Rock n Roll, USA 3.16.2013 - Race Report

Here is my race report for the Rock n Roll, USA Marathon on March 16, 2013.

The short version
This was my second marathon.  My first was almost exactly one year before and I finished that one with an official time of 4:29:54.  My goal for this one was sub 3:55.  I finished in 3:54:51.

The long version
Training for this race went very well. I'm learing more and more about myself and what my limitations are.  I am an injury prone runner that is learning that I can't push too hard when it comes to pace improvements.  Patience and progressing in small increments is the way for me.  For the most part I stayed true to that thought in this training until about 2 weeks before race time.  Without going into exhaustive detail, I started pushing too hard and I ended up injuring my right Achilles tendon. It wasn't a show stopper but I had to spend the last week of my training on the couch instead of tapering. Another lesson learned.  Actually, the same lesson learned again.

I didn't run at all the week of the race until the morning before when I got out for a four mile shake out run.  Race day arrived at last and I drove down to the city. The plan was for my wife and one of my daughters to take Metro down later and meet me at the finish and we would drive back together.  The alarm went off at four and I got up and took care of all the pre-race stuff. A little coffee to get things moving, I put four coats of New Skin on my nipples to guard against chafing. I can't recommend that enough for guys that have chafing issues but don't want to shave their chest in order to get band-aid's to stick.  The drive to the race was uneventful. I parked my car and grabbed my energy gel's and other supplies and put them in my belt. I decided not to check a bag so I didn't have to deal with the drop off and pick-up later.

A short walk to the Metro and 15 minutes later I was at the start.  The port-a-john lines were long but I had a half hour to kill.  I chatted with a few people in line about other races and all the usual runner stuff to keep from being focused on my nerves too much.

Once done with that I found the 3:55 pacer and talked to him for a few about his strategy.  He said he wanted to bank "a few seconds" in the first 3 miles by going out at 8:50 and then run even splits after that. After that mission was accomplished I jogged around for a couple minutes to warm up and then it was time for the first coral to start.  I ditched my warm-up clothes that I bought from Goodwill and fell in with my group.  A few minutes later, off we went.

Miles 1-3.
The pacer was a little off here.  It felt like he went out much faster than advertised.  By the time we got to the two mile mark I was kind of pissed and I had decided to let him go. All of a sudden at mile three I passed him. I was pretty confused by that and I decided to just keep going.

 Miles 4-7.
I tried my best to keep even splits. My GPS was still pretty close to the mile markers but I just focused on my time, the pace band and the mile markers.  My splits were pretty close. I was still a little ahead but I wasn't gaining or losing time so I just kept at it.  Then I hit the hill at mile 6.  That thing was really steep and a lot of people started walking.  I slowed way down and expected the pacer to pass me but he didn't.  At mile 7 I used my first energy gel.

Miles 8-13.
Getting up the hill without losing too much time was a real confidence booster.  There was a nice downhill stretch and then the course leveled out for the most part for a while. I just tried to focus on keeping on pace.  Somewhere around mile 12 I caught up with a couple other runners that had "3:55" tags on their backs that had ventured out on their own.  We talked for a little bit and it seemed like we were on the verge of deciding to run the rest of the race together when all of a sudden the 3:55 pacer caught us.

Miles 13-18.
The three of us fell in with the pacer and the (8-12) runners that were with him.  I honestly don't remember a lot about this part of the race.  I just focused on staying with the group and keeping an eye on my pace band. According to my pace band we fell about 45 seconds behind but the pacer kept saying that we were right on.  I don't think he had a pace band and was doing the math in his head.  I thought about pushing out on my own again but I was starting to struggle a bit with some pain in my hip and lower back so I just hung on.

 Miles 19-20.
The big thing I remember clearly about this part of the race is listening to the pacer talk with someone else that was asking if we were on pace when we hit the 20 mile mark.  He said "Yep, we've got it easy. We just hit 3 hours on my watch so all we have to do is hit 9 minute miles from here and we'll come in a minute under."  When the lady responded "but then we have to run another .2" I said "Which means we are a minute behind" and I picked up my pace.  The pacer came with me and everyone else followed.

Miles 21-25.
I was able to hold the (slightly) faster pace until about the mile 24 mark and I really started to struggle.  We made up the lost time (which was actually only 45 seconds) but I was pretty fried and my legs were trashed.  The group left me at a water station somewhere in mile 22. I don't drink gatorade when I run because of GI issues but I use energy gels instead.  I have to drink a lot of water with the gel in order to keep my stomach calm and that is just too hard to do without slowing down a lot.  When I got to the 24 mile marker the pace group was long gone and I all but decided to give up on sub 3:55 and be happy with going sub 4:00.  Mile 25 was really slow.




