The Limit

I remember slowing to a trot after a logy eight miler, the third in as many days. I had racked up 24 miles for the week at that point and the thought of sweating through another eight miles in 24 hours hit me all at once. I stopped walking back to my house for a second and went hands to knees. Put simply, I was exhausted.

That was June 6, meaning just day 6 of base building. Three days earlier, I’d run the North Face Endurance Half Marathon, and while I would normally take a day off following a race like that, I figured an easy “recovery” jog couldn’t hurt. Plus, I didn’t want to start taking days off already and fall behind on the mileage.

That’s how I found myself bent over at the waist. Tired. Sore. Sweat running into my eyes. And the overwhelming desire to curl up right there and go to bed.

There’s a scene in Once a Runner that describes this feeling pretty well. Cassidy narrates what it’s like for someone to train with famed Olympian Bruce Denton, someone looking for "The Secret.” The pace is always moderate. If someone picks it up, that’s where it stays. The days "go well enough, but [you] notice something peculiar. There was no let-up....[and your] outlook began to darken. For one thing, [you were] getting very tired. No particular day wore [you] out, but the accumulation of steady mileage began to take its toll. [You] never quite recovered fully between workouts and soon found [yourself] walking around in a more or less constant state of fatigue."

This was the part of base building I’d forgotten about. I’ve lived in shades of exhaustion since June 1. Some days, I wake up alert only to have the tiredness seep in during the afternoon. Other days, I have a sudden burst of energy, the pace drops, and my confidence soars.

I knew though, that if I could make it through that week, if I could just make it through my long run on Saturday, I could get to that recovery day and tackle the next week. And I did. I went in and out of sleep poolside, then grabbed 11 hours of sleep Saturday night. When I didn’t lace up on Sunday, I almost felt giddy with energy as my legs knit themselves back together.

Then, as the days and weeks wore on, I found that the tiredness relaxed some. The soreness evaporated. And I woke up refreshed in the morning, groggy maybe, but with a zip in my legs. I remembered this feeling, but I didn’t have it last year until late July.

Last year, I thought I’d found the limit. Now, it was time to see what I could really do. My original mileage plan had been to do 40-50-50-40 for June and then ratchet things up to 50-60-60-50 as I did last year. Instead, I added in an extra day of running and took the mileage up to 50 right away. When I clicked stop on my watch last Saturday, the last day of June, I forced a smile through the humidity induced fog that clouded my head. That capped off a 220.3 mile month. Just 179.7 miles from my goal of 400, from Base Camp and four weeks to get there.

But while I continue to wail away on my quads and build the foundation, the sword, I started thinking about just how far I could take this. My thoughts drifted to running as they often do during work last week. I pulled out a post-it, stricken by the sudden urge to do some math…a rarity for this writer.

I jotted down 60, 65, 70. And went to work breaking each of those numbers down into six days worth of running. I’ve never run more than 63 miles in a week before but I’m flirting with the limit or what Adam Goucher would call “The Edge.”

And it’s time for the journey to continue on….

Navy Federal 5K (and 20miler) Redux

It started with a few odd glances. That became smiles. There were waves, and there were head nods. Then it dawned on me: I was the leader. Well, sort of.

This past Saturday, I decided to take on what Quenton Cassidy would call, “running through.” In other words, I decided to race through my training. The scene opens with Cassidy letting go ragged breaths as he charges up a hill and watches in vain as his closest opponent disappears across the finish line before him. While he retches on the side, his good friend Jerry Mizner reassures Cassidy’s concerned girlfriend saying, “He just run himself a race is all.” Then Cassidy, Mizner, and Bruce Denton go trotting off for an easy 10 miler. "To beat someone while running through, Cassidy said, is to own them body and soul."

I haven’t raced since Boston back in April and coupling my base building period with the summer heat, I haven't exactly felt race sharp. In fact, I've felt pretty damn blunt. But seven weeks into marathon training, you start to get that itch, wanting to test your mettle, wanting to see if "it" is working.

So, that’s where I found myself staring down my first 20 miler (with the last 4-6 miles at a “fast finish,” whatever that means for a 20 miler). The trainer at our neighborhood gym was the co-chair of the Navy Federal 5K and subtly twisted our arms, err, encouraged us to sign up.

For the marathoners, there’s something about 20, isn’t there? It somehow takes on mythical proportions despite being only two miles more than your previous long run. Maybe it’s that it starts with a two instead of a one, maybe it’s a rounder number than 18 or 16, or perhaps it’s purely that it sounds bad ass saying that you just ran 20 miles over the weekend. Whatever the case, the 20 mile long run is one that is never taken lightly, and, for this runner, is never far from the front of my thoughts the week leading up to it.

