Better Late Than Never!!

First of all, the California International Marathon race course is much prettier than I thought it would be. The only reference I has was a course review on Youtube which led me to believe that I would be running through suburban drudgery. Far from it. The little towns we ran through, from Folsom, into Carmichael, and into downtown Sacramento itself have unique characters. While there certainly were strip malls and bland, suburban tract housing, elements of the frontier west and the Gold Rush made it easy to forget all that.

And the layout of the course itself, with long, straight lines for miles (seemingly) without end and very few turns enabled me to get lost in my run, relax and enjoy the scenery.

And now, for the race!

The starting gun went off while I was still in the Port-a-Potty, so I crossed the start line about five minutes later than I thought I would. I caught one of the 4:00 pace teams, however, and I figured that I would run with them for a few miles to warm up, then slowly run ahead at 8:45 pace to match my goal time.

Within moments, I knew it wasn’t going to be the plan.

The California International Marathon is a net downhill race, but the downhill is almost not noticeable: a 350 foot drop over 26.2 miles. In round numbers, about a three tenths of one percent drop. What there were, however, were lots and lots of hills, starting with the first mile. Small hills, to be sure, and in the back of my mind I knew they would be there. But they still took me by surprise, so much so that I dialed my pace down again, allowing the 4:10 pace team to catch up with me and then running with them for the majority of the race.

But as it always does, the training I came to the race with eventually kicked in, and I settled in to just under a 9:30 per mile pace, my first priority to simply get through the race standing up. I helped myself feel better by engaging in conversations with people around me, including a young man running his first marathon (who I gave several helpful bits of training advice), and amusingly, a high school girl who, responding to my “thanks for coming out!” to her group of friends, yelled “I’ve gotta give that guy a high five!” High five’s exchanged, I marveled at how light our burdens can be made to feel if we allow others to share them with us.

We ran in perfect weather. Not as cold as I was told to expect. The skies threatened rain, but all I felt was a refreshingly cool and moist breeze that left me dripping but energized despite the fact that I was struggling more than I expected to.

Hanging tough at mile 12

For example: at about mile 15, my Morton’s Neuroma kicked in. and at that point it was going to be a race of attrition. Who’s going to win this battle, the race course, or me? Here’s how my internal dialogue went:

“One mile at a time, kid, one mile at a time.”

“But it’s mile 16!” I shot back to myself. “There’s ten miles to go, my ‘A’ goal is in the rear view mirror, gasping for breath and looking for an ambulance, and everything just friggin’ hurts!”

“Well, of course!” I replied to myself. “This is how mile 16 is supposed to feel like.”

“It’s only mile seventeen, now!” I countered a few minutes later.

“Sure is. And you made it, too, didn’t you? Does it hurt any worse?”

“Can’t tell for sure,” I replied.

“There you go. And look, we just passed the 30k checkpoint! You’re killing it!”

“Well, I guess I feel ok,” I admitted through gritted teeth, “but things are slowly getting worse, by tiny degrees, and I’m slowing down just a bit, too.”

“Then pick it up a bit! The shock to the system will do you good. And look, there’s that “wall” display with the Rocky theme music playing at mile 20! Run through it and go ‘Woooo!’”

“I’m not yelling “Woooo!”

“Suit yourself.”

Long story short, I could feel myself slowing down as the race went on into the latter stages. My 9:25 had turned into a 9:40, even though by mile 21 there weren’t any hills left, and the lack of them gave the illusion that the rest of the way ahead was a screaming downhill (an optical illusion; the course is pretty much pancake flat from that point). But I had pushed through mile 20. Miles 21 and 22 were history, and though my foot was in screaming pain, I was persevering. No 3:50, no sub 4, but the dance party at the H Street Bridge was pretty damn inspiring, and I was killing it before it was killing me with less than 5k to go.

Then the Katzenjammer Twins, known as full body fatigue and, shall we politely say, gastric rumblings, strolled onto the scene and I lurched clumsily into a very undignified stagger.

Recalling an earlier lecture in race walking, I alternated between pumping my arms while striding like a madman and running, all while looking for the closest latrine available. Luckily there were none, because if I had found one and stopped, I doubt I would have been able to start again. So I put my head down and gutted it out, the fight now down to my pain vs. How much longer did I really want to be out here.

At mile 25 the finish line festival was a dull roar, which got louder as we drew closer to the Capitol building. The last half mile was spent dodging pedestrians and staggering finishers making their way back to the hotels. Then that grand U turn onto the Capitol grounds and the finish line, perfectly framing the imposing structure just a hundred yards ahead. If I wasn’t suffering so badly, I would have appreciated it more. But I was suffering. Badly.

