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Colorado Marathon - RunMarathon


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Fort Collins, Colorado
United States
38F / 3C
Sunny
Total Time = 3h 26m 40s
Overall Rank = 93/686
Age Group = 50-54
Age Group Rank = 3/33
Pre-race routine:

Regular daily breakfast routine.
Event warmup:

5 minutes easy jogging
Run
  • 3h 26m 40s
  • 26.2 miles
  • 07m 53s  min/mile
Comments:

The Long Road to Boston



Short version:

Colorado Marathon, Fort Collins, Colorado 5/4/08

Gun time: 3:27:00

Chip time: 3:26:40 average pace: 7:54

Age Group: 4/33

Men: 81/394

Overall: 93/686

Time needed for BQ: 3:35:59







Long version: (be ready for a short novel!)




My running began in September 2000 at the age of 44 (close to 45). I had never done any running other than what was required for sports like baseball, basketball, or tennis. I actually disliked the thought of running longer distances.




In January of 2000 I had a knee injury from a crash while I was ski racing. The original diagnosis was torn ACL, but further testing revealed it was only some torn cartilage. Prior to the surgery the doctor told me it would be very minor and I could be back out skiing in a week or two. I had the surgery in March and in the post-op room the doctor told me that when he went in with the scope there was more damage than expected. He had to surgically repair my meniscus by drilling a series of small holes into my bone to stimulate the formation of scar tissue to hopefully replace the damaged meniscus he had to remove. Instead of a quick recovery, I now was told to be completely non weight bearing on that leg for a month, after which I would have physical therapy, and no running at all for at least six months. For me this meant not playing in several softball leagues as I had for the past several years. Because the long term health of my knee required me to follow that advice, I adhered to it. It was disappointing at the time as I wanted to be back out skiing again.




During the month of being off my feet I essentially did nothing except stuff my face – feeling sorry for myself. My weight had been creeping up for a couple years, but now it really soared. By the time that month was over my weight had ballooned up to 220 pounds. The highest in my life! One of the things I had been doing while sitting around was researching a vacation spot in Hawaii to spend our fifth anniversary in late July. When I was finally able to start PT, I told myself I needed to do some serious dieting and exercise to be in decent shape for the vacation. The muscles in that leg had really atrophied in a month and at first I was barely able to stand. After a solid month of PT and doing all the exercise I was back to being able to walk again, however the leg was still noticeably weak.




One of the things I always enjoyed was biking. Every year I rode quite a bit to help my legs stay strong for all the skiing I did in the winter. I had never raced, but I was a serious recreational rider. So, I figured biking was the best way for my leg to recover fitness and it is also a great way to burn lots of calories. I started on a modified version of the Slim-Fast diet, and started biking. The weight started coming off and I got obsessed with biking. I increased my riding to 10-20 miles daily and often longer rides on the weekends. I was also doing some upper body weight lifting because more muscle helps increase overall metabolism. By the time our Hawaii vacation arrived I was down to about 170 pounds. I had lost 50 pounds in about four months! Hawaii is a wonderful place and during our stay I started thinking about doing a small amount of running to see if I could play softball in the fall. So I slowly ran about a half mile on the soft sand of the beach. I could feel some minor pain in my knee so I didn't do more than that. When we got home I went back to biking and kept on with the weight loss, eventually getting down to about 160. My wife, Vicki, had also been doing some exercising to keep in shape and she began running in late August of 2000. As the days were growing shorter I was not able to bike as much after work so I began to think about running as a way to help maintain the fitness I had achieved over the summer.




I remember my first run. I had been biking about 150 miles weekly so I thought it would be no problem to run a mile. Wrong! I could barely make it a couple blocks before I was gasping. I was serious about maintaining my fitness though so I persevered and within a week I was able to make it about a mile without stopping. Then I started to increase the distance because Vicki was running several miles and I wanted to be able to run with her if we ever ran together. In early October 2000 I saw an ad in the newspaper about a local 5K. I mentioned it to Vicki and we decided it might be fun to try it. Neither of us had ever run a race before. We didn't even own proper running shoes or clothes. The night before the late October race it snowed an inch or two. I went to the race wearing my long cycling pants and some very heavy cushioned Reboks, Vicki was wearing some lightweight hiking shoes. We were both nervous at the start. We had never run together and I was sure Vicki would beat me because she had been running longer. I don't recall our exact times, but I finished just under 28 minutes and Vicki was around 31 minutes. We had fun and discovered we weren't as bad as we thought and were actually better than many others. We didn't race again that year though.




