I think the problem was dehydration, and it was caused by an inability to process liquids or nutrients. This has happened at all three marathons I have run at this altitude, and to a lesser extent at St. George. I was able to push through better than those races, but it was the same old battle. Maybe lack of sleep, maybe too much traveling, maybe too much unusual food this week -- if it was altitude I don't see the connection, because my heart rate was too low today, not too high.
I stayed in Midway last night and my brother drove his son and me to the start line. Got a little extra sleep that way, but it wasn't much. I ate a bagel and drank some orange juice, but the bagel felt heavy in my stomach, like it was just sitting there. I figured it would be fine by the gun, but it turned out to be an omen. I wandered around for a while, found Smooth and some others, hooked up with Byron and Marci, (brother-in-law and sister-in-law), and was talking to them when the gun went off. Checked my watch and it was 6:00 straight up. The logistics on this race have improved a lot, this is now one of the better-run races I am familiar with, definitely attracting fast runners and has the potential to grow exponentially if they want it to.
It's OK to stop reading now, but just for the record, here are my splits (no HR until third mile)
1-5: 8:25, 7:31, 7:37 (165), 7:56 (161), 8:02 (157). First mile I realized I was too far back in the pack, but didn't mind taking it slow to warm up. I was into a rhythm by the second mile but had to back off when my heart rate reading started to show, so fourth and fifth miles were intentionally slower. At this point I realized I had stomach problems, but there were lines at all the PoPs, so I kept going, felt strong otherwise. I took a drink at all the aid stations until late in the race when I knew it was coming back up. Also took EFS at miles 5 and 10 but couldn't stomach it after that.
6-10: 7:56 (159), 7:59 (160), 8:47 (162), 8:50 (160), 7:51 (158). 8 and 9 were the hills, pretty much managed to keep my heart rate down but the pace suffered. Still no available PoPs. At this point I was still racing according to plan and I thought that even with a 1-minute PoP stop I could still get a good time once we started down the canyon. Took my last swig of EFS.
11-15: 7:50 (161), 10:18 (157), 8:04 (164), 7:55 (165), 7:57 (165). Lost 2-1/2 minutes at the PoP just after mile 11, ended up waiting, should have just pushed through to the half, where there were millions of open ones. Mental error, but it wasn't the story of the day. By this time I had pushed my heart rate up into the 160-165 range and was still getting sub-8 miles fairly often, but things were happening and I was getting pretty worried. My legs didn't like the constant downhill, but that wasn’t the story either. I just wasn't processing liquids.
16-20: 8:18 (165), 8:30 (165), 8:08 (161), 7:58 (161), 8:28 (162). Was supposed to go to 165-170 on heart rate at this point, but was fighting my stomach pretty badly. Felt lucky just to maintain low 8s on the downhill parts.
21-26.2: 8:15 (164), 8:34 (161), 8:50 (161) (mile 23 at Richmond was 7:53), 10:03 (155) (I think there was a hill right here), 9:18 (155), 9:08 (157) and 9:11 pace for last .37, overall 26.36 miles at 8:25 pace. (I showed the course as .14 long, would be interested to see what others' readouts were. If it was long I know exactly where it happened, most of the miles were exactly on according to my Garmin.) By this point in time my heart rate was about 20 bpm lower than it would have been for a good race. Pretty much pure agony in this stretch, I was counting down by the tenths of a mile. I came very close to giving up and walking it in, but I was pretty sure I would throw up if I stopped so I somehow kept going. The aqua blue finish line balloons were visible from a ways away, which gave me the mental energy I needed to finish.
There was a woman who appeared to be in my age group that I followed down the canyon, could never get ahead of her without ruining my race plan (not that much was left of it by this point), then she pulled away coming down University, beat me by about 3 minutes. I found her afterwards and asked her as delicately as I could how old she was, as in "How old are you?" She was 55 but didn't know how she had done in her age group. Turns out she broke the 55-59 women's age group record by 23 minutes. She is from Kansas, but obviously wasn't having altitude problems. (Actually, I don't know that, she might be a 3:20 marathoner for all I know, but if she is she is probably the fastest runner in her age group in the country. This is another reason I think it was my stomach more than the altitude.) On the men's side, the age group record was also broken by a 14-minute margin, somebody ran 3:00 flat. If I had run close to my projection, in the 3:17 to 3:25 range, I would have finished third, instead it was 13th. My nephew Brian ran 3:19, which was a 10-minute PR for him. He is off to medical school, so I'm guessing he won't be running many more marathons for a while. Good runner.
Feeling slightly beat up this morning, but I survived to run another day. I still have a Friday registration at Boston, so I'll probably get in anyway. I have no injuries, and have run for more than a year now with no serious injuries. I am thankful I can run and stay healthy, good day or bad day. | 