Houston Marathon Part 1 of 4

Wow - I am sitting in shock looking at 2:40:46 finish time.

Race milestones I was striving for - sub2:50, Stretch goal subLance(2:46:43).

Race Strategy - I just wanted to see what I could do. I figured I may be able to maintain a 164 bpm heartrate so I set my garmin after mile one to alarm 162 and 166 and displayed only the heartrate on the Garmin and countdown to next milemarker - nothing else.

First mile I targeted a 6:15-6:25 but actually ended around 6:30 - the mile ended with a fair amount of up hill so I figured I hit the target effort level.

Rest of the mileage I only had heartrate to watch on my watch. A side note - I've had a lot of problems with the strap slipping on me in prior runs and races and figured a solution to that issue a few days ago - I pin the strap to my shirt - worked great.

Anyway after mile two I focused on keeping my heartrate steady at around 164 bpm. At mile markers I would get pace info and mile by mile I kept hearing a lower numbers - averages steadily dropped from the first 6:30 finally down to a low of 6:05 somewhere around the half. I started getting nervous about my strategy because 6:05 average pace so far into the race was insane - but I tried to trust my strategy of sticking to 164 bpm and run whatever speed it would deliver.

Maintaining the HR slowly started slipping - I hit the low 162 bpm pretty regular and had a hard time maintaining. Around 16 or so I stopped trying to maintain and resolved to just maintain whatever I could - I kept seeing lower and lower numbers - down to 155 at one point - I think that reduction helped to give me a second wind and I sped up a little - got up to the 158ish range which I seemed to be able to hold. I passed up the last couple of people near me and I was running alone.

As I approached each mile marker I kept expecting the average pace to increase and it did drift up slightly - but not as bad as I expected - heard several 6:06s and 6:07 and I think one 6:08 so even though my HR was slipping - I was apparently still pulling down some good mile splits - at least a few times I got no split at the markers as two split callers were assigned to each milemarker and sometimes I would hear the splits as-if I was in wave 2. It was ridiculous to me that they were calling out splits for those slower runners that started 10 minutes later as if they had caught up to me - like a second waver runner is going to be running a 5:40 pace. Once in a while they would call out the time but there were no digital displays at the milemarkers with the time so since I didn't SEE the time - I never quite comprehended the time - there wasn't even a 1/2 marathon split time and apparently the mat didn't record it - somebody said it was 1:19:50 although I have no idea what that came from. I did not allow myself to do math while running - focus was one mile at a time - once in a while I would start wondering what a 6:0x marathon finishing time was and my mind would start to calculate and I would force it back to business at hand of getting to the next milemarker strong. I knew Lance's time was 6:21 pace so I knew if I could keep it together I had that but I tried hard not to add up the seconds per mile difference to project my finish - one mile at a time.

I passed the last person anywhere near me between mile 18-19 - afterwhich there was no one within sight ahead - and no one came from behind to challenge me all the way to the finish so the last 7-8 miles of the race was all on my own.

I generally had the feeling I was not pushing enough - I was settling for heartrates in the high 150s and still believed I could maintain higher. Finally around 24 or so I resolved to at least push into the 160s so I pushed the pace a little - especially final mile.

At the finish - it was very important to me and my wife that she is involved in the finish. She waits right near the finish at every race from near the start of the race just to maintain a good spot that could be easily seen. I knew to look right near the finish and I would find her - the problem was the half marathoners were finishing right and I was running down the left side of the street. I was determined to not miss her so I held back the final sprint until I found her - kept scanning, kept scanning - finally with maybe 100 yards remaining I spot her and she blows me a few excited kisses than I charge to the finish. She told me later she just happened to start looking not expecting me for another 5 minutes or so - the text messaging from my split times didn't hit her cellphone so she didn't know how I was doing.

Anyway - after I stopped looking intently at the sideline and accepted my blown kisses - I looked up to the finish - I saw the clock - it was ticking with a 2:40:xx - I was floored - I charged to the finish and took too steps past the finish and just had to yell out my excitement - I was in total shock.

So - 2:40:46 finish time - I've been thinking about that ever sense I got it and I'm just in shock. Apparently I set a 10 mile PR, TWO half marathon PRs (I guess the second doesn't count since it was slower than the first), a 30k PR and the best of all - nearly a 16 minute Marathon PR - holy smokes - where did that come from.

And to top it all off - I'm pretty sure I WON the race for 40+ runners which has a $1,500 prize - results aren't final yet. I would not be surprised to learn it is the slowest Master's winning time ever recorded :) for the Houston Marathon - but better lucky than good. Sean Wade didn't run - 2:20 marathon last year at age 40 - and where the heck are the older Kenyans. This would also give me local elite status in next years Houston Marathon - one of my 2008 (stretch) goals.

I downloaded all the split and biometric info but haven't looked at it much but if your currious feel free to dig in and give me your take.
Splits

What a difference a day makes.

