Boston Marathon 2010 Henwoods Hounds.
I ran my first marathon at 42 yrs old and my second at 44 – both NYC. I qualified for Boston but I knew that if I wanted to achieve my goal of a sub-3 hr marathon I needed an expert to take me to the next level. I chose John because he is a former Olympian and I believed he’d develop a better training plan for me than I would do myself because he’d know how to effectively mix distance, speed-work, etc. in a way that would improve my results. That’s initially why I signed up. But the added-value John provided was in things you don’t think about – how to recover faster and re-calibrate training plans when little injuries occur (e.g., hamstrings and an illness), how to work around business commitments that resulted in missed days, how to identify my weaknesses and focus on improving them, how to use weights in the right way for a marathoner to strengthen and get faster, and importantly, how to actually pace my runs and then get a game plan for the race that would allow me to achieve my desired results. I worked hard and had to overcome a lot of adversity but with John I also worked smart and as a result I shaved nearly 12 minutes off my best marathon and blew past my goal by running a 2:57:46 at Boston.