Bring back the Innocence: Boston Marathon 2013

It has now been a week since the 2013 Boston Marathon. Too much has gone on since 2:49 p.m. on that Monday afternoon. Like others I have been glued to the internet and the television for the past week trying to make sense of such a depraved act. Within minutes of hearing of the bombings at the end of my day teaching school, my initial thoughts and online message was, "Thoughts are with my friends and all the runners and fans at the Boston Marathon finish line. This is a simple sport and certainly is not a place for violence." My thinking has not changed one iota since that moment. While my sentiments have not changed during the past week, my mind has had to suffer the questions of who could do this? my eyes have seen photos and videos I would never care to see, and my heart has been ripped by the hurt and pain caused to so many people, my race, and the people of Boston.

The Boston Marathon is dear to my heart. It has woven itself through my life for decades starting in 1968 while as a third grader I decided I wanted to run that race in Boston. The night before this year's race, I started rereading Joe Falls 1977 edition of the book, The Boston Marathon. As I was reading, I was reminded how simple and innocent it was to be a runner back then. Here is a quote from the first chapter, "The runners is Boston seem special. Maybe it's because they are all God's children. They seem to understand charity and they seem to understand discipline. How many times in the course of 80 years has one runner paused to aid another runner. That's charity. And who will ever know of all the discipline that they put into their lives in order to prepare themselves to run in this race, this arduous test of one's self." How could someone decide to wreak havoc on such a race and onto such people?

As the violence of the bombing became known, I felt for the runners who nearing the finish of such a monumental goal, were stopped. Many were so close to fulfilling months of training and years of dreaming. As I learned more of the circumstances and those most injured or killed by the bomb, I realized most of the victims were spectators.  One of the biggest thrills of running Boston is the hundreds of thousands of fans along the route that cheer on all runners or their own friends and family members. Those who run Boston know how important the fans are to the event. Yet it seems that most of the injured were these fans who came to cheer on the runners. They are such good people to do that!

I can also say, that throughout the news of the event, I often thought of the volunteers and staff of the B.A.A. Marathon. I often thought of race director Dave McGillivray who so kindly let me run the whole "Midnight Shift" of the 2000 Boston Marathon with him (video). I know how thorough and prepared he is with the race each year and just knew that this must tear at his gut. I know many people that volunteer at the finish line or work as race announcers and I was wondering what was happening and if they were O.K. So much planning and hard work by runners and volunteers and staff at the Marathon and those are all good and noble things and I can't comprehend the savage need to attempt to destroy all of that.

In the week prior to the Boston Marathon, I was wishing I had rewritten my review of Bill Rodgers new autobiography Marathon Man. I felt like I had missed my favorite part of the book, not that it was anything insightful  but it is because of what I admire about Bill Rodgers and what I really think that running (at least for me) is all about in the end. Bill Rodgers just loved to run and the passages of him as a kid and an adult portrays his childlike enthusiasm and enjoyment with the physical act of running and being out in nature. We learn about him running through the woods with abandon all the while looking around at the birds and the woods. Running to me is all about getting back to the element of just freely running around like a kid and enjoying every second of it. I have seen Bill like this in a race and it still amuses me. I remember a 5 mile race in 2006 run before a major rainstorm that Bill Rodgers was at. After finishing, I went back to cheer other finisher on. It finished on a road over a dam. Everyone looked determined and miserable due to the race conditions until Bill Rodgers came into view. I watched with complete amusement as Bill headed right for all the puddles on the side of the road so that he could splash through the puddles as he ran. To me that is pure Bill Rodgers and after all the racing and miles that he has put in, I was so happy that to see that splashing in puddles still made running fun!

That is the running innocence that I don't want to lose. I still don't cut my hair short, because there is something about running and feeling it flop around behind you like Billy's hair or Pre's hair or any runner's hair from the 1970s. The other reason is it is one of the few things I can think of that cost money to have something taken from you! The innocence of youthful running,, legs stretching out, jumping over obstacles and cornering around trees, no care in the world, good stuff to hang a lifetime on; running. As I implore my failing legs to restore their carefree youthful moves and looseness, I so want running to return to those days. And maybe not just for my body.

