What's Wrong With Hermitic Training?

This year I trained almost exclusively on my own for the Boston Marathon: no club run, no competitive races and no one but myself on the long runs. It wasn't by design but the result of a litany of excuses, including poor planning, working long hours, post-work appointments, sleeping in and the flu. As the weeks passed, it became obvious my training was flawed. I decided to make it part of the game, as a test: Can I run a successful race after a mostly solitary training?

(Can you spot me training near St. Lichaa hermitage? Photo credit: Guillaume Piolle.).

Running a marathon is by definition an individual pursuit: You'll be on your own the day of the race anyway, said my massage therapist, a former professional female triathlete who still completes Ironman events in under 11 hours. True, but on race day I'll be surrounded by thousands of others who will inspire me to surpass myself. The same goes for training: running with better runners is the best way to get faster. That's why I always urge fellow runners to incorporate races into training, ranging from 5Ks to half marathons.

Races are more fun than trying to run fast on your own, especially on a treadmill, a torture device that is essential to my weekday speed sessions during the winter. They are also a good opportunity to get used to prestart jitters, to hone strategies and to fail: It's better to be disappointed by a training race than the race itself.

(Torture center with view, down in the basement.)

I kick-started the training for my past two Boston marathons with a 10 mile (16 km) race in Wilmington in January. The race, hilly and appropriately named "Icicle," is a great gauge for evaluating where I stand in terms of pace and a chance to grab a little award for my age group -- a morale booster. The race is about three months before the Boston Marathon so, even if I don't perform well (I ran 2010 at a slower pace than my eventual marathon), I know I have plenty of time left to progress.

This year I missed the Icicle race because of the flu, which grounded me for 10 days. The only other race I'd scheduled was a local 5K fun run, which I incorporated in the middle of a 20-miler. My plan was to get out of my comfort zone on a distance I'm not very good at by trying to follow the leaders as long as I could. It panned out when the fast 20-somethings apparently stayed home on that snowy day. After about 500 meters I was alone in front and stayed there for the rest of the distance.

Small local races can be very fast or very slow, depending on who shows up. I could have run a few more since. But I didn't: There was always an excuse.

Back in 2010, I wrote how running with the Delco RoadRunners Club helped me get back to running after a long illness and win my first award in a New York City half-marathon. Two months later, I ran the Boston Marathon in 3h01m43, a personal record at the time. There's a lesson here: Camaraderie makes you run faster. I see it as almost vital during training: talking about running gets some of the steam off my obsessive-compulsive mind.

It's good to be able to share stories that would bore non-runners to death. Most runners are over-sharers: we love to talk about our pace, injuries, pains, training strategies, types of shoes/socks, chafing and bowel movements. We have no shame. This year, I was unable to join my club on weekdays. I kept my insecurities about my training flaws mostly to myself. My husband has suffered the collateral damage of my lack of socializing with other workers. I try not to burden him with tedious tales of my runs, but I often can't help. Before he can utter the question "How was your run, honey,?" he usually already knows my pace, whether I'm happy about it, which muscles hurt and a few other details. 

I keep going back to my training log for the 2011 New York Marathon, the only time I finished under 3 hours. I check my pace and weekly mileage and inevitably find that my current training is inadequate for a repeat. But I like one entry: a half-marathon on Oct. 15, 2011. I ran it in a disappointing 1h30. Four weeks later, in New York, I ran the first half of the marathon in 1h27 and finished in 2h59m18. When I feel bad about my training, that log entry is like a chocolate bar.

With four weeks left before the race, I can't undo the wrongs. I continue to doggedly, solitarily follow my training plan. My speedwork has consisted of uninspired sessions on my basement's treadmill. I feel like I butchered them. I was often so tired after a day of work (I'm at my desk at 6:40 a.m., so no time for exercising before work) that I postponed those sessions day after day, until there was only Saturday left to do them. It is another quirk in my training this year: I would not recommend speedwork and tempo runs the day before a long run (which I usually do on Sundays). Those sessions belong to midweek.

Perhaps I got a few things right. I ran my long runs faster than I used to. They're no longer 20 milers. They are 20 one-milers, and in each I try keep a steady pace. My last long run of 21 miles averaged 7:04 a mile, which is "only" 12 seconds slower than the pace I would need to finish in 2h59m59. It restored some of my confidence. Not a lot.

Next Sunday will be the end of my hermitic experience: I'll be running a half-marathon in Wilmington with my club. The course -- downhill followed long uphill -- makes it a mini version of Boston's. I always use it as a dress rehearsal, perfectly timed four weeks before the race. This year it will be a public test of my private training. 

`Let Your Body Run.'

