Free_the_thigh - You did me proud, man. You said you were going for it, and you went for it. A 6 minute marathon PR won the hard way is a well-earned PR. Cheers to you for suffering through it till the end. That kind of fortitude is what the marathon demands!
highhoppingworm - And I thought you were the sensible one! You took off like a bat outta hell! :) Regardless, you are showing great promise and are definitely on the right track. Didn't you lose a ton of weight and just recently start running? Were you a runner in the past? Your progress has been astounding.
One point about the tangents. It may not be the tangents at all. My old watch was consistently over-estimating the distance I had run. When I ran with friends, it would always show more distance than theirs did, and I was running right next to them. Around a track, the accuracy was horrifyingly bad.
In the Marathon, it's extremely important to keep track of your pace according to the times you pass specific mile markers rather than to rely on your GPS. Every second adds up, and if you think you're running 6:50 pace, but according to the course you're running 6:55 pace, you might miss your goal.
I don't know what kind of watch you have, but I'm really liking the "Race Pace" app for my Garmin watch. You tell the app your race distance, your goal time, etc. It shows your current pace and the estimated finish time. When you hit the lap button as you pass a mile marker, it does the calculation to determine your actual pace based on the course mile markers and gives you an average pace. It also adjusts your estimated finish time.
The race pace app performed flawlessly for me in yesterday's Marathon, but, as you will soon see, it does a good job of reporting the pace but does not help you to maintain the pace...
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OK, for those interested in the conclusion of my 2019 sub-3 saga, here it is.
TL;DR version: Chicago Marathon, Male, age 47, 143lbs.: 3:04:21 / Sub-3 wanna-be
The rest of the story: Weather was great. Cool, low 40s with some brisk gusting wind at times that put the "real feel" in the 30s, but nothing horrible. I wore a long sleeved shirt, gloves, and shorts.
The hamstring strain, which threatened to derail my Chicago sub-3 assault 2 weeks prior, was miraculously cured. I had run a 20 minute shakeout run the previous day and the hamstring felt completely normal. Still, there was some concern in the back of my mind that it might reappear when I least expected it and cramp up without warning. Aside from that, I went to the starting line feeling rested and in good spirits.
When the gun went off, there was quite a bit of time before I got to the actual starting line, maybe 3 minutes. It was extremely crowded at the start, but everyone around me seemed to be gunning for a sub-3, so no major dodging & weaving was required, but it was extremely tight. Almost all of the water/gatorade stops were only on one side of the course, so things got a bit hairy every time somebody came to a dead stop to grab their water or swooped from one side of the road to the other with no apparent awareness of their surroundings. I almost never miss a water station, but I missed more than a handful this race due to the crowded conditions and general insanity anywhere in the vicinity of the water line. Good thing it wasn't hot.
I hadn't really planned to go out with the 3:00 pace group. I was just going to run my race and see what happened. I'm not sure if the 3:00 pacers got across the starting line well before I did, but they were way ahead of me in the distance and I was going 6:46 pace in the initial miles. They were so far ahead of me that by the time I caught up with them, I assumed they were the 3:00 group from the corral ahead of me. I was surprised to see that they were the crew from my corral.
At that point, I was in a mass of 3:00 hopefuls, and I could either expend some energy to try to break out in front of them, or just ride with them. Breaking out of that mass would have required considerable effort, and I already had a few minutes "in the bank", so I figured I would just hang:
05K: 21:00 / 06:46
10K: 42:00 / 06:46
15K: 01:03:04 / 06:47
As I neared the half, I was still feeling good, but the mass was still around me. In other races I've been in, even Boston, things had thinned out considerably as the half approached, but not here! I was bound by my 3:00 brothers and sisters, and I was tired of bumping into people, having people step on the back of my shoes, etc., but I wasn't willing to make any bold moves to power past the front of the vanguard, and I certainly wasn't going to loosen my grip on the sub3 as long as there was life in my legs. :
20K: 01:24:17 / 06:50
HALF: 01:28:59 / 06:54
My legs felt good at the half, but I began to notice that my stomach didn't want any more gu or gatorade. I had an occasional cup of water, but my legs were letting the pace slip. I think it was around the 19th mile where I saw the 3:00 group slowly inching away from me:
25K: 01:45:52 / 06:58
30K: 02:07:12 / 06:53
Around 35k, I got my wish: the horde around me had dissipated, but not because I had left them behind, but because they had left me behind. I knew my sub3 was in jeopardy, and I pushed as hard as I could:
35K: 02:29:22 / 07:09
But it was all for naught. I wasn't in a lot of intense physical pain, but I felt a general queasy discomfort that permeated my entire body. Despite all efforts to move myself forward, my legs had very little left to offer. I pressed on with what I had left, but it was not my day for a sub3:
40K: 02:53:35 / 07:48
Finish: 03:04:21 / 07:54
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Takeaways:
Easy Peasy was right. My threshold paced efforts were too slow in training (6:30s). I blamed general tiredness from all the miles. In my heart of hearts, I knew he was right, and I tried to cheat by giving myself a little mini-taper in front of a T workout. I got on the T in big fashion, but was rewarded with a strained hamstring and an abrupt ending to the workout -- lesson learned.
I had some good Marathon paced workouts, but the sudden fade at the end of those workouts was a warning that I was racing the workouts rather than running my correct M pace. Also, I had a few bad workouts that I attributed to heat.
No tune-up/checkup half marathon 4 weeks before the race. I knew this was a bad idea, but I was out of town during the ideal time to do this. I need more race "check-ins". Too often, I run a race when I think I have a shot at a PR, but real race experiences provide valuable feedback on real world fitness level. If I had run a 1:25/1:26 marathon, I would know that I needed to be more conservative in my approach.
When I actually ran a sub-3, I was coming off of a 3:11 marathon in April. In June I ran an 18:17 5k. 7:30 to 7:45 pace felt like a true recovery pace. I ran a 1:24 hilly half in September, and then I ran a 2:59:00 marathon in October. This year, I was out of shape and 20 lbs over race weight in April and ran a 6:42 paced 20K all out in July. 'nuff said! :)
The good news is that, unlike last year, I did not injure myself during this marathon. If I am cautious, I might be able to get myself back in shape for a Turkey trot. I would like to keep myself in shape over the winter an possibly run a low-key April marathon and shoot for something in the 3:10 range. I think that will be a good springboard for a potential assault on the sub-3 in 2020.
Northener, runnerchef, and last chance, I leave the quest for the sub-3 in your capable hands. I have faith in you guys! Do me proud!