Back when I started running in 9th grade at Falmouth High School, we were given an anthology of short stories to read. One of the stories was called "See How they Run" by George Harmon Cox (written in 1941). You can now find the story in The Runner's Literary Companion: Great Stories and Poems About Running. In this story based on the Boston Marathon a young collegiate miler decides to run the The Boston Marathon because his father is dying and can't. This would make the 20th consecutive race for his father. I remember reading this story multiple times to get a "feel" for the race. It seemed so simple and innocent in those days (I assume it was somewhat factual) with the competitors meeting together before the race at a barn and the camaraderie of the older participants. I guess newer marathoners would also consider it quaint that I remember running Boston in the early 1980s and hanging out in the school on Ash Street on the Village Green in Hopkington. You could just wander in like in many smaller road races today and sit in the hallways and stretch. The young Johnny Burke is somewhat cocky at the start, but in the end he learns about the race and himself and gets the girl. What more could someone want from a race. That was extra motivation for myself to get out their and run Boston someday. I ran my first marathon in Dallas in 1977 and it took 8 more attempts before I beat the 2:50 qualifying time in 1981 so that I could finally run Boston in 1982. That is over 200 miles of marathon running just to get a shot to run Boston. Qualifying was always in my mind and Boston was firmly entrenched in my blood. I remember thinking I would be one of the runners that ran it every year, but my interests changed after having a streak of two races (I ran in 1983 as a bandit in 3:07, but was given a medal despite my protest that I had no number. I was told that I was fast enough to get the medal by a volunteer. This was the first year that Boston gave out medals.) At that 1983 race, I heard about the Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon and I went from being a marathoner to a triathlete. Injuries, life, and other circumstances have meant I have only done about 8 Boston Marathons. I have lost count and will have to research my results someday to find out how many I have actually done, but I found 7 medals (plus 1981) so that makes 8, or 7 if you disallow banditting in 1983.If I don't run Boston however, I am always at the marathon expo and watching the race and being thrilled by the whole day each and every year.

Jon Sinclair and Kim Jones.

Strangely enough this year was the most low key, I have been about the race. I didn't do a big production like I usually do at school, although my class watched the finishes with me! I went to the expo and met and had nice conversations with both with Kim Jones and her husband Jon Sinclair as well as Steve Jones (no relation, but the former world record holder in the marathon). I was laughing as I read Joe Falls 1977 book that night on the Boston Marathon In the foreword to the book, he wrote, " The amazing thing is that no one named "Jones" has ever won the the Boston Marathon. You'd think they have four or five Joneses by now. They have had a Smith, and a Brown and a Hill and an Anderson, There have been two Kelley's, Johnny The Elder and Johnny the Younger. But there was also a Yun Bok Suh, an Eiino Oksanen, an Edouard Fabre, and an Aurele Vandendriessche." I don't think that the author in 1977 anticipated the deluge of African runners who would go on to win Boston. Heck we have even had two different Robert Cheruiyots win the race. Still, no Jones has triumphed, as I laughed that I met two Joneses that tried. Kim Jones (ha, I looked at Kim's wikipedia page and then remembered that the person talking to Kim before I did took a picture on his Ipad and said it would be on Wikipedia soon and there it was!) twice finished second at Boston (read her excellent book) and Steve Jones also was a second place finisher in 1987.

It is hard to recapture the race memories before hearing of the bombing. The winners will never get their due and I haven't even yet read over the race stories or find out how all my friends did (if I didn't hear their times before the bomb). I do know that all my friends are safe, but I also know that one para at the school I work at was hit with debris from the bomb and still has shrapnel in her head and body. She will be OK. I also have heard that Jeff Bauman, the spectator in that horrible photograph taken of him with missing legs in the bomb's aftermath works at a Costco in my city of Nashua.

In retrospect, I would like to reflect on that Joe Falls' quote from 1977,  "The runners is Boston seem special. Maybe it's because they are all God's children. They seem to understand charity and they seem to understand discipline." Lets remember that and not lose the innocence and fun and the work of running The Boston Marathon. I know it is a big business now, but every runners personal achievement is not about business, but rather about finding ways to enjoy and benefit from living a happy and childlike life that is full of wonder and perseverance  If that is missing, then maybe you missed out on the point of running.

Thing to reflect on:

1) Do not lose the innocence of running. Run with childlike abandon.Splash through puddles.
2) Learn to understand the hate and violence. Do not resort to hate or violence in your life.
3) Pray for and do whatever you can for those affected my the marathon violence.
4) Thank the fans and volunteers. They create the experience that us runners enjoy.
5) Get my body working, so that I can qualify and run Boston in 2014. We cannot let evil and hatred win. This is our race and our sport!

There was a race on Monday. Here are the highlights.

Boston Marathon Comments After Watching the Race

I noticed that on today's "Runners World Daily" there is a post about qualifying times at Boston. They refer to post I wrote last week called "Back When You Really Had to Qualify for Boston". There are a lot of interesting comments so far on the Runners World blog concerning whether the qualifying standards for Boston are too easy or too difficult. It is fun to be considered part of the conversation. I think the standards are just right. You have to be a competitive, committed, and serious runner to get the standard. I think the 2:50 standard that they had for a while in the later 70's and 80's was a bit too severe. It is not qualifying for Boston that keeps me out of Boston. It is more about being healthy and injury-free.

