Old Slow Stiff wrote:
Man...there is a lot of speed with aging runners on this site. How do some of you guys do it? It's becoming intimating to look at this site and see everyone's week in review (incredible mileage & speed work) & race results...that's why I can only laugh at myself. ?
You may find it comforting that at least one member of this thread is not "intimidating." My best AG was 71.9% (19:47 5k @ age 45). Ironically, I never thought of 5k as my best distance. But that's what the age grade calculator says. Two years ago, I had climbed to 68.5% in marathon, thinking that I could top 70% in a few years. Well, unfortunately things haven't turned that way.
M: off.
T: 7 miles.
W: 5 miles.
R: 3 miles.
F: off.
SA: Illinois marathon.
SU: off.
I knew I was undertrained compared to my buildup to previous marathons, so I decided to start the race conservatively. There was 15-20mph wind on the course, and my plan was to stay behind the 3:30 pace group as much as I could to block the wind. The problem was that the pacer was running at much faster. I passed the 10k mark @ 49:27, but I was already losing contact with the pacer. Given the choice between pushing the pace and running alone behind the pack, I chose the latter. After passing the halfway @ 1:44:44, I started finding the 8min pace harder. I still managed to get to the 20 mile mark @ 2:41:01, but then hit the wall. The next two miles were in 8:30s, and then the 23 mile was 9:01. When the 3:35 pace runner passed me shortly before mile 24, I knew things were going really bad. Then I fell out of nowhere, and hit my elbow really hard. It took me several seconds to just get up, but surprisingly running afterwards was not as hard as running right before the fall. I managed to finish in 3:36:49 for 15th place (out of 69) in my AG.
I thought I was in a decent shape. But I guess the battle with my cold in early March had taken more out of me than I had thought. I had run a few other marathons undertrained, and the last 6-8 miles were always major struggles. The only good news is that I didn't feel any butt pain after nearly four hours of driving both ways. So my glutes are in better conditions than they had been in a few years. Now I plan to focus on shorter distances for a while, and run a half in December (I am hoping to get 70% AG there), and then the next marathon in April 2019.