35, 5, and 2

Michele \"1L" Keane wrote:Go Doug and Reina Go!

Mark B wrote:Monday is going to be AWESOME. Basking in the glow of a fantastic marathon experience.

Go Doug and Reina! We'll be pulling for you both.

Thank y'all again for your help throughout this training cycle.  It's allowed me to continue digging my trench, as y'all up there on the surface adjust my direction.

Reina and I had a good day, today.  She's just a real treat to be around.  We're going to run together, in the hopes that she won't have to worry about pacing me.  Same thing.  Different verb.  If I want to go on, I go.  And I will.

We're getting a little better weather in the morning, in that a cool front is to move through the area tonight that will create a wind shift to the north, ergo lower humidity.  Low at the start of 46 with a high at 1 p.m. around 67 with clouds in the morning burning off to a clear sky.  Winds from the north at 3-5 mph.

We're going to follow the plan of 2@12:15 and 18 @ 11:55.

It's going to be a great day, tomorrow.  Monday is still going to suck.

Good luck in the morning Doug.  You've got this!

Monday will not suck, your legs will just be sore.  Drink some beers to kill the pain after the race and your headache will distract you from the leg pain!

mul21 wrote:Good luck in the morning Doug.  You've got this!

Monday will not suck, your legs will just be sore.  Drink some beers to kill the pain after the race and your headache will distract you from the leg pain!

Hey, Jim.  Thanks much!  Monday will suck because Reina flies home.  It's been really extraordinarily fun having her here.  Truly.

Legs?  Meh, they'll survive or fall off.    Let's do this.

This morning's BK level was 0.6.  On the edge of the effective level of Nutritional Ketosis.  I'll be just fine. 

It's presently 53 degrees, with a dewpoint of 53, outside at mile 18 of the marathon course.  The wind shift has occurred, but presently the wind is out of the west at 2 mph.  Over the past hour and 46 minutes, the temperature has climbed from 50 to 53.  I'll check it again in a couple of hours, after a 2 mile warmup to stimulate enough action to avoid porta-potties and bushes during the race.

Jogged a mile and a half.  52 degrees and foggy.  Dense fog advisory until 9 a.m.  Humidity is to drop from 71% to 31% by noon.  Clear skies after the fog burns off by 9 a.m.  High temperature at noon is forecasted to be 63 degrees.


Here's the link to the course: 
http://www.chevronhoustonmarathon.com/Upload/documents/2014%20Spectator%20Map.pdf

Here's a link to the local station broadcasting the race starting at 7 a.m. - 10 a.m. CT.  Not sure if they're going to stream it.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/feature?section=resources/lifestyle_community&id=8952048

I will be handicapping specific people in the field today, specifically the author and his pacer, Reina.

This is the first year on this course that was redrawn, due to a bridge going over I-10 at the very start of the race was scheduled to be destroyed.  The new course is being tested as a course from which more people can run the race.  The full and half sold out months ago with 13,000 full and 12,000 half for a total of 25,000.

Overall race pace forecasted is 11:51 with a final time of 5:13:45  +/- 5 seconds    

Here are the approximate forecasted splits at the 5K timing mats:
5K - 12:08
10K - 12:02
15K - 12:00
20K - 11:59
Half, 25K, 30K - 11:58
35K - 11:55
40K - 11:53
Finish - 11:51

The toughest part of the course are miles 23-25, where the road pitches up and down with 2 underpasses within a quarter of a mile of each other at mile 24.

Past 3 Houston's:
2013 6:09:22, 14:08 pace
2012 5:45:11, 13:09 pace *PR
2011 6:12, 14:20 pace

Shortly, my breakfast will be 2 scrambled eggs and sausage.  I'll be heading out of here by 5:30.

My very good friend, Reina, hopes to be able to stay with me.  Below the neck, she and I are probably endurance equals.  She's training for the AR50 in April in Sacramento and she has a 20 mile run next Saturday.  So, she's no slouch.  However, she's coming late to the speed game, so I have a little advantage on her.  And she needs to believe she can do the pace.  But I believe in her and I'm ecstatic to have her with me.

Need to scoot.  Thanks for your time and thanks for the good wishes & support.

 

Some post-race commentary and analysis.  I don't have the figures with me, so some of this is from memory.

I ran 26.43 miles, yesterday at a pace of 12:16.  The actual pace at the finish of 26.2 was 12:22.  Had I finished at my projected pace, I would've finished faster because my projection was on 26.5 miles, but the pace would've been slower than my projected pace of 11:41, because I ran the course long.  So in projecting a pace for the future, it's imperative that I forecast based on running the course long.

