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| Me at around the Mile 26 mark. I was in more pain than I appear to be in this photo. Photo courtesy of Jeremy. |
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Hartford, CT
Difficulty score: 2/10 (0 for weather, 2 for course profile, 0 for altitude)
When I told people over the summer that I was training for the Hartford Marathon, most of their reactions were "why Hartford?" I had actually had my eye on Hartford for a few years now; the Hartford Marathon had received almost uniformly great reviews, and I knew that mid-October in New England would be gorgeous. It was also a mid-size marathon of a few thousand people, and I tend to fare better in those. Plus, Jeremy, in his quest to complete a marathon in all fifty states, still had not done one in Connecticut and also wanted to run Hartford. We trained together for Chicago last year, and I thought it would be fun to train together again. Unfortunately, he was unable to run Hartford this year, but he was an excellent supporter and cheer squad.
The course was not particularly easy, although it was not terribly difficult either (the difficulty score above should be more like 2.5 rather than 2). The first half had a lot of twists and turns, and numerous rolling hills. After the start in Bushnell Park, runners weave through downtown Hartford before running along the Riverfront Walk by way of a narrow bike path that, according to the elevation chart, had some pretty nontrivial uphills. Then we would be back on the streets of downtown Hartford before crossing the Founder's Bridge and running through East Hartford and along the other side of the Connecticut River. The second half, which consisted mostly an out-and-back segment down a semi-rural road through South Windsor, had fewer twists and turns, but had a surprisingly large number of uphills and downhills. Regardless, I'm happy with my time and I am glad I did this marathon. For those looking for a well-executed fall New England race in which weather is rarely an issue and that is quite aesthetically pleasing (especially with the leaves changing color; I'm referring to that long out-and-back part down that rural road between Miles 10 and 23 and some segments along the Connecticut River near Miles 3 and 4 in particular), I would recommend Hartford.
Also, I even got a video of me at various points throughout the race. The video shows the start of the race and then me at Mile 6, at the halfway point, at around Mile 17, at around Mile 25, and my big finish. I cannot help but notice how often I check my Garmin.
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| Map of the Hartford Marathon, from the race website. |
Training
I basically repeated my training schedule for Chicago, thinking that it would bring me similar results. My training started with a three-week lead-in in which I would run six days a week and ramp up my mileage from about 20-25 miles per week toward the end of May and beginning of June to about 45-48 miles (not something I recommend; I at least had cross-training from a lot of dancing during the month before, I was able to comfortably cover 50 or more miles in a week in recent months, and all of the running was done at an easy pace).
Throughout the remaining 14 weeks of the training cycle, I would run six days per week most of the time, with the structure being pretty uniform:
- Monday: 4-6 mile recovery run at 9:00/mile or slower to recover from the previous day's long run.
- Tuesday: my reserved quality running day. After the initial few weeks, Tuesdays were speed workouts with intervals at current 5K pace (5:55 to 6:00/mile) that became progressively longer (5 x 960 meters for two weeks, 4 x 1200 to 1280 meters for the next two weeks, and then 3 x 1600 meters) and then turned into 8-10 mile runs with 4-6 miles at tempo (10-miler to half-marathon effort).
- Wednesday: OFF
- Thursday: mini-long runs of 8-14 miles. Most of these miles were at long run pace (7:40 to 8:20/mile) with about 15 minutes of current marathon PR pace running (7:00 to 7:05/mile) toward the end of these runs every other week or so.
- Friday: 4-5 mile recovery run at 9:00/mile or slower to recover from the previous day's mini-long run.
- Saturday: 6-8 miles easy (7:40 to 8:20/mile) plus hill sprints.
- Sunday: long runs of 12-21 miles, mostly at 7:40 to 8:20/mile with a few miles of marathon PR pace running.
I also ran the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon as a tune-up three weeks before Hartford. I had actually completed the vast majority of my training plan as originally written, subject to some minor rearrangement to accommodate life and friends. I did get hit with a pretty nasty summer cold during the second week of the training cycle, forcing me to take half of that week off and readjust everything else, but that did not have much of an effect on the rest of the training cycle. I did also neglect the Saturday hill sprints during the later weeks; although I doubt that would come back to haunt me later, they could have really helped.
I ended up hitting similar mileage to that from my training in Chicago. After that initial mileage building, my weekly mileage was in the mid-fifties to mid-sixties, aside from a few reduced mileage weeks (40-45 miles) for recovery. My peak mileage was one 65-mile week two weeks before the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon, which immediately followed two back-to-back 63-mile weeks.
