Boston Marathon 2014 Race Report

April 21, 2014

Summary: 3:13:30, which was a PR by a bit over 1 minute. I could have been faster with a more conservative strategy, but I gambled and lost. I pulled of the aggressive approach early enough to still have a good race. No regrets. Age 49. Seed 9700, finish 4900.

Training

I had a very good training season over the winter. In late October, 2013, I developed a bit of a degenerative Achilles tendonosis in both my heels, so I decided to keep the mileage down a bit by doing a run focus, but still biking a couple of times per week. By December, the weather deteriorated enough that the great majority of my training started being indoors. Nonetheless, I was running very well (probably faster than ever), and my heels were doing well.

My training plan, in retrospect, may have been a little heavy on the “work”. For purposes of this discussion, I will call race week “week 1”, the week from 8-14 days out from the race, “week 2”, and so on. The general schedule ran as follows:

• Monday Run intervals. First half, these were VO2 runs; second half these were threshold runs
• Tuesday Bike FTP intervals
• Wednesday medium-long tempo run (evening)
• Thursday easy run (morning) and Bike intervals (FTP or 110%)in the evening
• Friday off
• Saturday long run, often with some quality
• Sunday easy bike/run brick of about 90 min total duration.

I did a 16 week segment, starting at 40 miles per week. I took the long runs up to where I did 4 x ≥20 mile runs. I had 6 weeks of at least 50 miles per week (the first being 10 weeks out) and one week of 60 miles (week 4). By weeks 8-10, it was clear that I was running pretty fast…I had a couple of sub-40 minute 10K segments in training.

In retrospect, I think I did a bit too much hard work on some ot the long runs. (Alternatively, I could have shortened them to 16-18 and kept the work, but I know from past experience that I do better with a few very long runs.) A second alternative would have been to drop the work from the bike intervals. By week 5 or so, the accumulation did get to me, and I dropped the intensity of the bike workouts. Otherwise I was in danger of having peaked way too early.

My last long run over 15 miles was 23 days before the race. To make a long story short, I made a serious error in judgment and ran in the wrong shoes. They were good quality shoes, but not my regular running shoes (and had a very different drop). The result of this was a different Achilles-related soft tissue injury in my right leg…this time much higher in the Achilles, so it was an acute injury, not the degenerative issue. (The good news on the degenerative issue is that it has been rehabbed and I have seen no further problems with it.) A couple of days later, the high Achilles injury didn’t feel too bad, and I (again foolishly) tested it with what was my last threshold workout. Pain developed throughtout that work out and did not subside easily.

Thus, with about 20 days to go, I completely pulled the plug on all running. I switched to pool running for the next 10 days or so, and then a mix of pool running and cycling for the last week or so before flying out to Boston. My Achilles felt fine with about a week to go before the race, but I was unwilling to risk putting any injury to it. I did do about 3 miles the day before the marathon, but that was my only test run before the race.

Goal Setting

Here is where I had a decision to make. Because of the way things broke, I didn’t have a great feel for how fast I could really go. I was too tired during weeks 4 and 5 out to have a great handle on it, and then the injury put a great mystery in. Nonetheless, I was unwilling to throw away a great training season, and I wanted to try for a great race.

I was confident I could go 3:10 or under, and I thought 3:05 was possible if I ignored the last 3 weeks. I made a conscious choice to see how close I could get to that 3:05 mark. That would require a 7:03-ish pace on average.

This was my second Boston. In 2010, I ran 3:16:40 on exactly even splits. In June 2013, I ran my PR of 3:14:40 in another even split race (with a great final 5K) at Grandma’s, so I felt like I knew how to run the conservative marathon, and hoped I could apply that knowledge to a more aggressive paced race.

Race Strategy

Boston can be divided into 4 segments:

• The first 5 miles is pretty starkly downhill.
• The next 11 miles are net flat, but undulate.
• The Newton hills are net uphill from roughly the mile 16 to mile 21 markers. There are three hills here, the last of which is “Heartbreak Hill.” It is not excessively steep, but it is deadly because of when it is in the race.
• The last 5 miles are net downhill, including some fairly steep sections, but also have undulations.

My strategy was simple. I wanted to run with as great of form as I could for the downhill and see if I was easily holding the average pace I needed. If so, I would try to hold it. I would reassess by mile 10 because I know how a marathon should feel at about miles 10, 13, and 16/17. I would ensure that nutrition was not an issue by taking a gel every 4 miles and doing a mixture of water and sports drink in between.

The Race

My first 5 miles were several seconds per mile too fast. I ran them at about 6:52 overall. I wasn’t feeling as smooth as I wanted to, but the speed was obviously there. For miles 6-10, I was somewhat unsuccessful in trying to smooth things out but move into the 7:05 range. I was still running a bit too fast (just under 7:00 on average). But worse, I just wasn’t as smooth as I wanted. In retrospect, I think this was the layoff, but I cannot prove it.

The morning was very comfortable in the grand scheme of things. The race started at about 60 degrees and with a wind that did not feel consequential. However, by that 5-10 mile segment, I became aware that I was pretty warm. I was unaware of other racers doing it much, but I began to douse myself with water at the aid stations to try to stay cool. As the race developed, I never felt that it was HOT, but I do think it warmed up to the point that it slowed a reasonable number of people a bit.

