Weekly Summary – 117 miles in 12 runs. Two very solid, light works, and a challenging race with a very strong and aggressive first half. Legs are feeling a bit tired, but a lighter week coming up. One or two more 10ks coming up and then focusing on specific, high-volume training for a few weeks. Hasta luego!

Lunes, 2 Septiembre, 2013 – 9am: Easy run down to Carolina and 3 laps. Very easy pace, just wanted to get good volume today, 22km this morning in 1’41’55. Total run 13M++.

3:45pm: Shakeout down towards the park. Planned to do a bit more but was feeling awful. Woke up from a nap feeling really groggy and really wanted to keep sleeping but didn’t have time. Also got horrible chafing. Not a fun run. Kept it to 10km only, very slow. 32km for the day, 63 miles in the last 3 days. Total run was 6M+ in 50’.

Martes, 3 Septiembre, 2013 – 9:50am: No power this morning, which meant NO COFFEE. Oh noooo! Had a cup of tea but not the same. Headed out feeling groggy; I guess I am developing quite the addiction… Anyways, ended up a very nice morning and feeling pretty good after a while. Was thinking about the same 22km as yesterday, but wanted to play it a bit more conservative as I’ve been feeling tired for the last few days, so only two laps, 18km. Total run was 11M+, no time.

5:30pm: Rain! This might be the first run I’ve done in the rain since I left the states three and a half months ago (which is kind of amazing in and of itself). A bit nervous as I was leaving, since there was some thunder, but the storm was passing to the South and I was heading North, so it actually didn’t even rain that long.

Actually ended up feeling very good. Best I’ve felt since Saturday by far, so hopefully ready for a workout tomorrow. I ran to the park and had planned to do a magic mile on the track. There was a high school kid there working out with his coach, who seemed to be pretty good. I ran my magic mile and felt pretty good (5’31). For the record, a magic mile is something I learned from Jon and the CSU guys, where you alternate 100m of stride and 100m of cruising. This ended up being quite a bit more difficult at altitude, but still was good.

Anyways, this kid was finishing his workout right as I finished and so I jogged a lap with him and chatted a bit. I then ended up talking with his coach for a while afterwards who apparently runs workouts twice a week with a group of runners. He invited me to come join them, and I think I might – only downside is they workout at 6:30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yikes!

Still, a great connection and hopefully will lead to more. Ran back afterwards even though it was quite dark as I’d spent a long time chatting. Total run 9M+, NT.

Miercoles, 4 Septiembre, 2013 – 9am: Worked overnight last night so was super tired and groggy this morning. Decided to do any easy shakeout in the morning and workout in the afternoon. Hoped a day of rest and some coffee would do the trick. Easy 10km to the park and back, no mas. Total 6M+, no time.

5pm: Ran to the park for a light workout on the track in the park. Felt pretty good, a bit tired still, but legs felt good. Ran to the park and to the track (6km). Did some drills and strides before starting the workout.

Workout for today was fairly light: 5x1000m (2’ rest) with some pace changing. The first and last 400m were to be at “half-marathon pace” (this is the pace that Daniels’ altitude tables tell me should be for a half marathon, in this case, around 5’40/mile) and the middle 200m fast. The idea is two-fold: (1) – to practice shifting gears (and it’s a big jump to go from running 5’40 pace to 4’20 pace!) and (2) – to practice using that HMP as recovery, i.e. being able to recover from mid-race surges and mentally making yourself realize that it’s not killer fast.

Really killed it today! Felt awesome and everything was faster than I’d expected and felt pretty easy. The surges were all around 32.0 and the HMP stuff was somewhere between 80-85. The 1000s themselves ended up averaging 3’17.6, which is great – definitely quicker than I’d anticipated. And I really finished this one feeling like I could have done 5 more. Happy to keep it low today, though, as I will try to work out tomorrow morning with the Ecuadorian group.

Only problem was a huge thunderstorm which I could see rolling in from the south of the city. I was actually afraid that I was going to have to cut the workout short because it looked like it was coming right towards us, but luckily we never got anything other than some wind.

Talked to the Ecuadorian coach again who was at the track and asked if I was coming to his workout tomorrow morning at 6:30am. We’ll be running some 400s. I guess we’ll see how I feel at 5:30 tomorrow morning…

Cooled down long 6km back to the house. Total run 11M+.

