A P.R. Ain't Nothin' but a Number - 2013 Williams Route 66 Marathon

So chalk it up, marathon #5 down. I missed my P.R. by a little over a minute. I would have normally looked at it as a big letdown, however I knew going in having a good race is not guaranteed. 

Leading up to raceday, everything was falling in place perfectly. I had followed my training plan, got in some great runs the last month, followed my diet plan and recovered from minor 'injuries'.
Hello Tulsa!
This would be my first road marathon trip. Tulsa was my choice this year after having such bad weather for the Dallas Marathon in 2012. The weather from what I was told is always cooler than what it is in Dallas in late November/early December even though the city is only a 257 mile drive up U.S. Hwy 75. I had a room booked for the Aloft Tulsa and was going to bring family however a mix up with the hotel and my reservation (long story) caused me to have to make some last minute changes. To avoid complicating things, family decided to stay behind this time and I ended up working out a deal to shack up with fellow frunners and DRC members Sanjay and Coach Steve. I rode in with Steve whose hometown is Atoka, OK which is a maybe a little more than halfway between Dallas and Tulsa. Steve gave me a pretty good autobiography of himself and pointing out different Hwy 75 landmarks which is his stomping grounds on the way there and back. We arrived to Tulsa had lunch at a pub where we met up with other DRC members Jamie, Jonno, Chad and Sanjay. This would become our weekend posse. After lunch we went to the marathon expo, got our race packets and checked in to the hotel. I could tell the temps were dropping because my teeth started to hurt. After kicking around all day, we all met up at an Italian restaurant with a couple other runners for some last stage carb loading, swung by Wally World for some last minute items then called it a night.
Race Morning
I was always told that the most important night of sleep is the night two days before the race rather than the night before. Well I did it backwards. I could sleep at all Friday, but slept like a baby Saturday. I woke up at 5:30 went downstairs and indulged in the hotel's complimentary breakfast then got dressed and started to prepare myself mentally for what I was to encounter in 2.5 hours.  We decided to leave our room about 20-30 minutes before race start as to not prolong standing in 23 degree weather for too long.  The worst part of the weather was the first five minutes after stepping into it.  Actually it didn't really feel that bad. I had on two layers, and that was enough.  I was able to check in my drop bag, make some last minute adjustments and squeeze into the corral as the national anthem was being sung.  Perfect timing.  

Race Start

My strategy was to run with the 4:00 pacer for the first 5K, hold a 9 min/mi pace until I got to around mile 18, then if I was feeling good, make a judgement call rather or not to pick it up from there.  I started out as planned following the 4:00 Pacer whom was chatting away to a friend the whole time non stop about kids, holidays, President Obama, you name it; never acknowledged the folks running around her. After the first mile my Garmin bleeped out a 9:14 split and that was enough for me.  Too slow.  I decided to take off on my own. The course started out hilly and never let up. I figured with all of the hill training I had done I should have no problems. There were numerous shout outs to 'DRC' as I was wearing my DRC swag proudly.  I got my 9:04, avg pace at mile 3. First task completed. Now all I had to do is hold a 9:00 pace to mile 18. How hard could that be? Well it wasn't, until I got to mile between mile 15-18. Along the way to mile 18 I was right on point with my hydration, fueling, and supplements. There was however a point at mile 14 where I experienced some lightheadedness. That went on for almost a mile. I had no idea at the time what caused it and you can see it in my splits, but I shook it off and kept going.  Now that I look at the elevation from my Garmin report, there was a steady overall increase in elevation at that point so maybe that had something to do with it.  I fluctuated my speed up and down the hills and did the best I could to try to average 9:00, sometimes I was above sometimes I was below.  The race support was awesome.  I took a 24 oz bottle of water with me and figured to hydrate as much as I could at the water stations.  It seems as every time I felt it was time to hydrate, there was a water station.  