I've been in the fine tuning mode for this marathon vs others. With prior marathons I pretty much just blindly followed a book or only changed a little. With this marathon I have been combining what sounds good from many sources. One of the ideas was to deplete before carb loading. I really think of it as crash diet - atkins style - during the taper up until the last three days than start the typical carb loading last three days. So this is what I've been doing - essentially no Carbs for 10 days up until today, than today was the switch to minimal fat/proteins. My running started dropping off significantly last couple of days:

Tuesday Run - 6 miles with 5 @ MP heartrate - average MP Pace was 7:01 minutes per mile.

Wednesday Run -Same 6 miles with 5 @ MP heartrate - average MP Pace 6:54

Today (Thursday) I carb loaded with OJ/Bagel for breakfast, Pasta lunch at Olive Garden for lunch and a Pasta Party with my running club for dinner. Went for a run after dinner:

Thursday Run - 5 miles with 4 @ MP heartrate - average MP Pace 6:16 (and HR was actually only 163 vs target 164) - now THAT'S what I'm talking about.

I was getting little jittery seeing those high pace numbers last couple days - Love the CARBS!!

Continued 2007 Charting

First I thought I would chart my mileage and average pace for 2007. Total 2688 miles at an average 7:43 pace. I had a little fun with a map and 2688 miles - that is the distance from Disneyland (LA) to Disneyworld (Orlando) + a little extra:



I really like the steady decline in average pace from mid year ~8 miles per minute to end of year around 7 miles per minute. Some of that is the types of workouts. Leading up to Houston I put much higher emphasis on Marathon Paced running and much less on VO2max, it also appears I did less recovery mileage. Then I thought I'd chart the breakdown of the types of workouts I did leading up to NYC marathon and to Houston marathons. Below shows the percentage breakdown by week in the 19 weeks to NYC and 10 weeks to Houston:


Table Summary
Training Mileage to NYC Houston
Mileage................1190 581
Weeks....................19 10
Recovery Pace.........35% 29% *Includes Recovery/slow running after previous race
Long Run Pace.........43% 44%
Marathon Pace........10% 18%
Tempo Pace.............8% 8%
VO2max Pace...........3% 0%

Guess we will see Sunday if the strategy worked but as of now I feel very ready for this race. We'll see what happens on race day.

Pre Race Assessment

Training mostly done - all indications are I'm right at my peak. Longest was a strong 23 miler. Cut out all speed work since NYCM except for a 10k race and a 10k paced workout once. Other than that all workouts were Tempo pace or slower - but I racked up a lot of mileage at Tempo/MP pace/LR pace(MP+30sec).

Fueling - Trying a 10 day Atkin's type depletion/dieting followed by a 3 day carb loading. I'm really not much of a believer in the depletion as a key to not fading at the end although it might help - I've had strong to the finish races before at a heavier weight so I think I can achieve without that. I'm really going after the concept of reducing the energy REQUIRED to finish the race. Started ~152 last weekend and I'm down ~5 lbs since then - of course I will add back much of that thru carb/hydrating last three days and I feel certain I can get the energy back in to run the race but I will still net I think ~5 lbs less that I would have without it:

5/152=3.2% less weight to carry 26.2 miles = about that much less energy it takes to finish the race.

Mental - I've considered several strategies but for now I am thinking of walking the razor's edge - I figure I don't have anything to loose - I want to run to my limits. I'll use a HRM to keep me in control especially first half but this race will be run hard to the finish. Focus is

Weather - has consistantly looked great - forecast ~40s - thank you marathon gods!

Support - Wife is always biggest cheerleader. Kids kinda want to cheer virtual - I guess after 5 marathons as spectator that can get a little old. Running Club Supporters - Pasta Party Thursday. Formites interested and encouraging - Runago FE planned.

Updated Marathon Pace Trend

I found some old data on my training up to Houston last year so I thought I'd put that on the chart as well. I used the same 3 seconds per bpm adjustment factor that I can measure off my performance today which is less and less appropriate farther back I go. The races (high effort runs) all falling below the other data from weekend long runs suggests the long runs are not corrected down enough in 4Q06 but I'll call it good enough - makes a pretty graph.

Marathon Pace Improvements over 2007

I had fun analyzing a years Garmin data today - in a geeky engineer kinda way. Results show an average 4.5 second per mile per month improvement in my marathon pace.

Here's how I looked at the data. Runs were selected from the year of running that were steady fast paced - not too fast - from ~10 mile race pace to a little slwer than Marathon Pace'd runs. Only runs with good heartrate data were used - remove unrepresentative miles like the first mile or two. All runs were normalized based on data from my progressive runs - i.e. 3 seconds adjustement per 1 bpm off my target marathon heartrate (164).

Of course the trend cannot be expected to continue at the same rate - but what if it did:

Houston 2008 - 6:14 mpm (2:43)

Boston Marathon 2008 - 6:00 mpm (2:37)

Houston 2009 - 5:20 mpm (2:30)

World Record Achieved - September 2009 4:45 mpm (2:04)

John.

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