Looking to the Past

As I said in my first post, I created this blog in part so that I could look back six months, or a year, or ten years from now, and see what my training was like and what I was thinking about running and life. But sometimes I wonder if I/we can become too fixated on my/our running past. I have a computer training log in which I have tracked at the very least the distance (and sometimes the pace, feel, injury sensations, purpose, conditions as well) of every run and the time of every form of cardiovascular cross training I have done since November of 2005.

Despite adhering to my "just keep running" philosophy I think I have probably looked back over my log over the years more than a lot of people do. Whenever I embark on a new marathon training period I give things a check and as I get closer to race day (and am bored while tapering usually) I have a tendency to stastically analyze training "plans" past and compare them to what I have been doing more recently. Since I haven't followed a set training plan for anything for almost three years now, I guess it's my way of trying to impress on myself some sort of conscious or perhaps sub-conscious reminder of what kind of "training" I should consider. Sometimes though I think I just do it to try and give myself a confidence boost before a big race. For example before NYC 2008, I had averaged much less total mileage than before NYC 2006 but when I went back and looked at my log I saw that I had done 6 rather than 3 20+ mile runs in the 18 weeks leading up to the marathon and that I had also done more 15+ mile runs the second time around. As it turned out I didn't beat my 06 NYCM time in the 08 NYCM but I did get pretty close given how many fewer total miles I had run and how poor my times were at shorter distances compared to two years before, so in a way my little research experiment proved correct and I was in fact in better marathon shape the second time around than a generic equivalent running calculator might have indicated.

In the weeks leading up to the New Jersey Marathon this past spring I played a similar researach game with myself, though this time it wasn't so much to provide me with a needed confidence boost but to see and understand what had worked for me since I had had so much success in my tune up races and throughout my training cycle. Basically as I looked things over, my weekly mileage in the 18 week buildup was slightly higher than it had ever been before but the real difference was in three factors:
1. it was the first time I ever came off another marathon into a second marathon training cycle and thus I had a level of consistency, particularly with long runs, that I had never had in the past (statistically in the 40 or so weeks prior to Jersey 09 I had done 13 20+ mile runs compared to 3 leading up to NYC 06, and 6 leading up to NYC 08---that in itself had to have made a huge difference).

2. I really started making the mid-week long run a part of my normal routine. In NYC 08 I hadn't used them at all. In NYC 06, I often concidentally got in one or two 11 mile days during the week just on account of long interval workouts I did and the warm ups and cool downs that came with them. But for Jersey 09 I purposefully focussed on those longer midweek runs and made them more like 13-14 miles rather than 10-11. Statistically: I ran 13+ miles 24 times in the 18 weeks leading up to NJM 09, compared to just 15 times for NYC 06 and 13 times for NYC 08.

3. I ran a lot more tune-up races and tempo runs. For NYC 06 I did a lot of fast running but it was mostly in bi-weekly interval workouts rather than tempos and I only raced four times in the 18 week build-up, three of which were on consecutive weekends more than 10 weeks out from the marathon, so the only race I did in the last 10 weeks was an 18 miler which was hardly an opportunity to really work on and gain confidence in pushing myself through faster running. In NYC 08 since I was coming off injury I was pretty limited and basically did no faster running in training or races until about 5 weeks before the race when I did an 18 miler and then 2 weeks later a half-marathon. For Jersey, I ran races from the beginning of the 18 week period right up to a month before race day and ran some pretty fast 4-6 mile tempos that weren't more than 10-20 seconds off race pace for those distances. I got into a consistent racing schedule and raced a 5 miler and two halfs at the beginning of the cycle, a 5K in the middle, and a 15K and 10 miler as my last two tune-ups. That made for 6 races in the period from 18 weeks to 4 weeks pre-marathon and at a range of distances that tested both my speed and endurance. Also in general I just like to race and so I think that kept me fresh and took away some of the pressure of having trained for one big goal race with everything riding on it.



