Matt Aaronson Rock 'n Roll USA (Washington DC) half-marathon...no PR today, sorry to say!!
This is less a story of a race and more about my training. I price myself on being VERY consistent in hitting my workouts and this was the first time I found myself saying "my training really didn't go as I had expected". My result was a 1:25:32 which is not bad, but it is far from my capabilities and is a reflection of being undertrained relative to where I wanted to be. Garmin link: https://connect.garmin.com/activity/719317912
THE (TOO-LONG) BACK-STORY…FEEL FREE TO SKIP!
When I started training in January I had high hopes for this race. I ran a 1:24:02 half-marathon in November on the heels of my Chicago Marathon training but my fitness had declined and I knew I could not only get those 3 seconds but probably 1:03 for a sub-1:23. So I decided to "train like a half-marathoner" and used a Hansons approach that had me doing lots of LT intervals (just like their marathon approach that really worked for me) as well as HMP runs that featured 8-10 miles with 5-7 miles at HMP. I was doing long runs of 18-20 miles, weekly mileage of 45-50 and really nailing my workouts running the LT stuff about 10 sec ahead of my 6:10/mi target and the HMP right at 6:15-6:20/mi (goal pace 6:19/mi for 1:23).
Then it all started to fall apart. First I did some work with a coach to make changes to my form. I remain convinced this is the right thing to do since there is a lot to be gained there for me. My workouts continued to be really good for a few weeks but eventually stressing muscles in new ways while in the throes of a big buildup with intensity+volume was overload and I got some injuries. Not big injuries, but enough to force me to ratchet down the intensity, scale back the long runs and take lots of recovery days. All of that hit right in the key build weeks about 6 weeks out from the race when I essentially lost 2 weeks entirely.
My weekly volume for the "build" was far from ideal (up to but not including race week)
Run: 40, 49, 50, 50, 45, 6, 18, 38, 21.
Time on the bike: 3:25, 3:00, 3:15, 2:35, 3:45, 3:45, 2:16, 0, 1:04, 3:40, 2:30
There were a few other problems that really hurt my training. Brutal winter weather and weekend kids' nap schedules forced a lot of treadmill runs (junk miles, I'm convinced). And my work travel and more importantly my overall work intensity and stress has been off the charts. I have been saving a lot of capital on the homefront for my IMWI training build so on the margin I have made decisions to scrap evening workouts in favor of family time and the like. The icing on the cake was my body revolting telling me what it thought of this race by giving me a cold and low-grade 100-degree fever the day before the race. I slept about 4 hours each of the two nights before the race and took some Sudafed (but just the 4-hour kind as I was worried about HR elevation if I had it in my system during the race).
So why did I even do it? Especially considering it was a Saturday morning in DC away from home for another day. Well, that's where things get complex…as part of general office camaraderie, I signed up for the race with a large group of colleagues and even some of my clients. There were 15 of us in total. Many were people who had never run more than through the airport prior to beginning training in January. I am the "senior guy" and was hosting a post-race brunch. I could have bailed and just done the brunch but they all wants to see me "win". So there was some obligation.
THE RACE
Overall the race was very straightforward. The weather was 40's and with a very cold steady rain. Not actually bad for running if you ask me although my feet were soaked through within 3 minutes of starting. I walked a mile and a half to the start wearing a garbage bag and long-sleeve T throwaway, ran for about 3 minutes to get the blood flowing, got into the first corral, hit a Gu Roctane and started running.
The first 4 miles were pretty good on reasonably flat terrain and I knocked them out in 6:18, 6:21, 6:20 and 6:24. Mile 5 was a little slower at 6:33 which worried me because it's early to slow down, but part of the issue was a botched water station at 4.8 where I slowed to ensure I could get water to chase my only mid-race gel. I think I was really just settling into my pace at that point and didn't feel like I was hurting or anything like that. I also decided at that point that I wouldn't screw around with any more aid stations and would just run through them and take nothing.
If you check out the course elevation profile you'll see there is a massive hill that starts at about mile 5.8 and crests at mile 7.2. The really brutal part is 0.4 miles from 5.8 to 6.2 where you go up a very steep grade and gain 150 ft. It is an emotional part of the course lined with flags on tall staffs and a seemingly endless set of boards carefully lined up in the grass featuring the names and pictures of those who have fallen in service to our country. Having done this race in 2013 I knew this was coming and was psychologically prepared…I had resolved in advance to crush that hill. But I was not physically prepared. Holy smokes that was hard!!!
So mile 6 (which included 0.2 of the hill) was 6:31, and mile 7 was 7:01. I was at something like 7:45 pace cresting the steepest part but managed to accelerate a lot on the more reasonable grade remaining and worked the pace down.
The great part about doing that relatively short uphill is that you spend miles 8-10 largely going down with only one small uphill in the middle of that.
But I was unable to take good advantage of that part of the course. The hill had zapped my legs and from that point the impact of undertraining came home to roost. I had plenty of HR to give but my muscular endurance wasn't there. My HR dropped and my legs couldn't work hard enough to elevate it. My big PR half-marathons saw sustained HR around 180 bpm the whole way but from about mile 8 onward my HR wouldn't get above ~175.
