Weekend Preview: READY For Tucson!

It’s already Thursday, which means it’s time for a weekend preview. I’m heading to Tucson, Ariz. for my 59th marathon of the year and I’m excited. Really excited. I’m really looking forward to this race. I have been all year.

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. Click here to see why I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year for Train 4 Autism. Only three to go!

So, Tucson. I’m really fired up about this one. This will be the fifth consecutive year I’ve run this course and I’m very familiar with it. It’s where I ran my PR of 3:00:05 in 2007.

I thought I had a shot at a sub-3 (2:59:59 or faster) in 2008, but I wore the wrong shoes on the course, blew up at mile 2, then struggled the rest of the way to a 3:15. Last year, I was optimistic, but said going in I’d run anywhere between a 2:58 and a 3:28. I was coming off a five-week layoff from an ankle sprain and had only resumed running 10 weeks earlier. Plus, I had bronchitis. So, my 3:17 wasn’t a surprise.

This year, I have plenty of things working against me — 58 things, to be exact. You know, all those marathons I’ve run this year. I have dead legs and I’m slowing down. Last weekend, I ran two marathons. I’m never fast coming off of a double. And it was a slow double — I went 3:26 on Saturday in Memphis, then 3:32 in Las Vegas on Sunday. I’m about three pounds heavier than I’d like to be. I haven’t done much speedwork lately. But I’m still going all-out for a sub-3 and I don’t think it’s impossible. Longshot? Absolutely. But you can bet the ranch that I’m all in for this one. I’ll explain in a bit, but first, let me tell you about what I’m running.

The course starts out with a little up-and-down and a downhill net over the first 10 or so miles, then has a stretch of about four miles midway through that are fairly flat, then goes downhill again to about mile 23 before flattening out the rest of the way. I could look at the course profile, because I’m not 100 percent certain about all of that, but I’ve run it before and I’m very familiar. It’s a fast downhill course that will eat you up if you run it wrong and thrash your quads even if you run it right. I call it the golden goose. Treat it right and you’ll get something out of it. Try to kill it and you’re out of luck.

So anyways, I view this race as my final chance to put some punctuation on this year. I know everybody is pretty proud of what I’m doing and nobody really cares about my times. But I do. I expect a lot out of myself. I don’t care if I ran two terrible marathons last weekend and I’ve run 58 so far this year. I expect a lot out of myself.

This course is right up my alley. It gets off to a quick start to get the wheels rolling, then has a lot of gradual downhill that I can fly through in the second half. My basic strategy is to push hard and hold on early, then stay in a groove on the downhills. If I pull it off, I will make no apologies for anything I accomplish in my 59th race of the year.

I know going in that this race is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt bad. I’m going to have problems walking this week. But this is my one chance to pull this off, ever. I have all the confidence in the world that I’ll be able to go sub-3 in Boston in April. But this is my year and it always will be. I still have two races left after Tucson, but this is the fastest of the three remaining.

If I get the sub-3, that will be the exclamation point on an amazing year I’ll never forget. I don’t think I’d ever be able to top the experience in a marathon from an individual standpoint. If not, I’ll forever know I accomplished my 61 goal, but I never hit that sub-3. Sunday is my last chance, and in my mind, it’s a forever thing. I want it bad. I want it bad right now. I can’t even imagine how amped up I’ll be on Sunday morning.

In a way, this reminds me of Boston this year. I went into that one fired up and so mentally ready to run my legs off, I turned in the best (not the fastest, but the best) run of my life, going 3:03 two days after a 3:21. I will be mentally ready for the pain. Once I cross through that start line, I know it’s going to hurt, and I can’t stop, and I have three hours to get to the finish line.

It’s going to be a big test for me. I’m going to find out how much heart I have. Lately, I can tell that my speed at my target marathon heart rate is there. I can run 6:45s on flat land at 170 bpm. But over the past six weeks or so, I’ve only been able to stay strong for 16 or so miles per race. It just hurts so bad to run that hard. It feels like 5K pain in my legs, although aerobically, I’m fine. Last weekend, I only got about 10-12 miles in per race that didn’t hurt ridiculously.

I’m going to need to fight through a lot of pain to make it happen. It’s going to be three hours of hurt. But I’ll be able to keep what I earn forever. Can I do it? Based on my recent performances, there’s zero reason to expect that I can. I’m certainly going to give it my all like I never have before.

I can’t wait to see what I’m made of.