Addicted to Exercise

Well, it wasn’t pretty, but it was a huge PR and I’ll gladly take it. The stats don’t look too bad: 26.2 miles, 3:34:11, 8:11/mi. There’s a bit more to the story, though, so I’ll just start at the beginning…

I have to say I liked the new setup for this race, even if it did mean we got a harder course. I drove towards the start and had no trouble finding parking and meeting up with the rest of the crew. After all the traffic snarls of the last couple years it was a welcome relief to not have to worry about that. I checked my bag of clothes, made a quick hydration adjustment, and wandered over to the starting area. It all felt much less frantic than previous times. I was prepared to use the trash bag and bottle trick, but I did not end up needing it. I lined up just ahead of the 3:20 pace group, which was reasonably close to the front.

It seemed like the start came sooner than I expected it to, and the crowds started moving. Unfortunately, there were a LOT of walkers in front of me, and many of them were wearing those “half” signs on their backs. I had to stop and go and weave quite a bit in the first mile. Hopefully they will learn from that and do it better next time. I really wanted to run by feel, so I did not look at my watch. I was feeling really good. The hill on Congress seemed much easier than it did on our training run a week ago. I saw Frank right at the mile two marker and figured he must have lined up closer to the start. Somewhere in the crowds, I got ahead of the 3:15 group. I figured they were held up worse than I had been. In retrospect, I maybe should have slowed down, but I felt good so I did not really pay attention. Those first few miles just felt comfortable.

The first really interesting part was the turn from Lamar on to 5th. We were going straight into the sun, and I could not see anything. There were crowds lining the streets, but I could not make out any more than shadows. Back on Cesar Chavez, I found Ivi just after the Lamar bridge. She had planned to run with me for most of the race just as a long training run. She joined in and quickly reminded me to slow down. We were still on flatter ground, and things felt good. There was a nice pack of cheering Gazelles at about mile 7. We went up the little hill to Lake Austin Blvd and kept on going.

When we reached Enfield and then Exposition, I backed off on the climbs to conserve some energy. We’ve run that stretch of road a ton of times, but I felt like even though I slowed down it was still just chewing me up. Running on Exposition between cheering crowds seemed out of place. It was great, but it still seemed odd since we are usually there in the early morning silence. I recall Ivi asking me if I wanted to make the turn that the half marathoners were taking. (No!) She wasn’t working very hard, and she kept yelling at the crowds to get them fired up if they were being too quiet. I was dismayed when we reached 35th and they made us take the “long” way around the corner. I guess I was really used to taking the turn lane in all the training runs.

Nothing much happened for the next couple miles. Then, on Hancock, Lucy jumped out of the crowds to hop in. She had been threatening to do that, but she had been sick the last week so I wasn’t sure if she would be there. She was the one that talked me into joining the Gazelles, way back when running under about a 9-minute pace for more than a few miles was really hard work for me and she was one of those super-fast people. I felt like a rock star running with her and Ivi through there. My parents were on Shoal Creek, and they seemed happy to see me.

Great Northern is a subtle climb, and I slowed down a little bit. In retrospect, this was a turning point. I didn’t slow down much, but at this point of a race like this most of the people around are all going the same speed. The result was that people started going past me, and that instantly made me feel much worse. I wasn’t ever the same after that. Lucy and Ivi talked me through that part, and I put in some more good miles, but the damage was done. Also, another mistake I made started to catch up with me around then. Whether by getting better at not spilling or just not sweating as much with the cool weather, I had taken in too much water in the early parts of the race, and my stomach felt a little bad. I did not feel much like having my gel at mile 16. (My normal schedule is to take one of those every four miles.) I skipped a couple water stops, too, trying to feel normal again.

From mile 17 to 19, I kind of drifted in and out. I was still running reasonably well, but I was feeling worse and worse. I did not have any particular thing wrong that I could point to, but it was just getting harder to lift my legs. Lucy tried asking me about random things to try to distract me, but it didn’t make a big difference. At the mile 19 marker, the amount of race remaining seemed manageable for a moment or two. I knew I could finish from there, or so I thought. We had caught up to Kevin in this section, and Ivi pressured him to keep pace with us. She just seems to have unlimited energy, and she was still pumping up the crowds, too.

I saw my parents again on North Loop, and that was also where Lucy left. I was really struggling, but I guess my parents could not see it. They said later that I looked really strong when I went by there. I could see that the slowing pace was getting on Ivi’s nerves. I didn’t have any sharp pains or anything, but my legs were just really heavy. In this section, I started dropping into a couple steps of walking every now and then. Oh, I was mad about that. This was farther than I’d ever made it in the past running continuously, but making it the whole way would have to be a goal for next time. I knew I needed to get something at the Clif Shot zone, but my stomach was telling me that it would not allow it.

Things got really ugly for me in that loop around the IM fields. That uphill stretch up Avenue H kicked my butt on most of the training runs, and it did the same here too. I walked a little more, and cursed a lot more. Ivi was annoyed, of course, and I could only manage to whimper each time I started running again. I knew there were only about five miles left, and that should be nothing, but I was in panic mode. I just could not figure out how I was going to get there.

I don’t remember much of Red River. I know I walked a lot in there, and I know I walked up the hill on 38th to Duval. I know all sorts of foul awful things were coming out of my mouth. The marathon is just really, really hard. Nothing I do in training hurts like this. Ever. I was just not prepared in any way for what this feels like, and it showed. I was pathetic out there, and it was embarrassing.

I had hoped to run triumphantly down Duval, but unfortunately there was a good deal of walking mixed in. I just could not lift my legs. The Gazelles at mile 24 were awesome. They were the loudest bunch of spectators I saw the entire day. I ran through there, and that kept me going well into UT, but then I had some more walking fits. Finally, with the turn on to Congress towards the Capitol, I was able to get my legs moving again. Gilbert jumped out by the Capitol, and he scared me to death. He was yelling right in my ear and threatening to run right behind me. That got me moving faster than I had gone since several miles before.

There were tons of cheering people along the finishing straightaway. I knew that despite my mistakes I had a huge PR, so I smiled for the cameras and cruised in. After the line, I was dizzily wobbling around. Ivi came up behind me and pushed me off in the direction of the medical tent. I thought I was all right, but they looked at me and seemed concerned. They stuck me with a blood test and said my potassium levels were really off and I was completely dehydrated. They had said my temperature was too high, too. It was freaky. They had some ice on me and fed me a bunch of bananas, but eventually they let me go. I think those were the effects of my barely having any water or nutrition in the last 10 miles or so.

So, I’m happy with my PR, but I know I can do this better. This is one I can build on, though. This is the first time I’ve ever felt that level of pain because in the past I’ve quit way before I reached that point. Next time, it won’t be such a shock. I felt like I was going to die, but I didn’t. That gives me some confidence that I can take my training to the next level and be better prepared the next time I take this on. Unlike my previous efforts where I quit really early, my legs are totally used up. I’m writing this Tuesday evening, and it still feels like I just finished a monster workout at the gym. That tells me it was a pretty good effort.

I’ve identified several things that I need to practice. Basically, I can run really well in the shorter races because I can pretty much just take off running and no matter how dumb I am the race ends before I do. In the marathon, all those little mistakes add up, and you have to respect it a lot more to succeed.

- I need to be much more careful about my nutrition and hydration
- I need to ignore the people around me so I can recover a bit without getting overwhelmed
- I need to accept that the late part of the marathon hurts and be ready for it
- I need to practice running hard when I am already tired

So I’ll practice those, and then I’ll give it another go. In the meantime, I’ll be happy that I posted a solid time and took a huge chunk off my previous best.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 18th, 2007 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.