Race Report (Fargo Marathon, 5/21/11) -- Long and self-indulgent.
Cliffs notes: Went out too fast and crashed and burned. You guys could just about write up the rest of the report for me, because this is a pretty standard entry in the genre.
The weather forecast the night before the event was for heavy rain and thunderstorms along with winds. When I went to bed, I fully expected to fall back to my "B" goal of sub-4:00, which I did at Twin Cities last October. However, the actual weather on race day was way beter than advertised. No rain at all, overcast, low-60s, and while it was still pretty windy, the wind was out of the SE on a course that tends S for the first half and N for the second, so at least it would be a tailwind during the back half. I had been training with 3:50 as a time goal, which would be almost a 9 minute PR for me. I didn't feel like I was under any special pressure though, and I would have been cool with going out slower and repeating my TCM time. But then it occured to me that if this race wasn't
that big a deal, then why not go out for 3:50 and if I fall apart at the end, hey this wasn't that big a deal right? Being unable to find any holes in this obviously impeccable logic, I lined up near then 3:50 pacer and away we went.
On a side note, this is kind of a funny event in the sense that the entire city of Fargo is pretty much preoccupied with it. This is their Boston, their Indianapolis 500, their Wimbeldon. I watched the local news the night before, and I think every story was somehow marathon-related. If you don't know the culture of the upper midwest, it's hard to describe just how
earnest they are about this kind of stuff. It's really sweet.
Anyway, you guys know how this goes. The first several miles were stupid easy. To be honest, I started to notice things getting a little harder than I would have liked around the 10K mark, but I decided to give it a few more miles. Around Mile 9 or 10, it was clear that there was no way I was going to be able to hold this pace when the race got serious later on. You guys all know what I mean. If this was a 10-13 mile training run, holding an 8:47 pace would have been a good workout but no serious problem. But when I was running 9:09s in Twin Cities, it was still stupid easy at the halfway point, but became quite difficult during the last 10K. By Mile 10, 8:47 was doable but no longer "OMG I can go forever" easy, so I dialed it back to 4:00 pace.
Too late. I crossed the halfway mark at 1:56 and change, and I that point I was still sort of expecting to PR, but by Mile 16 I was having a tough time running 9:09, and the wheels finally came off at Mile 18 when I had to start mixing in some walking. The rest of the race was a bunch of miles in the 12-13 minute "deathmarch" category.
A few highlights of the deathmarch: The 4:00 group passed me during Mile 19, at which point I more or less checked out psychologically. I'm not going to voluntarily take a DNF obviously, but if this was R&R Vegas and the sweep bus was right behind the 4:00 pacer, I wouldn't have minded too much. Around Mile 20 I got passed by a slow chick who works in my building. Her son and my son are in the same grade and play on the same basketball team. Her husband and son had been along the course in several spots already cheering her on. She tapped me on the shoulder and said hi when she passed, which was a 100% friendly gesture. This is one of the nicest families you'll ever meet and I hope she met whatever time goal she was shooting for. (The website is down right now, so no results).
Around the 23.5 mile mark -- the details are a little fuzzy at this point -- I got passed by the 4:30 pace group. Okay, I said I had already mentally checked out of the race, but come on. A man has to have some standards. I passed them back pretty handily and death-shuffled the last couple of miles instead of walking, except for a late aid station. I thought I had a nice sized buffer for 4:30, but when I got to the 26 mile marker, I looked at my Garmin and saw that I only had a little over 90 seconds to spare if I wanted my time to read 4:29
x. Not a huge deal since my time was really "Crash and Burn" anyway, but I dropped the hammer at the end (hammer? lol) and came in at 4:29:58 Garmin time. The 4:30 pacer must have missed his quota, because they were not within sight when I finished, and yes I know they didn't pass me back because I was keeping an eye out for them.
So. What to make of this? First of all, I am not the slightest bit disappointed or sad. I knew that 3:50 was an aggressive goal for me. It wasn't stupid like "Hey, lets knock 45 minutes of your PR and get a BQ" but it was on the aggressive side of what was reasonable. I don't feel foolish for trying and failing.
What it really came down to is the fact that I trained with a 3:50 goal in mind. If I'm not going to go for it when I get B+ conditions, the why the hell did I pick that goal? When I lined up, I was uncertain as to whether I could do this, but I really wanted to know: Given the genes my parents gave me and my training regimen, can I run a 3:50 marathon? I got my answer, and that's a valuable outcome.
Prosopis mentiond Pfitzinger's book above. There is a B&N literally right behing my hotel, so yesterday I picked up a copy and read it while sitting around. It is abundantly clear to me that I need more miles. I already suspected this from lurking at the RW forums. My training program had 5 runs of 18+ miles (18/20/20/22/22), but it maxed out at 42 mpw with four days per week throughou. What I learned today is that that just isn't enough if I want to improve. If I am content to have 4:00 be my top-end time in ideal conditions, then I can keep doing what I'm doing. I was hoping that a second marathon cycle in a 12-month period would improve my fitness enought to knock 10 minutes off my PR, but I try very hard to be honest with myself, and the fact is that my training for Fargo did not go appreciably better than my training for TCM, so race day magic was not enough to give me that improvement. Okay, my training went a little better, but that's because I was doing a bunch of long runs in February and March in cold temperatures as opposed to July and August. Surprise! It's easier to do training runs when you're bundled up for a 10-degree day than when it's 80 and humid. I'm not going to make any plans right now, but I could see 18/55 in my future, provided I spend some time building my base in preparation.
In other words, the race itself was a huge fail, but I learned something valuable, gained good race experience, and I'm happy that I erred on the side of aggression instead of being more conservative.
Now all that's left to do is to drink the beer I bought yesterday and deposited in my hotel fridge. Before any of you #######s chime in, yes I know alcohol slows recovery. But it does wonders for one's attitude. That counts, right?
Also, I should add here that the FFA is awesome in general, but this thread in particular is a great place for thinking out loud / venting about this kind of stuff. Just typing all of this up was a useful way to gather my thoughts. Thanks guys.
Looking to do a short 2-3mi easy run tomorrow. Mentally I wanted to run yesterday, but there was no way in hell. Quads have been screaming at me all week.This summer I'm going to be focusing on having some fun with the speed stuff. I have no idea what races I'll do other than a 5K while on vacation with my brother. I'm sitting on the fence right now about doing the full or half at Philly in November.
uttingonbestsalespitch:
note:
, just too much stuff getting in the way.
fwiw, it gets a little better as you do more. Also depends on exertion and surface. I wasn't neatly as sore after the trail 50k as I was after my last road marathon - and that was better than the first marathon.
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