Race Day
I arrived in Hartford on Thursday evening with Jeremy, which would give me a full day in Hartford before the race. The day before was intentionally kept low-key. After a three-mile shake-out run in the morning with Brian, who was seeking to run a marathon in all fifty states and still needed to finish Connecticut, we met up with his parents and Jeremy for some breakfast. I then went to the expo to pick up my bib and some Shot Blocks for the race. Jeremy and I returned to the hotel for a few hours and rested before going to see the Mark Twain House (something I definitely recommend for those visiting Hartford). After a pasta dinner in downtown Hartford, we parted ways and I went to bed relatively early.
At around 6:40 the next morning, I took the shuttle to the start line downtown (this was another thing I liked about this marathon: like in Chicago, the city really works with the organizers to accommodate the runners). Weather was perfect: sunny, high forties at the start, and never really rising above the high fifties by the time I was finished.
My plan was to target 7:00 to 7:05/mile for the first 30K of the marathon and to speed up afterwards if I was feeling sufficiently strong. My primary goal was to qualify for Boston by a large enough margin so that I would not really have to worry about whether I would actually get to run Boston in 2017. This was actually the first time I would need to run a 3:10:00 rather than a 3:05:00 to qualify for Boston; although I was only 33 on the day of the race, I would be 35 on the day of the Boston Marathon in 2017. I realized that if I could just repeat what I did in the Chicago Marathon and the Shamrock Marathon (and my training and tune-up half-marathon both indicated that I was perfectly capable of that), then I would be more than five minutes under my Boston qualifying standard (a BQ-5:00), which would allow me to register during the first week of registration and give me a very high chance of actually being able to run Boston. If not, I probably would still have a very good chance if I got close to being five minutes under my standard.
Given how tricky I thought the first 15K was, I also decided that I should not freak out if some of those early miles were more like 7:05 to 7:10/mile pace. This plan, I figured, would give me a shot in finishing in 3:04:59 or better. Given my mileage during this training cycle and my time in the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon (1:25:55, although under less than ideal conditions of 70 degrees with 62 degree dew point), my plan wasn't completely harebrained; I could expect my marathon time to be about 2.15 times my half-marathon time, or 3:04:43 (7:03/mile).
Miles 1 through 9 (7:13, 7:08, 7:03, 7:11, 7:09, 7:04, 7:03, 7:16, 7:10): The first few miles were very easy; most of the segment before the Riverfront Walk was flat, with some noticeable downhills. The uphills were also quite pitiful. That, coupled with the fact that everyone was feeling fresh at this point, made it very tempting to go a little faster and try to bank some time, and many people were doing exactly that; during these early miles, I got passed by dozens of people, including the 3:10:00 and the 3:20:00 pace groups. That completely baffled me as even as early as Mile 2, I was going significantly faster than 3:10:00 pace and definitely much faster than 3:20:00 pace. Actually, after the 3:20:00 pace group leader passed me, somebody asked if that was the 3:20:00 pace group; I told them that the pace groups were way off, and not to follow them.
After we got to the Riverfront Walk, the course became much more undulating. Although some of the uphills were quite substantial, like that long one before the end of the Riverfront Walk, none of them felt difficult since I was still feeling fresh. I was happy that my pace was exactly where I wanted it to be, but I was also annoyed since at the Mile 4 marker, my Garmin already indicated that I covered 4.05 miles; but I told myself that it was not too late to run tangents better in the next miles and avoid covering something like 26.50 miles.
Brian caught up with me around Mile 5, after the Riverfront Walk ended and we returned to the streets of downtown Hartford. We ran together for much of the next several miles. I was doing a great job of keeping my pace within the range that I wanted through East Hartford. It turns out that I ran by my hotel at around Mile 7, and I did not even notice; I didn't know until my post-marathon walk around East Hartford later that afternoon, when I suddenly recognized the road outside my hotel as part of the course.
Then came an noticeable slowdown. I finished Mile 8, along a narrow path on the other side of the Connecticut River, at 7:16. I had no idea why; this mile was not particularly difficult, but for some reason, I slowed down. Mile 9 was better, but still a little slower. Perhaps this was just one of those patches in the middle of the marathon where I just seemed to have lost a little spring in my step. But my pace improved in the following miles.
Miles 10 through 17 (7:07, 7:01, 7:08, 7:09, 7:06, 7:09, 7:05, 7:07): Now I was on that out-and-back segment through South Windsor. The crowds on the side of the course, as expected, were not nearly as large as the ones from Chicago last year, but there were still quite a few neighborhood people out heckling the runners throughout. As I crossed an at-grade railroad tracks crossing, I kept praying that no trains would come by. I really hoped no trains would come by on the way back; a train crossing would have been the last thing I wanted to have 23 miles into a marathon.
