Keep on keep'n on

Training has been going surprisingly well for Boston. I'm getting out at least 1 hour each day with long runs on Saturdays. I'm a firm believer in the hard / easy method of training. However I'm doing a lot of runs with guys who (in my opinion) run hard every training run.

Some of you might think "What's wrong with that"? Well, your body needs a chance to rebuild muscle damage after every run and if you just keep damaging the muscle fiber your heading for a break down. The three other guys I'm training with David "I float like a butterfly" Katz, Mike "calves of steel" O'Connor and Peter "I'll run threw a brick wall" Floss have all been hammering every training run and every time I join them they're killing me with a fast pace. I've just about given up trying to hang with them the whole route these days and run according to how I feel.

This morning was a perfect example. I arrived early and headed out towards the direction David runs from every morning. David has been struggling with a sore hammy. When I met up with him I asked if this was going to be an easy run today. His reply was "Yes". I'm thinking "good that way I can relax this morning". As the group arrived we called out the route and off we went. 1 mile into the run, I looked at David and asked "I thought we were going to take it easy this morning". His reply "I guess not". GREAT!! I hanging on for dear life once again and after 3 miles was soon shat out the back door. The boys were nice and waited for me up at the pinnacle of our run in Westford center. As we headed down for the 1.5 miles to the finish the pace picked up once again. This time I was ready for them and explained to them that I usually do fairly well in Boston because it's a down hill course and I just let my long stride carry me for the first 16 miles, work through mile 21, then let my stride take over once again for the final 5 miles. So here we were with 1.5 miles of down hill to go. I just sat back at the back of the pack, resting and waiting for my time. With about 1/4 mile to go I made my move. The other 3 guys took note and began to turn it up too. First I passed Peter, then came David. Now I was chasing Tom "runs like a gazelle" Skahen. Tom loves to finish hard and I've never been able to catch him in the past. Today was different, I came along side him and he turned up the tempo 5 clicks. I found that I still had another gear and accelerated. As I pulled away I could hear him making one more effort to catch back up, but low and behold I had even one more gear. Where did this come from? My guess is 2 fold. First, these guys are running hard every day and are just plain tired and need to take a break. Second, with all the extra workouts I been doing with P90X, my hammys are much stronger and I'm able to turn over my feet faster.

Now the three guys, David, Peter, and Mike are all in good shape and will do very well in Boston this year. In fact I'm predicting that all three will PR. But I'll keep saying it to them that they have to have some rest days. All of them are in their mid 40's and sooner or later they will break down. I know, been there, done that, don't want to go back.

Anyway training continues. Two weekends ago I did a 13 mile run on the course from the Wellesley community center to BC and back and ended up averaging 8 minute pace. Last weekend I did a 20 mile run from Natick to BC and back and averaged 7:45's. This weekend I'm heading out to Hopkinton and will run to BC for 21 miles and hope to average 7:30's. But you never know. I feel strong and I'm not afraid to run hard. Of course I'll be taking it easy Friday and make sure I follow my hard / easy pattern.