(Disclaimer: this post is a bit wordy and I only have 2 pictures, sort of)
This marathon was my first key event for the year. After 2 IMs last year, I had a few lingering knee/Achilles issues to sort out and was not able to run CIM as planned so I wanted to find another marathon to see where my run fitness is nowadays. One of my athletes found the River City Marathon – a small event in April on the bike trail. The timing worked and he was OK with it, so I jumped in to run it also. In January we learned that they moved the race back to 3/27 because of an issue with the number of events on the American River Parkway. That didn’t really bother me because early Winter running had been going well. The course was supposed to go from Negro Bar down to Discovery Park, with the whole thing on the bike path, which I thought would be quite fun. I’ve run many miles on the bike path and running almost the whole thing for a marathon is pretty cool. However, with the weather the way it’s been and the fact that Discovery Park is completely under water, they had to change the route to an out-and-back from Negro Bar to William Pond (or close) and then back. It would make the run harder and generally uphill in the 2nd half, but it’s a route I’ve run a lot and I was still confident in having a good, solid run.
I hadn’t run an open marathon (hard) since 2005. Training had been going well and I formulated a good race plan: 4x30 minute laps with a gel at the end of each “lap.” Then I would switch to 15 minute laps and evaluate my pace at the 2:15 mark. With respect to pacing, I was going to shoot for a steady 6:48 per mile the whole first 2 hours and the 15 minutes past that to get me to about 20 miles. Then, I was going to give it what I had for the last 10K and add another gel at the 2:30 mark. I had 6 gels ready to go at the beginning and ate one of them about 15 minutes before the start. I had also decided to carry a bottle of water with me to make sure I had water when I needed it. The aid stations were about 2.5 miles apart and I didn’t want to be dependent on them and wanted to make sure I had enough water to get the gel to digest. I also knew (based on my metabolic efficiency testing with Sheila – see previous post), that I would burn about 18 Kcal/minute at that pace and 12 of those would be from CHO. Therefore, I would go through about 2160 calories of carbs over 3 hours. 2000 calories is a conservative estimate of the glycogen available for fuel in the muscles and liver. However, knowing that I had been able to get gel down at that pace in training gave me confidence that fueling would not be an issue – I would have plenty to go on and it would go down well.
This was a pretty low-key event and the start was somewhat anti-climactic to say the least. I lined up at the front with my friend and we chatted for a minute. Next thing I know the race director is counting down and just says “Go!” No gun. No bull horn. No nothing. I doubt people near the back even heard him. Anyway, we were off and running – a quick left turn onto the path and then almost immediately downhill. I eased into my pace and just tried to get into a rhythm. A couple people blazed past me… one of them took off like a rocket. I figured he either knew what he was doing or I would be seeing him later. Turns out it was the former. A couple more people passed me, one dressed in all pink and wearing Vibram Five Fingers. Very noticeable so I figured I’d track behind him for a while. Another guy chatted with me for a minute about Ironman… turns out he had done Vineman and Cozumel. He wanted to stay around the 3-hour pace, but only like another mile up the path and he was falling behind. Oh well, there goes my running buddy. Shortly after that another guy passed me. He was running strong and we were in 5th and 6th position as we approached the Hazel bridge. I stuck with him for quite a while, all the way past Sunrise and well into my “2nd 30-minute lap.” In the mean time, I saw Bart Z. at Hazel – don’t know how he got down there that fast after being at the start!!
I got to the end of the first hour and started my 3rd lap and ate another gel. At this point, my bottle was getting low. However, conveniently there was an aid station coming up and I made a split decision to ask them to fill my bottle and keep it for me to grab for the return trip. I figured I’d need to go about 50 minutes without my own water supply, but then I’d have a full bottle for the run back! I chucked my bottle to them and kept motoring, hoping they would remember. It was about this point when we started running through the half-marathoners. They started at William Pond an hour later and were heading the other direction on the path. Only a few at first, but then it was several hundred. It was never really an issue, but some of them could’ve paid a little more attention… regardless, it was kind of a good pick-me-up to go through the crowd, plus, we’d get to chase down a lot of them on the way back. Around this point, I had already passed the guy running in 6th and had moved up a spot. Shortly after that, I passed the guy in the pink with the Vibrams and kept motoring. I was now running in 5th approaching the turnaround. The first place guy was in another zip code already (as I mentioned, he knew what he was doing when he took off at the beginning). #2 was quite a ways back from him, but still a ways up from me. Numbers 3 and 4 we also well-ahead, so I just kept focused on my own race. I approached the turnaround and grabbed some water and ate a gel since I knew this was the only aid station until I got back to my bottle. Fortunately, the volunteers told me to turn around since the only sign was a small orange cone with a cardboard box that said “turn-around” on it. I seriously almost didn’t see it.
