By Rick Pacheco
For many of us these days, the realization that our health might be in trouble for lack of fitness can come dangerously late. Content for years to be sedentary, practically averse to motion, often we reach a point where some sobering episode, or the gradual accumulation of them, frightens us into making the necessary changes. Almost everyone can relate to this, whether from personal experience or because someone close to us has gone through it. Maybe you, a family member or a friend start getting winded on extended walks, or lately feel chest pains from normal exertion, like shoveling snow or even just mowing the lawn.
Whatever happens to bring us around, we do well to heed these internal warnings, get ourselves to the doctor, and follow his or her advice about becoming fit again. The good news is that with a concerted, careful effort and an intelligent, incremental exercise plan, the transition from couch potato to budding athlete can be smooth. The key is patience and consistency, especially when it comes to running or related aerobic activity.
My own history with sports and conditioning is probably typical for someone who grew up in neighborhoods full of aspiring jocks. As kids we spent endless hours playing outside, feverishly refining unremarkable skills. Several of us were certain, at least until our early teens, that we were each the next Yaz, Bobby Orr or Hondo Havlicek. In retrospect, it seems amazing how busy with play we were back then when compared to the majority of children these days, content as many are now to be so passive.
By the time we got to high school, observant coaches and other objective adults more or less knew who had the right stuff and who didn’t. When it became apparent that my tennis game was good enough to get me on the team but not to be a standout, it was over, and the same applied to track. Once my younger brother started beating me, that was all she wrote, so I quit cross country, and instead found a part time job to earn spending money.
From that point on, the behavioral paradigm of minimal physical activity and an accumulation of assorted unhealthy habits held sway through college and for several years afterward. It wasn’t until about age 35 that I came to my senses, prompted mainly by vague, unsettling signals from within, and determined to get back in shape. Having at least gotten a taste of competitive running as a teen, it seemed like the best, least expensive option. Starting alone, I went at it slowly in the beginning, and eventually fell in with the right bunch of jog buddies, who let me tag along despite an initial inability to keep up.
Perseverance paid off, and soon they’d convinced me to give racing a try. Apprehensive about whether it would hold my interest, by the middle of my first season I was driving from one end of the state to the other every weekend, staying overnight with a cousin back east, where there were always plenty of races.
Since the fitness boom of the 1970s, when Vermonter Jim Fixx’s Complete Book of Running came out and inspired millions to lace up the sneakers and hit the road, the number of organized foot races has increased dramatically. For those looking to get started, local opportunities now abound, particularly here in New England, where the sport is so thoroughly steeped in tradition. These varied events offer not only opportunities to connect with others who can become valuable training partners, but also the means to decide for yourself what distance suits you best. While a few outstanding athletes are able to excel whether they’re entered in a 5K or a 10 miler, the fact is, most of us eventually make a choice between going long or short. If you’re like me, you come to the realization sooner rather than later that you’re more plodder than sprinter, so instead of fighting it, you accept and make the best of it. It only takes a few 5Ks to get a sense of how quickly you can move, and if the requisite bursts of speed don’t come naturally, then you’re better off directing your energy elsewhere.
To settle on the marathon as your event is not something that comes easily for a runner, even if you grew up in eastern Massachusetts, where tales and images of Boston Marathons past are ubiquitous. Before you do your first 26.2 miles on the clock, you’ve heard the legendary names dozens of times—Clarence DeMar, Johnny Kelley, Tarzan Brown, Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit, Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley and Uta Pippig, among others. It can seem at times as though you imagine these past champions collectively daring you to qualify and test yourself on the punishing, uneven course from Hopkinton through eight towns to Boston.
Naturally one doesn’t just decide to do something so overwhelming without preparation. I accumulated a solid base of extended mileage and did several longer races ahead of my first marathon at Keene in 2001. Even so, nothing quite prepares you for the feeling of total exhaustion that usually sets in well before you reach the end. In New Hampshire, thoroughly drained but ecstatic to have made the cut for Boston on my initial attempt, it was all I could do to limp to the showers, then back to the car for the ride home. Even the very strongest go through the same thing after such a grueling effort. Last year, seven-time Tour de France cycling champion Lance Armstrong, finishing the NYC marathon, his first, in just under three hours, was heard to say as the cameras rolled that never, ever had he felt so completely wiped out. Not an unusual sentiment, and for this reason, the very best professionals almost all limit themselves to two or at most three marathons in a year.
