Race Post-Mortem: Army 10-Miler

Justin, me, and Mick post-race.  This was our last tune-up race before the Richmond Marathon.  Photo by Justin.

Sunday, October 9, 2016
Arlington, VA
Difficulty score: 2/10 (0 for weather, 2 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

The Army 10-Miler, the second of two tune-up races for my upcoming marathon, was to be my first 10-mile race ever.  People ask me why I have never run a 10-miler, in spite of having run eight marathons and more than a dozen half-marathons.  It seemed like good opportunities for a 10-miler for me never really surfaced these past several years; all the 10-mile races in the DC area took place close to or right after a fall or spring marathon.  And last year, when I finally got to run the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler, it needed to be shortened to 9.39 miles due to an accident on the course.

I was excited to finally have the opportunity to run a 10-mile race.  I had reason to believe that I could achieve a very good time for my 10-miler debut so long as I didn't screw up the pacing.  The weather in DC on an October morning was usually better than the low seventies and high humidity under which I ran the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon last month, and this course was considered as fast, if not faster, than the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler.  Starting near the Pentagon, we would head north on Virginia Route 110 to Arlington National Cemetery and then across the Memorial Bridge and down Constitution Avenue.  After less than a quarter of a mile on Constitution Avenue, we would then turn left onto 20th Street Northwest and then a left on Virginia Avenue.  Virginia Avenue would then spit us out onto Rock Creek Parkway, which we would follow back south toward the monuments.  After merging onto Independence Avenue, we would do this out-and-back segment before turning onto the segment that most runners dread: the 14th Street Bridge.  The 14th Street Bridge would take us back to Arlington, where we would complete the last mile of the race through the streets of Crystal City.  All in all, this was a relatively flat course with a few hills to make things interesting.

Thus, I had set my bare minimum goal to be 1:04:20, the slowest I could run in order to score 70 points toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit.  My primary goal was sub-1:04:00, and my "if everything went right" goal was sub-1:03:00.

Map of the Army 10-Miler (from the race website).

Training

My training this past summer was very much like my training for Chicago and Hartford: six days of running per week, with a very similar weekly structure.

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: a two-mile warm-up plus 25 to 40 minutes at tempo effort (between 6:18 and 6:36/mile, with adjustments for the weather) followed by a cool-down
• Wednesday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Tuesday's tempo run
• Thursday: mini-long runs lasting between one hour and one hour 30 minutes, with most of these miles being easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile); I did occasionally throw in some marathon effort miles
• Friday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Thursday's mini-long run
• Saturday: 50 minutes to one hour 20 minutes easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile), with hill sprints
• Sunday: long runs of one hour 30 minutes to two hours 30 minutes at 7:48 to 8:24/mile pace, with some of these being fast finish

So far, my mileage most weeks have been in the fifties or high forties, with a maximum of about 56 miles.  Training was made a little more difficult by an unusually hot and humid summer here in DC, but overall, I was able to remain very consistent with my training up to now.  Following the Army 10-Miler, I planned on two more weeks with mileage in the high fifties or low sixties, and then a taper before my marathon.

The Race

The night before the race, I had a dream that I woke up on race morning and it was 9:14 am.  After panicking and realizing that it would have even been too late to get down to the Pentagon and start with the last wave, I then decided to check my phone to see the angry messages from Mick and Justin, whom I promised to drive down to the start.  But for some reason, my phone kept crashing.  When I finally was able to get it to work, my alarm went off and I woke up.

Had that actually happened, I would have started to believe that the 10-miler was really a cursed distance for me.  But actually, getting to the start actually proceeded quite seamlessly; after a quick breakfast and my typical pre-race preparations, I picked up several other members of the DC Front Runners and made it to Arlington at 6:45.  Traffic was nowhere near as terrible as I thought it would be, and neither was parking.  I thought it was strange, though, that everyone parked in one of the parking garages suggested by the race website when there was plenty of parking on the side of the street.  I found a very convenient parking spot near the Ritz Carlton on the side of South 15th Street, while just about all of the other cars were waiting in this very long line to get into the nearby parking garages.

Temperatures were also much better for this race; high fifties with less than 80% humidity, and the latter was expected to drop substantially as time went on whereas the former would not increase too much.  When I woke up, there was a steady light rain, but that subsided by the time we all arrived at the starting area and changed into an 18-mile-per-hour wind from the north.  I was not terribly concerned about the winds; I had run a half-marathon and a marathon PR under similar conditions. Given the course and the temperatures, I went into the starting corrals thinking that a sub-1:04:00 was very achievable today.  My plan was therefore to ease into a 6:20 to 6:25/mile pace over the first two miles or so, hold that until about Mile 7, and if I felt I had something left in me at that point, I would try to bring the pace down closer to 6:15/mile.

After running into other members of the DC Front Runners and wishing them a good race, I lined up in the Yellow Corral and waited for the start.

Miles 1 and 2 (6:28, 6:22): Initially, I was running at more like half-marathon pace.  The race began on a slight but relatively steady uphill, but about 0.6 miles in, we got a pretty noticeable downhill, which I took advantage of to bring my pace to faster than 6:30/mile.  According to my Garmin, my first mile was 6:28, exactly where I wanted to be.  However, I did notice that my Garmin indicated the one mile mark a little before the actual one-mile mark sign.  I attributed that to the weaving and dodging I did during this first mile.  Halfway through this first mile, I realized I probably lined up too far back; I was passing people left and right with very little effort.

During the second mile through Arlington National Cemetery and across Memorial Bridge, I settled into a 6:22/mile pace.  This felt very controlled, I was glad to have gotten on target pace a little earlier than I thought.

Miles 3 through 5 (6:31, 6:18, 6:20): For me, Mile 3 was the most difficult mile of the entire race.  The relatively lengthy uphill on Virginia Avenue threw me for a loop; after hearing how fast this course was, I wasn't expecting anything like this.  Nonetheless, I looked at my watch and noticed my pace was closer to 6:40/mile.  I kept myself calm; knowing that if I pushed too hard up this hill, I would regret it later; after all, I still had seven more miles to go.

After we crested the top of the hill, we were treated to a brief downhill as we went through an underpass.  After another brief hill, we had a much longer and more gradual downhill segment.  I was able to take advantage of this and bring my pace down to 6:31/mile.  This was slower than what I would have liked, but I knew I could still manage sub-1:04:00 nonetheless.

For the fourth and fifth miles, I focused on getting back to 6:20 to 6:25/mile pace.  This part, in which we turned onto Rock Creek Parkway and followed it toward Independence Avenue, was flat and fast and featured very few turns, although some relatively strong winds were still coming off the river.  I ended up doing the fourth mile a little faster than what I wanted; I finished this mile in 6:18, but I still felt like I was in control of the pace.  During the fifth mile down Independence Avenue, I continued trying to hold back; I wanted to push a little, but I knew that I had some more somewhat difficult segments up ahead.

The DC Front Runners cheer squad, waiting for us at the top of the hill on Independence Avenue.  Photo from Adam.

Miles 6 through 8 (6:16, 6:17, 6:16): After the halfway mark came one of the more difficult segments: a hill leading up past the Washington Monument.  Some members of the DC Front Runners were at the top with signs, which gave me an extra boost of energy up this hill.  After this came a slight downhill and another long, flat, and straight out-and-back segment down Independence Avenue.  I enjoyed this part: in addition to it being fast, spectators were lining the course and I got to see the faster runners on their way back.  After rounding the corner at the turnaround loop and passing the Mile 6 marker, I noticed that I had indeed brought my pace down closer to 6:15/mile already.  But since I was still feeling strong, I decided to stay with it.

