The Big Sponge Theory

Look, it's a sponge!

Yes, I know. Exhilarating, right? Before you stop reading, I promise that if you're a runner, you want and need to know about this sponge, as it is a major theory of running that has been preached to me for over a year and not ascertained until just this week.

But first, I will admit that this theory is not my own and is not from my own intrinsic thought. I must credit my coach, director of Marist College Cross Country and Track and Field Pete Colaizzo, who has been coaching at Marist for over 20 years. He is venerable in his own right and has brought this former awful runner who used to get winded from running warm-up laps for soccer games to become a 2:42 marathoner and decent overall running competitor. The dude knows his stuff. To read more about Marist Running, read his blog at http://runredfox.blogspot.com/

Now, for his theory of the Big Sponge. Pete likes to equate the human body, especially the legs, to a sponge. When a sponge takes in too much water, the sponge then becomes useless and lets out the water it cannot hold. When that sponge becomes fully saturated, it is entirely obsolete, really.

The same is for the body.

We runners train so hard to achieve our goals, to attain our own versions of perfection, to do so much. We do these long runs and heinous workouts that burn our lungs and quads alive to get there. We'll do whatever is necessary to get to that level because it means success or failure for us. Well, the workouts are like water; you can keep training as hard as you can, without resting properly, and your body will reap some benefits. Yet, without proper recovery and rest, our bodies cannot handle the workouts (the water, and the benefits from the speed) and we'll therefore break down. Maybe it's a stress fracture, or just burning out, but once we reach that limit of constant workouts and hard days without the proper amount of easy days to counterbalance it, our bodies will suffer.

Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way.

Yesterday was my first day back from running after my venture in the Boston Marathon last week. I took a full week off because I felt that after taking only three days off in my previous marathon that it would behoove me to take some more time to give the old legs a rest. When I went out for an easy six miles yesterday, I went out much harder than I should. How hard? Well, the first three minutes were about 6-minute pace. The last three? A pedestrian 7:30 pace. I didn't know it was possible to hit a wall after three miles. After the six miles, my legs were dead, my lungs scorched, my pride burned.

Now, I know I can't pick up right where I left off. I just ran 26.2 miles a week ago. The human body needs healing time. Time off is necessary, vital to my summer training so I don't get hurt for cross country season and can build back a solid base uninterrupted, so I don't burn out in late September. Workouts? Forget about it...at least until late May.

This may be the most difficult thing for any runner to learn, especially a hammering 21-year-old like myself. Every day (and my teammates will vouch for me on this) I'm one of the few who always push the pace. I'm annoying, and I'm sorry, but it's just me and how I run. Yet, after the disastrous run yesterday and how my legs still feel today after another 6 measly miles, I know to take it easy. My sponge is just about fully saturated at this point. It's time to ring it out.

Boston Marathon Recap

Before Boston, I had won them all.

Monday changed that.

Before this race, I had always experienced tangible success in all of my marathons. In Lake Placid, my first one, I had completed it while also winning my age group. In Philadelphia the first, I had finally qualified for Boston, a feat I feared I would never achieve. The Vermont City Marathon brought me under the 3-hour mark for the first time in my marathon career, even after taking 2 weeks off with a severely sprained ankle. And, Philadelphia the second engendered a belief where I could consider myself a legitimate marathon competitor with my PR of 2:42:52.

Going into Boston, my training was of higher volume, quality and intensity than ever before. While I knew that breaking 2:40 would be no run around the park (pun intended), I didn't come close to worrying about accomplishing my goal until about 3 weeks out when I mangled my hand (see previous post). While I only missed one day of training due to my wounded hand, the trauma my body endured likely set me back a bit. Yet, being the naive 21-year-old I am I felt that I didn't lose too much.

The morning of the race saw me rushing to get to the bus drop off. No, I wasn't running late; the hotel I was staying in encountered a customer, or, somebody that I'd now like to strangle, pull the fire alarm in my hotel at promptly 5 a.m. I, in a borderline zombie-like state, gathered my necessities as expediently as possible and exited the hotel earlier than expected to head to downtown Boston. Once there I realized that, in attempt to collect my racing requirements in the most whirling of dervishes, my gels were still in the hotel room. Sans a cell phone (for fear of losing it), I had no way to call my parents to get the gels so I could refuel during the race.

Marathoners of any type, be they fledglings to the sport, first-timers or even seasoned vets know not to run a marathon on no fuel. It's a death sentence. The key is to begin refueling early in the race so that it helps offset that wall that makes so many runners irascible on the course. Part of the reason why I had such a breakout performance at Philadelphia in November was that of my sage coach, Pete Colaizzo, and I conceived a plan to refuel earlier in the race. Instead of refueling at mile 18 when it's too late to have any meaningful impact, I'd start taking gels at around mile 13 and every 3 miles or so until the finish. On Monday I had no option. All I could rely on to get me to Boylston St. under 2:40 were some water, Gatorade and pure guts.

Through the half I arrived in 1:19:20 and felt so strong. Too strong almost. While my first 5K was an unheard of 18:34 (to put that into perspective, I ran a 5k in cross country in September in 18:30) I slowed down into a solid rhythm that saw me run even splits effortlessly. It's that area that all runners yearn to get to during a marathon. I was truly "in the zone."

