I was supposed to do a recap of the B&A Trail Marathon from a few weeks ago and ... shocker ... I never got around to it. Now that I've also done the Rock & Roll Half, I guess I can go ahead and recap both.
According to my coach, maintaining a solid run base through the winter is key to having a solid marathon at an IM (see # 3). We got started too late for me to actually do 2-3 fulls but I signed up for 2 and was definitely going to do 1 of them with the potential for the second.
The original plan was to go out and complete this race at less than "E Pace" so I could turn around and complete another full 2 weeks later at RnR. According to Scott (and the testing that we've done), my "E Pace" for this race was 3:45:00 (8:34s). I thought he was nuts; turns out he's not so crazy. More on that Later. My goal for this race was simply to beat 3:54:45 which was my first marathon time. Most importantly, I wanted to put together a solid race and negative split the second half.
It was a very weird morning as the temperature was at the in gray zone between being too cold for just a shirt but too warm for sleeves. Either way it was going to be uncomfortable at some point. I settled on a short sleeve shirt with arm warmers and thin gloves. I choose ... poorly. The gloves proved to be too thin and my hands got so cold that my fingers curled into a fist and I could barely open my hands at aid stations to grab water cups. My shirt was no match for the head wind that I ran into for 13 miles either. Oh yeah, the elastic in the arm warmers chafed the crap out of my arm and I didn't get to wear my new Newton's. Enough whining.
Besides being cold, the race itself went really well. I set out on the first half and probably looked like a spaz as I looked down at my garmin every 15 seconds or so checking on my pace and heart rate. All was going well until mile 11 when I started to feel a little loopy. Not good considering I wasn't even half way home yet. I hadn't eaten enough the night before and a little light on nutrition so far that morning. In half of a knee jerk reaction I took in a gel, half a pack of shot blocks, and 2 cups of gatorade at the next aid station. This is a lot of calories at once and had the potential to backfire on me. Luckily its just I needed. I saw Scott as I passed through the half way point. He ran with me for a minute, made sure I was ok and gave new marching orders: Keep it steady till 18 or 20 and then pick up the pace.
Miles 13 to 21 were much of the same. The course was still boring and my head remained on a swivel between looking ahead and looking at my watch. I had picked up the pace by a few seconds per mile and at this point was hovering right around E Pace. With 5 to go I decided it was time to go so i picked up the pace. Turns out I had some juice left and put up a very solid 5 miles (around 7:30s) to finish up.
I wasn't sure exactly where I was with respect to the actual finish because around mile 4 my Garmin stopped lining up with the mile markers. To make things worse I completely missed the 26 mile mark and thought I had a little bit longer until I turned the last corner and saw the finish.
Final time: 3:45:47 and 9th in my Age Group and a PR! I don't care if it was a small race. That was my first top 10 and I'll gladly take it.
Extremely happy with the time and the fact that I set a plan and I stuck to it.
To cap off the day, I did what any self respecting marathoner would do and met with Val and Bret for bottomless mimosas.
Next up was the Rock and Roll Half which by far the more light-hearted and fun day of the two.
This was supposed to be the second full marathon which Scott and I ultimately decided not to do. This worked out great as my running buddy was also running the half so we got to run together.
The day didn't exactly start off as planned since I didn't make it to the race expo in time to pick up my bib and had to get to the race extra early on Saturday to make sure I could run. The Rock and Roll people actually have their ish together and getting my bib went very smoothly. Except for standing in line only to realize that Emily had my ID. With bib acquired it was time bag check and find our corral. Bag check was easy and I was greeted with a smile. Em knew the volunteers at my window so we stood there and chatted for a minute then decided we really needed to go.
Off to the starting corral where we run into some other people and even picked up another runner. Once again, this run was supposed to be nice and easy; keep the legs moving and not work too hard. The course started off down hill so the pace for the first few miles was really fast. "Money in the bank" for later so when we hit the small hills on the course we could slow down a little and not worry about overall time. The half mary course is very nice and winds through some cool neighborhoods in NW and NE. We just cruised on through and the three of us ran strong all the way. One minor issue again at mile 11 where I started to feel a little loopy. I need to figure out what this is and keep it from happening again - bigger breakfast, more calories earlier in the race ... I don't know, but i'll figure it out.
We finish the race and all is well. Final time: 1:48:16 for the 13.3 miles that my Garmin said I ran. This was technically a PR also and again, very happy with the race with respect to strategy and pacing. However, it gets tough sometimes to hold back when you are getting passed and you know you can go faster. Just gotta keep reminding myself that there is a bigger prize waiting for me.
Post race: you know it ... brunch and alcohol. This time it was mango margaritas at Banana Cafe. Absolutely great afternoon :).
Two preseason runs complete and happy with both. The next time I line up to race will be the Rumpus Olympic Tri on April 14th. Really excited to finally kick off the season.
"Put up with the discomfort and the pain, keep going and never give up, and understand that if you’re moving up, then you’re always getting closer."
Monday, March 19, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
2 Months in … 5 to go
Another month has come and gone. It’s amazing how fast all of this is going by. Part of the long time between posts is 1) I’m still weirded out by this blogging thing, but know I’ll be happy that I did it in the end and 2) let’s face it, by the end of each day I’m officially smoked and I just want to go to bed. But here it is; my recap for February.
This month was much of the same as January. We continued to focus base building and easy running. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. That doesn’t mean this month was any less interesting. I got yelled at for not taking an off day for 3 weeks, had an overall bad week, and my attempt at scheduling mandatory time to “hangout and relax” suddenly became negotiable.
