Marathon Training Thread

[MarkGrace]

Oh, and great job on losing the weight. I started out at 271, and I weighed in at 182 yesterday.

:yikes:

[Moliere]

Lambda, that's incredibly awesome! Great job!

[ERCougar]

Last long run yesterday before Ogden on Saturday. It was long, hot (70s--yeah, I'm a wuss), and not pretty. I don't feel at all the "conquer anything" feeling I'd hoped--I feel beat up with an ITB that stubbornly keeps reminding me of its presence. It could be ugly. Hopefully, this very easy week will help me, but I'm skeptical.

I injected some steroid into my ITB last night. I didn't want to mask any pain so I didn't include any lidocaine. Felt fine going in, but when I stood, I almost was in tears. Bad idea. Limping around today, but improving. Hopefully, I can run tomorrow...lol. Lesson learned.

[FN Phat]

Doctors are their own worse enemy.

[bluegoose]

St George lottery results are in. My wife got in. I think this will be her 4th or 5th time there.

[ERCougar]

While I'm sitting here waiting to hear the end of P's Ironman report, I'll go ahead and post my much less impressive marathon report.

After a really poor night of sleep sharing a full size bed with my wife at a friend's house, I woke up about 3 (woke up--ha...got out of bed, rather) and downed a couple of bowls of cereal. It had been raining hard all night and I'm praying it stops despite a forecast of 40's and rain at the start. I'm a southern Utah runner--running in rain is not my thing and I don't really have any idea how to dress or run in heavy rain. I settle on shorts and tank with some sleeves, thinking that has the least chance of chaffing, with a hat.

We take the bus up to the start line and on the ride, I talk a little with the woman next to me from Bogota, Colombia who had come just for the marathon, which I thought was pretty cool. She lives at 3000 m, so no concerns about altitude for her. I'm debating what to do with my IT band--I've brought two syringes with bupivacaine in them--and I decide to surreptitiously inject it on the ride, hoping to avoid accusing glances from her and everyone else (I think I got away with it). I pack the other syringe in case I have problems during the race.

At the start, the rain slows down, even stops for a little bit, so I decide to toss the sleeves in my pickup bag and I wait around in a garbage bag for the race to start. Of course, just before the start, it starts up again, hard, and never really lets up the rest of the race. I still have thoughts of breaking 3:30, so I get chatting with the 3:25 pacer, a guy from Cincinnati, who easily has the goofiest stride I've ever seen on a decent runner. He says his PR is in the 2:50's but I've never seen a sub 3 guy run like him. This is the first time he's run this one, but I guess he paced at St G. Nice guy.

You can divide this race into 3 major sections--the first 8 a pretty fast downhill section, the second 8 a flat one with a couple of little hills around the lake, and the third 8 another downhill that ends with a flat final 3 miles. I down a 1/2 bottle of gatorade to start the race (I always do this) and stick with the pacer. Something is immediately wrong as I'm already feeling like that Gatorade is not sitting well. I think it'll go away and just stick with the pacer for the first couple of miles at about 7:20, but then he slows up, worried that he's losing some people. I keep going because I feel fine and I hate braking on downhills, but the unsettled feeling doesn't go away. HR stays 145-150.

At about 6.5 miles, I start thinking that I need to do a gel, even if I feel like that's the last thing I want to do, remembering my problems from last year when I bonked hard at mile 18. I put down a strawberry gel and immediately realize how bad that idea was. Within a half mile, I feel it coming back up, and I pull off the road and start vomiting. A couple of encouraging voices tell me to hang in there, which I think is silly because aside from the nausea, I feel fine.

Feeling a little better, I get running again, but the nausea returns within a quarter mile. I skip the mile 7 water stop because I don't want anything to come up, but the nausea just continues to worsen. HR is still sub-150, so I don't really slow up much, but my average pace is now at 8:00, due to the nausea stop and the flattened terrain. By mile 10, I can't hold it anymore and I pull off the side and start projectile vomiting. I guess I look pretty bad this time because a guy stops and asks if I'm OK. I'm not, but there's nothing he can do about it, so I wave him on and say I'll be fine. This was a long stop. I was searching for a car to pick me up and would have taken a ride in a second. Unfortunately (or fortunately), nothing in sight, so I decide I'll get to the half point, where there's a relay stop, and I'll call it a day.

