At the time I thought it was the cycling, and it could still be, but I've been thinking back to my recent injuries and there's something else I noticed in common: they've all came about whilst I was half way into a more intensity-focused training programme. I used to do a lot of volume-based training programmes and really enjoyed them and did really well, injury free, for years. It could be coincidence as I was a lot younger then, but it's possible going from low volume and intensity due to taking time off for Christmas each year straight into an intensity-focused programme is to blame and maybe my aging body can't cope as well.

So I'm going to test that theory. I seem to finally be on the mend from the most recent hip injury and have had two successful easy tester runs without pain during or after the run so from this week I'm going back to MAF and will slowly build my mileage and base back up.

I had great success with MAF in the past, and I know it forces a much gentler "programme" so I'm going to give it another go. Times aren't important to me now—there's no way I'm going to be setting any more PBs, though still being able to do a sub-3 marathon is nice—but running is and I want to be back out there on the roads and trails. We've also recently moved to a more rural area and there are loads of woods and trails on my doorstep that are calling out to me and I want to go explore them.

It's going be tough dropping my pace but I know from experience this is short-lived and it'll be much gentler on my aging body so hopefully doesn't aggravate anything and allows me to build up better and stronger in the long run.

I'm going to track my tests as I did waaay back in 2011 and hopefully get some nice new graphs to show off.

Training

I didn't train specifically for this race as it is only a month after Chicago, so all of the training for that race applies to this race too. I took a week off after Chicago and then picked up where I left off with the same structure, workouts and times/distances in a bid to keep as much fitness as possible without burning out or getting bored. This seemed to work a treat as I went into the race feeling great and confident I could dip under 3 hours again.

Pre-Race

As with Chicago, the Mrs and I flew out to New York on the Thursday before, however unlike Chicago, getting from the airport to our hotel in Brooklyn went smoothly and without a hitch. We had considered using the new myMTA app, but you couldn't use it for the trip from the airport at the time so we had no choice but to pay for a card which we then ended up using for the rest of the long weekend.

We had a quiet chilled evening with a few beers at the new Sixpoint brewery taproom in the Dekalb Market Hall (great food hall which we spent waaay too much time in 🫢). Friday morning was a beautiful crisp morning so we walked over the Brooklyn bridge before catching the subway up to the expo center to collect my number. Oh boy, what a bunfight!! The main hall itself wasn't very busy but the official merch area was packed with two massive queues which trickled along very slowly and ended up adding a lot of bodies to the already busy area. Saturday was spent wondering around Brooklyn, visiting Trader Joe's (treats and breakfast), the Timeout Market in DUMBO for lunch, and finally Whole Foods for their dinner box and a few beers.

Getting to the Start

Race morning is the part most people fear at New York and I was the same, however everything turned out perfectly. I'm going to go into a little more detail here for anyone else who stumbles upon this panicking about getting to the start.

First up: I was on the blue start, wave 1, corral B so my start time was 9:15am. As I was coming in from Brooklyn, I planned on catching the ferry and was suggested to catch one of the three from 5:15 onwards. I opted for the middle at 5:45 and planned to get to the ferry terminal with plenty time to cater for crowds and have some buffer if I couldn't catch my booked crossing.

The basic time line to the start was:

