Welcome:

The Bucks County Speedsters is a group of runners

that meets
twice a week to work on our speed,

strength, stamina, and
overall performance. Our goal

is to improve runners of all
levels. We encourage

anyone interested in running to come
out to one of

our workouts and see for yourself that in our


community everyone is welcomed and with our

guidance and
your hard work, together we will aspire

to make you
faster. We hope that you will lace up

your running
sneakers and meet up with us someday

soon.



"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams"


-Henry David Thoreau

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Assiduous Allyson

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill 
Allyson, Lisa, Ella, and Cookie Monster at the Sesame Classic


          As someone who prides himself on helping runners, I have to say that I haven’t been prouder of a runner than I was of Allyson when she broke the three-hour barrier.  I know someone reading this will find that last line bias because this particular runner is my wife, but let me assure you that there is more to this than my love and affection for this amazing runner.  As you will be able to see from the chart below, Allyson has come a long way in her thirteen-year marathon journey.  The reason I’m sharing this is not only to boast about Allyson’s accomplishment (it’s always good to stock up on brownie points…), but to continue my theme of inspiring the runners that I have the privilege of working with year in and year out.  This inspiring theme can continue by going through Allyson’s marathon results from the last thirteen years. 



         Before we begin, I want to start by saying I cannot count how many times runners have told me: “I can’t run that fast” or “I can’t run a marathon.”  This drives me bonkers!  The only thing worst than those lines is when a runner retracts and they lose all their training that they worked hard to build up, all because they got lazy and took a long period of running off (this excludes injured runners).   My father used to tell me I couldn’t do anything right, he told me I was a loser countless times, he told me I wouldn’t do anything with my life, and as I got older I truly got wiser, and blocked all the negative comments and verbal abuse that he attempted to deliver me.  This eventually led me to lose contact with my father and my mother too.  I have removed all the negative garbage in my life and have replaced it with puppies and rainbows, well maybe not everything is on the level of rainbows and puppies, but you know what I’m insinuating. If not, here’s a hint, the noun I’m describing is P-O-S-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y.  My point is my life has no place for negativity and your lives shouldn’t either.

          Speaking of things that are positive, Allyson as you can see from the chart once ran marathon times in and around the 4 hour mark.  She didn’t improve overnight; she didn’t just wake up and magically become a sub three-hour marathoner.  Allyson, like any runner, had her shares of trials and tribulations with the beast that is the Marathon.  She learned that if she wanted to run the times that she wanted to run, she would have to put in the proper training.  She learned that incorporating structured interval workouts were an important aspect to marathon training.  She found out the hard way that she really needed to get those long training runs in, to simulate the feel of the many hours of pounding her legs would endure come race day.  Allyson learned to treasure those rest and easy days.  Lastly, she learned what she could eat and drink while on the course.


           I really hope this blog post offers you some resemblance of encouragement.  I want you all to learn from Allyson’s experiences and gain the knowledge that you will need to succeed not only at the marathon distance, but also at any distance.  If you’re only capable of taking one thing from this post, please allow it to be this: Don’t ever let anyone, even yourself put you down and tell you that you’re not capable.  If you put in the hard work it will pay off in the long run (pun intended).


 Till we run into each other again…

CT

AT's Marathons:  2002 - 2014
Date
Marathon
Finishing Time
Pace Per Mile
November 2002*
Philadelphia
3.56
9.01
April 2003
New Jersey
3.49
8.45
November 2003
Philadelphia
4.34
10.28
March 2004
Ocean Drive
4.30
10.19
November 2004
Philadelphia
4.21
9.55
April 2005
New Jersey
4.32
10.24
June 2005
San Diego
4.32
10.23
November 2005
Philadelphia
3.54
8.56
November 2006
Philadelphia
3.29
8.00
April 2007
Boston
4.16
9.46
October 2009
Hartford
3.19
7.35
October 2011
Chicago
3.05
7.04
November 2013
Northern Central Trail
3.05
7.04
November 2014
Philadelphia
2.57
6.46
*First joined BC Roadrunners, first Winter Series
Did not train for…..Weekly long run did not top 10miles

Hurt…Stress fracture
Started to really train again, after a few years of not
Started doing higher mileage and speed/hill workouts with BC Speedsters


 


3 comments:

  1. Chris, Allyson and Speedsters:
    What an amazing tribute!! Stories of a person's dedicated progress inspire me and keep me going! This is a blog which invites comments and responses, so why don't we share some more stories of our long and winding roads to fitness to especially inspire our newer runners. Charts, paragraphs, whatever! I'll lead off and go with half marathons to change it up......

    1985 - 1998 Sedentary and way heavy and out of shape!
    Oct 2006 Jersey Shore 1:49:20 8:20 pace
    Sept 2007 Jersey City 1:43:39 7:55
    Fall 2009 Can't recall where 1:36 7:23
    Sept 2010 Lehigh Valley Via 1:33:36 7:09
    Nov 2011 Philadelphia 1:28:25 6:44
    Jan 2013 Hoover Dam (hilly!!) 1:37:24 7:26
    Nov 2013 Delaware Canal 1:28:32 6:45
    Nov 2014 Philadelphia 1:28:11 6:43

    That slight 14 second PR this past Sunday might not seem like much but at 51, you'll take what you can get! Plus, I missed 7 weeks in Aug-Sept with a torn muscle and 2 more weeks in Oct with a nasty flu. So with all that time missed, I had no business getting a new PR and I have no doubt a major contributor was all of the summer hill workouts with all of us urging each other on, so thanks everyone!!!
    Tom O'Leary

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  2. As Allyson's mother I was so excited that she reached her personal goal on Sunday. I watched many a swim meet during her high school and college years and have gone to quite a few of her half an ironmen race and one full ironman. My stomach still churns everytime I know she has trained and is racing in a big meet. On Sunday, I had text messages sent to my phone at her various mile markers and tried to watch the race on the internet (which I couldn't figure out). When both her sister and I received the text at almost the same time and realized she went under three hours we yelled and were so excited for her. I always told both Allyson and her sister during their swimming years that a winner is not always the person who wins the race but the person who has fallen down and has the strength to get up and try again. So congratulations to my daughter a winner in every way. We love you and are proud of you everyday.

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  3. Very inspirational....so proud of Allyson!!

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