Race Report (just the summary)

First the good news:

1.) I finished my second marathon and I had the opportunity to run my second Boston Marathon.
2.) I had the opportunity to finish the Boston Marathon while my family watched from the bleachers in front of the Boston Public Library.
3.) The first 15 miles went as planned and I hit my splits for the 4:30-4:40 finish.
4.) The thrill of running with 26,000 other runners amongst 500,000 fans is an amazing thrill.

Now the not so good:

1.) Three weeks prior my right knee started to “speak to me” that it was tender and sore on a 14 mile run. The pain never stopped my run but since I never had an issue with my knee before this was uncharted territory for me. So I rested it and only did 3-4 runs in those last three weeks. I even taped the knee the Friday before with KT Tape (more to come on the product) and hoped that this would take care of the issue.

2.) The morning of the run was uneventful and the weather was great. The first 2 miles in my knee started to “speak to me” again. It was just a gentile reminder that it was going to be an issue. So I guess without noticing it I adjusted my gait to take some pressure off the knee.
Starting at the steep downhill coming into Newton Lower Falls around mile 15 my knee hurt and my lower legs and quads started to tighten. When the cramping started I was smart enough to slow my pace but I couldn’t shake the cramps.

3.) The remainder of the day was a painful run of cramping in my lower legs. It is hard to want to run but not be able to run.

4.) So where do I go from here? Well with over 5 hours to gather my thoughts I have made some choices about continuing to do Marathons:

My focus....

I have gone from 270-275 to as low as 210 but for the last year I have stayed at 225-230. Now this is still a great change in my lifestyle as my blood pressure and diabetes are under control but I need to focus on the weight loss goal. I have discussed it in the past that I need to focus on my diet and micro manage what I eat and make sure I eat enough to fuel my workouts and to push my metabolism into loosing weight but starting today I have committed myself to doing this.

So this morning I opened up the food log and promised myself that I am going to put as much focus into the nutrition as I have in my running.

I know I need to cross-train but I never made time for it and it cost me on the 19th. So starting Monday the P90x DVD’s I bought in January and have left on the shelf are going to be put into use.

What does this mean for my running?

I am cutting my runs down to three runs a week with the focus on quality:

Speed run
Tempo run
2 hour LSR in the woods on Sunday’s

The rest of my workouts will be done in the pool, yoga, P90x and on the bike. If I don’t do this I am going to open the door to injury. I am going to run the Baystate Half Marathon in October with the goal of breaking 2 hours and I will run as many 5k to 10k races as I can this year but no more Marathons.

Until I can get my weight under 200lbs and stay there I am just abusing my knees and legs training and running those distances. When I get below 200 I will choose another race besides Boston and run the 26.2 miles again. I don’t want to go back to Boston again until I know I can run miles 16 to 26.2 and enjoy them?

So my blog will still be about running for the remainder of the year but it will have more of a set focus on getting me to a thinner, leaner and less injured me. I hope you stick around for the ride. I will follow up with some updates on funny things I saw on the race, products I used etc.

ThanksTim

Tapering....

Those of you that know me, know that I have the patience of a 4 year old so this last week before I run the 114th Boston Marathon is torture for me. The only thing getting me through knows that the Taper is just as important to my preparation as the 20 mile run was.
Since my last update of the 21 mile run on the race route I started to cut back my running, the week before this past week do to work I only have 24 miles in and 14 of that was a long run. The last 14 mile long run was a nice run but somewhere on the run my right knee started hurting me. Well after the run the knee pain continued so I took a rest from running for 5 days. My logic was that if I did something to it that a 5 mile run would do more harm then good. So on Friday I did a slow mile run on the treadmill and felt no pain, on Saturday I went out for a “hilly” 3 mile run at sub marathon pace and that felt good so I had high hopes for Sunday. On Sunday I went out with the plan to run at least 90 minutes at MP+30 and did 8.81 miles at a 10:16 pace and felt great.

So now the hard part, I will go out for 2-3 runs this week to keep loose but other then that I am working to get focused for the marathon. All of you looking to follow my run my Bib# is 23708.

Cheers, Tim