• 04:00 - Woke up, munched on a pot of Trader Joe's pre-made overnight oats, a banana and two cups of coffee, offloaded some excess weight.
• 05:00 - Left the hotel and walked to the Nevins St subway station to catch the 4 to Bowling Green. It was already 18ºC and 86% humidity 🥵.
• 05:12 - Caught the 4 train.
• 05:18 - Arrived at Bowling Green and started walking down to the ferry terminal. This didn't take long at all, maybe 5 minutes.
• 05:25 - Start boarding the ferry. There is absolutely no checking or confirming of your originally picked booking time so I went ahead and boarded with everyone else.
• 05:33 - Ferry departed.
• 05:58 - Docked at Staten Island ferry terminal and was directed outside to the buses.
• 06:09 - Boarded the bus. I dawdled a bit taking photos so just missed a spot on the first batch of waiting busses but they filled and moved on quickly so I was easily on the next batch of busses.
• 06:13 - Bus departed.
• 06:35 - Arrived at the security point for Fort Wadsworth. Here everyone disembaked and then through a very thorough security check point where everyone was individually checked using those security wands with some people even being asked to show the bottoms of their shoes. Of course I was the exception with the lady barely paying much attention to anything more than my waist - I guess it helps to arrive barely wearing anything 😁.
• 06:45 - Arrived at the start village which wasn't very busy at all, which isn't surprising given it would be hours before the first batch of runners were to be sent on their way. I grabbed a bagel, a coffee and some water and then made myself comfy on the grass sitting on the space blanket I had left over from the Chicago marathon and kept myself occupied reading the internet.
• 08:15 - Had a squeezie wee and then made my way into the corral, which in retrospect was waaaay too early, but hey ho. I managed to find a spot to sit down and wait even more.
• 08:45 - My corral started being funnelled off to the start line on the start of the bridge. It's worth pointing out that if anyone says you don't want to be on the lower level because you'll get pee'd on by runners above, hasn't run this race recently… the race start is just before the bridge starts to rise and the entire road for the length of the bridge is solid concrete so getting to pee on someone would take incredible levels of dexterity and firehose-like pee power. Of course that doesn't stop the announcements about peeing on the bridge is forbidden.
• 09:15 - BOOM!! 💥 (and it's a bloody loud BOOM) And we're off.

So whilst this was probably one of the longest "get to the start" process I've ever done - I think getting to the start of the Comrades downrun may have been longer - it went flawlessly but entailed more waiting around than I'd have preferred. I could probably have left things a little later, but I wouldn't have left it much later as the anxiety of missing my start would have made things worse than sitting around twiddling my thumbs.

Race

Given the time of year, I had planned on it being on the chillier side of things making for great racing conditions ripe for a comfortable sub-3, however this wasn't the case. It was incredibly warm and very humid right from the start. As I mentioned earlier, it was already 18ºC and 86% humidity at 5am, and it didn't get much better as the day went on. My plan was to run this race at the more conservative end of the power ranges I used for Chicago to take into account the more undulating terrain, with a last minute slight lowering of the power range when I found it was going to be a warm sticky race.

With this race stategy in mind, I took things very easy over the Verrazzano Bridge, though it was tempting to go with the crowds, and settled comfortably into my planned power range once on the other side. I ticked along comfortably taking in the incredible crowds and the excitement and vibe of the event, especially through Brooklyn, and then the heat started to set in and things started to feel a little harder. I had hoped I'd been managing my body temperature sufficiently well up to this point by dousing myself in water at every opportunity but I clearly hadn't done a good enough job as I really started to struggle with the heat at about 30km and then completely blew up at 32km due to overheating… I could feel the heat radiating off my body and I couldn't cool it. I managed to grab an ice pack from one of the medical tents (they were handing them out, I didn't nick it) and empty it into my hat and wear it and whilst it helped make my head feel cooler, it didn't do much for my torso which was really hot. This forced slower pace with lots of water, walking and actively rubbing ice all over my neck and torso helped cool me down a little bit but then I started to get those tell-tale signs of cramping I've experienced in hot marathons in the past so I eased off even more… I didn't wanted to finish this race in a ball of tears like I did Berlin in 2016, the first warm race in which I seriously and excruciatingly cramped up.

In the end I ran-walked the final 8-10km and finished in my slowest time for a major… three minutes slower than Berlin!! That said, I'm not upset at all. It was a great race with an amazing crowd made brutal by the conditions and not anything I did. There's also the fact that had I been able to run it in 2021 (deferred from 2020 but couldn't run because the US weren't allowing foreigners into the country), it would have been much slower as I was still struggling with leg pains then.

Looking at the lap times, I appear to have bumped the lap button twice: once at about 28km and then again at about 32km as these are very fast without explanation. It also might explain why I appear to have run 2km further than I should have 🤷‍♂️.