Suffering. Badly.

I finished in 4:19 and change. Nowhere near my goal, but grateful to have survived. Drank some of that awesome hot chicken soup at the finish line festival, located the drop bag zone and tried to sip the chocolate milk waiting inside my drop bag while staggering around looking for an exit out onto the street and back to the hotel.

Found one, made my way to the hotel, showered, got dressed, Netflixed and chilled, grateful for a friend and fellow CIM-er who used his hotel points to get me an extended checkout (thanks again, Russ!). Oh, and didn’t cry.

Finally

A few hours later, my brother Bob, who is commuting weekly from Gilbert, AZ to Sacramento for work, joined me for a post marathon meal at Squeeze Burger a few blocks from the motel, an unexpected, and grateful, surprise.

Brothers hanging out!

So: what went right, and what went wrong:

RIGHT:

My mileage increase. My number one weakness isn’t a lack of speed or even strength: it’s time on feet. I increased my mileage to 40+ miles per week for three weeks in a row, including a 45 mile week just a few weeks before the race.

Hill training. I greatly increased my hill training for this cycle, which helped me run as well as I did. Without it, I’d probably still be out there. Included was an 18 miler consisting of three hilly loops with about 400 feet of elevation gain per loop (what the locals here in LA call the Amalfi Loop).

WRONG:

Despite all the hill training and increase in overall distance, I was not prepared for a relatively flat course with rolling hills. As race day recedes into memory, I’m starting to realize that most of my troubles were mental. I had never run the course before, and despite my preparations and overall marathon experience, I was not prepared for all the rolling hills that particular course.

The other part is that it simply takes time for increases in training volume to make their way to the cellular level. I have no doubt that as I keep up the efforts I started back in the fall, and gradually increase my overall volume to fifty, and hopefully by my next PR attempt, 60 miles in a week, something inside will kick in, and I will see monstrous improvements.

And besides that, my ability to run through the pain and discomfort I encountered out there really surprised me. Something about those extra miles, hill training and tempo work manifested itself that day and helped me finish strong on a day when I wasn’t sure I’d even finish.

Next up: Pacing runners in the LA Marathon to a 4:22 finish as a Pace Leader for the LA Roadrunners in March, a brief recovery, then an all out assault at the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon on Memorial Day weekend.

And has the California International Marathon seen the last of me? Hell no. I want revenge, and I’m going to get it!

(Yeah, I’m a bit behind in posting some of these entries. Not sure why; the next marathon I’m training for, the California International Marathon in Sacramento, takes place in less than two weeks, and I have a slew of entries written but not yet posted about my preparation and where I stand vis a vis PR-ing. I could blame myself and whatever personal issue I’m having with this whole BQ fascinationfor the delay, or I could shift the burden to something outside myself, say, Hillary’s emails. Sure, that.)

I sat in the shade of an administration building near Tempe Town Lake with my high school friend Neal, watching the relentless sun, unfiltered by so much as a thin haze, let alone a cloud, climb higher in the sky. Neal was the one who convinced Richard, another friend from those sepia toned high school days, and me, to share in the Iron Man experience, something he had taken up years before. My facebook posts were largely running related, and Richard shared his experiences battling wildlife, inattentive drivers, and fellow cyclists on the roads and bike paths of Phoenix’s East Valley. Clubbing our various middle aged physical talents into a single grand event was the natural thing to do.

Sunday morning was cool and pleasant as Richard and I walked back to the Transition Zone to wait for Neal to complete the swim leg. Richard would be next on the bike, and he instructed me in the basics of his camera so I could take photos of him during his leg. Used to a simple point and shoot, I struggled with Richard’s larger and more complex camera, completely missing him on the first two of the three laps of the bike course, and catching perhaps a blurry shot or two of him finally on the third and final lap (Richard is a professional photographer). In the meantime, the sun transformed itself from an ochre toned source of gorgeous morning light to an unfiltered beacon of radioactive death. The temperature had climbed from a pleasant sixty degrees to a PR killing eighty, and inwardly I worried if I would be able to run my half marathon leg in under two hours, which had been my fallback goal if I couldn’t make 1:50 or better.

