Slow and Steady... James Joyce 10K

Monday, April 20: 0 Miles
Tuesday, April 21: 6:00 PM - Track WO @ Bentley w/ Ari, Tony, & JP
23 min w/u
4 x 800m w/ 2.5 minR - 2:21, 2:20, 2:19, 2:18
4 x 200m w/ 200m jR - 32.2, 31.2, 31.2, 30.6
26 min c/d
Wednesday, April 22: 9:30 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
Thursday, April 23: 6:00 PM - Moderate Track WO @ Bentley
38 min w/u
20 min of Drills
8 x 200m w/ 1 min rest - 32-33 sec
15 min c/d on the grass
Friday, April 24: 6:00 PM - 10 Miles, 69 min
Saturday, April 25: 0 Miles
Sunday, April 26: 11:00 AM - James Joyce Ramble (Photos)
22 min w/u
10K Race - 32:31, 1st Place (4:54, 9:58, 15:14, 20:40, 26:05, 31:15, 32:31)
16 min c/d

Week Total = 48 Miles, 5 Sessions

Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it slow and steady, but it was certainly slow! Of course, I am referring to the James Joyce Ramble 10K that I raced on Sunday. I won in a time of 32:31, over 2 minutes slower than last years winning time. Over the last couple weeks, Kevin and I had been talking about possibly finding a local race to jump into. It had been over a month since my last race (Gate River 15K) and would be over a month until my first track race (NBB Twilight Series), so we both agreed that a race could be useful at this time. Also, since the last few weeks haven't been spectacular training-wise, I was afraid I wasn't making much progress in my fitness and was starting to feel a little stale. With everything going on in my life, I felt like I was just trying to stay afloat with training and survive the workouts each week. I definitely needed something to kick start my motivation.

Once I decided on James Joyce, I started getting anxious about it. Not so much excited, but more nervous about not racing well. The JJ Ramble is usually pretty competitive and I figured I would need to have a really great race to finish in the top 3. Once race day arrived, I had no idea what to expect. The temperature was in the upper 80's and after looking around the start line, there was no set favorite for winning the race. My thoughts were to just race on how I felt but also try to key off of people I picked as "favorites" including Ben Schmeckpeper, Dan Mazzocco, and Dan Smith. All of these guys have been racing well recently and would certainly be in contention for the win.

The gun went off and I was slow off the line, I looked up after about 400m and saw Schmeck was leading the charge. Considering the heat, I tried to be conservative and hung back in about 7-8th place. Coming up on the mile, I felt like I was running a pace I couldn't handle in those conditions but there were still 5 other guys up ahead of me, as I hit the first mile in 4:54. By two miles, I had moved up into third and came threw in 9:58. I was noticeably slowing down as the race went on, but was in good position to place in the money. By three miles, I was not feeling very good and it felt like the last 3 miles were going to be a death march. I was taking advantage of every hose and sprinkler out on the course to try and cool off. 15:14 for 3 miles... 5:16 on that one and we hadn't hit the hills yet. However, I had closed the gap on Schmeck, could still see Mazzocco, and couldn't here anyone behind us. It was at this point that I started to realize that if I could hold it together, I might have a chance to challenge for the win. We started hitting the hills in the 4th mile, Schmeck had fallen off and I was about 75 meters back from Mazzocco. I was struggling at this point and could not seem to make up any ground on him. I focused on each individual uphill and downhill, just trying not to fall apart and be patient. Towards the end of the hills, I noticed I was significantly closer to him and was closing the gap more on each down hill. I tried to keep that same tempo until I finally caught him a little ways into the 5th mile, passing mile 4 in 20:40 in route.

Now the race had completely changed for me. I knew I still had close to two miles to go, and I was not feeling great. I tried my best not to make this evident as I passed Mazzocco, so I focused on smooth rhythmic breathing, a good strong stride, and cruised by him without hesitation. I continued to push for the next half mile or so at an effort I knew I couldn't hold to the finish. The idea was that this would hopefully get me far enough away from everyone else so that when I did slow down, it would both be less noticeable and also give me some cushion at the finish. I ran the last mile as hard as I could, hoping that no one was catching me and didn't look back until about 300m to go. In a quick glance, I saw what looked to be a GBTC uniform and assumed that it was Dan Smith. He was probably closing on me, but the distance between us assured me that I could ease up a bit and still take the win. This was the first point in the race where I knew I was going to win and was so relieved to cross that finish line after what felt like the longest last 1.2 miles ever.