My husband, who likes to say he runs only when chased, gave me a great piece of advice for racing: let your body run, not your brain.

At the ING Rock'n'Roll Philadelphia half-marathon last Sunday, my mind was ahead of my body. I ran in 1h28m55, my second-best time ever on the distance, just 55 seconds more than my record, set in January in New York. I wasn't able to train specifically for the distance in the past months, so I should have been thrilled about the result.

Yet a thought has been nagging me before, during and after the race. It's a mathematical theory for time predicting, in reverse: the rule of thumb in predicting a marathon time is multiplying your time at a half-marathon and adding 10 minutes. Since I ran the Boston marathon in 3h01m43 this year, I should be able to run a half in 1h25m and 51 1/2 seconds. My brain knew that my body wasn't properly trained for it and that a sub-1h30 would be a great time for me. But my brain still dreamed of 1h25, creating a tinge of disappointment.

The tinge didn't spoil the joy of running in the streets of Philadelphia and along the Schuylkill River on a warm and sunny September morning. The race was homage to my previous run here, in 2007, when my husband and I had just started seeing each other. The 2007 Philadelphia half-marathon was my running introduction to what would become my adopted city. I also established a personal record at the time: 1h35m15.

The 2010 race started on a frustrating note. After warming up, I lined up to use the bathroom about 20 minutes before the start, thinking foolishly I would have enough time. I soon realized that the Rock'n'Roll management had failed to provide enough portable toilets for the more than 15,000 participants, a basic mistake akin to forgetting to provide enough chairs at a classical music concert. When I realized that there were about 30 people ahead of me, I gave up. My husband, always on the lookout for solutions to any problem, spotted a lone Porta Potty on the other side of the road that looked free. While running around the starting line to get to the miraculously free toilet, I got the chance to see some of the elite runners warming up, including Ryan Hall, the American winner of the 2009 race (He finished 13th this year). The potty was for them -- the elite -- I was told. I wasn't fast enough a runner to earn the right to pee.
Back at the start, I was ideally located behind the elite, in the first corral. During the first four miles of the race, which took us from Benjamin Franklin Parkway (the ``Champs-Elysées'' of Philadelphia) to the historical Center City and Independence Hall, something new happened to me. I started fast, at a pace of about 6m30s a mile (14.9 km/h), but I felt great. I am usually a relatively slow starter who needs many miles to warm up and picks up the pace later in the race, sometimes leading to reverse splits (when the pace is faster in the second half of the run than in the first). This time, I wasn't hurting, or at least not hurting as much as when I ran the first few miles of the Wilmington, Delaware, half-marathon in March.
When I passed the 5k mark in 20m31s, at a pace of 6m36s, I thought ``I can do this.'' I ran the 10k at an average of 6m47s. My legs and my body were feeling fine in spite of the lack of speedwork training (the repeat sessions of a mile or less at a very fast pace that build up strength and enable a runner to maintain speed during a race.)

 ((The Philadelphia skyline in the background. Feeling good at mile 5.))

I was looking forward to mile 5, where my husband would be waiting to cheer me, as he did three years ago. Once I got my marital encouragements, I was on my own along the river for the rest of the race.
Around mile 7, I overheard a conversation between two tall men.
``What was your time last year?'' one of them asked. ``1h26,'' responded the other.
``That should get us there'' the first man said, meaning that pace.
I thought, ``Here is my 1h26 bus! All aboard!!,'' and positioned myself behind them: front seat.
Not so fast. I realized I misunderstood: the answer was ``1h24.'' Soon, I dropped off the bus and saw it gaining ground over me, passing other people. After 5 or 10 minutes, the men were out of sight. ``There goes my bus,'' I thought.
That's when I realized that my pace had fallen to over 7 minutes a mile. Unlike some runners who wear satellite-based watches informing them at anytime of their pace, mileage and heart beat, I avoid obsessing about the time. The organizers provided a clock at almost every mile, so avoiding it completely was difficult. I like to calculate my pace because it occupies my mind, and usually I can just feel if I'm too fast or too slow.
This time was different. I thought I had maintained my pace. I was surrounded by a group of runners who were going at about the same pace, which may have created the illusion that we were all maintaining our speed. When I tried to pick up, the pace stayed around 7 minutes a mile. I couldn't even force to the point of hurting myself: my body seems to have a built-in fuse that pops when I try to get in the red zone and caps my pace at a certain limit, no matter how hard I try. I knew then I had reached a ceiling and that only one thing would have helped me get through it: better preparation for the distance and weekly speedwork sessions. Too late.

