Track and Field Blogs - Luke Humphrey

The decision to pass on a marathon this fall was a little difficult. Last fall, I was probably in the best shape of my life, but was probably just a little overtrained going into the actual race. At one point I ran a 10 mile tempo in 49:30, then came back and did the 26.2k simulation run and came through the 25k split in 1:18 (thinking to myself, how comfortable I felt). But I left the race out on the dirt roads north of Rochester. I was 11th at NYC, but never even put myself in a position to finish in the top 10. My fault, and I learned from it.

This spring, I ran Boston and the whole segment was just kinda "blah." Nothing went bad, but nothing stood out to say, "This is gonna be the one." During the race, we hit the halfway point and I was a minute slow. Things just kinda shut down after that and my usual fight was gone. I just wanted to get it over with.

At that point, after Boston I had some serious thinking to do. Do you try to continue to force the issue, which I know, is never the answer. Or, do you go back to some things that have been neglected over the last couple years.

After some thinking, I knew that the best way to continue development was to break away from becoming stagnent with the mrathon training and work on getting some of my "footspeed back." I told Kevin that between now and next spring that I wanted to PR in everything from the mile to 10k, which whouldn't be too bad. The hardest will be the mile (I've run 4:08 a couple times.) This fall, the primary goal is to make the World Half Marathon Team in England. When I was 19 I made a junior team and in 2007 I was the next in line for the IAAF World Marathon Team in Osaka (Thanks Simon for taking that spot with no intentions of making it to the starting line!) It's been a goal to wear the Red, White, and Blue and this team would be the perfect opportunity.

So, Kevn and Keith have been very receptive to some training ideas that I have had had and for the first time in some time, I feel like I am not stagnent with training. So, I don't know when I will run another marahton. I guess I don't have to, either. My 2:18:40 from Boston is good enough to qualify for the Trials in the next couple years. I think the next few months will be fun, and in the long run, it's only going to help my marathon- I am still a marathoner by trade.

-Pants