my makeup may be flaking

AM RHR 65

I actually felt pretty good again today despite the hard effort yesterday.

Miles 7:19,6:50,6:55,6:46,6:46

HR 143,155,156,162,169 

AM RHR 57

I'm definitely feeling better, but I'm not ready to subject myself to the stress of an all out marathon.

My first choice is to run with Allie, but she doesn't want me to make the race unfair. I think I may just pick a finishing time around 2:50 and try my best to hit that time. So if anyone is interested in a particular time, let me know. I'm thinking 2:45 at the fastest and no slower than 2:57 or so (because then there's pace groups).

AM RHR: (drumroll) 48! (cymbal clash)

I'll post my splits later.

Allie is concerned that people will think we're cheating if I go for a time that's similar to hers. So for TOU I'm going to attempt a women's OTQ: sub 2:46.

I did 2:45:53 at SLC this year, so I'm going to follow a similar game plan. Try to run the first half in 1:21-1:22 and then have a small positive split. If I feel good in the 2nd half I will go faster, but I doubt that will happen.

 AM RHR:60 

The plan was to see if I could make it through a marathon without my heart going crazy. Things started to get bad about 8 miles in and I dropped out at halfway.

Here are my splits and heart rate.

During mile2 I took off my HR monitor and wet it because it didn't seem to be working well. It was telling me my heart rate was over 200 and then that it was back in the 150s. I felt totally fine and once I adjusted it, things seemed to be ok. I then settled into some solid miles for the early part of the race, running with a group that all ended up finishing in the mid 2:40s.

At mile 7, I stopped to go to the bathroom. I actually surged ahead in the last 400 meters of that mile before stopping. I also tightened my HR monitor because it kept slipping. This cost me over a minute and I was almost caught by Allie. I then sprinted down the road pretty fast trying to catch back up. Probably the most frustrating thing was how easy everything felt for me. I was close to catching back up to my group when my heart rate started dancing all over the place.

I tried to chill for a bit, hoping that it would settle down again, but I had done too much. My garmin readout indicates that I ran a half mile in about 5:20 pace (pretty approximate) and there was no way for me to recover from it. I kept running slower and slower trying to allow my heart to calm back down. I was about 90% sure that I was going to drop out, but I thought that I should make it easier by getting as far down the canyon as possible.

Eventually I just stopped and walked through one of the aid stations. I thought that maybe if I allowed my heart rate to go all the way down and then come back up that I would be ok. I waited a little bit for Allie but I couldn't see her. I then started to walk-jog very slowly to wait for her to catch up. I ran with her for a bit and my heart rate was lower, but then it started to spike again just before I reach the mile 13 aid station. I decided that this was far enough and stopped again.

Fortunately, I only had about a 10 minute until wait a van picked me up and took me to the finish line. While I was waiting in one of the volunteers cars, I could hear all the radio chatter. Each aid station was reporting in on the leaders as they came by, giving the times down to the second. Everyone seemed to be genuinely excited about the men's and woman's races and all the time gaps. It was interesting to see everything that went into making the race run as smoothly as it does and I was pretty impressed with how quickly they accomodated my request to go the finish.

Anyway, based off the radio chatter I knew that If I was quick I would be able to see Jake right after he turned onto 300south. I made it there with about 90 seconds to spare and then waited an additional 7 minutes for Jon Kotter to pass. He looked like he was cramping up a ton (shakes fist at Alta Peruvian) and was going to get passed for 3rd, which did end up happening.

I then ran the 2 blocks or so back to the finish line. Andrea then started yelling and tossed a stuffed moose at me. I really didn't want to knock Jake over but he seemed to be expecting the hand off.  I imagine the thought of the moose was keeping him going over that last stretch. 

It's been pretty tough for me this year, because I love competing. This looked like it would have been a very competitive race and it wasn't very fun to watch all the people that I had been running with come in. However, it was cool to see that my little group from the start kicked butt. Kevin beat my marathon debut by nine minutes and Adam had an extremely strong return after a tough string of injuries. Also, Cynthia Fowler is a machine that Allie and I agreed is Nan-like.  I was planning on working with her today, but she didn't really seem to need anyone's help as she ran 2:45. I also finally met Jason Howe, the Grand Slam champ, who ran about 2:50. Finally, there was one guy running with me wearing red who ended up negative splitting the course. His name is Will Huff and it looks like had the 4th fastest final 10k on the day.

I really wanted to finish, but I'm not an "at all costs" type of guy. It seemed like many people thought that I was dumb to even line up today. I'm glad I tried.  I don't think it set me back and now I don't have to wonder "what if?". I'm just going to continue to take it easy like I have been, but the fact is that at some point I'm going to line up for a race again and not know whether or not I'm going to have to drop out. The alternative is to never race again.