I enlisted the help of Mrs. Onthebusrunning who agreed to Sherpa for me that morning. It's one thing to crew for someone on a long run...it's quite another entirely to throw away precious hours of Saturday morning sleep to bike before the sun has even come up. She has my eternal love and respect for such sacrifice.

Timing was everything. I wanted to be on the trail by 6:50 to be back to the car by 8:50 so we could throw the bike in the car and make it to the line for the 9:00 gun.

The sky was overcast, the air crisp with the first breath of fall air, and my legs popping from the first steps out of the parking garage. In short, there was that fall magic in the pre-dawn darkness; the day that you dream of to get yourself through those torturous summer miles was finally here. It’s as though I had three lungs and dammit if I didn’t feel like I could run the whole marathon that morning.

We turned on to the W&OD trail, a notoriously hilly bike path that is famous for its interminable slow, gradual climbs that are enough to snap your will if you haven’t steeled yourself. I save this route for the big runs to use as a measuring stick.

My wife and I were chatty, laughing and cavorting in the early-going. She pulled alongside to offer me water and Gatorade from the backpack and we regaled one another with childhood stories that we hadn’t yet heard about one another and talked about our future goals…all those creative, dreamy thoughts that come so easily to the surface on good long runs.

To save time post-long run/pre-race, I pinned my number to my singlet, so I was that guy on the trail with his race number on. Then I realized…I wasn’t the tool with his race number on, I was the race leader.  And my wife was on the bike guiding me through the course! “So this is what it feels like,” I laughed to my wife.

My watch beeped for six miles and I marveled that time and distance had come and gone so fast. Before I knew it, we’d hit the out and started the back. The pace dipped to 6:20s over the last three miles and I rode it all the way back to the race.

The weather had grown a tad warmer but I was in that perfect homeostatic state where my arm warmers and hat still felt comfortable.

“Do you care?” she asked. “I mean, do you have a goal?”
“Just want to hit marathon pace,” I said. “Anything else is gravy.”

That’s what I said. And mostly that’s what I thought. But the competitive fire stoked inside me and I wanted to see what my legs could do. I didn’t want to go into oxygen debt and I didn’t want to veer into the puking zone. But….

At the gun, I was a pack of one. The leader bolted ahead and I watched him disappear into the neighborhood. A pack of four was ahead of me and the rest somewhere at my back.

“Keep it neat,” I repeated, meaning my stride.

At mile 1 I’d gained ground and a smile broke across my face as I looked down at the 5:45 staring back at me. “I guess I can still run fast,” I said. As we hit the hills, the pace rose to 6:00 at remained that way, at least for me. I started to reel in one who’d fallen off the pack. I could hear that raspy breath as I came on him and we started to climb. I relaxed my shoulders, reset my breathing with a deep breath, and strode confidently past him so he’d know I wasn’t hurting nearly as bad as him and he’d only see my back the rest of the way.

With one mile to go, I kept the accelerator down and tore through the final stretch.  It was somehow different, though.  It wasn't that awful lactic acid storm that normally comes at the end of a 5K.  It was a relaxed, one more mile to hit 20 and end the workout feeling that I can't ever remember experiencing during a 5K.  I was in control, like I could drop the hammer and pound out that last mile or just focus on maintaining pace and enjoying a nice Saturday workout.

I came across the line in 18:26 and rounded out the top 5, good enough for second in my age group. I was more than satisfied and came away with the lingering thoughts of, “What could I have done without 17 miles on my legs already?”

My wife came across the line. We sipped our water and gathered our things. Then we trotted off to the car, not for 10 more miles, but to meet our breakfast club friends for some much needed eggs and pancakes, and to let that sweet, exhausted satisfaction of a workout gone good seep in.

The Interval Workout

The chapter begins "'An interval workout,' Cassidy once explained to a sportswriter, 'is the modern distance runner's equivalent to the Iron Maiden, a device as you know used by ancient Truth Seekers.'"

Over the years, I've found myself mentally preparing and physically bracing myself for the interval workouts appearing on each training calendar.  It's a case of steeling the mind for the pain you're sure to endure...and knowingly -- and willingly -- inflicting it upon yourself.  There's something raw about intervals, the reduction of the body into a primal state of survival as you take counterclockwise turn after turn around this interminable torture device.  It's also where we learn the most about ourselves.

