It’s still snowing. Been doing that since yesterday. And it was about twelve degrees when I woke up at 5:15 this morning. It’s pretty likely that this morning’s long run, training for a winter marathon that or no, would have been in the gym, on a treadmill watching television, if it hadn’t been for the fact I told the three guys from the running club that I’d meet them at a supermarket parking lot out in Goffstown at 6:30, snow or no snow. I shoveled out and drove to Goffstown (chosen for the hilly back mountain roads). They were there. And we ran. And what I imagine would have been a very grim solo run became, despite being physically punishing, kind of fun. Thanks guys!
It’s been a little over a year since I went from a three-day a week, three-mile a run plodder to a something a bit more obsessive. I ramped it up in Nov. of 2007, when I registered to run the February Hampton Beach, NH half marathon. At that point, I thought, and said aloud to my wife Kristen, that’s the longest I intend to run. Shortly after the race ended, snow and icy rain dripping from my hat and face, I said to Kris, I think I’ve got to run a marathon. So I started training for that. Which I ran in Portland, Maine in October of 2008, hoping, over-optimistically, to run a Boston qualifying time. I missed it by 4.5 minutes. So of course I looked for the next race I could find that I would not need to travel for and that would give me time to recover from Portland and still qualify for Boston. Hyannis, Mass., in February is what turned up on the calendar. So I launched right from Portland recovery into Hyannis training.
And the point of all of this is that I’ve done a lot of long runs. At first my long runs were six miles, then eight, then 10, then 15 etc., on up to 22 (by which point six or seven milers had become my short runs). And over that time, I’d run a lot of weekday runs with other folks – but never the “long run.” That had always been solitary, usually with music (U2 or a blues and classic rock mix, or maybe Iron Maiden) or a book on MP3, or NPR’s Weekend Edition. And somehow throughout them all I was positive that I was “the sort of person” who needed to do long runs alone. To reflect, go deep, customize my pace to the mood and need of the day, whatever.
So what a shock to start running with these guys and find out that I not only can “stand” to do a long run with a group, but that I actually like it, and think it’s good for my training. There’s something powerful about the natural rhythm of a group, the ebb and flow of the pace as you climb up and down hills (and these guys and monster hill climbers), the way that different members of the group seem to challenge the group with their strengths, and improve their weaknesses trying to keep pace against the strengths of the others. Not to mention the camaraderie and conversation, which can help blunt the gloom that can settle in during certain parts of really long runs (an inverse of that euphoric high that is also sometimes a symptom of the long run).
So that’s my new take on the long run with a group. Feel free to weigh in with your experiences. I’m also curious if it was unusual to have done the whole first marathon training cycle running long runs solo or is that how most people start?
Tags: long run, marathon, Running, winter running
