F44
Upcoming races: TBD
Recent race results: see below
The week was all about tapering and resting and the race on Sunday.
Mo: 5.3mi easy
Tu: 1E + 4 "M" + 1E I ran the middle block a little faster than target pace just to see what PR pace would feel like. Well, for that 4 miles it felt pretty good but also pretty clear it would not be sustainable over 26. Kept my legs from getting dull running too easy the whole week.
We: 0mi because of work and travel. Evening connecting flight got canceled, had to spend the night in Charlotte. First time in a long time I've been stuck somewhere overnight.
Th: 4.2mi easy afternoon miles, warm out but comfortable
Fr: 4.2 easy, side bothered me unexpectedly which worried me, but I was able to concentrate on breathing and worked it out before the end.
Sa: 0mi
Su: Des Moines marathon
The race went all right. The weather was as perfect as could be. I ran with the 3:30 pace group for the first miles. Course is flat for the first couple miles then goes into a sustained climb before entering a rolling hilly neighborhood area for the next 5 or 6 miles. On the flat first two the pacer was a bit fast (on purpose, he said, as the hills would slow us) -- 7:36 and 7:48. which felt all right but I knew was too fast for me. We did slow up though and I carried through the next few at 7:58, 8:00, 7:53, then a 7:46 which involved a significant downhill. I had to make a pit stop during mile 7 to pee, so I lost a minute and lost the pace group. I hated to have to stop and have never had to before but it was becoming uncomfortable and I wasn't aiming for a PR or anything so just made the stop.
Around the 9 mile marker my side suddenly struck me hard, an acute pain, but I tried not to panic about it (it was bad) and concentrated again on just controlling my breathing and over the next mile worked it out again and it never came back to bite me. It was critical that I didn't panic about it because if I can't get it under control it takes over my entire abdomen and that would have been the end of my day. It doesn't happen all that often, and I don't know what triggers it and sometimes I can't work around it but mostly I've been able to get past it these most revent times it has happened.
Around mile 10 the course flattens out and the hard parts are behind you. I settled in. The route takes a loop around the track at Drake Stadium which is fun. The place seems a lot smaller somehow than it did when I ran there for state track back in the day. I was still feeling 3:30 pace was OK through the half, but it wasn't long after that where it started to feel less OK and after mile 15 or 16 I decided that target was probably going to be out of reach and just maintained the effort, and would work on maintaining the effort even as the miles slowed a bit for the next 5 or 6 miles so my finish would be respectable. After 22 or so, it was just "get to the end." I cratered pretty good over the last 2-3ish. I could probably have eked out a handful more 8:00s between 17 and 20 but I think the cratering might have happened earlier or harder in that case and probably wouldn't have improved my time much at all anyway.
I finished in 3:34:45 and while I'd have liked to be faster and at least hit 3:30 I'm not too disappointed given where I started this marathon cycle in June. I had no real long run base and had not run hard in a year and a half. I know that success in a marathon isn't just about what you do over the preceding 16 weeks but what you've put in the last year/two years. Yesterday this was what I had in me and I'm OK with that.
Ended up being 3rd in my age group so that's nice.
First marathon in 2 years now behind me, I'm looking forward to Boston next spring. I'm going to work on improving my later-race capability. I didn't get as many long-long runs done this cycle as I would normally, and would like to get more long stuff done at target pace or faster -- again I didn't get as many such runs in as I would have in other years with a deeper base going in. Things might be a little more normal this time around.
Thanks for all your encouragements and advice in the last few months.
Going to take a week off to recover, and then back to it.
notarobot: There were a couple places yesterday where I was in between other runners and on my own and came to turns where I wasn't QUITE sure I went the right way, but was able to spot the race over in one direction or another and was relieved I made the right decision. A benefit of being in the middle of the pack instead of the trailblazing leader :-) but seriously, that must have been very frustrating to have been directed off route and not know what's going on.