A few weeks after our first race I read an article in the newspaper about the local triathlon club. On our honeymoon we had been in Kona and saw the course where Ironman Hawaii takes place. It was interesting at the time, but not being a runner then, I never gave triathlon much thought. When I read about the tri club I found out that there are all kinds of much shorter distance triathlons, not just the ironman distance. This intrigued me, as I could now run a 5K, I was a fairly strong biker, and way back in my youth I was a good swimmer – having grown up with a pool in our yard and spending most of our family vacations at a lake.




In 2001, we started doing the local running races. One of the organizations had a series of races that is about one race every other month. We decided to do the shorter distance version of that series. It had four 5Ks, and one 10K. Neither of us had ever run that far, but since it was many months away we figured we could work up to it. I was now running maybe 15 miles a week and my times were steadily improving. I also joined the tri club and was preparing for my first triathlon.




During the summer of 2001 I was doing the swim/bike/run training and focusing on getting better at triathlons. I found I was an OK swimmer, a good biker, and a rather poor runner. The races would involve me getting out of the water mid-pack, then passing a bunch on the bike, only to see them all go by me on the run. The tri club has a discussion forum and I started asking questions about how to improve my running. One of the members at the time was the coach for the Olympic triathlon team here in Colorado Springs, and she told me I needed to be running at least 30-35 miles per week to improve my running. That seemed like an incredible amount of running. I tried working up to it, but didn't maintain it very long.




2002 saw us decide to do the longer race version of the race series we had done the year before. One 5K, one 5 Miler, two 10Ks and a half marathon. I also did a bunch of sprint triathlons, and one olympic distance, and late in the summer won my age group in two sprints on the strength of my strong biking. The half marathon was in the fall and until a month before the race I had never ran that far in my life. I did one 10 mile run and then one 13 mile run. My 5 & 10K times had improved to the point where I was doing OK in the series, but still not very well in triathlons. I had been able to increase my running up to around 30 miles weekly though so I felt confident I would be able to finish the half marathon in decent shape. It was on a very hilly course and I ended up around 1:56:xx. I think Vicki finished around 2:22:xx.




Somewhere about this time I stumbled across a message board on AOL for running. Many of the people were training for a marathon in Pittsburgh and I found the discussions interesting. It kind of planted a seed.




We had joined the local running club and in their newsletter I read about a marathon training program being offered by Carmichael Training Systems. The leader of the CTS training was Lisa Rainsberger, the last American woman to win the Boston Marathon. A plan designed by Lance Armstrong's coach and run by a champion runner just had to be good! We decided to sign up in December 2002 to prepare for a race in the spring of 2003. We hadn't even picked out a race though. The training went well, although it required us to do long runs with a group on the weekends, and it utilized heart rate training, neither of which we had ever done before. Midway though the training Lisa had a disagreement with CTS and left to do her own thing. The other coaches were competent, but I think we could have benefited from Lisa's advice as the marathon grew near. During the training some people in the group were talking about the races they were going to do. One small group was going to do a race in Fort Collins, Colorado, and another was going to Vancouver, Canada. Although Fort Collins certainly is much closer to us, the thought of going to Vancouver and racing at sea level sounded appealing.




While I was doing my longer training runs I started getting some pain in my surgically repaired knee. This was causing me to have doubts about being able to continue. Then I read about the Pose technique of running. I discovered I was what could be called a very heavy heel striker and my form was contributing to the knee pain. Pose utilizes a forefoot/midfoot strike with the foot landing under the body and the impact being absorbed by the leg muscles, instead of the bones and joints. It sounded like what I needed and I embarked on changing my form. Now this was in the middle of training for my first marathon so I did more running than I should have, resulting in very painful calf muscles and inflamed achilles tendons. I went into the marathon training with a goal of qualifying for Boston. My runs were all based on doing what was necessary to prepare me. I forced myself to keep running with the Pose-like form because even though it was creating new problems, it did alleviate the knee pain when I did long runs. I figured my muscles would just take some time to adapt. The calf and achilles pain were quite severe, especially after long runs. I was putting Biofreeze on them to make it tolerable. I also went away from the CTS format late in the program because it called for a long run of only two and a half hours, but done at an easy pace. I figured this would only have me running around 15-16 miles, so I decided that wouldn't adequately prepare me for the later miles in the marathon and I did both an 18 and 20 mile run.




So off we went to Vancouver in May 2003. I was sure I was prepared to run well enough to qualify for Boston. The course was mostly at sea level and the few hills were small compared to Colorado. The day of the race it was cold and raining. I started out OK, but as the race progressed the weather wore me down. As I went by an area near the water, a breeze chilled me to the bone and from that point on it was a struggle to continue. That happened around mile 10, so the rest of the race was a dismal affair. I finished in 4:34:xx and was very disappointed. I also had severe calf and achilles pain in the later miles. Vicki had finished in 4:44:xx and that was very close considering our speeds are usually vastly different.




After that race I decided to just take some time off to let my body heal. I didn't run much at all for about 6 weeks, then started getting ready for a local 10K. By then the pain was gone and the new form was starting to take hold. I talked with Vicki about doing a local marathon on Labor Day. I knew I was better than 4:34. This second race we didn't really train properly for. We did only two runs longer than 10 miles, and one of them was a suffer fest due to running out of fluids. However, I did improve to 4:16:xx and that encouraged me enough that I again thought I could qualify for Boston with some good training. Vicki finished in 4:44:xx, within seconds of her first race.




During this entire period I completely stopped doing triathlons, and my times for shorter races got worse as I focused on doing longer slow runs. I also had an aversion to doing regular speed work at the track.




The next year one of the regulars on the AOL message board mentioned how well he did at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. It sounded like a very well run race and we decided to do it. It's a June race so that gave us plenty of time to prepare. I really focused on getting in lots of running and did several 20 mile runs. I was very sure Grandma's was going to be the place with I got that BQ. I signed up for a pace group and felt confident at the start of the race. The race started well and I was staying right with the group. However, just a few miles into the point to point course, a headwind started blowing and it kept getting stronger as the race progressed. I went through the half right on pace, but then the wind just wore me down. I let the pace group go. Then tried to hang on as the next pace group caught up figuring if I could hang with them maybe the wind would let up and I could run hard the last few miles and still BQ. No dice. I couldn't stay with them, or the next, or the next. I was now hoping to just break 4 hours, but that didn't happen either. The one saving factor was that the last mile turns back and with the wind at my back I finished very strong. My time was 4:06:xx. It was an improvement, but still far from what I needed. Vicki had her worst race, finishing in 4:53:xx.




OK, I thought I was there, but the weather killed me so it was time to schedule another race. I picked the St. George Marathon in October 2004 because I had read that it was a fast course and all the downhill would surely help. I recovered quickly from Grandma's and had some solid runs for training. I decided to do the local marathon, American Discovery Trail on Labor Day once again, but to use it as a training run. It was a month prior to the St. George race and I figured it would serve well as my last long run. It did! I started out conservatively and as the race progressed I felt stronger. I ended up breaking four hours for the first time, finishing in 3:58:xx. It never felt like I was pushing myself hard and that gave me great confidence. The entire summer had been going well. I had set a new (and still standing) PR in the 10K and was also doing a fair amount of biking.