But one thing that I was not happy about was that my Garmin indicated 6.07 miles at the Mile 6 marker.  I had no idea how I managed to cover 0.07 extra miles given how few curves and turns there were on these past few miles, but I really preferred not to cover more than 10.10 miles today.  After all, that extra 0.1 miles could mean as much as 45 to 50 extra seconds.  For the seventh mile, I focused on maintaining my pace while trying not to weave around runners anymore.

I then turned left onto 14th Street to start my journey along the infamous 14th Street Bridge.  Most people who talk about this bridge say that not only are runners already tired at this point, but this long expanse of bridge across the river, on which there are almost no spectators, could be mentally draining.  But I myself actually did not find it to be as bad as many people have made it out to be.  It was by no means easy, especially compared to the previous miles; this bridge has some noticeable rolling hills.  But I found the third mile of this race to be far more difficult.  Meanwhile, I was able to keep my 6:15 to 6:20/mile pace with little problem.

Mile 9 through the end (6:13, 6:10, 0:32 for the last 0.1 miles): I then approached a rather unexpected difficulty in this race: the exit ramp leading to Crystal City.  Right before the exit ramp was a very sizable hill; it was not as long as some of the others I had encountered on this course, but it was substantially steeper.  In addition, I was now faced with a powerful headwind.  As I pulled myself up this hill, trying not to charge up it, I asked myself why I was encountering this kind of headwind; I was heading south and the weather forecast indicated winds were to be coming from the north.

After the exit ramp was behind me, I just focused on getting to the finish line.  Some other runners behind me had capitalized on the downhill of the exit ramp to accelerate past me.  I just decided to let them go and just run at my own pace.  I was able to catch back up with most of them and eventually drop them again, though.

Nina and her mother were cheering on members of the DC Front Runners at the Mile 9 mark, which was very much appreciated.  After waving back to them, I looked at my watch and did the math.  Sub-1:04:00 was definitely within reach; I just needed to maintain this pace and not do anything stupid.  I did find myself speeding up even more during this mile; after noticing that my Garmin indicated I was going at 5:55/mile pace, I decided to hold back a little just so I would not implode during the last half mile.

As soon as I rounded that curve back toward the Pentagon and saw the finish line, I just gave it all I had left.  I was very happy when I crossed the finish line when the first three digits of the gun (cannon) time clock were 1:03; my Garmin, meanwhile, indicated a finish time of 1:03:43.

I wanted to wait for the other members of DC Front Runners to finish, but I was told to keep moving.  As I headed toward the finisher's area, I saw Justin behind me; he had just run a 10-miler PR by more than two minutes.  We then walked to the finisher's area together, sharing notes about the race.  We decided to wait for the other members of DC Front Runners doing this race near the food area.

It was not until that afternoon when I got my official results (Army 10-Miler does not do real-time runner tracking): 1:03:42 (6:22/mile), which translates to 70.727 points toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit (age-graded score of 69.34 times 1.02 in accordance with Race Circuit rules).  I was 383rd human out of 24014, 362nd male out of 12716, and 78th out of 1880 in the Male 30-34 age division.

Next Steps

I felt that my performance during this race was more indicative of my fitness for Richmond, since the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon was run under less-than-ideal conditions and was probably run before I was anywhere near peak fitness.  So given my mileage, which was less than what I ran for Hartford last year but not by much, I would take my 10-miler time of 1:03:42 and multiply by 2.88 to get a projected time for my marathon: 3:03:28 (approximately 7:00/mile).  If I ended up with a time like that, I would be very happy; that would be a PR and a BQ by more than six minutes.

Thus, my plan for Richmond is to target 7:00 to 7:05 for the first 30K, with the first two miles a little slower than that, and then gradually speed up at the 30K mark for a negative split.

Other Thoughts and Observations

• I like this race a lot.  The race has a great atmosphere, is quite fast, and is executed very well.
• Metro is often accepted as the best way to get to the starting line, but it may take longer than driving to get there using Metro, particularly if you need to transfer lines or if the nearest Metro station is quite a walk from where you live.  It looks like driving can get you down to the start line relatively quickly, particularly since I-395 Southbound, the best way to get to Arlington, still remains open before the race.  Parking is also not difficult as it will be 6:00 am when you (should) arrive.  However, getting out of Arlington is a whole different story if you're driving due to all the road closures and the closure of I-395 Northbound, and this is where the advantage of Metro really comes into play.  If you drive, consider hanging around Crystal City for a bit (I would have, but I had to return to DC to prepare for a friend's birthday brunch).
• I like the finisher coins a lot (photo below).
• Winds from the north my foot.  I have always maintained that the winds are always blowing in one direction when you are running: against you.  I rarely felt any tailwinds, but headwinds were very frequent throughout the race, even when I was running southwards.

The Army 10-Miler finisher coin.

Race Post-Mortem: Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon

DC Front Runners at the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon.  We survived!

Sunday, September 18, 2016
Philadelphia, PA
Difficulty score: 4/10 (2 for weather, 2 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

I ran the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon as a tune-up race for my fall marathon this year, the Richmond Marathon.  I had done this race three times before: in 2012, in 2013, and in 2014, and I had thought very highly of it.  Back then, the course used to be flat and fast, and given good weather conditions (or even not-so-good weather conditions in the case of 2014), it was a great PR course.  Plus, a number of DC Front Runners members had registered for it also, which would make for a fun weekend in Philadelphia.

But after last year, the course had changed slightly.  Previously, the first four miles would be spent running through the streets of Center City.  Now, that segment had been shortened to about three miles.  To make up for that missing mile, runners would now do and out-and-back segment along Fairmount Avenue past the Eastern State Penitentiary.  That segment featured some very noticeable and long uphills, the likes of which were not experienced ever on the old course.  The remainder of the course along the river still remained the same.

However, an even bigger issue that foiled my plans during this race was the weather; at the start it was 72 degrees, with almost 90% humidity and a dew point close to 70.  These were perhaps the most undesirable conditions under which I had ever run a half-marathon (even more so than the warm and humid race in 2014 and the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon in 2015).  The warmth and humidity really took a toll on most runners, including myself; I saw many runners out on the course struggling, including a number who were walking or had dropped out, and each of us that ran the race had reported seeing at least several people being taken away in ambulances.

I ended up finishing in 1:27:20 (6:40/mile); not a terrible time, but I knew that under better conditions, I was capable of faster.  But I did place unusually high this time; 150th human overall out of 12206, 122nd male human out of 4965, and 29th out of 688 in the male 30-34 age division.  And I did at least meet my "bare minimum" goal of achieving 70 points toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit: a 1:27:20 half-marathon would translate to an age grade score of 67.02, times 1.05 in accordance with Race Circuit rules to produce a score of 70.371.

The new Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon course.  Map from the race website.