Fortunately, no trains crossed on the way out or on the way back. I passed quite a few people on this stretch, but I found this stretch much more difficult than I thought it would be. The course elevation profile through this segment was quite noticeably up-and-down, with some substantial uphill segments including all of Mile 17. My pace through these miles were mostly between 7:05 and 7:10/mile; not quite the 7:00 to 7:05/mile that I really would have liked, but this pace actually felt like I was pushing it a little. I worried that if I tried to push the pace even a little at this point, I would risk imploding later in the race.
I crossed the halfway mark at 1:34:28, slower than my halfway split for the Shamrock and Chicago Marathons. I was not terribly concerned; I have been able to execute negative splits during most of my marathons, and I had faith that I would be able to do it again this time. Besides, I figured that much of my slower first half was due to me not running the tangents well; by the time I reached the 13.1-mile mark, I had covered about 13.25 miles. As mentioned before, the second half of the race had much fewer twists and turns; thus, I would probably be covering less distance in the second half, which would also really help for a negative split.
I crossed the 17-mile mark at around 2:02:00. As I rounded the turnaround, I did some math; a PR was probably not going to happen today, but I had 63 minutes to cover the remaining 9.2 miles in order to finish in 3:05:00 or less. My plan for the remainder of the race was to keep my pace under 7:00/mile and aim for about 6:45 to 6:50/mile or slightly faster.
Mile 18 to the end (6:54, 6:53, 6:57, 6:46, 6:52, 6:49, 6:57, 6:54, 7:00, 2:34 for the last 0.43 miles): Mile 18 was a very long downhill, so it was hard not to actually accelerate during this part of the race. I completed this mile in 6:54, about ten seconds faster than the previous several miles. I tried to gradually bring my pace down to around 6:40 to 6:45/mile during this segment. But my quads were screaming at this point, and 6:50 to 7:00/mile was the best I can manage for most of these miles.
These few miles were a blur; I was focusing on reaching the finish line in one piece, and preferably under 3:05:00. I passed many more people that passed me in the early miles, but not a single person passed me. But otherwise, I did not notice too much of my surroundings. I did remember a small dog at around Mile 22 that kept growling and barking at all the runners passing by. I did also remember quite a few rolling hills that I faced on the way out that were much more noticeable now. By the time I arrived at the 24-mile mark, I had very little left. I just focused on maintaining my pace until the end, and saving some strength for the very difficult last mile.
After the Mile 25 mark, I found myself face-to-face with an uphill entrance ramp onto Founders' Bridge. This last mile consisted of two large uphill segments: the first being a half-mile long one along Founder's Bridge and the second one being a shorter one along Pearl Street. We did get a relatively substantial downhill segment in between as a break, as well as a downhill finish, but putting this at the end of the race was cruel. I passed quite a few people during this mile, but I slowed down by a few seconds; I was giving it all I had left at this point. I kept glancing at my Garmin, watching it tick past 3:05:00. Jeremy and Brian's parents were waiting near the Mile 26 mark, and seeing them gave me the extra boost I needed to carry me through the finish.
Even though I didn't run a BQ-5:00 or better, I got pretty close; 3:05:43 (7:05/mile), which was a BQ-4:17. I ran a three-minute negative split; whereas I finished the first half of the race in 1:34:28, I covered the second half in 1:31:15. Even though I could have run the tangents a little better, which was not an easy feat on this particular course due to the twists and turns in the early miles (I covered 26.43 miles during this race according to my Garmin), I think this was the best I was able to do on race day.
I first went to the results tent to get my preliminary results and then enjoyed the very well-organized post-race festivities, including some vegetarian chili. After about an hour or so, Jeremy and I took the shuttle back to the hotel.
Next Steps
With a BQ-4:17, I have a much better shot at actually getting to run Boston in 2017. But I would feel even better if I had a BQ-5:00 or better and was able to register during the first week of registration. I feel like I am definitely capable of a 3:04:59 or better right now, particularly on a less hilly and straighter course.
Thus, I am strongly considering running the Shamrock Marathon again in March; this race features a fast and flat course with much fewer turns than Hartford, although headwinds can be a problem in Virginia Beach in March, and is just as well executed as Hartford was. In the meantime, I plan on doing some shorter distance races, including the Veteran's Day 10K in the beginning of November, the Annapolis Running Classic 10K in mid-November, and the Jingle All the Way 5K in the beginning of December.
