I did the steamboat marathon last year and thought I was going to run around 3 hours. Came in just under 4. The downhill completely thrashed me and gave me pain like I've never experienced before.
I did the steamboat marathon last year and thought I was going to run around 3 hours. Came in just under 4. The downhill completely thrashed me and gave me pain like I've never experienced before.
I was off by over 30 minutes on my first marathon; it can happen if you break down to a shuffle.
txRUNNERgirl wrote:
Not sure if this counts, but my first (and hopefully only) trail ultra last year. It was 50K, so I didn't think my pace would be that far off from like easy pace on roads. It ended up taking around 7 hours... I hadn't practiced running up enough mountains in training I guess, nor was I comfortable on very slick mud and rocks. I ended up walking a lot more than planned mostly due to the conditions, but even my walk was slower than normal because I was being so cautious not to slip and fall off the mountain.
Same thing for me in my only 50 miler... I was hoping to run under 9 hours and it took me over 11 hours. I was easily sub 3 marathon shape, but I under-estimated the course (I don't know that I could have run under 4 hours for a marathon on that terrain). Also I was massively undertrained for an ultra anyway.
Sorry to my wife and crew for waiting 2.5 hours longer than anticipated.
Yeah, I didn't have any major cramping or bonking. My body just completely was in pain and didn't want to keep the same pace. It could have been worse though!
I once ran Boston in 3:54 off of a 1:35 1/2 split. Very ugly. I had run 2:56 at Boston the year before and thought it was my hobbyjogger birthright to be able to run 3:10 or 3:15 even though i hadn't trained worth a krap. I was so lacking in mileage that I did a few long runs of 25+ miles before thinking that would make up for lack of mileage and additional 8 pounds of weight. Nope.
The farthest off I've been in a regular road marathon is about 30 minutes. That was Boston 2013. I was shooting for a 3:30 or faster and ended up in 3:59. I was my first Boston and I started too fast on the downhill, then cramped up. I remember realizing when I wasn't going to hit my goal, so as the race went on and I felt worse/walked more, I thought I'd try sub 3:40, then sub 3:50, finally sub 4 hours. Good thing I kept it at least under 4 because I missed the first bomb by about 6 minutes.