I will also complain to the Marathon officials that a water station should not be located in the direct path of a running tangent, as a few were.  The new course was fine and I was encouraged that through about 19 miles, my overrunning was only 0.11.  Somehow, probably due to running inefficiently, I over ran 0.31 during the last 7 miles.

I had one 14 minute split, a couple of 13's, a few more 12's and a lot of 11's, mostly in the first half.  Reina had to slow down due to some cramping in her quads and calves.  Plus, since she's mostly an ultra trail runner now, the concrete was tough on her.  I finished 17 minutes ahead of her.  I doubt she'll return to run the Houston Marathon again.

My heart rate was +10 bpm during the whole race.  Part of it was the 'excitement' of the race, but I believe more of it was because I'm not acclimated to daytime running.  It was severely clear, yesterday, but there was a very cool north breeze from time to time that offset the sun.  Rather than slowing the pace to lower the HR, I was under the impression (or just to preserve the hope of the objective) that I had the endurance to do it at the HR +10 rate.  I don't know, but I do believe had I slowed, my time would've been worse.  Seems like I have this +10 each year.  I'd appreciate some input on this subject.

I had no pain during the race.  None.  And another thing...it seemed like the race was going by a lot faster than I'm used to (which it did - duh), but it seemed the mile markers were showing up earlier (which they were - duh).  And there were so many people on the course when I was on it, during the latter parts.  So many more than the 6 hour runners.  I know why, but it was just odd.  I guess it's that way and more up until 3:20 finishers?

I remember a few years back that I posted that the only similarity between Dave-O's times and my times were there weren't too many people around us during the race.

Where do I go from here?  Continue to improve.  I can't lose much weight, so I can't derive lower times from dropping mucho weight.  Now, I just have to run faster and build endurance at those paces, I guess.  I'll be starting up CrossFit again in a month.  I'm beginning to read a book called "Chi Running", so I'll see what's up with that.

The LC/HF method of eating is a method that I will always do, except this week.  I'm eating like my fellow carb-based humans this week.  Two baskets of chips at dinner with Reina, last night.  Pho tomorrow for lunch.  Greasy cheeseburger and french fries maybe for dinner tonight.  You know...good food.  Let me see if I can find a pizza place around work, now.

As I remember stuff, I'll post it and I'll post the splits tonight.  Any other comments or funky n=1 ideas, please let me know.

ounce wrote:Any other comments or funky n=1 ideas, please let me know.

Here's one: What you've been doing is working. Don't mess with it.

Oh sure, you can experiment with Chi running or some other sort of work to improve your form. And you could experiment with a little more uptempo stuff at some point. But by and large, you're probably best served recovering well from this race and then getting back to it and reaping the benefits of riding that steady improvement curve. Keep at it until it doesn't work anymore, then try something else. My two cents, anyway.

Congrats again on the marathon, and I wouldn't read too much into the somewhat elevated heart rate. Probably excitement.

I'm sorry it went poorly for Reina, though. If you've been spending a lot of time on the trails, that concrete can be quite a shock.

Mark B wrote:

ounce wrote:Any other comments or funky n=1 ideas, please let me know.

Here's one: What you've been doing is working. Don't mess with it.

Oh sure, you can experiment with Chi running or some other sort of work to improve your form. And you could experiment with a little more uptempo stuff at some point. But by and large, you're probably best served recovering well from this race and then getting back to it and reaping the benefits of riding that steady improvement curve. Keep at it until it doesn't work anymore, then try something else. My two cents, anyway.

Congrats again on the marathon, and I wouldn't read too much into the somewhat elevated heart rate. Probably excitement.

I'm sorry it went poorly for Reina, though. If you've been spending a lot of time on the trails, that concrete can be quite a shock.

Thanks, Mark.  I noticed in the last 8 miles that I was leaning forward, more than I should.  My left, middle back was beginning to ache some.  So, core work has to get back to a more prominent place.  CrossFit helps with that because it works the whole body.  And I'm stronger in the core than last year, but evidently not just strong enough.  Waiting a month before re-starting CrossFit worked last year because just 2 weeks recovery didn't work 2 years ago.

Both Reina and I had salt stains on our running outfits (her outfit was cuter than mine), which I know is perfectly normal.  After the race, I noticed I had this dust-like feeling on my hands, but couldn't remember where the wind was strong enough to make that.  Somehow, I got a finger wet and it rubbed against my lips and it tasted salty.  I licked my hand and it was salty.  So that dust was salt.