Again, the time wasn't very impressive and I'm sure next year will be stacked with guys trying to pick up some prize money when they check this years results next April and forget about the 88 degree day we had. Nonetheless, this was a big win for me and until this point, I had not had a god race at the age of 25. With 2 days left, I finally had a good one and picked up some cash in the process. It felt good to actually compete against people again and felt even better to break a finish line tape after a long drought in my career. I'm hoping I can build on this going into the spring season and as Kevin said, it may be good practice for some hot weather racing this summer.

Lastly, I wanted to note a couple things. As you may have noticed above, I linked the NB Boston Twilight Series as my next race focus. You may be wondering what this is. Well, if you click on the link you'll probably notice some similarities to the Boston High Performance Series website. See where I'm going with this? The elite track series formerly known as the Boston High Performance Series has taken on the new name of the NB Boston Twilight Series. Nothing else has changed and we still expect to see the same great competition and exciting races that we've seen in past years. If you are planning your track season and are unsure of the meets you'd like to run, I strongly recommend taking a look and consider paying us a visit on any of the three nights at Bentley University.

The other note is that our team now has a blog that you can check out and post comments to as well. Read more about this star studded team, see photos, attend events, and more. Our team continues to grow with each passing season and are always looking for hard working athletes that may be interested.

Stay tuned for more from NB Boston and The JC Experience.

Photos courtesy of GBTC and Ted Tyler from Jim Rhoades website

Marathon Mania

Monday, April 13: 10:00 AM - 6 Miles, 39 min
Tuesday, April 14: 6:00 PM - Track WO @ Bentley w/ Mario, Ari & Tony
25 min w/u
[4 x 1000m w/ 3mR] @ 5K pace
3:01, 2:58, 2:57, 2:55 (3mR)
3 x [500m (300m jR) 300m (200m jR) 200m (500m jR)] @ 3K pace
[1:25, 51, 33], [1:26, 50, 33], [1:26, 50, 33]
26 min c/d
Wednesday, April 15: 10:00 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
Thursday, April 16: 9:30 PM - 6 Miles, 43 min
Friday, April 17: 8:00 AM - 6 Miles, 41 min
Saturday, April 18: 9:00 AM - Track WO @ Bentley w/ Ari & Dave
25 min w/u
[4 x 1200m w/ 1mR] - 3:39, 3:36, 3:38, 3:41
25 min c/d
Sunday, April 19: 0 Miles

Week Total = 49 Miles, 6 Sessions

As most of you know, this was marathon week here in Boston. I'm sure you also know how exciting this time of year can be for those of us that live and train here year-round. Every year around this time, I get motivated and inspired by my friends, teammates, and role models that compete in this race. And each year, I get a little more eager to one day compete in it myself. This year was a special year and my anticipation for the event was more than usual because of the tremendous possibilities involved. I'll talk about that more in a little bit. Last year was also a big year (partly because of the Olympic Trials) and like last year, I again had a lot going on and was extremely busy all week.

I previously alluded to the fact that I've been working a second job, but didn't actually state what job that was. So for those of you that don't know, I've been picking up some extra hours at the Greater Boston Running Company, working both at the Lexington and Hingham locations. Being a running specialty store, we were understandably very busy this week so I worked quite a bit, including some long hours down at the Expo. Even though it was a lot of long days, I certainly enjoyed this work more than being at the Olive Garden. I got through the week okay, but due to limited free time, I didn't get the amount of training in that I would have liked and the training that I did do was fairly mediocre. This is something that I should have done better with, but under the circumstances, it was inevitably going to be a lower quality week.

I had some ok workouts on Tuesday and Saturday, but neither of them felt as comfortable as they should have. I know I'm relatively fit right now, but I just haven't been feeling great in workouts and feel like I'm always slightly behind where I want to be. I do feel like I'm making progress still and if I'm able to work a little harder over the next few weeks, I'm optimistic that I'll see things start to come around. I'm still thinking about opening up my track season at the High Performance Meets in May/June, but might jump into a 10K on the roads this coming weekend to test my fitness.

All together, I put in about 60 hours of work this week and added some additional hours promoting the Santa Barbara Marathon that I've mentioned I'm working on. Among the craziness on Sunday, I did have a chance to watch the Elite Mile races downtown before heading into work and witnessed some exciting performances there. Once I finally got to Monday, most of the work had been done, and I could relax somewhat and enjoy the race with my friends and teammates.