I was mile 9 or so, when it started to get really difficult. I pushed myself, and took water at the fluid station to make sure I wouldn't run out of steam.
I spotted a young woman with legs as long as I am tall. What I also noticed was that she was slowing down. To stay motivated now that I knew I wouldn't approach 1h25 and probably wouldn't beat my 1h28 personal record, I decided to catch up with her. Once she was behind me, I looked for the next female runner ahead of me. The course was fairly flat, with a few very mild slopes. Hills are my strength, because I train on them: there's no flat ground around my house. The female runner was slowing down uphill, so I picked up the pace. After some effort, I passed her. She wasn't done and stayed close behind. For the next mile, we pushed each other.

((The final push, with the Philadelphia Museum of Arts in the background.))

A shirtless man passed me, taunting me in Spanish to pick up the pace. I answered in French, as a joke, and realized he was talking to a fellow runner behind us. Never mind, I took up the challenge and started to race with him. He finished 8 seconds ahead of me but I didn't give up the fight easily.

It was a fine day in Philadelphia. As I sprinted toward the finish line, near the stairs leading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art that were made famous by a scene in ``Rocky,'' the music theme of the movie aptly blasted out from the loudspeakers.

 ((Let the ``Rocky'' soundtrack play, Adriaaaannnnnn!))

My Award Thank You Speech

``I would like to thank my friends at the Delco Road Runners Club without whom I wouldn't be here today. Thank you Byron, Bill, Janet, Jack, Steve, Chrissy, Mike, Bob, Noreen, Terry, Frank, Bill, Shirley, John, Amy and all of you I am not citing now because I'm so emotional -- you know who you are.'' (Tears of joy. Make-up runs. Applause.)

It's awards season in Hollywood, and in Pennsylvania too. I won mine 1 1/2 weeks ago. It's not an Oscar. I didn't get to wear an evening gown and go on a stage to accept it from Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. This award, my first in a New York City race, was earned in shorts and the acceptance speech is in writing. I like it that way.

I broke my personal record for a half-marathon on Jan. 24 by 7 minutes 15 seconds, finishing 3rd in my age category and 11th woman out of 2,155. The off-the-charts performance can be summarized by statistics. When I crossed the finish line in Central Park in 1h28 for 13.1 miles (21.1 km) this year, I was at mile 12.05 (19.4 km) on the same course last year. I finished 11 minutes 8 seconds behind the winner, who is 10 years younger than I am and, according to her biography on the New York Athletic Club's Web site, was the most decorated cross-country athlete of Columbia University when she graduated in 2006. My age-graded score, a measure of the performance adjusted for age and gender, was above 70 percent for the first time, at 76 percent. That's a regional class level; 80 percent is national. In the process of running this half-marathon, which is hilly, I broke my records on a 10 km and a 10 mile race -- by minutes. The statistics make it seem like another person ran under my name.

Ever since, I've been trying to answer the question: ``How did I do it?''

Among the factors that varied compared with previous races -- and could explain the difference -- were: the weather conditions were ideal with 37 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) and little wind; I jogged about 3.5 miles to get to the race, which warmed me up; I took water three times, even though it was too cold to be thirsty; I ate one gel around mile 8 and drank some Gatorade once to keep the sugar level in my muscles; I had decided to race and stayed focused all the time; I didn't wait for the second half of the race to push myself, as I usually do; on hills, I pushed one notch further than I thought I could handle, yet stayed below a level I couldn't sustain over time; I ran as fast as I could downhill to gain a few seconds here and there; I went to bed early and slept well; I didn't run the day before, and only used the stationary bike for a mild workout; I recently converted to Mizuno running shoes and my pair of Rider 13 was new.

(Photo: Staying focused at the Manhattan Half-Marathon on Jan. 24.)

In the last 300 yards, I got a boost from a runner behind me, who I assume was a coach or team leader. ``Let's go team!'' he said. ``Now is the time to give everything you've got! See this girl, go get her. You can get her!'' Although I'm not a very good finisher, I sprinted to the finish line as fast as if he'd send a pack of wolves after me.

All those reasons don't seem enough to explain the gigantic leap in my performance.
``I don't know how I did it,'' I told Byron, one of the co-founders of the Delco Road Runner Club, my local club.
``It's because you started running with us!'' said Byron, who has run 44 marathons over a period of 40 years -- including 39 between the ages of 21 and 36 -- and a personal record of 2h37m45s on the distance.

Since Thanksgiving at the end of November, I have been running with members of the club three times a week. They make running in the cold and in the dark fun on Wednesday nights. They enabled me to train outside in the winter on a work day for the first time since I moved in the area almost two years ago -- saving me from a dreaded treadmill workout at the gym. They took me to a trail race in Maryland. They made the longer weekend runs seem shorter and easier. Without realizing it, I trained better with them than on my own.

So thank you Delco RRC.