2. How I Prepared for My First Marathon

January 1983 – I rung in the new year without a lot of running miles. I’d been putting in about 40-50 miles a week since the half in October, plus some cross country ski training with the Colorado State University Nordic club team. But that was maybe one or two sessions a week over December and January.

At the time I was back in school, at CSU studying biology and planning to go into graduate school by the following year.

February 1983 -I did one Nordic race, a 15K in Steamboat Springs against collegiate and club racers. My technique was not good, equipment worse, and was pretty far back in the standings, some 12 or 15 minutes behind the leaders. So I shelved the Nordic scene for a better time (that turned out to be the next year).

Around President’s Day weekend I reviewed my training log and realized I had not run over 55 miles in a week since late September and my longest run had been no more than 12 or 13 miles. However, I had gotten out on the skis once or twice for about 2 hours. The Mile High Marathon in Denver was less than 3 months away.

I cut the skiing and ran 50 and 55 miles over the last two weeks and upped the long runs to 14-15 miles.

School that semester had some challenges, but I was doing student lab research as part of my curriculum and had a lot of flexibility. I had become a better student, and did not feel the same pressure as I had as an undergrad.

One thing that did not suffer was my social life. I had four rather hard partying housemates who liked the night life. So every weekend (sometimes starting on Thursday night) was a party, and we usually centered it around music with concerts in Denver (Neil Young), Boulder (Stray Cats), and Fort Collins (The Blasters, The Suburbs) plus many local and regional acts. That all involved a lot of drinking (beer mostly for me, my housemates were much less discerning with what they consumed or inhaled) and one or two late nights a week. The results were frequent weekend runs on 5 or 6 hours of sleep, while hung over.

So while my study and work habits had improved, and running balance (not overtraining) was better, my weekend lifestyle had regressed to sophomoric levels. I was 25 going on 19 in that aspect.

March 1983 – I ramped up the weekly mileage to 60 and 65, and gradually increased the long runs. I got to 70 miles and 18-19 by the end of the month. I wasn’t doing any workouts until the last week of March, just running 7-10 miles a day and doing the long runs, all at 7 minute pace or so. Also got in a few days of alpine skiing in Aspen over spring break, with a St. Patty’s party in Aspen village, singing The Clash’s Rock The Casbah as we bar hopped.

April 1983 – A month in which it all (rather improbably) came together. I started thinking about goals for the upcoming marathon. A 2:40 seemed conservative but reasonable. With that breakout half marathon the previous fall, pace charts indicated I could do better but with a limited build-up my goal was to finish the full and to have that as a launching point for more serious efforts in the future.

About six weeks before the the marathon I started doing weekly workouts, starting with 6X 1/2 mile at 10K effort and building from there. Some workouts I remember, were 4X1 mile in 5:20, and 2X2 and 1X 1 mile at about 5:20-5:25 pace, but the emphasis was not on pace, more on keeping at what seemed to be 10K effort. I also mixed in some mid-week longer runs of 12-14 miles, about every other week.

In early April I went down to Denver and did a 10K – 5K double in Washington Park as a training effort. Don’t try this at home (kidding because actually it worked I think). After a 3 mile warm up, raced the 10K (34:06) in race flats, took a slug of water, ate a banana, switched into my training shoes, and jogged for about 45 minutes (6 miles, mid-7s +/-), and ran the 5K at 5:50s pace. I was feeling a little numb and seeing stars even as I lined up (low blood glucose). The road seemed wavy, but I held on for a low 18s. 19 miles for the morning with 9.3 at quality. That set me up well for fending off a bonk.

I went home after that and ate a box of cookies and a pickup load of food.

Mileage wise, I topped out at about mid to upper 70 mile weeks for a few weeks and did three long runs of 20 miles. The first one was just steady 7:00 pace. The next two involved marathon pace. First time was 10 miles at 7:00 pace, then 8 progressing from 6:20s to 6:10s-6:00. And the final long run (about 3 weeks before the marathon) started with 10 miles at 7:00 pace and finished with 10 at 6:00 pace. With that I knew I could run under 2:40.

Every weekend was a party weekend, and for a bit I dated an undergrad who drank more than me and only went out because I paid for all the drinks. That relationship did not last very long

On the last weekend of April, two weeks before the marathon, I entered a local 10K (part of it on the now renowned Fortitude 10K course), and this would be my final tune-up and test. My goal was 5:20s pace. A couple runners went out quickly and I just settled into my own private Northern Colorado pace as we wound around Old Town Fort Collins. Nothing felt difficult that day, and while I never did reel them in, and the gap at the end was only 10-12 seconds. I finished in 32:58. Compared to my sea level PR of 32:54, that was a relative jump of about a full minute–and in fact for altitude I had skipped the 33s altogether, as my previous 10K efforts had been in the 34s.

Winter/Spring Training Program 1983 – To summarize my training. Six weeks of build up, easy-moderate miles by feel, starting from mid-low 50s to 70 miles a week. Then about six weeks averaging at 70 – 75 (range ~65-77) with one workout of longer reps at 10K effort, and a weekly long run building to 20 miles with up to 10 at marathon pace. Other than that, mostly 7-10 mile days with a mid-week longer run about every other week.