The weekend after the ADT Marathon, I raced a duathlon with my stepson, Chris. I hadn't even run since the marathon, but the 5K/20K/5K format worked well and I felt very strong. It was a weird race as it was started in time trial fashion with each racer starting about 5 seconds apart. As it was also held in conjunction with a pool triathlon, there were many people on the course. That made it difficult to know where the other competitors were. I ran the first leg well and hammered the bike. I passed everyone who I thought I had seen in front of me at the start, but didn't know for sure. As the second run started one of them passed me back, but soon faded and I passed him again. I was sure I had won my age group so we hung around for the awards. The awards didn't start until after all the heats of the triathlon were over, so we sat around for several hours not knowing the results of our race. I was very surprised when I was announced as the overall winner! Only six days after a marathon I had won the overall at a sprint duathlon!




OK, back to running. The following weekend was the half marathon of the series of races we had done several times. This was going to be my final test leading up to St. George. I ran well, and got increasingly faster in the final few miles to finish in 1:44:58. If I could run this pace at St. George I would BQ.




We went to St. George and the weather was great. Maybe a tad warm, but nothing extreme. I met several of my wonderful online friends from AOL and was all set to have a great race. I was right on pace until about mile 17, when I started having severe GI problems. This was frustrating because the last miles are some of the fastest with the St. George course profile. I tried to force myself to keep pushing hard, but it was no use. I ended up having to go to a walk/run survival technique to finish. I made it in 3:53:08, another PR, but still far from what I needed to BQ. Vicki once again finished in 4:44:xx. She decided as she wasn't getting any better that would be her last marathon.




Well, I knew I had a BQ in me and I was determined to try again. I started training a few weeks after St. George with a tri club friend who was going to run his first marathon in Arizona in February 2005. The training was going well and I was confident we would both go there and BQ. However, over the Christmas holiday I had a bad crash while snowboarding that gave me a bit of whiplash. I didn't know it at the time, but the 40-50 miles weekly I was running was making the problem worse. By mid January 2005 I was starting to have numbness on my left side and my running was getting slower. I went to the doctor and a vast assortment of tests were performed over the next couple months. Because one of the symptoms was a pain in my upper left chest, they focused attention on my heart. After they finally ruled out all cardiac possibilities, I went to a neurologist who discovered I had a bulging disc in my neck that was impinging on a nerve and that was causing the problems. The marathon was out, as was running at all until I went through PT and got the approval to begin again. Some of the PT involved putting me in a rack and stretching my neck bones apart. It all did seem to work and in a couple months all the numbness and minor pains went away. I was given the OK to return to running. However, I had lost lots of the fitness and it took me most of the year to start returning to any kind of speed. In 2006 I once again thought about doing another marathon, but when I started ramping up the mileage, I would get some neck pain and the numbness would start to return. It seemed I was OK to run up to about a half marathon and around 30 miles a week, but if I exceeded that I would start having problems. So, in 2006 all I did was shorter races and a couple half marathons. All my times were OK, but nothing really good and no PR's.




I still felt like I had something to prove in the marathon and in 2007 I decided to do the Colorado Marathon in Fort Collins. This was the same race we had passed up several years earlier to go to Vancouver. I set about trying to train so it wouldn't aggravate my neck. I didn't really train that well and although I wasn't having neck problems, my long runs were all miserable affairs. I went to Fort Collins just wanting to see where I stood. I knew a BQ was not in the cards. I ended up finishing in 3:55:30. I felt very encouraged that I came close to breaking my PR despite not training very well. I decided I would come again the following year after training properly.