As I mentioned previously, normally my training programs conclude with some sort of race.  This one, the only end goal was simply to get faster and prepare me for the next calendar.  So, this became the circled date on my calendar.  As Bruce Denton said, "This is where you find out."

I walked from the far corner of the parking lot, cutting across the soccer field to avoid the questioning gaze of onlookers at the high school I was surely trespassing on, and really had no right to be at.  High school boys scooped and flung lacrosse balls back and forth at one another from a field looking out over the track.  To them, hopefully, I was just some faculty member of no consequence out for an afternoon jog.  With a deep exhale, I dropped my keys and water bottle by the finish line and set off on my customary one mile warmup trot with some 100 meter striders mixed in.

The warmup is always sluggish.  My body seems already to be rebelling against the effort.  The breath is abnormally labored and the form is sloppy.  The strides feel taxing.  I relish the 10 minutes or so I take to stretch and do some plyos.  In my head, I'm simply catching my breath.

It's a hot one.  My arms already glisten and sweat drips from the brim of my hat.  The sun eases down behind the the spires of trees that ring the west side of the school and cast a merciful shade upon the backstretch.   

I spend a couple last seconds rationalizing the workout to myself.  Somehow trying to break it into smaller, manageable chunks: it's only five miles; it's only five miles with periods of rest even.  But no matter how simple I try to make it, the fact of the matter is, the work still has to be done.  I ran paces through my head one more time (no slower than an 85, that computes to a 5:45 mile).  No more stalling.  I toe the line, click my watch, and am off....

The first one is alarmingly easy.  I complete the loop in a 79 I know I'm going to regret in about 30-40 minutes.  I trot slowly around the curve that will serve as my 100m recovery.  Down below, near the edge of the woods, a pack of deer regard me with caution.  I swing beyond them with a lingering look before disappearing around the bend.  Somehow, it's already time to go again.

The first set disappears quickly but not smoothly.  I feel like the rest is too short and the effort for each interval is tremendous.  My chest burns from the humidity (and the air quality alert explains that later).  I try to visualize the smooth flow of a river, getting swept up in a current, but the hard, raspy breathing only conjures thoughts of thrashing about in my river trying not to drown.  I take the 200m jog at a shuffle to gain as much back as I've lost.  After the 100 recovery, it nearly seems like an eternity.

Rather than accepting my 85 threshold, I'm stubbornly fighting to grind out anything close to 80.  The second set passes nearly as miserable as the first does.

Before I get ready to start again, I take a long swig of water and look around.  The deer have long since gone.  Short, shrill blasts from a whistle and barking orders tumble down from the lacrosse game.  Sweat flings from my arms with each stride, so I can only imagine how hot they must be with pads on.  It dawns on me that we're all toiling, all striving toward an end goal.  Unbeknownst to the other, we're suffering in our own way.

It's at this point that I tried to pull a song into my head.  I don't run my intervals with an iPod.  I want to be fully aware and in touch with what's going on.  But, usually there's some song (good or bad) that plays on a loop in my head, and normally it's some line that I cling to and repeat as a mantra.  Tonight, there is nothing.

Each arduous effort kept blending together.  Because the rests are so short, I keep tally on my hands: reps on my left hand, sets on my right.  Each completed set is like a slash against a prisoner's cell wall.  Sometimes, I dash across the line dramatically, hands to knees and sucking in deep, haggard breaths; others I simply trot through, click my watch, and start the slow jog to recovery.

It's until mired in the middle stretch of set three that I settle into a rhythm.  A slow tightening begins to draw across the tops of my quads.  Yet, I swing around the second turn as if fired by a slingshot.  With a 100 meters to go, everything relaxes and the thrashing stops.  The movement feels effortless.  I click my watch and look down at a 78.  I have life.

I start the next one and in my head, I reason that if I can somehow just coil like a spring around those curves, I can unleash a smooth almost floating stride down the straights.  And so I do.  To the point where the curves became 100 meters of waiting.  I'd experienced this during my 200s.  I'd repeat "coil, coil, coil, coil....release!" in my head and come barreling down the straightaway.  

Each rep simply comes and goes.  I lock into some in-tune yet detached state.  Those 78s become 77s.  The monumentalness of the workout subsides and it just becomes another training session.  

Then my right hand has four fingers in the air.  One set to go.  One measly mile.  I call on past "final miles" from races, from training runs, from any place in my catalog of memories.  "It's only one mile.  Anyone can run one mile," I say.  

