Philadelphia Marathon: I’m Half the Man I Used to Be

Let’s get one thing straight at the outset.  This entry was supposed to describe my performance in the Philadelphia Marathon, for which I have been training since June, but my aspirations for Boston qualifier glory got stunted at about mile 8 of the race.  In fact, they got chopped in half.  After the hills in miles 7-10 of the Philadelphia Marathon sucked the life out of my legs, I exercised the convenient and safe option to drop down and complete the half marathon course instead of suffering through the full misery.  That choice proved to be wise as my legs were completely spent when I crossed the half marathon finish line in 1:47:16.  I placed 1051^st out of 9398 finishers (Top 11%).   My time was 15 seconds faster than my last half marathon six weeks ago, but my expectations were much higher than that modest level of improvement.  To make matters worse, Alek also got robbed of his chance for a long training run in my race.  He was planning to run with me during miles 14-24.  Instead, he got to jog back to the car with me (about 2 miles) from where he was waiting for me at mile 14—some great reward for waking up at 4:00 a.m. and supporting Dad on race day.

As always, the first several miles of the race unfolded as planned.  I was running with the 3:30 pace group and holding a comfortable 7:54 pace for the first 6 miles.  The weather was pleasant in the low 50’s, definitely no complaints.  But then the wheels fell off.  I was told of hills that began in mile 8, which I was prepared to confront.  They forgot to mention that the hills didn’t really stop until mile 11, though.  I was in hunch-backed agony and almost walking as I crested the last of the hills in Fairmont Park in mile 11.  At this point, I knew I would need to bid farewell to this undertaking at the earliest possible opportunity.  Even the bystanders – you know, the ones who are usually filled with unrealistic dimensions of supportiveness (i.e., shouting “You’re almost there” at mile 2 of the marathon) – were secretly willing me off the course.  One coach-wannabe spectator shouted at me, “Maintain good form” as I schlepped up a daunting hill like an overloaded U-Haul driven by someone learning to drive a stick shift for the first time.   These hills were as intense as the treacherous Jacksonville Symphony twin bridge span that drained me in the past two years, but that was only a 4-mile race.  With hills of that magnitude in this long race, it’s game over for this runner.  And then there are the hills from miles 18-20 in this race, too.  Fortunately, I was smart enough to spare myself that living hell this time around.

Everything is relative.  I chose this race as a potential Boston qualifier candidate because I had run it twice before (in 1997 and 2001).  I ran a great race in ’97 and an average race in ’01, but my memory of the course was quite clear – a basically flat and fast course that’s good to run a target time.  Really?  After living in Florida since 2006, this was the hilliest long race that I’ve run in at least a decade.  The rules have officially changed now.  I simply can’t race on courses with hills anymore.  I can’t train on bridges in Florida to get ready for hilly courses because pounding down those concrete monstrosities likely contributed to my back injury in May.  So, it appears that I’m left with “Florida flat” as the terrain for my races in the immediate future.   

With the season of New Year’s resolutions just around the corner, I have vowed to have more realistic expectations in moving forward with my competitive distance running schedule for 2012.  First, there will not be a marathon on my race calendar in 2012.  And for good reason – I’ve entered three marathons in the past two years and dropped out of two of them.  Any questions?  I will not register for another marathon until I can break 1:40 in a half marathon.  I really have no business registering for marathons with the hope of hitting a 3:30 when my half marathon times simply haven’t been where they need to be in the past two years.   Second, I plan to keep my races local in 2012.  Only runners who are well trained and following a disciplined training regimen for months should travel for races.  My training regimen for the past five months was respectable given the circumstances of my crazy schedule, but it wasn’t even close to where it needed to be to run a strong half marathon, let alone a full marathon.  Especially after sustaining my back injury in May and losing a month of training in June, I should have had more realistic expectations of what I could accomplish in the second half of 2011.  Hope springs eternal, but reality has a way of prevailing in the end.

So, expect to see me continuing to post blog entries in 2012 (likely starting in January) describing my experiences in races from the 5K to the half marathon in Northeast Florida.  I’m planning to do a few of the same races I ran last year just to get a good gauge of my fitness compared to the “glory days” of the first half of 2011 when I was running some very good times.  My mileage for 2011 will be about 1,250 based on my projected mileage for December, which is about 200 miles short of my career-best 1,400+ miles in 2010, the year of training that propelled me to success in late 2010 and early 2011.   I plan to develop a solid training base in the first half of 2012 so I can be prepared to run a very strong half marathon in Florida by November or December 2012. 

But the Boston qualifier dream is officially busted until further notice.  I’m too old to “fake it” and run a great marathon without proper training.  And I’m too busy in my career now to train by the book and do it the old fashioned way.  And I keep getting older and wimpier, too, which doesn’t help.  I just didn’t have a marathon mindset when I toed the start line last Sunday.  In fact, I had an overwhelming urge to fast forward that morning and go back to bed.  No guts, no glory.  I’ll just crawl under a rock for now until the physical and psychological endorphins start pumping through my system once again.

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