2014 NYC Marathon Wrap Up

Let me be honest: I was worried about this year's Marathon.

Feeling under-trained is a common pre-race problem, but this year my concern was justified. Over the past six months, I've also been making significant adjustments to my running form, changes which have held up through modest training mileage. But 26.2 is another animal altogether. So, up and out the door well before dawn on Nov 2, I was already apprehensive about what the day had in store.

Nerves were NOT settled by an email from the New York Road Runners around 6:30 AM with the ominous subject line "IMPORTANT MESSAGE REGARDING HIGH WINDS."

It seemed that Mother Nature was going to have some fun with us before the day was done!

Indeed, the course was windy and COLD. Oh my goodness, it was cold. Fellow team members huddled beneath a large green tarp in the Charity Village before we were summoned to our start corrals.

I experienced sympathetic hypothermia watching the elite runners bound away from the starting line, wearing what amounts to basically Speedos and winter gloves. Mercy those folks are hardy!

With expectations low, I was pleasantly surprised when, twenty miles later, I appeared to be running well ahead of my previous time. In fact, this year I ran a personal best of 4:01:05. Go figure! Now, I had hoped to break four hours and, even so, four hours isn't that fast, but I was pleased nonetheless! Especially considering it's about 28 minutes faster than last year's pace. I am determined to break four; hopefully next year. And maybe someday a 3:30. Wouldn't that be something?

I want to reflect a bit about the nuts-and-bolts of what I've learned during the training process for this year's race, but first I need to say a few words about the real reason I was on the course in the first place: the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. Every year I have the opportunity to run with the MMRF Team for Cures, I am more and more inspired by the organization and my fellow team mates. This year our team of 75 runners raised a combined total of over $250,000 dollars to fund research into new treatments for myeloma. We could not have done this without your generous donation! Thank you and be assured that your contribution will be put to use making a positive difference in the lives of those living with myeloma.

A few words about training…

Over the past couple of years, I've been researching how it is that some people manage to be life-long runners without suffering serious injury, while others struggle with chronic knee/ hip/ ankle pain. Someday I want to be one of those wiry seventy-five dudes who gracefully sails past the hard-pounding thirty year olds in the final 1600 meters of the NYC Half. (I know this is possible, because I've been the younger half of this scenario several times.) It's at once inspiring and profoundly demoralizing!

Clearly, every body is unique and endurance running involves a complex set of kinetic systems, but it has become abundantly clear to me that finding my own proper form is key to longterm athletic wellbeing. And this process is more difficult than it might seem at first. First and foremost, it has required me to re-think old habits. Or, more precisely, to become aware of (and alter) habits I didn't even realize I had. The best example of this is foot-strike. Until about six months ago, I would have described myself as a gentle heel-striker; that is, with each stride the heel of my advancing foot strikes the ground first, followed by mid-foot, ball, etc... Until this year, such a condition had caused me no problems, but early this summer I experienced a worrisome pain in my right knee. The pain was sharp, but what really freaked me out was a very slight accompanying *click.* “This,” I said to myself, “cannot be good.” Fortunately, I'm old enough (and have been running long enough) to know the difference between an inconsequential pain that can be safely ignored, and the kind of pain that demands attention. This pain was, I suspected, of the latter group.

So, beginning in the spring I made an effort to explore different foot strikes. Initially, making the shift from heel-strike to mid foot/forefoot-strike is awkward and feels totally ridiculous. But the inefficiency of the heel strike becomes immediately apparent. Most importantly, the high impact transient associated with heel-striking is undeniable. Based on this experience, I made a concerted effort to change my foot strike, splitting up my spring runs between habitual heel-strike and “new” mid foot-strike. This required that I grit my teeth through some VERY sore calves and buy a new pair of “transitional” running shoes with less artificial stability built in and a lower “drop” (differential between height of heel and toe of the shoe). By the time my marathon training peaked, I was running entirely mid foot.

The transition has required me to re-think my approach to running, but the change has been extremely gratifying. I’m also convinced that it has improved my efficiency and will reduce my risk of injury by lowering the impact on my joints. I can't say with certainty that increased efficiency contributed to my PB last Sunday, but I strongly suspect that it did. In any case, I look forward to future experimentation...

                                                               ... and future races!

By the way, if you’re interested in seeing the heel-strike vs. fore foot-strike in action:


                                   ... versus...



The key here is to pay attention to the impact transient, represented on the graphs by the initial steep spike at the initiation of each foot-strike.

And here’s a fun video that makes the argument for efficient foot-strike from the perspective of evolutionary biology: