First Timer at Boston: Michael Ryan's Road from Ironman to Hopkinton

DFW Running Talk: Michael Ryan
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[00:00:00] Welcome to another DFW Running Talk. I'm Chris Deel, and today's special guest is Michael Ryan. He has two first names. How's it going? Good man. Doing well. I'm just messing with you. So we're in the Park Plaza in Boston. We're live and we're gonna talk about Michael's first Boston Marathon.

You excited? I am excited. Yeah. That's tomorrow, huh? It is tomorrow, yeah. Perfect weather. Yeah, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a beautiful day. Beautiful day. Chilly, but I think that's really the best time. Before we get into Boston though tell me a little bit about your journey. Have you run a marathon?

What does that look like? Yeah, so I started running. Like probably four-ish years ago. Was trying to get it back into shape. And then I heard someone talk about half Ironman's, so I hopped into a half Ironman and signed up for that and got in shape, went to Panama and did that, swam down the Panama Canal, was awesome.

Nice. Did you lose a lot of weight training for that? Yeah. I lost probably like 20 pounds, 20, 25 pounds and then I kept with it, signed up for a full in [00:01:00] Arizona and that was my first marathon. Yeah, you're an Ironman. Might as well just do all of it. Of us. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. I actually didn't know what to do, so I in May before I leaned in, I actually did my own marathon.

I actually did 31 miles because I wanted to do the 50 K. So I did three loops around White Rock just to try it out. And how'd that go? It went well. Yeah. It was fun. Yeah, it was exhausting. Yeah. 50 Ks were exhausting. All right, you decided, okay, I wanna start running marathons. What was that like? And when was your kind of officially first marathon?

Yeah, so my, right now, yeah. So my first marathon was actually three weeks after the Ironman. Yeah. So I did the Ironman in November and then we went out to Kiawa, South Carolina. I did my first marathon. Which was brutal, actually. Went all right, but okay. It was tough. Cramped at mile 25, and then a lady gave me her finisher beer, so I drank it and walked at 25.

At mile 25. Yeah. Walked, ran it in with a finisher, chugged the finisher beer, and then walked, ran it in. Oh, that's fine. How, what'd you run? What was your time? Do you remember? 3 24 on a dot. [00:02:00] Dang. That's pretty good for somebody that just walked the last mile or whatever it was, so all right, so let's talk a little bit about the marathon that got you into Boston. What was that like? And were you really shooting for that? Yeah, so I, it was Houston, so I did 2 48 in Houston. Nice. Is that your best? No, my best is nd I did 2 46. Okay. And so I kinda wanted to get it more serious, so I did Irving.

Then it went so badly that I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. I need to get someone to tell me what to do because I don't, I have no idea how to approach this. Yeah. So I got, I, me and Fawn started working together. So then we trained Pegasus. Yeah. So he helped me get geared up. I didn't think I, the goal originally was 2 59.

Others talked me into going for two 50. So well, yeah, I wasn't expecting to go for two 50. That sounds pretty awesome. Were you happy about that or? I was happy, I was very happy. I wasn't expecting two 50 to be honest. Sub two 50. So I was like, oh. I remember looking down at my watch and oh man, we're going to, that's faster than I thought it was gonna be.

[00:03:00] Yeah, because I remember one of the training runs, it was like, I did 10 miles at race pace, and I was like, I'm, there's no way I'm doing it. Sub two 50. Then it felt good on race day. Fawn said, dude, relax. Yes, he'll be fine. Were you looking at running Boston Marathon then, or what was your thinking?

Oh man. The plan was just to get, if I could get. Two 50 and then throw something in there. But yeah, I think at that point, yeah, I mean I was like, oh wow, I could actually get into Boston. I think it'd be fun to do. It's been obviously like, that's like a very it's like a marquee thing and it's a well known thing.

So I was like, cool. I think it's like the Super Bowl of of marathoning. Yeah. It's, people keep telling me, man, I Do you disagree or I have no idea. I don't know. I'm excited for tomorrow. But the thing is, I have no idea what I'm excited for. 'cause I haven't done it before. I think it's more like.

I think it's more of, and look, I haven't ran Boston. My wife's run like 13 times in a row. Yeah, that's why I keep coming out here. But but I think of it as, hey, the best of the best are running is 'cause you have to qualify at a certain time. You gotta be fast in your age group and things like [00:04:00] that. So for you to accomplish what you have is a big deal, number one.

