like I ran at Circular Logic. I felt much comfortable this time though and wasn't straining. I even struck up a conversation or 2 with fellow runners. The course was beautiful. We were running down simple 2 lane roads past beautiful homes and amazing views of the bay. It was certainly one of the more scenic routes I've run. I reached the halfway point in around 1:37:xx much like I did for Circular Logic.
The race was an out and back course. After the turnaround I was facing a wall of wind I didn't realize I had been running with the first half. That along with rising temperatures had me feeling uncomfortable and off my stride and pace from earlier. I stopped to use the restroom to see if that would straighten me out, but it didn't. I decided at mile 20 that rather than enduring a ton of discomfort pushing for a PR, that I would enjoy myself the rest of the race.
For the last 10K of the race I switched to a run/walk strategy and even stopped for a couple beers along the way. It may have taken me an hour to finish that last 10K, but I made sure that I wouldn't be miserable the rest of the weekend. I wound up crossing the finish line in 3:32:14 for my 2nd fastest marathon. Once past the finish line there was amazing ice cream and a food tent stocked with pop, homemade cookies, bananas, bagels, pretzels, etc. All in all it was a well organized event and easy to see why it is so popular.
The rest of the weekend after the race became a blur. There were a couple bars hit after the race meeting with other Chicago runners. We also managed to hit 6 different breweries and a distillery. Somehow we managed to make it back to the hotel in time for Game of Thrones on Sunday night and then promptly passed out and missed the episode. Well at least I did.
