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Marathon Training Log Chicago, October 24, 1999 Dave Okonkwo, age 31, first-time marathoner, still a little scared
Why | The 18-Week Plan | Long Run Reports | The 20-Miler (Sept. 26) | Shoes & Blisters | What I've Learned | Nerves |
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The 18-Week Plan A beginner's plan out of a library book, four running days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the long run on Sunday), with a "step-back" week every third or fourth week where the mileage drops so your legs can catch up. Three weeks of taper at the end. The long run is the whole point; everything else is just to stay loose enough to do the long run. The numbers below are what I actually ran, not what the book said. Where they're different, I say so.
Total so far (weeks 1-14, plus this morning): about 371 miles since June 21. That is farther than from my house to Chicago, which I only worked out last week and which made me sit down. |
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Long Run Reports The three that mattered most. Written the same day, so they're a little raw. 10 miles, Sunday, August 1. Out and back on the river path. First five miles felt like a normal run. Miles 6 and 7, fine. Mile 8, my legs started feeling like somebody else's legs. Mile 9, walked for about two minutes, was furious at myself, started running again. Mile 10 I basically shuffled. Time: 1:52, so a little over 11-minute miles. Got home and lay on the kitchen floor because it was cool and Renee stepped over me to get to the coffee maker and said "proud of you" without stopping. Ten miles. In January I couldn't do ten minutes. 16 miles, Sunday, September 5. The bonk. Went out too fast (9:45 pace for the first six, which for me is racing), didn't eat enough breakfast, and it was 80 degrees by 9 a.m. Around mile 14 everything just... stopped. Not pain, just nothing left. My brain got fuzzy and I couldn't do the math on how far I had to go, which is apparently a sign. Walked most of the last two miles, drank a whole bottle of the sports drink at the car and felt human again in about ten minutes, which told me it was fuel and not fitness. Time: 3:08. Lesson learned, and I mean actually learned: eat before, drink during, and the first mile should feel too slow. Everyone had told me this. I had to bonk to hear it. 18 miles, Sunday, September 19. Applied the lessons. Big bowl of oatmeal and a banana two hours before. Water bottle, two packets of the energy gel stuff (tastes like frosting, works like magic), and a strict 10:30 pace for the first ten. Ran all 18 without walking. Time: 3:14, which is only six minutes slower than the 16 and I ran two more miles and felt about a hundred times better. Legs were shot for two days but my head was clear at the end. That was the day I thought, for the first time, "I can actually do this." |
The 20-Miler: Sunday, September 26, 1999Written at 3 in the afternoon, on the couch, with a bag of frozen peas on each knee. The running store downtown does a group 20-mile run four weeks before Chicago every year, with water stops every three miles and a van that follows you, and I joined it because I didn't want to do this one alone. About 40 of us at 6:30 a.m., 54 degrees, perfect. Most of the group was faster than me. There were four of us at the back, all first-timers, and we found each other by mile 2 the way slow people do. Miles 1-6: Easy, chatting, 10:30s. One of the guys is doing his first marathon at 58 and made me feel like a kid. Miles 7-12: Still good. Gel at 7 and at 13. Water at every stop even when I didn't want it. The sun came up over the lake and I thought, this is why people do this. Miles 13-16: The long slow grind. Quads starting to talk. Our group of four went quiet. Mile 17: The furthest I'd ever run. Everything past that line was new country. Miles 18-19: Hard. Really hard. Not the bonk, I had fuel, this was just my legs saying they were done being legs. Pace fell off to 11:30s. The 58-year-old started talking again, on purpose, I think, to keep us all going. Mile 20: The van was parked at the finish and the store people were cheering and I did the last quarter mile faster than I should have, because I could see it. Time: 3:36. Average 10:48 a mile. No walking. No blisters (see below, the new socks). Ate a bagel and a banana and drank a quart of the sports drink in the parking lot and felt shaky for an hour and then okay. What it told me: the marathon is going to be six more miles than that, and the last six are going to be the worst six. I'm not going to pretend I know what that feels like yet. But I ran 20 miles this morning and four months ago I couldn't run ten, and if I go out slow and eat and drink like I did today, I believe I can finish. The book says you don't run longer than 20 in training, that the taper and race-day adrenaline get you the rest of the way. I'm choosing to believe the book, because it's gotten me this far. Renee had a sign at the finish. It said "20 DOWN, 26.2 TO GO" which is not how the math works and I love her. |
