This morning I met my running partners down at the start and hung back near the back of Corral 1. Others were ahead of me and some were in Corral 2. Kim said she wanted to run with me. I invited her to do that last week. Kim ran a 3:10 in Boston in April but has a nagging Butt injury so she was going to be happy taking it easier than normal.
The starting horn went off and away we went. As we started I felt a pain in my left foot. I was imagining at that point dropping out at mile 0.5 but that pain went away shortly. Then my right knee hurt and that never happens. That pain went away soon. Kim was talking about the nice run we were going to have at an easy pace. Miles 1 - 5 were: 7:57, 8:14, 8:15, 7:53, and 7:59. My plan was down the drain.
You see, I hit the 'wall' at mile 19 in Fargo and mile 16 in the TCM last year. I wanted to run easy in order to bust through the wall. My main goal was to run negative splits. That was not to happen this year.
Kim and I felt really good and a few times I told her something our friend Jim say..... We're just out on a long run with some friends. That's what we were doing. I was watching my heart rate to keep tabs on it in case it shot up. It really didn't. We ran at a comfortable pace which according to my Garmin was an 8:08.
We chatted a bit about a Boston qualifying time/pace for me. A BQ was not a goal for me but I am well aware that as a 50 year old, it's 3:35:59. What I didn't know was the pace but I told Kim I though it was an 8:15. We figured I was on track for that but we figured I would be right on the edge.
The entire run was great. Super weather. Great aid stations. Great spectators. I loved every minute of it. Speaking of aid stations, we talked about our hydration and fueling plans. I told Kim my plan of not taking energy (Shot Bloks for me, GU for her) until mile 9. This gives the body a chance to use up some of its reserves and not start counting on the shots of sugar from the stomach until later.
Here was my plan.... Two cups of water at every aid station. At the aid stations at miles 9, 13, 17, and 21, take 3 shot blok cubes and one S-Cap. This plan worked out very well and my stomach did not get upset, I got plenty of fluids, and I got plenty of energy. You see I stopped at mile 21. From there I was taking a little less as far as fluids go and I figures the shot bloks from 21 would carry me for awhile and then I would just gut it out to the finish. Good plan.
I finished in 3:37:51 (official time) so you may wonder why I didn't push it harder to get a Boston Qualifier. Well, it was not a goal. In addition, I had been carrying an 8:08 pace according to my Garmin. According to my Garmin. My total distance was 26.57 miles. At mile 25 I switched my watch to the display with the elapsed time and I thought.... Oooops, I have to run sub-8's from now to the finish to qualify. Really not going to happen. Although I should have had a little cushion based on the average pace on my Garmin, the distance was long (due to tangents not cut and GPS-error) so I really had an 8:18 pace going. It is what it is. Here are my Garmin paces from 21 onward: 8:18, 8:30, 8:24, 8:16, 8:53, 8:30 (last 0.57 miles). In my opinion that's not really a wall to me. A little slower, sure, but I was still moving right along.
I missed my negative split by a couple of minutes but still good in my book.
- First half: 1:47:49
- Second half: 1:50:02
- First 10K: 51:26
- Last 10K: 53:05
- Official time: 3:37:51
- Watch time: 3:37:34
That's one lesson learned.... keep plowing forward until all the mats are crossed. [update: Well, that plus turn off the auto-pause feature on the Garmin.]
The second lesson is that the Garmin average pace can get you screwed up if the distance runs long as it tends to do in a marathon. I'll just have to keep a fudge-factor in my head for future marathons.
Great race and I plan to do it next year.
update: What about Kim? She pulled ahead sometime after mile 21 or 22 and had an energy surge. She said her later miles were in the 7:10 range. Way to go Kim and I can't thank you enough for running with me.
Steve Q - Good to see you out there again this year.
Matt - You will see me on the trails next year.
--Mark
8 comments:
Great job on your marathon Mark! Sounds like technology may have gotten in the way a bit?
Thanks. Technology was a little in the way but I know more for next time.
Awesome run Mark! Congrats on your PR :)
Women do always seem to use the first 20 miles as a warm-up, don't they? You looked super strong when I saw you; if you'd run a BQ, that would just make you feel you had to run Boston - Boston in April is like Minneapolis in November; not great for tourism.
Congratulations on a great run, Mark! [And just a heads up on the technology for next year, my garmin loses distance on the trails so then reports a slower pace than actual. :) ]
Congratulations on a great race! I'm so happy for you. I think that the course really is a little long because my Garmin had it at about the same distance as you had when I ran it last year. It's hard to mentally adjust to that. I'm so glad you had a great race and are excited about doing it next year.
Great job! I once was a believer in negative splits, but no longer. My own marathon PR happened at TCM where I ran hard to mile 20 and struggled in from there. I know that's happened to others too.
Looks like you ran an almost-perfect race, slowing slightly in the second half and leaving little on the table.
Thanks everyone! I have a little update re: timing mats. Now that the marathon site has runner pics available, I see that the gun time they have for me matches the first mat. So, it wasn't a problem with me getting slowed down after crossing the first mat. It's worse..... My Garmin goes on auto-pause when I come to a dead stop. I had forgotten to turn off that feature. There were two water stops that I came to a dead stop to down the water. That's it... the missing 17 seconds!
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