So miles 8-10 downhill (although with a small headwind) I only managed 6:28, 6:28 and 6:23. I sort of hit a low after the 8 mile marker realizing there was still a long way to go and realizing I wasn't going to be able to speed up very much. But I resolved to try.
Mile 11 was 6:29 but mile 12 was a gentle uphill that gained ~50 feet and I that was 6:39. But not many people passed me on that.
From that point it was gentle downhill to the finish and I managed 6:21 for mile 13 and 6:00/mi pace for the 0.11 "stub".
A post race analysis of the Garmin running metrics is interesting. Basically my form fell apart quickly and completely. But much more quickly than I would have expected. I think my commitment to the form improvements is faltering a bit and I'm wondering now if there isn't some possibility of gradual transition into improvement vs. so much change all at once.
LOOKING FORWARD
The big question is of course if I should do the Boston Marathon in 5 weeks as originally-planned. I have never run Boston before but have a qualifying time valid for 2016 if I pass on this year. I had said that if I couldn't run a 1:25 with reasonable ease today then I would probably scrap it in favor of a total training reboot and that is where I'm leaning. But on the other hand I would have had a 1:25 in the bag without that ridiculous hill, so I was pretty close. My second milestone for Boston would be the ability to sustain volume of 45, 50 and 50 miles for the next 3 weeks, including my 2 quality workouts, long runs of 18, 18 and 20 and sustained 2x/week biking. I'm pretty convinced that if I can do the above I would be able to run ~3 hours in Boston without undue injury risk – which I think I are appropriate goals for that race. It would also be a good training block before going hard on the bike as the weather improves.
So I will wait a bit before making the Boston call.
As always, advice and input from the team is welcome and appreciated.
Cheers,
Matt
THE (TOO-LONG) BACK-STORY…FEEL FREE TO SKIP!
When I started training in January I had high hopes for this race. I ran a 1:24:02 half-marathon in November on the heels of my Chicago Marathon training but my fitness had declined and I knew I could not only get those 3 seconds but probably 1:03 for a sub-1:23. So I decided to "train like a half-marathoner" and used a Hansons approach that had me doing lots of LT intervals (just like their marathon approach that really worked for me) as well as HMP runs that featured 8-10 miles with 5-7 miles at HMP. I was doing long runs of 18-20 miles, weekly mileage of 45-50 and really nailing my workouts running the LT stuff about 10 sec ahead of my 6:10/mi target and the HMP right at 6:15-6:20/mi (goal pace 6:19/mi for 1:23).
Then it all started to fall apart. First I did some work with a coach to make changes to my form. I remain convinced this is the right thing to do since there is a lot to be gained there for me. My workouts continued to be really good for a few weeks but eventually stressing muscles in new ways while in the throes of a big buildup with intensity+volume was overload and I got some injuries. Not big injuries, but enough to force me to ratchet down the intensity, scale back the long runs and take lots of recovery days. All of that hit right in the key build weeks about 6 weeks out from the race when I essentially lost 2 weeks entirely.
My weekly volume for the "build" was far from ideal (up to but not including race week)
Run: 40, 49, 50, 50, 45, 6, 18, 38, 21.
Time on the bike: 3:25, 3:00, 3:15, 2:35, 3:45, 3:45, 2:16, 0, 1:04, 3:40, 2:30
There were a few other problems that really hurt my training. Brutal winter weather and weekend kids' nap schedules forced a lot of treadmill runs (junk miles, I'm convinced). And my work travel and more importantly my overall work intensity and stress has been off the charts. I have been saving a lot of capital on the homefront for my IMWI training build so on the margin I have made decisions to scrap evening workouts in favor of family time and the like. The icing on the cake was my body revolting telling me what it thought of this race by giving me a cold and low-grade 100-degree fever the day before the race. I slept about 4 hours each of the two nights before the race and took some Sudafed (but just the 4-hour kind as I was worried about HR elevation if I had it in my system during the race).
So why did I even do it? Especially considering it was a Saturday morning in DC away from home for another day. Well, that's where things get complex…as part of general office camaraderie, I signed up for the race with a large group of colleagues and even some of my clients. There were 15 of us in total. Many were people who had never run more than through the airport prior to beginning training in January. I am the "senior guy" and was hosting a post-race brunch. I could have bailed and just done the brunch but they all wants to see me "win". So there was some obligation.
THE RACE
Overall the race was very straightforward. The weather was 40's and with a very cold steady rain. Not actually bad for running if you ask me although my feet were soaked through within 3 minutes of starting. I walked a mile and a half to the start wearing a garbage bag and long-sleeve T throwaway, ran for about 3 minutes to get the blood flowing, got into the first corral, hit a Gu Roctane and started running.
The first 4 miles were pretty good on reasonably flat terrain and I knocked them out in 6:18, 6:21, 6:20 and 6:24. Mile 5 was a little slower at 6:33 which worried me because it's early to slow down, but part of the issue was a botched water station at 4.8 where I slowed to ensure I could get water to chase my only mid-race gel. I think I was really just settling into my pace at that point and didn't feel like I was hurting or anything like that. I also decided at that point that I wouldn't screw around with any more aid stations and would just run through them and take nothing.