I try to run it like any other set, but I find myself counting down each rep: 300, 200, 150, 100, click!

The sun has disappeared in total behind the trees.  A warm breeze blows across the track.  Three fingers on the left.  Four fingers on my right.  The starting line approaching.  One lap the track.  In my head, I know I'm finishing on a straightaway and I just need to maintain that same rhythm I've found back all those reps ago, and just let the current carry me.  Click!

I take the first turn with a renewed quickness in my step.  My strides eat up the ground and droplets of sweat fly from my pumping arms.  I hit the halfway in 38.  A wry smile crosses my face as I accelerate out of the final turn.  My eyes lock on the finish.  All the form drills, all the core routines, all the early alarms, all the flat strides, the hill strides finally coming together in one perfectly flowing machine.  The lactic acid begins to wrap around my legs like a vine but still I push.  

When I break through the line, I continue my trot and let my momentum carry me around the track one more time.  I look down at my watch, knowing what would most likely be there.  I let out a "Yeeooow!" and bring my arm up to what I already know is there: a 75.

A smile breaks across my face and doesn't leave until I get home.  The adrenaline carries me through the rest of the night until my wife and I settle down on the couch.  I promptly pass out at 9:00 and sleep just about straight through until my alarm goes off at 5:20 to head out in the dark, once again, onto the road.  

Though the workout, "the interval workout," was a success, there's still more work to be done.

The "Once a Runner" Workout

If you've read John Parker's Once a Runner, you are most likely familiar with the chapter simply titled "The Interval Workout."  For those who haven't read it, consider picking up the book now that it's out in wide publication to really get the context of this chapter and workout.  Love it or hate it, this book is often considered the gospel of the sport.

I still remember my first reading of this book (I've returned to it many times since).  My dad, a runner for the University of Florida back in the mid-late 70s, crossed paths with the author during his time there.  He brought up the book's name a few months before Christmas 2008, said he'd been trying to get it but simply couldn't find it.  I thought I'd do a little digging of my own.  It was elusive.  

I exhausted all resources.  Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, used bookstores, all to no avail.  Finally, I found several copies on eBay...for well over $100 a copy.  People were serious about this book.  What was so mythical about it?

Apparently when Parker first self-published it, he used to enter local road races wearing a sign on his back that said something to the effect of, "If you beat me, I'll give you a free book."  He didn't give away many, but those he did came out of his car's trunk.

My Mom and I decided to go in on the book together, knowing how much it would mean to him (which it did; there were tears).  I eventually won it for a cool $150.  For a book! 

The book came in October.  With three months to go until Christmas, I couldn't just let it sit around.  I mean, I had to find out what all the hype was about...so I dove into it...and finished it the next morning.  The name of this blog is actually from a throw away one liner that stuck with me while reading the sequel, Again to Carthage.  

I ended up winning my own copy of the book months later.  The woman I won it from (on eBay once again -- only $90 this time...it was the deal of the century) turned out to be the mother of a high school cross country runner.  She bought the book for him and now that he and she had read it, wanted to pass it along to another runner.  We exchanged a couple e-mails about it.  It seemed as though everyone had a story about this book, their reasons for pursuing it and the way it affected them as different as the reasons they chose to run in the first place.   This became one of those books where you could refer to characters as if you're on a first name basis, guys you'd go to the bar to drink with, or meet up with for a morning run.  Parker builds such a connection....

Anyhow, I digress.  The culmination of the book, in my mind, comes when Cassidy is asked to put himself through the interval workout that begins with 20x400m with a 100m jog between each rep.  This is the setup.  It takes off from there.

For myself, I'm nearing the eighth and final week of my self-proclaimed speed development program.  After grinding through the hellish 5K two weeks ago, I decided to forgo signing up for another 5K to round out the program, only to battle the heat all over again, and be disappointed by a non-PR.  Instead, I'm waiting for the fall to come to take my new legs for a ride.  Monday, August 16, I'll make the transition to my Army 10-miler program.

But there must be something, right?  Some payoff?  Some mark that everything you've done has worked, has made you a better runner, was worth the sacrifice, the early mornings, the interminable laps around the track, the double dips, the achy quads, the quivering hamstrings...etc.

My defining mark will be this workout.  I embarked on the speed plan after reading about Ryan Hall's summer plans to get back to basics and develop his raw speed for 10 weeks before going full on into training for Chicago (apparently it paid off because he won the U.S. 7-mile Championship at Bix two weeks ago).  This was one of his workouts.  And funny enough, last month's Running Times including a McMillan column talking about speed workouts for runners that included, of all things, 20x400m.  The universe is clearly calling me toward this.

