posted Sep-04-2006 12:12 PM               

Suppose I told you that Chuck Engle was holding court in a low-key way at the Tupelo Marathon about 4:30 AM on Sunday, about half an hour before the start? He didn't actually run the race, just showed up.

I asked RD Mike Lail about is afterwards. He smiled. "Yeah, Chuck drove all the way down from Idaho, just to be here. He told me he would. Just to be here." Chuck holds the course record at Tupelo (2:34, I think) and has always run here--except for this year. I assumed I'd see him after the race, but he'd gone by then. I never got a chance to say Hi.

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posted Sep-04-2006 03:56 PM               

kudzu- Your experience sounds just like mine from June. At about 35k, I was eyeing the grass on the side of the roads for a nap. Seriously, I wanted to pull off and go to sleep. My friend called me a few hours after the finish and apparantly I swore to him I would never run another marathon. I don't remember that, but I was pretty tired at that point. I remember there was a set of stairs to go down to reach the refreshements after the finish line and I had to go down backwards. Yet here I am, going for another one. I felt that the race had beaten me the first time around, so I'm hoping to kick it's a$$ this time around.

jt- That is a smokin time. I wish I could do a 5K at that pace.

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posted Sep-04-2006 04:11 PM               

As for my workouts, my legs were pretty well fried after doing a half marathon at MP for two consecutive Sundays. I got a cold and it got more difficult to maintain the proper pace in my long run. I had switched to the FIRST plan after 12 weeks of Pfitz's 70 mpw or less plan, but the speeds are difficult to maintain week in and week out. So this past week I slowed down, and kept the miles moderate, and the result is I am feeling much fresher (still have the cold though).

Mon- Rest
Tues- 4 miles recovery
Wed- 6 miles recovery
Thurs-11 miles aerobic
Fri- 11 miles aerobic
Sat- 11miles aerobic
Sun- Rest
43 miles total

This week I should hit 73 miles with my next to last 23 miler on Sunday and 15K of MP today. Chicago is just 7 weeks away

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posted Sep-04-2006 04:22 PM            

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posted Sep-04-2006 10:30 PM               

I'm still puzzled by the way the race unfolded. I ran the 14.2 mile version of the race--the first 13 + 1.2 to the finish--last year in identical weather and averaged 7:11 pace. I'm in equally good shape this year. Check any calculator and my "true" marathon pace should have been 7:30 - 7:40. So by any measure, straight 8:00s should have been reasonable, and shouldn't have lead to The Wall. In seven of the 12 weeks preceding the race I ran 50+ miles, with three weeks of 56+. That's more than Pfitizinger's 55 mpw plan calls for.

So what went wrong? My taper was slightly unusual: Four weeks out, on vacation, I cut back to 36 miles. Three weeks out I ran 18/10/15 on W/F/Sun, with 24 miles of that at an average of 8:00 pace--my planned marathon pace--for a total of 58 miles, my peak week. I felt strong as hell. Did I overdo it? I cut back to 36 miles two weeks out, ran 7/7/9 on W/F/Sun, with a couple of tempo miles on W and one fast-finish mile on Sun, but easy on F. The final week was 19 miles in the six days before the race, with 2-3 MP miles on W. I felt pretty good, although I did notice a few old joint-tweaks resurface.

Race morning I ate half a banana and five prunes about two hours before the race. That's more than I ate years ago, but I felt fine. Went out easy and kept HR very comfortable. 8:05s were comfortable.

23 years ago, two months prior to my PR, I ran 3:00:45 pretty easily on an empty stomach; 1:31/1:29. [EDITED TO ADD: A quick look at my race log just reminded me how I did this: 1-5 @ 7:18, 6-20 @ 6:45, 21-26.2 @ 6:55. The reason I remember it as a surprisingly low-stress race is that I went out extremely conservatively, then hit race pace at 5 miles. A good lesson here--one that I plainly forgot this time around. I'd have done much better this time running 8:20s for 5, then kicking it up.]

There were only two things I did this time around that I haven't done before: I ate two prunes during the race, at the ten-mile point (I've never eaten anything before), and I took Gatorade starting at mile 13 and every two miles after that (I've only drunk water). Could either of those things have done me in?

In the academic world, we say that a given event is "overdetermined" if there are way too many possible reasons one can invoke for it having transpired. I sense the same sort of madness in play when Walled marathoners try to figure out what went wrong.

[This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Sep-05-2006).]

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posted Sep-05-2006 09:34 AM            

Kudzu - Chuck told me he was probably going to head down there on his return trip to Ohio. But after finishing in Pocatello, he was too beat up from the hill (maybe I helped by pushing him a bit!). I didn't know if he was going to make it because the award ceremony took so long he missed his original flight out of Salt Lake City (or he thought he would based on when he left).

WI MTP - More even pacing was my original plan (about a 6:05 - 6:10 first and a 6:15 - 6:20 second half) but changed it knowing that I didn't quite have the overall pace to beat Chuck that way, thus the faster first half. It worked for a while, but not enough in the end. As with what Andy said, at least the first half split allowed for my poor second half to still not make me miss the PR, but I think in a different situation slowing up about 2 minutes in the first half I could have broken 2:45.

