Short version: I ran another marathon this Saturday, and I got another personal record! I officially ran it in 4 hours, 3 minutes, and 15 seconds (an 8 minute improvement from November's New York Marathon), which is a pace of 9:18. Between the NY marathon and this race, I have taken ~26 minutes off my previous personal best, set in March 2011 on a pancake flat course in perfect conditions.
Now for the (much) longer version.
Fall/Winter
I signed up for this race last fall in the months leading up to the New York Marathon. I had been running really well, and I thought I wouldn't have a chance to get a personal best in New York given all the crowds. My plan was to use this race to go for it.
Except I did get a personal best at New York, by 17 minutes! I exceeded my wildest expectations (a stretch goal of 4:15), and was content with that. Since I was already signed up for Rock N' Roll and with an Ironman in August, I kept with the plan to go through with it. However, given my focus was/is firmly on the Ironman, I didn't give much thought to this race as far as "goals" and "plan" went.
Leading up to New York, I followed the F.I.R.S.T marathon training program. It calls for three runs a week - a speed workout (short/fast intervals), a tempo (longer 3-10 mile runs at a faster than marathon pace), and a long run. This plan really gave me the mental strength I needed to push in NY. Given the cold/windy/crowded/hilly conditions of the New York Marathon, I thought there was a good chance that I could improve my time at this race. Since I had so much success with that plan, I decided to stick with it through the marathon, and then switch to the Team Z program for the Ironman. I was still pretty conservative with my pace of my longer runs leading into New York, so the only real change in my plan was to try to do each run at a faster (but manageable) effort.
Boy, if I knew what this winter had in store for us I may have rethought signing up for this race. It has been a soul sucking winter. I have trained for marathons 3 of the last 4 winters, each in relatively unfavorable conditions. This was by far the worst of them. (I am still annoyed that last winter, the only one I haven't chosen to train for a race, was the most mild winter we have had by far.) Unlike a few years past where we had a few monster snow storms that made running very difficult for a few weeks but left the rest of winter alone, this winter has been full of several storms, each dropping 4-8 inches & making the roads each weekend dangerous for biking, and trails/roads not much safer for running. Every time we think "this has to be the last one," another storm pops up on the radar. (I am writing this after telecommuting all day due to another storm.)
Since January, I have stepped up all of my training efforts. After three years, I finally made my return to Team Z swim practices and have been very good about actually going. I have also started doing indoor computrainer sessions (meant to be one weeknight a week), which provides the best bike workout you can do indoors. Unfortunately, except for 2 or 3 times this winter, I have been forced to do my weekend bike sessions indoors as well. I have found that 2 hours of hard effort on the computrainer can ruin my spirit, whereas 2-3 hours of outdoor bike rides can lift it up. All in all, I think this winter has provided more mental training than physical, and I have found my spirits really starting to diminish. Despite all of this, I have managed to get in all my training runs, only resorting once to the treadmill.
The last few weeks of training were particularly rough, and left me feeling a little shaky leading to the actual race itself. While I still thought I could improve on my NY time, I didn't really verbalize these thoughts. In fact, the day before the race I was just feeling downright weak/out of it, so I really just wanted to go out and enjoy the day, whatever the time ended up being. Until the night before the race, I didn't really develop a plan, other than to just go out and run.
Race Week - Friday
Since the race was on Saturday, I took Friday off of work to pick up my packet & do other life things. (I worked through MLK and President's day so I haven't had a weekday off since December). The expo was great! I managed to meet Dan from the Biggest Loser (repping their 5k/10k run/walk series). Even better, I worked up the courage to chat with him and managed to have a (pretty) non-awkward conversation!! This is huge for me since I typically can't bring myself to start a conversation with people I admire for fear of not having anything to say to them (i.e. my company's CEO, Bart Yasso, Chris Wren). He was running the half, and it was cool to learn how he has kept up the healthy/fit lifestyle.
While I fully intended to be productive with the rest of my day (i.e. get groceries), I spent the afternoon taking care of the more important things in life by seeing the new Veronica Mars movie with my brother. It was so good! They really did the fans justice. (I may or may not have purchased it on demand as well and watched it twice since then.)
After stopping by Wawa for some coffee, I got home just in time to finish my pie for Pi Day, the most important day of the year and perfectly timed to help take my mind off the big race. I had made a french silk pie before heading to the expo, and made sure to do a taste test to make sure it was okay for my friends.
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| French Silk Pie (Chocolate!) |
I tried to contain myself at the event (by only having 3-4 slices of pie and 3-4 scoops of ice cream), and relished the chance to hang out with my friends for a nice relaxing evening.
As is always the case it seems, I headed out early around 8:30 to try to catch some sleep. They all wished me luck as I headed off (and then I am sure proceeded to discuss how crazy I am while eating more delicious pie).
Race Day
On race day I woke up around 4:15 (ahead of my alarm), got dressed, and headed to the metro. I greeted my teammates, and killed time with several of them while we waited for the race to start. At the race expo, I had requested a corral change to move up to the same corral as the 4:00 pace group (a group w/ 2 leaders that are supposed to guide you to the time goal running an even pace).
Despite not feeling great the previous day, I decided my race strategy would be to go out with the 4:00 pace group and hold on as long as I could (with only about a 5% chance I actually held onto it the entire race, but then a 75% chance I could hold on for another personal best). No risk, no reward right? My training paces made me believe that I had a good shot of a PR and I figured that was the best way to get it. About five minutes beforehand, I went to find my pace group.