By the end of mile 10, I knew my legs didn’t feel right. I backed off some, but kept up an average pace under 7:10 through mile 16. At the half-way point, I knew my legs felt like they shouldn’t feel until 17-18 in one of my even split marathons. I knew I was in for a fairly rough second half. I resolved to take the hills at whatever pace came naturally going up, how ever slow, as long as I was running smoothly and just hang on the best I could. If I could run the downhills faster, that would be great. I glanced at my heart rate and saw a bad number.  I saw 170+ and knew that would mean I was going to be in for a bit of a rough time if I pushed hard much further.  That reinforced my decision to run the second half by RPE.

For several years, my running threshold HR was in the low 160s, but at the half-way point, I saw 170. Not good. By contrast, my Half-Way Heart Rate was about 155 at Grandma’s. In post race analysis, I saw that my Boston HR was already 165 by the end of mile 5. Oops. The graphics are shown below. (I do not know if the spikes between miles 5-10 are real.) The Boston trace looks flat, which might seem good, but it’s actually bad, because it is too high to begin with. The Grandma’s trace shows a constantly accelerating HR, but only up to the 170 region for the last few miles, where I was racing and doing the fastest 5K segment of the day.

Boston 2014 HR trace

Grandma's Marathon June 2013

Without dwelling too much on what happened in the second half of the race, the bottom line is that I slowed significantly. I had a total of 4 different mile segments at over 8:00. Obviously these were mostly the ones with hills. I knew I was pretty much running on guts, not on a good base, once the Newton Hills started. I saw 3:05 disappear and then 3:10. At that point, I was damn sure I wasn’t going to let this end badly and I was going to set a PR or collapse trying.

Even though I slowed this dramatically, I did not perceive that I was losing a lot of ground to the field. I must have, but I perceived that I was mainly being passed by young women, and I was gradually passing more people than passed me, even in the last 8 miles or so.

My Garmin records show that my heart rate stayed at a steady 169-170 bpm for the last half of the race. (Obviously the 212-49 formula is wrong…) I was working my butt off, despite running slowly. But I knew what I had done: the work, the training, the risks I took. I had no regrets, even during the race, for what I had tried. You only get so many chances for a great marathon. I took mine and hit a single or double, instead of a home run. I knew afterwards that I could have run probably 3:10 if I had run a race designed to run 3:10, but I had chosen to try for faster and I paid for it. But that’s ok. I am proud of the effort and was proud to cross the line.

The Atmosphere

One cannot have raced Boston 2014 without remarking about the atmosphere. Put simply, it was the most positive of any race I’ve been at. The crowds were great — both numerous and loud. The security guys that we knew about were friendly and helpful. There were more volunteers than I have ever seen. I am extremely glad that I did it and that I was there.

After Crossing the Line

After crossing the line, I was spent. The longest, hardest mile of the day may have been the walk from the finish line to the dry clothes pick up area. My quads were completely done, and I had been running on groin and hammies for a while. I had to ask someone to tie my shoes once I got my warmup pants on because I didn’t want to squat or balance on one leg.

Recovery would be fairly slow. I write this 3 weeks to the day from the race, and I am only in the last couple of days feeling like there is any oomph in my body at all. I took a week entirely off, and week 2 post-race was just swimming. Week 3 has been a mix of swim/bike/run, but nothing but easy efforts on the leg-demanding things. I finally felt like I was putting some effort into my swimming by late in the week, but objectively I am still swimming quite slowly – almost 10 seconds per hundred yard slower than my normal peak for the last few years. My easy running pace is back to normal, but I haven’t pushed any speed. My bike power is not back to normal yet either, but I am seeing improvements. Last year, I had a slowish sprint triathlon 6 weeks after Grandmas and a good one after another 4 more weeks. At that rate, I’ll be ready for Madison. J

Postlude

A few thoughts about the Boston course for those planning on doing it

Having had some time now, I still feel good about what happened, but I feel like I owe others a few words of advice regarding the course. Boston is hard, but it is honest. It is NOT a ridiculous course. However, it is extremely unforgiving. Because of its geography, people like me who make “mistakes” in their pacing will pay for it late in the race more than any of the other courses I have run. (Des Moines, New York, Grandma’s, Wisconsin IM course). I underestimated the degree to which my plan was risky because I had done the course well a few years before. A key point is that even the flat parts of Boston just aren’t all that flat. The constant slight ups and downs put extra wear on you, as much as the famed downhill beginning. After my two races there, I now think the strategy I raced in 2010 is probably the best one, at least for me. In short, it boils down to knowing very realistically what pace can be averaged and going no faster than that for the first 5 miles or so. This is easy running if you’re smart about it. The “flat range” of miles 6-15 should be run just a smidge faster than the goal average time, so you can give a little bit back on the Newton Hills. Even though the last 5 are downhill, I think it is optimistic to think that anyone of normal ability will run significantly faster than his/her average pace overall to finish this particular race.

Another hint I have for others doing it for the first time is not to underestimate how uncomfortable it may be in the staging area. We were lucky, and it was still fairly wet, and reasonably cool. It is essential to bring some garbage bags for a dry place to sit (and/or for cover from wind/rain) and a variety of layers picked up from Goodwill or elsewhere that you should plan on leaving behind. Though there are many porta-potties, the wait can get long. If you are like me and drink a lot in race prep, you may as well get in line to go again almost as soon as you get out of line. Get in line for your last pre-race potty stop at least 30 minutes before you have to leave to staging area to make sure you get to go and get out of the area comfortably.