The Battle of Newton

As we all know, Patriots Day is more than just a day people in Boston get the day off to get drunk while some of us drag ourselves over 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boylston Street. Patriots Day honors Paul Revere, an American Revolutionary hero who saved us from a future of flavorless food and poor dental care at the hands of the British by riding a galloping horse and screaming, which doesn't seem very covert, but it worked, so who am I to judge?

In keeping with the theme of the Revolutionary War and how it relates to the Boston Marathon - which is to say, only in the most indirect and tangential ways - today I want to talk about the Battle of Newton. So far as I know, Newton was not a particularly important battle site in the American Revolution. I mean I assume something happened there, because basically every school district that served as a feeder for Colby College (go Mules!) was somehow related to our nation's independence. Who could forget the crucial turning point in the war, the Shootout at Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols? No?

Anyway, this Patriots Day Newton will represent a strategic skirmish in my own revolution. The Revolution Against Ill-Will Toward The World's Most Famous and Esteemed Marathon. I may rethink that name for branding purposes, as it's rather unwieldy. Let's go with the Boston Electrolyte Beverage Party, for short.

As I was saying, this Patriots Day, Newton will become my own personal battleground. Last year (it's an annual revolution, apparently. Not very effective at creating change...), Newton served as Claire's Last Stand. Except I was on the losing side.

I've mixed too many historically inaccurate military metaphors already, so let me just get on with it.

Last year, Newton kicked my ass. While I ran a PR at Boston, I didn't run a good race. I positive splitted the shit out of it, in fact. Newton hobbled me, and by the time I got over Heartbreak Hill and could hear the roar of BC frat dudes - normally, a dream come true for me - it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I finished Boston hating it, and vowed to never go back. Until I registered for 2012.

This year, I am determined to survive Newton with a smile on my face. And not just the way a baby smiles when it farts, but a genuine, I-don't-hate-my-life smile. If Newton is my battlefield, then hill work is the fort that will protect me.

You can go ahead and never read this blog again after that totally lame analogy.

I truly did focus on hill work last year in the months leading up to Boston. My training plan had a day of hill workouts per week for the first 8 weeks built in, and when I was instructed to run "on the hilliest route you can find," I did just that. But this year, I've been focused not just on my weekly, dedicated hill workouts, but on incorporating hills into every run. I've been going out of my way to take the hillier way home even on my easy runs, and rather than getting the bulk of my long run miles done along the Hudson, I've been spending QT in Central Park. Even when I'm stuck on the treadmill, I've increased my steady incline from 1% last year to 2.5% this year. Whenever I think about getting lazy with my hills work and taking a flatter route, I think about how crappy it felt last year to see my Garmin tick down from having 2 minutes banked to having my A goal out of reach.

With Boston 8 weeks from Monday, I'm just about halfway through training. This morning, I decided (and "I" means "my training plan") to put my first 8 weeks of hill work to the test with a session of hill repeats. 2 mile warm up, 3-4x short hill repeats, 3-4x long hill repeats, 3-4x short hill sprints, 2 mile cool down. In the rain. (That part wasn't in the training plan, but an added bonus).

The 3 short hills were tolerable, and I timed my chant of "New-ton, New-ton" with the swishing noise of my jacket-clad arms a-pumping.

The first two long hills were also tolerable, if long. Nearly 2 minutes is a long time to be climbing. The third long hill required a pep talk from me to my hamstrings. ("Go faster, assholes!" causes some confusion when speaking to your body because you don't actually want your asshole to go faster). The 4th long climb was one of those where you grunt and scream and act like you're having a seizure at the top, but no one comes to your aid because they've been watching you do repeats and understand that, like them, you're just an early morning running freak. Or they're cold-hearted New Yorkers.

I was most worried about the sprints. While I am at a place in my running where I finally feel like no hill is insurmountable, that's because I also feel that no pace is too slow. I was actually shocked when I looked up during the first sprint and realized I was already at the end of it. I chased a bike on the second sprint, and lost, but it was a close race. After I finished the third, I was toeing the line between "breathing heavily" and "wheezing pathetically," but my third was indeed my fastest sprint. Best, I left the park feeling like I could have done one more.

So what does it mean? Well, it turns out I did this very same workout exactly a year ago, on February 17, 2011, which I didn't even know until I searched Garmin Connect for "hill repeats" when I sat down to write this report. I won't bore you with my splits because that's totally narcissistic (unlike just the regular blogging I do about how awesome I am), but I've seen improvement across the board!

For each hill segment, I was between 5 and 10 seconds faster today than I was a year ago.

I have gotten 5 or 10 seconds faster in a year?

Eff that.

In honor of Paul Revere, this Patriots Day I'm riding a horse to Boston.