Still Here, Still Running

The Marathon

I know it has been a very long time since the last time I posted on this blog, but I believe it is time to finally try and play a little catch up. Where to start?

I am currently at Fort Polk, Louisiana helping out as a T/M (trainer/mentor) @ the JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center) with a unit who will be deploying soon to Afghanistan. I have not yet obtained orders for the World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), but I am anticipating they will be here in the near future. Aside from the time down here in Louisiana, training (running) has been going quite well in El Paso (Fort Bliss, Texas). I arrived in Louisiana earlier this week and I have been able to log in a decent amount of mileage, but unfortunately I have not been able to find a nearby track to do any type of speed workouts. I got in Wednesday morning and I have so far been able to do an 8 mile foundation run (Wednesday night), a 13 1/2 mile run on Thursday, a 60 minute fartlek workout on Friday - (2 minutes @ 5:00 minute pace or faster, 1 minute off, 1 minute @ 5:00 min. pace or faster, 5 minutes off) totalling a little over 13 miles with the warm-up and cool down, then another 12 1/2 mile recovery run today (Saturday). I am planning on doing another 6 miles easy later on tonight.

The past six months of training has been going extremely well and I am closer to my goal of qualifying for the 2012 Marathon Olympics Trials than ever before. I have been able to average somewhere between 70-90 miles a week with a few weeks eclipsing 100+ miles. In the past six months I have had three "breakthrough" races along with a very disappointing performance at the USATF Cross Country Championships in Spokane, Washington which took place last February over Valentine's Day weekend.

The first of the three "breakthrough" races took place at the Army 10-miler in Washington D.C. in early October. At that point in time I had been training underneath my newly appointed head coach, Lisa Rainsberger, for a little over 5 months. I had really only just scratched the surface with her training regimen, but I took the guidance she gave me via www.traininggoals.com and ran with it. I had been primarily doing 2x1x2 mile repeats and 4-mile tempo workouts on the track @ UTEP with 8-12 mile foundation efforts and 15-20 mile endurance runs. Although I was preparing myself for the Army 10-miler, the key race I was gearing towards was the California International Marathon in the first weekend of December. The Army 10-miler went out extremely fast led by Dan Browne with a couple Ethiopians. I tried my hardest to stick to my pace of 5:10, but still came through the first mile in 4:55 around 40th place. I continued my pace going through mile 4 and 5 in 20:20 and 25:25, would later suffer the consequences in miles 7-8. By mile 9 I knew I was close to the finish with a personal best time and finished respectively in the top 30 with a finishing time of 52:26 (5:15 pace). I felt content with my time of 52:26 considering I had set my college 5-mile (8k) personal best time twice over (26:18 - 2007 Roberts Wesleyan Invite).

The second of three "breakthrough" races came about 6 weeks later at the San Antonio Rock 'n Roll Half-Marathon meeting up with a few of my WCAP teammates, 2LT Nate Pennington and SSG Troy Harrison. I also got the pleasure of meeting the 50k American record holder, Josh Cox. I drove down to San Antonio from El Paso with a training partner and friend, Ibrahim Brashar, who actually used to run cross country and track for UTEP and qualified for the 2004 Olympics in Athens for the 1500m. The San Antonio Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon was an interesting experience for me personally as an marathon runner, and it came with a bitter sweet finish. I went out in San Antonio with the same mind set I had in the Army 10-miler and I was expecting more or less the same outcome. I expected a fast start, to hold on for dear life at the end and come out with another personal best time. I had stuck to the same training plan I did in preparation for the Army 10-miler, I did a 5k or two on one of the weekends in El Paso, and I had tapered properly before the half marathon, running a little over 50 miles going into the race. I ended up going out in the first mile of the half marathon ironically right on pace in 5:10. What I didn't realize that day until after I finished the race was the humidity factor. Although the race was in mid-November in San Antonio, humidity at the start was a blistering 96% and I quickly paid the price for it along with everybody else. Times that day were all about 2-3 minutes slower than normal, so when I finished that day without a personal best time, initially I was confused and upset, but only in hindsight did I realize I had run rather respectively. I ended up 10th place overall right behind SSG Troy Harrison with a finishing time of 1:10:42. My goal was to get somwhere between 1:08:30 and 1:10, but sometimes the exterior forces just simply won't allow it.

