For Whom the Dogs Bark

42F, 92% humidity, calm and clear.  Almost sunup when I ran, beautiful morning.  Took my daughter to seminary and ran 6.24 miles from the church, 55:39, average pace 8:55 per mile, regular shoes.  Two warmup miles then accelerated to marathon pace, then ran the last one at MP -1, 7:28.

Had some groin tightness from Saturday's frolic so I didn't run super hard this morning, tried to be patient and not push until things loosened up.  Not sure if I ever got entirely warmed up in this very cool weather, but everything seems fine.  Also had a tropical wave pass through my GI tract over the weekend, probably bad sushi on Saturday night.  So much for the party, but I seemed to be recovered fairly well this morning, I don't think it will affect training this week or the race on Saturday.

I am in awe of some of the races run over the weekend by FRB bloggers.  Just some really excellent runners on this blog.

49F, 97% humidity, calm and clear, great weather again.  Ran 7.28 miles in 1:11:47, average pace 9:52 per mile, low heart rate and flat shoes.  Pretty good run, might run hard one more time tomorrow but not very far.  Forecast for Richmond on Saturday is 37/63 and dry.  Should be a pretty good day if that holds.

61F, 100% humidity, wind E 3 mph.  Very nice, mild morning out there.  I was a little bit anxious about running medium hard this close to Saturday, but I went ahead and did it, would rather be slightly tired than have green legs for the race.  Warmed up for a couple of miles, gradually speeding up, then ran 6 at marathon pace:  8:16 (148), 8:17 (152), 8:26 (153), 8:30 (154), 8:24 (155) and 8:35 (155).  Total time 1:10:08, average pace 8:46 (8:25 for MP miles), flat shoes.

The plan for Saturday is do the first 15 under 160 bpm, the next 5 under 165 bpm and then in theory have a shot at a qualifier by running the last 10K at 170-175 bpm.  There are two things which have to go right -- first, those heart rates have to yield MP; and second, I have to be able to hold on to those heart rates even when I'm tired.  I haven't conclusively proven either one yet, but ultimately I should be able to get more consistent results race to race if I know how much heart rate I can sustain.  I know that 150 is easy, based on my practice marathon two Saturdays ago.  Maybe 160 is too easy, maybe too hard.  I know that 170 is too hard, I found that out at Hartford, and I am pretty sure 165 is too hard based on the way I felt after a couple of harder runs in the second half of October.

After today's run you wouldn't think I could hold marathon pace through 15 at 160 bpm, but I am planning on it being 20 degrees cooler in Richmond, at least at the beginning.  I wish the race didn't start at 8:00 though, way too late.  Bottom line, it might be very close.  I'll take tomorrow off, run 2 - 4 Friday morning, get on the plane and see what happens.

Easy, no watch or HR monitor.

35F, 85% humidity, wind N 5-10 mph.  Great morning for running.  Ran 26.22 (Garmin measured long, 26.35) in 3:41:43, average pace 8:25 per mile, flat shoes and closely monitored heart rate, BQ by 12 seconds per mile based on Garmin measurement.  Called my wife first, of course, and I think she is more relieved than anything, like a dark cloud has been lifted from over our family.  I have only been running for 2-1/2 years, but it seems like it took a long time to reach this milestone -- wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I hadn’t made it into one.

I didn’t really have high expectations for the race.  After Hartford and based on my training times I knew that a qualifier might not be in the cards; so the goal was to run based on the heart rate strategy I have been developing the last few weeks, not a typical strategy I know.  I did that to some extent but modified it on the fly.  If I hadn’t been flexible I wouldn’t have qualified.

I flew to Richmond yesterday afternoon, met my sister Cheryl from Omaha and made contact with other family members.  There were three siblings running (me, Cheryl, and Daryl from Utah), one cousin from Chicago, plus a local nephew running the half.  Another sister came in from Spokane with her recently returned missionary, a brother from Phoenix, plus I have a brother who lives here with my parents, they are tending to my ailing mother.  So six out of ten siblings, lots of company, should have picked this marathon in the first place, but then I wouldn’t have learned everything I learned at Hartford.