Mile 18

Back to mile 18 from out of nowhere I started having lots of fatigue pain in my left quad. It slowed my pace down by at least :30. No bueno. I knew that the faster I could get done the better. Yeah okay, that's obvious but the longer I'm out there the more fatigued I knew everything else would become.  I looked back halfway through mile 18 to see if the 4:00 pacer was in sight and she was right there.  Damn.  Now I know how it feels when I'm pacing a race and I pass someone who had a goal of finishing before I do.  I hear a lot of expletives when they see me carrying a pacestick bearing the time that they were trying to beat.  That was very demoralizing at that moment.  I knew I would not catch them without injuring myself trying to.  So the only thing I had left was to try to break my personal record of 4:13:09 which has been my P.R. since my very first marathon.  

Gutting it Out

My biggest fear before this race was cramping up.  I knew if that happened, the race would be pretty much over for me.  I have cramped up at almost every marathon and half marathon I have done.  To this day I'm not sure if it is because of lack of electrolytes or lack of training at intense speeds.  I took electrolyte supplements during the race and it seemed to help.  Around mile 23 I could feel some pulling in my hamstrings giving a hint at cramping that slowed me down even more.  I could see I was either going to narrowly make or miss my P.R.  I felt like I couldn't let all the training I had done and traveling that far to run a marathon could go to waste.  My quad was really hurting, but I decided to deal with it no matter how uncomfortable it was.  I'm sure people could see the pain on my face.  Once I got to mile 24, all I had to do run somewhat of a steady pace to beat it.  I'm just now looking at my Garmin and how I produced a 10:14 pace at mile 26, I have NO idea.  I was able to sustain it until the last little upgrade just before the turn to the finish line.  I walked very briskly up that incline then tried to trot as fast as I could to the finish only to be rejected ten feet from the finish with a full calf cramp.  I stopped and drug myself across the finish.  4:14:14.

In Conclusion

All of the planets aligned up except Pluto. Pluto represented race conditions Sunday.  Not making excuses.  I did the best I could with what was thrown at me. What I have learned is that a personal record is just a number. A race result does not necessarily tell the story of all of the training, blood, sweat and tears that proceeded it.  It will fall one day, I will just be patient which is my middle name.  And when it falls I have a feeling it will fall HARD.  Looking forward, I am still in the best shape of my life and ready for the next marathon :)

-TNT-

Mile Splits

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	4:14:30.2	26.51	9:36
1	9:14.4	1.00	9:14
2	8:57.1	1.00	8:57
3	8:57.4	1.00	8:58
4	8:58.9	1.00	8:59
5	9:01.1	1.00	9:01
6	8:52.7	1.00	8:53
7	8:53.8	1.00	8:54
8	8:55.3	1.00	8:55
9	8:55.5	1.00	8:56
10	9:04.6	1.00	9:05
11	8:52.8	1.00	8:53
12	9:13.9	1.00	9:14
13	8:48.7	1.00	8:49
14	9:11.5	1.00	9:12
15	9:15.1	1.00	9:15
16	8:57.8	1.00	8:58
17	9:50.3	1.00	9:50
18	9:16.3	1.00	9:16
19	10:46.5	1.00	10:47
20	9:55.4	1.00	9:56
21	9:46.7	1.00	9:47
22	10:30.8	1.00	10:31
23	10:54.8	1.00	10:55
24	12:01.9	1.00	12:02
25	11:14.6	1.00	11:15
26	10:14.0	1.00	10:14
27	5:48.3	0.52	11:12

Elevation

Steve taking a pic of all of his inventory.  Not sure how
 he toted all of that through the race, but it worked out.  He B.Q'ed.

Just before race start waiting in sub freezing temperatures

Some of the DRC Tulsa crew: Chad, Steve, Jamie, Jonno, Sanjay and me

And the medal.  #5.