Here is an interesting article called, "The painful truth about trainers: Are running shoes a waste of money?" by Christopher McDougal, author of the soon to be released book "Born to Run". I agree as all the doodads put on modern day running shoes wreak havoc with body and stride. I like running in the most minimalistic racing shoes and I am not a POSE or Chi Runner. I have always felt better running in my racing shoes and I have put a lot of miles on my body. Here is another shorter article from the Boston Globe. I also have no intention to be a barefoot runner, but I enjoy and benefit from doing barefoot strides at the track.

At the Boston Marathon expo this year I tried on the Ecco Biome shoe. I didn't run in it and the uppers were very comfortable, yet I think there is too much technology mumbo jumbo in this shoe trying to get your foot to move "naturally". They are very expensive too! I also tried on the Vibram Five-Fingers shoe. They look so "stupid" and "silly", but I liked the feel of the bottoms. Again, I didn't run in them, but I felt like I was barefoot and wanted to get right up on my toes and move. Maybe someday I will get a pair to do strides with when I am not near some clean grass. Was that the worst Marathon Expo ever? or did I go at the wrong time? I didn't find anything that interested me and there were very few handouts. I like to pick up posters, trinkets, autographs, ect. to hand out to my students as "prizes" on Marathon day. I got absolutely nothing! I guess the companies are cutting back due to the economy. It was good that I spent no money however!

I was thrilled watching the Boston Marathon with my fourth grade class on television and doing marathon running activities throughout the day. Last week we watched the Disney movie on Haile Gebresalasie called "Endurance" and my class was very enthusisatic about the race. Some of them had even read the local paper in ithe morning and came to school telling me about Henri Renuad, the Nashua mill worker, who won the 1909 edition of the race in 97 degree heat.

I was also checking the progress of many friends along the race course as they ran Boston. It looked like most everyone took it out conservatively, picked up the pace throughout the race, but then lost time in the final miles due to the headwind. I was happy to see such great results from so many teammates and friends.

I enjoyed watching the mens's race and Ryan Hall's brave pacing from the start. I am glad he made it up to third pace. I had picked Merga to win the race and he did. The women's race was baffling. The pace was so sedentary for too long. The finish was fantastic though. It was too bad that Kara Goucher didn't have the kick after pushing the pace for so long in the last few miles.

Boston Marathon 1982: When Things Go Wrong!

I am looking forward to seeing how all my friends do at Boston tomorrow for the Marathon. I hope they don't have a day like my college running coach and I had back  in 1982.

It took me eight tries, but I finally qualified for first my Boston in a race in 1981 (you had to run a sub 2:50 marathon to qualify for Boston back then). That meant I was ready to fulfill a long time dream to run the Boston Marathon. I got myself in fantastic shape for the 1982 race, probably the best shape I have ever been in for a marathon (which meant I did long runs). I was living on the Cape and taking night school classes at Northeastern University in Boston to get a teaching certificate. I had just started student teaching in a fourth grade classroom in Duxbury, Ma. and I could not wait for the race. There was a major April snowstorm a couple of weeks before the race but by race day the weather became unbearably warm.



At the BAA Marathon Expo I found my former Wheaton College cross-country coach, Jim Whitnah, and stayed with some friends he knew in Somerville, MA. We drove out to the start to check out the course the day before the race and went out for some Italian food that evening. In the morning I dressed in my racing gear, but Whitnah decided to get dressed in Hopkinton. The day didn't seem bad at all and was nice and pleasant at first. Eventually Jim decided to get changed and realized he had left his racing shorts and singlet back in Somerville. What to do? The race was in less than an hour so we made a dash from the starting area to Hopkinton High School to see what he could find. I gave him an Air Florida shirt I was thinking of wearing (there was a promotion that might give you free airplane tickets if you wore the shirt). He cut it up a bit, but couldn't find any shorts! Eventually he found the largest and crustiest pair of cotton gym shorts with paint stains all over them. They came down almost to his knees and were huge and  baggy. These were the days when runners wore short shorts so of course he looked completely ridiculous. But that is what he would have to wear in the race.

We hightailed it back to the start and wished each other good luck. Jim would be starting in the seeded runners section with a number in the 50s. I would not! I don't remember much about the first half of the race. I was taking it all in. I remember going through Wellesley and  feeling real good, although I am sure I was getting hot at that point. I was shooting for a 2:42 marathon and I was under pace at that point. I remember it getting warm, hot, and then very hot. The sun was glaring down on the streets. I don't remember Heartbreak Hill, but I do remember after it. I was getting incredibly hot, thirsty, and lethargic. I started stopping and drinking every cup of fluid and eating every orange handed to me for miles. Nothing helped. It felt like my brain was melting. It got incredibly hard to run as I was feeling dizzy, lightheaded, and prickly, but I HAD to finish. I waited so long to do my first Boston that I was not going to drop out, so I had to keep walking and looking for handouts of water. I remember the incredible noise running through the buildings near the finish on Hereford Street and eventually finishing. I recall going underneath a building (a garage) and slumping down while trying to get some energy back into my body. I was not in good shape at all. Eventually I could walk again and that was that, except I desperately wanted to know who had won the race.


