Southern Man
Cool Runner |
 posted Dec-03-2006 09:26 AM
  
IN THE BOOKSPocatello 9/2
Jtshad 2:45 2:46:53 Tupelo 9/3
kudzurunner 3:30 3:39:40 Adirondack Marathon 9/17
Dr Wu 3:45 3:39:53 Fox Cities 9/24
WI MTP 2:43 2:45:58 Quad Cities 9/24
kestrou 3:20 3:42:05 Akron 9/30
Joplus 3:10 3:17 Twin Cities 10/1 Bugs34 4:30 4:06 St. George 10/7
Johnny J 2:53 2:47:07 Steamtown 10/8
AndyHass 2:24:00 2:33:48
Southern Man 3:15 3:16:04 Melbourne Marathon 10/8
TheSlowandtheFurious 3:05 DNS Mohawk-Hudson 10/8 Dr. Wu 3:34 3:27:10 Westchester 10/8
TheHerbinator 3:20 3:18:35
Hartford 10/14
Yoginirunner 4:15 4:14:46 Columbus 10/15 Sportigirl 3:25 3:26:07
thereshegoes 3:25 3:25:31 Baystate 10/15
Dogberry 3:30 3:34
Long Beach 10/15
Pavman
Magritte 3:15 3:20:59
Des Moines 10/15 Runninlaw 3:40 3:37:18 Chicago 10/22
JSM 2:28 2:31:22
MikeBro 3:15
Spkoest 3:20 3:19:16
Hubitron 2:50 2:48:53
Kestrou 3:20 3:22:09
92heelgrad 3:20 3:38:38
cbc673 2:50
rivas 2:30 2:35:34 Mystic Country 10/22
Beatfreq 3:20 3:00:35 Detroit 10/29 corland14 4:00 4:06
jakey 3:15 3:34
Marine Corps 10/29
Lofcaudio 3:15 3:16:26
Cognac (France) 11/4
Jojox 3:30 3:49:28
NYC 11/5
TD Runner 2:35 2:41:09
dcv2002 3:10 3:06:16
Jpgarland 2:50 2:48:10
GreenMan 3:45 3:48:35
Richmond 11/11
TonyJones237 3:20
NurseSarahB 5:00
A6Runner 3:30
OuterBanks 11/12
Jaysoffian 3:30
Swatkins 3:50 Philly 11/19
jdmom3 2:46
eager runner 3:10
Doctor Wu 3:25 3:33:29
Sistergoldenhair TBD
BostonTodd 3:00 2:54:06
Rbmoose 2:45 2:45:48 Atlanta 11/23
Robert Wildes <3:35
UP THIS WEEKEND
St. Jude Memphis 12/2
BNAGamecock 4:45
Kudzu Runner 3:25 California International Marathon
GoDawgGo 3:00
S Agsten 3:05 Marathon of Palm Beaches 12/3
Nofret 3:30 Still to Come Charlotte 12/9
Mainers 2:40
Bigdave10000 3:20 Vegas/Tucson 12/10
Jrescpa 3:20
WI MTP Have Fun
TommyL 3:10 Dallas White Rock 12/10
AML256 3:05 Honolulu Marathon 12/10
eggnite 3:30
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We're on a road to nowhere. Come on along.
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KudzuRunner
Cool Runner |
posted Dec-03-2006 05:14 PM
Race report: St. Jude Marathon, 12/2/06, Memphis TN. Rather than post this in RRR, I'll keep it reasonable short and sneak it in here. No mile-by-mile splits. Just the gist:BQ by one (1) second, after a 90 second sprint-to-the-death on the outfield warning track at Memphis Redbirds Stadium. 3:30:59. No, I didn't break 3:25, or even 3:30. I didn't run anything like the marathon I was trained to run--certainly nothing equivalent to the 1:31 half marathon I notched five weeks ago. But once I'd made the several mistakes (described below), one in the final few taper days and one on race morning, the race I actually ran was one I can live with. I did NOT hit the wall. Nor did I consume anything during the run except PowerAid and water. In the three months since Tupelo, I lowered my marathon time by 8 minutes and 40 seconds. My splits, for the record, were 1:44:40 / 1:46:19. Or, put another way, miles 1-10 @ 8:04, miles 11-20 @ 7:58, last 10K @ 8:09. The day dawned clear and cold. At the 8 AM gun it was, I'm guessing, right around freezing, mostly sunny, and calm. I arrived at the starting line about 7:45, hoping to get in a short warmup a la Pfitz: 5 min jog, light stretching, 5 minute jog. Instead, all I got was a 2:30 jog and no stretching. I generally don't stretch much at all before training runs, so the lack of stretching wasn't a problem. But, in retrospect, the lack of a warmup was a problem, and a crucial one. That was my second mistake. My first mistake was, I later decided, my decision on the Wednesday before the Saturday race to finish a 4 mile jog with four short and easy uphill strides. I didn't push them and felt no post run soreness. Nor did I feel any post run soreness after running another four light (MP) strides after a 3 mile jog on Friday. But I'm now convinced that these two last minute additions to what would ordinarily have been stride-free jogs ended up tweaking my hamstrings just the slightest bit. Combined with no warmup and 32 degree temps that had me shivering as I approached the starting line.... Warning signs all around. Gun went off and we were off. My plan was to average 8:00 pace for the first half--and for 8:00 pace to feel easy, as though I were clearly holding myself back. I pretty much held to plan, as the splits above suggest, but almost from the get-go the backs of my thighs--my hams, duh--just didn't feel quite right. Hard to describe. Nothing obviously wrong, just nothing quite snapping, the way peaking should have had me feeling. I tried to find a rhythm as we made our way through the rises and dips of downtown Memphis. First three miles in 8:03, 8:02, and 7:59. In retrospect I should have gone 10-15 seconds a mile slower. Given my lack of warmup, I surely should have done this. This is one mistake I won't make next time. Either get in the warmup or go out a bit slower than planne MP. Or both. I wore my HR monitor and tried to keep HR at 165 (83%) or below, with some success. But again, even as my stride felt slightly more effortful at what should have been a sub-maximal pace, my HR began to creep. Nothing worrisome, just not quite.....as expected. (For the record, I maintained an average HR of 173 (87%) for the entire distance. My threshold is 177-178, so I was about 2% below that.) I made no obvious pacing errors. Yes, on several early net-decline miles in the first 10, I ran 7:45 - 7:48, but that was, after all, a pace that I thought I might