High-Octane

Well, I think I'll just laught this one off to experience!!!

As you all know I had big expectations to complete this marathon and easily qualify for Boston. My gameplan was a little unsure until the morning of the race when I decided to just go ahead and shoot for the 3:15 I had been training for....What could go wrong? I get tired sometime in the race so I simply slow down a little and finish about 3:20-3:25 :-) Well, that plan went a little off course.

I went to the chute and lined up with the 3:15 pace group. As we were there talking I found out that our pacer was Ricky Cox (3 time winner of the Ft Worth Cowtown Marathon - Here's a aricle about him: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/03/3710723/three-time-champ-ricky-cox-to.html  . I though, this will be cool, this guy has a great personality and I'll have fun running with him for a while.

So the gun goes off and here we go... running along at a sub-6 pace ...."WHAT" ... That's what I'm thinking to myself but I'm also thinking "Ricky know something about the course and this must be the right thing to do...he's won the this race 3 times" and the first mile is all downhill, so just go with it, I feel great! Through mile 1 and I feel fine so I just stick with Ricky. Mile 2 is the same....fast, mile 3 - "WHAT" 7:13 but that's ok I feel great and "I'll slow down when I get tired"...mile 4 still cruising at 7:15...man I'm doing good! Mile 6 I decide to eat a gel but oops I dropped it on the ground and had to stop, turn around run back about 10 yards and get it so I dropped behind my buddy Ricky a little, 7:41 with the backtrack :-) Two miles to catch back up to Ricky, 7:21 & 7:29 (I think he slowed down a little to let me catch back up) then came mile 9 which is all uphill so at the top at 7:40 I was feeling pretty good and thinking "that wasn't so bad". Usually at about mile 8-9, in my half marathons, I start thinking "whoo, I'm getting tired" but today I was thinking "I still feel good"! As I clicked along through mile 10,11,12,13 & 14 I just knew I was going to have a great time and not be feeling any pain at the end. I knew, at the halfway point, I was slightly faster than I needed to be for a 3:16 and knew when I got to mile 18 it was all downhill (literally -200' net downhill). Then ...Uh-Oh, at mile 15 my quads started to get a little tight. Mile 15 was the last uphill mile before the course levels out for 3 miles and then starts it's downhill decent. I was thinking "Ok...don't get excited, just run smooth, stretch out and look forward to the downhill". I decided at this point to let Ricky go and just run my own race from here on out so I said my farwell's and let him go. BTW...did I tell you that there was only one other guy running with me and Ricky? I think all the other 3:15 people said "the heck with this at mile 1 and ran their own race. Mile 16,17 both 7:39 but my quads were continuing to tighten up. Then, the greatly anticipated mile 18....YEAH!!!!.....Oh, wait a minute, running downhill puts more pressure on the quads...OUCH...now I want to run uphill :-(  8:08 on this mile and everything went downhill from this point (literally!!). I really don't know what caused the quad problem other than at mile 14 my HR% went to 90% and I'm assuming my body wasn't able to remove the lactate from my muscles at that point. After mile 17 my HR started to drop drastically and my quads just got more sore. It's funny because all my other muscles felt great (calves, ham's, etc.). Even today my body feels fine, no different than any other day after a long run except for my quads which are very sore.

The end of the race was very dissipointing seeing about 75 racers pass me in the 5 miles but I can still remember how much fun the first 15-17 miles were :-) Like I said at the beginning, I'll just laugh this on off to experience and start preparing for the next race. There is no question, I can BQ easily with the right race plan, I just have much higher expectation and aspirations than to just BQ :-)

2/26/2012
Mile	Time	HR	HR %
1	7:10:00	143	74%
2	7:09:00	156	83%
3	7:13:00	161	87%
4	7:15:00	162	87%
5	7:14:00	163	88%
6	7:41:00	160	86%
7	7:21:00	161	87%
8	7:29:00	161	87%
9	7:40:00	161	87%
10	7:21:00	165	89%
11	7:25:00	166	90%
12	7:29:00	166	90%
13	7:34:00	165	89%
14	7:27:00	167	91%
15	7:40:00	169	92%
16	7:39:00	169	92%
17	7:39:00	172	94%
18	8:08:00	170	93%
19	8:34:00	163	88%
20	8:49:00	158	85%
21	9:41:00	153	81%
22	9:32:00	150	79%
23	9:17:00	151	80%
24	9:06:00	154	82%
25	9:36:00	152	80%
26	9:35:00	157	84%
26.3	1:35:00	165	89%
Total	210:19:00	161	86%
Pace	8:01:38
Ft Worth Cowtown Marathon
40Âș - 50Âș - 10-15 mph wind, Clear

I'm still wondering how my quads could have gotten so tight while running the marathon and the rest of my legs felt fine. There was no "cramping" just tightness in my quads. Today the quads are much better and the rest of my body feels like I didn't even run. I think I'll be good to cycle tomorrow and on the weekend and start running again next week :-)

Here is a link to my marathon photos.

http://www2.brightroom.com/email/95823/42/129156656

Went out for an easy ride today on my bike to see how my legs would hold up. Everything seems to be fine. All my joints seem to be fine, my quads are still a little sore but the ride seemed to loosen them up. I'll probably ride again this weekend and then start back race training next week.

15 Miles @ 16 MPH - HR 122

19 Miles on my road bike today. Rode from Martindale thru Staples to Old Lehmann. It was pretty windy but a good temperature to ride. My legs are still a little tired from the marathon but I went ahead and pushed on this ride today. 19 Miles @ 19.6 MPH - HR Avg. 147. I was trying to push for 20 MPH Avg. but the hills got me at the end...kinda like the marathon :-(

Hopefully back to full running training starting on Monday...we'll see how that goes.

 2 Timothy 2:15 

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.