What did I learn from Boston this year?

They say you should learn from your failures.  Tony Robbins would say “It’s only a failure if you don’t learn anything.”  So I thought I’d go back and look at my 2016 Boston Marathon and see if I could learn anything.

Train smart to reach your potential.

First thing that I learned, not just at Boston, but all through the training cycle is that I can still train at a fairly high level.  Even at my age I can still hit the work fairly hard as long as I’m smart about it.  I can do the workouts necessary to get into qualification race shape as long as I include strength, flexibility and range of motion maintenance.

Be consistent with core strength, flexibility and range of motion.

I trained up into the 50-60 miles per week realm during this last cycle.  I did that typically on a 4 day per week schedule.  That means I spent the other 3 days working on my core and my flexibility.  I did not get injured.  I had little to no tendinitis.  I didn’t get burnt out or over-trained.  I hit almost all the workouts.

Consistent yoga sessions helped immensely to keep my hips, hamstrings and Achilles strong, and flexible with a good range of motion.

Start with base.

If you do the math I was going longer on most days – in the 10-14 mile range – making good use of my run days.  This is only possible if you take the time to build a good base.  This means front loading longer zone-2 effort runs into the plan.  These takes the form of 1:30 – 2:00 mid-week Z2 workouts.

I really need to rely on that big base now and not so much on race strength as I get older.  Don’t ignore the base building phase of your training.  Don’t assume you have the base aerobic fitness. No matter how experienced you are base is good.  That base training enabled me to take on the race specific training I needed to get ready.

3 weeks build cycles aren’t appropriate anymore.

I used to train in 3 week cycles during my campaigns.  The weeks would escalate in difficulty with the 3^rd week being the peak week for mileage and effort.  If I try that cycle today I have difficulty executing the 3^rd week.  My body can’t sustain the big effort for that 3^rd week and I don’t get as much out of the workouts because I really can’t execute them.

Now I need to do 2 week cycles.  This gives me the off week to recover a bit so I can hit the up week harder and cleaner and get the benefits from the workouts.

Timing the cycle is more important as you get older.

I don’t recover as quickly between race efforts as I used to.  This makes racing a marathon something that you have to peak fairly precisely on.  In my racing prime I could race hard almost every weekend.  That is not really possible anymore.  I don’t have specific data on it, but it feels like I need at least 3 weeks between hard efforts.

This applies to the training cycle as well.  If I race during my training I need to do it as part of a peak week and allow enough time to recover.  My days of back to back to back BQ tries are probably over!

The challenge with this slower recovery is that if your target race, like Boston, ends up being a bad weather day, and you race it anyhow, you have to find another race 3 weeks out to use that fitness.  You start losing the fitness and the race specificity quickly as well.  It’s almost a ‘one and done’ decision for me now.  If I go for it and don’t get it it’s really a new cycle.

I don’t have the back to back recovery anymore and I can’t hold on to that race specific fitness as well.  It really makes race planning very important because your chances of running a qualifying race are limited.

Nutrition is important.

I didn’t do anything super special for Boston this year but I was able to roll into race day at my target weight and with enough fuel in my tank.

During my training I tried to eat clean as much as possible.  For me this means cutting back on meat and dairy and packaged foods and eating as much fruit and veg as I can.  This doesn’t’ require a special effort on my part because it has become more and more just part of my lifestyle.

I trained consistently with UCan and have found that this is a good choice for me.  The Ucan combined with the zone 2 training allows me to burn fat economically and efficiently when I compete.  I’m thrilled to not have to rely on any sugary gels or Gatorade at all anymore.

Nutrition was a non-event for me this time around at Boston.  That is because I’ve spent the last 20 years figuring it out and knows what works for me.  I trained with the Ucan and I raced with it so there were no surprises on race day.

Beware of the heat.

This falls under the category of things I already know.  I don’t race well in the heat.  Especially in the spring when we northerners have not acclimated yet.  In hindsight I should have backed off when I knew it was going to be warm. I made the decision to go for it.  My logic was that the warmness might cost me 5 -7 minutes but that I had the race fitness to overcome this.

With my late starting corral I got the brunt of it at the worst point for me in the race.  You can’t do anything about the weather, but you have to know your limitations and work with them.

Negative split is the best strategy for Boston.

Again, things I already know.  Unless you’re an elite or you’re in such good shape that you can attack the course you need to execute a negative split strategy.  With the heat I thought I might be able to attack it and get off the course before it got too hot.  I went out hard.  I definitely did not have the fitness to front load the race and hang on.

I have probably told 1,000 people that you should not go out too fast at Boston.  I should have listened to my own advice.  I set my PR at Boston by attacking the course and holding on at the end.  In order for the attack strategy to work at Boston you need to have enough hardcore fitness to get through the hills.  I didn’t have that fitness.  If you crash in the hills you can’t recover.

I’m not sure why I have had to learn this lesson about a dozen times at Boston!

My Garmin 310XT is bad at pacing and distance at Boston.

My execution plan on race day relied too heavily on the ability of my Garmin to tell me what my pace and distance was.  The distance was off by 100 yards from the beginning and the pace was all over the place.   I think it’s expecting too much to think I could know my exact pace at any point in time.  I’ll have to look at the settings and see if I can find a way to get a more accurate pace.

In the old days I’d just wear my ironman watch and I’d do the math each mile mark to see if I was on pace.  I think this is a better approach for me because it would keep me from trying to do micro-corrections and over-managing my pace.  It also keeps you true to the course mile marks, which, at the end of the day are all that matters.

Summary.

If I had to do it over again I would go out a lot slower.  I would try to negative split the race.  I don’t think I would have been able to qualify anyhow, given the conditions but I would have saved at least 10 minutes of that awful death shuffle positive split at the end.

The shame of it is that I was in qualification shape.  I was ready and prepared.  I got not-so-good race conditions and had a bad day.  It was a lost opportunity.  I had that fitness and couldn’t use it due to circumstance.  Who knows when I will have that fitness again?

Trying to qualify at Boston has historically been a bad decision for me.  The course penalizes runners who are more aggressive than their training warrants.  The weather is always a crap shoot.  It’s a great race but I think I’d be better served saving my qualification attempts for more forgiving courses.