I’m sure that post-race bloodwork would have shown off-the-charts creatinine and cortisol, which are indicative of muscular breakdown and an extreme stress response.

That type of stress causes breakdown at the cellular and systemic levels. Looking at your data, you ran at a higher percentage of lactate threshold than you ever had, for longer than you ever had, at a faster pace than you ever had, all in scorching heat. Your recovery was a bit quicker than expected. A marathon is always physiologically hard, but having a breakthrough marathon effort - which Boston was for you - is almost incomprehensibly stressful on the body. Mentally, several weeks passed before I fully embraced Bighorn training. Physically, my legs felt fatigued for at least a week afterwards.

Q | Boston was a peak race for me, and I ran it hard. Yesterday he represented the USA at the World Trail Championships in Italy! * David is deeply engaged with and wildly supportive of his runners, but he’s also a badass in his own right. volume, volume, volume - produced better results. To read the two other interviews with David, go here and here.īy this time next week, we’ll know if the increased focus on speed - in addition to my historic focus on strength, i.e. To better explain the underlying philosophy of my Bighorn training, with the context of a recent spring marathon, I interviewed again my coach, David Roche*. In comparison, Boston is 26.2 road miles, climbs a mere 650 vertical feet, and finishes at sea level. Most notably, Bighorn has 100 miles of singletrack and jeep roads, features 20,000 vertical feet of climbing, and reaches a high point of 9,000 feet above sea level. But the races are different animals in nearly all other respects.

Like the Boston Marathon, Bighorn is an endurance running event. On Friday I toe the line for my second race of the year, the Bighorn 100 in Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains. Finding my climbing legs near Glencoe, Scotland, on an early-morning “run” of Sgor Nam Fiannaidh

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