If you know your Boston History, this race was the greatest marathon of all time (in my opinion as Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley had their incredible dual in the sun). Knowing how hot it was that day in the glaring sun, those two runners ran such a "killer" race (and it did seem to kill the running careers of both of these two great athletes).

My finishing time was embarrassing, but I finished, as I ran 3:23:58 for 3933rd place. I eventually found Jim Whitnah and he had dropped out on a bridge somewhere in the middle of the race. I am not sure if it was because of the heat, an injury, or the ridiculousness of his running costume. I would love to see a picture of him running in the top 100 dressed like he was.



I chowed down at a McDonald's (what I considered fine cuisine at the time) and drank everything I could. Still when I got home I was eight pounds lighter that I had been before the race!

Five days after that Boston I ran a five mile race in Hyannis and finished in 3rd place in 26:36 for a PR after being passed for the lead by two guys in the last 1/2 mile (one of them a sub 2:30 marathoner) so I recovered well and was still in good shape. The next week I was playing in a softball game and slid into first base. The base was really a sack of sand. I broke a few bones in my ankle and foot.

Twenty years later I decided to run a marathon to commemorate my first Boston. I still was not allowed to take a personal day by my school district to run Boston, so I could not do the big race, but a day before Boston there was the Fred's Marathon in Worcester. I did not train and had only done a few hundred miles in the months before. I ran a 16 miler two weeks before the race and a 20 miler the week before. I started the day by listening to a BBC feed online of the London Marathon (this was the anticipated dual between Paul Tergat and Haile Gebrsalassie that was instead won by Khalid Khannouchi). After listening to the finish I headed out for the race. The day was hot, but a bit shady on the multi-loop course. I came in fourth which really was not impressive if you consider my time. I finished in 3:23:58. I realized a couple of weeks later that almost 20 years to the day after my first Boston Marathon I had run another marathon in the EXACT same time! How cool is that?

Picked up my Boston Marathon Number

My daughter Hannah accompanied me down to Boston to pick up my Boston Marathon number and to go the the marathon expo. My number is 9600, but I am not running it this year, so it ended up being a very expensive t-shirt that I received for my entry fee. When I told I told the BAA officials that I was not going to run, they wanted my number and chip back. I had been told I could keep them earlier. I wanted to show my class on Monday, plus I paid for them, why should I give them back? The BAA will not use the chips next year, so they are letting people keep them after the race this year. I remember the first year that they were introduced into the race, I had volunteered for the expo and had received the job of showing people how to use the chips and to screen them for the correct info. It was a lot of fun as it was brand new to everyone at the time. Anyhow, they  finally said I could keep my number and chip as long as I didn't give them to someone else to use during the race. That is the last thing I would do! I have been asked by a few people if they could use my number, but if I did so I could be banished from the race forever. Not only that, but the race is very public in Nashua and the results in the paper would say that I finished, even when everyone knew I didn't run.

I always enjoy going to the expo, although nowadays I have seen just about everything that someone is trying to sell and the shoe displays just don't interest me anymore. I did catch up with a few people and Hannah likes getting autographs and free food and stuff. I did pick up a some Illuminite shirts, tights, and gloves that were really cheap for next winter and found another massage trigger point tool that is new to the market. It is a really strange looking tool called the Muscle Angel. It looks like it dropped in from another planet, but I checked it out and particularly liked the foot massage that it gave. I have tried just about everything else on the market so why not try this out, too? It works like a tennis ball, or even a tennis ball in a sock (if you get the sleeve that goes with it) but has a much firmer and targeted massage. When I used it on the bottom of my feet, it easily hit the right muscles with the right amount of control and pressure. It was not too soft like the TP Massage ball and rollers can sometimes be. I will have to test it out on other muscles to see how well if does. Aw, what's another tool? My house is full of stuff like this. The Muscle Angel -- Combo-Pack Bundleis also sold on Amazon, but I don't see any reviews up just yet. It might go well with books like Muscle Medicine: The Revolutionary Approach to Maintaining, Strengthening, and Repairing Your Muscles and Joints and The Permanent Pain Cure: The Breakthrough Way to Heal Your Muscle and Joint Pain for Good that tell you how to use a tennis ball of other objects to do ART (active release) type work on your muscles. I did reviews of these books in previous posts: Facilitated Active Stretch Technique: FAST Self Massage , Stretching Your Fascia Using "The Permanent Pain Cure, and How to Release Your Hamstrings with a Tennis Ball.

 
At the Boston Marathon expo, I felt the tuggings to just jump in and run the marathon on Monday. I think for the first time in my life, I am getting smart enough not to rush into races just to do them. Things are going well on the running front and I am sure I could pace my way through Boston, but I think it is better to keep building than to risk another injury. The good marathon will come in the fall! I'll be ready. Plus, I have to be in school teaching on Monday!
 