Now What? 1 week to Tulsa

This is nerve wrecking now.  One more long-ish run tomorrow and couple more base runs and my taper and training is done before Tulsa on next Sunday.  I've been registered for this race since early summer, booked my hotel two months ago and I even have most of my race gear packed and ready to go.  Training has gone perfectly, all of the little dings and pings I had have gone away, even the pesky little hip flexor strain that was driving me nuts.  I feel better and healthier than I have ever in my life.  In my LIFE.  So what's left to do?  I think I already have a good race strategy and nutrition-while-racing strategy ready.  That forces me to look at little things that I shouldn't really worry about like what the weather will be like on race day and I even went as far as going through some of the course using Google Street View.  Bored with that, now.  I did find out that Tulsa is a beautiful city by the way.  What I should do is reflect back on this whole marathon training season, which for me started right after I paced the Big D Marathon in April.  Yeah, let's do that.  Thinking about all of the things that toughened me.  The hot hot summer runs where it's 97 degrees even at 9pm at night, the runs on grass and dirt hills at Norbuck Park, the humid trail runs at Northshore and Big Cedar, the dehydration incident- yes, the dehydration event, and the hilly routes thrown to us every other week in training at the DRC.  Most of all those few runs which I had to do on my own during the week but didn't feel like it, because my occupation had beaten me down all day long.  But I still did them.  Or getting up at 4am to get those runs in because I knew the wife would have me occupied with honey-do's after work.  I still got my ass out of bed.  Last but not least my running family whom I get so much encouragement and motivation from that can't even be measured.  I don't know what's going to happen next Sunday, but I can say I put (almost) everything I had into this training this season.  Of course there's that weeeee bit more that you wish you had done.  If I break my 4:13:06 P.R. that will be good.  If I break 4:00 I will be very happy.  If I hit my goal of 3:55 I will be ecstatic.  Any thing better than that I will be turning cartwheels at the finish line.  The only thing left to do is carry out my race strategy as well as I carried out my training. Unless something else strikes me to blog about next week, the next blog post will be the race report.  Stay tuned...   May the course be with me.  

-TNT-

DRC Half Marathon (pace job) race report - 20 days til Tulsa

Before the start of this season I decided I would be part of this race whether I was racing it or pacing it.  I raced the 2011 DRC Half which at that time was my 2nd ever half but skipped this event last year in 2012, still not sure why.  Never again.  It is hands down the best organized half  marathons in the area and I just found out one of the oldest half marathons in the country.  I'm trying not to be biased but it's true.  Sorry, Rock N Roll Dallas.  That makes me even more honored to have the opportunity to pace this event.

Pre-Race
     As usual, I couldn't sleep the night before.  I may have gotten in 4-5 hours sleep which is adequate, and this was the end of daylight savings time so by setting the clocks back an hour we all gained an hour of sleep- or an extra hour of wake for me.  I went ahead and got out of bed around 4:30 am and fixed a light breakfast, got my gear together then left to get an early parking spot.  I met up with the rest of the pace group at the DRC tent and grabbed the 2:05 pace stick which was what me and my co-pacer Jackie C. was assigned.  We had new pace sticks, ones that seemed to be lighter and more wind tolerant.  And they looked great. There was a nip in the air, the temperature at start was exactly 50 degrees.  I had a long sleeve shirt on over my orange TEAM DRC singlet.  I was thinking I would be freezing when I took it off, but it felt great out there.  One thing, I noticed I put my shorts on backwards.  How I did that and didn't notice I have no idea ha ha.  I ducked into the DRC tent and put them on correctly then found my co-pacer.  We lined up in the corral and as we were waiting for the start, dailymile friend Meg popped up.  I got a quick pic with her and wished her well.  I then looked around and noticed that I was surrounded by most of the folks from my 4:10 pace group, A.K.A "3:70".  We had a large group run with us in general.

Race Start
     Jackie brought two different pace bands to wear on our wrists.  One with even paces and one with negative splits.  She asked me which one we should use and I recommended the even splits as I checked out the newly designed course and it looked as if it would be fairly flat with little elevation changes.  I was correct.  75 percent or more of the course was on the lake.   Once we got out of the initial race congestion, it was easy peasy.  There were a couple small hills but nothing major that you couldn't get through if had been training for it.  I tried to pace slowly up the hills and pick the pace up going down.  I would check and look back ever so often and notice the same faces behind me.  Good to go.  We got a little ahead at one point but as you can see by our splits below, we pretty much nailed it all the way through.  We needed to stay at about a 9:25-ish pace.  My 4:10 group stuck with us through most of this race and a few of them took off toward the end and broke their personal records.  At the end I had numerous people come up to me and thank us for pacing them through the race.  I love hearing that and that is what it is all about and why I love pacing.  The official results, we finished with a chip time of 2:04:53.  It don't get too much better than that.

