Self-Transcendence Marathon 2014

Considering that I had one goal for this race (finish in under 3:59:18 so that I can honestly say I ran a faster marathon than my first half marathon), this would be deemed a flop if it were graded pass/fail.  But I’ve decided not to do that, due to extenuating circumstances.

Circumstances such as — in the three weeks prior to the race, I ran only on the AlterG, and those were relatively short runs at a low percentage of body weight.  Even so, my knee still hurt.  Were this race not looming on the radar, I would have shut it down, but I was going to run this damn thing even if it killed me.

Based on my half PR, McMillan’s calculator claims I can run a 3:39:09 marathon.  I don’t know about that, but sub-4:00 should have been a piece of cake — that’s my regular easy pace.  Five weeks of an injured knee kind of put a crimp in that plan, I guess.  I printed out a 3:58 pace band (9:05 pace) and decided to just hope for the best.

This is how my knee injury works: it starts to hurt within the first few minutes of a run.  It doesn’t get too much worse during the run itself, but it is excruciatingly painful afterward.  The last time I ran off the AlterG before the race (August 3 — over three weeks ago), I literally couldn’t walk the next day.  And that was after a measly seven miles.  So I went into this knowing that A. I’d be in agony after the fact, and that B. I couldn’t walk at all, because doing that would make starting to run again impossible.

The race started at 7 AM (as a summer marathon should), so I woke up a little after 4:00.  Not fun, considering I had just done that the day before since I volunteered at a race.  It was actually chilly when I left the house, and the temperature at gun time was around 60° — what I consider ideal running weather.  However, during the race, the temperature and humidity kept climbing (well, duh), and by the time I finished, it was near 80°.  I’m going to guess that probably contributed a little bit to my huge positive split.

What is that, something like 1:56 and 2:04?!  I actually don’t think I went out too fast.  It was faster than I’d planned, yes, but I do think that I can sustain that pace for the full distance.  My knee screwed this up.  It wasn’t so much that it hurt during the race (it did, albeit not so badly that I couldn’t ignore it), but it forced me to abbreviate my training in a way I wouldn’t have otherwise.  A second 18 miler would have helped a lot, but I had to skip it, and you can see that that’s right about where things started to fall apart in earnest.  I was ahead of my 3:58 pace band at the half marathon point, and if I’d just run another 2:00 half, I would have made it.  I can pretty much run a sub-2:00 half in my sleep, so this shouldn’t have been so difficult.  But when every footfall sends weird vibrations juddering through your quads, there’s really not much you can do.  There were some points at which I was moving so slowly, I may as well have been walking, but I didn’t really have that option.  (Also — not that I put complete faith in the cadence sensor from my 620, but — my overall cadence was abominably low.  Plodding along will do that, I guess.)

Well, hey — does that mean I had the pleasure of hitting the wall?!  I suppose that might be part of it.  I was supposed to take a gel every five miles, and then see how I felt at mile 25 because taking one at that point would just be silly.  Mid-race, I decided to take one at mile 19 and mile 24 instead of 20 and 25.  But after the gel at mile 19, my stomach had had enough and vociferously let me know that anything else put into it would not stay in it, so that was that, since I’m hugely emetophobic and didn’t care to risk it.

I vacillated between counting miles and counting laps.  The course was almost nine full loops of the lake:

I don’t mind loop courses, really.  I don’t tend to notice my surroundings much anyway, so it doesn’t matter, but it was pretty.  The best part was that at least half of the course is shaded.  (Not enough for me, apparently, since I’m a healthy shade of pink now.)  It also helped me run the tangents better, because after the first loop, I was acquainted with the turns and able to adjust accordingly.  I mean, come on — 26.22 miles for a marathon?  When I regularly run 3.2 in a 5K?  (I actually wore two Garmins, because last week I heard that some people were having trouble with the 620 resetting itself mid-run, and this event needed to be memorialized in full.  The 910 measured 26.26.  Still ridiculous.)

The real problem with loop courses like this is that you’re never too far from the finish — and when you’re passing it at mile 17, 20, and 23, the temptation to just head down the finish chute and throw in the towel is enormous.

Know why I didn’t?… This is laughable.  But I’ve run at least one race a month since August 2012, when I did the TOBAY Triathlon as my comeback after breaking my hip.  I DNSed the Battle of Brooklyn last week (screw you, knee), so if I didn’t finish this race in its entirety, I wouldn’t have any races for August 2014.  Whatever works for motivation, I guess?!

So, yeah.  This race wasn’t chip timed, and since a BQ is irrelevant for me, I am going to consider my Garmin time my official time.  (I think I crossed the finish about ten seconds behind my watch.)  This gives me a finish time of 4:00:48, 9:11/mile.  Not quite what I wanted, but it’ll do.  Actually, considering the past five weeks, I probably did better than I have any right to expect.  I missed my goal by 1:31, and those 48 seconds are bugging me, so even though I am vehemently declaring NEVER AGAIN right now, I probably will run another marathon at some point.  But not for a very, very long time.

And hey — if I plug this time into the McMillan calculator, I’ve already beaten the predictions for all the shorter distances.  Surprise!

Just because it makes me laugh, I am including a photo of me in the ice bath at the med tent.  I was glad not to have to worry about taking one of those when I got home!

And now I will take the rest of the week to be a lazy ass.  I’m already not happy about that.  (Also: HRM chafing.  Ow!!  And I have a hideous blister on one of my toes, but at least I still have all my toenails.  And yes, my knee is freaking killing me.)