track fan

Not quite the negative split I had in mind, but what did I know? Overall the course was ok. It was flat, but the surface was uneven and the bike lane portions were not great until the end (when I did not really notice them). Lot's of turns, there were a couple of spots in the early miles (8-12 or so) where I thought I was going to fall, lots of jostling and elbows flying in some of the tighter turns. There were a lot of marathoners that missed the marathon turn off at mile 11 (some might have actually missed 4 miles of the marathon course) - the bike path was really narrow and there was a lot of back-up caused by the marathoners coming up to their mile 15 and running into marathoners coming into their mile 11. But, all and all it was ok. I did almost do a face plant at mile 16 or so, we were running on brick speed bumps! wow. I did not see the first one and tripped as I was looking longingly at what I thought might be a bathroom.

Marathons are really hard. My legs started cramping up at 21-22 miles ... I didn't really slow down until mile 23-24, and then my gel must have kicked in because I was able to get a couple sub 8:00 miles in there. But I have to say miles 22-25 were the hardest miles I have ever run at any pace. I am both disappointed and happy with my time ... but I am very happy it is over. Funny thing that Dean said, and I agree, in his first marathon he was disappointed that his legs kept hurting after he stopped running -- usually, when your legs hurt during a race it feels so much better when you stop running -- but not today. I stopped and geez, they still hurt ;-).

Anyway -- I finished my first marathon and now I am a marathoner.

ok ... so here goes:

Raining at the start - luckily stopped raining soon after the race started - couldn't really ask for better weather the rest of the time (other than cold, wet feet and chafing due to wet shorts).

miles 1-6: 8:25, 7:41, 7:46, 8:05, 8:12 (gu)

start was packed, I didn't want to spend a lot of energy trying to catch the pacer ... so I just kept them in view and relaxed. The pacer was really not very good, he kept speeding up and then when the split was too fast he would slow down and we would all bunch up. At mile 6 I just decided to run my own race and did not follow the pacer.

miles 7-13: 7:40, 8:05, 7:57, 8:06 (hill, gu), 7:49 (13.1 1:44:55)

at mile 11 we separated from the 1/2 marathoners and we did this little 4 mile loop (on a bike path) - things did get spread out here but then we actually hooked back up with the 1/2 at their mile 11 - which was bad because all of a sudden there were a bunch of people on the bike path again who were running about 2 mins/mile slower and we had to go around them and it got pretty packed up. I was not feeling bad at this point, I wasn't actually feeling like it was "easy" but I was talking to this nice woman from Portland for a while.

miles 14-20: 8:07, 7:57, 7:53, 8:03, 8:05 (gu), 7:57, 8:01

stayed with this one group until about 18 and then I lost my Portland friend at a water stop. I was happy there were only 6 miles left!

miles 21-26: 8:00, 15:55 (7:57 average, gu at 22), 8:04, 8:27, 7:58

I really did not feel good here at all, lots of things hurt. By the time I hit mile 23 my right quad was hurting really bad and I felt pretty sick. I really don't remember a whole lot about the specifics here. Lots of guys (I remember mainly guys - I think it was because there were more men in front of me than women) stopping in this section. Dean jumped in at 23 to run the last 3 miles with me - I don't remember much but everyone was yelling how strong I looked and we must of passed 10 -15 people from 24-25 ... it was not because I felt good I was totally running on autopilot and felt really crappy. I just wanted to make it to 25 because Dean told me that once I got there I would know I could finish (I believed him). I made a pathetic attempt at a sprint at the finished and managed to pass 3 people in the 1/4 mile finishing chute, I think they had given up.

There you go. I guess I never actually "fell apart", I just did not execute things the exact way I had envisioned (who does? everyone warned me about this!). There were lots of "micro runs" (e.g., ebb and flow of the run). I don't think it ever actually felt "easy", if I had to do anything differently in my training I think I would add some much longer runs (24-26) and some longer MP runs. I think I would have been a little stronger at the end, but maybe not, maybe you just have to get through it the first time.

Thank you all for your support over the past few months and all the sweet messages today!

Michelle said I should blog even though I am not running, so I thought I would do some free-association ;-) ... not really, I will leave that to Nevels blog. 

I might do a 20` jog tomorrow, but it really depends on how I feel. I am very sore.  My quad that was screaming during the race is now simply knotted up.  I can actually walk much better today on the flats, but stairs are still a bit of a challenge.  Wow.  I am feeling a little better about the race now.  And I have to say I am pretty surprised how even my half-marathon splits were - it was not by design - it just happened that way (1:44:55/1:45:33). 

I am very grateful for all of you bloggers, have I told you that lately?

By the way.  The winner of the men's race on Sunday ran an Olympic qualifier (2:18 and some change).  He runs for Strands - from what I can gather Strands is a social networking website/company.  They were out in full force at the expo (and did some sort of tracking for the marathon) - all pretty fast looking people, not bad marketing for a marathon. 

The other thing that was interesting was that we ran into some running friends of Dean's from Seattle, two women who used to run with him when they had the Monday night runs.  They opened a womens running clothes company (www.oisellerunning.com) - pretty cool stuff - the best of which I bought - a new t-shirt with a track on the front (too bad it only has 4 lanes).