Training

Like my training for Chicago and Hartford, my training during this summer consisted of six days of running per week, with a very similar weekly structure:

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: a two-mile warm-up plus 25 to 40 minutes at tempo effort (between 6:18 and 6:36/mile, with adjustments for the weather) followed by a cool-down
• Wednesday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Tuesday's tempo run
• Thursday: mini-long runs lasting between one hour and one hour 30 minutes, with most of these miles being easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile); I did occasionally throw in some marathon effort miles
• Friday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Thursday's mini-long run
• Saturday: 50 minutes to one hour 20 minutes easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile), with hill sprints
• Sunday: long runs of one hour 30 minutes to two hours 30 minutes at 7:48 to 8:24/mile pace, with some of these being fast finish

So far, my mileage most weeks have been in the fifties or high forties.  But my highest mileage weeks were still to come.  Training was made a little more difficult by an unusually hot and humid summer here in DC, but overall, I was able to remain very consistent with my training up to now.

The Race

Initially, predictions for race day temperatures were not ideal but tolerable: temperatures in the low sixties at the start with relatively high humidity.  But as race day approached, the predictions got progressively worse.  I had thought about just powering through the conditions and targeting about the 6:30/mile pace I would have been able to do in better conditions (similar to what I did in Philadelphia in 2014), but the temperature and humidity on race day were higher than any under which I have ever run a half-marathon before.  After some more thinking, I decided to start slower; 6:40 to 6:45/mile pace for the first two miles or so, and then I would work my way down.  After all, I knew the course from Mile 6 on to be relatively fast and along the river; I could use the terrain to my advantage, and hopefully the river would keep temperatures from getting too high.  I also knew based on previous years of running this, the final segment after that bridge at Mile 9 was very fast.  If my start turned out to be too conservative, I could probably make up the time after I crossed that bridge.

Miles 1 through 5 (6:54, 6:40, 6:38, 6:43, 6:34): As planned, the first mile was conservative.  I had no idea how fast I was going for a good part of this first mile because the tall buildings around me were screwing up the GPS signal; at times, my Garmin had indicated I was going as slow as 7:30/mile pace.  It wasn't until I approached the first mile marker that I got an indication of my actual pace; even though my Garmin indicated a first mile split of 6:54, I noticed that I crossed the one mile mark at 6:45.  The second mile was more of the same.  However, during these first two miles, I noticed that surprisingly few people were passing me, yet I was moving ahead of quite a lot of people.  And my Garmin indicated a 6:39 split for the second mile near the actual two-mile mark, which would mean a 6:46/mile pace for the first two miles; a little slower than I would have liked, but not by much.

The segment in which runners go by the start and get to see people from later corrals starting, which had been my favorite part during the Philadelphia Half-Marathon the past few years that I ran it, now occurred at Mile 3 rather than Mile 4.  This part had always been an energy boost as quite a few of the runners starting their races would be quite enthusiastic; plus, this part was flat and fast and was good for picking up a little speed.  I did push the pace a little and ended up doing a 6:38 split for this third mile.  I figured if I could stay around this pace for the remainder of the race and push it a little toward the end, I could go under 1:27:00.

But then I came to the hill leading up Fairmount Avenue.  I wasn't expecting this hill to be this long and noticeable; the course video never showed anything like this (funny how course videos always seem to make hills seem much less long and steep than they actually are).  We did get a bit of a break after the first hill, but we then came to another before the hairpin turn.  I focused on constant effort throughout this segment, and, as expected, it was quite a bit slower; but I kept telling myself that I would get a long downhill on the way back.  I did take advantage of the downhill fifth mile to cover my fastest mile so far, a 6:34.  High-fiving the DC Front Runners on their way out along this segment helped also.

Miles 6 through 9 (6:37, 6:35, 6:41, 6:38): Once that out-and-back segment down Fairmount Avenue was behind me, I knew I had a flat and fast segment along the river.  I focused on keeping a steady pace for the next few miles.  Aerobically, I didn't feel particularly taxed, but my legs were really working.  I found myself catching up to and dropping runners I recognized from the early miles that had pulled ahead.

I have been unable to explain the sudden slowdown in Mile 8.  I tried pushing the pace a little when I saw that my Garmin was indicating I was running at a nearly 6:50/mile pace; I hoped to get the split for this mile down to below 6:40.  After my Garmin indicated a 6:41 split for this mile, I considered the possibility I might be able to pick up the pace a little.  Initially, I thought I was able to; my Garmin indicated I was going 6:31/mile pace for the first half of this mile.  But then the hill leading up to the bridge smacked me in the face; every year that I had done this race, this segment has slowed me down, and this year was no exception.

Mile 10 through the end (6:38, 6:35, 6:34, 6:34, 1:00 for the last 0.17 miles): After the bridge, I tried to take advantage of a downhill segment to accelerate, but my legs just would not listen.  I just could not go faster than 6:38.  But even so, I was still passing quite a lot of people, and no one was passing me.  I noticed a lot of people were not having great days today; I passed one woman and overheard her apologizing to the man she was running with for her performance today.

After passing Mile 10 and some colorful words when I noticed that my 10-mile split was almost 1:07:00, I made one last attempt to pick up the pace.  Unfortunately, when I passed the Mile 11 marker and saw that more than I was more than one hour 13 minutes into my race, I realized that a sub-1:27:00 was not going to happen today.  I even resigned myself to the possibility that a sub-1:28:00 was not going to happen either.  I did my best not to slow down, but I felt like I was just holding on.

But it was almost as if I was closing quickly today; I passed dozens of people as I approached the finish line.  When I got to that last hill leading up to the Art Museum, I mustered whatever energy I had left and tried to cross that finish line as quickly as possible.  My Garmin indicated 1:27:20; I knew at that point I was going to get more than 70 points for this race toward the Race Circuit (my previous calculations indicated I needed a 1:27:41 or better).  Now all I needed to do was find an age grade score calculator to see how much above 70 points I got.

Next Steps

A 1:27:20 half-marathon time would indicate that I was currently in at worst 3:08:00 marathon shape (this half-marathon time times 2.15 given my mileage, training, and experience level would be 3:07:46).  However, since I am only about halfway through my training and because of the conditions, there is a good chance that 3:08:00 would be a little conservative of a target for Richmond.  But it is good to know that even so, I would still likely qualify for Boston by two minutes or more.

What I will use to determine a realistic target time for myself in Richmond would be the Army 10-Miler on October 9.  It will be closer to the day of the Richmond Marathon; provided I execute my training as written, I will have completed a few more higher-mileage weeks between now and then.  Hopefully, the conditions during the Army 10-Miler would be much better than the ones in Philadelphia.

Other Thoughts

• I really prefer the old course, even though I do like the concept of running past a place that was featured on World's Scariest Places.  I wonder whether the course was changed because of all that construction going on.  Perhaps when that is finished, they would change the course back.
• Humidity is a very insidious weather condition.  A lot of people, myself included sometimes, start out thinking they can proceed at a pace similar to what they can do in better conditions and power through the humidity.  Humidity saps your strength and often, you don't realize it until the later miles when you barely have the energy to hang on.  My race would have probably unfolded very differently had I started out faster than 6:45/mile pace.
• To get an idea of how much the conditions may have affected people, a 1:27:20 during the much better conditions in the 2015 Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon race would have been 313th overall, 226th male, and 47th in the male 30-34 age group.
• Working backwards, the race time adjustment calculator for temperature and dew point at runnersconnect.net predicts that given a temperature of 71 and a dew point of 68, a 1:27:20 half-marathon would translate to a 1:24:07 (6:25/mile) under ideal conditions.  Although I'm not sure how reliable this calculator or any race time adjustment algorithms are, I like what it's telling me.