I have found my muscles and some joints to be getting really tight as I push up the mileage. I started reviewing all the things I have tried through the years to see what I should add back into my routine. 10-15 years ago I was doing active-isolated stretching just about daily. I had a video put out by Runner's World and the Whartons, that was lent out and never returned, but I still know the stretches. They can also be found in their book The Whartons' Stretch Book I had found the stretches really loosened up my muscles back when I did them, but they did not help my hip problems and muscles asymmetries. Now that I am doing the Postural Restoration routines to deal with my imbalances, I think it should be the best stretching routine to help my tight muscles and I started doing them again mid-week. Here is a Runnng Times article on some of the stretches.
 
I would like to give best wishes to all my friends who did qualify, train, and remained injury free for the Marathon. I hope you all have a great race. I will be enthusiastically following you all on Monday. So to all my old running friends, the Gate City Striders, and internet running friends, be smart and have a great race!
 
Speaking about Boston Marathon numbers, I really enjoyed this video from Boston.com that has an MIT student giving improbable answers to strange number questions about the Boston Marathon.
 

Back When You Had to Really Qualify for Boston

Jeff Milliman may have finished first, but he did not "win" this marathon!
Qualifying for the Boston Marathon is a worthy goal for many dedicated runners. Some people never are fast enough to get a coveted number. However think about the qualifying times back a few years ago. There was a point where you had to break 2:50 if you wanted a spot on the starting line in Hopkinton.

I first decided I would one day run the Boston Marathon when I was in third grade. My parents wouldn't take me to the start to let me run, so Amby Burfoot won instead. Running my first Boston Marathon was not going to be an easy task. I ran my first Marathon in 1977 but it took seven more tries before I broke the 2:50 barrier. I got a few low 2:50's in and even a 2:50:07 (I did slow down after running into a parked car with one mile to go and then took a wrong turn with less than 50 yards to go in that one). It wasn't until April 26, 1981 that I finally broke the 2:50 barrier.


It was at the first Annual Lake County Heart Fund Marathon in Illinois. I was in college and my cross-country coach, Jim Whitnah, and I traveled to run the race. I remember it as a point-to-point course with a steady headwind at many points along the course. I ended up in 19th place out of over 1000 marathoners. My time was 2:48:36 so I was happy that I finally qualified and would get to run in Boston the next year. The bottom of my feet were burning up the last few miles from the new Nike Mariah racing shoes I had bought just a day or two before. These were the first racing shoes with Nike Air inserts and they were just being brought to the market. They were great shoes but they always got too hot on the bottom of my feet during a marathon. I ran about 8 miles to buy them from the garage of a shoe salesman named Dick Pond. He now has a big shoe store named after him. Coach Whitnah came in 3rd place overall in about 2:32. However like in another marathon I had competed in, choosing a winner in this race was a bit controversial (or at least it presented a dilemma for the race organizers).

The first person to cross the finish line was Jeff Milliman from the Div. 3 running powerhouse North Central College. It seems that Jeff who had the previous fall won the Div. 3 Cross Country National Championships (my teammate Dan Henderson had won a year earlier) had decided to run the race as a training run with teammate Dan Skarda. Skarda stopped running at the 13 mile mark where Milliman took the lead. Unfortunately both runners had never officially entered the race. Milliman crossed the line first in 2:22:59. He was not declared the winner. The official winner finished 30 seconds later. He was Ray Hintz and he who "officially" won the race in 2:23:29.


Jeff Milliman is underneath the S and T at the start. Jim Whitnah is in the grey shirt underneath the R at the start, I am next to him in the dark shirt with lettering.

Update: 6/15/2010 I found some new articles on this race

5 Decades of Sub 3:00 Marathons

That is me and Runner's World editor Amby Burfoot before the 2000 Boston Marathon (long story here). That is a picture of him in the background winning the 1968 Boston Marathon.

So Amby Burfoot and Gary Allen have recently created a Facebook page called "5 Decades of Sub 3:00 Marathons." If you are on Facebook check it out. The premise behind the page is to find marathoners with the speed and longevity to have run a sub 3 hour marathon in five straight decades. Amby wrote about Gary Allen and added a  few names of runners who he knows have achieved this feat here. I would assume hundreds if not thousands have accomplished this (and maybe they have) but there are only a few names on the list so far. The names include Derek Turnbull, the late Larry Olsen and a few others. A few name runners are also ready to achieve this feat at the start of this coming decade. Interestingly enough, even the great Johhny Kelley did not quite achieve the 5 decades of sub 3 hours. He missed it by 3 minutes in his fifth decade.

I had already thought about the fact that I am approaching the running of a marathon in my fifth decade (post -see the last paragraph).

