Second Marathon

Race: Air Force Marathon
Date: September 21, 2019
Location: Dayton, OH
Time: 4:55:54
Overall Rank: 567 out of 1331
Age Group Rank: 39 out of 81
Results: http://onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=69832#racetop

"This was probably my last full-length marathon apart from the one that comes at the end of Ironman Lake Placid next year." My reasoning is that my body is getting older and in training there is always some joint or muscle issue that keeps me from doing enough training. At least, this is what I told my friend Dan and wife Shannan the day after the marathon. Today is different, though. I dream of a marathon where I am running for the vast majority of miles, even at the end of the race. I didn't have that kind of day here, and if I can keep my body healthy enough, maybe I will try a marathon again.

I didn't do poorly this year. In fact, I was well into the run and going at a good pace when my body rather quickly bonked.

Miles 0-10: I ran with the 4:20 pace group. It felt easy with a pace in the upper 9s and some scattered conversations to listen to, though I was expecting more from my pacer in that regard. The 4:20 pace group was a little faster than my desired pace of 4:30, but there wasn't a choice for 4:30 finish time. I had to choose 4:20 or 4:35 so I stuck with the faster group, maybe to my eventual detriment.

Miles 11-17: The pace started to seem fast to me, though my watch denied it. My pacer said several times "we're running a minute or two ahead," and I began to get frustrated that not only was I running with a group that was a bit faster than my choice, my pacer was running faster than the group's choice, too. Looking at my heart rate output, at mile 12 my heart rate abruptly jumped from 145 bpm to 165 bpm and stayed there. This section of the route was at least more scenic, as it winded its way through the neighborhood. Around mile 15 is when we started running through downtown Fairborn. There were lots of spectators with signs and noisemakers and even some bands playing. My pacer swept through the crowd, trying to high-five as many people as he could. His energy was contagious; I did my best to follow his lead, but I was starting to feel unwell. I felt thirsty. I also had to urinate. I started to think about walking when I got to the next water station. The water station came too soon, though, and I didn't want to start walking while still downtown with all the crowds. So I ran on, promising myself that I'd take a walking break at the next porta-potty.

Mile 17: I finally got to an aid station with a porta-potty. My watch tells me I only took 1 minute to use it, and then, as a reward for getting to this point, I planned to walk for a minute before starting up again. But a minute came and went, and I couldn't get myself started again. My head wasn't right. I was sort of woozy. I delayed for another 3 minutes, and then delayed again until my watch hit a certain time, and then I told myself I'd start running at the next bend in the road. After 9.5 minutes I was finally able to get started.

At this point I wasn't panicking. I had been at this place before on my training runs. I started up a 5-min run + 1-min walk strategy that could be adjusted depending on my condition. For instance, the first 5 minutes of running went by, and I didn't feel like I needed to stop, so I committed to another 3 minutes, and then another 1.5 minutes. I then walked for a minute. But I couldn't start up again, so my walking interval turned out to be 5 minutes. I was starting to do math in my head. I knew that i could take 1-minute walking breaks and still beat my goal time of 4:30, but more 5-minute walking breaks would not be helpful toward that goal.

I ran another 5+3=8 minutes and stopped to walk again. I walked 5 minutes again. Ugggh, I still thought now that I would still finish around 4:30, and even if it was later, I would still beat my personal best of 4:54.

I ran another 5 minutes, which was followed by a 12-minute walk. I don't remember when the back cramps started up, but at this point I probably had them. I remembered that this had happened before at Ironman Maryland during the run; I started to get cramps, starting with my back and diaphragm, and then my legs. Indeed, now at this point in my marathon, my calves were starting to feel crampy and I was afraid they would lock up. I did a few spurts of running to see if the feeling would go away, and it didn't. My running pace at this point was in the 11s. I reasoned that a run-walk of 11-14 min/mile pacing could still get me over the finish line with time to spare, but I noticed that even my walking pace was slowing. I covered my last couple miles at a 15 min/mile pace, which still seemed ok, because I knew that I'd run the last half mile at the end.

