Marathon Number Two Completed Today. A PR time of 3:12:34 besting my previous time by 22:31. Even though I didn't get my BQ today, I'm feeling much more confident in my game. 7:20 AP 10k: 43:32 7:01 AP
10 mile: 1:10:26 7:04 AP
Half: 1:32:03 6:58 AP Second half: 1:40:31 7:40 AP
30k: 2:12:04 7:17 AP
UPDATE 11-20-12: I was comparing my age division rank from this year to my rank in 2010, which was my last marathon. Amazingly I only improved by 1 spot from 12 to 11 even by improving my time by 22:31. Of-course I would have improved by 2 spots had I not talked Joe into running this one with me instead of the other race he was considering...LOL. It turns out that had I run the same time (3:35:05) this year as I did in 2010, I would have dropped 20 slots to place at 31. It looks like the competition has stiffened as this race has become more popular.
I ran the first half a bit faster than the second half. The first half offered some nice down hill sections and one really long 9 mile flat section (Riverside Drive) with the wind at my back. This part of the course was awesome! Things got dicier when I got past mile 18. All of mile 19 was a pretty wicked hill and into the wind, which had picked up by this point in the day. My pace dropped from 6:58 on mile 18 to 7:30 on mile 19. The hill that was mile 19 was followed by a series of smaller hills. It was an uphill windy battle for several miles past this point. The two mile run through the University of Tulsa was really nice. I would have enjoyed it more had I not been struggling with my pace. It was at this point (mile 21) that I could no longer ignore my gradually tightening legs. I could especially feel fatigue in my glutes and tightening in my hamstrings. I'm not sure if this hit me as hard as it did at this point in the race, which felt too soon, because I ran the first half a little too fast or if it's because I've got more work to do in my training. I felt like I trained sufficiently for the distance this time on the 50 to 70 mile per week program. Perhaps I just need to build in more time on my base of running high mileage, and get a few more marathons under my belt.
Mile 23 was uphill and into the wind through a neighborhood and out to 21st St. Mile 25 was almost all down hill (21st St). Mile 26 had some very short but also very steep hills that slowed me to a jog that felt like I was walking, or about break into a walk. I drank Gatorade a every water stop, which included one stop where I drank Gatorade and water. I took Gu 15 minutes before the start, 45 minutes into the race, and approximately every 30 minute thereafter (Gu at -15:00, 45:00, 1:15, 1:45, 2:15, 2:45. Time approx.). I felt like this strategy worked pretty well for me. I think I might try every 30 minutes next time and net one more Gu during the race.
A bonus today was finally getting to meet SlowJoe in person. Joe got his own PR and came within about 8 seconds of running a sub 3. Way to go Joe!
Garmin Splits:
| 1 | 6:50.3 | | 2 | 6:44.7 | | 3 | 6:54.2 | | 4 | 6:56.9 | | 5 | 7:08.4 | | 6 | 6:56.3 | | 7 | 6:57.4 | | 8 | 7:02.7 | | 9 | 7:01.8 | | 10 | 6:58.1 | | 11 | 6:53.3 | | 12 | 6:56.0 | | 13 | 6:54.8 | | 14 | 7:00.8 | | 15 | 7:03.2 | | 16 | 7:01.7 | | 17 | 7:00.6 | | 18 | 6:58.3 | | 19 | 7:30.1 | | 20 | 7:24.3 | | 21 | 7:33.0 | | 22 | 7:33.5 | | 23 | 7:58.6 | | 24 | 8:15.5 | | 25 | 8:01.5 | | 26 | 8:44.8 | | 27 | 4:12.3 |
| 