As I started to mention above, there was some added anticipation for the elite race this year, and that was of course because of the presence of Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher. For the first time in about 25 years, an American might win the Boston Marathon! And if we were lucky we could actually get two laurel wreaths in the same year. A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to spend some time with both of these icons as they previewed the Boston course here and here. The two Americans certainly got the attention they deserved and I think the majority of the crowds out there realized what was at stake as they provided tons of support along the course. Both Ryan and Kara ran phenomenal races as true contenders for the title and at no point did they settle for anything less than first. As they passed us at mile 23, Kara was leading and looked amazing, while Ryan was in third but only about 30 seconds back from Merga. At that point, it was still a very good possibility that one or both could take the crown. Kara fought with Tune and Kosgei all the way to the finish and fell about 9 seconds short of the victory. Ryan's finish wasn't as close as Kara's but still had a good battle with Kebede over the closing miles. As all of you know, both Americans finished third, and while some have called it a disappointment, both Ryan and Kara should be proud of their efforts out there as these were huge steps in the right direction for our sport here in the States.

It's always exciting to feel like you're a part of an event like this. And even though I was mostly a spectator, I felt very connected to what was going on as I had been following the build up to this race for so many of the competitors. There have been so many world class athletes that have competed in the Boston Marathon over the years, and I know it's always an important event for them whenever they make an appearance. However, some athletes don't put as much emphasis on this race as others. This was not the case with Kara and Ryan. It was obvious that they made this their most important race of the year (possibly of their career) and showed up on that starting line as prepared as they knew how.

It always motivates me to hear someone talk about a race with so much emotion and passion and you see how important that performance was to them. You could certainly see an incredible passion in the words of Kara and Ryan after the race. To hear Ryan's thoughts on his race, check out his post race press conference as well as his interview with Mark. Furthermore, to see how much this race meant to Kara and how emotional this sport can be, check out her post race press conference, as well as a later interview with Nike, and finally her interview with Mark. It's evident how important this race was to these people and how badly they wanted to do well for those that supported them. This is a pretty incredible sport and it's amazing the impact it can have on our lives. These are the things that remind me why I'm doing this day in and day out. I don't know if I'll be doing the marathon anytime soon, but I know it will be somewhere in my future. And regardless of the event I'm competing in, I just want to continue to feel that same passion for sport and have the same feeling that I'm competing to the best of my ability.

I also had a few teammates in the race, which made the race even more exciting to follow. The husband and wife duo of Ryan and Christy Carrara ran very strong races to finish in 2:32:10 and 2:58:19 respectively. These times were a few minutes slower than each were hoping for, but with the strong headwind the whole way, there wasn't a whole lot more they could do. Furthermore, Liz Turner ran a big PR of 3:09:32 and is well on her way to being an experienced marathoning stud.

There are so many individual stories from Monday's race and so many people that I could talk more about, but I just want to list a few other names of friends that deserve to be noted.

Eric Blake 2:23:54
Evan Graves 2:26:11
David Bedoya 2:27:13
Ryan Carrara 2:32:10
Mark LaRosa 2:33:14
Bernie Muller 2:34:50
Colleen DeReuck 2:35:37 (8th Female and 1st Master)
Sheri Piers 2:37:04 (11th Female)
Darren DeReuck 2:37:27
Matt Carter 2:37:41
Andrew Combs 2:38:00
Matt Dunlap 2:38:24
Heidi Westerling 2:43:11 (14th Female)
Adam Fitzgerald 2:43:42
Dan Franek 2:51:36
Diona Fulton 2:52:05
Amy Gosztyla 2:52:23
Tammie Robie 2:55:39
Wayne Piers 2:57:05
Gary Allen 2:57:42
Christy Carrara 2:58:19
Lara Johnson 2:58:33
Scott Brown 3:00:11
Dave Manz 3:00:50
Liz Turner 3:09:32
Steve McCarthy 3:12:12
Lee Stanton 3:12:31
Tim Wright 3:17:00
Sarah Turner 3:33:15
Katie Meinelt 3:37:14

Congratulations and good luck next year!