The marathon didn’t start until 8:00, so we got up at our leisure and walked two blocks to the starting line, about 10 minutes before the race started.  No PoP for us today.  The Kenyans were staying at our hotel, those guys are small.  Slipped in right between Corral 1 and Corral 2 and that turned out to be just about right, no jostling for running room in the first two miles.  Due to the cold I didn’t have a heart rate readout for the first two miles until I worked up a little bit of a sweat.  I ran by feel and was happy to see the first mile come in at 8:36.  The pace felt easy and effortless.  I tried to stay extra relaxed in the early miles so my legs could warm up properly.

Splits and heart rates:

1-5:  8:36, 8:22, 8:31 (158), 8:20 (159), 8:33 (159).  I knew my heart rate was higher than I planned, higher than during training at these speeds, but I felt very light on my feet and decided to stay with it.  I took EFS (an electrolyte and calorie supplement) at the end of every five miles through mile 15.  I did it on a practice marathon two weeks ago and didn’t have any trouble, so I stayed with it.  Nothing else but water.

6-10:  8:46 (160), 8:18 (156), 8:45 (160), 8:20 (160), 8:41 (159).  This is probably the section where I got my BQ.  Despite some hills and despite an early high heart rate, it held steady through here.  I felt good and didn’t think I was pressing the issue.  The EFS caused a little bit of nausea the second time, but I took extra water soon after and was fine.

11-15:  8:38 (168), 8:29 (163), 8:23 (164), 8:15 (165), 8:09 (166).  Heart rate starting to climb -- even on the flat sections it was about 5 bpm higher than I was planning at this point.  But I was starting to see possibilities for a qualifier because I still felt good.  The half came in at 1:52:21, about a minute under target pace.  Not much EFS left, but I downed it on the big bridge across the James River.  Not enough left to cause any queasiness.  Everybody talked about what a heartbreaker this bridge is because it is uphill and against the prevailing north wind.  I didn’t have any trouble, though, other than still being worried about my heart rate.

16-20:  8:33 (168), 8:37 (170), 8:33 (170), 8:15 (170), 8:30 (172).  Some more climbing in these sections, but still felt OK, though I was definitely in the later stages.  On the other hand, speed was still there, everything was clicking, just working a little harder to make it happen.  Not any significant hills after 20, so I had a decision point.

21-26.2:  8:14 (174), 7:53 (176), 8:08 (177), 8:07 (175), 8:42 (174), 8:25 (173) and 2:42 for 0.35 miles (Garmin measured .13 long), 7:40 pace and 172 bpm, steep downhill into the finish line.    I had always wanted to actually race the last 10K and I had enough left to do that today.  At decision time I decided to go for it, and it was the heart of the race experience.

At mile 22 I passed Cheryl and Daryl, both  quite a bit faster than me but having bad days, mainly because they tried to hang with our cousin in the first half but didn’t have enough training to sustain it.  They ran a 1:42 first half, 10 minutes faster than me.  I tapped them on the shoulder as I passed and they were surprised and elated despite their own miseries because they knew the BQ saga was almost over.  Cheryl ran 3:47:52 and Daryl ran 3:51:12, so they weren’t far behind me despite their agonies.  My cousin Ronald ran 3:22:27, so we were all 3s today.

My other sister from Spokane (former blogger on FRB) met me with about 2 or 3 miles to go and ran me in, like she did at Hartford.  She was trying to get me to go faster, told me I could do anything for half a mile.  I said “No I can’t”.  I was really feeling those last miles but only missed BQ pace on one of them.  She is the one who has been bugging me about getting fuel during a race, so I’m never going to hear the end of it now.  I’m stuck with EFS until I die.

Then all of a sudden the race was over.  Second half was 1:49:22, so a 3-minute positive split, no stopping or slowing down the entire race.  21-minute PR.  By far the fastest I have run, of course, but more importantly I had a strategy that worked today.  It felt good to execute a race plan and have it mostly work, then be able to modify it when I needed to.  Lots of calf cramping afterwards, time to check into compression socks. 

I was emotional at the end.  It has been a difficult week workwise, and my church friend’s funeral was on Monday, so I thought a lot about Dian during the race.  She is free of cancer at last, and when I felt like I was floating I thought she must be floating too.  And when I was no longer floating I knew it was nothing compared to what she did.