Post-Race

The end of the race experience at New York is definitely not like any of the other majors I've run. There isn't a post-race village or area to sit and relax and enjoy the atmosphere with family and friends. You're forced to walk a long winding route along the edge of the park down towards Colombus Circle before being spat out onto the streets with loads of people and little more to do than continue to walk. Thankfully my legs didn't cramp, though they did get close, so I managed to locate the Mrs - I didn't check a bag in the end - and walk the many blocks to the subway to catch the train back to Brooklyn.

Once back in Brooklyn, I had a shower and we headed back to the Sixpoint Brewery for the pizza and few really strong beers I restrained myself from having in the days before - they were well worth the wait.

Monday was spent wondering more of Brooklyn around the Prospect Park area and another visit to the Dekalb Market Hall. We jetted our way back to the UK on Tuesday evening.

All in all, a fabulous long weekend with a great race made difficult by the weather.

Statistics

• Race Date: 6 November 2022
• Gun time: 3:11:19
• Chip time: 3:09:37
• Position Overall: 1231 / 47744
• Age Group Position: 192 / 4083
• Weather: ⛅ Broken clouds | 🌡 21–23°C | 👌 22°C | 💦 78–67% | 💨 20–17km/h ↗ | AQI 55 💛
• Links: Strava Activity | Official Results

Splits

After having to defer my entry for two years on the trot thanks to COVID 🦠, I was glad to finally get the chance to take up my 2020 Chicago marathon place this year. I'd have loved to have run it in 2020 when I'd originally entered in 2019 as I was flying then and in brilliant shape and chasing another sub-2:45 marathon. However, I'm glad I didn't get the chance as it wouldn't have been a very comfortable or enjoyable affair due to the lower leg pain that appeared in October in 2019 that had persisted right up until the early part of this year. Going into this race build-up, I was fearful I'd end up having to hobble Chicago this year, but thanks to a change in my diet, fueling and training plan, I managed a good solid training build-up, without any pain, and went into the marathon in great shape.

The race itself was brilliant and went way better than expected resulting in a sub-3 (and thus BQ and London GfA), my second fastest marathon major, my fastest marathon as a V40, and sixth fastest of all time.

I'm trying something new with this race report by borrowing inspiration for the format from race reportr which is used to generate the reports peeps write on r/AdvancedRunning on Reddit to try and add a bit more structure and uniformity to my reports in future. Read on for all the gory details on my training and the race itself.

Training

As with all my previous attempts to get back into running, things didn't start off too well this year. I'd start off slowly, build up and then when my weekly distance got to about 50km, the leg pain would return and I'd be back to relying on rowing and cycling to keep fit until the pain subsided. Rinse and repeat. It was during all of this forced layoff from running that I really got back into cycling and started listening to the TrainerRoad podcast – I was using TrainerRoad to build my cycling fitness in a structured way so I didn't get bored or aimlessly waste my time on the bike. TrainerRoad really push the benefits of maximizing carbohydrate consumption and the effects it would have on training and racing and regularly referred to recent studies about the topic. They, and several other podcasts I listen to, also mentioned the low-carb-high-fat approach, which I'd been following for several years, and the pros and cons of that approach, including several studies which found it far from ideal for high volume endurance athletes, with a common side effect being severe under fueling which could lead to things like RED-S. Whilst I didn't have many of the symptoms of RED-S, I did have this recurring leg pain and the only thing I hadn't tried was switching back to fueling my training with carbs, so that's what I did.

It was just about 16 weeks out from Chicago that I decided I'd give this a go. I wasn't going to switch my general way of eating much as we tend to eat quite clean and well on a relatively low carb diet and I've gone off pasta big-time, but I did introduce a high carb drink (homemade recipe, deets coming soon) to my harder rides, all rowing sessions, and started fueling my longer runs with a breakfast of plain oats and running with my carb drink in bottles tucked into my hydration vest. This turned out to be a game changer. I had loads of energy, which is to be expected, but more importantly, my leg pain didn't come back as I crept up to and passed 50km a week of running.

I can't give all the credit to fueling. I also took a completely different approach to training with a bigger emphasis on cross-training and rest to give my legs a break so they'd be in good form for each running session.

