Today was a big day, difficult to capture all of the flavor of this race. The Texas Marathon is held on New Years Day every year in Kingwood, Texas, which is northeast of Houston. It runs along a jogging parkway that leaves a community center and extends out to Lake Houston then back to the start. The race is four laps, and even that is generous, as each “loop” is really an out and back with a small half-mile loop at the far end. As a result many people pass on this race because they can’t fathom the mental stress of going out on the last out and back just as the bonk begins. Nevertheless, in recent years this small race has sold out several months in advance. About 2/3 of the 450 runners run the marathon and 1/3 run the half, which starts a few minutes later over the same course. The course is mostly flat, my favorite kind.
Weather at the beginning was 42F and cloudy, with a 10 mph north wind that continued throughout the race. By the end of the race the wind had blown out the clouds and it got sunny. The forecast of 32 at race time never materialized, but it stayed cool enough throughout the race that temperatures were never a noticeable factor.
I decided to try for a 9:10 pace, which would put me at about 4 hours. My other competing plan was 9:30 pace, which would put me at about 4:10. While not out of the question, I knew that 9:10 was a long shot for me, but I decided to try it anyway for a couple of reasons. This was a goal race but it was not going to be my Boston qualifier no matter how well things went, so I could afford to overextend myself and hopefully learn a lot more that way. I also decided that I would be able to take my foot off the gas pedal and run slow if things started to fall apart. Both assumptions turned out to be correct.
I drove to the course with a friend, my former bishop, who was running his first marathon. He is more talented than I am but was apprehensive of what would happen after 20 miles. I think it is good to be afraid of that. He planned to run conservatively, opposite of me, planning to break 4 hours by a comfortable enough margin that he could still achieve it if the wheels fell off late in the race. We discussed briefly running together for a couple of laps, but even with the differences in our approaches it was apparent that my aggressive strategy was still slower than his conservative plan.
The race is run on a walking trail, 4 abreast at best, so we edged our way up toward the front in order to avoid too much congestion at the start and lose 20 seconds in the first mile. That worked well, I had to step around a few people but managed to get my first mile at 9:06. My friend was long gone -- he ended up beating 4 hours by about 2 minutes, but I haven’t gotten the details from him yet. The first couple of miles seemed a little hurried but I soon settled into a rhythm and the pace didn’t seem overly aggressive. I noticed that my Garmin was measuring the course short (it is USATF certified and a Boston qualifier). Before too many miles I was being greeted by runners coming back the other way. Runners always have a high degree of sportsmanship, but I was amazed at the number of “nice bib number” type of compliments I was getting. It wasn’t until halfway through the third lap that I realized the connection between bib number 262 and the marathon distance. Boy did I feel dumb. Even with my GPS measuring the course short, I was holding to a 9:10 pace or better through most of 3 laps without much trouble. After two laps I had a 3-minute cushion on a 4-hour time. Starting in the third lap it was harder to make the splits but I was still making them most of the time and had hopes through much of that lap for achieving 4 hours. The first hint of trouble came at about mile 17 (last year’s bonk location) when I got a severe pain in my upper left groin. I have never had any issues like that before and I was astounded at how debilitating it was. I thought my race was over right there, but thankfully the pain subsided enough after a quarter of a mile that the overall effect on my time probably turned out to be minimal. I knew Plan A wasn’t going to happen toward the end of the third lap when I popped a 9:27. I “picked up the pace” and popped a 9:33. I was hemorrhaging seconds at an alarming rate. I kept going as best I could until halfway through the fourth lap but then intentionally slowed in order to be able to bring it in. My pace ballooned to the 11s and the 12s. I was hurting but I knew from a couple of my long runs that I could run through the pain. I even picked up the pace a little bit in the last mile or two, hurting all the way but never getting worse. A host of family and friends were there at the finish line and I’m telling you I was very emotional when I saw them. Here are my splits, without adjustment for measuring the course short:
9:07, 9:02, 9:20, 9:08, 9:06, 9:00, 9:10, 9:05, 9:11, 8:58, 9:06, 9:18, 9:11, 9:11, 9:10, 9:27, 9:33, 9:53, 9:42, 9:55, 10:09, 11:09, 11:46, 12:46, 12:33, 12:25
So Plan B worked. I learned a lot and I only missed the 4:10 “safe” goal by less than 4 minutes -- and who knows, if I had run a 9:30 pace I might have bonked anyway. A couple of bad things I noticed: My speed was fine, at least for the speeds I am running right now, but I ran out of gas. I need more stamina, which will only come through continued training. I have to run 8:30s to qualify for Boston, but that now seems achievable. The other bad thing relates to hydration and calories. I drank only half a bottle of water through the whole race. I was trying to avoid that sloshing feeling that has caused nausea in each of my first three marathons. It worked but I had salt on my face after the race and my legs felt like logs through the last lap, probably because of no calories. I still have to work on that one.
On the good side, I learned a ton and got a 45-minute PR off of 2-1/2 months of training. (I threw up on the lawn at St. George, so I can’t be accused of dogging that race.) I couldn’t be happier about how my training has gone this fall. I am convinced, at least for now, that our bodies are happiest going hard for 6 days then taking a day off. I did that every week beginning two weeks after St. George and coincidence or not I got a big PR. For now, I see no reason to train any differently, legs permitting I plan to run lots of low heart rate miles to build endurance and continue working on speed to a lesser extent. My next goal race will be St. George or some fall equivalent, which is where I hope to qualify for Boston. I may run some other stuff in the meantime, but I won’t interrupt my training schedule to do it. As we rotate into our Houston summer I will have lots of opportunities to work on hydration and calories. | 