When I think about this workout, I go back to the summer of 2008 when I started all this speed training, qualifying for Boston business, and a 12x400m workout with a 400m recovery between each was a drain.  I've come along way in two years.  This far?  We'll see.

As the chapter says, "It's one thing to write down 20 quarters with a 110 jog, and quite another to carry out those instructions." Monday night, I'll lace 'em up and head out to the track for one last workout.  There are moments that I'll want to stop, gasp in exhaustion and clutch my knees, but I'll have to dig deep to push through it and think back to all those other workouts that I've filed away and persevered through.  That's how you find out.

Start the Bus

It all started with one line. I was in the middle of "Again to Carthage," John Parker's sequel to what many would call running's equivalent to the Gospel, "Once a Runner." I settled into bed, legs stiff and achy from an interval workout, and read the following exchange between Quentin Cassidy and his coach Bruce Denton:

Still. It's just the best of times.
"Bruce," Cassidy said, muffled in the sand.
"Uh-huh."
"What are you pondering?"
"I was thinking how nobody realizes how much there is to this part of it."
"What part of it?"
"Training. Hanging around. Travel someplace to race, someplace to train. More hanging around. Eating stuff, get a degree. Hang around some more."
"That's the life all right."
"What I mean is that someone sees a race, and they think that's what you do. They sort of know you had to train, but they weren't watching then, so they don't understand how incredibly much of it there is. But to us, it's almost the whole thing. Racing is just this little tiny ritual we go through after everything else has been done. It's a hood ornament."
Cassidy went silent for a time and Denton assumed he had gone to sleep.
"Bruce," Cassidy said.
"Yes."
"You told me once not to worry, that things would work out."
"Uh-huh."
Cassidy turned his head, opened one eye.
"It's okay, Bruce."
"Hmmm?"
"You don't have to worry about this on my account. I don't have anything to prove."
"Yeah?"
"I just want to make it on the bus one more time."

Cassidy hopped on the bus to qualify for the Olympic Marathon trials. My goals looked a tad more modest, say, finishing the 2008 National Half Marathon in under 1:40 (which I did). But since that race, I started talking to my Uncle, who used to coach track, and my dad, who ran at the University of Florida, and we started carving down some of those times that summer with a series of weekly interval workouts (I tapped into more than 30 years of track knowledge, which meant quad burning intervals and lung stinging tempo runs). The next thing I knew, I cruised to sub-20 minute 5Ks. Thanks to a little McMillan Running tool called the "Running Calculator," it told me I should be able to run a 3:09 marathon, i.e. a Boston Qualifying time. God bless the internet.

14 months, more than 1,000 miles, two pairs of asics, a stack of cover-to-cover worn Runner's Worlds, and a couple of empty Biofreeze tubes later, I crossed the finish line at the Vermont Marathon in 3:08:41, officially on the bus to Boston 2010.

When I line up at the start for each race, particularly the ones of the ten-miler, half- and full-marathon variety, I like to take a moment and look around at my fellow runners and take in the nervous chatter, the last minute stretching, and final equipment adjustments (gotta get that number and those shoelaces just right), and think about what they have gone through to get to that point. Were there injuries? Running in the snow, the rain, the broiling summer heat? Days where you couldn't get out of bed and days you felt you could run forever. Are they running for someone watching on the sidelines, or watching from beyond?

The point is, we have all come to that line for different reasons, from different places, and with different goals in mind. But the common thread (pardon the pun), running through all of us is we have made it to the starting line. Is my story any different? Maybe in some respects but I'm sure other runners reading this will be able to find some commonalities and relate to my stories (we've all ground out workouts, felt the guilt of missing runs, and the elation of clicking the stopwatch and seeing a new PR). But maybe you haven't seen the canons lining the top of Matthew's Hill at Manassas Battlefield and tried to feel the fear and the rush of northern soldiers running for their lives across that field, or the way the leaves look around Burke Lake when autumn is just about to disappear, or running with your dad for the first time in more than a decade to hear the stories he built over the years, spending an hour on the phone with your uncle who wants every last detail of the race you pounded out so he can tweak the training program, or what it's like to have your wife riding along side of you shivering on a bike and carrying a backpack of water for you, or to hear your mom already wanting to book tickets to Boston...11 months out from the race.

Whatever your reason, and whatever your purpose, I hope you'll come along on my journey to Boston and wherever else this bus takes me.