This lasted until mile 19, where I instantaneously felt my lull I usually encounter in this area. My strategy going into the race was to start out aggressive, refuel properly, fight the lull between miles 18-21, then use my second wind I always experience until mile 24 and combine that with using the advantageous downhills and sail home.

Yet, that's not quite how things panned out.

Mile 19 saw me at an overall 6:07 pace per mile which would have yielded a 2:40 finish. I felt tired but totally in control. Once I got to mile 22, the combination of over 100,000 feet run and a lack of hydration and refueling set in, essentially having me run in torture until the finish, where I ended up running 2:44.

My family and close friends who were there with me saw the complete feeling of dishevelment branded on my face. I was wholeheartedly devastated with how I did not even PR for the first time, but I also failed to complete a goal in a marathon for the first time. Initially, I was clueless with how to deal with the disappointment.

Disappointment led to thinking, and thinking, and thinking for days, trying to decipher what went wrong, how it didn't go to plan and why I failed. After hours of laboring over the result, I have come to the forthcoming conclusion:

Me running 2:44 is like the venerable Ryan Hall running 2:08. Both are exceptional times, but not quite personal best times. Ryan Hall doesn't PR every time he runs a marathon. Not even Haile Gebrselassie, recognized world record holder at 2:03:59, breaks his own record every time he competes. To think you can do so every time you go out is flat out asinine.

I'll never make an excuse for my performances, Monday included. Sure, my body endeavored into some trauma the past three weeks, I was without gels and that likely affected me mentally. For whatever reason, it wasn't meant to be on Monday.

While this certainly doesn't alleviate the sheer disappointment of not accomplishing what I yearned, I've learned more from this race than almost any other race. I know now to be more prepared before race day and to not be so mentally malleable, to rely on a mental focus that, I must reluctantly admit, wasn't fully there on race day.

The anger and frustration of not attaining what I sought to yields all the motivation I'll ever need to go back and break 2:40 at Boston next year. I know the course. I know what I'm up against. I know who you really are, Newton Hills, and you too, downhills. I know what it takes, mentally and physically, to get up at 5:30 a.m., take an hour bus ride to Hopkinton, wait 2 hours at the athlete's village, then line up to race. I know it all now.

On April 16, 2012, be ready Boston. This time, it's personal.

Humble (Fat-Free) Pie

It's the most important part of a runner's diet.

And it's something I should have eaten all along.

Just like a typical 22-miler on a Saturday morning, you can become so engulfed in your training that you become so quickly to forget about setbacks and holds. The, "What if?" is for mortals. Injuries? For the weak. Bad days? Not for me. I'm too good for that, too strong to ever have a bad day.

Then I had not only a bad day, but a bad week of training.

It all started with a Saturday night out at my friends' local favorite establishment. With only 23 days away from the biggest moment of my waking existence at that point, it would have behooved me to not go out and have a few beers with the gang. What was supposed to be an easy night ended up being a night of horror that ended with me walking out of the E.R. at 4 a.m.

As I was out, I bent down to pick up a bottle so I wouldn't step on it and cut myself. Fortunately, my lower extremities were unscathed. Unfortunately, my hand wasn't, as I lost my balance while picking up the bottle, put intense pressure on the bottle to keep balance, which eventually led to the beer bottle shattering on my hand. Fifteen stitches later, I was dejected, thinking I wouldn't be able to run the race I have had on my calendar for over 540 days. Instead, I am able to run, but with a 3 pound soft cast to show for it after reconstructive surgery to regenerate the nerve damage I so elegantly did two weeks ago.

Surgery was Wednesday. More importantly, the final long run was Saturday. 23 miles, with 6 easy, 16 of tempo at marathon goal pace, and 1 to cool down to top it all off. I was still in pain. I was held back by a 3-pound weight on my hand. What it ended up being was 5 easy miles, 15 miles of tempo pace around 4 seconds too slow per mile, and then death. I had no energy left. I was entirely spent, after only 20 miles. This couldn't be. My worst long run was my last long run. Maybe it was the cast, or the percoset, or the fact that I just was out of shape. Maybe it was a bad day. Whatever it was, doom was imminent. Or was it?

The recent events of the last week engendered an epiphany. While my diet boasts my daily servings of fruit, grains, protein, and ample amount of fluid, I totally forgot about my humble pie (fat-free of course. I am a runner after all).

Until this point, my training was completely uninterrupted. If there was ever such a thing as smooth sailing, this was it. It seemed inevitable that I would break 2:40 in Boston on the eighteenth. Now, doubt swarmed me like a starving wolfpack.

Yet, I know now just how lucky I am that I still can run. That I am prone to bad days, especially after being on painkillers and undergoing anesthesia 72 hours prior to a 20 mile run. That if it happened to my legs, there would be no chance of me running in the 115th Boston Marathon, lining up with Ryan Hall, Kara Goucher and Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot. It may not have been a perfect week, but it was still a week of training, a week that will make me stronger, make me better, make me tougher .

Because I am so lucky, I will not let this moment fade away. I cannot, and will not, let my goal be unattained, for it would be wasteful. Just as I was wasteful of my fat-free humble pie earlier. No more.

And, maybe if I do break 2:40 in ten days, then perhaps I'll even have a piece of non fat-free pie to celebrate.