One minute and ten seconds over 365 days
The 2020 Marathon
On May 2nd, 2020 my friends from home and I all set off remotely to do the workout “Clovis” (10-mile run + 150 burpee pull-ups). A few miles in I audibled the distance from 10 miles to 26.2 miles, because I wanted to see if I could do it. 4 hours and 55 min later, I hobbled back to the gym where I started, and checked off an item off the bucket list. To say it felt great would be an understatement.
Those that know me know that I like to push boundaries. And I generally look at someone telling me I can’t do something as a personal challenge. Of course this has its pros and cons, but in this case all that focused energy yielded a pretty positive result that I will be proud of forever.
On the surface, I did zero dedicated run training leading up to the marathon. That being said, I was probably working out harder and more frequently than ever, as I had recently completed 30 Murphs in 30 days (I also wrote about that here, and did an interview with Men’s Health on that story). That took nearly 22 hours, repeating the same workout every day for a month, with some additional fitness sprinkled in.
I actually kept the same theme of a 1-mile run — *workout* — 1-mile run for 77 days in a row. The month after murph, I did “JT” which is 21–15–9 of HSPU, push-ups, and ring dips, sandwiched between 1-mile runs on the air runner. This was in early COVID (March/April 2020) so the gym was closed, and outside was a ghost town. Outside of work, the only escape I had was exercise (there wasn’t even any sports to watch!)
Right after finishing the marathon, I remember texting my friends that I’m never running one of those again.
Time for a Repeat
Fast forward about 9 months…when I clearly had enough time to physically and mentally recover. I told my other friend at the gym in Hershey, that I think I’d like to give it another shot, but actually train this time. Set the date for the one-year anniversary of the first run, which happened to be the Sunday after I finish up a month in the ICU. Nevertheless, we outlined a 13-week marathon training plan, and on first glance it looked pretty doable. Start date was February 1st, 2020. I was oddly excited to start running again.
From Feb. 1st to March 6th, I did all my runs on the air runner at the gym, because it was pretty cold outside (despite being from Buffalo, I wasn’t in the mood to freeze that many times). If you haven’t run on the air runner, let me inform you how those runs feel: they suck. Oddly, when I would run with my apple watch, the distance on the air runner monitor would not align with the distance on my watch. I developed a correction factor for these runs: air runner mileage = 0.85x road mileage. This was based on my standard pace of about 9–10ish minute miles. Interestingly, the faster I ran, the more the two metrics correlated (sorry Brinnae, I don’t have the Pearson R here). Conversely, the slower I ran, the less “bang for my buck” I got.
Let me elaborate on this. On both Tues 2/16 and Thurs 2/18 I had a 4-mile run planned, which equates to 3.4 miles on the runner (4 x 0.85 = 3.4). Both days I ran exactly 3.4 miles on the air runner, but the distances on my watch were different:
- 2/16: watch — 3.99 miles (10:06/mile pace); time on runner — 37:59 (11:18/mile)
- 2/18: watch — 3.92 miles (9:56/mile pace); time on runner — 35:54 (10:55/mile)
Takeaway 1: Running on the air runner is harder than on the road.
Takeaway 2: Running on the air runner is slower than on the road (with a similar perceived effort).
Takeaway 3: My 0.85x correction factor was pretty spot on (again, the goal was 4 miles and I ran 3.99 and 3.92 miles), but only works for that particular pace — just over 10 min/mile.
Takeaway 4: The faster you run, the less total mileage (on the watch), for an equivalent distance on the runner. So pushing harder/running faster is to your advantage (if your goal is to minimize time spent running). Disclaimer: just like everything in life, there is probably a sweet spot.
After all the running inside during the winter, I was itching to get back on the road. Unfortunately, life (work, mainly) got in the way — went from a block of nights to a month of the ICU. This led to missing ALL of the scheduled runs from 3/9/21 to 4/3/21, oops. Safe to say this was suboptimal from a running perspective. However, it was also driven by focusing on the CrossFit open and Quarterfinals, which went well overall. Again, it’s not like there was no training going on, but just no focused running.
I couldn’t help but start to worry that my “training” for this second marathon was slipping and I wouldn’t be able to do it. However, I am quite stubborn, so I knew that no matter what — I would be attempting a 26.2 mile run on May 2nd 2021. No matter what.