My final "breakthrough" race came when it mattered most for me. I had run a respective 10-miler and half marathon, but none of those wouldn't have counted for anything if it didn't end with the marathon performance I was expecting. Because the marathon is such a long and enduring race, I went into Sacramento with a number of goals set aside for me that I knew I was capable of completing. My first goal was perhaps a little naive at that point in time, but definitely achievable. I wanted to qualify for the 2012 Marathon Olympic Trials. The only way to do that was to successfully get under 2 hours and 19 minutes for the 26.2 mile course, which is somewhere close to 5:18 per mile pace. My second goal was to get under 2 hours 22 minutes, which is currently the WCAP standard for the marathon. Since I am not officially on the WCAP program until I arrive in Colorado Springs, WCAP did not hold me to that standard. Although they politely paid for my air travel and hotel, they basically told me to just go out, have fun, and run your ass off. Easy enough. My third goal I had set for myself was just to simply get a personal best time, thus proving to myself that the past 6-8 months of training I had done after my bitter performance in Belgrade, Serbia during Armor Officer Basic Course was worthwhile. My previous personal best time for the marathon was 2:29:59 which I set at the Marine Corp Marathon back in October of 2008. I had run horribly in Belgrade, Serbia with a time of 2:39:50; however, after going through Armor Officer Basic Course, looking back I now know it was just not a realistic goal to train for the marathon and go through the 5-month course at the same time.

The starting line was freezing in December in Sacramento. Luckily I was in a heating tent with other elite athletes and it was extremely comforting to have Nate Pennington and Troy Harrison alongside to share the anxieties of the upcoming adventure. Since I had run relatively close to Troy Harrison for the majority of the San Antonio Half Marathon, I knew it would probably be in my best interest to try and pace off of him for the marathon. Little did I know before the start of the marathon, Troy and I would run side by side for the first 20 miles. Looking back on the 2009 California International Marathon, it was really quite a blur. I remember going through the first mile with about 50 athletes all within about 5 meters of me at 5:25 trying to find Troy. It wasn't until after the first mile did I finally find Troy and when I finally did find him he was already right beside me. Troy and I would work off of each other for the next 20 miles, using each other as a mental crutch, saying little encouraging phrases to one another, and also as a physical crutch, drafting off of each other, which was extremely beneficial after the headwind we hit at mile 15. Troy and I went through 5k in a little over 16:30, 10k 32:50, 10 miles at 53:00 and through the half marathon in exactly 1:09:39. I would actually hit both my half marathon and marathon best times this day. Going through the half marathon, I knew Troy and I were close to possibly getting under the 2:19 Marathon Olympic Trials standard, but it would take a negative split to get there. I had been conserving as much energy as possible at that point and although there were plenty of times where I just wanted to start sprinting up ahead, I also knew this was a 26.2 mile race. Troy and would hit all of our first 13 miles (except for mile #1: 5:25) under 5:20 pace. We continued our pace up to mile 15 when we took a left turn and hit a strong head wind. We ran our 15th mile at 5:40 and although we drafted off of each other specifically after that point, the damage had already been done. Although I felt stronger than ever between miles 15 and 20, the head wind was relentless and our miles grew longer.

I specifically remember hitting mile 20 and watching Troy create his space between me. Troy would increase his spacing between me to about 15 seconds apart in distance. At that point I had to make a mental decision to myself. I could throw in the towel and probably still end up with a respective time, or I could suck it up this last 10k and do what I came to Sacramento to do. All of this happening and going on in my head within about 10 seconds, I had already decided. New goal: Keep Troy Harrison in sight! For the next 5 miles I still felt "fast", but I also could feel the previous 15 miles of lactic acid accumulating in my calves, quads, and hamstrings. Somehow or another I was able to stay in control and keep Troy in my sights. Finally at mile 25, for the first time since mile 10 I had another runner come up on heels. Ironically enough, it was another Pennsylvanian, Kevin Poole who used to run at Allegheny College and was an All-American I believe. Having Kevin pass me at that point was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. After all those miles I still had a competitive edge and as I saw Kevin run by, I tried keeping on his heels with everything I had left. With close to 800 meters to go I noticed Troy Harrison coming closer and closer to me and by that point I was in full stride trying to gain as much time on him as possible. Knowing the finish had to be close, I used whatever energy I had left to surge ahead with finishing "kick", although realistically I had been kicking for the past 6 miles. Rounding the turn to the finish I saw the time read 2:22:50-51-52-53. Kicking with everything I had I finished the 2009 year with a personal best marathon time of 2:23:03 (12th place overall).