Post Race
     Post race food was OK but I was grateful.  Freebirds was there handing out tacos and In-and-Out Burger were handing out burgers.  There was a beer tent set up as well.  If you were patient enough to wait through the long lines, you got refreshed.  Legs felt fine a little tired probably due to I ran 11 miles at a semi fast pace the day before.  Overall a great race, nicely organized.  Pacing is going great both in racing and with my group.  Training is going well.  Hoping this season ends as well as it seems it will.

Me and Meg from dailymile, our first meeting
ever just before race start.

Me and Jackie, approaching the finish line
 about to nail our target time.

Garmin splits, we held it pretty steady throughout.

Free burgers after the race from In-N-Out Burger

Wow Moment

I just had a wow moment... I have ran often this training season without my Garmin; I mainly wear it when I'm pacing.  For a couple reasons, so I can learn what different paces feel like when I run relative to weather and so to prolong the life of my Garmin.  When I don't use my Garmin I use Map My Run and just  have it rolling on my phone strapped to my arm and I just do that for mileage.  I was looking through my last few runs, never looked at the run I did this past Sunday and saw the splits.  Not that I wasn't confident, but this was an eye opener for me as I did this the day after a 22 miler and I probably could have went another 4-5 miles.  I had no idea I was running at this pace.  I wonder what I can do on fresh legs.

Reflecting Back on Previous 26.2's ... 28 days til Tulsa

     Today I finished a 22 miler, my longest training run since March.  Still feeling strong, but feeling the grind of training.  I understand what the athlete endures now, taking a beating in training and trying to prop yourself up and recover for the next training session.  During today's training run I started reflecting back on all of my previous marathons and how my preparation affected each one.  I made a lot of mistakes, which is expected.  Coach Steve Griffin says that it takes doing about three to four of these to get it right.  I'm sure hoping this is the one.   

Per Athlinks.com my 4 marathons.  Pitiful.
Hopefully I will get it right on November 24th.

     I won't count my first marathon, the Big D in Spring 2012 as it was my first one and the goal was to just finish.  Ironically it is still my P.R. at 4:13:06.  I ran the Dallas Marathon that fall and I followed the training plan pretty well, however weather did not work out in my favor on race day.  On that day in early December we had warm humid weather and I ended up breaking down at mile 20 and in the back of an ambulance.  Here's the blog post to that debacle: http://clayhastheruns.blogspot.com/2012/12/dallas-metropcs-marathon-120912.html#comment-form  In better weather conditions and if I had have hydrated better, I'm confident I would have had my sub 4:00 marathon that I have been pursuing.  The Dallas Marathon course is not difficult at all, just the weather is a crap shoot every year.  After that race, I did not have the common sense to stop running and chill the hell out.  I should have not run or barely run for three to four weeks but instead I kept on piling up the mileage, so afraid that I would lose fitness before the Cowtown Marathon in February this year.  What happened due to my hardheadedness was an overuse injury of my lower left leg, and I've never mentioned this until now, but to this day I think may have been a small stress fracture that was never diagnosed.  My training ended up getting interrupted as I wasn't able to ramp up and peak out on the miles that I needed and as a result I lost some of my fitness and ran that marathon on that bad leg.  I finished at a decent time considering all the pain that I ran through at 4:30.  I also remembered that I spent about 10 minutes during the race waiting on and using the port-o-potty, so I probably could have had a 4:20.  The last marathon I ran, The Big D again, I actually served as a pacer for the first time.  I had no idea what to expect, as I was just coming off of that injury.  I was assigned to lead the 4:45 pace.  The weather again was warm and humid, and I was worried about my history of severe leg cramps.  This ended up being the first marathon I would finish and feel somewhat decent.  It was at a much slower pace than what I usually run and very grueling (not to mention the course was miss-routed and everyone ended up running 27.4 miles).  

I'm proud of each of these races in different ways,
even if the end result wasn't what was desired.