To re-kickstart the training, we set our sights on a 10-mile run. Deep down I knew that I would have do 150 burpee pull-ups after the run — and check off “Clovis,” aka the reason I ran a marathon in the first place. It was a solid workout to come back to. To be honest, not as bad as I thought it would be (took just over 2 hours; burpee pull-ups took about 25 minutes — 6 per min).
HRV analysis
Andddd then I was back to nights in the ICU. It was stressful time with the high acuity (those patients are very sick) and as the week went on, I was looking forward to finishing. I knew I needed to get in another “long” run before the marathon, which was about 4 weeks away at this point. I was doing my best to train as much as possible, but still knew that I was certainly not as fit as I was a year prior. Why? Not as much training and more work/life stress. How did I know? Based on my HRV trends…
In 2020, my average HRV for April was 82 (ms), which was an increase of 14% from the month prior (72). This was primary due to doing murph 30 times. This year (2021), things did not look as nice. From Feb. to April 2021, I had a steady decrease in HRV (62 -> 59 -> 56). Without running any formal regressions, I would say this was mainly due to the decrease in gym time (sad face).
I normally aim to balance my training based on my WHOOP recovery, and I like the above way of looking at overreaching/optimal/restorative training zones. You can see the blue stretches is when I’ve taken some time off from fitness (very necessary to prevent burnout) and the red phases when I really start pushing hard (especially evident in Nov/Dec 2020, leading up to fellowship match on Dec. 2nd). The dip in March 2021 was expected, and you can see I picked things back up in April, so we were making progress, which is good.
Two weeks out, and coming off nights, it was time to hit the 20-miler. It was a hard run. Got off at 6am, slept until about 3:30pm and was off running by 4:30pm. Cramped up for the last few miles, and it definitely had me a little concerned, knowing that I would have to do 6 MORE miles. Told myself “well at least you won’t be coming off nights for the full marathon.” It was about the only positive outlook I could muster up.
Soon enough, it was game day. Ran a few times that week to grease the groove the last week, but I figured it would be better to be as fresh as possible. I chuckled at my schedule, which was back to back long calls the two days before the run.
Despite not great sleep leading up to it; averaging 5:10 per night (and you probably guess that I was off work on Wednesday), I woke up primed and ready to go on that Sunday. Recovery was 72%, with an HRV of 70 (30% above my 30-day average of 54).
“Game Time, Woo” (cc the 1996 Chicago Bulls)
The goal was to finish and I REALLY wanted to beat my previous time (4:55:38). That being said, I knew that the training fell off, so I was just going to do my best and see what happens. The bigger issue was the heat, it was like 85 degrees and sunny; fortunately, not too humid. To counteract this, we started the run around 6:30am. I also ran this one with my buddy Miguel, which was a big help. We dropped off an “aid station” approximately 4 miles into the 9ish mile loop that we would be running, to help with hydration (I had a very bad cramp on the 20-mile run, so couldn’t let that happen again).
In a nutshell, I knew that if we went out too hot it would be bad news. So started nice and casual, and the first lap (9 miles) felt excellent. We finished this a little after 8am, refueled back at the gym, and started lap 2 of 3. Took a little longer break at the aid station (our friend’s place — where they added to our supplies with some Uncrustables). Finished the half marathon at 2:19:32 (a few min behind last years’ time of 2:14:59).
Around 16 miles in, we hit the first major obstacle — MAJOR cramping in my right interior quad. Oddly, I’ve never ever cramped there before. But the leg was dead. Had to hobble over to the guard rail and shake it out for a bit and slam some electrolyte gummies. Luckily, it came back and loosened up over the next couple miles. This was right on a long, monotonous stretch coming back down Hersheypark Drive; and it was super sunny (that smile was obviously pre-cramp).
We rounded back to the gym to re-hydrate and were about 18 miles in. One more lap to go, but it was heating up and all the running was starting to add up. I knew the last 8–9 miles would be a battle. The legs were feeling very heavy and despite as much hydration as possible, I still felt quite dehydrated. Even had to call in “air support” (I guess technically ground support) — aka my friends Amanda and Marie for some roadside hydration assistance.
Eventually made it to the last planned water stop. 3.7 miles were left. After about one of those 3.7 miles, I was fully cramping in the legs, but just had to power through. We got to 1.5 miles left and had a quick pitstop for roadside water (again), and just stopping for a second made the legs lock up. Looking at the clock, I knew we had to “push” the last 1.5 miles to beat that previous time. Oh, and, the last 1.5 was basically a steady incline (not great — which is how most people felt about this beard too, lol).