So, I formulated a unique training plan. I had noticed several years earlier that when my weekly mileage exceeded 50 miles, all my running seemed to improve. Starting in mid September 2007, I began to increase my mileage. By October I was up to 45-50 miles weekly. I was essentially doing a daily run of between 6-8 miles. At first I was taking a day off every now and then, usually the day prior to a race. Although I was running lots in training, the runs were almost all done at a slow, easy pace. No speedwork, no tempo, just get in the miles. My only form of speedwork was doing a race about every other week. I was also doing some weight lifting with lighter weights to help keep my upper body and neck strong to keep from having any problems. In the fall, some of the races were cross country type on challenging trails. While I still wasn't very fast, all my times were much improved over the same races in previous years. The XC races didn't follow the exact same routes from previous years, but they all seemed a bit longer and I ran them faster than the shorter courses. This continued with some other races as well. In early December I ran a half marathon on a course I've done several times before and had my best time there by about 6 minutes. Then I signed up for a challenge on the Slowtwitch.com forum. 100 runs in 100 days. As I was already running almost every day this seemed perfect for me. They had an online spreadsheet to log runs and soon I noticed I was in the top 10 for both minutes and miles run. I was motivated to get near the top in both categories, so my daily mileage kept increasing. It also motivated me to go running on days when the weather was very nasty. I ended the challenge second in both minutes and miles. I ran many miles in miserable conditions, but it was helping me be able to push through when things were bad. This became very useful because almost every race in the beginning of the year was in poor conditions. I kept up doing races about every other week and I was getting much better. I started getting a PR at almost every race. I was no longer being completely blown away by the fast guys. I set a new 10 mile PR by almost 10 minutes, then three weeks later, broke that PR by almost 9 minutes, plus I placed third in my age group. In three weeks I had taken almost 19 minutes off my old 10 mile PR. A few weeks after that I did a 5 mile race and smashed my old PR and won my age group by almost 5 minutes. In October my mileage was just short of 200, and every month I increased it to a max of just over 317 miles in March. My plan seemed to be working!




Leading up to the Colorado Marathon this year I had done 10 races and set new PR's 8 times. The only two races I did not PR at were very hilly, snow covered courses where I set new personal course bests. I felt very good about my chances for a good marathon. Then about seven weeks ago I was playing with one of our dogs. I lifted her up and felt a sharp pain in my lower back. Just what I didn't need! However, I kept running daily and the back pain dissipated, plus it didn't seem to affect my running. I did have to give up the weight lifting though. I thought I was all recovered from the back problem, but then as I was bending over a few weeks ago I felt the pain again. This time it was much worse and caused great discomfort. As I was now starting my taper, I gave up doing 10-12 mile daily runs at a slow pace in favor of 5-10 mile runs at a much faster pace. The back once again was not hurting my running but the pain also was not going away as easily as it did before. I also had planned on doing a half marathon about three weeks out, but scrapped that plan, as well as blowing off the last 20 mile run I planned. I figured I had some little nagging problems and I didn't want to possibly make them worse. However, many of my training runs were now being done at paces that would have been PR's in previous years.




So finally the race day is about here. On Saturday I went with my son, Donnie, to do a monthly 2 mile running club race. My wife's daughter, Darrah, also was doing the race. I had planned on just watching Donnie run, but decided to run with Darrah as this was the first time she had done this race and she had only been running a few weeks after taking almost all winter off. Darrah is not fast, but she moves along at a steady pace without walking. We finished the two miles in just over 27 minutes. This was actually helpful for me.




I arrived later that day in Fort Collins. After getting my race packet and checking in to the hotel, I had a nice meal with my niece, Shaunna and her husband, Jason, who live in Fort Collins. Jason runs ultras and had just finished a five hour training run. We talked about the race. Jason had done it once and had finished in 2:50. We're obviously not in the same league! They showed me the course layout of a local half marathon, then took me back to my hotel. I prepared all my race gear for the early morning wakeup and went to bed about 7:00 pm.




The Colorado Marathon is a point to point course. It starts in the beautiful Poudre River canyon and ends in the Old Town section of the city. The course drops about 1200 feet from start to finish with only two smallish uphills along the way. For the most part the downhill is very gradual, but it does wear on the legs after a while. The first half of the course follows along the Poudre River and is very scenic. A few miles in the middle are out in the open, then the course turns onto a paved path along the river for the final 5 miles before leaving the path for the final quarter mile into the city.