Photos courtesy of PhotoRun.net

Busy

Monday, April 6: 0 Miles
Tuesday, April 7: 6:00 PM - Track WO @ Bentley w/ Mario, Tony, Ari, & Pat
25 min w/u
1600 - 4:50 (5mR)
[4 x 400 w/ 90 secR] - 67.2, 65.8, 65.7, 65.3 (5mR)
[4 x 300 w/ 75 secR] - 47.9, 48.8, 47.7, 48.5 (5mR)
[4 x 200 w/ 60 secR] - 31.8, 32.1, 31.4, 31.4
25 min c/d
Wednesday, April 8: 9:30 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
Thursday, April 9: 3:00 PM - 12 Miles, 80 min
Friday, April 10: 6:00 PM - 8.5 Miles, 58 min
Saturday, April 11: 7:30 AM - Tempo on Marathon Course w/ Mario
22 min w/u
5 Miles at Tempo effort
5:15, 5:35, 5:31, 5:39, DNF = 22:02 - Not feeling good
18 min c/d
Sunday, April 12: 8:30 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min

Week Total = 53 Miles, 6 Sessions

Not a great week, but I'm still rebounding from the anterior tib issue last week and have had a lot going on with work and family stuff for Easter. Tuesday's workout wasn't too bad. I thought the mile should have felt easier than it did, but I was able to relax more with the rest of the workout and not over extend myself on the fast stuff (something I haven't done in a while). I had a long weekend of work and wanted to be able to see my family for Easter, so I did the workout with Mario early Saturday morning and just wasn't able to get the legs going. He took us through in 5:15 for the first mile, and I knew right away that it wasn't my day. He took off after two miles and I cut the workout short at 4 Miles since I couldn't even keep the pace under 5:30.

I'm hoping to get some more consistency in my training over the next few weeks and if things start to go well, I might even think about jumping in a race at some point. I've got a great squad to train with this season so I'm hoping to take advantage of that. If we all stay healthy and keep pushing each other along, we might just produce some quality results and catch up with the girls success.

The Boston Marathon is coming up this week so there's a lot going on. But there's also a lot of excitement and yearly traditions that will hopefully make it a fun week. I've got a bunch of friends and teammates running this year so hopefully the weather will cooperate and we'll have a good showing here in beantown.

Good luck racing and good luck training!

Picking Up The Pieces

Monday, March 23: 7:30 AM - 7 Miles, 50 min w/ CVC
Tuesday, March 24: 6:30 PM - Track WO @ Reggie
21 min w/u
8 x 800m w/ 2.5 minR
2:23, 2:20, 2:21, 2:20, 2:21, 2:20, 2:20, 2:19
25 min c/d
Wednesday, March 25: 11:30 AM - 11 Miles, 74 min w/ Rupprecht & Kirby
Thursday, March 26: 9:30 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
5:00 PM - 6 Miles, 40 min
Friday, March 27: 11:00 AM - 6 Miles, 40 min
6:00 PM - 7 Miles, 52 min w/ CVC
Saturday, March 28: 9:00 AM - Long Interval WO @ BC Res w/ Dave
22 min w/u
4 x 2K w/ 400m jogR (2:30)
6:29, 6:35, 6:35, 6:30
15 min c/d
Sunday, March 29: 0 Miles (Anterior Tib)

Week Total = 65 Miles, 8 Sessions

Monday, March 30: 0 Miles (Anterior Tib)
Tuesday, March 31: 6:00 PM - Track WO @ Bentley w/ Ryan & Ari
25 min w/u
5 Miles @ Alt 5:12/5:28
26:26 (5:11, 5:27, 5:12, 5:28, 5:08)
25 min c/d
Wednesday, April 1: 0 Miles
Thursday, April 2: 9:00 PM - 6 Miles, 42 min
Friday, April 3: 5:00 PM - 3.5 Miles, 25 min
Saturday, April 4: 7:30 PM - Track WO @ Bentley
20 min w/u
1200m/3200m/1200m/3200m/1200m - all w/ 2 minR
3:41, 10:17, 3:39, 10:16, 3:39
15 min c/d
Sunday, April 5: 8:00 PM - 6 Miles, 41 min

Week Total = 40 Miles, 5 Sessions

Another delayed post this week which is why there are a bunch of numbers to catch up on. You'll also see that a few of those numbers up there are zeros, which is not usually a good thing. Things were going along pretty well last week (March 23-29) on the training side. I didn't feel great in the 8 x 800m workout on that Tuesday, but felt much better in the second half than in the first half. I was starting to introduce some short doubles to bump up the mileage while squeezing stuff in around my work schedule. Prior to my second workout that week, I was feeling pretty lousy on my evening run that Friday and my calves had been like bricks. The following morning, I struggled with the workout and had to work pretty hard to stay with Juliano on the 2k's. It wasn't terrible since I got 8k of quality work in, I just didn't feel great about it.