     So now, here I am preparing for marathon #5.  I have been following the training plan almost to a "T".   The most positive thing about this training season is that I'm completely healthy and everything is rolling along just fine.  The planets are all starting to align nicely.  I'm still trying to figure out these leg cramps as I experienced them again in the half I paced a couple weeks ago in Tyler, TX.  Both calves completely clutched up on me, but I think the factors were how saturated that course was with hills and the ridiculous humidity that day.  Plus I was just getting over a bad cold.  Per my conversation with fellow runner friend Jon Cruel, we both agreed that the leg cramps also may be due to not getting in enough intense long runs.  I have been trying to mix those in, at least one per week.  I just mapped out the course for the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon and the elevation gain proves show that this race will be hilly just as everyone has been saying.  I compared that route to the elevation gain of the hilly routes we run every week in training and it is no more hillier, so I'm not entirely frightened.  The Cowtown was 'hilly', so bring it.  I'm just hoping the beatdown that I'm giving my body right now pays off.

-TNT-

I'm on a Roll Like Toilet Tissue. 33 Days til Tulsa

Last week was probably the best week of training that I have had thus far, I'm trying to dupliate that effort this week.  After the Tyler Rose, I was sore as hell but still managed to grind out a recovery run that Monday.  The next day I met up with my 4:10 Marathon crew at my old high school for speedwork on the track.  We did 4x1200m repeats, in the rain and wind and the last set in complete darkness after the lights cut off on us.  It was pretty epic.  I'm getting to the point where I don't even look at or even use my Garmin unless I have to, which is usually when I'm pacing.  I still don't know what my splits were for that rainy tuesday night, didn't even bother to go back and look.  Because I'm learning what my body can do.  Speaking of that, wow what a big difference temperature makes.  Ever since we received our first "real" cool front at the beginning of last week where the temps actually dropped into the 40's, running has gotten so much easier.  It's not like I don't know that already, but it seems like you are reminded every year when you get that first cool weather run.  The runs which I do solo, I run at what I feel my marathon pace is because your body only knows effort level and knows nothing about pace.  Stole that from our training director after I heard hime say it the other day.  But it's true.  A 11:00 min/mile pace in the middle of July can feel the same as an 8:00 min/mile pace in 45 degrees.  It took me a while to get that beat into my head.  After the week was done, I had completed my first 50+ mile week in I don't know how long which was punctuated with a back to back 20 mile endurance run and 12 mile trail run.  And still feeling pretty damn good.  Main concern now is to keep up the intensity, not to get injured.  Listen to my body.  Keep following the training plan.  I've gotten a little more strict with my diet also.  Now is the time to get to the nitty gritty.  Another couple weeks of nose to the grind training and then some fine tuning and hopefully I will be ready.  This is what it's all about, the journey there.

-TNT-

Tyler Rose Half Marathon (pacing job) 40 days til Tulsa

     Last week was supposed to be one of my strongest weeks of training.  On the schedule was strength training on Tuesday, a tempo run Wednesday, a simulation run of the first 7 marathon miles on Thursday then 18 miler for Saturday and pace a half marathon on Sunday and a total of about 48 miles.  My last Sunday was already a little wheels off. Usually I run trails but since we had rain... AGAIN,  the trails were closed. It’s been almost a month since I’ve been on the trails due to weather. But I still managed to get in a nice 10 mile fun run through downtown and uptown with an abbreviated version of the TREX group. Earlier in the week my cousin from Kansas City popped in for a surprise visit whom I have not seen since I was 17. I had lunch with her Tuesday and funny enough found out she had done some running in the past also and was interested in getting into maybe a half marathon. That day, I had some business to take care of at work so I couldn’t make the group strength training, so I ran on my own. The night before I knew something was wrong, I started getting a sore throat. While me and my cousin were having lunch I could feel myself getting sicker but I thought it may have just been allergies.

Me and cuzzin Niki from K.C.