Richard biked into the transition zone, unstrapped the timing chip from his calf and handed it off to me. I strapped it around my own leg and ran through the zone and onto the run course. The course was a series of out-and-backs along Tempe Town Lake, starting with a two mile run to the first turnaround, a two mile run back, then a slightly shorter run the opposite direction and across a pedestrian bridge, then back to the start. Returning to the start marked one loop. After the second loop, runners were directed through a long finishing chute that circled around to the finish line.

The first half mile was easy. Shaded by tall buildings, I ran along a series of concrete paths that were just hilly enough to keep me from getting cocky and burning energy too quickly. Then the path dumped me onto a packed dirt trail, directly into the view of the burning sun. Oh, boy.

Non runners might not fully understand, but heat, even as benign as a pleasant 80 degree day, is very difficult to run in, especially under full sun. One might perspire a bit while undertaking a pleasant stroll in such conditions, and even an easy jog is doable, as long as you know your limits and know when to turn around for some shade and a cold refreshment or two. But actual racing is a different beast. However, the bigwigs at IronMan Corp arranged for aid stations at every mile along the course, and I took full advantage of each one:

One swig of water (each odd numbered mile)

One swig of Gatorade (each even numbered mile)

One additional cup of water to dump over my head and down the back of my shirt (every mile), and

One cup of ice in the cap of my running hat, replenished continuously as the previous ice melted away.

An additional adjustment: negative splitting the race. The first lap was all about maintaining a respectable race pace while letting the idea of setting a PR go. For me, that meant maintaining a relatively slow 9:15 per mile pace, just 15 seconds per mile faster than my normal easy pace. In the heat, however, it felt more like 8:00 per mile on a bad day, but I could sustain it and see how I felt at the end of that first lap. I ran past Neal and Richard as they relaxed under the shade of Mill Avenue Bridge. I managed to mug a bit for Richard’s camera, but even his considerable photographic expertise could not hide how I truly felt.

I ran to the pedestrian bridge, hit the turnaround, and doubled back toward the starting line, where a sign directed finishers to the chute on the right, and those of us who had another hour or so of misery to continue on the left. It was at this point where I’d planned to hit the gas and negative split the run. Mile 6.55, the halfway point of the half marathon, showed I had two minutes to make up to finish in under an hour. Unfortunately, it was past noon by this point and the day had just gotten hotter.

“Just gut it out!” I told myself. “You’ve got to finish at some point, whether you ‘run, walk or crawl,’(*)” I took a deep breath and just did my best to enjoy the moment. I was running an IronMan relay with friends, enjoying the day, testing my limits, taking a measure of how my training for the California International Marathon was coming along. Carpe Diem! You only live once!

I did my best to “embrace the suck,” as they say. I was also trying as hard as I could to ignore the Morton’s Neuroma, a pinched nerve that throbbed between the third and fourth toes of my left foot like a misfiring spark plug. Embrace the suck, indeed.

With three miles to go, I decided to hit the gas for real. After all, other athletes who were either finishing or waiting for others to finish were milling about, and now was not the time to look like I was suffering. To finish under two hours meant that I had to increase my overall pace from 9:17 per mile to under 9:07, and I had very little time, which meant that I had to run the last three miles at 8:30 or better. Fortunately, my fuel, hydration and cooling strategy gave me the oomph I needed to make it work, and after I hit the last turnaround, I went for broke. Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!

I ran the final mile in 8:15, and with an immeasurable amount of relief, I turned right at the sign towards the finishing chute and ran the final tenth of a mile in a heat induced haze of dizziness and euphoria. “And we have a relay finisher crossing the finish line, Duane… Waiyott– Wait-e? Waite?” No one gets my last name right the first time they read it, damn them.

Didn’t matter. It was a wonderful experience, and I crossed the finish line under two hours, with just seconds to spare. 1:59 and change. I’ll have to look it up and get the exact time. But I did it.

Here’s to Carpe Diem, seizing that day, embracing the suck, and living life to the fullest, and sharing the experience with good friends.

Did I run this marathon in my “A” goal time of three hours and fifty minutes or less? Did I break four hours, a “B” goal booby prize I’ve been striving for ever since I toed the line in March of 2013 for my first ever marathon? No, and no again.

But I PR’d by seven whole minutes, and therein lies a tale.

The goal back in March, after successfully pacing 4:22:00 at the LA Marathon, was to continue the plan I had first concocted at the beginning of 2019: train to run LA at 8:45 pace, for an approximate 3:50:00 time. As you recall, the idea was to train specifically for LA at a pace a half an hour faster than the time I would be expected to finish so that I could run the expected pace comfortably enough to help the runners who depended on me to get them over the finish line at the time they had trained for. It worked. This year’s LA Marathon was the easiest marathon I’d ever run, and it showed in my ability to “be there” for my struggling pacees.