 

In my race report thread, Jerry wrote that I needed to put a 4 in the number for next year.  When I was responding to the people who congratulated me, I re-read Jerry's and thought that a sub-5 hour marathon could be a worthy target for 2015.  It's only 25 minutes away.  "ONLY" 25 minutes, he (me) writes.  Well, but I was targeting a 30 minute PR this year and ended up getting 70% there or 21 minutes.

Before the race on Sunday, I was a 5:45 marathoner.  A sub-5 hour marathon was pretty far away thinking.  Now, not so much.  It's still an out there goal, but not near as far as 5:45.  If memory serves correctly, a 5 hour marathon is a 11:37 pace.  And when you tack on the overrunning fee of 6 seconds a mile, that's 11:31.

Just as a reference point, I went from averaging 42 miles/week in the fall of 2010 to averaging 52 miles/week in spring of 2011 and my marathon time improved by 15 minutes. I think if you stay the course and can add an additional run/miles each week during your next cycle, you'll be well on your way to putting that 4 in front of your time. There's a lot to the simplicity of Matt's run more theory.

Excellent all around job on this cycle, especially with the less than normal diet and figuring out how it works for you. A 21 minute PR is a hell of a lot of time and definitely shows that you've put in the effort and are heading in the right direction.

So here are the splits, with the actual running distance.

26.43 miles, 5:24:07, 12:16 avg pace (12:22 officially), 166 avg bpm, 181 max HR during mile 14.

1. 11:59, 153 bpm
   
2. 12:16, 153 bpm
   
3. 11:36, 162 bpm
   
4. 11:59, 164 bpm
   
5. 11:52, 163 bpm
   
6. 11:44, 166 bpm
   
7. 11:40, 168 bpm
   
8. 12:03, 166 bpm (pee break)
   
9. 11:39, 167 bpm
   
10. 11:58, 165 bpm
    
11. 12:07, 165 bpm
    
12. 12:03, 168 bpm
    
13. 11:44, 170 bpm
    
14. 11:35, 173 bpm
    
15. 12:01, 171 bpm
    
16. 12:16, 169 bpm
    
17. 12:10, 169 bpm
    
18. 12:10, 170 bpm
    
19. 11:58, 172 bpm
    
20. 12:18, 172 bpm
    
21. 12:51, 168 bpm
    
22. 12:52, 167 bpm
    
23. 13:00, 166 bpm
    
24. 13:11, 166 bpm
    
25. 14:16, 163 bpm
    
26. 12:48, 163 bpm
    

  26.43   13:24 pace, 160 bpm

All of the slower times in the first half of the race, except for the pee break noted above, were my attempt to walk through the water stations with Reina so the average pace would increase.  Shortly after half way, we parted and I went on.  The 12:15 pace group caught me at mile 18 and they were doing a run/walk.  It was a bad decision to try to do run/walk with them because their run was at a faster pace than my run.  I should've continued running and let them catch up to me, each cycle.  Alas, I couldn't stay with them.  The double underpass on Allen Parkway caused problems and I just had to stop and walk after the 2nd one.  That was the 14 minute pace.

I felt a little dehydrated throughout the race.  Mouth was dry after each water stop.  I don't know if that was the green tea that Reina and I had for lunch on Saturday or the low and dry humidity.  I didn't feel properly hydrated until mile 24.  I don't think that played a major role in the race.

More miles could help and I might have to add a 4th running day.

The next 5 or 6 months will be CrossFit on M, T, & W and running on Thursday and Friday.  Most weekends from April to October will be off limits to running.

The marathon cycle just completed was 22 weeks long and started on August 21.  It contained 3 warmup races and two 24 mile long runs, among other long run distances.  I really believe the 24 mile runs helped my mind.

Thanks for any comments.

As a comparison and for giggles, below are the pace figures for the 2012 Houston Marathon at 5:45 and 13:09 pace.
1 12:54 137
2 12:52 139
3 13:12 138
4 12:44 145
5 12:51 141
6 13:05 139 the only potty break
7 11:47 143
8 12:41 142
9 12:44 144
10 12:58 144
11 12:57 144
12 13:18 146
13 13:44 144
14 13:29 147
15 13:06 140
16 13:05 161  hit the sun
17 12:51 159
18 13:02 164
19 12:39 167
20 12:37 168
21 12:53 168
22 13:00 167
23 13:28 165
24 13:48 164
25 14:08 164
26 14:20 163
.4 4:53 164

Since Sunday evening, I've been eating like I was going off to war.
Mexican twice, including 2-4 baskets of chips
Big bowl of chili
Cheeseburgers and fries (though 2 meals)
12 inch pizza (canadian bacon and pineapple)
1 pint of Blue Bell Cookies 'n Cream ice cream.

I have another cheeseburger coming tomorrow, then I'll start paring it back.