Track and Field Blogs - Patrick Rizzo

I have to start out by thanking everybody for the immense amount of support I have gotten leading into and since the Boston Marathon. I have been very fortunate to have a great support base coming from my family, my college teammates, my high school teammates, and even some old teachers (their memories must not be strong enough to remember me well). People say it a lot, but I mean it: I would not be where I am without the support of everybody. When I come home and it is 100 degrees and I have a workout, there is always somebody there to come grit it out with me (likewise when it is -20). Through any rough patch, physically and emotionally, I have always had people who were living vicariously through my performances that I knew wanted with all of their hearts for me to persist and succeed. I am also glad that I have listened to them.

That said, I finally feel like I have started to show some hints of justice to the amount of time and effort I have given to this sport. In February of 2008, I thought I was ready to run a 2:16 high marathon. I had a good training segment leading into the Boston segment and I had no problems hitting workouts at the start of Boston training either. Needless to say, that changed in a split second. It took a week before I could run again after getting hit by a car and even then I use the term “run” loosely. Obviously, my personal worst (or personal best if you look at it as longest I've ever spent on a race course) at Boston did not do any justice to the fact that I had been training from junior high school until February 18, 2008 without a single injury inhibiting me from moving forward. I may be incredibly inflexible but I have never had any injuries that stopped me from running. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise as I came to appreciate even the painful runs for the simple joy of not being a quadriplegic after an accident that easily could have rendered me such. Regardless, it was a painful, frustrating journey back to where I am now.

This year's Boston training segment was MUCH better than that though. We started out in Florida again to get a sense of pace versus effort as the Michigan winter more often forces us to gauge pace off of effort than what the watch says. Mission accomplished and we were off to a good start. The Boston segment always starts out with downhill workouts to pound the legs into being (more) comfortable in spite of all of the downhill in the first 16 miles of the race. It really is more like trying to train yourself to be able to land safely jumping off of the Sears Tower. It might help, but reality is reality and the landings wear on you regardless. I DO think it helps delay the onset though.

As a whole, we were more aggressive this segment with the times we all wanted to run. There were a few of us on a mission to prove ourselves and to do some justice to what we feel has been a great last entire year really. I remember asking Kevin after the second week of workouts if it was okay for me to adjust my pace a couple of seconds per mile because everything felt easy. He (rightfully in hindsight) told me no and that I SHOULD be easy on the intervals because that will be my pace for 26.2 miles. I also asked if my afternoon runs could start getting longer so I can have 9-10 aerobic runs a week instead of 5-7. That might have been what saved me from myself more than anything else this year. I think I was better able to recover; I was better prepared to cover the later stages of the marathon distance; I was in general more confident because I did not have a single bad workout all training segment.

When the race came around, Kevin asked us all what our biggest worries were going into it. My biggest worry was that nothing had gone wrong...NOTHING! That was honestly my biggest worry with 24 hours to go. In the race, everything played out well for me. I took a risk going into a pack that was all expecting to run 2-3 minutes faster than I was. But the main thing was that I did so confidently and comfortably. It isn't every day that you take that risk in a marathon...even more rare that it works out favorably. Boston may have been far from perfect conditions, but I still managed to whittle a little more off of my PR and gained valuable experience and confidence going into whatever may come next.

Thanks again to everyone who called, emailed, texted, and otherwise contacted me congratulating me. I know I have not gotten back to everyone yet. Really though, it means a lot to me knowing how many people I am representing every time I set foot on the course. It means a lot just to know that that many people care.