The weather felt chilly as we stepped off the ferry, but 45 minutes of running around, trying to get my racing kit together and my bag on the bus, left me feeling warm. It was almost almost warm enough to go without my vest, but I was afraid of a stiff breeze coming off the ocean so I kept it on. I ate my hour-0 energy bar about 10 minutes before the start of the race and then headed out to the line.
We didn't have long to stand around talking at the line before suddenly the gun rang out. The crowd started like a herd of antelope and then surged forward. I do admire brevity at the start of a race, but that was a little too much. I settled in, meticulously watching my pace on the garmin, and let the speedy crowd surge by me.
My plan was to run precise 6:45 splits, as a prologue to running 7 minute miles at Hyannis. I stuck ruthlessly to this plan for the first league.At that point I was feeling so fantastic that I dropped my pace to 6:30s. I can't reconstruct what I was thinking exactly; in retrospect it doesn't make any sense. I was racing way farther than I ever had before and I knew it would pay to be conservative. But somehow all that reasoning went right out the window when I was in the thick of it. Just goes to show you can have the best pacing tools in the world and still be an idiot.
Around mile 8 I caught up to the female lead and one other guy, and we ran together for a while. Our group swept up Don somewhere around mile 11 or 12, after we had turned onto the bike path and begun our return trip northwards. I didn't look back to see if he was sticking with us.
I should mention that at around this time my race plan had me eating my hour-1 energy bar, but it seemed like too much trouble at the time. I abstained.
Passed the half-marathon point, still feeling fairly strong, but with more burning in my legs than I expected. First prickle of alarm.
Somewhere in mile 15, form deteriorated. Almost fell on ice due to careless foot plant. Heard Don call from behind to "watch out!". He surged by not long after.
Mile 17, walked for the first time. It's a dubious point of pride to say that this no longer brought me to the point of despair. Maybe I've just hit that point enough now where instead I just felt like alright, here I am again. Let's try to make it more run-walk than walk-run.
People streaming by me at this point. Fairly long stretch walking on sidewalk. Girl in hot-pink jog bra. Yow! I feel over-dressed, not to mention slow.
Manage most of the last 3/4 mile running, if you can call it that. Cross finish line with a theatrical grimace on my face.
And that was the disappointing end of my race. I'll get to the 'lessons learned' in a moment. The organizers put on a good spread at the high school, with hot soup and bagels and cookies. A newlywed couple had run in "Just Married" shirts; very cute. Also they had cake for everybody(!) We got to hang out a bit with Mo and DaveR, and some of their running friends. I had more or less gotten over my disappointment by now but was feeling a little peaky, as I sometimes do after a hard run. Trace, Mel and I took the 3:45 ferry back to Woods Hole, and that finished up my first visit to Martha's Vineyard.
Finish: 61st, 10th AG
Time: 2:26:46 (7:20 pace) (or 20.12 miles / 7:17 pace, by Garmin).
That chart pretty much says it all.Lessons learned for Hyannis:
- Plan physically and psychologically to run 26.4. Much better to get this into my head beforehand rather than have to confront it mid-race.
- Pick a conservative pace and plan to run even splits. If I am trying to hit a certain time, my instinct is to run a bit faster than necessary to build up a "buffer". Unfortunately, if the time I am trying to hit as at all ambitious for me, this is a misleading impulse. It will take less energy to run even splits; if the pace is really too conservative then sure, I can drop the hammer in the last 5k. But the alternative is to risk a bonk, and if that happens it's all over. I need to run 7:11s to cover 26.4 in 3:10. Consequently I'm going to try to run 7:06s, allowing for some hills later in the course.
- Eat gels during the race. I realize this is accepted wisdom, but sometimes accepted wisdom puts me in a contrarian mode that makes me do occasionally stupid things to prove out the idea for myself. Mel and Trace gave me a bit of a hard time when they asked how many gels I had taken and I told them "none". I couldn't really defend myself either, since what I did clearly didn't work. Ah well. Today I'll go and buy a variety. There must be one reasonably palatable flavor I can find.
...just as well I didn't tell them about my pre-race dinner of bacon and eggs??
As I read your post I kept thinking... oh no. Here it comes. BONK.! :) Andy is that way about the gels too, and FINALLY he has given in and started taking them. You will be stunned at the difference they make.
ReplyDeleteI bet you could've held that pace with a little fuel in you....
:)
Congrats, though! So good to learn this shit now!
I rarely take gels in training. I like to experience a bit of a bonk and teach myself to go through it. But in races, I take a ton of them. Only plain or Vanilla, though. For Baystate I took 6. For some, that is too much, but I ran hard and did not feel any sign of the wall. I was not even hungry after the race. The gels also have caffeine, and you can feel the gel kicking in a few minutes after you take it. Give it a try, you'll be hooked!!!
ReplyDeleteHey. I still think that if you ate you could have held that pace. Sorry it ended badly. That hurts. It's good that you got this out of the way for Hyannis. Less than two weeks..
ReplyDeleteOk, I'll be a dissenting voice on the gel issue. I am still not convinced that they are a miracle cure. Case in point: I probably consumed 3-4 more running Boston than I did BayState and I finished BayState 6 minutes faster and in much, much better shape.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you walk? Because you literally couldn't run anymore? The only time this has ever happened to me had nothing to do with a lack of energy and everything to do with being horribly dehydrated (drinking heavily the night before a twenty miler is not a good idea). You don't mention what you drank during the race so that may be something else to think about.
Thanks for the comments guys. Putt, Zak said something similar to me, along the lines of bonking doesn't really correspond to glycogen depletion in the average athlete. That may be true. After all if you really exhausted all the glycogen in your bloodstream you'd probably lock up and die. All the same I suspect that when enough ready fuel has been burned out of your bloodstream a pretty low-level part of your brain starts slamming the brakes on. Whether that stopped me or whether I was just running over my LT steady-state is an interesting question; if the latter, more fuel probably wouldn't have helped. I carried a bladder with me and did drink on the hoof, but perhaps not enough. Hard to say; I just haven't done enough of these distances yet to have any context.
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