I ran the Boston Marathon on April 17, 2023. These are my notes on race preparation and execution (as usual, mostly written to remind myself about the experience in decades to come).

Result

2:58:41, 3,734 / 26,606 overall (beat my bib #6773!), 3,507 / 15,173 males, 2,489 / 5,285 AG males 18 to 39

Goals

✓ Goal A: Finish

✓ Goal B: Sub 3:05 (BQ cutoff for my age group)

✓ Goal C: Sub three hours

Training

I took over a month off after NYC due to COVID and moving house. I decided to go back to McMillan’s plans after Pfitz 18/70 only because Greg has a Boston Marathon-specific race plan. I figured specificity couldn’t hurt, especially with the famed hills of Newton strategically placed right around the bonk mile. Frankly, I also liked being able to see at a glance from my phone and watch what the workout of the day was.

With the race on April 17 and my training plan starting in mid-January, this was the earliest start for a training block I’ve done: NYC is in early November and Colorado was June 1. This meant that I’d have to train through the winter, which I figured wouldn’t be bad because I enjoy running in the cold, the sun always shines, and the snow in Boulder melts quickly. Plus, anything beats training in the NYC hot and humid summer.

Boy was I wrong. It was a brutal winter and training through it was tough. My neighborhood was under a sheet of ice for weeks on end, the sun was missing in action for about as long, and it got really cold. Plus, the damned sun — when it is out — isn’t out for long in the winter! Just as the sun was rising acceptably early in March, we hit daylight saving time, and more dark runs were had. I found myself on a treadmill for more runs than I’d like, including one long run.

Training overall went well. I really enjoyed the hill training the plan had me on and I found a nice little local incline that is perfect for doing some 45-60 second hill sprints. I got sick with a cold that put me out of action for a few days. I rolled my ankle on a long run in a spectacular one-person crash, but I was able to finish the run and run on it despite some swelling. (It actually felt better when running than when not…) I think I stuck to the plan pretty well, peaking at 66.75 miles (107 km) in late March. The mid-week medium distance runs were not as long as those prescribed by Pfitz 18/70, which I appreciated because of the lack of daylight to do them in.

We had been living in a rental apartment that we chose specifically because it was around the corner from our daughter’s daycare. This made our drop-off and pick-up routine so easy. But, moving 3.2 miles away from the daycare reasonably precludes walking; a car or bike are the only ways to go. While the Great State of New Jersey certifies that my wife is a capable driver since teenage years, she hadn’t seriously driven in over three decades.

Being the only confident driver/cyclist of the family, I took on drop-off and pick-up duties. This — coupled with the lack of winter daylight — severely constrained the amount of time I had available to train. Gone were the days of being able to get a medium-long run in before showing up at work at 9:30am.

But my wife was extremely supportive. She took on the responsibility for rousing our daughter from her slumber and getting her ready to get out the door, to allow me to get running at sunrise or start work early. Not only did she at times sacrifice her own cherished morning exercise slot, but she also started to take driving lessons (being uncomfortable with my exacting standards for driving proficiency) and practiced the route to daycare by herself. It didn’t help that our Tesla is a little less standard to drive than other cars.

After my 2:59:59, I knew I wanted to target another sub-3 hour time to prove to myself that I’m capable of running to that standard on a course that isn’t ridiculously downhill. Up through the race, my Stryd analytics complained that I didn’t have the necessary 296 watts of power sustained for three hours to break that barrier. I still wanted to try: between using carbon fiber-plated shoes and running at sea level, I figured the algorithm didn’t know I had a few tricks up my sleeve.

After having foot pain in NYC the prior fall, I decided to get new shoes a half-size larger than I typically wear. Soon before I walked into In Motion Running during a coffee break, Saucony released their newest carbon fiber-plated shoe, the Endorphin Elite, which comes with “a super aggressive toe-spring and a propulsive ride”. I’d like to be sprung and propelled forward toward the finish line, and I have $275 to drop on something as frivolous for an amateur runner as running shoes, so that sounded great.

The plan’s 2-ish week taper was longer than I had done previously, though I will say that the feeling of freshness and the lack of constant fatigue was really enjoyable. I joined my club for my last long run before the race, but I probably shouldn’t have: the route was on trails along a rocky goat path with a good amount of vert. The others in the club going to Boston stuck to the roads that day…

Race Weekend

The Boston Marathon traditionally is run on Patriots Day, a local holiday on the third monday of April. I planned to fly in on Saturday, have a day to pick up my bib and get settled, and come back home on Tuesday.

