Ok...6 months later and I'm still just as frustrated.
Saturday, I ran Ogden. Here's the report I put together for some friends if you're curious. It's a little detailed, so if not, skip to below:
After a really poor night of sleep sharing a full size bed with my wife at a friend's house, I woke up about 3 (woke up--ha...got out of bed, rather) and downed a couple of bowls of cereal. It had been raining hard all night and I'm praying it stops despite a forecast of 40's and rain at the start. I'm a southern Utah runner--running in rain is not my thing and I don't really have any idea how to dress or run in heavy rain. I settle on shorts and tank with some sleeves, thinking that has the least chance of chaffing, with a hat.
We take the bus up to the start line and on the ride, I talk a little with the woman next to me from Bogota, Colombia who had come just for the marathon, which I thought was pretty cool. She lives at 3000 m, so no concerns about altitude for her. I'm debating what to do with my IT band--I've brought two syringes with bupivacaine in them--and I decide to surreptitiously inject it on the ride, hoping to avoid accusing glances from her and everyone else (I think I got away with it). I pack the other syringe in case I have problems during the race.
At the start, the rain slows down, even stops for a little bit, so I decide to toss the sleeves in my pickup bag and I wait around in a garbage bag for the race to start. Of course, just before the start, it starts up again, hard, and never really lets up the rest of the race. I still have thoughts of breaking 3:30, so I get chatting with the 3:25 pacer, a guy from Cincinnati, who easily has the goofiest stride I've ever seen on a decent runner. He says his PR is in the 2:50's but I've never seen a sub 3 guy run like him. This is the first time he's run this one, but I guess he paced at St G. Nice guy.
You can divide this race into 3 major sections--the first 8 a pretty fast downhill section, the second 8 a flat one with a couple of little hills around the lake, and the third 8 another downhill that ends with a flat final 3 miles. I down a 1/2 bottle of gatorade to start the race (I always do this) and stick with the pacer. Something is immediately wrong as I'm already feeling like that Gatorade is not sitting well. I think it'll go away and just stick with the pacer for the first couple of miles at about 7:20, but then he slows up, worried that he's losing some people. I keep going because I feel fine and I hate braking on downhills, but the unsettled feeling doesn't go away. HR stays 145-150.
At about 6.5 miles, I start thinking that I need to do a gel, even if I feel like that's the last thing I want to do, remembering my problems from last year when I bonked hard at mile 18. I put down a strawberry gel and immediately realize how bad that idea was. Within a half mile, I feel it coming back up, and I pull off the road and start vomiting. A couple of encouraging voices tell me to hang in there, which I think is silly because aside from the nausea, I feel fine.
Feeling a little better, I get running again, but the nausea returns within a quarter mile. I skip the mile 7 water stop because I don't want anything to come up, but the nausea just continues to worsen. HR is still sub-150, so I don't really slow up much, but my average pace is now at 8:00, due to the nausea stop and the flattened terrain. By mile 10, I can't hold it anymore and I pull off the side and start projectile vomiting. I guess I look pretty bad this time because a guy stops and asks if I'm OK. I'm not, but there's nothing he can do about it, so I wave him on and say I'll be fine. This was a long stop. I was searching for a car to pick me up and would have taken a ride in a second. Unfortunately (or fortunately), nothing in sight, so I decide I'll get to the half point, where there's a relay stop, and I'll call it a day.
I couldn't care less what my time is at this point, so I just start off at a slow jog. Having vomited about everything in my stomach, I'm feeling a little better, so I just keep going. Again, legs and lungs feel fine, so I start to think that if the nausea's gone, maybe I can finish this thing. And as long as I go really slow and easy, the nausea stays at bay, but as soon as I start to speed up a bit, I start to feel things come up. I know I have no hope of a PR at this point, so I just settle into a really comfortable pace and just try to enjoy it.