Per usual, I was in a hurry to get my cool down done and get to work, so I threw on my trainers and went off on my own. About 5 min into the cool down, I was feeling a throbbing pain on the medial side of my lower left shin. I tried not to think about it too much and figured I'd ice later after work. I worked for the next 11 hours on my feet and during this time, the pain that I felt on the medial side had moved into the anterior side, mostly in the lower tendon and some into the belly of the muscle with most of the pain in the lower attachment area. It went from being an uncomfortable annoyance to a very painful concern. I've had some history with this type of problem before and lost a lot of training time the last time I had it; therefore, I was not happy that it was coming up again. In an effort to get rid of this before things progressed, I took Sunday and Monday off from running, iced every chance I had, took about 1200mg of ibuprofen daily and scheduled a massage with Mike ASAP.

I saw a lot of improvement from this treatment and by Tuesday night, I was ready to try running on it. The warm up didn't seem to cause much flare up so I talked with Kevin about doing a lighter workout than the one he had scheduled. Since Ryan was doing a 10 Mile In/Out Tempo on the track, Kevin figured it would be a good pace for me to jump into and test things out. Ryan was already 5 Miles in with Mario helping him out, so I jumped in at that point and just followed along quietly. Ari came along for the ride as well. It seemed like the leg was doing alright so I offered to help out with the pacing duties after Mario dropped off. Ryan and I switched off every 800m and took care of business like clock work. I finished feeling very relaxed and was happy that the pace felt so easy. The leg was a little sore from all the attention I was giving it and was not at 100%, but definitely didn't flare up like before.

Still being very cautious, I kept my appointment with Mike the next day and put another zero in the training log to be safe. I continued with the ice, ibuprofen, and stretching/strengthening to try to nip this thing in the butt. I was planning on working out again on Friday (since I would miss Sat practice due to work), but there was a monsoon right around the time I was getting started. I was stretching under the bleachers, soaked to the bone, and shivering. As I watched the track pool up with water, my legs felt like junk and I was absolutely dreading the workout. As I started lacing up my flats, I made the decision to skip the workout and try for another day. I went back the next night after work and completed the workout as planned in the dark. It was pretty cold and windy, but much better than the day before. The shin seemed to hold up, but my calves were probably the most tight they've ever been. I went home and took a long ice bath and took the next day pretty easy. On Monday, I saw Dr. V. for my regular bi-weekly chiro appointment and she spent a lot of time on my lower leg issues followed up with some stim treatment.

I feel like I dodged a bullet with this shin issue, but still know that I need to be careful as I move forward. I'm at the stage in my training where I'm not really getting ready for a specific race but just trying to get as fit as possible. As fitness progresses and workouts get better, I try to push things a little further to advance my fitness. It's at this point that I need to be careful and try to avoid any issues. I'm trying to be patient and doing as much as I can in this process, but I know there are a lot of things I should be doing that I'm not. Most of this is due to time and energy restraints. Again, it's something that will just take time and hopefully I'll be out there competing again before too long.

Much like I'm picking up the pieces in my training, I have also been picking up the pieces in the rest of my life. It's been almost 6 months since I moved back to the east coast, and it's taken all of that time to get me settled again, figure out what I'm trying to accomplish, how I'm going to accomplish it, and how it's going to fit into my everyday life. I am enjoying my new home with my amazing roommates and am doing the best I can with work, training, and everything else in my life. I've picked up a second job, adding an extra 15 hours a week into my schedule and have also taken on the role of Elite Coordinator for the Santa Barbara International Marathon. I'm taking on this task to help my fellow Auburnites of Rusty Snow, Dan Campbell, and Sarah Crispin, but also to help the sport and learn more about the industry. You'll probably hear more about that on here in the future and may even hear from me directly as we move forward with this event. So my life continues to be pretty busy and it's certainly becoming a bigger puzzle with all sorts of complex pieces. Not all the pieces are fitting together perfectly just yet, but there is some progress being made and you can even start to see some sort of picture coming together. But then again, you can never tell for sure what the picture is until every piece is in place.

Still hoping for a masterpiece I guess...