I had to bring my daughter to a birthday party for two of her classmates on Saturday. I knew I had to leave the party at exactly 10:30am to catch the bus to the airport and discussed this with my family. Sadly, it was only at that exact time that the party organizing committee was preparing to cut the cake. Cut to me, carrying my three-year-old daughter away from a party who was screaming, “I want cake!” over and over again… I felt terrible ripping her away from what I’m sure was a delicious, moist, sugar-filled, homemade cake and I hoped that she wouldn’t forever associate the Boston Marathon or my running with the time that daddy pulled her away from the birthday party just as it was getting good.

(My gracious wife took her to the nearby bakery to get a cupcake and reported that all was well).

I got to Boston in the late evening and grabbed some Halal Guys chicken and rice from across the street to my hotel, the W. I entered the hotel, but was confused because it seemed like a club: lots of people drinking and a DJ spinning. But that was the lobby. I checked in and had trouble falling asleep. By booking through Whatahotel, I scored a $100/day breakfast stipend (among other perks), which was more than sufficient for carb loading. They also provided a somewhat strange assortment of items in a goodie bag for runners, which at least was a nice gesture of hospitality.

I went to the Tracksmith shakeout run and made some great acquaintances. I got some valuable insider race information, like how the Newton Hills are not that bad, but the underpass on Commonwealth Avenue going under Massachusetts Avenue at mile 25.8 is the most brutal hill on the course.

Picked up my bib, contributed to the Marathon Industrial Complex by purchasing an overpriced crappy jacket that I’ll seldom wear, and headed back to my hotel room to get off my feet. I have some Massachusetts-based family and they took me out for lunch at La Famiglia Giorgio’s in the North End, followed by Modern Pastry. That meal ended, and an hour later, the Boulder Track Club’s organized pre-race meal at Bencotto started. Two pasta meals in four hours? Sure, why not.

Can you believe that the 7-11 across the street from my hotel had bread, but ran out of fancy strawberry preserves while I was gone for the afternoon? I was forced to make my PB&Js with grape jelly from a squeeze bottle! The indignity.

I got my gear ready, pinned my bib to my singlet, and went to bed for another night of restless “sleep”.

Pre-race

I set my alarm for 5:45 to be able to meet my team and get to the buses in Boston Commons to Hopkinton. While I would have been perfectly content with my PB&Js until the race start at 10am, the hotel graciously provided an early continental breakfast for runners.

The bus was fine. Point-to-point courses are amusing to me because it is made clear how ridiculous it is that we’ve chosen to run the 26.2 miles that we’re driving in the opposite direction.

We got off the bus and my teammate said, “We’re not going to the Athlete’s Village. We’re going to a house.” I learned that one of my teammates is friends with someone who owns an 1877 Victorian mansion right next to the starting corrals. Sitting in a comfy antique chair next to a huge radiator sure beats sitting on a field under a tent on a damp day in the cold. We got better treatment than even the professional runners in their tent across the street. The house’s owners even made banana bread for us!

I was happy with my decision to keep my 3 mil contractor bag on until the last two minutes when it started to drizzle. Not cutting holes for arms made it significantly warmer, but made me look slightly more ridiculous.

Race

[photo: Power]

What a fun race. The course is interesting, the requirement for qualification makes the field more cohesive, and the crowds were invigorating.

(I amusingly had “New York, New York” playing in my head going through the start line, the song traditionally played at the start in NYC).

My mantra for the day was: “The race starts at the Newton Hills at mile 16”. My overall plan was to be around 10 seconds per mile faster than goal pace for the first six miles (10 km), settle into goal pace until mile 16 (26 km), keep the same effort on and over the hills between miles 16 and 21 (34 km), and then push as hard as necessary in the last 5+ miles (8 km) to get to the finish line without much left in the tank.

I also knew that sometimes the way to accomplish a goal is for one to get out of one’s own way.

A common complaint about the Boston Marathon is that it runs along narrow, rural roads which creates congestion among runners trying to find their pace. In my wave and starting from the front of my corral, I didn’t find it that bad. My first mile was the second slowest mile of my day at 6:57/mi (4:18/km), slightly slower than my target pace, but I easily accommodated for that in the remaining 3 miles of strong downhill. One other impact that I hadn’t heard of previously was that the course was often crowded enough that running tangents was not feasible; I’m sure I could have taken better lines to cut some distance out.