If you check out the course elevation profile you'll see there is a massive hill that starts at about mile 5.8 and crests at mile 7.2. The really brutal part is 0.4 miles from 5.8 to 6.2 where you go up a very steep grade and gain 150 ft. It is an emotional part of the course lined with flags on tall staffs and a seemingly endless set of boards carefully lined up in the grass featuring the names and pictures of those who have fallen in service to our country. Having done this race in 2013 I knew this was coming and was psychologically prepared…I had resolved in advance to crush that hill. But I was not physically prepared. Holy smokes that was hard!!!
So mile 6 (which included 0.2 of the hill) was 6:31, and mile 7 was 7:01. I was at something like 7:45 pace cresting the steepest part but managed to accelerate a lot on the more reasonable grade remaining and worked the pace down.
The great part about doing that relatively short uphill is that you spend miles 8-10 largely going down with only one small uphill in the middle of that.
But I was unable to take good advantage of that part of the course. The hill had zapped my legs and from that point the impact of undertraining came home to roost. I had plenty of HR to give but my muscular endurance wasn't there. My HR dropped and my legs couldn't work hard enough to elevate it. My big PR half-marathons saw sustained HR around 180 bpm the whole way but from about mile 8 onward my HR wouldn't get above ~175.
So miles 8-10 downhill (although with a small headwind) I only managed 6:28, 6:28 and 6:23. I sort of hit a low after the 8 mile marker realizing there was still a long way to go and realizing I wasn't going to be able to speed up very much. But I resolved to try.
Mile 11 was 6:29 but mile 12 was a gentle uphill that gained ~50 feet and I that was 6:39. But not many people passed me on that.
From that point it was gentle downhill to the finish and I managed 6:21 for mile 13 and 6:00/mi pace for the 0.11 "stub".
A post race analysis of the Garmin running metrics is interesting. Basically my form fell apart quickly and completely. But much more quickly than I would have expected. I think my commitment to the form improvements is faltering a bit and I'm wondering now if there isn't some possibility of gradual transition into improvement vs. so much change all at once.
LOOKING FORWARD
The big question is of course if I should do the Boston Marathon in 5 weeks as originally-planned. I have never run Boston before but have a qualifying time valid for 2016 if I pass on this year. I had said that if I couldn't run a 1:25 with reasonable ease today then I would probably scrap it in favor of a total training reboot and that is where I'm leaning. But on the other hand I would have had a 1:25 in the bag without that ridiculous hill, so I was pretty close. My second milestone for Boston would be the ability to sustain volume of 45, 50 and 50 miles for the next 3 weeks, including my 2 quality workouts, long runs of 18, 18 and 20 and sustained 2x/week biking. I'm pretty convinced that if I can do the above I would be able to run ~3 hours in Boston without undue injury risk – which I think I are appropriate goals for that race. It would also be a good training block before going hard on the bike as the weather improves.
So I will wait a bit before making the Boston call.
As always, advice and input from the team is welcome and appreciated.
Cheers,
Matt
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Comments
As far as Boston....you must do it, but sounds like 2016 is an option as well. I'd say it should also depend on your IM plans. IMWI is obviously your first IM but given your fitness and 70.3 performance a Kona slot is a strong possibility. Running Boston could sub optimize your IMWI training.
I would seriously consider skipping Boston this year, move to a GF plan that focuses on bike and run, then move into the IM plan for IMWI and if all goes well you can KQ, run Boston in April '16 and Kona in Oct '16.
Please tell me you are not working with Coach Bill Leech on your running form in Chicago!
I think if you were lighter alone you would have made it...and no one says you HAVE TO run Boston to a personal best...why not run it smart for 17 miles this year, then push the last 9....recover...and be SMARTER for 2016 when you'll have seen the full course.
For me, having a race with a marathon is nice with the fam b/c the taper + recovery means more family time!
I side with those who say reboot your training for best chance of success in your IM debut. However, 2005, I did Boston/Wisconsin double, getting my first KQ. I did have a full winter of training for Boston, though. So there's that.
For that reason and one other I am really predisposed to the Cronk/McCrann advice. The other reason is that it is March 16 and IMWI isn't until September. Last year I was in a walking boot and ZERO workouts for 2 months and went on to set 2 half-iron PRs with the first one in early June. So time is on my side. Of course I can squander the time pretty easily if I don't keep my eye on the ball, and I need to be committed to biking my brains out starting shortly after Boston.
The comments about weight also really hit me. This is the first time I've taken my eye off that ball and the impact really is significant. Time to get back into being more careful on that dimension (although getting back to some workout volume will help for sure).
The goal for Boston will be to go out and soak up the experience, get in a good workout, and, now that I've read Coach P's comment, experiment a bit and learn the course. When I think about my SECOND half-iron race in Vegas and how much it benefitted from the lessons learned in the first I recall the power of experience.
I will not run Boston for a PR and if my training doesn't go well enough to convince me that the injury risk is low then I'll pull the plug. But for now it's game on and I always have the option to bail.