I get through the half point and decide I'll finish. Stomach doesn't feel great, but it doesn't feel awful either, and I start to think that I don't want to face my kids having quit. We have a saying in our house that we use whenever our kids say something is hard: "You can do hard things". And that's my mantra for the rest of the race, with an effing tossed in. Sheri Dew, the source of the quote, probably didn't intend that, but it works. The rest of the race is in a downpour, running around "puddles" (better termed small lakes) along the path, and while it's beautiful, it's also really cold, wet, and in sloshing drenched heavy shoes. It's easily the most miserable race conditions I've run in, although it definitely beats an Ironman in Houston (and I actually had this thought multiple times through the race). There's a woman in a cute running skirt that I stick behind for a while, maybe a little for the view, but mostly to give me some sort of motivation to keep going. I pass her once on a downhill, she passes me back on an uphill, I lose her on a bathroom break, I pass her back on a surge right before we hit the flats at the end, and I keep expecting her to catch me but she never does. I think about my kids a lot during those last ten miles, and each time I do, I feel a little teary. It's weird that marathons do this to me--I'm not a very emotional guy. When I see them cheering for me as I'm sprinting out my final stretch (I actually had some good energy at the end of this), I almost lose it. One of the beautiful things of these challenges for me are that it strips life down to its bare essentials and helps me remember what I most value in the world.
Anyway, final time is 3:42, I think. A bit disappointing, but I finished, and I'm prouder of that finish than of any other. There was really not a lot of reason for me to finish--I've already proven to myself I can run one and I wasn't going to PR--but I wanted to show my kids that they can do hard things. I think they remain blissfully unaware of that lesson, so maybe I just needed to prove it to myself. I feel a little silly posting this next to niku's much harder thing that he can do--I fully realize that it doesn't compare.
My IT band was great the whole race, until the medicine wore off that night. I imagine I'll be rehabbing it for a few weeks now--it hurts pretty badly now. The GI issues that I keep having are really puzzling. I'm starting to wonder if it's mental. Or maybe I'm starting out too fast. Or again...maybe this just isn't my distance. For right now, I can see myself running another marathon, but not trying to run one fast. But much like childbirth, I'm sure the memory will wear off and I'll be signed up again some day.
I'm obviously already back to the drawing board, despite that last sentence.
I really, really want Boston. Is it just not in the cards?
Somehow, I missed your reply, Sasha. I like the simplicity, and certainly like the results. Thanks for posting it.
For this one, I followed the Pfitzinger program 55-70 miles, pretty religiously, with the exception that I would occasionally substitute my shortest easy/recovery run (usually a 5-6 miler) with mountain biking. There was a point, however, about six weeks prior to the end, where I felt like I was just burned out on running and my body was breaking down. So I stepped back to the 40-54 (I think) program. The following week, during a 12 miler on a treadmill, my IT band suddenly seized up. I haven't had any problems with it for 6 years and it was on my left side before, so I didn't really know what it was. It became clear over the next few days, however, and my last 5 weeks had good and bad days, but not the mileage I had on the schedule. Three of those were taper weeks, obviously, so I don't know how adversely the lower miles affected me. I injected it with bupivacaine prior to the race (I'm a physician), so I didn't even feel it for the race, so that part didn't affect me at all.
Anyway, a few questions--and I'm desperate enough to frequently check for responses this time
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I don't think I'll try again to qualify until next spring. I need a break--I was mentally beaten even before the race this time. And I miss bicycling. So I think I'll do a few halves and tris through the summer and start a new cycle when I can't ride any more. On your program Sasha, do you ever take dial-back weeks? If I'm doing some cross-training in the summer, should I still follow it, or just wait for the winter (I'm willing to run 4 days/week through the summer--I'll get back up to 6 in the winter).
Thanks for your and others' help. I may try Andrea's program through the summer just for some kind of thing to follow. I'll check back here much more frequently. Looks like there is a lot of good wisdom on here.