Race Day
I arrived in Hartford on Thursday evening with Jeremy, which would give me a full day in Hartford before the race. The day before was intentionally kept low-key. After a three-mile shake-out run in the morning with Brian, who was seeking to run a marathon in all fifty states and still needed to finish Connecticut, we met up with his parents and Jeremy for some breakfast. I then went to the expo to pick up my bib and some Shot Blocks for the race. Jeremy and I returned to the hotel for a few hours and rested before going to see the Mark Twain House (something I definitely recommend for those visiting Hartford). After a pasta dinner in downtown Hartford, we parted ways and I went to bed relatively early.
At around 6:40 the next morning, I took the shuttle to the start line downtown (this was another thing I liked about this marathon: like in Chicago, the city really works with the organizers to accommodate the runners). Weather was perfect: sunny, high forties at the start, and never really rising above the high fifties by the time I was finished.
My plan was to target 7:00 to 7:05/mile for the first 30K of the marathon and to speed up afterwards if I was feeling sufficiently strong. My primary goal was to qualify for Boston by a large enough margin so that I would not really have to worry about whether I would actually get to run Boston in 2017. This was actually the first time I would need to run a 3:10:00 rather than a 3:05:00 to qualify for Boston; although I was only 33 on the day of the race, I would be 35 on the day of the Boston Marathon in 2017. I realized that if I could just repeat what I did in the Chicago Marathon and the Shamrock Marathon (and my training and tune-up half-marathon both indicated that I was perfectly capable of that), then I would be more than five minutes under my Boston qualifying standard (a BQ-5:00), which would allow me to register during the first week of registration and give me a very high chance of actually being able to run Boston. If not, I probably would still have a very good chance if I got close to being five minutes under my standard.
Given how tricky I thought the first 15K was, I also decided that I should not freak out if some of those early miles were more like 7:05 to 7:10/mile pace. This plan, I figured, would give me a shot in finishing in 3:04:59 or better. Given my mileage during this training cycle and my time in the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon (1:25:55, although under less than ideal conditions of 70 degrees with 62 degree dew point), my plan wasn't completely harebrained; I could expect my marathon time to be about 2.15 times my half-marathon time, or 3:04:43 (7:03/mile).
Miles 1 through 9 (7:13, 7:08, 7:03, 7:11, 7:09, 7:04, 7:03, 7:16, 7:10): The first few miles were very easy; most of the segment before the Riverfront Walk was flat, with some noticeable downhills. The uphills were also quite pitiful. That, coupled with the fact that everyone was feeling fresh at this point, made it very tempting to go a little faster and try to bank some time, and many people were doing exactly that; during these early miles, I got passed by dozens of people, including the 3:10:00 and the 3:20:00 pace groups. That completely baffled me as even as early as Mile 2, I was going significantly faster than 3:10:00 pace and definitely much faster than 3:20:00 pace. Actually, after the 3:20:00 pace group leader passed me, somebody asked if that was the 3:20:00 pace group; I told them that the pace groups were way off, and not to follow them.
After we got to the Riverfront Walk, the course became much more undulating. Although some of the uphills were quite substantial, like that long one before the end of the Riverfront Walk, none of them felt difficult since I was still feeling fresh. I was happy that my pace was exactly where I wanted it to be, but I was also annoyed since at the Mile 4 marker, my Garmin already indicated that I covered 4.05 miles; but I told myself that it was not too late to run tangents better in the next miles and avoid covering something like 26.50 miles.
Brian caught up with me around Mile 5, after the Riverfront Walk ended and we returned to the streets of downtown Hartford. We ran together for much of the next several miles. I was doing a great job of keeping my pace within the range that I wanted through East Hartford. It turns out that I ran by my hotel at around Mile 7, and I did not even notice; I didn't know until my post-marathon walk around East Hartford later that afternoon, when I suddenly recognized the road outside my hotel as part of the course.
Then came an noticeable slowdown. I finished Mile 8, along a narrow path on the other side of the Connecticut River, at 7:16. I had no idea why; this mile was not particularly difficult, but for some reason, I slowed down. Mile 9 was better, but still a little slower. Perhaps this was just one of those patches in the middle of the marathon where I just seemed to have lost a little spring in my step. But my pace improved in the following miles.
Miles 10 through 17 (7:07, 7:01, 7:08, 7:09, 7:06, 7:09, 7:05, 7:07): Now I was on that out-and-back segment through South Windsor. The crowds on the side of the course, as expected, were not nearly as large as the ones from Chicago last year, but there were still quite a few neighborhood people out heckling the runners throughout. As I crossed an at-grade railroad tracks crossing, I kept praying that no trains would come by. I really hoped no trains would come by on the way back; a train crossing would have been the last thing I wanted to have 23 miles into a marathon.