The real story is in the prep leading up to the race. The actual race itself was pretty good but not much to right home about. The first half of the course was insanely crowded as the half marathoners and the marathoners ran together. My pacer kept darting into the crowds, and I had to expend a lot of energy to keep up/dart in and out of traffic. Because I was focused on keeping up, I didn't really notice the race course/spectators. We crossed the half point at 1:59:55 (a 3 minute PR! from my standalone half 2 years ago). The crowds really dropped off after mile 13, both on and off the course. The pace group provided good company on an otherwise lonely/unscenic course. I held steady with the pace group until around mile 18 feeling relatively good, when I made my "mistake." I stopped to use the bathroom and fell about 45 seconds behind the pace group (no line!). Rather than taking my time to steadily reel them in, I expended a lot of energy to catch up to them. Of course after catching them, I had trouble keeping up and fell off the pace around mile 21 (still keeping them within eyesight through mile 24) . The two super low points were around mile 21 and mile 26 where I felt super close to throwing up, and due to lack of space at 21 (bridge w/ no railing) and crowds at 26, that would have been super embarrassing. Luckily both feelings only lasted about 30 seconds at a time. While the last 5 miles were rough, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other (and thanking the police officers, volunteers, and few spectators on that part of the course) and managed to complete all the miles in under 10 minutes. In the last mile, I passed one of our two pace group leaders (the one who had been darting all race). My guess is he wasted a lot of energy as well. I thanked him as I passed for leading me to a PR, then picked it up (as much as I could) for the home stretch. My joy returned as I crossed the finish line, another personal record under my belt.
I finished this race in much better shape than New York mentally/emotionally. With dehydration and the brutality of the winds, from mile 15 on was in the pain cave hardcore and lost my joy. I couldn't even summon the energy to thank the volunteers (something I always make sure to do), and was in tears trying (in vain) to get to my parents after the finish. It took me a good week to come out of my emotional funk from the end of that race. After this race, despite the physically side effects (ouch blisters! and quads!...stairs...and...shoes...are...so...difficult), I still managed to rally (with the help of french silk pie) for an evening out Saturday night (jazz!), and even managed to find energy to go to the grocery store yesterday. Success! As my present to you, I will spare you the pictures of blisters I didn't even know were possible.
Overall, I am pretty dang happy with how things went,. While this race hasn't been my main focus this winter, I put in the work for it and was rewarded. I really think a sub-4 hour marathon is definitely within reach, something I wouldn't have even dreamed about 2 years ago when I got my previous personal best of 4:29ish. After the Ironman, I will go for it. At some point. Hopefully not during winter.
Other thoughts from this winter training season/race:
- Because I hadn't been given myself any real recovery weeks and was running 3x a week including a long run, swimming 2x a week, lifting 2x a week, and doing 2-3 bike sessions a week, my pinky and ring fingers went numb on my left hand because my muscles were super tight (scary!). I booked myself an emergency massage & gave myself a recovery week. I am looking forward to resuming Team Z's schedule of 2 weeks build, one week recover.
- Nutrition is going to be a serious issue going forward as my training volume increases. I did a test with my nutritionist to figure out how many calories I actually need to maintain my current weight and it was 500 higher than we had thought. Between that and not wanting to be in a calorie deficit, I have to figure out how to add about 800 calories into my day (before even considering longer workouts on the weekend), without resorting to sweets. This is an entirely different mindset I have to get used to - I am finding it difficult to figure out how to balance everything from both a practical and a mental perspective. I actually have a lot more thoughts in this realm but I will save it for another post.
- I learned this winter that misery really loves company. The Team Z swim practices have been worth it mainly for seeing other people/knowing I am not alone. I typically end them happier than I start, regardless of how the workout goes (thanks Linda!). I have also found the computrainer sessions are much more bearable when other people are with me, even if we don't talk during the hard intervals. Finally, the Team Z red nose runs (mini informal races) have been great for the camaraderie and made me force myself out for a lot of runs I may not have had the willpower to do otherwise.
- I am really wondering if signing up for Mountains of Misery (104 mile mountainous bike ride at the end of May) was a good idea. I have not been able to get large volumes of biking in on the weekends, and I will really need mother nature to take it easy on us the next few months to make sure I can get into somewhat reasonable shape. Talk about pain cave!
- Typically in a race I do a mental thing where I say to myself "If I blow up now, I can still get XX time." This race was different. When I started to do that, I stopped and told myself that I had put in the work/had the knowledge that there was a greater chance I would NOT blow up than that I would. I really was just doing it out of habit, and didn't actually believe I was going to "blow up." I cannot understate how important that is.
- I have now raced 5 standalone marathons, with great races in 3 out of 5 of them. I like the tipping of the odds! Although the suffering in the other 2 taught me about my inner strength.
- I have continued to cook up a storm. My parents are now renovating their kitchen, so I am in charge of Sunday dinners for the family and am trying to provide them with meals for the week. Thank goodness for the taper/recovery low volume! Recent favorites include an aparagus, mushroom, and goat cheese fritatta, pho (vietnamese noodle soup), and shredded beef tacos.
- As far as races/crowd support and high-fives go, this race really paled in comparison to both New York and Marine Corps. I won't do the full again. Thank goodness for Team Z appearing along the course and cheering for me by name.
- It is impossible to not be happy listening to "Happy" by Pharrell. The highlight of the music on the course was a giant circle around a band singing it.