The general structure of my 16 week build up was as follows:

• Monday: 60-75mins TrainerRoad cycle workout with a very easy hour on the rower in the evening.
• Tuesday: Hard rowing session from the Pete Plan, followed immediately by an easy run starting at 30mins building up to 90mins. As I got closer to race day and my runs crossed the 75min mark, I dropped the rowing session entirely.
• Wednesday: TrainerRoad cycle workout with a very easy 30-60mins on the rower in the evening, depending on how I felt.
• Thursday: Same as Tuesday.
• Friday: 90-120mins TrainerRoad cycle workout.
• Saturday: Medium long run until I got to 120mins. I then switched to this being a rest day.
• Sunday: Rest, but then long run when my runs got to 120mins. Maxed out at 165mins 3 weeks out from race day.
• A rest week every four or five weeks where I backed off the volume on everything. This tended to be dictated by the TrainerRoad schedule.

I also threw in a few kettlebell workouts a week for general strength.

All running was done based on power. I started off with all runs below 80% of my critical power (CP) and as I built my endurance started running these at 80-85% CP. I then introduced surges when I felt good, making the run a lightish fartlek, which ended up being pretty much every run in the final weeks of the build-up.

This more rounded approach to training really paid off. I gained fitness steadily consistently, enjoyed almost every session and felt full of energy. I didn't have a single run where I'd get home feeling totally knackered and was then useless for the rest of the day. And best of all, no leg pain, even on my biggest week in which I ran 86km - this was also the only week I ran four times as I didn't fancy a row on the Monday evening.

I'll definitely be keeping this approach up over the winter to see how it plays out over a longer period.

Pre-Race

With all that great training under my belt, it was time to get to Chicago.

The Mrs and I flew in on the Thursday before. Landed on time, fought with the Ventra app to pay for the train into town for about 30mins before giving up and just using my AMEX card to pay at the barrier, and then headed to the hotel. Turns out the Ventra app was borked for the whole weekend so now we have $20 each on a transit app we can't use 😞. We had a chilled early night with a few beers and hit the expo nice and early on Friday morning, which thanks to jet-lag turned out to be perfect timing as the queue wasn't too bad when we got there – it was manic when we left a few hours later.

We spent the rest of the day and most of Saturday wondering around and exploring the city and visiting Whole Foods and Trader Joe's waaay too many times. I'm not a big fan of pasta anymore so fueled my race on Saturday by eating a massive salad with rice and sweet potatoes from Sweetgreen for lunch, and a big plate of chicken & kale salad with broccoli and potato salad and a few beers from Whole Foods for dinner.

Race morning I was up at 4:30am primarily to eat and have it digested before I started running. I ate a pot of Trader Joe's pre-made overnight oats, a banana and two cups of coffee before heading down to the second floor to "drop the kids off at the pool" before walking to the start at 6am. I'd read there was a chance of long queues getting into Grant Park, which turned out not to be the case when I got there at about 6:20am – I waltzed in barely slowed by queues or security. I then milled around, took photos, went for a squeezy wee, stripped off and dropped my bag off at about 7am and made my way to corral A for the start which had an ever-growing group of runner running in a big circle to warm-up.

Race

This is the moment all of the above has built up to. I was in corral A on the red wave and ready to go.

I'd planned to run this race by power from the beginning of this build up as that's what I'd be training with. It's also useful because Chicago is notorious for bad GPS in some parts. This would also be my first attempt at proper racing by power. I ran Boston with my Stryd, but used pace not power and I hobbled Lisbon and Valencia by power just to finish as I went into both with sore and strapped up legs.

Stryd's race calculator suggested I run at 87% CP (~307W) with a predicted time of 3:00:18 – Come on!! Who's going to run that close to a sub-3‽ I'd read somewhere, I can't remember where, that marathon power is generally around 90% CP (~320W) which Stryd predicted would give me a time of 2:52:37. I went for a happy medium and set my watch to keep me in the 88-91% CP (310-320W) range in the knowledge that I shouldn't worry too much if my power is a little lower than 310W but should definitely not spend too much time over 320W.

