Tony

Marathon
Written By Mona Angéline

Meet Tony, who's aiming to qualify for Boston at the Tokyo Marathon in March! In the 70s age group, this requires about a 4:25 finish. He just ran CIM and was disappointed with his time.

Tony confided he might be struggling with back-to-back marathons more now that he's older. Yes, that's a fact. But when we looked at his running together, two things stood out more than just higher age-related recovery needs.

1) Tony runs almost all his runs at marathon pace, often because he's following a group. He reported falling behind on a 16-mile training run at that pace. Say what? That's running a race in training!

2) Tony doesn't do any faster runs and barely any easier runs.

We'll make sure to teach Tony's body what easy pace feels like, and we'll also add some strides and faster paces while carefully monitoring the higher injury risk in older runners.

There was a third point, and that was a lack of rest. But given the above, I'm less concerned here. Tony has been running for 40 years and knows how to get what it needs from a few rest days here and there once he won't be running all his miles at race pace.

I'm so excited that we get to start working together because I can see so much room for added speed in the three points above. But first: a couple of weeks of recovery from the CIM effort!

Thank you SO much for joining, Tony! You fit right in with our bunch, and we're so happy to have you!

#MarathonCoach #8020running #BostonMarathonBound

Mona Angéline

Mona Angéline is an unapologetically vulnerable writer, reader, book reviewer, artist, athlete, and scientist. She honors the creatively unconventional, the authentically "other". She shares her emotions because the world tends to hide theirs. She is a new writer, but her work was recently accepted in Flash Fiction Magazine, Grand Dame Literary, tiny wren lit, Down in the Dirt Magazine, The Viridian Door, The Machine, Whisky Blot Magazine, and The Academy of Mind and Heart. She loves to review books and has written them for the /tƐmz/ Review, the Ampersand Review, and the Beakful Litblog. Sooner or later she will have to condense this list… Mona is also a regular guest editor for scientific journals although she doesn't use a pen name when her engineering PhD degree is involved. She lives bicoastally in Santa Cruz, California, and in New York and savors life despite, or maybe because of, her significant struggles with chronic illness and mild disability. Learn about her musings at creativerunnings.com. Follow her on Instagram under @creativerunnings and on Twitter at @creativerunning.

https://creativerunnings.com
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