I couldn't care less what my time is at this point, so I just start off at a slow jog. Having vomited about everything in my stomach, I'm feeling a little better, so I just keep going. Again, legs and lungs feel fine, so I start to think that if the nausea's gone, maybe I can finish this thing. And as long as I go really slow and easy, the nausea stays at bay, but as soon as I start to speed up a bit, I start to feel things come up. I know I have no hope of a PR at this point, so I just settle into a really comfortable pace and just try to enjoy it.

I get through the half point and decide I'll finish. Stomach doesn't feel great, but it doesn't feel awful either, and I start to think that I don't want to face my kids having quit. We have a saying in our house that we use whenever our kids say something is hard: "You can do hard things". And that's my mantra for the rest of the race, with an effing tossed in. Sheri Dew, the source of the quote, probably didn't intend that, but it works. The rest of the race is in a downpour, running around "puddles" (better termed small lakes) along the path, and while it's beautiful, it's also really cold, wet, and in sloshing drenched heavy shoes. It's easily the most miserable race conditions I've run in, although it definitely beats an Ironman in Houston (and I actually had this thought multiple times through the race). There's a woman in a cute running skirt that I stick behind for a while, maybe a little for the view, but mostly to give me some sort of motivation to keep going. I pass her once on a downhill, she passes me back on an uphill, I lose her on a bathroom break, I pass her back on a surge right before we hit the flats at the end, and I keep expecting her to catch me but she never does. I think about my kids a lot during those last ten miles, and each time I do, I feel a little teary. It's weird that marathons do this to me--I'm not a very emotional guy. When I see them cheering for me as I'm sprinting out my final stretch (I actually had some good energy at the end of this), I almost lose it. One of the beautiful things of these challenges for me are that it strips life down to its bare essentials and helps me remember what I most value in the world.

Anyway, final time is 3:42, I think. A bit disappointing, but I finished, and I'm prouder of that finish than of any other. There was really not a lot of reason for me to finish--I've already proven to myself I can run one and I wasn't going to PR--but I wanted to show my kids that they can do hard things. I think they remain blissfully unaware of that lesson, so maybe I just needed to prove it to myself. I feel a little silly posting this next to niku's much harder thing that he can do--I fully realize that it doesn't compare.

My IT band was great the whole race, until the medicine wore off that night. I imagine I'll be rehabbing it for a few weeks now--it hurts pretty badly now. The GI issues that I keep having are really puzzling. I'm starting to wonder if it's mental. Or maybe I'm starting out too fast. Or again...maybe this just isn't my distance. For right now, I can see myself running another marathon, but not trying to run one fast. But much like childbirth, I'm sure the memory will wear off and I'll be signed up again some day.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Sheesh, this board is filled with superheroes. Very impressive, ER. I'm certain projectile vomiting would have ended my effort on the spot. Glad the IT band turned out not to be a problem. It's kind of funny you think nik's Ironman might somehow diminish what you just did. For every P'diddes, there are a million relative couch potatoes who are unworthy to hold your Bodyglide. Nice work.

[Pheidippides]

While I'm sitting here waiting to hear the end of P's Ironman report, I'll go ahead and post my much less impressive marathon report.

After a really poor night of sleep sharing a full size bed with my wife at a friend's house, I woke up about 3 (woke up--ha...got out of bed, rather) and downed a couple of bowls of cereal. It had been raining hard all night and I'm praying it stops despite a forecast of 40's and rain at the start. I'm a southern Utah runner--running in rain is not my thing and I don't really have any idea how to dress or run in heavy rain. I settle on shorts and tank with some sleeves, thinking that has the least chance of chaffing, with a hat.

We take the bus up to the start line and on the ride, I talk a little with the woman next to me from Bogota, Colombia who had come just for the marathon, which I thought was pretty cool. She lives at 3000 m, so no concerns about altitude for her. I'm debating what to do with my IT band--I've brought two syringes with bupivacaine in them--and I decide to surreptitiously inject it on the ride, hoping to avoid accusing glances from her and everyone else (I think I got away with it). I pack the other syringe in case I have problems during the race.

At the start, the rain slows down, even stops for a little bit, so I decide to toss the sleeves in my pickup bag and I wait around in a garbage bag for the race to start. Of course, just before the start, it starts up again, hard, and never really lets up the rest of the race. I still have thoughts of breaking 3:30, so I get chatting with the 3:25 pacer, a guy from Cincinnati, who easily has the goofiest stride I've ever seen on a decent runner. He says his PR is in the 2:50's but I've never seen a sub 3 guy run like him. This is the first time he's run this one, but I guess he paced at St G. Nice guy.