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Shoes & Blisters Shoes. I started in January in the sneakers I mowed the lawn in. By March my shins hurt so badly I almost quit. Went to the running store, where a guy watched me run down the sidewalk and back and said "you roll in a lot," and put me in a pair of stability shoes, which were $85, which I thought was insane, and which fixed my shins in two weeks. Best $85 of the year. Things I now know: shoes are done after about 400 miles, and it happens gradually so you don't notice until your knees do. I'm on my third pair since March. The pair I'll race in is the pair I've been running in since Labor Day: not new (new shoes on race day is how you get blisters) and not dead. Write the date you bought them on the tongue in marker. Blisters. Week 7, a blister the size of a quarter on my left heel, from cotton socks that got wet with sweat and rubbed. I popped it with a sterilized needle (the book said to, if it's big), covered it with a doughnut of moleskin, and ran on it, which was miserable for a week. Then somebody at the store sold me synthetic running socks, the thin kind that wick, two pairs for $14, which again I thought was insane. Zero blisters since. Not one. Also: petroleum jelly on anything that rubs (heels, toes, and, for men, the nipples, which I'm only saying because nobody told me and it is the single most surprising injury of this whole thing). Trim your toenails short two days before a long run, not the night before. Lace your shoes so the heel is snug and the toes have room; my second pair I bought a half size up and it made all the difference. |
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What I've Learned (that I wish somebody had made me believe in June) Pace. Slow down. Slower than that. The long run should be slow enough that you can talk in full sentences. Every single bad long run I had was because I started too fast. The 16-miler bonk was 9:45s. The 20-miler success was 10:30s. That's 45 seconds a mile and it's the difference between walking and finishing. For the race, I'm going to run the first 10 miles at 10:30 no matter how good I feel, because the book and every experienced runner I've met say the first ten miles feel free and you pay for it at 20. On the day, feeling good is a trap. Hydration. Drink before you're thirsty, because by the time you're thirsty on a long run you're behind and can't catch up. On anything over 8 miles I carry a bottle or plan a route past a drinking fountain. Water for the first hour, sports drink after that because you need the sugar and the salt, not just the water. Don't overdo it either; a mouthful every mile or two, not a quart at once. Practice drinking while running, because it's harder than it sounds and I choked on my first water stop like a child. Chicago has aid stations about every mile or two along the course, I'm told, with water and sports drink, and I'm going to take something at every one. Fuel. Eat breakfast two hours before the long run. Something plain: oatmeal, toast, banana. After 90 minutes of running, your stored fuel is running low and you have to put some back in, which is what the gel packets are for. One every 45 minutes or so, with water. I tested three brands; one of them made me sick; you have to find that out in training, never on race day. NOTHING new on race day: not shoes, not socks, not shorts, not breakfast, not gel. That rule is the only one every book agrees on. Rest. The step-back weeks aren't optional and the rest days aren't laziness. The training happens while you're resting; the run just tells your body what to build. I didn't believe this and I trained through a step-back week in July and was wrecked for a week and a half. The mental part. Break it into pieces. I never think about 20 miles. I think about getting to the next water stop. Have something to say to yourself for the bad mile; mine is "this is the part you trained for," which is corny and works. Run with people when you can. Tell people what you're doing so quitting costs something. (This page is that.) The weight, since I mentioned it: down 22 pounds since January without trying, except for trying to run a marathon. |
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Nerves Four weeks out and I'm nervous in a way I didn't expect. Not about the 20; I did the 20. About the 6.2 I've never done. About the weather on October 24 (Chicago in late October could be 40 degrees or 70, and I've read about both). About my left knee, which has started making a small noise on stairs. About the crowd: this race has more people in it than my whole town, and I've never run with more than 40. About hitting the wall at mile 20 in front of thousands of strangers. About Renee and the kids waiting at the finish for four and a half hours in the cold and me not showing up. The book says taper madness is real: three weeks of running less and feeling worse, convinced you've lost everything. So I'm going to trust the log. I've got 371 miles in the bank. I ran 20 this morning. The plan has worked every single time I've followed it and failed every single time I haven't. So: follow the plan, eat the pasta, go out slow, and when it gets bad, this is the part I trained for. To anybody else doing their first one, at Chicago or anywhere: if you have done the long runs, you are ready. That's what everyone keeps telling me and I'm starting to believe it. See you at Grant Park. I'll be the nervous one. So will you. I'll write the race report here the week after, whatever happens. |
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Other people out there sweating The Tuesday Night Walkers - where a lot of people start, and where I'll be if the knee says so. Walking the Dog, Losing the Weight - Bill's on the same road, a little further back, with a dog. Good for him. Masters Swimming After 50 - what I'm told I should be doing on rest days. Over-40 Pickup Basketball - a warning about what happens to knees. Coach Ed's injury report is funnier than mine. Oakdale Tigers Little League - my kids' kind of sports page. Back to the Colosseum neighborhood |
People who have checked in on me:   
(since August 15. About half are probably Renee.) 
First-timers, veterans with advice, anybody who wants to tell me it'll be fine: [email protected]
Last updated: Sunday, September 26, 1999, 3:15 p.m. (peas still on knees) 
© 1999 Dave Okonkwo. I'm not a coach or a doctor. Get a real book, get real shoes, and see your real doctor before you start. |