The race starts at 6:00 am, so the buses going to the start, start leaving at 4:00 am. Getting on the first buses only means sitting around at the starting area in the cold for a longer time. I left my hotel at 4 and was on a bus by 4:20. It takes about an hour to drive up the winding canyon. After getting up to the starting area the bus drops people off and it's just a mob of people standing around in the cold and dark, nervously waiting for the race to start and/or standing in lines to use the port-a-potties. Having done this race last year I wore some good warm clothes and managed to not get cold. Finally as the race time got near I made my final preparations and stripped down to my race clothes. I was wearing some Race Ready shorts with the row of pockets for gels and stuff, an Under Armor compression t-shirt, a loose long sleeved technical shirt, a hat, gloves, Injinji socks, and Adidas AdiZero Mana shoes. My plan was to discard the gloves and the technical shirt as the temps warmed up after a few miles. I had been very worried about the weather. Almost every race I've done this year has been in poor weather and while I've run well, going a full marathon in poor weather is difficult. We've also had some freakishly strong winds in the past week and having had wind destroy a race before, this was a concern. However, the weather turned out to be absolutely great for running. Upper 30s at the start, warming into the 50s by the finish. Very little wind, and what was there was either a mild tailwind or slight cross wind.




The race turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. My plan was to go out conservatively the first mile, then turn it up and go for it as long as I could, then hang on for the final miles. I thought I was close to the starting mat, but there were more people in front of me than I realized. However, after I crossed the mat it never was so crowded that I couldn't run a decent pace. My Garmin hiccuped somewhere along the way so I don't have accurate mile splits. Being in a deep canyon and going through some tunnels makes it tough for it to always get the GPS signal. There is an online site that can possibly take the Garmin data and reinterpret it to get more accurate results and I will try it and post them if if I get anything better. As it now stands it has me running a couple of sub 7 minute miles and I don't think I ran that fast. It also measured the race as 26.94 miles. I was looking at the course mile markers and my time as I went along though which is something I don't always do. For my BQ I needed to average 8:12 per mile. Recent races and marathon predictors said I could run a 3:26 marathon, but I had my doubts. I started off with a 7:59 mile. OK, I was feeling good, let's go! Mile 2 was 7:01! Oops, better dial that back a little. I continued to run mostly between 7:20-7:40 through the halfway point at 1:39:29. Then the course levels out and many of the miles were creeping up to the 7:30-8:00 range. Having had previous marathons fall apart after the half, I still had doubts as to whether I could keep up the pace I needed. The only sizable hill on the course is around mile 19, but I went up with no problem. As I got to mile 20 my time was about 2:32. I figured if I slowed down to 10 minute miles I would reach my goal. I also figured that if I purposely slowed down it would mess up the rhythm I had going. I could feel that I was slowing a little and I was getting sore, but I told myself I had suffered through miserable conditions for much of the winter and it wasn't time to start whining now! I was still managing between 8:00-8:30 pace during the final miles. With 3 miles left I could have slowed to the 13:30 pace I ran with Darrah the day before and still made it. It was starting to hit me that unless the wheels just totally came off, I was going to get that long awaited BQ. At a mile out I had about 18 minutes to be under the BQ time and I figured I could walk it if I needed to. As the course made a final turn into the last quarter mile I passed a guy who looked to be struggling. I was smiling and knew I was going to make it. Then somehow this guy got it back together for a final surge and went by me. At the time I didn't care, but it later turned out he was in my age group and beat me out for third place. He didn't look as old as me, so the thought never crossed my mind or I may have been able to hold him off. Oh well, that wasn't my goal. My goal was to qualify for Boston and as I crossed the line in 3:26:40, I had done it convincingly. Not only that but I had broke my old marathon PR by more than 26 minutes.




Of course once I stopped running I realized how much pain I was in! My legs were screaming in protest. However, I just sat in a chair near the finish with a huge smile on my face while drinking a bottle of water. After a bit I hobbled over to the beer area and had a couple beers. Then it was over to look at the official results to make sure I had actually done it. It was there that I saw how close I had come to getting an age group award. The awards go by gun time and he beat me by 7 seconds, by chip time I beat him by 8 seconds. That didn't dampen my spirit though.