Miles 25-26.2.
I checked my time when I got to the 25 mile mark and realized that if I picked my pace back up I for the last 1.2 miles I might be able to still hit my goal despite the lost time.  I mustered every bit of determination I could and went for it.  The last mile was just a blur of pain in my hip and feet (I don't remember when the blisters came) but I hung on as best I could and crossed the finish line with 9 seconds to spare.


 




Splits are from my watch. I decided to keep the auto lap on because I didn't want to deal with remembering to hit the button, worry about hitting the wrong button, etc...

	Type	Distance	Duration	Total Duration	Pace
1	Interval	1 mi	8:53.23	8:53.23	8:54
2	Interval	1 mi	8:38.98	17:32.21	8:39
3	Interval	1 mi	8:33.06	26:05.27	8:34
4	Interval	1 mi	8:39.05	34:44.32	8:40
5	Interval	1 mi	8:55.22	43:39.54	8:56
6	Interval	1 mi	8:50.58	52:30.12	8:51
7	Interval	1 mi	9:20.85	1:01:50.97	9:21
8	Interval	1 mi	8:57.27	1:10:48.24	8:58
9	Interval	1 mi	8:46.35	1:19:34.59	8:47
10	Interval	1 mi	8:58.86	1:28:33.45	8:59
11	Interval	1 mi	8:08.70	1:36:42.15	8:09
12	Interval	1 mi	9:00.69	1:45:42.84	9:01
13	Interval	1 mi	9:04.95	1:54:47.79	9:05
14	Interval	1 mi	8:52.19	2:03:39.98	8:53
15	Interval	1 mi	7:41.78	2:11:21.76	7:42
16	Interval	1 mi	9:38.55	2:21:00.31	9:39
17	Interval	1 mi	9:14.25	2:30:14.56	9:15
18	Interval	1 mi	8:58.79	2:39:13.35	8:59
19	Interval	1 mi	9:07.94	2:48:21.29	9:08
20	Interval	1 mi	8:59.21	2:57:20.50	9:00
21	Interval	1 mi	8:38.99	3:05:59.49	8:39
22	Interval	1 mi	8:47.20	3:14:46.69	8:48
23	Interval	1 mi	8:45.08	3:23:31.77	8:46
24	Interval	1 mi	8:52.31	3:32:24.08	8:53
25	Interval	1 mi	9:09.04	3:41:33.12	9:10
26	Interval	1 mi	8:32.54	3:50:05.66	8:33
27	Interval	0.58 mi	4:48.31	3:54:53.97	8:18

ETA - The times for miles 15 and 16 are way off.  There was a long tunnel in the middle of all that and the GPS didn't like it.  If you take the average of the two it should come out pretty close.

ETA Again - I actually found the pacer after the race.  They finished it in 3:54:09.

Taper Madness

Wow, I have done a really poor job of updating this blog!  I can't believe it's been since the middle of December.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised though, I don't write all that much normally so why should this be any different?

For my first marathon I really had no idea what I was doing.  I found what I thought to be a reasonable training plan on the internet and followed it.  This was a very basic plan, designed to get you across the finish line but just barely.  There were no "quality" workouts (speed, hills, tempo) at all, just miles on a calendar.   Eventually I figured out that my plan had me running a lot less miles than most "beginner" plans but by that time it was too late.  I couldn't safely increase my miles significantly without risking injury.  I was still clueless about most aspects of training for a marathon.  The good part is that I didn't know how much I didn't know.  I was just focused on finishing the race and I wanted to finish in less than 4 1/2 hours.  I accomplished both of those goals and I was and still am really happy with the way it turned out.

After that race I went on to make a whole series of bad decisions that resulted in getting injured a few times and missing out on running a fall 2012 marathon.  Somewhere along the line I decided I should probably get at least a little bit educated about this sport that I find myself infatuated with.  So I started reading more and corresponding with a group of people on the Runners World website.  Eventually that group of people moved to a different website called Running Ahead. The group is pretty varied, men and women, young and old, married and single, fast and slow but all with a shared interest in training to run marathons,sharing information and encouragement to other runners.  These folks have been an invaluable part of my training.  The really cool part is that there are some very FAST runners on this site.  People that run at paces I can only dream of. The great part about that is they treat everyone the same. You might expect the "elite" runners to be a bit snobby and well, elitist but not in my experience.  They treat us mere mortals great and I think that is a great testament to the running community. Runners always want to win but they always encourage each other too and I really like that.