The crowds were phenomenal, especially at Wellesley’s Scream Tunnel. What an experience. My ears were ringing by the time I passed though the campus.

The Newton Hills were a non-issue for me. I was unimpressed when I got to Heartbreak Hill and saw the penultimate challenge ahead of me. I did start to feel a little sore in my quads at mile 19 (30.5 km), but I tried to keep it out of my mind.

I have a bad time with gels. While I’m religious in taking them at 30 minute intervals, I have problems getting them down. I used to use Maurten exclusively, but found that I often choke on the consistency of them. I had switched to Torq gels mostly because they have a more liquid consistency and have a wide variety of flavors. But, during this race, the acidity of the Torq gels irritated my throat and caused it to narrow, making breathing a bit more laborious. Suggestions for alternatives for future races would be appreciated.

All throughout the race, I couldn’t help but have a big smile on my face, thinking, “I qualified for and am running the Boston Marathon.” Thinking back to me 12 more or more years ago, I couldn’t believe I was even there.

In the last couple of miles, I felt like I was running at a swimmingly easy 6:00/mi (3:43/km) pace. But my watch significantly disagreed every time I looked down at it until I tried to ramp it back up only to slow down again. The increased rain intensity definitely didn’t help and filled the course with big puddles. I slipped a couple of times on the wet road paint; the traction on these Endorphin Elites is not great, seemingly because the contact patches are very smooth.

I ended up running 6:40/mi (4:08/km) at 303 watts for the first 16 miles, a bit faster than planned, and ran 6:52/mi (4:16/km) at 291 watts for the last 5.5 miles, a little slower than planned. I ran the first half in 1:27:48 and the second in 1:30:53.

I ultimately ran at an average of 301 watts, more than necessary to go sub-3. Eat that Stryd algorithm!

Plus, I beat Daniel Humm, chef/owner of three-Michelin-Star Eleven Madison Park, by a handful of seconds.

And unlike him, who was on the Today Show’s cooking segment the next morning, I didn’t have to work the next day.

Post-Race

I felt stronger after this marathon than any of the others I’ve ran. I probably should have tried to run harder in the last 10 km; I may have left some time out on the course.

Just as I was getting my mylar blanket, the heavens opened up. I made the short walk back to the W, where they had frames each with a congratulatory message personalized with our name and finishing time. I stripped out of my sopping wet clothes and took a long warm shower.

My team had made reservations at Trillium Brewing at Fort Point and at Row 34, a beer-centric restaurant. Both were phenomenal choices; we even ended up going back to Trillium after dinner. Copious amounts of beer were had.

Now I’m getting psyched for Chicago. It’s a flat course near sea level, so depending on the weather and my training, it could be a good day.

I ran the New York City Marathon on November 6, 2022. These are my notes on race preparation and execution (as usual, mostly written to remind myself about the experience in decades to come).

Result

3:17:13. 1,861/47,745, 344/3,769 AG

Goals

✓ Goal A: Finish

✗ Goal B: Sub 3:14:16 (== π, my previous NYC result in 2019)

✗ Goal C: Sub three hours

✗ Goal D: Sub 3:05 (BQ cutoff for my age group)

My goals were inverted for two reasons:

1. I suffered a knee injury during training, resulting in three weeks almost completely away from running toward the end of the training cycle. Making it to the start line was not certain and finishing at all would be a gift from the gods.

2. The conditions for the race were less than ideal: 70°F/21°C at the start and 75°F/24°C by the time I crossed the finish line, mostly sunny, with humidity above 80% at the start.

Training

Coming off of my skin-of-the-teeth-sub-3 hour run in the Colorado Marathon, I knew my goal would be to best that time. I also knew that NYC is a hard marathon course and there’d be no net-downhill elevation loss to help, though almost two years of altitude training would help in this race at sea level.

The first thing to optimize for improving endurance pace for someone like me is weekly training mileage. For the weeks leading up to the Colorado Marathon, I had been running between 36 miles (58 km) and 56 miles (90 km). By most accounts, this is too low for most people to achieve a consistent sub-3 hour marathon.