With my watch all set, it was time to go. The gun went off at 7:30am so I started my watch only to discover that they weren't sending the peeps directly behind the elites off at the same time as the elites. Us "slow-pokes" in corral A had to wait another two minutes before we were set off. Thankfully it didn't take long for me to reset my watch in those two minutes.

At 7:32am we were finally sent after the elites. Things started with a slight uphill, into the tunnel, and then out into the crowded streets. The spectators were plentiful which was incredibly motivating, possibly too motivating for this early in the race, but I held back and took in the crowds and enjoyed the buzz and the sights. It took me a few k's to getting into the groove and find a happy comfortable pace around about 318W which allowed me to tick over nicely. The first 5k's were a little quick, which can be expected, but the rest were then pretty metronomic, with a few exceptions I can't explain, as you can see from the splits below.

Along with a pacing plan, I also went into this race with a proper fueling plan. I carried three SiS Beta Fuel gels (two normal and one with "nootropics", aka caffeine and taurine and a few other chemicals) containing 40g of carbs each which I took at 50mins, 1h45 and 2h30 with the nootropic one saved for last in the hopes the extra boost would help… I can't say I noticed anything other than the chemical taste which I didn't notice when training. I also sipped/slooshed the provided Gatorade at every other water station and sipped/slooshed water when I didn't take on Gatorade based on thirst.

This combined strategy of consistent pacing by power and fueling worked a treat. I ticked over half way bang on 1:28 and ran the second half two seconds quicker in 1:27:58, which included a slight detour off the racing line to give the Mrs a smooch at ~38km much to the enjoyment of the crowd and embarrassment of my wife, and a good push over the 41st km, giving me a very very respectable finishing time of 2:55:58. This is my second fastest marathon major, my fastest marathon as a V40, and sixth fastest of all time.

I went into this training cycle aiming just to get to Chicago pain-free and finish the race and in the end had an absolute blinder of a race. It's races like this that make me love running so much.

Post-Race

Once across the line, I walked for about 20m before my lower back started to twitch like it was going to cramp. I moved to the side and bent over which immediately prompted the spectators next to the barrier to jump back a few metres – they though I was going to 🤮 – and for a few race aides to rush over. All were quite pleased to know it was just a tight back 😂.

Once my back eased I carried on down the finishing area picking up a space blanket, a banana, an apple and a can of Goose Island 312 beer. I love beer and thought this would be the perfect treat to help me down the finishing area to baggage collection and onto meeting the Mrs but it turns out I'm not a fan of a wheat beer which taste a bit like a lager immediately after a race… I nearly 🤮 on the third sip; the Mrs enjoyed the beer though.

Picking up my bag was a bit of a PITA… it took forever. I've never had to queue for more than a few minutes to collect my bag at the end of the race, especially when finishing at the pointy end of things, but it seems everyone around me finished at the same time as I ended up queuing for over 15mins. With bag finally in hand, I made my way over to the 27th mile meeting area to meet the Mrs and use my beer token, which I used to get a much tastier 7% hazy IPA which went down a treat 😋. We sat in the sunshine discussing the race and enjoying the sunshine before I wet-wiped myself down, changed my shirt and headed back to the hotel for a shower.

We finished the day off with pizza and a few more beers at Whole Foods, before crashing for the night. ProTip: Whole Foods bars are generally $1-$3 cheaper than surrounding bars and they have a great changing selection of draft beers. Draft beers and wine by the glass are also $1 cheaper on weekdays between 4pm and 6pm.

Monday was spent wondering more of the city, a visit to a different Whole Foods for happy hour and then chilling in our hotel room. We jetted our way back to the UK on Tuesday evening.

All in all, a fabulous long weekend with a great race.

Statistics

• Race Date: 9 October 2022
• Gun time: 2:56:01
• Chip time: 2:55:58
• Position Overall: 1428
• Age Group Position: 219
• Weather: ⛅ Few clouds | 🌡 7–14°C | 👌 6°C | 💦 64–49% | 💨 15–17km/h ↗ | AQI 77 💛
• Links: Strava Activity | Official Results

Splits

The Chicago and New York marathons this year are on target to be very enjoyable, though now very fast. Maybe I’ll be back to good-for-age fitness in time for London next year.