Several training plans were recommended to me by online friends.  I looked at a few and ended up selecting one from a book called "Advanced Marathoning".  By no means am I advanced, but I really wanted to make a big improvement for this race and I felt like the quality workouts included in this plan would be a big benefit to me.  I still don't know what I'm doing, but I have a much better idea of how much I don't know.  At least I think I do, maybe I'll look back later and realize that I was wrong!

I felt like I had a pretty solid base laid down before staring this training.  I was running 25-30 miles per week.  I struggled to get the runs in the first few weeks and looking back though I think I should have been getting a few more miles each week.  I also should have varied my distances more.  Most of the time I was running three of four 5 mile runs during the week and then a 10-12 mile run on the weekend.  I think that getting one mid-week run of 8 miles or more and stretching the long run to 14-16 would have been better.  Still, I adapted to the training plan fairly well.  The big exception to that was the additions of speed work to my training.  It seems that I'm perpetually on the edge of Achilles tendon injuries.  I had a lot of AT soreness after runs that included any runs that were faster than my half marathon pace.  After the injury scare that I had at the beginning of December, I decided to replace all of the really fast runs with "tempo" runs at either marathon or half marathon pace.  That seemed to work for me pretty well.

January went well. I hit all of my runs and got a new weekly mileage personal best of 57 miles and a new monthly mileage personal best of 216 miles.  Most importantly I stayed injury free.  I had several long runs that went really well.  I ran a 20 and a 22 mile long run that both went great.

February was good too.  I can only remember one run that didn't turn out good and that was my half marathon time trial.  I ran too fast.  I knew I was running too fast but I couldn't slow down enough and ended up blowing up at mile 12 and walking the last mile back to my car.  I don't think I let that shake my confidence much.  It was a good lesson in learning to pace properly and what happens if you try to run faster than your ability.  Other than that, all my runs went pretty good and my only complaint was starting to feel a bit burned out from all the running.  I learned from some others that this is just part of the process and even the crazies that run 75-85 miles (and more) a week start to feel that way after a while.

The other big news from February is that I changed races!  The logistics of driving all the way to Virginia Beach to run on the 17th just weren't working so I registered for Rock n Roll USA in Washington DC on the 16th instead.  The course looks really cool but it has hills which is not something I had to worry about in Virginia Beach.  To try and prepare for that, I stopped doing all my long runs at the C&O Canal and switched to running long in my neighborhood instead.

So that brings us to March.  I officially started my "taper" the last week of February but I like a two week taper better than three so I added an extra run during the week to keep my mileage up a little bit.  I also capped the week with the 16 mile run that was on my training plan, but I decided to treat it as something of a dress rehearsal and did a 1 mile warm-up followed by 15 miles at marathon pace.  I ran this one at the canal, which I really missed.  It was my good-bye run at the canal for a while.  I probably won't get back there to run again until April.  I ran the 15 just a little bit too fast but not enough to make me blow up.  I took a rest day yesterday and had planned a 7 mile easy run today. My legs felt good yesterday but they were sore when I started out today so I slowed down and ran at "recovery" pace instead.

That brings this blog up to date.  I don't know if I'll make time to write more before the race to help me deal with the "taper madness".  For those that don't know that is really just the stir crazy time that runners experience the last two or three weeks before the race.  You run a lot less to let your body recover from all the training which is what it needs, but at the same time you get more and more anxious as your race approaches and you don't get to burn off your worries with running.  Many runners use running as a way to deal with stressful situations so it's a bit of an irony that the one thing that that will help you deal with being nervous about a race is the one thing you can't do (very much) if you want to run well.

December 18, 2012 Update

I just thought I would update both of my readers (one of them  is me) on my training so far...

It's been an interesting start to this training.  I just checked and was surprised to see that I am currently in week 6.  I thought I was only 4 weeks in!  The first couple weeks were pretty tough.  For some reason I really struggled mentally.  Maybe it has to do with having run through this once before but I wasn't enjoying any of my runs and had to force myself through them.  For the most part those negative feelings have passed although I am really, really sick of running through my neighborhood.  I'm trying to mix that up a bit by choosing routes I've never taken before but no matter what I still have to run the same streets and I just need a change of scenery sometimes.  Maybe we can sell the house and move? Preferably to somewhere flat. :-)

The thing that seemed to knock me out of the negative attitude funk is (surprise, surprise) picking up a little injury.  I don't know what it was, but the top of my right foot started hurting a few weeks ago after a 14 mile run.  I ended up having to rest for almost a full week to let it heal.  I resumed running last week and the pain has gone away.  I cut my long run from 16 to 12 last Saturday to be safe but I don't feel any pain in my foot today.  This week is a "cut back" week on my training plan.  I am scheduled to run 12 this Saturday but I think I'm going to run 16 instead to get myself back on schedule.