Finally, I saw Shannan and her dad Jim at the half-mile point. I started to run, and of course I did get one last spurt of energy and motivation to do it. I was watching my watch the whole time, because I thought maybe I would beat my personal best time after all...and I did, according to my watch. However, my watch was telling me the duration of actual time spend in motion. It shut off when I was in the porta-potty, and I didn't think of that until it was too late. My official finish time was 4:55.54, just a minute slower than in 2015 when I ran it in 4:54.47.

I really wanted to beat that old time, so I spent some time last night exploring whether the new route used in 2019 was easier or harder than the old route used in 2015. The race site seems to suggest it is easier now because they took out some hills. However, when i compare my finish time against my 40-44 age male peers, I actually did slightly better in 2019 than in 2015 despite the slower time. So, either the competitive field was greater in 2015, or I was more competitive in 2019. By a smidgen. Jim, why do you care??? Statistically speaking, you tied.

Anyway, I really have to figure out how to prevent the bonk during my long runs. The most obvious solution is to do MORE long runs prior to the event. This allows me to tweak my nutrition and hydration strategies. I simply didn't do enough this summer to prepare for this marathon. My longest run was 18 miles, and some of that included walking. Research shows that men need to run 20+ miles in preparation for a marathon to limit the chance of "hitting the wall." (Rapoport 2010). I might also learn to supercompensate my glycogen stores in leg muscles by doing an exhaustive workout and then delaying carbohydrate consumption afterward (Rapoport 2010).

Indeed, for this race, I don't think I consumed enough sugar. I'll have to do some computations here, but I think maybe in total I had 10 Dixie cups of Gatorade, one cup of cola, one Gu packet, and one half-banana during the race. I consumed plenty of fluid and took supplemental salt licks 4-5 times.

After my race was finished, I almost immediately felt nauseous, I was pale, and I think I was overheated. Uncharacteristically, I insisted on laying on the ground for 15 minutes and pouring water on my head. Even after I got up and started walking, my vision was over-sensitive to bright light. My pupils must have been inappropriately dilated for the sunny conditions. I've looked into the vision issue and it seems that low blood glucose can cause that (but not dehydration), so this also points to insufficient fueling.

So let's calculate my carbs now. One Gu packet is 100 calories. One half banana is 45 calories. There are 50 calories in each 8 ounce serving of Gatorade and most cups given to me were only half full, so that's 25 calories x 10 cups = 250 calories. A half serving of cola is 52 calories. In sum, I consumed 447 calories during my marathon. Meanwhile, my Garmin says I burned 3,387 during the event (around 675 calories per hour). A rough estimate of calories stored by the liver glycogen is 2,000 plus whatever I had stored in my leg muscles. Actually, I'm finding different values for liver storage, and of course I can't know how much glycogen was stored in my leg muscles, nor whether or not my stores were full at the time I started the race. Plus, there is data that show that muscles don't give up their entire storage of glycogen. All this is to say there are too many variables to get an accurate calorie count, but it looks like I was fueled for only about 4 hours of exercise and not 5. At the 4-hour mark of my race, I had covered 23 miles, so had I properly fueled, I could have run at least another 6 miles than I did. Duh. Why didn't I pay more attention to caloric intake? Rookie mistake that I seem to keep making.



...bonk continues, runny nose, vision weird.

AMYMSA Edinboro

Race:
Date: September 15, 2019
Location: Edinboro University

The start of swim season! I've been concentrating on my running, plus work has been busy, plus I had a cut on my finger (squirrel bite), so I haven't been swimming much. That's pretty much what everyone else at Masters said, so I fit right in. No pressure today.

100-yard freestyle: I didn't beat my seed time, but was close. My turns were not explosive at all; my legs are tired from a 12-mile run yesterday.

25-yard backstroke: It took almost the whole length to get my legs up and finally get into a good rhythm. I feel like I might be kicking too hard at first, causing some kind of drag on my legs.

50-yard freestyle: I beat my seed time by almost a second, coming in at 29.18 seconds. This is not bad at all for the start of the season. It felt good; I concentrated on NOT fishtailing the whole way and took limited breaths.

25-yard butterfly: Felt good, but not fast at all!

Overall, a good time. I have just recently signed up for Ironman Lake Placid (July 2020) so I'm going to take my swimming more seriously this year. And my biking. And my running. And my protein intake. And my lifting. And my blogging! It's going to be my last full-length triathlon so I want to get the most out of it. We'll talk soon.