Mind you, this “push” was about a 10 min mile pace, and even that was difficult to maintain. The road finally flattened out for the last quarter mile, and I think I got a little emotional knowing that I would finish under the previous time (but I couldn’t quite recall what that time was). Just pushed as hard as I could and when the watch mileage hit 26.2, I immediately collapsed onto the grass.
Ironically, this was right on the lawn of Troeg’s Brewery. I just laid there fore a bit and told our friends I needed a sec. I was overheating and poured an entire bottle of water over my head, that felt great. I was glad so it was over — I was exhausted, and in pain. I had them drive me home from Troeg’s (less than a mile from the gym); I think that was merited.
Did I beat last years’ time: yes. By 1 minute and 10 seconds (ye kidding).
A difference of 3 seconds per mile.
Back and the gym it was celebration time. We finished the marathon just like we set out to do, and some of the folks had just done a powerlifting meet the day prior. So we did a big BBQ. Was also a pseudo going away party for me, which was sad and I’m still not ready to talk about. Eventually the guitar came out and we did some karaoke (thankfully no videos floating around, because no one wants to hear me sing, but here’s a still photo).
The next day I was sore, but what I learned from last years’ run was that running the next day helped a ton with the soreness. The gym worked had a heavy clean EMOM, so I couldn’t pass that up. As the weights went up, I was feeling good. Ended up surprising myself and hitting 315 for a double (max is 340 from April 2018). I think all things considered; this was one of the more outrageous things about this year’s run — that I still had enough juice in the legs to throw some decent weight around.
Debrief
Now let’s compare the runs. In blue was the 2020 run and in yellow was the most recent run. As you can see, I came out a lot hotter last year and had a faster half marathon time. You can also see that second half of the blue curve is when the wheels fell off (around 20 miles where I had nearly a 15 min mile). That still happened this year (yellow) but not until 22 miles. And the major difference, and probably why I was able to beat the time on round 2, was the push at the end. I was glad to see it was worth it.
Do I think I was in better shape this year? No. I can honestly say I wasn’t. So what else was different. (1) I think I pushed harder (especially at the end) and this was aided by having a run partner. (2) I focused a lot more on hydration and re-fueling with (easily digestible) food. It helped having the hype squad delivering water a few times. (3) The long training runs (10 and 20-miles) definitely prepped the legs for the long-term fatigue. I didn’t have this in my repertoire last year. And (4) I hate losing, so at the end when I saw last years’ time in sight, I had to go for it.
Was it worth it — yes, for sure. The training was suboptimal, but sometimes life gets in the way. Still have to battle through if you really want it, and I wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it. Was very proud to make it happen despite some crazy hours/constraints working in the ICU, and even happier after still maintaining some big lifts the day after the run. Even did the CrossFit Occupational games (healthcare worker division) a few weeks after, and finished in 2nd place worldwide. That was kinda neat.
Looking back at the training that I actually did (glad I didn’t see this prior to the run) I only ran 8 times in the 2 months prior to the marathon — again, not ideal. The training plan called for 3–4 runs per week, and I missed a full month, then averaged one run per week. Oops. The training plan called for 269.2 miles of running; I did 109.25 miles (40.6%). Yikes.
What’s next? Not sure. Going to go back to doing CrossFit and keep running. Eventually I’ll do a proper training regimen for one of these. But I have a feeling I will set my sights even higher, at something even more ridiculous — Ironman (?) There’s a guy (James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy) doing 100 full-length triathlons for 100 straight days. That’s a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run. Every. Day. For. 100. Days. Wow. [granted, this guy did 50 of these in 50 days in 50 states back in 2015 (there’s a Netflix documentary, it’s quite extraordinary)].
In the big picture, there are all kinds of people doing wild and crazy things. Maybe this counts as one of them, but for me it was just a fun thing to do on the side to see how far I could push my own body and mind. Exercising helps clear my mind and helps put things in perspective. I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of my best friends at the gym along the way, during this journey we call life.
Summary
In the end, we did it. May 2020–4:55:38. May 2021–4:54:28. Shaved off 1 minute and 10 seconds. Knowing how difficult it was the second time, I’ll take it. Just goes to show, sometimes you can push your body past the limits that your mind sets for itself. It just takes some good old fashion work. No shortcut for that. Looking forward to the next challenge. In the meantime, it’ll be off to Philly in a month for cardiology fellowship. Both nervous and excited for the next chapter.
