As the year comes to an end and I begin to make new goals for myself in 2019, I look back at the past year to analyze my year of training and racing. What worked. What didn't. And most importantly, what lessons can I learn and how can I apply them to my future goals. In the last few months of 2017, I was running with a ton of confidence. Every time I challenged my body with more mileage and faster paces, my legs responded and seemed to ask for more. I PR'd in a number of races and had just qualified for Boston at the Whistlestop Marathon in October. Working hard, pushing myself and achieving the goals I set for myself felt amazing. Entering the 2018 race season, I wanted to continue to build on my momentum and keep raising the bar I set for myself as a runner. Throughout the year I was slowly reminded, over and over again, that running can sometimes be very humbling. And I was humbled in 2018.
My first race of the season was the Door County half marathon. Very scenic but hilly course that kicks my butt every year. This year I ran well for the first 11 miles, but ran out of gas towards the end. I can't remember where I heard this or if I read it somewhere, but I'll paraphrase it as my take away lesson for this race: you can't show up to the start line and expect your body to perform in a way that it hasn't been prepped or trained for. On race day, no amount of adrenaline or determination can make up for inadequate training. For the past few years, my goal pace training runs leading up to this race maxed out around 10 miles, which could explain why, every year, I find myself hurting around mile 11. For me, more time must be spent running the half distance at my goal pace. For this race specifically, longer tempo runs, working in as many hills as I can find.
About 5 weeks out from my June marathon, I completed my last 20 mile long run. These long runs are typically the most enjoyable for me simply because it gets me over the hump in terms of the real peak, focused training. And once the long run is complete, I can breathe a little sigh of relief that most of the hard work is done and I can enjoy a few weeks of taper before the marathon. So the last long run went well. Great. I took 3 or 4 days off from running to let my body recover, and spent a few days after that doing some easy running. Exactly three weeks out from the marathon, I was doing a speed workout and strained the soleus muscle in my calf. Long story short, it limited my ability to PR at the marathon. My lesson from this is two fold. First is to respect the long run. Longer runs, especially in the 20+ mile range and at close to goal pace is hard on the body, and significant time should be given to let the body recover and adapt from that stress. I thought I had given myself enough time, but perhaps not. The second lesson was that I have to be better at properly cooling down after a workout and stretching all of my muscles, calves included. Neglecting these tiny little details are common I'm sure among many runners, but as in my case, it can lead to injury. It was a tough lesson to learn, but I hope I'll become a better runner because of it.
The next race on the schedule was a 25k trail race. As I have talked about before, I got lost on several occasions and wound up running a time a lot slower than I had anticipated. I didn't have any time goals for this race, so I wasn't too concerned with the results, but now I look back at the race with a little regret and disappointment. I know if I can run the way I'm capable of (and stay on the course without getting lost!) I can challenge the better runners near the front. My hope is to get back to High Cliff next year to redeem myself. With this race, I think it goes without saying that my lesson would have to be to study and become familiar with the race route as much as possible, especially for trail races. Or pay better attention to the signs marking the trail!!
Since I couldn't PR at the Manitowoc marathon in June, I set my sights on the Fox Valley Marathon in September. I again ran well for the first 20 miles or so, and according to my pacing team/cheering squad (my wife and family) I was only about 45 seconds behind my goal time. But I hit the wall around mile 21, and the last 5 miles were brutal. Being totally deflated and disappointed, I did a lot of research in the weeks following the marathon, and I came away with a few strategies that may help me in my next race. The first thing I came away with is that some days the body just doesn't want to preform. (This is not an excuse, I swear!) You can train properly, dial in the nutrition and get enough rest leading up to the race and still not have a good day. Some of the best long distance runners and triathletes in world have these days too. While reading this didn't really make me feel better, it did once again prove to me that there are areas in my training that I can improve on. The first is better pacing during the race. Like I said before, I can't expect my body to race in a way that it hasn't practiced time and time again. For my next marathon, I'll try adding more miles per week, as well as longer long runs with a greater percentage of this time being spent at goal race pace. During my PR marathon race, I really stressed running easy and saving energy for the last 5k. So pacing myself a little better and saving myself for the finish will be my focus during the next marathon. I also did a lot of research on nutrition and found I can make some tweaks in this area as well. My pre-race "ritual" has always been eating a banana and granola bar and drinking water or gatorade about 2 hours before the race. Why a banana and granola bar? I'm not really sure. They were always two foods that agreed with my stomach early in the morning, along with giving me a decent amount of carbs. Through my research I found that both the amount of carbs I was eating , as well as the timing of it, may have affected my performance. Consuming more carbs (the recommendations I found were around 100 grams) before the race is something I'm going to try, as well as starting the process a little sooner, eating/drinking 3-4 hours before the race. I'm hoping this small change will improve my race results by helping me avoid the wall. Because my stomach seems to handle the GU packets well during a race, I'm going to try taking a GU every 20-30 minutes, instead of 30-40 minutes which I have been doing, as well as taking one just before the race starts. Lastly, I'm going to focus on eating more carbs the week leading up to the race, as well as getting more sleep. I've always felt I did a good job in these areas, but I think I can improve on it. Anything to avoid the wall!
The last race of the season was the challenging Blackhawk ridge 16k trail run. I say it again and again, but I love trail running, so this was by far my most enjoyable race this year. The first half of the course has some hills that will stop you dead in your tracks. In fact, I enjoyed this course so much that I have gone back twice this fall to run it, just for fun. But whether it was while training or actually racing, this course taught me the lesson of pacing and patience once again. Push too hard up any hill and you'll pop, and you won't be able to bring the heart rate back down before the next hill. Hit too many hills in a row too fast, and you're toast for the rest of the race. Even during my trips back, on relatively low key "fun" runs, I find myself struggling to get up some of the hills. But this challenge is only part of the appeal to trail running for me. Moving through the woods has a flow to it that I struggle to describe. Instead of dissecting every aspect of my life over and over again like I typically do during long road runs, instead my mind seems free to admire the beauty of nature and everything I see in the woods. The birds, the color of the trees and even the rocks underneath my feet give me a sense of fulfillment that I don't get from running on the road. Having trails so close to my house, I hope to do as much trail running as possible in 2019.
So what does 2019 look like? I'm not really sure yet, but I'm signed up for the Door County half marathon again this year (12 years running!) as well as the Cellcom marathon in Green Bay. There will be some more trail races in the fall, but when and where I'm not quite sure yet. Happy new year!!