I used all the tricks I've heard of to help make this possible. I brought my own breakfast food so I wouldn't have anything that could possibly upset me. I took some ibuprofen before leaving the hotel to help ward off any pain. I drank my normal amount of coffee to help wake me up and to help get my bowels moving before the race. I had a bottle of water while waiting at the start. I also used something I've found helpful before several races this year, a bottle of Nos, kind of like Red Bull. During the race I only drank water at the aid stations because sometimes whatever energy drink is being used is mixed improperly and can cause GI problems. I took GasX before the race to keep any gas pains from bothering me as has happened on some training runs. I use Hammer Gel and had four with me. I chewed gum to help keep my mouth moist, just like I do in all my training runs. I also carried some extra ibuprofen in case I started to have pain in the race. I took them at around 15 miles. My last secret weapon was a small bottle of 5 Hour Energy and I took that around the 17 mile mark. I think it really helped keep me moving in the last miles. I know I seemed to have energy to keep pushing in the final miles that amazed me. Whether any of this is helpful for others is open to debate, but try it out in training if you think anything may be useful.




After I recover in a few days I plan to start getting ready for some summer triathlons. I recently got a newer tri bike and with my new running abilities hopefully I can do well. I may also start seriously considering an iron distance triathlon. I have told myself for several years that I wouldn't do an iron distance race until my running was good enough to BQ. Not that a BQ marathon has anything to do with an iron distance run, but it will give me confidence that I can persevere in the face of adversity. I may set my sights on trying to qualify for Kona, but there are some wickedly fast people in my age group and not many slots available. If I do an iron distance race it will be an independent race so I can get a feel for the distance without many of the hassles of the IM brand races. It's possible I could even do one this year. Time will tell.




If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading! My road to Boston has been long and not without many obstacles. I've had the pleasure of meeting some really nice people along the way and have learned something from just about everyone. Even though the destination is finally at hand, the journey to get there has really made me appreciate how special it is, and it is very gratifying to have worked so hard and get the results I always felt were possible. I'll be making my reservations soon and I hope to see some of you there!



Don

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.


What would you do differently?:

nothing
Post race
Event comments:

Good, fast course!




Last updated: 2008-05-01 12:00 AM
Running
03:26:40 | 26.2 miles | 07m 53s  min/mile
Age Group: 3/33
Overall: 93/686
Performance: Good
Course:
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 4
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 5

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2008-05-06 10:59 AM

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Expert
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Colorado Springs, Colorado
Subject: Colorado Marathon


2008-05-06 11:35 AM
in reply to: #1384701

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Elite
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Lakewood, CO
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon

Haven't read the short novel (yet), but I read the short version.

Congrats on the BQ !!! 

2008-05-06 12:05 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Master
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Atlanta, Georgia
Gold member
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
Congrats on the BQ..You earned it!
2008-05-06 5:08 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Veteran
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Denver, CO
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
Great story - congrats on the PR and BQ!
2008-05-07 10:18 AM
in reply to: #1384701

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Expert
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Colorado Springs, Colorado
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
Thank you all for the kind words.
2008-05-07 11:32 AM
in reply to: #1384701

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Veteran
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Denver
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon

Amazing story!  And I'm impressed that you beat your previous PR by 26 minutes! Holy Moly!  I'm guessing you live in the Springs, so I'll probably see you around

 

Good luck at Boston! 



2008-05-07 2:57 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Expert
622
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Conifer, Colorado
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
Dude... I read every word of your epic running adventure! Well written! Excellent training and development! A superb race. Congratulations.

I started running cuz I got FAT too. In 2003 I ran my first marathon with my then wife (who BQ'd) on very little training. I BQ'd in my next mary and ran Boston in the HOT years of 2004 and 2005. I'm going back in 2009 to settle the score... I missed a going <3:00s in 2005 by 24 seconds!

BTW, I'm all about the Injini socks... No blisters.

You have come a looong way and I really enjoyed the recap leading up to the Fort Collins PR.

Thanks for sharing.
2008-05-07 6:29 PM
in reply to: #1387761

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2555
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Colorado Springs, Colorado
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon

BTW, I'm all about the Injini socks... No blisters. You have come a looong way and I really enjoyed the recap leading up to the Fort Collins PR. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks.

