Whatever Works

(To mark twin 50^th anniversaries in 2017, as a fulltime running journalist and as a marathoner, I am posting a piece for each of those years. This one comes from 2005.)

IT’S INSTRUCTIVE what you can hear while running when you aren’t too busy talking and don’t have recorded music or news talk plugged into your ears. Here’s what I heard one morning in early 2005:

Two runners came up from behind. One did most of the talking, his volume growing as the gap between us shrunk.

The first words I caught were “... new marathon training program.” Then “... only run long every other week.” And louder, “They only go over 20 miles once, peaking at 21.”

They passed me with a small wave from one and a nod from the other. They didn’t know me, or that I’d overheard them.

The gap between us grew again. The last words I heard were, “... not enough training.”

Says who? Themselves, from their marathon experiences? Another writer whose schedules they’ve read?

They weren’t reading my writing. And their experience didn’t match mine.

They were talking down a training program being adopted for the first time locally. That was my schedule, written for the marathon team that I was coaching.

The runners whose critique I overheard were right in their description. But they were wrong, I have to think, in their conclusion.

Yes, the long runs would come every other weekend, going up by two-mile steps from 11. (A pre-training program built to 10 miles, testing if runners could or wanted to continue.)

Yes, the distance would peak at 21 miles, the only training run above 20. And yes, these runs would be long enough for most runners.

A rebuttal to these doubters would come in June 2005. That’s when my first marathon team would reach its graduation day at Newport, Oregon.

WRITING TRAINING schedules in books is the easy part. They go to an unseen audience, to take or leave, and then I walk away. As a writer I rarely hear who took or left this advice.

Acting as a coach for months of Sundays, getting to know the runners as individuals, is harder than writing a schedule – and immensely more satisfying. Also more nerve-wracking.

A coaching truism: Credit all goes to that athlete when everything goes right. Blame goes to the coach when something bad happens. I promised myself, when the direct coaching began in January 2005, to give the credit and take the blame.

My first and biggest responsibility was more medical than technical: to keep these runners healthy enough to get where they wanted to go.

Few of our 16 runners eased through the training trouble-free. I listened to all the physical complaints, from head (colds) to foot (plantar fascia). I-T band pain became the injury of the season.

All 16 survived their scares and reached Newport intact on marathon weekend. But their troubles, real or imagined, weren’t over yet.

By race eve pre-marathon neuroses had kicked in, with almost everyone now suffering from some race-threatening malady. Worry exaggerates the severity, and their worries multiplied by 16 for me.

Runners who had come together as strangers were now friends – family, almost. On race weekend a larger support team of spouses, parents, children, grandkids, partners and friends joined us at our own pasta dinner. 

The largest number came with Paula Montague. She is the mother of three daughters, “and my 16-year-old sister is like a fourth.” Those four, and Paula’s own mother, were in Newport.

A few weeks after the marathon, Paula would undergo a medical procedure (she wouldn’t call it “surgery”) to correct a non-life-threatening heart irregularity. Her concerns were more immediate: knee pains that had all but stopped her since our longest training run.

As I mother-henned the team on the course, the last to pass my spot at three miles was Paula. I asked about her knees.

She grimaced, shook her head and asked for the tube of Biofreeze that she’d left with me. We next met up at 11 miles. This time she smiled, shouted, “I’m better now!” and stopped for a hug of mutual relief.

Our next runner ahead of Paula at that point, Michelle Martin, appeared fearless. She’d started boldly, given her condition.

In April, Michelle announced that she was pregnant. I might have urged her to postpone the marathon for a year if she hadn’t already rejected that idea.

“My doctor gave me permission to keep running,” she said, “if I keep my heart rate below 140.” I was never clear if she mentioned “marathon” to the doctor, but I know that her monitored pulse seldom dropped as low as the recommended high.

Passing my spot at 11 miles, Michelle was running a minute per mile ahead of her pace goal, seeming worry-free. But the marathon wasn’t yet halfway finished. A lot could happen in the second half, of a marathon as with a pregnancy, some of it unpleasant to anticipate or to experience.

Michelle Martin expressed momentary disappointment at missing her time goal of five hours, then quickly remembered that she wasn’t yet halfway through her bigger “race.” In November she would deliver a healthy girl.

Our final finisher, Paula Montague, sobbed with the greatest joy and relief that her knees had allowed this. Her heart procedure two weeks later would bring even more success, and relief.

Photo: Most of the original marathon team returned for the second one in 2005. This one, for Portland, doubled in size.

[Many books of mine, old and recent, are now available in two different formats: in print and as ebooks from Amazon.com. The titles: Going Far, Home Runs, Joe’s Team, Learning to Walk, Long Run Solution, Long Slow Distance, Miles to Go, Pacesetters, Run Right Now, Run Right Now Training Log, See How We Run, and Starting Lines, plus Rich Englehart’s book about me, Slow Joe.]