I ended up running latter that evening and put in 8 miles but I could tell that my respiration wasn’t right. The next morning I woke up and was sneezing all day at work. Ok, something is going on. My runner buds Michelle and Rebecca had a Wednesday run on the schedule and I had planned on running with them but at the last minute Michelle, who is a few months preggo texted us informing that she was having some dizziness, so she was out. Rebecca T. texted me afterward and I let her know I was good to go but I told her thought I was catching a cold. Rebecca’s marathon which was in Victoria, British Columbia Sunday quickly distanced from running with me as she did not want to catch whatever I had. I didn’t blame her. Come to find out the ragweed count was extremely high so I figured that was what was causing my problems, maybe not a cold. I left work and ran 4 miles without any problem. Then Thursday came around. I was miserable all day long. Coughing, chest congestion, but I powered my way through the day on DayQuil. Boy, you have a cold. These aren’t allergies. Trying to climb the stairs at work was a huge task. Whenever I get a cold it brings to me asthmatic-like symptoms if I try to do excercise. Friday I woke up felt much better and most all of the symptoms were gone by afternoon, just a little congested. So I felt I would be good to go Saturday morning. Only 18 miles right? Wrong. I got to the clubhouse was all ready to go. Got my 4:10 group behind me and only made it about 30 seconds into the run and felt like I had just run 4x100m sprints. Immediately stopped, told the group to keep going then called my coach who was up ahead with another group to drop back and lead my group. I probably could have made it maybe a few miles but it would have killed me just to do that. I could tell I had only about 70% of my lung capacity and that just won’t cut it for running. Throughout Saturday, I felt better by the hour and even got in a practice run that afternoon to make sure I was good to go for the Sunday run which was the Tyler Rose half marathon and I was assigned to pace the 2:10 half marathon group.  I actually knew I needed one more day to get well but sometimes I can be a little hardheaded.  Funny though, with these consecutive days of rest/easy runs I do strongly believe my hip flexor problem is history. Ironically the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago when I had a hip flexor issue that wouldn’t go away, I caught the flu and was out of running commission for a whole week. It healed up and I came back stronger than ever and completed my first ever half marathon a couple weeks later. I’m going to take a guess that this will make me even stronger.

     So bring on the Tyler Rose half marathon.  All I had been told is that it was hilly.  Every time that race is brought up, hilly is the first adjective you will always hear.  I figured it couldn't be any worse than what we get in training every week running around the neighborhoods of White Rock Lake and Lake Highlands.  The day before I made sure I was extra extra hydrated, due to just coming off of a cold I figured I probably lost more fluids than normal.

DRC Pace Crew

  I woke up at 3am and drove to the DRC clubhouse where I met up with runner bud Bri and hitched a ride to Tyler, Texas.  We were both sleepyheads but had some great conversation there and back and learned a lot about each other.  I kinda like these road marathon trips.  So we lined up at the start line as usual, the full marathoners left 30 minutes before the halfers.  I paced with fellow DRCer Sean, who is just as tall as I am short.  Sean played the whole pacing job perfectly. I had to slow him up a couple times, but he seemed to know just about how much longer the course would be so we had to pace a little bit faster than the calcluated 9:55 min mile to hit 2:10 chip time right at 13.1.  Still with a wee bit of uncertainty if I was well enough to run, I gutted it up and told myself I would give it all I had.  About a mile into the run I figured I was okay as I didn't fall over an die.  We were immediately on an upgrade on that first mile.  There was absolutely nothing flat about that whole course.  It was either up or down.   And that wasn't the worst of it. If the hills didn't get you, the humidity did.  How humid was it?  It was so humid you would have to take a shower to dry off. Haha.  So I knew that meant I had the great potential to cramp up because it never fails.  I was good until about mile 12 mile waterstop.  Felt the pulling coming in my calf, gave Sean the pace stick and told him I would stretch then catch up with him.  I took in some  extra hydration, stretched then sprinted off.  Got to the last stretch and I could see Sean not too far away, and knew I could catch him before I got to the finish line.  Got to the last turn about 100 feet before the finish line and both calves completely seized up.  Damn.  So I had to physically stop, stretch and pull out the knots because my cramps probably aren't like your cramps.  I get muscle spasms and you ain't goin nowhere when you get those.  Lasted all of about 2 minutes then I hobbled the rest of the way. 

Sean and I and probably a 1 foot difference

Asked Sean how we did, 2:09:59.  Bam.  Can't get much better than that.  This was the hardest course that I have ever run.  I would even say harder than the Cowtown Marathon which I can describe as "wavy".  The best way to describe the hills in Tyler, Texas is "arrogant". 

     Overall I had a good time and if asked to pace this one again, I would.  Not sure about the full marathon, but yeah I can handle the half.  Just need to build up these calves a little more and try not to get sick the week before.

-TNT-