Hope everyone is good, I am going to nurse my wounds some more.
 

20:30 ... probably more like 2.25 but you know? I feel kind of weird even posting these miles, just like it seemed like a lot more work to get out there than was worth it. By the time I did my exercises, stretched and worked on my quad, my preparation time to jog took almost 4 times as long as the jog itself!

So, one more story about Eugene that some of you might appreciate (and maybe even resemble ;-)). After the race Dean and I were walking to the car and there was this guy, probably in his middle to late 40's or even early 50's, standing near the road. He had his space blanket on and had an arm load of goodies in his hands. Well, he shifted his space blanket a little and a bunch of stuff (snacks of some sort, chips maybe) fell on the ground. The look on his face as he looked down, resignation? indecision? was priceless; he was pretty sure he couldn't bend down without considerable pain and effort and he wasn't really sure if it was worth it anyway. I wasn't able to help him (I couldn't bend down for him), but Dean went over and said (as he kind of giggled), "here let me help you with that". It was pretty funny ...

Have a great day bloggers!

Hello bloggers, does a planned goose-egg still count as a goose-egg? Anyway no running today, with 20 whole minutes planned for tomorrow. I am trying to spend the extra time I have in the morning doing my exercises and more stretching than usual (well, and catching up on some of my work). It is nice to be able to spend so much time on these things. So far, I have only gained a pound so it is not too bad. Dean is out of town so I spent a lot of time working last night, but when I wasn't working I was looking at bicycles. I took Sam's old bike into a shop last night and it will actually take more money to fix it then it is worth. I am debating on whether or not I want to spend money on a new bike. I did tell the bike guy that I want a bike to cross-train on during the summer, but that I am a runner and am not planning on being a cyclist. He said, "we all were runners" and went on to talk about his knee injury.

Close by, I actually read a very interesting article by Ed Eyestone (for those of you not near Provo/BYU, Ed Eyestone is the men's track and field coach at BYU - and a great runner in his own right). He says that 60 mins @ or above 70% of your maximum heart rate is roughly equivalent to a 5 mile run:

www.active.com/running/Articles/The_Next_Best_Thing_To_Running.htm

ARGGG, I can't get the create link function to work (despite using Firefox, I think it is this 64-bit Ubuntu going haywire again).

So, if I run 50 mpw and ride my back to-and-from work a few days a week, I should be able to keep my fitness level up (and give my old body a little break) to a over 60 mpw fitness for a couple months. Oh, and it will be good for the environment. That is the plan right now anyway. I do have my eye on a big 10 mile race in the fall, and there are a couple of local 5k's I might do, if the heat doesn't mess me up too much ... it is likely to break the 100F mark this week already. Though somebody said yesterday, "you will be surprised at how cool 90F feels, after the sun goes down, after it hits over 100 all day". Whoo, can't wait ;-).

Happy Thursday bloggers!

19:17. Much (well, relatively) faster than on Wednesday. I feel much better - today was the first day that I actually wished I could go for a "real" run. But then about 8 mins into it my quad started hurting again. Foam roller is my friend/enemy right now.

So ... yesterday at 1:53 PM we hit 100F for the first time (101F for the day). Apparently this is as big a deal, in terms of timing, as the Nenana ice cracks. This year the first three digit day has come earlier than usual (which usually signals a hotter than normal summer - great ). However, there are indications that the monsoons will come earlier and there will be more rain (I am not sure if this is good or bad).

I bought a new bike yesterday. It should get here early next week (so I can go down to the grassy park and practice clipping in and out - and possibly falling) for a while. I rode around the parking lot a while, practiced shifting and braking - it was pretty funny actually, it took me a while to get into it, and the guy who was helping me was steering clear in case I hit him (though he did not ask me to call the store before I get on the road, so apparently I did not scare him that much).

Funny thing, yesterday was very busy, I essentially was in meetings and conference calls until about 3PM - and I did not have time to eat lunch. Normally, this would freak me out, but since I am not running, it was not really a big deal at all! I am happy that I have not really had a problem adjusting my eating to lower (no) mileage - I am not as hungry and I seem (so far) to have adapted pretty easily to not needing as many calories. My portions are smaller, I don't snack, and so far, my weight is steady.

Happy Friday bloggers!

Scheduled goose-egg. Ok, I am starting to get a little antsy to run. If I had my bike, I would mitigate this feeling by going for a long ride, but alas, I am waiting for it to come in. Anyway, it is funny, I think Greg knew it feel like this because on my schedule he writes, "don't forget to enjoy the accomplishment of your marathon" -- kind of like, "don't forget why we are taking it slow right now". So ... instead, I am going to spend the day working on my grant, trying to work on the pool (which is having huge problems - like it looks like a pond not a pool - right now because I haven't been keeping up on the maintenance) and maybe I will go for a walk later tonight after it cools off a little.

I went and had some cross-friction/deep tissue therapy on my R quad yesterday, it was extremely painful, but my quad feels oh so much better today (except for the residual soreness from the work ... lots of little bruises).

Have a great day bloggers.