For an amateur, finding time to train around a job and other responsibilities, does it really make sense to do such long races? If it takes so much out of you, is it even healthy? These questions are asked frequently, even among the experts. After finishing nine marathons since 2001, with plenty of room left for improvement, my sense is that they make you stronger. Preparing for them is a lengthy process that takes months, not weeks; you find yourself trying to stay in the very best shape all the time, year round. You pick and choose your shorter races with more care than when you were a beginner, going all over the state to jump into events every weekend just for the fun of it. You ease off on the quest for speed and focus on the real priority—managing an elevated heart rate for hours rather than minutes. If you used to go to the neighborhood high school track often with the buddies, eager to cultivate your explosive side, now you become subdued, you concentrate more on developing a smooth rhythm, and you settle down a bit. You see the big-time sprinters at meets on TV, full of intensity, huge leg muscles bulging with power, and you remind yourself that your heroes now are smaller, quieter people, distance experts, men and women who know what it means to be able to maintain a steady pace past two hours.
While faithfully putting in the regular roadwork might be enough to get you some degree of running success, a high-quality diet is also an essential component of the total picture. It might seem okay to eat what you like—after all, aren’t you burning calories like a furnace? Maybe, but it comes down to thinking in terms of quality fuel for your racing engine if you’re bent on peak performance. There are many books out there detailing the proper approach for balancing your caloric intake with a need for speed. Eat too much and you’ll surely be sluggish; don’t eat enough and you might wither late in the longer races for want of energy.
Add to this conundrum the recent substantial, credible scientific research indicating that a radically reduced-calorie diet can lead to a greatly extended life span (see sidebar) and you have the makings of a confusing array of information that can be hard to sort out. My own admittedly limited experience has demonstrated that if you want to be the strongest runner you can be, then trying to get by on a program of substantial calorie restriction just won’t work. Cutting back will surely make you feel better, and eliminating junk food entirely is also certainly advisable. But in the end, if you’re eager to finish ahead of the others, it means taking in plenty, especially fresh fruits, vegetables and complex carbohydrates.
Last week, we spoke with Amherst’s 53-year-old marathoner extraordinaire, physicist Rob Higley, a certified trail-running maven and mentor to plenty of younger area runners who’d like to be nearly as strong as he is. A soft-spoken, rock-solid distance man still finishing marathons in the high 2:40s, Rob placed in the top five for his age group at Boston in each of the last three years and was first in 2004—a phenomenal achievement given the depth of competition at one of the world’s premier races. A couple of years ago, he lost a kidney to cancer, but that hardly slowed him down and he still goes like the wind.
Eager to learn anything about what makes him so strong, I asked for some details about his training routine, and what his run plans were for the future. He told me that currently he’s only managing about 40 miles a week, low for anyone trying to get into marathon shape. He made the point that here in New England, getting outside for winter workouts can be a challenge, and that for this reason he usually advises those looking to do their first marathon to choose one in the fall, simply because it’s easier to get ready in spring and summer.
He confirmed that his intention was to be in Amherst this month for the start of yet another brutal Seven Sisters trail race, where he (of course) holds the age-group record. Having done this one last year myself for the first time, I can tell you nothing else is quite like it. Starting from the notch on Route 116, participants follow a single-wide trail full of treacherous rocks all the way to Summit House atop Mt. Holyoke, then turn around and come back—an exhausting 12+ miles. But trails are what Rob likes best, and he’s had plenty of success racing on them. He intimated that after Seven Sisters, he’d see how he’s feeling, and probably choose a marathon to do in the fall. With no intention of slowing down, chances are he’ll just keep getting better, at least for another few years.
On Sunday, April 1, Rob showed up with the rest of us at Westfield’s Oleksak Boys and Girls Club half-marathon, ready to run. In perfect conditions under a sunny sky, he smoked the course, as we say, finishing the 13.1 miles in 1 hour 22 minutes, a pace of 6 minutes 16 seconds per mile—good enough for seventh overall and, obviously, first place in his age group.
