I had really sore quads right from the beginning of my marathon.
On August 19th I picked up a minor injury to my hip after a fast 25km training run and had to rest up. After the 19th I did some cross training on the bike and a few slow jogs, no more than 3 - 7km. Then on September 12th I ran my first marathon at the age of 49. My training has been ongoing since the start of lockdowns. During my training I ran an unofficial marathon, and had done a number of 2-2 ½ hr long runs.
My problems began at mile 3 on Sunday. I noticed my left quad started to feel sore. By mile 10 both quads were very sore and it was all I could do to keep up with the guy in front. I managed to maintain a good pace through sheer will power until mile 17 before finally easing up. In the last 8 miles I lost about 8 minutes (compared to the first 8 miles). On the few downhill parts of the course I could barely keep upright. I've never experienced sore quads before.
I knew my legs would turn to jelly near the finish but I wasn't expecting sore quads, especially not for them to begin to get sore so early on. I managed to finish my first marathon in 2hr 55 which I was reasonably happy with. I just know I could do a lot better as I wasn't finding the pace difficult at all. When I finished the race I went to pee and my urine was the colour of Coca Cola.
I've been severely dehydrated before in my life, but this was far different. I am pretty sure there was no blood in the urine. I wonder if anyone has any ideas as to what may have caused this, I can only imagine I had a electrolyte issue (despite drinking during the race) or I lost a significant level of running fitness prior to the race.
Incidentally, I had not gone out on any hard cross training bicycle rides in the week prior to the race.
Any ideas?