I think I had 29:20 something on my watch at this point at the end of my 3rd lap, so right on pace. I hit lap a few seconds later and moved on. The 4th chunk of 30 minutes at ~6:48 pace was starting to get a little harder, but I was still in complete control and my HR was the same. From the beginning, my HR was a touch high. I was expecting it to be in the 155 range for that pace, but it was about 160 most of the way. It always seems to be a little high for me during races. I decided early on not to worry about it and just focus on pace and RPE, which were both right on. Very comfortable. I also had been using some mental exercises in the first hour to get into a rhythm. I repeated “easy, light, smooth” over and over in my head through the first half. I threw in a “save it for the end” every now and again to remind myself that the race really hadn’t begun yet. Some say the half-way point of a marathon is at mile 20. Once I hit the turn-around, I switched over to my “relaxed, calm, focused, strong” rhythm and it worked really well. I stuck with that for the whole return trip. I started letting myself feel like I was working a little bit at this point and my legs were starting to fatigue some, but it was still a very comfortable pace and I motored on. In the next several miles over my last block of 30 minutes, I passed a LOT of half-marathoners and walkers. It kept it interesting as I rolled along. I tried not to focus on anything but my mental focus, my mantra, and keeping good form. Short, pendulum arms and controlled breathing in rhythm. I approached the aid station where my bottle was and they had been saving it for me!!! It worked out GREAT – I now had a full bottle of water for the last 10-ish miles. Spurred on by the help of the volunteers, I kept it rolling and got through the first 2 hours and then hit lap again and at my 4th gel (this time Raspberry Hammer Gel). My plan from there was to do another 15 minutes at the same pace and then see how I felt. It was fairly uneventful. I was running in 5th place still with nobody that close behind me and continued to pass half-marathoners. When I got to 2:15 in (not sure what mile it was, somewhere around 20), I tried to start working a little harder. My HR was in the 160-162 range and I still felt OK. My legs were tired and I was now officially working hard, but I was still in control.
As I approached the end of that next 15 minutes, I saw a guy up ahead that had taken his shirt off. I remembered from the turn-around that the guy in 4th place was bald with no shirt and thought, “hey, I may actually have caught this guy!” I continued to run up behind him and when I was about to pass, he saw me coming and said “wow, you caught me.” I asked him what he was shooting for and told him to hang with me to try to get to 3 hours. He tried for a little bit, but when we came around under the Hazel Bridge, he told me to have a good race. I actually felt OK going up the Hazel bridge and let myself work fairly hard. No point in saving anything now, it was the last ~30-35 minutes! Time to give it what I had left! Once down off the bridge and rolling down the hill towards the dam, I saw the guy that had been in 3rd place!!! I seriously did not think I was going to catch him, but I rolled right on past and kept going, now running in 3rd overall with ~30 minutes to go. I had no idea how far up the road #2 and #1 were, but just kept working hard trying to maintain pace. I ate another gel and went into my 2nd to last 15 minutes. It’s a gradual uphill all the way back out to Negro bar, so my same pace required a little more effort, but I hung on well. I knew if I could make it to the little downhill by the lake, I’d roll down that and would be home free! There would only be one more flat section and then the small hill to the finish. My legs were really fatigued by this point and I knew I’d put forth a hard effort, but was hanging on really well. My HR was also very steady and didn’t come up much at all. I got to 2:45, hit lap on my watch and kept going, staying on pace as best I could. I wasn’t able to up it much at all, but did at least maintain it in spite of the rolling hills. After a couple more minutes, I switched my watch over to the overall time and figured I’d be finishing soon anyway, before the next “lap” expired. I was still running ~6:45 and felt OK. I focused on my mantra – “relaxed, calm, focused, strong” and tried not to think about the finish yet. A few more minutes and the end would be here!
I approached the small hill near the end and my watch read 2:57… I gave it what I had in the hopes of getting under 2:58. I rolled up the hill and rounded the corner to the finish and saw the clock ticking towards 2:58. I finished hard and came across in what I found out later to be 2:57:59 - almost exactly right on my 6:48 pace and just a hair under. My legs were completely cooked, but I was very satisfied with the hard effort. Plus, I had run my way from 6th to 3rd in the last 15 miles and from 5th to 3rd in the last 10K. My race plan worked great and I executed it well - can’t ask for more than that.
Above is a plot of my pace (blue), HR (red), and the elevation (yellow) of the course. Very even pace and HR, which I was quite happy with.
I ran the first 20 miles in 2:15:54 at an average pace of 6:48 and change and average HR of 161. I ran the last ~10K in 42:29 at an average pace of 6:48 and average HR of 164. My run fitness is coming along nicely. About 75 runs of 30 minutes or more and 500+ miles since 12/15/2010. The frequency has worked well and the key long runs built my confidence. I had been running big chunks of those long runs a few seconds slower than race pace and heart rates in the low 150s – a solid zone 2 effort for most of them.
Lots of things went well in this race:
1) Race plan – breaking it up mentally was great. I really had no idea what mile I was at most of the time.
2) Fueling plan – gel every 30 minutes at that pace kept me going.
3) Negative split (first 13.1 in 1:29:12 and 2nd 13.1 in 1:28:47)
I seriously can’t think of much I would have done differently. Had I gone out much faster, I don’t think I would’ve finished as well (duh). All of this bodes well for the tri-season ahead. Now it’s time to go swim and bike.
