Ah, blogging time. The good the bad and the ugly. This one ain’t good.
I ran the New Jersey Marathon in 2013, my first marathon, and missed qualifying for Boston by 1 minute – 3:31. Should be pretty easy to train harder and shave off a minute, right? But my last two NYC Marathons were 4:14 in 2015 and 4:11 in 2016. What the hell?
So, this time went back to this flat course, and trained through the winter, but because of the month-long cold I caught after a solid, strenuous Half Marathon in Sleepy Hollow, the last three long runs were compromised and even cut short. (You know things are bad when you have to call your son to pick you up 5 miles from home…) So, I had gone back to the doctor and finished my second round of anti-biotics two days before this race. No chest cough, symptom free, nurturing the taper and a Zen-like calm. Sure, maybe not back to full strength after that chest cough, but relaxed and truly excited rather than nervous.
Rather than driving down for 1 1/2 hours on race day, went to the expo, picked up registration, and stayed in a room of an Airbnb house in Monmouth Beach, less than 10 minutes away from the starting line. (Even saw orange arrows for the course a block away…). Grabbed pasta and salmon at a nearby bustling restaurant. (A local told me, “The owner’s a runner. Tell the waiter you’re doing the marathon and you can order off menu.”).
And chilled on the terrace of my room.
In bed by 9, wide awake at 1:30, slept again until 5:15. Made bullet proof coffee with the French press I brought with me, a fried egg and saltstick chew. Arrived at Monmouth race track at 6:30ish, used the bathroom a couple times and stretched.
Caught up with Team NRGY triathlon friends Jan and Fran.
And Coach Greg Bassett (after checking my bag, and phone…)
Good cheer and still mellow at the starting line. Went to the back of Corral 3. I am shooting for 8:00 minute miles, but I am ignoring the pacers, and even set my Garmin to ignore the pace – heart rate only! Zone 1 (131-141 bpm) for the first 4 miles, z2 (141-151) up to mile 22, let out the lead and negative split from mile 22 to 26. Solid, confident, disciplined plan, right?
Great start. Ignoring the pace (and assuming I would run as slow as 8:45 in Z1), I was pleasantly surprised when the watch beeped at each mile as reported that even in z1, I was running 7:44, 7:53, 8:05, 8:07. Killing it. When I get to the end and can run hard, I am going to have a great result, right? Part 2, crank it up to zone 2.
Pretty suburban streets, blossoms on the trees, a perfect partly cloudy day and 58 degrees. Met and chatted with Ryan from Albany, he’s doing the same pace, enjoying his company, but I am disciplined, I slow down or just inhale through my nose, exhale through mouth when heart rate creeps up, and I stick with him for a while until he takes off, running HIS race, I am running mine. I might qualify for Boston, I might not, but I have decided I am sticking with heart rate. And lo, post-race data review, at mile 10 I averaged exactly 8:00 per mile. And stayed in zone 2. Magic.
So my next mental hurdle is Mile 14, because that’s where I hit the wall at NYC 2015 and 2016. Heart rate is drifting a little, creeping up to 157 for a moment, I slow down and wrestle it down to 153, give myself some slack for “drift” and I realize, hey I might not make that Boston-qualifying 3:30, I can live with that. And suddenly a horde of runners is upon me, surrounding the pacer for 3:35 (like jostling for the attention of the classroom teacher), and I try to move forward and around this crowd and suddenly they are GONE.
That’s when I realized, at mile 17 or so, that the wheels were coming off. Slowed down to 8:28, then 8:40, and my legs are suddenly heavy, and I have no power, the pacer and entourage to finish at 3:40 pass me like I am standing still, and I can’t accelerate, even though my form feels solid (good posture, lifting knees and open hips, landing on balls of feet, pushing off with legs in straight lines); no injuries; but no way.
At mile 20 or so, I stop at a toilet for a minute (at this point, who cares about a result?), and I try a packet of almond butter (first bite was good, wait a minute or two, finish it) which I was carrying as a safety blanket to my EAA tablets every 30-40 minutes. (Hmmm, did I really take all those tablets, or did I lose interest in crunching on all that chalk?). Only later, talking with my cousin Rob, did I realize I had bonked – my body ran out of fuel, and didn’t want to follow my directions any more. No matter how much I wanted to go faster.
In any event, I slow down to 9:30, then 10:30 miles, I catch up to and pass Ryan from Albany who is flat out walking with 5 or 6 miles to go (me: “come on man, we’ve got this!” Ryan: “no, my hip has crapped out”) and I almost walk with him in solidarity and for the relief of STOPPING, but remembered: this is MY race. Even if I’m going to crash and burn, I’m doing it my way.
So I stumble along, here goes a pacer with the 3:45 sign, then a group with 3:50. (This is like when the runner dressed as the Statue of Liberty passed me at the NYC Marathon…. That’s when you know things are bad.) I really decided to walk the last 2.2 miles, I have simply lost my give-a-damn, I only want to get to the finish line so I can STOP, STOP, STOP. But it hurts more to walk (the lactic acid pouring into my legs) than to run, so I run. A pack with the 3:55 pacer blows past me, chatting as they leave me at the boardwalk, but I trudge along…
And I raise my hands for the photo op and cross the line at 3:57:45. 815/2,050 OA, 606/1,273 men, 52/125 AG. OK, still better than average, and a whopping 14-minute improvement over last year’s NYC Marathon, but clearly not the race I wanted, either in result or more importantly in style.
So, I need to work on nutrition, so my long triathlons and other races are more fun. Amino acid tablets alone aren’t sufficient for my body; in the subsequent week, I’ve been experimenting with “healthy” HUMA gels and UCAN super-starch drinks; I may even go back to the straight up PowerBar or shot blocks.
No
More
Bonking.