After coming back from my annual 5 day trip to Snowshoe I felt pretty lazy from not doing a scheduled workout so I hit the ground running when I got back. All workouts were completed (save a yoga session here and there) and if it was on the schedule I did it. By the time I got to that third week I was feeling it. Kind of laboring through intervals, needing an extra hour of sleep, etc. That fact came up in conversation over some beer and my running buddy and Voice of Reason proceeded to give me the stink eye and yelled at me and told me I needed to rest. She might of even raised her hand like she was gonna slap me (details fuzzy, we drank a lot that night). Conveniently she left for vacation and our Monday run was scrapped so I decided to stay home and put my feet up. I can’t believe how much better I felt that Tuesday after not doing anything roughly 36 hours. Lessoned learned = there is a still a long way to go, no need to burn out this early.
I also had my first bad week. I didn’t do either yoga workout, didn’t do the optional run on Monday, and I went out and had a little too much fun Friday night and missed my Saturday morning spin session. Capped that off by trying to add the Saturday workout to my Sunday swim and run and ended up mailing it in after an hour. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. But my coach and VoR both told me to chill out and get back on track the next week which is exactly what I did.
Ummm, yeah …. So much for mandatory “play time.” I signed up for skeeball on Thursday nights with the best of intentions and I made it out for the first 4 weeks. But after that I scheduled my workouts a little differently and just didn’t feel like I had the time to go have a few beers. This doesn’t mean I haven’t gone out and enjoyed the occasional beer, it’s just that I’ve learned that I steal that time when I can and it definitely cannot be scheduled. The biggest difficulty here is that my “free to have a drink” time doesn’t line up with anyone else’s. While I’m going to bed early on Friday and Saturday for morning workouts, everyone I know is just getting ready to go out. By the time Sunday comes around and I can hangout because Monday is an off day, no one is in the mood to do anything.
Lastly, I got to do my first race as a member of Team FeXY. We had 3 relay teams and a few individuals head up to Greenbelt, MD for the GW Birthday Marathon. Knowing I had a marathon coming up I elected to run 2 of the 3 relay legs and this ridiculously hilly and boring course. But the best part was hanging out with everyone waiting to run and then having everyone still waiting in the relay exchange until everyone passed before heading over to the finish to cheer everyone on there. And of course, wings and beer afterwards.
So what next? My ATP says that the real fun is about to begin. Time to start the build phases where volume and intensity increases. Less time for socializing, more time for sleeping. I do get to race soon and because I’m so late with this post I’ve already run the B&A Trail Marathon (race report forthcoming).
March will be fun …. More fun. Really looking forward to it.
This month was much of the same as January. We continued to focus base building and easy running. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. That doesn’t mean this month was any less interesting. I got yelled at for not taking an off day for 3 weeks, had an overall bad week, and my attempt at scheduling mandatory time to “hangout and relax” suddenly became negotiable.
After coming back from my annual 5 day trip to Snowshoe I felt pretty lazy from not doing a scheduled workout so I hit the ground running when I got back. All workouts were completed (save a yoga session here and there) and if it was on the schedule I did it. By the time I got to that third week I was feeling it. Kind of laboring through intervals, needing an extra hour of sleep, etc. That fact came up in conversation over some beer and my running buddy and Voice of Reason proceeded to give me the stink eye and yelled at me and told me I needed to rest. She might of even raised her hand like she was gonna slap me (details fuzzy, we drank a lot that night). Conveniently she left for vacation and our Monday run was scrapped so I decided to stay home and put my feet up. I can’t believe how much better I felt that Tuesday after not doing anything roughly 36 hours. Lessoned learned = there is a still a long way to go, no need to burn out this early.
I also had my first bad week. I didn’t do either yoga workout, didn’t do the optional run on Monday, and I went out and had a little too much fun Friday night and missed my Saturday morning spin session. Capped that off by trying to add the Saturday workout to my Sunday swim and run and ended up mailing it in after an hour. Needless to say I wasn’t happy. But my coach and VoR both told me to chill out and get back on track the next week which is exactly what I did.
Ummm, yeah …. So much for mandatory “play time.” I signed up for skeeball on Thursday nights with the best of intentions and I made it out for the first 4 weeks. But after that I scheduled my workouts a little differently and just didn’t feel like I had the time to go have a few beers. This doesn’t mean I haven’t gone out and enjoyed the occasional beer, it’s just that I’ve learned that I steal that time when I can and it definitely cannot be scheduled. The biggest difficulty here is that my “free to have a drink” time doesn’t line up with anyone else’s. While I’m going to bed early on Friday and Saturday for morning workouts, everyone I know is just getting ready to go out. By the time Sunday comes around and I can hangout because Monday is an off day, no one is in the mood to do anything.
Lastly, I got to do my first race as a member of Team FeXY. We had 3 relay teams and a few individuals head up to Greenbelt, MD for the GW Birthday Marathon. Knowing I had a marathon coming up I elected to run 2 of the 3 relay legs and this ridiculously hilly and boring course. But the best part was hanging out with everyone waiting to run and then having everyone still waiting in the relay exchange until everyone passed before heading over to the finish to cheer everyone on there. And of course, wings and beer afterwards.
So what next? My ATP says that the real fun is about to begin. Time to start the build phases where volume and intensity increases. Less time for socializing, more time for sleeping. I do get to race soon and because I’m so late with this post I’ve already run the B&A Trail Marathon (race report forthcoming).
March will be fun …. More fun. Really looking forward to it.
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