For a while, I had nothing on the agenda after the Block Island 15K in September. I had spent the past year in constant hard training and racing, using Hal Higdon's Advanced programs and had sufficiently beat myself up. I was strong, I was fast, I was lean...but I was also exhausted.
So I did some maintenance running - no speed work on the track, no tempos. Just running miles. And it felt great. So great, in fact, that in the absence of all that stuff, I found myself doing my fastest long runs and incredibly consistent mid-length runs. By mid-October, my long run (13 to 15 miles) paces were in the low-7s, my mid-length (six to 10 miles) paces were in the high-6s, and my short runs were in the low to mid-6s - and none of it felt like it even required much effort.
Clearly it was time to register for my next marathon, and I landed on the Red Rock Canyon Marathon in Las Vegas. It seemed like my kind of thing - I am not the kind of guy that would go to Vegas to run the big Rock and Roll Marathon, but a small no-frills, February race, in a scenic out-of-the-way area from Sin City? Perfect.
As I continued training through a mild December, things only got better - almost every long run was my fastest ever and at sub-7 paces, culminating in a 20-miler on New Year's Eve at a 6:58 pace. I was in PR territory. 2016 had shaped up to be one of my best running years, and I was going into 2017 super strong.
But that did not last very long. My first few runs of 2017 left me feeling not quite right, and by the end of that first week, I realized I must have pulled a gluteal muscle. At first I tried to power through it, but eventually the right side of my buttocks was in agony with every step I took. With the marathon only six weeks away, what could I do?
I took a full week off from running. My girlfriend Gloria insisted that I should take two, and she was probably right. But I was already missing key training runs. After my week off, I had a 50-mile week on the schedule, but I ended up doing about half that. I built the miles back up gradually, and with varied levels of pain. Some days it hurt, some days it was merely uncomfortable. On no days did I feel good. By early February, I was not enjoying my runs - I was only doing them as training for my race.
As race day drew near, Gloria and I began planning out what our Vegas vacation would entail and I started looking into the details of the race to familiarize myself with what would be in store. I was bummed about my injury, but at least the race is in a desert, so it would be warm, dry and flat, right?
Wrong, wrong and wrong.
Not only did the weather forecast indicate it would be less than 50 degrees and raining, but I finally got around to looking at the elevation chart for the event and, wow, did that knock me for a loop - the course starts at 3,790 feet above sea level, climbs a thousand feet in the first eight miles and descends back down for the next five...and then we turn around and go back!
At first this was daunting. Into what had I gotten myself??
Then, I had a revelation - this was going to be an amazing challenge and a hell of an adventure and there was absolutely, positively, no pressure. The hope of a PR that faded with my injury would have been extinguished anyway the second my feet hit the ground running on this insane course. In fact, my injury - and the slower, more measured pacing that I adopted to deal with it - would end up helping me. There was no chance of going out too fast, or pushing too hard in the first half. For the first time since New York City (and the first time ever under my own name), I could go out there and simply run with no expectations other than to keep a steady pace, not hit the wall, and finish strong in under four hours.
This was an exciting new prospect for me. For once, I was able to set a reasonable goal based on the situation dealt to me. This would not be a crash-and-burn like Utah, or a well-run race with a disappointing end like New Hampshire. I was going to go to Vegas with the woman I love, to run a difficult course with a smart, steady game plan, and, dammit, I was going to have fun doing it.
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