It's all in the numbers ...

Here's the culprit ... just look at this little Post-It that was stuck on my computer monitor for the last month or so. That's the answer.
It all started back in the early 1980's. I was 25-30 pounds overweight, in the wrong business and having a bunch of other problems. I bought a bike and started a very sane, behavior modification diet. Over the course of the next twelve months I changed my diet and started riding a cheap and heavy bicycle. It was about two pounds per month but I watched the numbers week by week. The scale was my daily reminder. The graph charted the results. From 185 to 160 I went and there I stayed for twenty years, cycling and keeping the same diet strategy. Even in 1998 when I started running I maintained that same 160 pounds.

Then one summer in the early 2000's I took a trip to California to visit Aimee and Howard living near San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. It was bad sushi or something that made the drive down the Pacific Coast Highway through Carmel and Big Sur a very long and difficult trip. The end result, two days later was the scale reading 152. There was a marathon coming and I knew that the lower weight would be better for the running. So I kept it off, kept the training up and found a new "set point". Since then, the magic number was 152. But there is another magic number.

I have this wonderful scale that gives a fair estimate of my body fat as well as my weight. There, the magic number was 7. Some mornings after a little Ben and Jerry's the night before the number was 8 but normally the reliable morning reading was 7. For the next few years those pair of numbers 152 and 7 were my signposts to good health.

A few years ago I started doing triathlons and despite the additional work those numbers held fast. But this winter the training has gotten more strenuous. I wasn't really pleased with Ironman Lake Placid. I did OK at the Venice and Philadelphia Marathons. I lowered my workout levels after Philadelphia and slowly the first number rose from 152 to 157 or 158. I wasn't concerned because the second number remained stable at 7% body fat. As my training got more intense as I focused on the Boston Marathon and the upcoming triathlon season, the upper body workouts (swimming and weights) became more important. It is quite normal for athletes to gain a few pounds over the winter season (not that I am an athlete, but you know what I mean).

I had a terrible Boston Marathon in 2004 due largely to (1) a really warm day (2) a really stupid move at dinner the night before. Taking a 15 minute break lying on the side of the road on the top of Heartbreak Hill doesn't do much for finish times. I staggered across the finish line and vowed not to make that mistake again.

With all of this in mind I started a very intense training program from Runner's World magazine which had me doing longer runs and more intense track workouts. As the twelve week program progressed I was pushing myself better than I could remember. I felt great. The program seemed to work. Twenty and Twenty-two mile runs felt comfortable even as I picked up the tempo in the last four miles. Insane 3-mile repeats on the track at tempo pace gave me quite a lift. I was ready for Boston.

About a month ago I posted that sticky on my monitor and that was where the trouble started.

"Taper" traditionally starts three weeks out from a marathon. The mantra is "Reduce Volume but Maintain Intensity". But that sticky said I wasn't at race weight. So, I started to watch the calories. I had no trouble doing the workouts even though I was losing weight. Now, if you are a runner you know that the "book" says that it is OK to put on a couple of pounds during the last week of the taper. I knew the book. I preach the book. I ignored the book. I saw those stupid numbers on my monitor and they got the best of me. But because I was doing shorter workouts the lowering of my body mass was hiding the loss of endurance storage!

Here is the "proof". I felt great at race start. I did all of the right diet things the two days before the race. The weather conditions were perfect. At mile 1 things seemed great. My heart rate monitor said I was exactly where I was supposed to be. At mile 2 and 3 life was great. At mile 4 I noticed that my speed was not quite what my heartrate and training should have been. I never wear a monitor for marathons. Usually I can feel the race and things go well. They have for most of my marathons. I have my little pace-chart on my wrist with the mile splits. Lots of numbers. I always wear the monitor in triathlons to keep me from going too fast. I wore it this time to prove the training numbers over the difficult Boston course.

I had a very aggressive target of 3:45 for Boston. My training was based upon 3:40 since I knew that people like me will give up about 5 - 10 minutes to the hills in Newton. I did 3:40 in Chicago 18 months ago and 3:50 in a very muggy Venice race, so it wasn't out of the question, though it was hard. It was a tough number but one that seemed reasonable. I also plotted the pace for a 3:54 run which was what I did the first time in 2003 on a warm and sunny day. At mile 5 I could tell that the 3:45 was not happening as I drifted closer and closer to the higher range. At mile 10 as I entered Newton and saw Adira and Steve with their IraMan sign I had drifted right to the edge of the 3:54 time slot and the hard part of the course was ahead. There was no energy in my body. I didn't feel sick. I took all of the appropriate gels, water and GatorAde. There just was nothing in the body. By the half marathon point my split was 1:58 and I was dropping. I saw the Boston Red Sox win but I wasn't. There was not going to be a bottom of the ninth comeback for me.

The heart rate monitor is a wonderful tool for training. When I'm right I can keep my heart rate between 165 and 170 for hours. When I do long triathlons I keep it around 155 all day. By mile 13 I had trouble getting the heart rate over 160. When one is dehydrated the heart rate soars. When you have burned all of your fuel the heart rate drops. I remember the feeling at mile 18 of Ironman Austria. I felt fine but I just couldn't pick up my legs to run. There it was. The numbers said it. I had trimmed the weight and the storage capacity at the same time. Silly me. I knew better but those numbers on the Post-It got the best of me.

No, it wasn't a lucky 13th marathon. As the previous post suggests, I'm still game for marathon 14 (at the Chesapeakeman Iron Distance triathlon) which is just a warmup for marathon 15 in Dublin in October and marathon 16 in London in April of 2007 and marathon 17 in Florianapolis at Ironman Brazil and if all goes well in Dublin or London, marathon 18 will be where I try to even the series in Boston.

Now there's a lucky number: 18 = "Chai"