Then there are those of us "On The Edge". People for whom the perfect training, the well-chosen race course, the perfect weather, and all those other factors, if they all come together at the same time, *might* qualify.
Just so no one has any doubt, I am NOT a marathoner. Heaven knows I have mouthed off manys a time on this list about how the marathon is not a race for "normal" people, and how the half-marathon is really a great race plagued with a bum name, like the half-Ironman of which I'm also fond. Although I have actually run a marathon.
Back in '92 I ran the San Francisco Marathon, more or less as a lark. Four weeks after a half-Ironman, sitting at the expo selling software, I literally hadn't given a thought to running the race until the day before. My longest run to that point was 15 miles. But I figured running 13 miles after running 13 miles couldn't be any harder than running 13 after swimming 1.2 and biking 56, so I threw caution to the winds 15 minutes before the close of registration, and became the last person to register (got number 2999 - they wouldn't give me #3000 no matter how much I begged).
The whole thing was kind of stupid. I did it just to be able to "say I'd done one", but then, after I did, I would rarely admit to having done it. I survived, but struggled, as you might expect given my training. My legs simply weren't ready for 26.2 miles of pounding. I ran the first 10 miles right on target at 8:00 pace (1:20:53), but in the end finished in 3:57:58. Not a happy camper, and NOT eager to return to this silliness.
Which I didn't. More half-Ironman, yes. Three 50K runs - love 'em. But the marathon? Not my cup of tea.
Until this year's Boston silly season. It would take superhuman willpower to ignore the Boston phenomenon this year. And especially for a "man on the edge of time," a man for whom the "qualify for Boston challenge" is just on the edge of achievability, right where it becomes interesting. Add to that the fact that I'm going to be in Boston anyway, selling software, and you have an irresistible impulse.
I needed a 3:25. What could I expect? My most recent 10K, a good hard effort with no excuses and only modest hills, was 45:07. Times 4.666 gives 3:30 - not good enough, but maybe the hills in the 10K slowed me down by a minute. Tantalizing.
"Parrott's formula (tm)" says take your fastest 26.2 miles in training. I'm not sure if this is meant to be average over recent weeks, your best week, or what. In the most recent 12 weeks I averaged 27.1 miles/week at 9:36 pace, which predicts a 4:11. Well, that's no good, but that's also unfair to George because I do a great deal of my training in the hills, which surely biases that time (by the way, I'm ignoring the fact that George also says, and I don't dispute, that you should have 2x the distance per week, i.e., you should be running *at least* 52.4 miles/week. I'm going to say that my 100 miles per week cycling makes up for that).
Well, if my average is no good, how about the fastest weeks? A 27.2 mile week that included a 10K race and a rare flat 14 mile run gave a week-long average of 8:10, predicting 3:33:58. The second fastest week was only a 19.6 mile week @ 8:30 (including one 14 mile run and one 3x1 mile interval workout), predicting 3:42.
Clearly, this was not going to be an easy task.
Stay tuned for the result...
Steve "On The Edge" Patt
slp@alumni.caltech.edu