My Fargo marathon finish

I think I looked OK at the finish. Too bad it took me way more than an hour to recover enough to run like that. :-)

--Mark

Recovering nicely

I took Sunday off, walked yesterday and today. My hamstrings still hurt, but only a little. Sure, I ran hard in the marathon for about 2 1/2 hours, but as soon as some cramping hit me, I went into 'save my body' mode. For the last 6+ miles of the race, I walked until I wanted to jog and then jogged until I felt I needed to walk. I didn't push my legs hard during that final 10K. I'll run 6 miles easy with my running partners on Friday. We'll ease back into training as our bodies allow.

Next for me is the Afton 50K. I'll be training with the Hammer Nutrition products for Afton as they have Heed on the course. Last year at Afton was the first time I had ever heard of Heed. I didn't dare touch it then but I will this year.

edit: During the Fargo marathon I got huge blood blisters on both of my toes that are next to my big toes. The toenail was very loose on one. I wonder how long that will take to fall off? (answer: 4 days) That will be (was) a first for me.

--Mark

Fargo Marathon 2008

It was yesterday! Done. Finished.

There are two words that come to mind: Pride and Disappointment.

My goal was 3:27:00. I ran with my training partners Jim, Kim, and Karl up until near mile 19. My intestines started acting up and shortly after, my legs were cramping. Not bad cramps, but enough to slow me down to a walk. Come to think of it, I guess that makes them bad. :-)

The people along the course were great. I got extra water from tables that were set up along the way and I got some yummy orange slices when I needed them the most.

I had a really good time running the race and being with my friends before and after. Even my family came with me to this race. A first. They loved it too.

I put some notes in the table below and it's clear to me I became dehydrated fairly early in the race. I had trained all winter in St. Paul, MN and the only thing to worry about then is staying warm enough. Fargo was a little to warm for me. The race starting temp was around 53 degrees but with the sun shining brightly I was sweating buckets just a few miles into the race. The temps must have been in the upper 60's by the time I finished.

My anaerobic threshold (AT) is in the area of 167 or 168 beats per min. I hit that average during mile 11 and then ran above it for almost 9 miles or 70 minutes. So maybe my AT is more than 168. In any case, I was heading for trouble. I noted some areas in red in the table below where my pace was wrong or HR was too high before my crash.

Kim and Karl drank water and Powerade and came the closest of my training group to hitting our time goal. I'll be working on hydration planning this summer.

This race has been a great learning experience and I wouldn't trade my last 6 months of training with my friends for anything.

--Mark

Mile by Mile details...

Mile	Plan	Pace	Ave HR	Observations
1	8:13	8:15	141	Great 1st mile pace
2	8:13	8:10	148	Accidentally shut off my HRM after mile 2. UGH!
3	8:08	7:32	-
4	8:03	7:45	155	Turned on HRM at start of mile 4.
5	7:54	7:49	156
6	7:49	7:55	160
7	7:44	7:43	161
8	7:44	7:52	164
9	7:39	7:34	164
10	7:39	7:47	166	Anaerobic threshold is 167/168. About to enter the danger zone.
11	7:39	7:42	168
12	7:39	7:49	169
13	7:39	7:47	171
14	7:44	7:45	172
15	7:44	7:56	172
16	7:44	8:02	173
17	7:44	8:08	173
18	7:44	8:24	173	Ran a great race to plan through mile 18. Average pace of 7:53 vs goal pace of 7:54.
19	7:44	11:30	172	Needed an emergency bathroom stop just before mile 19. Thank goodness for the porta-potties. Jim offered to wait - I told him to go. That was the last I would see of my three running partners. I wasted 3 minutes so all my cushion time was now gone. I had to run 8:00's from here on out to qualify for Boston.
20	7:44	14:10	156	My quads started to cramp and then my calves. Knew that a BQ was out of the question. I walked the bridge from MN to ND. Ugh.
21	7:49	16:14	135	Dehydration had started early in the race although I didn't realize it until much later. It was about mile 15 or 16 that I notice my HR was too high.
22	8:08	15:36	129	All these miles (20-25+) were walk/jog. I saw walked by two women walking the half marathon. They were chatting on a cell phone for a few minutes. I almost asked them to borrow it so I could call my wife and tell her I was going to be late.
23	8:08	13:27	136	I was being passed by pace group after pace group.
24	8:08	15:10	132
25	8:22	12:30	135	I was beginning to recover some here
26.2	8:27	10:04	154	Of this 1.2 miles, I ran the last mile. I finished! 4:12:40.