even average for the entire race with a planned second-half pickup. Nothing above threshold. As expected, miles 15 through 18, with a net incline, were tough, but I still clocked 8:11 (15--the single toughest mile in the race), 8:06, 8:00, and 8:04. My legs felt no worse at 20 than at 15. My pace slowed slightly--from 8:04 in mile 21 through 8:19 in mile 25. My HR for most of the miles from 15 through 25 was at my threshold (177-178), although I was careful not to push beyond that. I never hit the wall. The whole race was a grind, frankly. Just a question of holding pace, mile by mile. For one extended moment, on the gradual downhill of mile 19, my low-level hamstring issue suddenly let up and I actually thought Aha! THAT'S the feeling I've been missing. My stride felt right, suddenly; I felt a little power. But for most of the race--and in marked contrast to my half marathon--I felt no sense of power. Certainly not power-in-reserve. I knew early on that I wasn't going to achieve any significant time goal, but until the very end I assumed that I'd break 3:30--or, at worse, miss it by a few seconds but still come in under the 3:30:59 ceiling that was my BQ time. My plan early on was to push the last 10K. Then the last 3 miles. Then the last two miles. Then the final mile. That plan kept on getting revised. I'm sure you've all been there. I picked it up a little in the final mile, a long uphill rise through downtown Memphis, as my HR ascended into 10K territory. I pushed down the hill towards Redbird Stadium, rounded to the right, and headed towards the 26 mile point, just as you came onto the warning track. At that moment, I looked at my watch and saw 3:29:xx and realized that unless I sprinted the final 385 yards all out, I was going to miss my BQ. Here, for once, my training paid off. Remember those super fast finish long runs? I took off like a woodchuck being pursued by jaguar. Not a pretty sight, but he will scamper pretty hard if you panic him. I blew past five or six people like they were standing still, zagging and zigging on the sand with with all thrusters slamming. I glanced up at the clock as I lunged over the mat--I almost pulled a Ramaala--and saw 3:32:00, which, with one minute subtracted for the staggered start, meant that I'd probably made it. My own watch, grabbed and squeezed as I fell over the line, read 3:31:00. Somebody grabbed me and asked if I needed a hand. It was a 97 second sprint at 6:56 pace, my watch claimed. .21 miles. Felt a heck of a lot faster than that. Later, when they posted the results, I saw the :59 and was giddy. Anyway, I got my BQ. No Boston for me this spring--two marathons in three months, along with a half marathon PR, ends a good long season and I'd like to return to the shorter stuff. It's been fun. I still haven't cracked the marathon code--haven't run the sub-3:20 I'm capable of running on the right day--but I'm working on it. And it's been fun. Next time: NO uphill strides four days out. And I'll be sure to get in a 10-minute warmup. Two minutes and 30 second ain't enough. Have a great winter, all. [This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Dec-03-2006).]
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KudzuRunner
Cool Runner |
posted Dec-04-2006 09:27 AM
About the woodchuck: he was actually a little faster than I thought he was. I spoke with a colleague of mine this morning who also ran St. Jude (4:30 or so) and she reminded me that the 26 mile point was a bit earlier than I'd thought--on the street outside Redbirds Stadium. When I checked my watch as I came out on the stadium warming track, I now realize, what I saw was 3:30:15. It was at that point that I turned the jaguar loose on the hamstrung woodchuck--and watched that little critter scamper 250 yards or so at sub-6:00 pace. About being too hard on myself: nah. Not everybody can do what we do, and a three-and-a-half hour marathon is an accomplishment. But the truth is, the reason I run--and particularly race--is because I'm chasing after two things: 1) a sense of accomplishment in having figured out how to do thing as optimally as my brains, heart, and (modest) physical gifts will allow me to do it; and 2) the feeling of power that comes from actually getting out there on the race course and flying along at race pace for an extended period of time, when so much of my training consists of much slower and less thrill-inducing running. The race, whatever the distance, is the payoff. It's the adrenaline rush. My recent half-marathon PR was that sort of adrenaline rush, for an hour and a half. I have a hard time stringing together five sub-7:00 miles in training, so it's glorious to be able to get out there and throw down 13 of 'em. A marathon on a good day--and I've had several of those--isn't exactly an adrenaline rush, but it's still somewhat of a magic carpet ride. Or it can be, until those late miles. It doesn't have to be a 26 mile grind. That's why I'll certainly face the challenge another time or two, until I satisfy both items 1 and 2 above. I'll probably enter the NYC lottery this summer, because, as a former longtime NYCer, that's a race I don't want to go to my grave never having run. And I'll run Boston in 2008, when I've just turned 50. Just remember: when the finish line is in sight and your BQ hangs in the balance, become the crazed woodchuck. [This message has been edited by KudzuRunner (edited Dec-04-2006).]
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That is hilarious. 
