marathon fail - why?

or maybe I'm just a whiner and I should have done this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvrxqlOSpI

50 mpw is too little mileage to be running your potential best marathon from, which off a 1:32 half it would be. You hit the wall and crashed hard, which is why you had the "hangover". You maxed out all available fuel and then some. Also, it was warm and sunny Sunday so your body had that additional stress to deal with.

Simply put: you are fairly new to marathoning and your body hasn't made the adaptations to efficient glycogen storage and usage. Running 60-70 mpw will do this. Re-set your goals and pick another marathon for later next year. Try and find a spring 30k (or 20 miler) as a test race. Half-marathons are too short to gauge marathon fitness.

More questions:

1. You say you peaked at 50 mpw. How many weeks did you hit this peak, and what was your average mpw over the last 10-12 weeks? What were the weeks in between the 1/2 marathon and the marathon like?

2. How long were your long runs? When you ran race pace, what percentage of the long run was at that pace? The whole thing?

3. Did you eat anything the morning of the marathon? Did you have coffee?

My guess is that you won't be able to boil this down to any one factor. You should feel pretty proud of going from a casual runner to a 1:32 half marathoner in a year, though-- that is no small feat. You are not alone in stumbling your first time through the marathon.

Try to find the best registered dietician you can in your area who works with athletes. Your experience is not typical first-timer crash and burn. You may have a stomach issue that will take some trial and error work to figure out what you can tolerate during a marathon. I know a runner who went through a stretch where he could not get to mile 16 in a long run without barfing. He just had a really hard time tolerating any sugars on long runs. You may also need to look at what is happening with your blood sugar levels. The "hangover" sounds a lot like a low blood sugar head ache. That might just be from depleting yourself from barfing so much, but it could be something else. A good RD can work wonders with GI problems and fueling issues. My guess is that you will need to do more pre-race fueling and less fueling during the race.

A few thoughts which pretty much agree with other responses, definitely not enough mileage for marathon traning if you peaked at 50, that leads me to believe most weeks were in the 30's and 40's in MPW.

5 gels also seems like an awful lot in 20 or so miles, how many did you typically take on your training run. How many runs of 18+ did you do in training, anything over 20+?

Sounds to me that you just outran your fitness/training. That being said 1:32 is solid and with an increase in weekly mileage and a focus on long runs your next marathon could very well be a BQ time.

-Reg from Crabtown

Doesn't sound like a bonk. It sounds like your stomach let you down. I think it was just too much gel. People vary on how much they need, but 5 is a bit much in my opinion, and heat makes stomachs wonky. I agree with good pre-race fueling and then maybe one or two gels max. My best marathons have been with Gatorade only. My stomach just doesn't do well with anything else at marathon pace.

Let's be honest here; How much sense does it make to run 50 miles (which you probably only did once) per week and have a race that is over half of that in one day? How would you expect your body NOT to crash?

Yup. wrote:

Let's be honest here; How much sense does it make to run 50 miles (which you probably only did once) per week and have a race that is over half of that in one day? How would you expect your body NOT to crash?

At 50 miles per week I have run numerous marathons in the 2:40s. What Jess experienced was a combo of stomach distress (gel OD) and classic rookie wilting in the final 10K.

2) I was overly aggressive with my pace, by body shunted blood from my GI tract and completely rebelled against the marathon.

This is probably about right. Your half indicates you have the ability to run sub 3:20 and potentially much faster, but not after one training cycle at relatively modest mileage. And to be clear, with your apparently brief training history, a plan peaking at 50 miles makes sense. It's the pace that you tried to run off of that training and training history (2*Half Marathon + 15 min) that is aggressive. Someone noted above that it was a bit warm for the race and that's something that gave me trouble in the marathon.

Used to be Rono wrote:

Yup. wrote:

Let's be honest here; How much sense does it make to run 50 miles (which you probably only did once) per week and have a race that is over half of that in one day? How would you expect your body NOT to crash?

At 50 miles per week I have run numerous marathons in the 2:40s. What Jess experienced was a combo of stomach distress (gel OD) and classic rookie wilting in the final 10K.

Are you a woman?

I had similar issues until I went to a talk from an elite runner. He ate a bagel with peanut butter about 4 hours before the marathon. This helped him not "boink". I noticed I was boinking and tried it. It worked.

Used to be Rono wrote:At 50 miles per week I have run numerous marathons in the 2:40s. What Jess experienced was a combo of stomach distress (gel OD) and classic rookie wilting in the final 10K.

5K = 16:55

10K = 35:12

Weekly volume typically in the 45-55 range. Infrequent builds to 60-65 mpw. Never ran track or cross country (former lacrosse player).

well thanks everyone. i think basically i need to (a) train more and (b) dont be retarded and eat a whole bunch more gels than I'm used to ingesting. im hoping to focus on speed in shorter races in the spring and ramp up the mileage for next fall. im newly obsessed with running and hope i can eventually get a lot faster.

on a side note, is it completely insane to want to sign up for philly marathon in 4 weeks to redeem myself and try to be a bit more conservative and aim for 3:30?

jessica

always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

jess from crabtown wrote:

on a side note, is it completely insane to want to sign up for philly marathon in 4 weeks to redeem myself and try to be a bit more conservative and aim for 3:30?

Honestly, yes. You trashed your body badly during this race, in part because you undertrained. Doing another marathon so soon means a) you won't be trained any better and b) you may still be recovering a bit from this one (don't underestimate how long it takes to recover from a marathon, especially when it's your first and/or you crashed and/or you were undertrained).

You're just setting yourself up for failure, and possibly screwing your smart plans for next year.

Relax, recover, and know that the lessons learned here will help you a lot next year.

darkwave wrote:

Relax, recover, and know that the lessons learned here will help you a lot next year.

Concur. Take the long view. No need to rush this.

Agreed. People are under this impression you need to run 80 miles a week to get under three hours.I have run several 2:40ish marathons on as little as 35 miles a week.Jess, you ate too many gels. Try one an hour next time, or skip the gels (which also cause me stomach distress) and just use gatorade or something similar.Good luck!

Used to be Rono wrote:

Yup. wrote:

Let's be honest here; How much sense does it make to run 50 miles (which you probably only did once) per week and have a race that is over half of that in one day? How would you expect your body NOT to crash?

At 50 miles per week I have run numerous marathons in the 2:40s. What Jess experienced was a combo of stomach distress (gel OD) and classic rookie wilting in the final 10K.

jess from crabtown wrote:

well thanks everyone. i think basically i need to (a) train more and (b) dont be retarded and eat a whole bunch more gels than I'm used to ingesting. im hoping to focus on speed in shorter races in the spring and ramp up the mileage for next fall. im newly obsessed with running and hope i can eventually get a lot faster.

on a side note, is it completely insane to want to sign up for philly marathon in 4 weeks to redeem myself and try to be a bit more conservative and aim for 3:30?

jessica

always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

Jessica- actually I say give Philly a shot, I'll be running it as well. If I'm you I'd run with the 3:30 pace group, as long as you break 3:35 you BQ. Take less gels and by going out slower you'll have a much lower chance of blowing up. It should also be cooler which should help. Philly is one of the last races of the fall season, running 55MPW with a cap of 60, I ran Philly for redemption last year 2 weeks after blowing up in NYC and PRed.

If you aren't feeling it that day you can always peel off at the half as it forks at mile 13.

Jess-

Maybe a dumb question but were you hydrated prior to the race? I mean starting with taking in fluids purposely the day before.