So I think that's the good that comes out of my tendency to revisit my past training. From NYC 06 I came away with an understanding of the importance of long-term consistency, particularly as it pertained to long runs. I built on that for NYC 08 as much as injuries allowed me to do and from that training cycle I again took away the importance of a consistent mileage base but also the importance for me of running races and tempos in preparation to build the necessary speed. Even though I didn't follow a training "plan" persay for Jersey this past spring I definitely applied those lessons from my two previous training cycles into how I ended up training and for the most part it worked for me.



I also think that there is a bad that comes out of revisiting the past (beyond being a complete dork with all these statistical analyses of my past runs I've provided you with). It is very easy for all that attention on the past to get me distracted from my philosophy of "just keep running." I think this is particularly a risk now that I think that I have found some training principles that worked well for me. I think this spring worked for me because I listened to my body and did tempos, long runs, races, a lot of the time on the weeks and days when I felt most ready for them. If I try to more or less "copy" what I did for Jersey for my next marathon (probably NYC or Philly 09) I think I could end up in real trouble. On the one hand I'd like to think there are components I could add to my training that would help me get to the next level, on the other hand I believe that if I were just able to more or less repeat what I did that I would also improve significantly just from the consistency of it over a longer period.

I think the real problem of trying to "copy" what I did this past spring though will come on some week in September when I look at the training I have done since June and realize that I have run more races than I did in the winter or that I've done three or four fewer 15+ mile runs and I then try to change up my training as a result and end up forcing a midweek long run or so on myself just because that worked for me in the past. I have to be very wary of such a scenario because it will start to break me away from the idea of "just keep running" which is what I think has worked for me up to this point in my running life and it is also how I will lead myself down another injury path.

I'm already thinking this way even in my post-marathon recovery. I've looked back at the mistakes I made after NYC 2006 when I started to run again every day the Wednesday after the marathon even though my quads basically couldn't support me to run anything close to my natural running form. Three weeks later I was out injured for what would turn out to be a seemingly long, long time. I've also looked back to see what I did right after NYC 2008 that led me into the Jersey training cycle and see that I took the entire week off after the race and didn't go more than 6 or 7 miles until almost 3 weeks post-marathon and didn't try any kind of faster running. While I took 4 days totally off after Jersey, I kind of jumped back into things after that at least compared to what I did after NYC 08. I was doing 8 mile runs much of last week and did a 13 miler on Sunday and a tempo workout on the track yesterday. The thing is my legs as a whole feel a ton better than they did after either of my first two marathons and that was evident from the second I crossed the line when my quads didn't seize on me (though I could tell you doing the tempo yesterday that my legs definitely were not 100 percent yet). But there are aches and pains here and there, the same ones that would bother me now and again during training---my right knee/shin, the flexor of my right foot, and yes my chronic issue with my left hip. None of these things feel awful and they wouldn't stop me from training if I were in the middle of a marathon training cycle with the goal sight, but they do make me wonder if I should chill for awhile longer like I did post NYC 08 since that ended up working for me. But the mileage I put in for this marathon was so much greater, the training so much harder, and I felt so much better afterwards and in the process of training that I feel that I don't need to follow what my past history has taught me. Of course if I'm injured a month from now or if I feel beat up in October I'm going to look back on this blog post and kick myself for not listening to my past experiences much as I look back as what I did after NYC 06 as mistakes.

I guess history in all things, running and otherwise, can only tell you so much and you need to find a way to both learn from it but not depend on repeating it. That's why I ran 13 miles on Sunday and it's the same reason I'm taking today off. It's also probably why I am going to "taper" (from practically nothing to taper from) next week for the Brooklyn Half and take another couple days off. I don't think I just put into words anything here that I didn't already know, but at least I got to admit to the world (like everyone didn't know already) that I am a huge nerd and have gone back over my training log mutliple times to add up how many 13+, 15+, 17+, 20+, 22+ mile runs I did in various training periods leading up to past marathons.