Experienced my first ever RTA on my 🚲 yesterday, 1 hr into a planned 3 hr ride. Thankfully it was a slow moving one which only resulted in a bendy wheel and nothing else. I was mostly 🤬 because I couldn’t finish my ride and have my planned toasty at Velolife. New 🛞 in the 📮

I've been hankering for a new bike for a few years following the introduction of the Cycle2Work scheme at work and spent a long time umming and aaahhing over whether I should get a gravel bike or a road bike. I nearly pulled the trigger a few times on a gravel bike (I really liked the look of the Trek Checkpoint 7 though a tad expensive) but something stopped me at the last moment. Then my legs started playing up and 🦠 lockdown happened so my desire for a new bike peaked… as did everyone else's 😞. It was during this time that I realised I'd spent more time on the road with my current cyclocross bike than I did off and the same would probably apply for the next bike. I'd also really enjoyed the time I'd spent out exploring the countryside roads so I switched my attention to road bikes, specifically "endurance" road bikes for the more relaxed geometry.

As with any big purchase I spent an inordinate amount of time searching the internet for endurance bikes and found a few I really liked (Trek Domane SL5, Canyon Endurace SL7 and the Ribble Endurance) but everywhere was sold out with insanely long waiting times (at least 3-6 months in most cases) or no indication if any more stock will become available. That's when I remembered Dolan Bikes and found their Dolan Tuono Disc Carbon Road Bike which looked amazing, with more configuration choice than I'd ever seen, and best of all, they stated a dispatch date within 45 working days.

I was a little sceptical the delivery timeframe would be met given the insane demand and delays in the supply chain but decided I'd dilly-dallied enough and the Dolan Tuono Disc Carbon Road Bike - Shimano Ultegra R8020 HDR looked amazing for the price. So I pulled the trigger, configured the bike precisely as I wanted (but not the wheels in the picture on their website - they're £775 extra!!) and placed my order on 7 September, requested my Cycle2Work voucher which I submitted to Dolan on 15 September and received confirmation of my order that day. Forty working days later (10 November) I received confirmation my bike had been dispatched and would be with me the next day.

Less than two months of patiently waiting and now I have the best bike I've ever owned and it's a pleasure to ride. The box the bike came in weighs more than the bike 😁.

For those curious, here is the full spec from my order:

• Dolan Tuono Disc Carbon Road Bike - Shimano Ultegra R8020 HDR Tuono Disc - Large
• Colour: Tuono Disc Custom Colour (Standard Colour) Metallic Gentian Blue/Silver
• Fork: Tuono Disc Carbon Fork
• Seatpost: Tuono Disc Carbon Seatpost
• Headset: Alpina 11/8"x11/8" Headset
• Chainset: Ultegra R8000 Chainset 172.5mm - 50/34
• Cassette: Ultegra R8000 Cassette 11/28
• Power Meter: 4iiii Precision 2.0 Power Meter *
• Rear Derailleur: Ultegra RD-R8000 11-SPD - 34T
• Front Derailleur: Ultegra FD-R8000 11-SPD Down-Swing Brazed-On
• Brakes: Shimano Ultegra ST-R8020(R/L) BR-R8070(F/R) / HDR Shift/Brakes
• Disc Rot=or: Shimano Ice Freeza Disc Rotor RT800 CL - 160mm(Front) -140mm(Rear)
• Chain: KMC X11 11spd Chain
• Handlebar: Deda Superzero (Alloy) with Full-Integrated Cables (44cm)
• Stem: Deda Vinci (Alloy) DCR Stem (11cm)
• Handlebar Tape: Deda Handlebar Tape - Night Black
• Saddle: Selle Italia X1 Flow Saddle - Black
• Pedals: None (but I then fitted Shimano PD-M540 SPD pedals myself)
• Wheelset: Mavic Aksium Disc Wheelset *
• Tyres: Continental Grand Prix 5000 TL (Tubeless Compatible) 700x28c Tyre *

* Extras that cost more.

New 🚲 pron. More deets coming 🔜