I think any plan with increased mileage would have been more than adequate. I decided to use Pete Pfitzinger’s 18 week-long plan for 55-70 miles (89-113 km) per week (affectionately known as Pfitz 18/70). I enjoyed reading the accompanying book and the mileage was a step up from what I was used to. The written plan was easy to understand, though I admittedly missed having a calendar and workouts synced to my watch as I had in the McMillan plans I had been using.

Pfitz 18/70 is very endurance-heavy. The focus is on increasing mileage through successively longer mid-week runs (so-called “medium-long runs”) and Sunday runs (the standard long-run). The medium-long runs, maxing out at 16 miles (26 km), quickly became longer than my previous long runs had been, which were usually around a half marathon. I never thought I’d be running 14 or 16 miles on random Wednesday mornings and having a longer run later in the week!

I did find it a little stressful to have to schedule the weeks with longer distances, having a toddler in daycare and a job with my team based in NYC and its timezone. I got accustomed to pre-dawn alarms and starting runs at twilight or getting in non-key workouts on the treadmill at work after my team left the office. I’d occasionally use the treadmill in my apartment building after my daughter’s bedtime, but I don’t do great with late-night exercise, especially when having to get up early the next morning to run more. I’m not sure that I’d be able to run more mileage sustainably; my wife might start to get mad and I might start to burn out.

Because of those constraints, I ended up only hitting a maximum of 67.25mi (108 km) instead of the planned 70mi (113 km). But, I was pretty consistent week-in and week-out in hitting all of the planned workouts. Overall, my plan to increase mileage worked and I saw clear benefits, as expected: running longer distances became significantly less daunting and running at the same pace became easier.

One highlight of the training cycle was when my wife was going out of town for a weekend, so I knew I’d have to skip a couple of runs, including a long-run. I decided to embark on a slightly more epic run than usual before she left: do my scheduled 20 mile long run, but run up one of the local mountain roads, ultimately netting 2,835 feet (864 meters) of vertical, with a great view at the top. It was here that I realized I suck at running up 10-15% grade hills and that I remembered how hard it is on one’s knees and quads running downhill. I was good and sore for days.

As I could have predicted with the difficulties in just scheduling the running portion of the plan, I skimped out on pre-hab (i.e. stretching before and after workouts) and weight training. I had hoped that I’d be able to move into our house during this training period and make use of our basement gym, but the renovation took significantly longer than we anticipated. I had alternate means to pick up heavy things and put them back down, but I failed to employ them.

The increase in mileage, increase in training pace, and severe lack of cross training set me up for injury. I knew this was a risk the longer I put off weight training, but I decided to play the cards. I lost the bet and ended up with a case of either runner’s knee or bursitis. I remember distinctly the moment my knee suddenly started emanating debilitating pain: waiting to cross the street toward the end of a medium-long run. I ran through it for a few days (even completing a 22 mile long-run that weekend) before deciding to take what eventually was almost three weeks completely off from running.

This meant that I ended up needing to skip the most interesting part of the plan: the integration of VO2Max sessions for improving speed.

Taking time off was fine: I knew that I’d have to do it in order to get to the starting line in New York. I knew that I’d lose some fitness, but that I’d still have about a month to claw back whatever I could, and I’d be more than happy to even put in an effort similar to the Colorado Marathon and no more.

I did have a fear of reinjuring the knee after coming back off the couch. It felt mostly pain free even in the first few runs back, but I knew that reinjury meant no NYC Marathon. I reduced the pace of my runs a bit and didn’t do the prescribed VO2Max sessions.

Race Week

The week before the NYC Marathon is a real special time. With tens of thousands of visitors to the city and numerous pre-race events planned, there is a palpable sense of energy and excitement in the air. As the finish line is constructed by Tavern on the Green, Central Park becomes a place to see and be seen, with large groups running together in team kits, and professionals getting in their last workouts.

The weekend before the race, I had to attend my cousin’s wedding in Maryland. I was a little disappointed by the travel timing here, since it meant I would sacrifice over a week of altitude benefits.

I decided to work in the office on Thursday and Friday, but I also joined some group shakeout runs put on by a major running store near the park and near where I was staying.

Finding out about these events is a little hap-hazard. Some are on the official NYRR marathon calendar, but a lot of brands have special events that don’t get advertised very well. I heard of most of the goings-on from Mario Fraioli’s Morning Shakeout newsletter and from Kofuzi’s YouTube channel. I only heard of Eliud Kipchoge’s appearance at the Nike shakeout run after the fact.