So I got to wondering if I could place on this list. I lost the list of marathons I was trying to keep over 10 years ago due to a hard drive crash and I have never tried to start the list going again. I know I have done about 40-50 of them, I just have to do some research and get all the times and dates correct. At first I thought that I would just miss being on the list (if I could run a fast marathon this decade-by less than 5 minutes, but I am thinking the last 10 years went by too quickly and times I thought I ran a few years ago where much further back in time).

This is the list I can come up with for now.

1970's November 25 1979 Philadelphia Marathon 3:03:57 (close!)
1980's April 26, 1981 Lake County Heart Fund Marathon (Illinois) 2:48:36
1990's September 28,1997 Clarence Demar Marathon 2:56:11
2000's Octber 15, 2006 Bay State Marathon 3:09:30

So unless I find a missing faster marathon. I can join the sub 3:10 club as soon as I go sub 3:10 this decade.

Another way to look at decades of running is to go by teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and if needed sixties. This is probably a more fair way to count decades as it relates to personal decades and not just a point on the calendar. According to this way of counting races. I have come up with this list showing that I have already accomplished 5 decades of marathon running.

Teens: Dec. 3, 1977 (18 years old) White Rock Marathon (Dallas) 3:25:44
Twenties: April 26, 1981 (21 years old) Lake County Heart Fund Marathon 2:48:36
Thirties: September 28,1997 (38 years old) Clarence Demar Marathon 2:56:11
Forties: Octber 15, 2006 (47 years old) Bay State Marathon 3:09:30
Fifties: October 25, 2009 (50 years old) Cape Cod Marathon 3:22:44

Well I got in five decades, but I am not that close to a sub 3 hour club. According to this list, I am in a sub 3:25 hour club for 5 decades).

I wish I thought of going for such a feat in the previous years. For example I didn't decide to run the Bay State Marathon (fastest in my 40's) until a spur of the moment decision the night before. I took it easy the first half and lost about 3 minutes waiting for port-a-john halfway through. I ddn't race and recovered nicely enough to run 8 miles the next day and a marathon (only 12 seconds slower the next week). I did no training run over 16 miles before that race either. In fact, I have never truly trained for a marathon by following a marathon training plan in all my years of running. I never did any runs over 16 miles training for marathons until 10-15 years ago, although I often ran back-to-back marathons throughout the years.

So, like most things running related with me, I get close to achieving something, but never close enough. It reminds me of a great song by The Alarm called "Close." "I've been close, closer than close, so close, not close enough."



BUT WAIT JUST ONE MINUTE!!!!!!!

I started thinking about decades. There is some debate about when a decade officially begins and ends. According to the experts, a decade really begins on the first year of the decade such as 2001 or 2011.

"The new decade will start on January 1st, 2011! There was no year 0 (our calendar went from 1 BC to 1 AD with no 0 inbetween). So the first decade started with the year 1, the second decade with the year 11, the third decade with the year 21, and so on.
If the calendar didn't start in the year 0 how can you say it ends in 9? This decade and century started on January 1, 2001 and ends December 31, 2010. "

If we use this as our criteria, I actually have a chance to run five decades of sub 3 hour marathons. Can I do it? It might be close, but will I be close enough?

Here is a picture of the 1980 Gill Dodds Marathon  listed below. Back in 1980, you had to run a sub 2:50 to qualify for Boston (see a Runner's World daily news article from last year referencing my blog) . I missed it by 7 seconds. I did run into a parked car with less than one mile to go, stopping me for a few seconds and then after running onto the track for the finish in the stadium, I assumed we were to do a full lap like in the Olympics. No, as I went to finish the lap, I didn't notice that at the top of the track you were supposed to run onto the infield and finish on the football field. I lost a few more seconds turning around to finish correctly. Close, but not close enough to run Boston the next year. Oh yeah, I finished 11th. The top ten got awards. Always close!

Take a look now at my results according to this "mathematic" definition of a decade:

Decade starting in and ending in...
1971-1981 June 1980 Gill Dodds Marathon (Ill.) 2:50:07
1981-1991 April 26, 1981 Lake County Heart Fund Marathon (Illinois) 2:48:36
1991-2001 September 28,1997 Clarence Demar Marathon 2:56:11
2001-2011 Octber 15, 2006 (47 years old) Bay State Marathon 3:09:30

BUT, I still have until the end of this year to go sub 3:00 in my fourth decade. Someone explain to me if I have my math wrong. Can I do it? There is a good possibility. I am finding the balance in my muscles that have been missing for years. If I can train without getting injured, I believe by the fall, I could go sub 3:00 with effort and dedication. In fact, if I decide this is a worthy goal and my math is correct, then maybe I will have to follow a marathon training plan for the first time in my life! Then I would have to do a sub 3 hour one more time after the "new" decade begins in 2011. It sounds like I might just be developing a running goal in my mind. This could get fun, but would probably be noteworthy to no one else but me. It is a goal, however,  and this old runner could really use one. If not. I am keeping fit until my 60's and going for 6 decades of marathons, but I really do not want to think about that just yet!