Etude 7 Pour Les Degres Chromatiques (Debussy)

Saturday, January 16, 2016
Levine School of Music - Strathmore Campus
Bethesda, MD
Difficulty score: 4/10 (4 for technical difficulty, 0 for interpretive and musical difficulty, 0 for scale)

This piece is the seventh in a set of twelve etudes that Debussy composed in 1915.  These twelve pieces are technical exercises, each of which focuses on specific technical issues.  For example, this particular etude deals with rapid chromatic scales, which in turn forces the pianist to work on playing evenly and smoothly and to develop agility and independence of his fingers.

But also, like many of the etudes written during the nineteenth century such as those by Chopin and Liszt, all twelve of these etudes are technical exercises disguised as concert pieces, unlike the etudes of composers such as Czerny that simply consist of dry rote repetitions of the technical issue.  The Debussy etudes are pieces that are meant to be performed in concert (and enjoyed by listeners) in which the technical issue is the building block of the writing; for example, in this particular etude, Debussy capitalizes upon the rapid chromatic scales to create a ghostly and mysterious atmosphere.  Embedding the technical issue into a concert piece like this forces the pianist to not only be able to execute the chromatic scales accurately and quickly, but also to do it with musicality.  This is infinitely more useful than simple rote repetitions of the technical issue.  After all, technique never just occurs in isolation; during a performance, a pianist needs to navigate a variety of technical difficulties and do it musically.

This was actually my first Debussy etude.  I don't know why I waited so long to attempt one of these.  Perhaps it was because these weren't exactly the flashy virtuoso pieces like the Chopin and Liszt etudes were that I was attracted to when I was younger.  Perhaps it was because I needed some time to warm up to the harmonies that Debussy liked to use late in his life.  I would actually say that many pianists may feel the same way; these etudes are often ignored by most pianists in favor of those of other composers.  But regardless, these etudes are full of exotic and beautiful sounds and textures.  They are also a good alternative to Chopin for refining various aspects of your technique; these twelve etudes cover a broad range of technical issues, from the rapid chromatic scales in this etude to the parallel thirds, fourths, and sixths in the second, third, and fourth etudes of the set, to the large leaps and thick chords in the fifth and twelfth etudes of the set and the arpeggios (broken chords) and extensions of the hand in the eleventh.  I do plan on learning more of these in the future.

Considerations for Learning and Performing this Piece:

• The very first thing anyone thinking about learning this piece should do is sit down and write out a good fingering for all of the chromatic figurations (that is, if your edition does not contain fingering; my Schirmer edition did not, and I'm not sure which editions do or do not).  Sloppy or poorly planned fingerings are a recipe for screw-ups later on.
• Don't use the traditional 1313123... fingering for chromatic scales.  Figure out a fingering that minimizes the number of times you need to cross the longer fingers over the thumb or tuck the thumb under the longer fingers.  This way, you will be able to execute these chromatic scales and figurations faster and with less effort, which will really help at the speed at which this piece is supposed to be performed.
• Keep the tempo under control.  In some passages, it is very easy to speed up without realizing it, which will bring trouble in some of the trickier passages (e.g. that horrid left-hand broken sixths passage at 1:38 in the video).
• Don't overthink things during the performance.  I found overthinking leads to memory lapses in this piece.  This is one of those pieces that plays itself once the notes are learned; simply letting your fingers do the work and obeying the dynamic and tempo markings is sufficient for an effective performance.

Race Post-Mortem: I'm Older Now, But Still Running Against the Wind

Me on the final stretch along the Boardwalk, trying to fend off the guy behind me.  Thanks to the race organizers for the free downloads of our race photos!

Sunday, March 20, 2016
Virginia Beach, VA
Difficulty score: 2/10 (1 for weather, 1 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

In other words, it was my birthday and I ran the Shamrock Half-Marathon with 20-mile per hour winds from the north, which gave us a headwind for the first three miles and a pretty nasty cross-breeze in the seventh and eighth miles.  Thanks Bob Seger.  But it could have been much worse.  The mid- to high-forties temperatures were optimal for a PR.  These conditions were certainly better for a half-marathon or marathon than the 70-degree weather that DC and Virginia had been getting these past two weeks.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was originally going to run the full marathon with the goal of getting a 3:04:59 in order to allow me to register during the first week of registration for Boston 2017.  However, after dealing with some Achilles tendon soreness for the weeks preceding this race, I decided to transfer to the half-marathon.  I actually was not regretting that decision going into this race, since I had good reason to believe that I was in a good position to run a half-marathon PR.  Historically, I have run my best half-marathon times during tune-up races following a training cycle for a marathon, and that was what I was doing here.  Plus, the half-marathon course was flat, straight, and fast.  After two and a half miles north on Atlantic Avenue, runners would then veer left onto Shore Drive and run three miles along the border of First Landing Park.  The next three miles were through Fort Story, past the Cape Henry Lighthouse.  Finally, we would return south along Atlantic Avenue to the finish line on the Boardwalk.  The main thing we had to watch out for were the headwinds during the first segment north on Atlantic Avenue and the nasty cross-breezes in Fort Story, which was very close to the beach.

Map of the half-marathon course from the website.

Training

Obviously, much of my training leading up to the Shamrock Half-Marathon would have been more specific to a marathon.  My mileage during the winter was quite a bit lower than it was during my training for Hartford and for Chicago; most of my mileage since the end of December was in the high forties and fifties, with 58 miles as my maximum.  But I did take my tempo runs at a faster pace; whereas before, they were mostly between 6:30 to 6:35/mile pace, I took them mostly around 6:20-6:30/mile pace this time around.

The structure of my training was very similar to my training for Hartford and Chicago:

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: tempo runs.  These would typically consist of a one-mile warm-up, followed by four miles at 6:18 to 6:30/mile pace and then a one-mile cool-down.  Later in the cycle, I started extending the length of the tempo portion to five and then six miles.
• Wednesday: 4-5 miles at recovery pace (around 9:00/mile).
• Thursday: tempo runs similar to the Tuesday night ones earlier in the cycle, but later, these transformed into mid-week mini-long runs of 8-10 miles at my typical long run pace.
• Friday: 4-6 miles at recovery pace (around 9:00/mile).
• Saturday: 6-8 miles easy (7:42 to 8:24/mile pace).
• Sunday: long runs of between 12 and 21 miles (7:42 to 8:24/mile pace), although some were used as progressions where I accelerated toward target marathon pace (7:00 to 7:05/mile pace) in the later miles.

My mileage for a few of the weeks were very low; I had one 35-mile week during the huge snowstorm that hit Washington DC in late January, and I had a 30-mile week in February when I tweaked my Achilles tendon.  But other than that, I was able to complete most of my training, even with the Achilles tendon soreness.

The Race

When I left the hotel, I already encountered a relentless wind from the north with steady rain.  Waiting for the start was unpleasant, but I knew that running the half-marathon in this would not be nearly as bad.  The day before the race, Socrates had given both me and Danny heat sheets that he had pilfered from the Rock and Roll DC Marathon the previous week, and I was wearing it like babushka in the starting corral.  It helped keep me warm while I waited and shielded my head from the rain; I owe a big Thank You to Socrates for this heat sheet.

After the National Anthem and a somewhat reassuring update on the weather indicating that the rain was going to let up during the race, we were off.  Fortunately, even though my hands were very cold, I had enough fine motor skills left to start my Garmin.