And so that's how I see it. Yeah. It's the Super Bowl. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think in that aspect, definitely I think the fans, I have no idea what to expect. Oh yeah. Dude, it's crazy. I've heard, I'm like excited, but again, like I said, I have no idea what to be excited for 'cause it's like I haven't experienced it.

I'm super excited for it. What have you done this weekend to, have you get to go look at the popups? What, what are all the things that you did and maybe something that might stand out. Yeah, so we got in on Friday and went to the expo, hung out. My wife and our son is here and we're just running around the city seeing stuff.

Went to Boston Commons, did a carousel ride. Lots of drinking water, lots of good food, lots of Italian food. Go to Hanover Street tonight. Okay. That'd be cool. Did you buy anything specifically, like any swag of some stupid Yeah, I bought, I bought the Boston jacket. Okay. You gotta do, of course you have to do that.

It's your first, how are you thinking about the marathon tomorrow? What is your thinking around how you're gonna run it? Are you running with somebody? What's the. [00:05:00] It's gonna try fun. I don't really know it, I don't really know my marathon pace to be honest with you.

Okay. Gonna figure that out. Mile 10, I think. Oh. To be determined. Yeah. I'll go out at a certain pace, like maybe six 30 ish and then see if how it feels at mile 10. And then if it's, I like that. I know. Go. We have, we're gonna have fun with it tomorrow. Yeah. I like that. This way, the expectations aren't high for yourself and it's your first ones, it sounds like you're gonna try to enjoy it.

Yeah. Any thoughts around your journey around how you got there or, I don't know, like what it took to get there? To me it was, I'll give an example. Like it's all about, you've gotta train hard, you've gotta do the right things. I don't know, like anything that kind of stands out from a training standpoint or that you might yeah.

I think like the consistent, I think you hear everyone say that as a consistency. Yeah. Just putting the miles each week going from Ironman training to this, it was helpful to have the base of biking and swimming. And just like once you have like the bug, the interest to go do it, I think it's like you gotta capitalize on it and just keep it going.

Do you do any strength training now or do you just focus on running mostly? What's that look like? I do a little bit of strength [00:06:00] training. Okay. I'll do some like leg squats, like just some squats and stuff. Not as much as I like time has been limited. Yeah. Especially with a new You have a new baby and all that.

Yeah, we run a lot, man. And you run a lot. Yeah. Busy but, and been traveling, so it's like. Doing that in a mixture of traveling, it makes, it adds an extra level of complications. So you travel for work or? Yeah. Yeah. I was in Nashville this week travel's the worst. It's hard one to get in the miles when you're at some, somewhere new, and then if you have to be somewhere at some certain time.

Yeah. Then being on a plane, all these things, so I was just doing some traveling myself and I thought. This really wrecks up my training a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a, I've got. Last two. I've got a track record of traveling during tapers. It's just during taper, it's not during your hardcore training Fair cycle.

Fair. So that's helpful. How has your training been going for this? It's all right. Just alright. It's alright. It's been good. I've been the miles in, which has been solid. And you're I do, you're battling sicknesses and left and right. [00:07:00] We've fought through it. Yeah. Anything that we missed that we should have talked about?

I think just having fun tomorrow, too excited to see all the fans out there. I do think that, in my mind it's about having fun and doing the best you can and I like how you kinda have this no pressure and, mile 10, if you're ready to go, you're kill it. At least wanna get So that was the kind of the goal of the training.

I found that marathons are more fun when you're fit. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, for sure. I at least want to give myself an opportunity to be able to go do something. If I get to the point at my top of Heartbreak Hill. Yeah. Fucking, okay, cool. I'm ready to go. Cut it down. Or if not, maybe grab a beer from the fan.

Grab a beer from a fan and there'd be a Scream. Scream tunnel. Have you heard about that? I have, yeah. Yeah. I'm excited supposedly. That's really cool. Do you have to tell me more about that one when you hear it. Yeah. So well, Michael, it's been really great. I really appreciate you coming on. I know this is really a quick hit, but, thank everyone for tuning to another DFW Running Talk. Go to DFW running talk.substack.com. Go to our newsletter. Michael, thanks again. Yeah, thank you.