And I might add, I may not have been very fast, but I guess I have had longevity in the sport!

Applefest Half Marathon

The Applefest Half Marathon in Hollis is my favorite New Hampshire race and the Falmouth Road Race is my favorite Massachusetts race. I don't know which I like more, but they are always on my calendar unless I am injured. Yesterday was a glorious day for running the Applefest, unfortunately I wasn't feeling my best. After the 21 mile training run last Saturday, I felt great. The next day I spent 6 1/2 hours in my car getting to and from a U2 concert (mini-review) and didn't get home until 2 am. The good news was that with all that driving and sitting my back did not hurt at all (usually an hour in a car does me in). I was ready for a good week of running and looking forward to Applefest. Then everyone in my family got some type of the cold. I did the best with it and it only slowed me down a bit, but it still lingered. I tried to run it off during the track workout on Wednesday (8 X 600 done between 2:03 and 2:11). I ran them mostly on my own as Dan and Joe were faster, but they didn't finish the workout and I was happiest with my final 2:05 run all by myself.

I was still battling aspect of the cold before race time. I took my first medicine early race morning as I couldn't sleep. If I went by how I felt I ran during the race, I would say I was running well and hard. Unfortunately, the clock said otherwise. I was the first to finish over an hour and 1/2 with a time of 1:30:16. It was my slowest Applefest race ever (results). I did finish second in my age group. I ran much slower than I anticipated and I would attribute that to whatever effect running while not feeling 100% would have on a performance. I still loved being part of the race. There is no better race in all of New Hampshire and the Gate City Striders put on one of the best races in all of New England!

I am seriously thinking about running the Cape Cod Marathon in October. It will be almost 30 years since I first ran the race. Back in 1980 it was held on Otis Air Force Base rather than the roads of Falmouth so it was not as hilly. Here is a certificate I have from the 1980 race, I finished 44th out of 241 with a time of 2:51:48 (the website says there were 311 finishers and that 37 were under 2:50) . Marathons were a bit more competitive back then as you had to run under 2:50 to qualify for Boston. Of course, I did not qualify in this race. I don't remember much about the race, except that there were large packs of runners to run with and I had an awful cough and was hacking away all race! Looking at last year's results, there were 896 finishers with only 7 runners under 2:50.

If I do run the race, I might have a chance to place in the 50-year old division. Last year's top three finished  like this:

1 Christopher Rife 50 Tucson AZ 3:07:56
2 John Shepherd 52 Essex CT 3:11:32
3 Marty Ellowitz 54 Hubbardston MA 3:13:02

I last ran the Cape Cod Marathon in 2006 in 3:09:42 in 50 mph wind gusts and two weeks after running the Bay State Marathon (I was 12 seconds faster at Bay State). In 2005, I ran  3:10:27. Hopefully I can get some more long runs in and stay healthy as I didn't do long runs before either of those two races (except for the marathon 2 weeks before in 2006). The one thing I have learned about running the Cod Cod Marathon (and all marathons) is that you have to take the first miles easy. Don't even get sucked into running fast at the gun. It is a fast first 9 miles. Then when you are going well through the hills, don't give in and "go for it". If you save yourself for the last few miles (after Woods Hole) you will fly by tons of beat up runners as you finish strong!

1985 Centurion Cinelli Equipe

The1987 Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon 

I have had my Centurion Cinelli  Equipe road bike since 1985 when I bought it at the Internationl Bicycle Center in Boston. It had a list price of almost $1000 back then, but I bought it for $700. It is a solid and beautiful bike, built in Italy by Cinelli for the Centurion brand. I looked on eBay and the last price someone sold one for was double the price that I originally paid. Mine is not for sale as it is still my main road bike and I am not upgrading. I spent so many miles riding this bike through the years that it is like a best friend to me. I recently saw a post that gave more specifics for the bike at the Cinelli Only blog which also had an article from Bicycle Guide on the bike. that I use to have, but have somehow lost.

Cinelli Centurion Equipe pdf

Found at ebookbrowse.com

Cinelli Only post on Cinelli Centurion Equipe
Cinelli Only post on Cinelli Centurion Equipe part 2
Cinelli Only post on Cinelli Centurion Equipe Part 3
Text of 1985 Bicycle Guide article on the Cinelli Centurion Equipe

I thought I would put up a few pictures that I can find of the bike through the years as the author of that blog post has asked for pictures of this Centurion model. The first bicycle I bought for racing triathlons in 1983 was a $300 Centurion Elite. That September, I competed in my third triathlon, which was the 1st Cape Cod Endurance Triathlon (a full Ironman distance triathlon). I used that bike the next year for more triathlons including the 2nd CCET, but bought the Centurion Cinelli Equipe for the 1985 season and used it in all future triathlons including my 3rd -5th CCET races from 1985-1987. I stopped doing triathlons at that time due to a "bad back", but spent the next couple of years racing my bike in local time trials, criteriums, and road races. Now that I had hip surgery last summer, I think my "bad back" was caused by a bad hip as I feel more comfortable on my bike then I ever did back when I was racing. It is fun to train again on my sturdy and quick Centurion Cinelli Equipe! I have only seen one other model of this bike. It was being raced by Donnie Lake, one of New England's top triathlete's in the 1980s.