Happy running.

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posted Sep-05-2006 11:44 AM               

Jtshad, I wish I could have been there competing with you guys! I probably don't have a 2:46 in me yet though. Maybe next year.

A reasonable week for me (my last in the Rockies):

Mon 8 with some strideouts, and a quicker mile
Tue 0 should have done something...oh well
Wed 14 11 up to Maroon Bells lake (1500 ft climb) - took bus down 3 EZ
Thu 16 LSD
Fri 8 EZ
Sat 8 EZ - was going to go long, but not recovered yet
Sun 21 squeezed in the long run before driving to Denver (but I missed my flight anyway)

75 total - would have liked 85, but I'm not going to worry about it much.

Being back at sea level is great. I ran an easy 5 yesterday at 7min pace, and this morning ran 12 in 6:30's feeling loose and relaxed. I guess it's time to find a few tune-up 5 and 10k's, and sharpen up the base I've built.

I'm thinking it would be great to continue the tradition after the fall marathons, and start a winter base building/spring marathon training thread.

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posted Sep-05-2006 12:11 PM               

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posted Sep-05-2006 12:24 PM            

Kudzu - Don't beat yourself up too much. The marathon is a strange beast. One that I have never really conquered in 16 tries. I'm sure in a few weeks you will be picking out your next one!

I had my best week all year. 52 miles including my first 20 in a few years, and an 11 miler (with 5 tempo).

Good running to all.

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posted Sep-05-2006 12:48 PM               

One good interval day also.

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posted Sep-05-2006 02:06 PM               

I ran 44.9 miles last week. It's a challenge fitting the miles all in. I did go 12 at MP on Sunday (15 overall) and 14 miles of my hilly loop earlier in the week.

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Training and stuff

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posted Sep-05-2006 02:19 PM            

I don't know. I've always read the wall happens because of glycogen deprivation (not enough nutrients to get you through). So you would think the prunes and gatorade would help you not hurt you. With that said, everyone is different and everyone seems to define the wall differently. Of course what you ate and drank the week before the race were just as important as what you consumed during the race.

However, it sounded to me like it was a pretty big psychological downer near the end more than a physical thing. Perhaps since you have had much faster marathons and all the calculators say you can run fast, when you started getting fatigued earlier at an easy pace for you it really messed with you mentally.

Who knows? As others have said, you can't really pin the marathon down. And everyone has crappy races. I read many of your posts though and you trained great. It just wasn't your day. Take some time off and then decided to redeem your self once again next year.

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posted Sep-05-2006 04:22 PM               

Thanks for your kind thoughts. Yeah, psychology was involved, and in pretty much the order you described. I hit the wall. That physical downer was indisputable. I felt like a gasoline-burning engine that has just kicked over to kerosene. Since hitting the wall was not in my plans--given my decent training, moderate pacing, diligent carb loading, careful hydration, and past experience--it was quickly accompanied by an unsurprising psychological reaction: f--k this. This may sound strange, but I just wasn't interested in jogging the last five miles of a marathon and proving I could do it. Maybe that's because I've completed a handful of marathons and know I can do it. I'm willing to hurt myself very badly for the sake of a PR, but I'm not willing to hurt myself badly for the sake of a race gone bad with a time I feel no particular pride in.

Still, the gods of marathoning are tricky, and this particular marathon not only killed me off, but resuscitated me by the simple act of forcing me to continue to put one foot in front of another long enough that by the time I paused to piss, the same willfulness that would have led me to a guilt-free DNF at mile 21.2 demanded that I not be a fool at mile 22.7, since at that point I could plainly jog it in under my own power. In that respect, the marathon was like a stiff, unexpected slap from a Zen master: I'm still shaking my head, filled with a weird kind of wonder, trying to figure out how the race got me to finish it. I never did walk a step, and wouldn't have. I thought I owned the marathon, if I played by the rules, and discovered that it owned me.

Don't tell my wife, but I'm already starting to wonder if I can maybe, just maybe, get everything right at St. Jude in December..........

[This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Sep-05-2006).]

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posted Sep-06-2006 02:14 PM            

I've never posted my week here (I don't even track them--though I average around 50 mpw) but I just finished a 24 miler in 3:58 . Not too impressive compared to you guys, but I'm thriilled--it's my fastest long run ever. I've been toying with whether I want to go for a 4:00 marathon time (it's my BQ), and this is making me feel more optimistic.

Yoginirunner & Jessicak97 : are you planning to do the 4:00 pacing group for Hartford?

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posted Sep-09-2006 06:39 PM               

I'm a newbie to this list and would like to be added to the mix. I've been averaging about 50 mpw, with a slight hiccup of 15mpw because of a stomach flu. This week, I'm slated to hit 60+. I'm aiming for a 3:10 BQ at Bay State and things seem to be falling into place. I'm hoping I can get some sage advice from you veteran marathon runners on this thread!

Wayne

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