I reread “A Race Like No Other” by Liz Robbins and got hyped up again.

I missed out on a critical marathon post-registration email and had only one option for transportation to the start line: the Staten Island Ferry. So, when my wife left to go back to our daughter and her grandparents in New Jersey, I moved from a cute boutique hotel to the Hilton Garden Inn near the Staten Island Ferry terminal so as to minimize travel time between waking up and getting on the boat. Though the hotel was quite far removed from any desirable area of the city, including all of the other marathon events, this worked out really well and significantly reduced pre-race stress.

I met up with some crazy Spaniards to run another shakeout run. I later met up with my awesome New York-based friends at a local brewery, which may not have been the best idea for performance, but was definitely fun.

I laid out my clothes for the next day, filled my pockets with gels, made my PB&J sandwiches and went to sleep early. For once, I was actually able to sleep a decent amount before a race.

On the ferry to Staten Island, I sat next to David Laurance, a local celebrity for having run the second most NYC Marathons in a row: 44 by age 70.

Race

The weather turned out to be a bigger consideration than I had expected, especially since I lost a bunch of heat acclimation, having avoided running for most of the month of September. 70°F/21°C at the start and 75°F/24°C by the time I crossed the finish line, mostly sunny, with humidity above 80% at the start.

Still, the start went great. I wanted to catch up to the 3 hour pacers a couple of corrals ahead of mine, but I didn’t have to jostle much going up the bridge to get to them. That said, I definitely should not have lit a match so early in the race to get to them so soon.

The first 14.7 miles (23.7 km) were buttery smooth. I was right on my pace target and it felt pretty effortless. I forced myself to stop at every Gatorade station knowing I was losing a ton of water to the weather. Me and everyone around me were just totally drenched in sweat, head to toe, because the sweat had nowhere to go with the high humidity.

But then my right foot started to hurt. And hurt more. And hurt even more. It felt like I was getting stabbed every time I landed on it. It felt very constricted within my shoe; I stopped to loosen the laces, but to no relief.

The rest of the race was really a run/walk. I walked through all of the aid stations and then some. Where my first 14.7 miles were at an average of 6:43/mi (4:10/km) pace, my last 12 were at 8:18/mi (5:09/km).

In the last 10 miles (16 km), I’ve never seen so much human carnage. There were people just lying on the side of the road, some conscious, some unconscious. Walkers were everywhere at the edge of the course. In the 25th mile, I even saw a runner crawling toward the finish line.

Turning into Central Park off of the 5th Avenue climb was such a mental relief. I knew the finish line was just on the other side of the park. But I knew there would still be some challenging terrain ahead of the uphill finish. I hobbled through the park, with mile 24 being my worst mile split at 9:01/mi (5:36/km).

I crossed the finish line and hobbled down the long, silent stretch of Central Park Drive toward the exit of the park. The scene looked like a zombie apocalypse, worse than 2019: everyone was shuffling along, hurt and/or dehydrated, and sore.

The conditions made this a really tough race. In 2019, I placed 3,187/53,520 with a 3:14:16. In 2022, I placed 1,860/47,745 with a 3:17:13. So, despite a three minute worse time, I nearly halved my placing, indicating the entire field slid backwards. I know of strong 2:40 marathoners with a worse time than mine. It was brutal and I’m glad I made it to the finish line.

I was also happy to have beat Ashton Kutcher’s time of 3:54:01.

Post-Race

I took the subway back to my hotel, showered, packed, and headed right back out to catch the next train to New Jersey to see my daughter and my wife.

I think the race was summed up nicely on a post on /r/runnyc entitled “That was fucking awful” with no body. Casey Neistat’s amazing video entitled “i got beat up at the NYC Marathon 2022” was also quite apt.

It was only later that I learned that the bus situation on Staten Island deteriorated worse than when I was there in Wave 1. Then, later waves had to not only battle through a hotter part of the day, but also suffered from running out of cups for Gatorade and water.

I also saw Daniel Do Nascimento’s amazing performance… through mile 21. It turns out that anyone can run fast in a marathon, in the heat, as long as they don’t expect to finish. I can’t wait to see what he does with a bit more restraint.

We flew back to Colorado the next day and I was planning to take the entire month of November off from work in order to celebrate running the marathon and getting through the pandemic. That happened, but started in a different way than expected: I promptly got a positive COVID test and had to sequester myself away from my wife and daughter.