Splits
5x1000m at HMP/200m fast/HMP, 2’00 rest
3’18.6 (83.1, 32.0, 83.5)
3’16.9 (81.6, 31.7, 87.5)
3’19.2 (84.4, 32.4, 82.4)
3’17.6 (79.9, 32.5, 85.2)
3’15.6 (82.1, 32.0, 81.5)

Jueves, 5 Septiembre, 2013 – 6am: Woke up at 5:30am and felt pretty awful. Didn’t sleep super well last night and didn’t sleep much at all the night before with work, but I managed to get up, have a cup of coffee, and drag myself out the door.

It was actually super nice running to the park at 6am because there weren’t a ton of cars out. Amazonas – usually full of nasty buses spewing diesel smoke – was totally empty. A nice change of pace. Got to the track (6km) feeling pretty decent despite the early morning and met up with the coach (whose name I still can’t remember…) and a group of about 6 guys – aged from about 16-24.

We did a bunch of warm-up drills and then some strides (which, in Spanish, are called progresivos). The guys seemed quick, and I knew some were 1500m runners, so I figured it’d be good for me to run with some guys with more leg-speed than me for a change.

The workout was 8x400m with 1’20 rest. When I asked about the pace, ritmo, there wasn’t a clear answer. I figured I would just run in the pack and see how it went.

The first rep, we were out in 33.x and ran 68.5. This was by far the fastest I’d run in a while (other than some 200s) and one of the fastest quarters I’ve ever run at this altitude. The rest was dangerously short, but luckily the next few reps we settled into a rhythm around 70 seconds.

After about 4x, I found myself at the front of the group as the younger guys were struggling to hold on. On reps 6 and 7, one of the young guys was leading and I just stuck behind him (we took turns leading), but we were running super slow. I didn’t know if we were supposed to ease up or what, but being my first workout with this group, I didn’t want to showboat and go around. So these two (75 and 73) were a lot slower, but I definitely could have maintained that 70sec pace.

On the last one, we were told to go 100%. I ended up going out quite hard with one of the young 1500m runners (who I guess had been resting on the previous few reps) in about 31. I was hurting pretty bad the last 200m and came in at 65.9 – still maybe the fastest 400m I’ve run at over 9000ft. (Aside – he ran about 62, but I was later told he was a 54 second runner at this altitude!)

It was super nice to run with some other fast people, though, and I actually felt really good despite working out 12 hours ago and barely sleeping in the last two days. The couple of slower reps felt super easy which was great and it felt good to start touching that higher end speed again.

I cooled down 1 mile on the track with the coach and then we did some group stretching and chatting before cooling down back home (6km). Overall, a very solid workout and a lot of fun.

Total run 11M+.

Splits:
68.5, 70.2, 71.1, 69.8, 68.4, 75.1, 73.0, 65.9

5:30pm: EASY, easy shakeout solo around el ejido. Legs felt better after. Absolutely gorgeous, pink sunset. I love it here. Total run 4M+, NT.

Viernes, 6 Septiembre, 2013 – AM: No run (planned), had to work in the morning anyways, so worked out well.

5pm: Ran to la Carolina to meet the coach. Waited around for about 10 minutes at the cross where we were supposed to meet but the whole place was dead. No one there. Ran solo. On the way back, I found out that the Ecuador-Colombia futbol game had been pushed back til 5pm, which explained where everyone was. Oh well. Felt okay, not great. Total run 11M+, NT.

Sabado, 7 Septiembre, 2013 – 6:30am: Woke up early to get a run in before a day of travel. Ran up to La Ichimbia and a few big laps of the park. Not sure if my legs are just tired or if it’s the super steep uphill mile to get there, but I didn’t feel good this morning at all. Hopefully feel better tomorrow!

PM: Travel to Medellin, good amount of walk, no run. Big dinner around 7pm and bed by 10pm.

Domingo, 8 Septiembre, 2013 – I woke up to my alarm at 4am. It was still pitch black, but I managed to get myself out of bed. I had one cup of black coffee and a peanut butter sandwich and then just relaxed. I planned to leave around 5:30am to head over to the race and had one more cup of coffee around 5:15am just before leaving. Despite the early hour, I was feeling fairly energetic and excited.