Miles 1 through 3 (6:37, 6:37, 6:34): As mentioned before, for the first two and a half miles, we would be running north on Atlantic Avenue straight into the wind.  My thoughts during these miles were to get behind a group of people to shield me from the wind, and not to freak out if my splits were more like 6:35 to 6:40/mile rather than the 6:25 to 6:30 that I had been hoping for.  I would most likely get a tailwind-assisted finish on the way back.  Also, I made sure to avoid large puddles so that I would minimize the amount of water in my shoes.

The first two miles were tough.  I felt like I was working during these miles.  That could have been a result of the headwind, or it could have been because I did not have much of a warm-up prior to the start.  I had trouble finding a good pack to run with during these early miles.  First I settled behind this relatively large pack, but I ended up leaving them behind after I felt I was going too slowly.  I caught up with the next group ahead, but then ended up dropping them as well.  I finally ended up finding these two guys that were running at a pace approximately what I wanted to do for the early miles.  I tried running behind one of them, but he kept weaving around; part of me wanted to tell him to stop running like a drunk person and to run in a straight line so he could shield me from the wind.  Fortunately, my Achilles tendon was feeling great throughout these early miles.

Miles 4 through 6 (6:26, 6:29, 6:23): Once we made the turn into First Landing Park, we finally got some respite from the headwinds, so I gradually picked up the pace a little.  So did a lot of other people; I got passed by several runners during this stretch, particularly after I realized halfway through the fourth mile that I was going a little too fast at this stage of the race (6:21/mile pace) and slowed down a little.  By the fourth mile, I had finally settled into a good pace and effort level.  I was pushing my turnover a little, but the effort felt controlled.  The effort was not exactly easy on my aerobic system either, but it wasn't stressing it like a 5K or 10K effort would.

When I saw my splits for the fourth and fifth miles, I realized I might have a chance at a half-marathon PR.  I just needed to keep my paces for most of the remaining miles under 6:30/mile.  My Achilles tendon was still holding up wonderfully.  Meanwhile, as I rounded the turn into Fort Story, I mentally prepared myself for the more difficult seventh and eighth miles.

Miles 7 through 9 (6:30, 6:33, 6:26): I remembered from my experiences during the Shamrock Marathon two years ago that these two miles through Fort Story and past the Cape Henry Lighthouse were difficult due to the winds.  The race course was very close to the beach, and headwinds and crosswinds during this stretch could be brutal.  As I ran through Fort Story, I made a plan to run behind people, and to keep the same effort level as I held during the previous miles through First Landing Park.  I was expecting my pace per mile to get slightly slower during these next two miles, but I reminded myself of the tailwind waiting for me during the last three miles of the race.

I tried looking for a pack to run with, but again could not find one.  Whenever I would catch up with a group of people, I would end up passing them and trying to catch the next group up ahead; it must have been my lack of patience or the desire to just get out of this stretch of the race.  But I was pleasantly surprised to find that my pace didn't fall off nearly as bad as I thought it would.  Like during the Shamrock Marathon when I ran through this stretch, I felt like my bib was going to blow off; although I knew the safety pins would hold it in place, the rattling sound of the wind against my bib was unnerving, and I regularly used my right hand to press it against my torso as some sort of reassurance.

Miles 10 through the end (6:17, 6:18, 6:19, 6:08, 0:57 for the last 0.16 miles): By the time I left Fort Story, I was running by myself.  The next group of people were about a quarter of a mile ahead.  But just like I expected, the headwinds that gave us all so much trouble in the beginning was now a tailwind giving us a bit of help in these last miles.  Plus, more spectators were out now cheering on the runners, and that made things feel easier.  I accelerated a little, but kept my pace no faster than 6:15/mile; I still had four more miles to go, and I didn't want to burn through whatever energy I had left too quickly.

When I passed the 10-mile marker, my Garmin read 1:05:02.  I quickly did the math and realized that I was on track for a pretty substantial half-marathon PR.  I kept telling myself during these last miles that I just needed to stay faster than 6:27/mile to get a PR.  Plus, I was very happy to find that the moment I crossed the 10-mile marker, I had covered 10.05 miles according to my Garmin; I know running tangents should be very easy on a very straight course such as this one, but still, I wanted to cover as little distance over 13.1 miles as I possibly could.

I wanted to speed up even more thanks to my typical late-race impatience, but the more rational part of me told me just to keep at the 6:15-6:20/mile pace that I was currently running.  Of course, the pace wasn't easy at all; I was going at nearly 10K pace.  But I kept telling myself that all I needed to do to get my half-marathon PR was to stay at this effort level for two more miles and not screw up.

After I veered toward the left for the last half-mile of the race, I was shocked to hear somebody screaming my name.  As far as I knew, Socrates and Danny were the only two people from the DC Front Runners down here, and they were supposed to be lining up in the starting corrals for the full marathon.  As I got closer, I realized it was John; I knew he had mentioned a while ago about possibly coming down to Virginia Beach to spectate and heckle us, but I did not know he actually was here.  It was a very welcome surprise, and it gave me a boost to carry me through the last mile.  He even made signs for us:

Me after the race, holding the sign that John made for us.  Go Miss Pam!

I actually was closing in on the next runner up ahead (who I met after the race and actually turned out to be from Arlington).  I picked up the pace a little and passed him as we both rounded that last right turn onto the boardwalk.  As I could see the finish line up ahead and noticed on my Garmin that I was one hour and 22 minutes into the race, my thoughts were: "Would it be possible that I would not only break 1:25:00 this time, but break 1:24:00?"  I accelerated even more.

But finish lines are always quite a bit further than you think.  I did not break 1:24:00, but I finished in 1:24:31 (6:27/mile), a PR by nearly 45 seconds.  This was also the sixth race that I needed to run in order to complete the DC Front Runners Race Circuit, and it contributed to my point totals by quite a lot; a 1:24:31 half-marathon at my new age gives me an age-graded score of 69.26, which, times 1.05 for a half-marathon in accordance with Race Circuit rules, gives me a score of 72.723.  Plus, I finished 59th out of over 6700 finishers, which means I finished in the top one percent of finishers, a feat that I have not accomplished until now.

Also, according to my Garmin, I covered 13.16 miles.  I'm slowly regaining my abilities to run tangents well; the past two half-marathons that I had done, I covered over 13.25 miles.  Having a straighter course certainly did help, but also, I didn't try to actively hit the tangents this time around, unlike my last two marathons.  Perhaps the secret to minimizing the distance you cover in a race is just to run in a straight line and not worry about it too much?

Finally, my Achilles tendon held up just fine through this race.  It was a little sore afterwards, but the next morning when I woke up, I felt nothing.

Next Steps

I plan on taking about a week off from running, which will hopefully give my Achilles tendon time to recover completely.  Then I plan to run a few 5K races.  Every April, Pacers holds a series of Friday night 5K races down in Crystal City.  I have participated in these in the past and enjoyed them.  I plan to run the April 8 and April 15 races, and then that will be the end of my racing season.  Then I will reduce my running significantly as I focus on dancing and piano for two months or so.  Afterwards, I plan on beginning my training for my Fall 2016 marathon.

Even though I think I made the right choice by transferring to the half-marathon, I am now looking forward to doing another marathon.  I still have not chosen my fall marathon; I have two friends who are considering running their very first marathon in the fall, and I think it would be nice for us to do the same race.  So I think the next step is to peruse findmymarathon.com and find a fall marathon that is reasonably fast, not at altitude, and in a city that we would actually like to visit.