Those socks are great! This is the first time I've done a marathon where my feet aren't all beat up afterward. One other thing I did this time was to rub anti-perspirant all over my feet to keep the moisture from causing problems. It all seemed to work as all I got was one very small blister. Last year I blistered so bad I could barely run at all for a month and I was training for a HIM in early June.

2008-05-08 10:37 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
I read the long version, too. VERY inspiring. You took 26 minutes off your PR and had one heck of a marathon., wow! Maybe there is hope I could shave off 13 minutes and have a BQ in Chicago. Way to go!
2008-05-08 10:54 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Westminster, CO
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon

incredible journey and a fantastic story!  you are very determined and you are very deserving of your spectacular results!

keep up the great work!

2008-05-09 9:35 AM
in reply to: #1391595

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Colorado Springs, Colorado
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon

serrotta - 2008-05-08 9:37 PM I read the long version, too. VERY inspiring. You took 26 minutes off your PR and had one heck of a marathon., wow! Maybe there is hope I could shave off 13 minutes and have a BQ in Chicago. Way to go!

Thanks.

What really helped me was when I started running the kind of mileage that serious runners put in. While it doesn't take lots of mileage to complete a marathon, to gain the fitness to go fast takes a bigger committment. Many people from a running background are used to weekly volume much higher than I was doing and the elite runners likely go well over 100 miles weekly. If you change your training to be more like what serious runners do instead of the just train to finish type of plans put forth in some of the online sites and/or running magazines, you'll easily shave off that 13 minutes, and possibly even more.

Then you just have to hope Chicago has better weather than last year.

Outside of the racing I've done about every other week, almost all my running has been done at a pace 90-120 seconds per mile slower than I race at - or even slower compared to what I've been running for shorter races. Getting out there and running 6-8 miles every day to start and building to 10-12 miles established a very solid base. Running every day allowed my legs to adapt to being able to keep going when they were tired, but the runs weren't so long that I wouldn't be able to run every day.

I was also inspired by what one of the local ultra runners was doing leading up to his big races. This guy ran more than 200 miles weekly for many weeks, won a very difficult 100 mile race, then 2 weeks later won our local marathon in course record time despite never training to run fast. He did run XC in college though and is still quite young, but it got me to thinking that if he trains at 9-9:30 pace and can run almost 3 minutes per mile faster in a marathon, then certainly there must be some decent benefit from just running lots of slower miles. 200 mile weeks are well beyond my capabilities, but I did run 70-80 mile weeks for 2 months.

Anyway, it has worked for me and I already have 9 PRs this year, plus the long awaited BQ. At age 52 I'm running the fastest in my life. If getting that BQ is really important to you, then focus on it even if that means giving up triathlon this year. Good luck to you.



2008-05-12 5:16 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Colorado Springs, Colorado
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
What a nice surprise! The age group awards did go by chip time after all and I just received my award today for 3rd place. The award is a beer glass with the race info etched on it, along with the sponsor info on the other side. They also revised my official time to 3:26:20. That's closer to the time I recorded on my Garmin and I started it before I crossed the mat.

I never dreamed I could run fast enough to get hardware in a marathon.
2010-01-07 10:32 AM
in reply to: #1384701

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Master
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Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
A bit late in reading this RR, but I really enjoyed it.  Also learned a bit from it.  My body has been telling me I could do more than the 30-40 miles a week that a lot of these plans have in them.  Since I am only running right now I am starting to step it up and go longer, like amybe 40-60 a week. TIme will tell how it works, but I got some relief reading your successes.  In the past I have done speedwrok but almost always end up needing days off to recover, when it feels like I could go 9:50mmp everyday...which just may be more beneficial.

Anyways, enjoyed the RR, gonna read some more now.
2010-01-07 10:23 PM
in reply to: #1384701

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Champion
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5000100100100
Calgary
Subject: RE: Colorado Marathon
Wow, thanks Sax for digging this one up.

Really great RR Don, I enjoyed reading it. An awesome story.
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