15 days to Fargo

Running a 20.7 mile long run one day and a 10K race the next can wear a guy out. Glad that's over. Whew.

Now I'm moving into a taper. I feel strong again now that's been almost a week after my 10K. Today we ran 6.2 nice and easy. Here is my plan for the next week, based on Higdon's Advanced II training:

Sat - 4 miles at marathon pace
Sun - 4 easy miles
Mon - 4 miles, mostly at tempo
Tue - 4 miles
Wed - 4 miles at marathon pace
Thu - I'm doing Yoga plus the Twin Cities 1-mile race
Fri - 4 miles
Sat - 8 miles - I'm glad it's not 4 miles! This week was looking like a broken record! :-)

I'm going to have to run each of these 4-mile days on a different route to make it interesting.
--Mark

26 days to Fargo

I'll start counting the days instead of weeks now. This Friday will be my last long 20 mile run. Saturday I'm running the Get-in-Gear 10K with 4000+ other runners. I'll run it fairly easy as as recovery run. After that, I'll start tapering but I still will have a 5K on May 3rd and a 1-mile race on May 8th.

This morning I signed up for the Twin Cities Marathon.

I ran 9 this morning and can feel a little something going on in my right foot. It should go away soon as this has happened before.

edit: This afternoon I decided to NOT run the 5K in my plans. There is too high of chance I could cause some damage to my feet in that intense of a race on blacktop.

--Mark

5 weeks to Fargo

I had a great week last week. 53.9 miles total, I felt great during and after my second-to-the-last 20-miler, and I feel great now. No injuries.

Saturday I stopped into Run-n-Fun and bought my 'Marathon shoes'. They're Brooks Adrenaline GTS-8's. I've only ran in Brooks Adrenaline shoes except for my one day with ASICS. This morning I ran 9 in the new shoes and they felt great. I plan to put about 80 to 100 miles on them before Marathon day. I have three other pairs I rotate but they all have ~300 miles on them.

I'll be dipping my toes into the ultra-marathon waters this year. I'm signed up for the Afton 50K and also joined the Upper Midwest Trail Runners group. I didn't really want to sign-up for the Fab 5 Fifties series this year as I'm only running one race on the list. Well, I'm signed-up and I'm not dropping out. Next year I plan to run three 50K and two 50 mile races. Yikes!

Oh yeah, my next race is the Trail Mix 50K 4-person team race on Saturday. I only run 12.5K. My 4-person team all run at the same time and our finishing times are added together for the team time. It was great fun last year on the dry and fast course. I'm looking forward to some mud this year!

--Mark

Seven weeks to Fargo

Training is going well. I did a 20+ mile long run with friends on Friday. This was our first long run on a dry surface. I started to get tired with about a mile to go. We ran for 3:15 and 20.6 miles. I looked at my heart rate monitor chart afterwards and found we had stopped for a total of 16.5 minutes. The stops were for traffic lights, water/GU breaks, and bathroom breaks. We'll do another long run in 2 weeks.

This weeks plan:

Mon: run outside - speed 9? miles
Tue: run outside - easy 9 or 12 miles
Wed: run outside - tempo 9? miles
Thu: yoga
Fri: run outside - 6 miles easy
Sat: Ron Daws 25K race
Sun: maybe a few easy miles

--Mark

I LOVE long runs

I went on a 19 miler early yesterday (Friday) morning with friends. I just love running the long runs. They are like mini-expeditions to me. It was so beautiful outside yesterday with the snow falling, a nice coating of snow on the trees, and the peacefulness of the morning.

We ran for 3 hours and my only mishap was my slip, spin, and roll on a patch of snow-covered ice. The only lasting effect from that was a little bruise on my kneecap. It was a little painful during my short 4-mile recovery run this morning but it did not affect my running. It just hurt - kind of like it would hurt if someone whacked the side of my kneecap with a stick.

Now there are only 8 weeks until the Fargo Marathon. Next week I have a 20 mile long run planned. I can't wait. I think I will skip a planned Monday tempo run and hopefully run outside then and Tuesday. I'll do Kickboxing on Wednesday and this time I think my wife will join me in class.

--Mark