This past season played host to two new races for me – the Glass City Marathon and the Columbus Marathon. The middle of the season had a lot of the same races as normal… which isn’t all of a bad thing, since these are races I enjoy.
Obligatory Medal Selfie 
I ran 2,021 miles in 2019. This was up from 1,649 in 2018 and 1,401 in 2017. Two marathons really put the miles on.
2018 had a lot of successes – I PRed in 8 of 10 races, and I hoped that the momentum would stay. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I PRed in the marathon (3:45 -> 3:33) and the mile (6:39 -> 6:32), but other races were near misses:
- NKU XC (14:44, + 0:28)
- Bulldog Blast 5k (21:58, + 0:12)
- Hudepohl 14k (1:06:24, + 1:33)
These three are on top of four other races – the Bockfest 5k (23:15), the Glass City Marathon (3:32:58), the 50 West Mile (6:32), and the Columbus Marathon (3:39:23). I raced fewer times this year.
What Went Wrong?
The weather was not a friend to me. Winter training was tough and sent me to the dreadmill a few times and to icy paths other times. I have distinct memories from early in the year of sliding my car into a parking spot at the park , getting pelted by frozen rain, running in 6″ of snow in DC with a friend (and without… that shit stayed around). Summer wasn’t fun either, as I remember once sitting in an armchair in my bedroom and falling asleep after a particularly hot run, as well as some more effects of dehydration that I’ve never seen before (and fortunately, not since… peeing brown is just 🤢).
But blaming a poor season on the weather feels like someone blaming shoddy work on their tools. I can’t prove anything (yet), but I think the Pfitz plans are just not for me.
In 2018, I felt like I did a ton of speedwork (hill repeats, intervals, or tempo runs). While my marathon training didn’t – it had a lot of M pace runs, but no real speedwork, the last half of the season had a ton. My summer had two speedwork sessions each week – either hills or intervals on Monday or Tuesday and a tempo session two days later (Wednesday or Thursday). I shifted into the Hal Higdon Advanced Half Marathon plan in late August which continued with two speedwork sessions each week. My average weekly paces went way down into the mid 8s during the latter part of the season and I had a breakout half marathon (Cincinnati Hungry Turkey Half – 1:39:35).
Where Do I Want To Be?
A BQ for me would have been 3:08:21 (3:10:00 – 1:39), which is a 7:11 min/mile pace. And I’ll likely need a larger cushion time unless shoe technology improvements are halted. I want to go fast at other race distances too… in fact, I think training for all distances (instead of one) improves all racing.
What’s The Plan?
The race schedule next year will likely be:
- Potential 10k
- Bockfest 5k*
- Little Kings Mile*
- Flying Pig Marathon (goal race)
- Potential 10k
- NKU XC Series
- Bulldog Blast 5k
- Hudepohl 14k*
- Fall Half Marathon(s?) (goal race)
If you know me, these aren’t anything different from past years with a few exceptions. One is the two potential 10ks. One of those potentials is a race I had a poor experience at (the start time was held by nearly half an hour to allow people to pickup race packs, and we were left standing outside in sub-30 temps). The other is one I had a good experience at, but it’s routinely been at a poor time given recovery from major goal races. The starred races are part of a series I’ve run every year.
One difference not evident in the list is that I plan on using the Hal Higdon Advanced 1 plan for the marathon. While the speedwork isn’t as intensive as his Advanced HM plan, it retains a few things I like – a real speedwork day (Thursday on the plan, that will change in implementation). There’s hill repeats, tempo runs, and 800 repeats. Then, for 10 of the 18 weeks of the plan, there’s an M pace run two days later. There’s two triple-double weeks (three >=10 mile runs in a week). I think I like that the last 6 weeks of the plan (before tapering) – the long run is 20/12/20/12/20/12. I certainly like the idea that there’s recovery weeks, especially since I started feeling a little over-trained using the Pfitz 18/55 plan.
The fall half marathon will likely follow the Hal Higdon Advanced Half Marathon plan, which I’ve used in the past with great success. As I mentioned above, this has a day of speedwork – usually hills or intervals and two days later is a tempo run. I found this plan to be on the intensive side, but I also get a lot of satisfaction of nailing a tempo run (particularly). And I believe that my spring marathon success had a lot to do with using this plan for the last half of 2018.
One thing that has slightly changed is the locale – the last time I did hill repeats, I had all of downtown Cincinnati at my disposal. With working from home, I have some places that will work, but they’re not as easy to get to… although a bonus is that it is pretty rare to see other people to wonder why some guy is repeatedly sprinting up a hill. On the other hand, a construction crew that was fixing a retaining wall started cheering me on once in downtown while I was doing hill repeats! 😂🤣. I did figure out the grade of the hill I was using and found a similar grade near the East Fork Dam, which seems like it’s a ways from my house, but it’s the same distance to my “normal” area of East Fork. So that might be the solution. The other possibility is the hill on the Batavia-Williamsburg trail, which is about the same distance and rise.
Here’s to a bunch of miles and successful races in 2020 🍻