Race Post-Mortem: St. Patrick's Day 10K

Giving it all I got during the last 0.2 miles of the race.  Thanks Pacers for the free race photos!

Sunday, March 6, 2016
Washington, DC
Difficulty score: 2/10 (0 for weather, 2 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

Initially, I had planned on running the Colonial Williamsburg Half-Marathon the week before the St. Patrick's Day 10K as my tune-up race for the Shamrock Marathon, but I decided against it due to some ankle and calf soreness I had been dealing with for the preceding week.  I usually prefer half-marathons as tune-up races for marathons since they are the perfect blend of being long enough to have good predictive strength for my performance in my upcoming race, but short enough that I could recover from them relatively quickly.  A 10K race, on the other hand, is quite different.  But this was the only alternative to the Colonial Williamsburg Half-Marathon, and I wanted to get a tune-up race in as well as another race toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit.

I figured that if I finished this 10K at around 38:30 to 38:59, that would bode well for my abilities to run a sub-3:05:00 in Shamrock.  Plus, that would translate to an age-graded score of between 69 and 70, which would mean 69 to 70 points toward my Race Circuit total in accordance with DC Front Runners Race Circuit rules (not a particularly high score for me, but it is quite difficult to get high scores with a 10K race given the rules).  But regardless, I definitely wanted to do better than the last 10K I ran; I decided to run the Veteran's Day 10K last November without my Garmin, and I ended up pacing for a 10-miler rather than a 10K, coming in at 39:27, only four seconds per mile faster than my pace for the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler.

The St. Patrick's Day 10K course overlaps with that of several races I have done, including the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler and the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon.  It starts right in front of the Washington Monument on 15th Street.  Runners then turn right and run down Independence Avenue and Rock Creek Parkway for a few miles before turning around and heading back toward the monuments along Ohio Drive.  But right before we return to the starting point on 15th Street, we veer away along Independence Avenue again for a two-mile out-and-back segment.  After a left turn back down 15th Street, we enjoy a downhill finish.  So this course is somewhat fast, with just a few rather long, gradual uphill segments.  I would say the difficulty rating is actually more like 1.5 than 2.

Map of the course from the Pacers website.

Training

My training had been a little lax during the winter compared to my training for Hartford and for Chicago.  I didn't even write down my training plan for this cycle like I usually do.  My mileage was quite a bit lower; most of my mileage since the end of December was in the high forties and fifties, with 58 miles as my maximum.  But I did take my tempo runs at a faster pace; whereas before, they were mostly between 6:30 to 6:35/mile pace, I took them mostly around 6:20-6:30/mile pace this time around.

The structure of my training was very similar to my training for Hartford and Chicago:

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: tempo runs.  These would typically consist of a one-mile warm-up, followed by four miles at 6:18 to 6:30/mile pace and then a one-mile cool-down.  Later in the cycle, I started extending the length of the tempo portion to five and then six miles.
• Wednesday: 4-5 miles at recovery pace (around 9:00/mile).
• Thursday: tempo runs similar to the Tuesday night ones earlier in the cycle, but later, these transformed into mid-week mini-long runs of 8-10 miles at my typical long run pace.
• Friday: 4-6 miles at recovery pace (around 9:00/mile).
• Saturday: 6-8 miles easy (7:42 to 8:24/mile pace).
• Sunday: long runs of between 12 and 21 miles (7:42 to 8:24/mile pace), although some were used as progressions where I accelerated toward target marathon pace (7:00 to 7:05/mile pace) in the later miles.

My mileage for a few of the weeks were very low; I had one 35-mile week during the huge snowstorm that hit Washington DC in late January, and I had a 30-mile week in February when I tweaked my Achilles tendon.  But other than that, I was able to complete most of my training, even with the Achilles tendon soreness.

Race Day

On race morning, we had temperatures were in the low forties and cloud cover and some humidity; I felt it during the race in the later miles.  This was perfect racing weather, or at least it was to runners; on the way down to the start line at the Washington Monument, my Uber driver told me he felt cold looking at me dressed in shorts and about to race in a sleeveless T-shirt (he actually told me he was wearing sweatpants underneath his trousers and had on three sweaters underneath his jacket, and even then, he had the heat cranked up high).  I hoped for similar weather in Virginia Beach on the twentieth.

I arrived just as the 5K runners were starting.  As soon as they were off, I did a one-mile warm-up and then checked my jacket at bag check.  After running into some of the other members of DC Front Runners about to do the 10K, I found a clear and relatively flat area to do some dynamic drills near the final stretch leading down to the finish line.  As I was doing my lunges and Frankenstein walks, I got to see some of the Front Runners doing the 5K finish, including Eric (who got a 5K PR), Blake, Lennie, and Socrates.

I was a little antisocial prior to the race and ended up lining up in the starting corral relatively early; for some reason, I was just anxious to get this race started.  As I waited for the start of the 10K, I thought about my plan for the race.  I wanted to target around a 6:15 to 6:20/mile pace for the first three or four miles, and then pick up the pace if I had it in me.  With that strategy, I would have finished somewhere between 38:30 and 38:59.  I would have loved to get below 38:20, which would have given me an age-graded score of above 70, and therefore 70 points toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit.  But I certainly wanted to do better than my 39:27 in the Veteran's Day 10K back in November.

Miles 1 and 2 (6:17, 6:15): For the first half mile or so, my Garmin kept indicating I was going between 6:04 to 6:07/mile pace; I kept trying to hold back because I was sure I probably was not capable of holding that pace the entire way.  Strangely, my effort during that segment of the race felt easy; perhaps it was because of the gradual downhill that made up the first half mile or it was because the signal in my Garmin was acting a little weird.  But after about 0.6 miles, when my pace started to climb closer to 6:20/mile, I started to put in a bit of a harder effort level and settled right behind a guy in a turtle costume (green tights, green beanie, and a green T-shirt with a shell pattern on the back).

Turtle and I joined this group of two other guys and a girl and we ran as a pack for a little while.  I felt this effort level was appropriate; I was working, but I felt like I could sustain this for the remainder of the race.  After another half-mile, I started to run next to Turtle, and then in front of him.  As we approached the turnaround near the Kennedy Center, I dropped Turtle and the rest of that pack and started moving forward to catch up to the next group of runners ahead.

Miles 3 and 4 (6:11, 6:14): I continued to feel a bit of a spring in my step as I headed back toward the monuments down Ohio Drive.  This portion, which goes along Ohio Drive and around the Tidal Basin, is straight and flat, which allowed me to pick up the pace slightly.  I spent most of these miles trying to catch up to the next group ahead.  I was unable to find a pack that I could run with for any length of time; whenever I would catch one group, I would end up dropping it and moving ahead.

Gradually picking off people in the middle miles of the race.  Another free race photo courtesy of Pacers.

Also, when I passed the 5K mark, I had a minor freak-out when I looked at my Garmin and noticed that it read 27 minutes.  But then I remembered that included the one-mile warm-up I had done prior to the race; I did not reset my Garmin before starting.  I could not remember exactly how much time it took for me to run my warm-up mile, but I do remember it was less than eight minutes.  Doing the math, that meant 19 minutes and change for the first half; if I maintained this pace until the end, I could finish between 38:30 and 38:59.

Mile 5 to the end (6:10, 6:03, 1:32 for the last 0.27 miles): I ran by myself for the last leg of the race down Independence Avenue and back toward the Washington Monument.  My typical late-race impatience kicked in, which caused me to gradually accelerate.  I really didn't have much to say about these miles; I continued focusing on catching the next person ahead of me and dropping them, and I managed to do that to a number of people.