Dawn was just breaking as I left Fabricio’s apartment building and I was lucky enough to find another racer heading over to the race at the same time. He walked with me to the metro – which was lucky because it was way farther and more complicated than Id expected. We were supposed to be able to enter for free with our race numbers, but apparently you had to be wearing the number and the official race t-shirt. I, in my STRIVE singlet, was told that despite having the number, I’d have to pay anyway. My new friend – also named Andrés – argued for me, explaining that I was a professional and we were allowed to wear whatever we wanted, but the metro agent wouldn’t budget. Sheesh. Bureaucracy… Luckily, Andrés let me swipe in with his unlimited pass, so neither of us had to pay. Finally, we were on our way.

On the metro – an elevated, electrically-powered tram system that goes throughout the city of Medellin – more and more neon-shirt-clad marathoners joined us until the whole car appeared like an 80s dance party. When we arrived at our stop, the colorful array of runners streamed out into the station and melded into the enormous river of people below. Andrés pointed me in the direction of the starting line and at that point we bid farewell. I gave him my facebook info and thanked him profusely for being a great guide. So far, the Colombians I’d met had been nothing but kind and warm.

I jogged through the thongs of people around the chaos that was the “zona de calintamiento – or warm-up zone – until I finally found the giant starting corrals. I had hoped to jog the first couple miles of the course, but everything was shut down and I was directed off. I explained that I was an elite and they showed me to a cordoned-off courtyard. The woman checking people in at the front looked at my 5-digit bib number and explained that, no this is just for elites. I explained that I was elite, that I was an invited international athlete and she checked her list. Sure enough, I was there and supposed to have bib #9, but someone at the kit-pickup had messed up. I was also entered in the full marathon on her list, which gave my heart a bit of a jump. Luckily, everything was corrected fairly quickly and I was nestled into our little area and warming up in a couple minutes.

Jogging around, there were some pretty intimidating looking folks. A small gaggle of Kenyans in bright red Fila track suits seemed to garner the most attention, but there were plenty of South American guys that looked plenty fast.

I jogged about 3M total and before we knew it, we were being herded into the elite starting corral. There was some more confusion about whether we were in the right place – whether this was the right corral for men and women, for 21k and 42k, but I tried to just go with the flow. Finally, we were all crouched down and watching the starter for the gun.

Of course, the gun misfired, and no one really knew what to do. A few people stutter-stepped off the line and then looked around confused until the starter just waved us all on and we were off. About 3 seconds later, we hear the gun finally go off behind us. Way to go, guys.

The front of the race is out fast. I’m usually aggressive off the line in road races, but there is a pack of maybe 5-8 guys that are killing it in the first 400m. I can see the Kenyans and some of the faster looking South Americans and I know I need to let them go. I fall into a secondary pack of guys, maybe about 15-20 in total, and tuck in near the front. We run around a rotary and then head uphill to the west for the first 4km of the race.

I see a sign for the first km, which we pass in 3’21. I honestly expected it to be faster given the quick start, but we were already running uphill. The next 2km were entirely uphill and fairly straight along a long, wide road. I worked hard to stay with that pack and we passed 3km in 10’11. I was a bit nervous about going out this quick, especially uphill, but I could see there was a big no-man’s-land behind me and I figured I would just hold on as long as I could.

At about 4km, the course turns and heads downhill, back down toward the city center. Here, the pack began to split and I tried to use the downhill to really work and stick with the front of this chase pack. We passed 5km in 17’12, at which point we were on a fairly constant rolling road along the river for a while.

Right around or before 5km, the pace picked up a lot in my group – maybe the guys had wanted to go through 5km faster, who knows. Either way, we started running quite fast and I decided to just go for it and stick with them. The next split I saw was 8km, which we passed in 26’16, meaning we had just run 3km in 9’04 (about 4’50/mile pace). I didn’t calculate how fast we were going at that point, but honestly, I felt like I was running a 10k, not 21km, and I was starting to get worried.

By 9km, we started to climb up a long, hill which went from about 9km to 13km. This hill was the beginning of the end for me. Our pack thinned more and more as we climbed up into the smoggy heights of the city and I found myself getting dropped. My legs were ready to stop by 12km and by 13km at the top of the hill, I could only use the brief downhill after as recovery.

From there, the course rolled up and down to the finish. I knew I was dying and dying hard, and I just tried my best to hang on. Maybe for my benefit, the km markers were either non-existent or I just didn’t seem them, but I didn’t know how much I was slowing down.

The last big climb occurred between about 15 and 17km, at which point I felt like I was just about walking. As I was cresting the hill, I heard footsteps behind me, the first I’d heard in a while. Two younger runners crept up on me and I decided I’d try to rally and really race them over the last 4km. We headed downhill together and then were on a fairly flat route until the finish line.

As they pushed the pace, I stayed in front and wouldn’t let them pass me. My legs felt like giant logs with every step, but I willed myself on until I saw the 40km mark (for the marathon, meaning 2km to go). I actually threw in a little surge and gapped the two by a couple of meters at that point and thought I might actually be able to close well. But that dead, heavy-legged surged back after that increased pace and I heard footsteps right behind me again.

Somehow, there was only one this time. It appeared that we’d dropped the other. We entered a section of streets lined with metal barriers and streamers and I figured we must be very close to the finish, so I started kicking and pulling away again. We rounded a corner and I saw more and more of these metal barriers, with no sign of the finish line. At that point, though, I’d started kick and had no choice but to hang on for as long as I could.

What I’d thought would be maybe 200m turned out to be more like 600m and by the time I finally saw the finish line and rounded the final corner, I was already rigging. My competitor, who’d timed his kick better, flew by me as I muscled my way through to the finish. The time was in the 1’15s and I had no real idea of my place.

Quick thoughts from the race

I wasn’t super pleased with the end result. I had thought that I’d be able to run between 3’20 and 3’30/km (about 1’10-1’14). I actually don’t think this was a totally unrealistic goal, had I run the race differently. There’s no question in my mind that I killed any chance of a fast race with a 9’04 3k split in the first half of this race, but at the time, I’m not sure I had too much of a choice.

This is one of the problems I’m discovering with trying to run at such a high level on the roads. Not only do you need to be able to run the pace you want to evenly, you need to be able to run that pace by throwing in long surges significantly faster that your goal race pace and then be able to recover at a pace reasonable enough to stick with the pack. You see this all the time in the very front of races (pros dropping sub 4’30 miles in the middle of marathons), but it happens in the secondary packs too.

Finally, I think I’m underestimating the difficulty of these Andean courses. Between the altitude (this course was at 6000 ft above sea level) and the hilliness (usually long, gradual climbs), these courses are a lot slower than the track races and flat Boston road races I’ve been used to. According to Daniel’s altitude conversion charts, the overall time is worth about 1’12 at sea level, but that 9’04 3km surge is worth 8’40 (!!) at sea level.

I read something recently that basically said, “to fail without learning from your mistakes is the only way to truly fail.” I think I’m lucky in that I’ve almost always learned from my poor races. In fact, I’ve probably learned much MORE from my races that go badly than my races when I crush it. One of the most important skills I’ve developed is how to bypass the immediate disappointment and look for those lessons – as opposed to running into the bathroom and crying and sulking for the rest of the day. I think that could be called maturity.

Total run 19M, NT.

Splits:
1km: 3’21
3km: 10’11 (6’50 for 2km)
5km: 17’12 (7’01 for 2km)
8km: 26’16 (9’04 for 3km)
21.1km: 1’15’54

Official time: 1’15’54, 24th overall

4pm: Arrived in Cartagena around 3pm and it’s HOT and HUMID. Wow, what a difference a few thousand feet of altitude makes! I walked out of the airport and hitched a ride into town with a local dude on the back of a motorcycle. Pretty fun!

After wandering around the labrynthian Centro Historico, I finally found the hostel I’d been looking for – Casa Viena – and dropped my stuff off in an 8-person dorm room.

I asked reception where I might be able to run and they told me this whole part of the city was muy tranquilo ¬– very safe – and I could run all along the coastline. I headed out, feeling pretty stiff from sitting in the airport/on the plane after racing a half this morning, but felt quite good for some reason once I headed out – probably from being at sea level for the first time in over a month.

It felt good to run shirtless along the coast through the hot, sticky air. A welcome change from the cool, dry Quiteño climate. I ran through the centro historico and out onto the point where giant apartment buildings lined the beach. I felt like I’d run from an old Spanish town right into Miami beach.

I ran longer than I’d planned – over an hour – but it felt so good to be out in the sticky heat, just like a brutal New England summer day. By the time I got back, I was ready to relax and drink my weight in coconut milk and fruit juices (sold fresh on every street corner). I was exhausted, but glad to have a few days of something different. So far, Colombia was treating me well.

Total run 8M, NT.