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With New York in my rear view mirror, I can now firmly set my sights on Boston. The New York Marathon was a bonus. I hadn’t planned on running 2 marathon this Fall, but when the opportunity to run New York presented itself, who was I to say no? The thing is, I trained all summer for Smuttynose, not New York. It isn’t a bad thing. It paid off in spades. I was able to qualify for Boston at Smuttynose.
But New York taught me something. Well many things, really, but it taught me this one thing in particular – you must train for the terrain. I purposely spent the summer and early fall running on flat surfaces. Every recovery, tempo, interval, marathon-paced, and long distance run was done on ridiculously flat roads or trails, or on the treadmill. Training this way allowed me to cruise through Smuttynose with relative ease (I stress the relative of course because as my good friend Mike reminded me recently, a marathon isn’t supposed to be easy).
But when it came to New York, I suffered Yes, I had some nutritional and GI issues, but I think that, despite that, had New York been a flat marathon, I could have managed a significantly faster marathon. I may have even been able to come close to a PR.
Which brings me to this winter.
***
I look to Boston, with it’s early, deceptive downhill and it’s late, heart-breaking uphill. Training starts either in December or January, but either way, I know there is going to be one “must” in my training.
Hills.
I must train for the terrain. It will require doing runs of all kinds on the hills that are available around me. Fortunately, being from the Boston-area, I will be able to drive over to the Newton Hills and do hill repeats without too much juggling of my schedule. Heck, living in the Boston-area means that I can make sure my long runs make their way by those hills. It’s not going to be easy; it may not be fun, but that is what I am going to have to do if I want to take a shot at a 3:15 at Boston.
In Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning he states several times that you must try to emulate the conditions you will face in your goal marathon. What better way to emulate the terrain of your goal marathon than actually run on the terrain of said goal marathon?
I’m curious to see how my body will adapt to this kind of training. Will it accept it as a necessity? Will it rebel after a summer of flat running? Will it adjust?
Train for the terrain.
That’s gonna be the mantra this winter.
Train for the terrain.
Run Luau Run 
Ode to Marathon Training – March 22, 2009
Blisters, black toes, aches and pains,a change in my routine
Long training runs, the hills, the sprints running clothes fresh and clean.
Carbo load and plan each meal power gels and gatorade
No matter what the weather no time to be afraid.
Humid – hot or freezing cold snow against the face
Wind or sun or raining those running shoes I must lace.
What mile is this how long we been out check heart rate drink H20
Meltdowns joys and triumphs only a few more weeks to go.
Heartbreak Hill won’t break my heart this year has been the best
Found myself and made new friends I feel incredibly blessed.
love it! thank you for sharing this.
You will adapt. Your body won’t rebel, in fact it will do exactly the opposite. You will see and feel the results of your hill training very quickly in fact.
I know it’s a drive, but, training here in Shrewsbury is a blessing. I can’t avoid hills even if I try. I’ll be doing most of my long runs here on Sundays. Feel free to join me. I have some killer routes with 14, 16 and even 18-milers that somewhat mimic the Boston elevation profile. I’ll also be out on “the course” running my M Pace tempo runs through the Newton Hills (with the Children’s Team) on as many Saturday’s as possible.
As for lead-up races I will be running the Boston Prep 16-miler in Derry, NH at the end of Jan. (very hilly), and the Stu’s 30k in Clinton, MA (close to my house and also very hilly) the first weekend in March. These two races are loaded with people running Boston as they are considered great preparation and measures of your preparedness at key points in our training. I’d love to see you out there at these races.
I will definitely take you up on some of those runs! Let me know when you’re running the course and I’ll be sure to join you!
Love the new mantra. Having run a very hilly course last weekend in the Boston area I can say I am happy that I did train for hills. The one positive was this course took us down Heartbreak hill. It sounds like you have a good handle on trainings so my guess is that you will rock Boston.
Luau, don’t forget about the slight downhill at the end of the course, can be a real quad-burner on tired legs. You may want to get used to a bit of downhill at the end of long runs (or tougher tempo runs) as well. The other thing that threw me off was running at a different time of day than what I am used to, but I don’t’ think this will be as big of a problem for you.
Thanks Greg! Good advice! The nice thing about living near the course is that I will be forced to train on both the uphill and downhill portions. I do remember last year passing many fallen runners on the backside of Heartbreak…
[…] 17 miles, can be brutal whether in the race or on a training run. But I’ve stuck to what I said back in November – I have been trying to live by the mantra – Train for the Terra… Hills have been part of my […]