I think that about puts me up to date here.  I took some pictures on my run last Saturday.  The first one is a "panoramic" shot on top of the Monocacy Aqueduct.

The second one is from the white water kayaking place that is hidden behind the Dickenson Substation.  They use water from the Potomac to feed it. There is a sign out front that says it was used a training facility by the US Olympic team back in the 1990's.  It's really not that interesting of a picture except that it just looks entirely out of place sitting along side the trail. 

Marathon #2

I am currently in training for my second marathon.  I started this training program on November 19th after a 10 day lay off. So far, training has been less than ideal. I'm really tired and most of my runs have pretty much sucked.  I'm not sure what the problem is.  I had a very solid base going into this.  I was running between 25 and 30 miles a week for several months so jumping to 33 miles the first week shouldn't have been as hard as it was.  Maybe the 10 day rest was too much? Maybe I'm just psyching myself out by thinking about it too much. 

Yesterday I ran 10 miles on my lunch break.  I felt pretty good for the first 7 or 8 miles but then I was really struggling in the end.  I needed to nap for an hour after work and I still went to bed right at 10:00 and fell asleep almost at once.  If I wasn't in my (very) late 30's, I would think I had mono or something.

Oh well, enough bitching.  I have 4 miles on the calendar today but I think I'm going to take a rest day instead.  I'll make up for it on Sunday when I run the Christmas-Town Dash on my scheduled rest day.  Let's hope that things improve quickly!

Race Report: Baltimore Running Festival 2012 - Half Marathon

The 2012 Baltimore Running Festival's Half Marathon was my fourth half marathon and my second on this course.  The course starts in downtown Baltimore on Light Street which is right in the touristy part of town and takes you through the central part of the city and then finishes at Camden Yards (where the Baltimore Orioles play).  If, like me,  you aren't familiar with Baltimore, there aren't a lot of really great sights to see along the way.  The exception being running around Lake Montebello and the finish at Camden Yards.  Crowd support is excellent and the race is very well organized.

The weather was perfect for running.  Temperature at the start was about 50 degrees with clear skies and very little wind.

I live about an hour from Baltimore and decided to drive to the city myself instead of taking the light rail.  I found a place to park about a half mile from the start.  I don't know the city very well but I managed to find the bag drop after stopping a couple times to ask people and got my stuff stowed away.  I brought an old sweatshirt with me to discard right before the start (it would have been donated to charity) but changed my mind at bag check and stuffed it in my bag.  I didn't bring a clean shirt to change into after the race and I felt warm enough to go with out it.

On my way from bag check to the start line I realized that I forgot my pace band.  I knew that this might cause me to miss my 1:50:00 goal time but I didn't let it bother me too much.  Thanks to the long line at bag check, I got to the start about 5 minutes before race time which I think was ideal.  It was really crowded with lots of non-runners clogging up the street.  I was in corral 2, so once the first group was gone and we moved up all the non-runners stayed behind and the crowd thinned out somewhat.

This was definitely the least nervous I have been before a race.  I just felt focused and ready to go.  Because I didn't have my pace band I knew that I would get totally screwed up by the math if I tried to run the 8:23 and keep track of that in my head.  Instead I decided to just try to run even 8:30 splits and see how I felt on the last mile and pick it up if I could.

Miles 1-3 (8:19, 8:48, 8:16) The start was fine.  Not a lot of crowding but there was the usual number of people that were running too slow for where they put themselves at the start.  I didn't have much trouble moving around in traffic and after a couple miles it thinned out.  I really don't know what happened on mile 2. I guess it was the big hill, but it really didn't feel like I ran that slow.

Miles 4-6 (8:30, 8:35, 8:50) This is the toughest part of the course.  It's almost all uphill until about the 6.5 mile mark.  Peter Gabriel's "I Have the Touch" came on my iPod.  The cadence to this song felt perfect so I kept hitting repeat until I got to the top of the hill.  I'm not sure how many times I listened to the whole thing, I think at least 5.

Miles 7-10 (8:39, 8:28, 8:30, 8:33) Shortly after the 10K mark the course levels off for a while as you go around Lake Montebello.  I was passed by a lady that looked strong and I decided to pace off of her for a while.  I ended up following just behind her for almost four miles and ran my most even splits all day.  At about 9.5 miles the course starts a nice long decent and I decided to pass my pacer and try to make up for some lost time.

Miles 11 - 13 (7:52, 8:27, 7:40) I tried to hold the faster pace but the bridge and then the long hill on the other side had other ideas.  I was happy that I still had enough in the tank to make the last mile my fastest all day.