1983 training ride stop at the Cape Cod Canal: Centurion Elite.

Everything looks original in this photo. This is the 1985  Bud Light United States Triathlon Series race in Boston.
The photo is minutes before the first of my two crashes on the rainy course. I still managed to
qualify for the National Triathlon Championship race at Hilton Head. Sadly no one informed me of this until after
the Championship race had been completed.

Bike racing at the Lee Motor Speedway in Lee, NH in 1989

The setup I have had for the past 10 years of so.

Update:

Here is something I did not know. A Centurion bicycle won the Ironman Triathlon in 1982 in Hawaii. Here is a photo of Linda Sweeney's Ironman winning bike as seen on twitter by Lucas Verzbicus. He says it was made from aluminum, but it is a steel framed bike.

Audio interview with Linda Sweeney:

 She only used two gears during the bike ride and had a basket on the front to keep her towel, her cassettes and her cassette player. White Punks on Dope was top of mind. From  reading the materials, Linda Sweeney thought the Ironman course in Hawaii was totally flat. Not quite. It’s hard to believe it has been 30 years since Sweeney won her first- and only- Ironman race.

From this article her boyfriend the Thom Hunt, former high school indoor mile record holder and American 10,000 meter record holder bought her the Centurion for $350. 

This is my wife's Centurion Lemans 12 road bike. She never got into cycling. She bought this bike on my recommendation around 1985. I made this mistake of taking her out for her first ride on a 25 mile route through the hills of Vermont. She was not happy and did not want to become a triathlete (I tried), thus this bike has been toted from garage to garage. It is still all original. We may not have it much longer as we have put it on Craigslist for $100, but it is another in the line of Centurion bicycles.

Pushed the Button, One Week to the Cape Cod Marathon

I have had a very poor three weeks of running, since racing the Applefest 1/2 marathon. I had a two week cold of some type, a sore calf-achilles, and for the past two weeks my left side has been acting up. I only got about 2 or 3 runs in per week with nothing over 8 miles. I decided, with the weather outlook this weekend, that I wouldn't get another long run in and so I wouldn't enter the Cape Cod Marathon next weekend. Yesterday wasn't a bad day, like they predicted, and after doing a new Feldenkrais lesson Saturday afternoon, my left leg straightened up a bit and the pains of the last 2 weeks left, so I drank a glass of water and headed out for a run.

I had a nice loose run, although I lost a lot of conditioning during the downtime, something I also noticed Wednesday night at the track when I struggled through 3 X 1600 in 6:13, 6:07, and 6:06. I was enjoying feeling loose again and decided to try to go 16 miles. I started losing my form around 13 miles, but soldiered on thinking I would go 21 miles. At about 16 miles, I changed my mind, as I had nothing to eat or drink and going longer would only do some harm. I headed home and ended up doing 18 miles.

I got a long run in, so today a hit the "Enter" button and entered the Cape Cod Marathon for next Sunday. I am not going to worry about time and just see what happens. I guess I would be happy just running under 3:30, although if everything feels right I could go faster. If I qualify for Boston, it gives me an option to do that race in the Spring.

The past two weeks, my left leg has been acting up (out of whack). When that happens, I get a pain in my butt, in my lower back, and my knee feels tight and constricted. I also notice my left foot rotates out to the side more and when I run I have to roll over on the inner side of the foot which twists my knee, tightens my adductors, and gives me pains all over. Usually this is where I start stretching and beating myself up making it worse. I was doing lots of back Feldenkrais lessons, but started looking for foot-ankle lessons. The lesson I finally found, had me working on the ankles, my left one has limited mobility in one quadrant. I noticed that while rotating the ankle, I could feel its effect right in my left glute that gets really tight. There is a definite connection there and after about 1/2 hour of gentle movement and rotations, I was getting a smoother movement. When I was done, things weren't perfect, but I could run without the constrictions I had beem feeling all over my left side. I find it very fascinating noticing, through Feldenkrais, the ability to move in different ways and the positive effect I can achieve. I am slowly unraveling the tension and tight spots throughout my body and feel a lot freer in the back and hips. I also still find a lot of tight spots, so this is going to be a long process. Today is the best my body has felt in the past three weeks!

I don't expect much out of this marathon, in fact it is probably stupid to do it as I should not put new movement patterns under so much stress, so I will keep it low key and turn it into a long run. Hopefully the weather will be better than what the runners in the Bay State Marathon had to face today.