Fortunately, no trains crossed on the way out or on the way back. I passed quite a few people on this stretch, but I found this stretch much more difficult than I thought it would be. The course elevation profile through this segment was quite noticeably up-and-down, with some substantial uphill segments including all of Mile 17. My pace through these miles were mostly between 7:05 and 7:10/mile; not quite the 7:00 to 7:05/mile that I really would have liked, but this pace actually felt like I was pushing it a little. I worried that if I tried to push the pace even a little at this point, I would risk imploding later in the race.
I crossed the halfway mark at 1:34:28, slower than my halfway split for the Shamrock and Chicago Marathons. I was not terribly concerned; I have been able to execute negative splits during most of my marathons, and I had faith that I would be able to do it again this time. Besides, I figured that much of my slower first half was due to me not running the tangents well; by the time I reached the 13.1-mile mark, I had covered about 13.25 miles. As mentioned before, the second half of the race had much fewer twists and turns; thus, I would probably be covering less distance in the second half, which would also really help for a negative split.
I crossed the 17-mile mark at around 2:02:00. As I rounded the turnaround, I did some math; a PR was probably not going to happen today, but I had 63 minutes to cover the remaining 9.2 miles in order to finish in 3:05:00 or less. My plan for the remainder of the race was to keep my pace under 7:00/mile and aim for about 6:45 to 6:50/mile or slightly faster.
Mile 18 to the end (6:54, 6:53, 6:57, 6:46, 6:52, 6:49, 6:57, 6:54, 7:00, 2:34 for the last 0.43 miles): Mile 18 was a very long downhill, so it was hard not to actually accelerate during this part of the race. I completed this mile in 6:54, about ten seconds faster than the previous several miles. I tried to gradually bring my pace down to around 6:40 to 6:45/mile during this segment. But my quads were screaming at this point, and 6:50 to 7:00/mile was the best I can manage for most of these miles.
These few miles were a blur; I was focusing on reaching the finish line in one piece, and preferably under 3:05:00. I passed many more people that passed me in the early miles, but not a single person passed me. But otherwise, I did not notice too much of my surroundings. I did remember a small dog at around Mile 22 that kept growling and barking at all the runners passing by. I did also remember quite a few rolling hills that I faced on the way out that were much more noticeable now. By the time I arrived at the 24-mile mark, I had very little left. I just focused on maintaining my pace until the end, and saving some strength for the very difficult last mile.
After the Mile 25 mark, I found myself face-to-face with an uphill entrance ramp onto Founders' Bridge. This last mile consisted of two large uphill segments: the first being a half-mile long one along Founder's Bridge and the second one being a shorter one along Pearl Street. We did get a relatively substantial downhill segment in between as a break, as well as a downhill finish, but putting this at the end of the race was cruel. I passed quite a few people during this mile, but I slowed down by a few seconds; I was giving it all I had left at this point. I kept glancing at my Garmin, watching it tick past 3:05:00. Jeremy and Brian's parents were waiting near the Mile 26 mark, and seeing them gave me the extra boost I needed to carry me through the finish.
Even though I didn't run a BQ-5:00 or better, I got pretty close; 3:05:43 (7:05/mile), which was a BQ-4:17. I ran a three-minute negative split; whereas I finished the first half of the race in 1:34:28, I covered the second half in 1:31:15. Even though I could have run the tangents a little better, which was not an easy feat on this particular course due to the twists and turns in the early miles (I covered 26.43 miles during this race according to my Garmin), I think this was the best I was able to do on race day.
I first went to the results tent to get my preliminary results and then enjoyed the very well-organized post-race festivities, including some vegetarian chili. After about an hour or so, Jeremy and I took the shuttle back to the hotel.
Next Steps
With a BQ-4:17, I have a much better shot at actually getting to run Boston in 2017. But I would feel even better if I had a BQ-5:00 or better and was able to register during the first week of registration. I feel like I am definitely capable of a 3:04:59 or better right now, particularly on a less hilly and straighter course.
Thus, I am strongly considering running the Shamrock Marathon again in March; this race features a fast and flat course with much fewer turns than Hartford, although headwinds can be a problem in Virginia Beach in March, and is just as well executed as Hartford was. In the meantime, I plan on doing some shorter distance races, including the Veteran's Day 10K in the beginning of November, the Annapolis Running Classic 10K in mid-November, and the Jingle All the Way 5K in the beginning of December.
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