And after two weeks rest, I directed my focus to Mountains 2 Beach, six weeks away. I increased my speed work and ran more hills: Santa Monica to Inspiration Point in Will Rogers State Park (twice), three sets of what we call “Amalfi Loops” which are runs up and into the hills of Brentwood, back over to San Vicente Blvd at the Santa Monica / LA border and back down. Six miles each.  At least two loops for each set. Over a thousand feet of elevation gain and loss each week. Long, hard tempo runs every Wednesday along the Santa Monica beach path, from the Pier to the boat house and back. Seven miles round trip, nine if you count the warm ups and cool downs. Half the distance at my true tempo pace (8:00 per mile), then back at slightly faster than my predicted 8:45 marathon pace for Mountains 2 Beach. Oddly enough, I would look down at my watch, particularly during the last two weeks before the marathon, and notice that my 8:00 miles had turned into 7:45’s. Definitely getting fitter, faster.

Bring it on!

My weekly mileage took a bit of a hit, however, as a result of all this speed and strength training. Didn’t run a 50 mile week once between LA and M2B, even though I easily hit that goal three weeks before LA. The hills and speed work took it out of me. But could I have done so, had I forced myself to? Undoubtedly.

And that’s the key word right there. Doubt.

I felt fresh and prepared early Sunday morning, the day of the Mountains 2 Beach marathon. I spent the previous afternoon lounging in my motel room fueling, hydrating and Netflixing. Slept well. Boarded the shuttle, made it to the start in downtown Ojai in time for multiple Port-a-potty visits, and lined up at the start, raring to go.

Then I thought about the first three miles of the race, the fact that after the relatively flat, easy mile, two more with a nontrivial uphill grade awaited. That set my rumination cycle in motion: I’m running at 8:45 pace. If I slow down 30-45 seconds per mile for the first few miles to warm up and preserve my precious carbohydrate stash and leg strength, will I still be going out too fast? After all, I didn’t run faster than about 9:45-10:00 miles up all those hills while training. Would 9:15 on those two uphill miles set me up for trouble at mile 20?

In response, I made the decision to run with the 4:00:00 pacers for the first portion of the marathon to tamp the intensity down, then speed up in time for the big drops at miles 8-14, and coast to an easy 3:50-3:55 to the finish. Big mistake. Because by the time I felt ready to run ahead, the 4:00:00 pace was already locked into my legs.

However, the pacer knew we all wanted to run under four hours, so she helped us out, easing us forward to the point where we were two minutes faster than 4:00:00 by about mile 22 or so. I was hurting by that point (as everyone was, including the pacer), but when we turned the corner onto Thompson Drive in downtown Ventura, a tiny little molehill at mile 24 loomed too large, and despite my internal urgings that the time was NOW to break that four hour threshold, despite the fact that I had run conservatively and consistently, and that mile 23 was my fourth fastest mile in the race (8:52), I hit the brakes and slowed to a fast walk. If you look at my TomTom pace graph, you can see where I willed myself to the finish line with a combination of staggering, race walking, swearing loudly (to the point where I’m sure people thought I was nutzo) and running. I consoled myself that a PR is as good as any “A” goal I could possibly set for myself, and I willed myself over that finish line.

4:03:48.

******

Looking back on what I’ve just written, I realize that it reads like a confession wrung out of a suspect under hot lights. But the fact of the matter is I PR’d by seven whole minutes! And I accomplished that because I trained for it! That’s saying something. This propensity I have to minimize my own accomplishments because of a failure to cross over a preconceived threshold is genetic in nature, I suppose, but it’s something I absolutely have to come to grips with and get past.

Because now that we are through the LA and Mountains 2 Beach cycle, I can take a deep breath, recover, recoup some strength, and set my sights on a big goal. Big. Just you wait and see kinda big. Huge. Yuuuuuge.

The secret is specificity in training: Long runs with sections where I run marathon pace or slightly faster, especially near the end of the run. More familiarity with the uncomfortable tempo training pace. Hills. Recovery. Dropping about ten pounds or so. And a whole hell of a lot of base building, which has always been something I’ve struggled with.

Will this new goal be arbitrary? Probably. Is it realistic and achievable? Most definitely. Will I have this same conversation with myself if I somehow fall short? Hey, you know me.

You’ll hear all about it on the next exciting episode, so don’t even worry about it. (That last phrase was meant for me).