As summer fades into fall, many hundreds of Maine runners are preparing to cap 2009 with a marathon, and among them is one of Maine's best-evers.
Louie Luchini, out of Ellsworth High (1999), Stanford and the Oregon Track Club, is back in Maine and is training for his debut 26.2-miler. He's assisting Ellsworth High Coach Andy Beardsley and also training with him; Beardsley, 45, is an accomplished marathoner who is one of Maine's excellent masters runners, and will run Chicago on Oct. 11.
Speaking over the phone from Ellsworth after a 13-mile morning run on trails around Leonard Lake, Luchini said the Maine Marathon on Oct. 4 is too soon in his training for consideration, although he might run the Maine Half Marathon that day, and also the Bar Harbor Half next Saturday. Luchini said he has several 20-22 milers in the bank and is looking to a "lower-key," late-fall/early-winter event, possibly the California International on Dec. 6.
"I've run a lot in Sacramento and liked it, so that's one possibility," Luchini said. He's avoiding big-name events, he explained, in part because he "tends to go out too fast" and doesn't want to go roaring out with the iron, then fade in the late going at the unaccustomed distance. His longest race to date has been the Hancock 10-miler in 2002.
Recently, he said, he's been "building my legs up, trying to get injury-free." That's following Achilles surgery a few years ago. A spring calf strain kept him out of the U.S. track and field championships, and that was on top of a hamstring problem last winter. He also had allergy woes in Oregon.
Back in Maine, he rolled an ankle a few weeks ago, and more recently gardened into a bees nest and got stung a bunch of times, and one leg swelled to double its size.
So Luchini is due for a run of good luck, and working with Beardsley, his former coach, improves his chances of a successful marathon. Beardsley has an unofficial marathon PR of 2:35 (many years ago he arrived at the Casco Bay event too late to register, ran anyway, but he doesn't count it) and an official PR of 2:38, which he's repeated in recent years at both speedy, downhill Sugarloaf, and at famously hilly Mt. Desert Island.
"Marathons are strange beasts," Beardsley mused on Friday, a few minutes after teaching an English class at Ellsworth High. He has a few marathon tales to share with Luchini, such as going out too fast at Boston and crashing at Mile 21, or running Boston one brutally hot year despite being sick with fever the week before. Dehydrated, he was hit with muscle spasms in the legs and covered the last 5K in about half an hour. He had a 3:02:26, plus a calf that stayed black for a month, to show for it.
As much as training-specific advice, Beardsley's perspective is surely valuable. He knows that, with the marathon, "it's always the unknown."
"With a 5K or a 10K you can usually predict someone's time. With the marathon, it's often 'Why didn't you run this or that?' And there are like, 10 potential reasons."
Luchini, one summer while still at Stanford, ran Beach to Beacon in 30:05, and he wasn't even racing. So everything points to his joining Maine's highly exclusive sub-2:20 club in the next few months.
Beardsley, doesn't doubt that, but he's also taking the long view. "Don't be in any big hurry," he says. Which is excellent advice for marathoners of any speed.
THE WAITING LIST for next Saturday's Bar Harbor Half Marathon has been full at 50 for a few weeks, and the 400-entry cap was reached before that, of course, but it may still be possible to enter if you show up at the MDI YMCA very early on race morning, said race director Lisa Tweedie.
There are always no-shows (the race had 389 finishers last year), and some people who are entered but can't make the event are kindly giving Tweedie advance notice, so spots open up. If you're signed up but can't make it, please...
READ ON...
Louie Luchini, out of Ellsworth High (1999), Stanford and the Oregon Track Club, is back in Maine and is training for his debut 26.2-miler. He's assisting Ellsworth High Coach Andy Beardsley and also training with him; Beardsley, 45, is an accomplished marathoner who is one of Maine's excellent masters runners, and will run Chicago on Oct. 11.
Speaking over the phone from Ellsworth after a 13-mile morning run on trails around Leonard Lake, Luchini said the Maine Marathon on Oct. 4 is too soon in his training for consideration, although he might run the Maine Half Marathon that day, and also the Bar Harbor Half next Saturday. Luchini said he has several 20-22 milers in the bank and is looking to a "lower-key," late-fall/early-winter event, possibly the California International on Dec. 6.
"I've run a lot in Sacramento and liked it, so that's one possibility," Luchini said. He's avoiding big-name events, he explained, in part because he "tends to go out too fast" and doesn't want to go roaring out with the iron, then fade in the late going at the unaccustomed distance. His longest race to date has been the Hancock 10-miler in 2002.
Recently, he said, he's been "building my legs up, trying to get injury-free." That's following Achilles surgery a few years ago. A spring calf strain kept him out of the U.S. track and field championships, and that was on top of a hamstring problem last winter. He also had allergy woes in Oregon.
Back in Maine, he rolled an ankle a few weeks ago, and more recently gardened into a bees nest and got stung a bunch of times, and one leg swelled to double its size.
So Luchini is due for a run of good luck, and working with Beardsley, his former coach, improves his chances of a successful marathon. Beardsley has an unofficial marathon PR of 2:35 (many years ago he arrived at the Casco Bay event too late to register, ran anyway, but he doesn't count it) and an official PR of 2:38, which he's repeated in recent years at both speedy, downhill Sugarloaf, and at famously hilly Mt. Desert Island.
"Marathons are strange beasts," Beardsley mused on Friday, a few minutes after teaching an English class at Ellsworth High. He has a few marathon tales to share with Luchini, such as going out too fast at Boston and crashing at Mile 21, or running Boston one brutally hot year despite being sick with fever the week before. Dehydrated, he was hit with muscle spasms in the legs and covered the last 5K in about half an hour. He had a 3:02:26, plus a calf that stayed black for a month, to show for it.
As much as training-specific advice, Beardsley's perspective is surely valuable. He knows that, with the marathon, "it's always the unknown."
"With a 5K or a 10K you can usually predict someone's time. With the marathon, it's often 'Why didn't you run this or that?' And there are like, 10 potential reasons."
Luchini, one summer while still at Stanford, ran Beach to Beacon in 30:05, and he wasn't even racing. So everything points to his joining Maine's highly exclusive sub-2:20 club in the next few months.
Beardsley, doesn't doubt that, but he's also taking the long view. "Don't be in any big hurry," he says. Which is excellent advice for marathoners of any speed.
THE WAITING LIST for next Saturday's Bar Harbor Half Marathon has been full at 50 for a few weeks, and the 400-entry cap was reached before that, of course, but it may still be possible to enter if you show up at the MDI YMCA very early on race morning, said race director Lisa Tweedie.
There are always no-shows (the race had 389 finishers last year), and some people who are entered but can't make the event are kindly giving Tweedie advance notice, so spots open up. If you're signed up but can't make it, please...
READ ON...
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