You can divide this race into 3 major sections--the first 8 a pretty fast downhill section, the second 8 a flat one with a couple of little hills around the lake, and the third 8 another downhill that ends with a flat final 3 miles. I down a 1/2 bottle of gatorade to start the race (I always do this) and stick with the pacer. Something is immediately wrong as I'm already feeling like that Gatorade is not sitting well. I think it'll go away and just stick with the pacer for the first couple of miles at about 7:20, but then he slows up, worried that he's losing some people. I keep going because I feel fine and I hate braking on downhills, but the unsettled feeling doesn't go away. HR stays 145-150.

At about 6.5 miles, I start thinking that I need to do a gel, even if I feel like that's the last thing I want to do, remembering my problems from last year when I bonked hard at mile 18. I put down a strawberry gel and immediately realize how bad that idea was. Within a half mile, I feel it coming back up, and I pull off the road and start vomiting. A couple of encouraging voices tell me to hang in there, which I think is silly because aside from the nausea, I feel fine.

Feeling a little better, I get running again, but the nausea returns within a quarter mile. I skip the mile 7 water stop because I don't want anything to come up, but the nausea just continues to worsen. HR is still sub-150, so I don't really slow up much, but my average pace is now at 8:00, due to the nausea stop and the flattened terrain. By mile 10, I can't hold it anymore and I pull off the side and start projectile vomiting. I guess I look pretty bad this time because a guy stops and asks if I'm OK. I'm not, but there's nothing he can do about it, so I wave him on and say I'll be fine. This was a long stop. I was searching for a car to pick me up and would have taken a ride in a second. Unfortunately (or fortunately), nothing in sight, so I decide I'll get to the half point, where there's a relay stop, and I'll call it a day.

I couldn't care less what my time is at this point, so I just start off at a slow jog. Having vomited about everything in my stomach, I'm feeling a little better, so I just keep going. Again, legs and lungs feel fine, so I start to think that if the nausea's gone, maybe I can finish this thing. And as long as I go really slow and easy, the nausea stays at bay, but as soon as I start to speed up a bit, I start to feel things come up. I know I have no hope of a PR at this point, so I just settle into a really comfortable pace and just try to enjoy it.

I get through the half point and decide I'll finish. Stomach doesn't feel great, but it doesn't feel awful either, and I start to think that I don't want to face my kids having quit. We have a saying in our house that we use whenever our kids say something is hard: "You can do hard things". And that's my mantra for the rest of the race, with an effing tossed in. Sheri Dew, the source of the quote, probably didn't intend that, but it works. The rest of the race is in a downpour, running around "puddles" (better termed small lakes) along the path, and while it's beautiful, it's also really cold, wet, and in sloshing drenched heavy shoes. It's easily the most miserable race conditions I've run in, although it definitely beats an Ironman in Houston (and I actually had this thought multiple times through the race). There's a woman in a cute running skirt that I stick behind for a while, maybe a little for the view, but mostly to give me some sort of motivation to keep going. I pass her once on a downhill, she passes me back on an uphill, I lose her on a bathroom break, I pass her back on a surge right before we hit the flats at the end, and I keep expecting her to catch me but she never does. I think about my kids a lot during those last ten miles, and each time I do, I feel a little teary. It's weird that marathons do this to me--I'm not a very emotional guy. When I see them cheering for me as I'm sprinting out my final stretch (I actually had some good energy at the end of this), I almost lose it. One of the beautiful things of these challenges for me are that it strips life down to its bare essentials and helps me remember what I most value in the world.

Anyway, final time is 3:42, I think. A bit disappointing, but I finished, and I'm prouder of that finish than of any other. There was really not a lot of reason for me to finish--I've already proven to myself I can run one and I wasn't going to PR--but I wanted to show my kids that they can do hard things. I think they remain blissfully unaware of that lesson, so maybe I just needed to prove it to myself. I feel a little silly posting this next to niku's much harder thing that he can do--I fully realize that it doesn't compare.

My IT band was great the whole race, until the medicine wore off that night. I imagine I'll be rehabbing it for a few weeks now--it hurts pretty badly now. The GI issues that I keep having are really puzzling. I'm starting to wonder if it's mental. Or maybe I'm starting out too fast. Or again...maybe this just isn't my distance. For right now, I can see myself running another marathon, but not trying to run one fast. But much like childbirth, I'm sure the memory will wear off and I'll be signed up again some day.