After I crossed the finish I waited for a minute or so and the lady I had been pacing off of crossed.  I waited until she caught her breath and thanked her for helping me PR and complimented her for running such solid splits.  She thanked me as well.  Evidently she followed when I sped up but faded on the bridge.

I don't typically hang around long after a race so I just headed over to bag check and grabbed my stuff.  I was pretty sore but was able to walk back to my car just fine and head home.

For the first time ever, the time from Garmin and my official finish time matched up at 1:50:55.  About a minute slower than my goal time but all things considered I'm very happy.  This is a 6:05 PR and beat my time on this course by almost 45 minutes. Last year I ran this race in 2:24:28! 

I don't have any race pics yet, but I do have the elevation chart from my Garmin.  If you made it this far thanks for reading!

Half Marathon Number Four

Tomorrow morning I'll run in my fourth half marathon.  As I said in the previous entry, I'm running Baltimore again.  The weather forecast looks perfect for running so no complaints there.  I've set what looks to be a pretty tough goal for this race. I'm trying for 1:50:00 which would be a seven minute personal best.  I ran 1:53:25 a couple weeks ago on a training run but that was on a flat course and Baltimore is very hilly.  Of course that was also at the end of a 30 mile week and I've been resting a lot this week so I'm feeling pretty good about at least beating 1:53:00.

The part of this race that I'm most concerned about is pace.  I know what pace I need to run in order to meet my goal and I'm pretty sure I can run at that pace for 13.1 miles.  I'm just not very good at knowing how fast I'm going as I'm doing it.  I usually run by perceived effort and am often surprised by how fast or slow I'm actually running when I check my watch.  Although I do feel like I'm getting a little better at it, I still don't really trust myself.  One thing I am pretty good at is holding a pace once I've been running it for a mile or two.  I can sort of lock in and hold that pace or at least know when I'm slowing down or speeding up. This race isn't offering pace groups so I don't have the option of getting in with a pacer to help me get my rhythm. I'm trying to look at this as a fun experiment.  I'm going to see if I can set pace on my own, with the help of my Garmin of course. 

I also plan to push this one as hard as I can.  I pushed a little bit in the last HM back in May but I still had a lot left in the tank when I finished.  The two races before that were great learning experiences, but I was really under trained and I just hoped to finish.  This time I want to finish it as fast as I can.  With that kind of mind set, there is a pretty strong chance that I'm going to go out too fast and blow up.  I could end up walking a few miles at the end but I'm willing to risk it just to see what I can do.  What the heck, you only live once.

Maryland Double

Hey!

I haven't updated in a while.  As I was typing that I thought, "I bet a lot of my blog entries start off with that same thought".  Oh well, I'm not going to change it now.

I'm preparing to run the half marathon (HM) at the Baltimore Running Festival on October 13th.  I'd like to say I'm excited for this race but I'm not.  I'm not running it with anyone (unless you include the 10,000 people I don't know) and Cindi has something going on that day so there won't be anyone at the finish line for me to high five.  Hugs are pretty much out of the question after running 13 miles because hugging a sweaty guy is really gross.

Up until pretty recently, running a HM was more exciting.  At first the distance itself was intimidating but I've done it so many times in training that I no longer worry about that.  The last HM I ran in Frederick was exciting because it was so close to home and I really wanted to break the 2 hour mark.  I ran it in 1:57:00 which I was thrilled with and then having Cindi and the kids meet me at the finish line was icing on the cake.

The course in Baltimore is much hillier than Frederick so I doubt I'll beat my PR.  Combine that with the long drive alone, parking hassles, etc and I'm less than excited.  So why am I running it at all?  For the medal of course.  Not just the Finishers Medal that everyone gets but I also qualify for getting a SPECIAL medal for completing the Maryland Double.  The Frederick Running Festival and the Baltimore Running Festival are both run by the same company and they have a nice little "extra" medal for anyone that finishes both races in the same calendar year.  So yeah, I paid $100 to drive all the way to Baltimore and run 13 miles through some pretty scary neighborhoods for a $1.49 piece of medal shaped like a crab.  Makes perfect sense now, doesn't it?

Last weekend I ran a 13.3 mile training run on the C&O Canal. I decided to hit a section of the trail I have never run on before. I ran from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry and back.  I took a few pics along the way.

Trail entrance in Brunswick.

Much of the time the river is hidden behind trees.  I came across a camp ground where the trees had been cleared.  The campers that were there were still sleeping in their tents when took a couple shots of the water.

As I passed Harpers Ferry, this train crossed the river. I had to stop and get a picture or two.

I was really in a much better mood than this picture indicates.