Interval: Is it October 9th yet?

17 weeks down

The view just north of 160th and Pacific, as the sun rises on the first day of October.

At this time Sunday morning, I’ll be somewhere in Chicago, ready to run. I feel like I’ve been ready, truly ready, for weeks now. I had a conversation with a friend recently, where I told him I was antsy for the race. He immediately offered words of encouragement. “You’ll be fine.” Given some of our previous conversations about Chicago, I think he thought I was nervous about being able to perform at my goal level. That I didn’t think I could do it.

It wasn’t until I told him that I wasn’t that type of antsy that he fired back with the belief in me that I too have found in myself over the last few months. “Yeah, you’ll crush it.”

That’s the plan.

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I usually hate the taper. Decreasing the number of miles, decreasing the intensity. It goes against how I’d been running for months. I love the miles. I love the hours of solitude. I love pushing myself to distances I’ve never done before, often times starting before the sun rises. By the time I get to the end of a training block, I find myself in a period of melancholy. Excited for the race, absolutely, but missing the grind. My body seemingly revolts against me, with the usual phantom¹ pains popping up here and there, worrying me for minutes at a time.

Over the last couple weeks, those feelings haven’t really popped up. I think a big reason why is that I have put so much into these 17 weeks. I don’t feel like I’ve left a whole lot on the table. With under a week left, I’ve hit every single mile I was scheduled to run. Every single mile. Even with how well my last two marathons went — time goals met and exceeded in each — I have never had a period like this, where I didn’t miss a single run.

I’ve embraced the decrease in mileage². It’s felt like a reward.

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The log week 16:

Sunday: Rest

Monday: 7 miles, with 8 x 100m sprints

Tuesday: 5 miles, with 8 x 100m sprints

Wednesday: 12 miles

Thursday: 5 miles

Friday: 10k tune-up, with 2 miles total before and after

Saturday: 17 miles

Weekly total: 54.3 miles

Training total: 996.8 miles

The log week 17:

Sunday: Rest

Monday: 7 miles, with 8 x 100m sprints

Tuesday: 4 miles

Wednesday: 8 miles, with 8 x 1200m at a 5k pace

Thursday: 5 miles

Friday: 6 miles, with 8 x 100m sprints

Saturday: 13 miles

Weekly total: 43 miles

Training total: 1039.8 miles

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Great coaches and athletes³ will so often talk about “the process” — without respecting the process, there can’t be progress. You have to embrace it. Embrace every single day, every single workout, every single thing.

I have thought about that a lot over the last four months. Have I wished it was October 9th after a particularly great run? I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t happened a dozen times, but I didn’t approach most runs that way. I couldn’t. If I didn’t respect a six-mile run on a Wednesday in July, that asked of me a specific effort and pace, I wouldn’t be ready to go on the second Sunday in October. Perhaps I didn’t think about each run in that exact way. “Alright Josh, have a great run, and don’t forget to respect it!” Hell, I certainly didn’t verbalize it that way. They were runs on the schedule, and I followed the training plan. But the process matters, and I enjoyed this process more than ever.

Not only has this been the most rewarding training plan yet, it’s also been the funnest. Easy for me to say, given I leave my apartment most mornings expecting, if not outright knowing, I have another good-to-great run in front of me. Rarely did I go out, maybe a handful of times, where I truly didn’t want to be out there. Where I wished I could stay at home. Sleep in. Literally anything but run for an hour or more.

Given I began training aiming for a 3:15 marathon, and now have a goal of [redacted]⁴, I guess this is to be expected. I've made gains in my fitness, gains in my speed, gains in my endurance.

After the Lincoln half in May, my dad reminded me about how cool it was to see all this hard work pay off. All summer, and into the fall, I’ve had that word in the back of my mind. I’ve put in the work. Now it’s time to see it pay off.

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Cool down:

• A reader, Brian, recently reached out to me asking about my gear:

  uncle baby brian @brianjay1317

  @joshtweeterson @DavidMacrander @ChiMarathon i have just started reading your substack so maybe you've covered this, but an idea might be to cover your gear, what works, what doesn't, what to consider.

  I’ve worn a bunch of different stuff in races over the years, but had consistently been going with Nike shorts the last couple. I liked the way they fit on me and they’d been comfortable. That said, I tried out some of Tracksmith’s stuff for the first time earlier this summer, and I will be wearing their Van Cortlandt Grand shorts (in a color, gold, that doesn’t seem to be available anymore) on Sunday. They wick super well and on really sweaty days (thankfully weather in Chicago should be great) they don’t stick to my legs.

  I’ll be wearing a St. Jude singlet, though I usually have a bunch of different tops I wear — Saucony, Tracksmith, Nike. I hope to see more fellow St. Jude Heroes out there along the course.

  Can’t forget about a fun headband, so I went with this one from Junk. I’ll also be wearing some sort of Goodr sunglasses, though the ones I was hoping for aren’t available just yet, so either a blue or black pair⁵.

  I swear by Balega socks, as they’ve done wonders at keeping blisters away. As mentioned in my last newsletter, I’ll be going with Saucony Endorphin Pro 2s. Yellow has been my lucky color with shoes in my races in 2020 and 2021, so I’m riding that train one more time. I’ve run in them a handful of times now and the efficiency of those runs is something else. Speaking of…

• My last tune-up, as mentioned in the week 16 log, called for another 10k at race pace. I decided to go out at a sub-6:30 per mile pace but went out fast. I finished the first mile in a tick above six minutes and kept it going. I ended up running those 6.2 miles in 38:19, a 6:10 pace, speeds I haven’t reached since high school. It was exactly what I was hoping for, especially mentally, going into the last couple weeks.

• Finally, if anyone cares, my bib number is 17446 for Chicago. If you want to follow along on Sunday — I should be out on the road shortly after 7:30 — you can follow me with that number on the Chicago Marathon app on Apple or Android.

Thanks for reading along these last few months. I’m ready.

Now all I gotta do is run 26.2 miles.

1. Thankfully I am one of many to deal with these types of pains. I Googled “why am I hurting during my taper” and found countless articles. It’s normal to feel this way.

2. Yet, by Monday of race week, my second straight day without running, I sure did want to run again.

3. Of which I am neither.

4. I’ll be writing about this in my final newsletter before the race.

5. I usually like wearing loud clothes, making me easier to spot for family and friends. Hence the sadness at the sunglasses not being available.