Man, what was up yesterday? Did you and I have the same thing? Is the board as a whole infected or something? Running a 3:42 with that...that's impressive!

It's funny that our motivations are the exact same - we aren't willing to tell our kids that we quit. And my wife's mantra is also, "it's okay to do hard things." I look forward to your next race report too - right after StG you told me you weren't going to do another (maybe you don't remember that - we were both pretty fried) and yet here you are. This stuff is infectious.

[ERCougar]

Man, what was up yesterday? Did you and I have the same thing? Is the board as a whole infected or something? Running a 3:42 with that...that's impressive!

It's funny that our motivations are the exact same - we aren't willing to tell our kids that we quit. And my wife's mantra is also, "it's okay to do hard things." I look forward to your next race report too - right after StG you told me you weren't going to do another (maybe you don't remember that - we were both pretty fried) and yet here you are. This stuff is infectious.

I typed mine while I was waiting for you to post your marathon section and I laughed a little at the parallels. My pain was on a much much smaller scale, but I empathized a little.

[Moliere]

As much as I feel bad for ER, maybe he can have some solace in the fact his write up was actually pretty entertaining. I wish I could say I had a bad day running but still churned in a 3:42 marathon. But seriously, congrats on finishing!

As Dwayne Wade so famously said, "Fall down 7 times, stand up 8"

[Jeff Lebowski]

Great race story, ER. Where was your marathon?

[ERCougar]

As much as I feel bad for ER, maybe he can have some solace in the fact his write up was actually pretty entertaining. I wish I could say I had a bad day running but still churned in a 3:42 marathon. But seriously, congrats on finishing!

As Dwayne Wade so famously said, "Fall down 7 times, stand up 8"

Great race story, ER. Where was your marathon?

Thanks...I'll take whatever consolation I can get.
On the flip side, aside from the IT band, I feel really good. Easiest recovery yet. And yeah, I'm already combing through running blogs to see what to do for next time. lol

Race was in Ogden. I think Eddie had to pull out, but SeaChicken was going to run. I have no idea how to look him up though. No entries under Chicken.

[lambdacoug]

Well, just under two weeks until my first half. I did 14.2 miles last week, the 8 mile long run on Saturday was great, aside from the code brown emergency stop in the woods at 5.5 miles. I felt like I could have kept going. No major knee issues, a little soreness going up/down stairs that disappeared by Sunday. I'm doing 15.5 miles this week, with a 10 mile run on Saturday. 10 miles has me worried...I mean, it's 10 whole miles! That's crazy! What have I gotten myself into? A 10% bump from the 15.5 this week should put me at about 17 miles for the week of the half and I think I'll run an easy 2 next Monday and then walk/run 1 on Wednesday, which when combined with the 13.1 will come in right under that 10% increase. I'm nervous, but I committed to doing this. As has already mentioned, I can't let my kids see me fail without giving it everything I've got and then some. I hope to finish this half, and I'm already thinking of signing up for the Kansas City Half Marathon in October.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Nice recap ER! For Mr. Lebowsky's benefit, fgiven the date and the conditions, my guess is that he ran the Ogden marathon. I've read several recaps from Saturday (I actually had three friends run as pacers) and they all sound miserable.

I used to ride bikes wih a friend who had raced all over Europe and was about a tire width short of making the Jr. Olympic team. His mantra was always, "There's no shame in quitting." And no matter how hard I tried, It would always piss me off when he said it. I think since he had been paid to ride, he looked at racing as a job. When there's always another race next weekend, he never saw the problem of cutting his losses and trying again when the conditions were better. For those of us that train for these isolated events, we've usually invested too many hours and too much emotion to walk away from it. As hard as it is to finish those on a bad day (says the guys that's ran one which just so happened to be on a pretty good day-but I've had enough bad days on the bike where I think I can still qualify here), walking away from a major goal is much easier done physically than mentally. These sorts of things tend to haunt.

So I feel proud for you ER. Not only did you complete against poor outer and internal conditions, you still ran a hell of a marathon. I have this mental image of you turning around with every projectile vomit in an effort to use the momentum to your favor. There's no other explanation of being that sick while still running a 3:42.

[Joe Public]

ER, way to out your guts gut it out. Nice time, too; it stands on its own.

Lambda, keep up the good work. I still remember the first time I ran a double-digit long run. I was a significant milestone for me. I felt like a distance runner.