When I approached that last hill leading back up to 15th Street, I reminded myself not to charge up that hill and to save some for the fast downhill finish.  I kept even effort up that hill, passing more people and not really slowing down too much.  When I finally crested that hill, I gave it everything I got, particularly when I got closer to the finish line and noticed the time on the clock reading under 38:30.  Dan was there on the side near the finish cheering on the 10K runners, but all I could manage in response was a glance and a feeble wave; I was focused on getting to the finish as quickly as possible.

38:40 (6:14/mile pace) was my official time.  That was about 30 seconds slower than my PR two years ago, but I'm still satisfied with this time; it was certainly much better than the Veteran's Day 10K four months ago.  A 38:40 translates to 69.31 age-grade points for me; this will not be my highest score during this Race Circuit year, but at least I got pretty close to 70 points.  Particularly with the 2015 updates to the Age Grade Scoring, it seems to be getting much harder to get a high score on a 10K.

Also, I ended up covering 6.27 miles during this race.  I'm not sure how that happened; I used to be so good at running tangents (my "shortest" half-marathon in terms of actual distance covered was 13.12 miles and my "shortest" marathon was 26.23 miles).  Perhaps if I actually covered closer to 10K in distance, my age grade score for this race could have broken 70.

Next Steps

A 38:40 would have indicated that a 3:04:59 in the marathon isn't completely out of the question.  I have never used a 10K race as a tune-up for a marathon, so I am still trying to figure out exactly how to translate a 10K time into a reasonable target marathon time based on mileage, experience level, and other factors.  But 3:04:59 divided by 38:40 is about 4.78; based on previous 10K races that I have run several weeks after a marathon and my findings playing around with the Maclin Calculator, I expected my marathon to 10K time ratio to be about 4.75 and 4.8.

However, as of Monday, March 14, 2016, I have decided to transfer from the Shamrock Marathon to the Shamrock Half-Marathon.  The Achilles tendon, although better than it was that week after I tweaked it, is still sometimes sore during runs, although I find that the soreness is pretty much nonexistent during the faster runs.  I decided to err on the side of caution this time.  Before I transferred, I had this feeling of dread about the marathon, like something was going to go very wrong if I ran it.  This was not just pre-race jitters; it was some sort of instinct.  But after I transferred, these feelings disappeared.

Besides, I already have a BQ-4:17.  The biggest predictor of the cutoff for Boston 2017, namely the number of qualifiers in Boston 2016, is still yet to be determined, but based on information about qualifying rates in the larger feeder races so far, I have no reason to believe that I will have problems getting in.  Perhaps I might even get a half-marathon PR in Shamrock.

Race Post-Mortem: Hartford Marathon

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.

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 Post-Mortem: Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon

Pre-race selfie with JR.  Photo courtesy of JR.

Sunday, September 20, 2015
Washington, DC
Difficulty score: 3/10 (2 for weather, 1 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

After learning that the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon, my fall half-marathon of choice for the past few years, had been postponed until October 31 this year due to the Pope's visit, I decided to do the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon instead.  Some members of DC Front Runners that ran it last year spoke very highly of it, from the course to the organization.  It was also about three weeks before the Hartford Marathon, which would make it perfect for not only getting me back into the racing mindset after five months of no racing, but also for determining a realistic target time for my upcoming marathon.

One problem, however, was that it was a mid-September race in Washington, DC; this meant that there was a good chance that it would be warm on race morning.  And indeed it was; 70 degrees at the start with a 62 degree dew point.  Nonetheless, I still didn't experience too much of a slowdown: I ended up finishing in 1:25:55 (6:33/mile).  Even though it was about 40 seconds slower than my PR at the Philadelphia Half-Marathon last fall, it still indicates that I am where I want to be in terms of fitness for the Hartford Marathon.  Plus, this half-marathon time will give me 71.43 points toward my score for this year's DC Front Runners Race Circuit (age-graded score of 68.03 for a 33-year old male according to the 2015 age grade standards, times 1.05 in accordance with DC Front Runners Race Circuit scoring rules that half-marathon scores receive a 5% bonus).  That's a solid start to the 2015-2016 Race Circuit.

Training

My training leading up to this race consisted of six days per week of running during most weeks.  The structure of each week was 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 one day reserved for faster running for the week.  During the first few weeks, Tuesdays were easy runs at 7:40 to 8:20/mile as I was building my mileage back up.  After that, Tuesdays became speed workouts with intervals at current 5K pace (5:55 to 6:00/mile) that became progressively longer (960 meter repeats for two weeks, then 1200-1280 meter repeats for the next two weeks, and then 1600 meter repeats).  Then Tuesdays became 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), but I did throw in about 15 minutes of current marathon PR pace running (7:00 to 7:05/mile) into 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.

I had actually completed the vast majority of my training plan as written, subject to some minor rearrangements to accommodate life and friends.  I did have to take half of the second week off and readjust everything else due to a pretty nasty summer cold, but that really did not have too much of an adverse effect on the rest of the training cycle.  Unfortunately, I also did neglect the Saturday hill sprints toward the later weeks; although I doubt that would come back to haunt me later, they could have really helped.

During this cycle, I hit similar mileage to that from my training in Chicago.  After my initial mileage buildup in June, my mileage was in the mid-fifties to mid-sixties most weeks, with a few reduced mileage weeks (40-45 miles) to recover.  My highest mileage week this time was 65 miles two weeks before the half-marathon, which immediately followed two back-to-back 63 mile weeks.

The Race

Even two weeks before the day of the half-marathon, accuweather.com was calling for non-ideal conditions on race morning; a low in the low sixties for the evening of Saturday, September 19, plus the usual humidity.  As usual, the week before the race, I was checking weather pretty obsessively.  I did want a half-marathon PR and to break 1:25:00, and I felt that under the right conditions, I had a good shot at both.  Although I have run half-marathon PRs in worse conditions (e.g. Frederick in 2012), accomplishing that in what was predicted would have still been tough.

Race day weather roulette finally settled on low(er) humidity (70-80% humidity) but temperatures in the mid-sixties during the days immediately preceding the half-marathon.  At that point, I accepted that there was a good chance I would not run a PR, and that I should simply use this as a diagnostic for my Hartford Marathon plan; if I was able to run somewhere between 1:25:00 and 1:26:00, that would bode well for Hartford.  Fortunately, the race started at seven in the morning, so I would begin at what should be the coolest part of the day and hopefully be finished before the temperatures really started to rise.  And besides, at least we would have lower humidity, unlike in Philadelphia last year.

Except that actual race morning conditions turned out quite a bit worse than what was predicted, and was probably even worse than the weather in Philadelphia last year.  I woke up at around 4:00 am, about an hour before my alarm was to go off, and checked the weather, noticing that it was 73 degrees outside.  I didn't fall back asleep because I was so cranky that conditions were going to be noticeably warmer than predicted; at this point, it was likely that the temperatures would not even go below 70 during the race (and actually, according to my uploaded race results at garminconnect.com, the temperature at the start was 70 degrees).

After my pre-race preparations, I took a taxi down to the start line near the Washington Monument after deciding against dealing with the Metro.  With just my keys in my back pocket and my trusty SpiBelt containing my license, some cash, and my debit card, I bypassed bag check and met up with a few members of DC Front Runners before lining up at the start.

The Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon featured a slightly new course this year, due to the construction on the Memorial Bridge that prevented us from running to and around the circle near the entrance of Arlington National Cemetery.  The course consisted largely of one segment along the perimeter of Hains Point followed by an out-and-back segment along Rock Creek Parkway (very similar to the Cherry Blossom 9.39-Miler that I ran this past spring, with an additional segment down Rock Creek Parkway added on).  In general, this was a relatively flat course.  Most of it was either along the Potomac or shaded, which I expected would prevent it from getting too warm during the race.

Map of the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon course for 2015, from the website.

Miles 1 through 6 (6:38, 6:30, 6:32, 6:31, 6:35, 6:28): After a little pre-race chat with Dan and JR in the starting chute and a pre-race selfie, we were off.  After rounding the first right turn, I moved over to the left side as we were going counterclockwise around this initial loop around the upper part of the Tidal Basin.  After about 0.4 miles, I saw that I was running around 6:34.  Even though it did not feel particularly comfortable as I felt like I was pushing my turnover a bit, I decided to stay at this effort.

But from Mile 2 on, I began to settle into around a 6:30/mile pace without much more pushing and was able to keep this pace for the next nine miles or so.  These miles felt quite a bit more comfortable than the initial mile did.  During these few miles, I found that I was passing quite a few people.  I ended up running behind this girl named Jess for the next several miles.  I decided not to make any moves just yet but instead, to just focus on hammering out these 6:30 miles.

Miles 7 through 10 (6:31, 6:31, 6:29, 6:27): Now we were beginning the out-and-back segment along Rock Creek Parkway, which was wide, was somewhat curvy, and featured a few mild rolling hills.  I tried to hug each of the curves as I ran, but I failed and ended up covering more distance than I would have liked by stupidly going back and forth between the two sides of the road.  Meanwhile, I was still running behind Jess for this segment of the race.  She would break away from me on the downhills, but I would catch back up to her on the uphills.  On the way out, I continued holding my 6:30/mile pace.

The turnaround point was placed about a quarter of the way up a very large and steep hill leading up from Rock Creek Parkway up to Woodley Park.  I was thankful we would not run up the entire thing, but still, what we did run up was quite substantial, and I was sure not something anyone would have liked to see at Mile 9 of a half-marathon.  Right before the hill, I passed Matt from my dance troupe; I knew he was running as I caught a glimpse of him at the start, but I had no idea he was this far ahead.  Seeing him gave me an extra boost of adrenaline which helped me up the hill, particularly thanks to my competitive, Type-A side that refused to let him do better than me in this race.

Jess slowed down noticeably as we were both going up the hill.  I wanted to pass her, but then decided against it, realizing that we were not going that much slower and that I still had four more miles to go; not blowing all of what I had left on this hill was a good idea.  But after we reached the turnaround point, I took advantage of the downhill and broke away from her.  I began accelerating and she could not respond.

I took advantage of my momentum to start speeding up for a small late-race surge, but at the same time, I held back so that I would avoid an implosion during the last two miles.  On my way back down Rock Creek Parkway toward the Washington Monument, I got to see many other members of DC Front Runners.  Seeing your friends on the way back is one thing I like about out-and-back segments.

Miles 11 to the end (6:22, 6:24, 6:18, 1:37 for the last 0.27 miles): The last part of the race was flat and fast with very few curves and turns.  However, it was also much more exposed than the preceding miles.  I could feel the effects of the warmth; I wanted to go faster, but even 6:22/mile felt like it was close to the limit of what I had in me.  As I was running these last miles, I was doing math for what I had to run for the remaining portion of the race; a PR was not likely, but sub-1:26:00 was possible.

At this point, I was in a no-man's land of sorts.  I was passing people, but I was running by myself, and by the time I rounded the turn off Memorial Bridge and back on Independence Avenue, the next person was about one hundred meters in front of me.  But at least there were still plenty of people around so it didn't feel too lonely; in addition to the runners on their way north on Rock Creek Parkway, people were still heckling on the sidelines, including Grace and Angela at around Mile 11.

I did manage to speed up a little on the last mile.  The very last stretch of the race along 15th Street was a very noticeable downhill.  I took advantage of this downhill and pushed it to 6:08/mile pace.  As I was running, I kept looking at my Garmin, watching it tick past my PR with about 0.1 miles to go and hoping that I would cross the finish line before it read 1:26:00.

After crossing the finish line, collecting my medal and water, and watching JR finish, I met up with some of the other members of DC Front Runners and checked my result.  I did not hang around too long; after all, I had preparations for the DC Front Runners anniversary party to complete.

Thoughts and Next Steps


My main objective for Hartford is to not only qualify for the Boston Marathon, but also qualify by a large enough margin so that I will not have to worry about whether I actually can get entry through the standard registration process for 2017.  I would like to run Boston, especially after two years in a row of qualifying but not making the cutoff.  I'm most likely out for 2016; even though as of now, I have not yet received the official notice, I'm pretty sure that being one minute and twelve seconds below my qualifying standard will not be enough for me to make the cut given the increased number of registrants so far and the higher number of qualifiers in some of the larger marathons such as Chicago and Boston this past year.

Fortunately, I will be 35 on the day of the Boston Marathon in 2017, so the Male 35-39 qualifying standards now apply to me, even though I will only be 33 on the day of Hartford (I love my March birthday!)  That means I would qualify with a 3:10:00 now rather than a 3:05:00; given my half-marathon time and my mileage during this training cycle, I know I have a good chance of running Hartford in 3:04:59 or better, which would be great since it would allow me to submit my application to Boston 2017 during the first week of registration.  But at the same time, 3:04:59 is no longer a hard threshold like it was the past few years.  I now have some wiggle room; I could run Hartford in 3:07:00 or so (three minutes faster than my qualifying time) and still stand a very good chance of getting in.

So provided that the weather on race day cooperates, I would like to run 3:04:59 or better in order to be able to register during the first week of registration; based on registration numbers from recent years, this would give me a very good chance of being able to toe the line at Hopkinton in April 2017.  If I run a PR (3:03:47 or better), that would be even better.  Otherwise, if I am able to run a 3:07:00 or better, I would be fine with that; although I would have to wait until the second week of registration, that would likely still be a large enough margin for me to be accepted.

Thus, my race plan is to settle into around a 7:00 to 7:05/mile pace over the first three miles and then to stay very close to that pace for the first 30K of the race.  If I am feeling strong at the 30K mark, then I will pick it up slowly (I learned from Chicago to gradually accelerate rather than just to suddenly drop my pace by 15 seconds per mile; I'd be able to run a stronger late-race surge that way).  Otherwise, I will try to stay at that pace.  This plan will get me very close to 3:05:00, or may even possibly result in a PR, depending on how well my surge after the 30K mark goes.  Given my mileage, my time in the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon, and my experience level, I should not have a problem running at a 7:00 to 7:05/mile pace (2.15 times 1:25:55 is 3:04:43, or 7:03/mile pace; the factor of 2.15 is based on my mileage and my experience at the marathon).  This race plan may even be somewhat conservative given that the half-marathon was run under non-ideal conditions.  But that's okay, since my primary goal really is to qualify for Boston by five minutes or more.

And I need to learn how to run tangents better.  Based on this race and the DC Half-Marathon this past spring, whenever I make a conscious effort to hit the tangents, I end up covering more distance.  Perhaps I should just not worry about running tangents so much?