Saturday, April 19, 2008

Self Supported Marathon- Done!

Well this morning I finally did the Marathon. It was HARD. Started out quite nice, kept an excellent pace in the first half. Phil came buy and did a half mary with me and ran the first half which helped allot because he helped me keep a good pace on the first half which was a long gradual hill for 13.1 miles basically. So for the first half we kept a good 8.10 pace for the first 13.1 miles.

Turning around I think we maintained close to that pace also at first. Phil peeled off at around mile 16. I kept that pace going for about another 30 minutes I think but at around mile 18 I started to feel the miles and started to slow down. Then at around mile 22/23 I did not hit the wall. I slammed into it and crumbled down in a heap on the ground.

If I had displayed what was going on in my head physically I would have been sniveling in a fetal position in the middle of the path, with little children running up to me pointing saying:

"Mommy! Mommy! look this man has buggers streaming out of his nose!" or something humiliating like that. And of course the mother would be saying something like:

"its not nice to point at people who are having a physical and mental breakdown Honey, I am sure the man will wipe his nose when he regains his composure" .

The thought of that happening kept me going stoically.

None the less I went from keeping an 8:30 pace to something like 10 min miles. There was a hill I had to go up and that just plain did me in. I decided to walk around a minute and see if I could gather some strength to push past this. It helped and briefly I was going back to a 9 min pace.

In the end I finished in 3:44:10 around a 8:30 pace. I am happy with that. Made my first goal. Learned allot in the process. Can't beat that!

Lessons Learned
There was definitely some lesson learned especially when doing a self supported event. For example bring an abundance of fluids not just "enough". I had figured that through past planning that my fuel belt I could carry enough for me do do 13.1. SO at the halfway point I put a bottle filled with Accelerade, which would be enough to refill my fuel belt supplies. Well I did not calculate that on race day I would be running harder than on a training run and thus would be thirstier than when training. so I found myself without water of fuel on the last 5 miles because I had sucked down everything by then. I know that probably played a role in my hitting the wall so hard.

Also I discovered my footpod was waaaay off. Which for this run did little to affect me because I had mapped it out and also conformed distance with Phil who ran the first half with me. He had his GPS. But what it did mean is that did not cover the appropriate distances in training. My Polar at the end of the race had me running a little under 30 miles, for an actual distance of 26.2. So what this means is that when i thought I was doing a 20 mile training run, it was closer to 18. Which means that I did not train as well as I thought I did. Piece of crap!

I knew it was a little off I just did not imaging it being THAT much off. I had calibrated it once before, I guess I need to do it again.

6 comments:

Philip LaVoie said...

Excellent, excellent job bud! Thanks for inviting me along. Way to run right thru that wall and congratulations on a great first marathon time! (especially one that was self supported, and lacking fuel/hydration ;)

Ski Dad said...

Thanks. For the congrats and for running with me. And you are right there were some lessons learned that I plan on writing down to avoid repeating. It was a great experience if just for that.

Anonymous said...

you the man..sounds like fun!!

Strouter said...

Congrats, Javier! I am so impressed that you did your first marathon solo. Do you realize how fast you'd be in a non-self-supported marathon? Speedy!! Great job -- takes many marathons before you nail down the nutrition, pacing, and all the other joys of distance racing. I'd say you're way, way ahead of the game. Awesome job!

Bill Risch said...

Nice job Javier - with those Polar issues, maybe time for the Garmin? Self supported definitely takes a lot out of you, and erin's got it down - you'll get the other stuff in line over time. Just in time for IM-Moo

Pam said...

I can't even believe you did that. talk about mental toughness. rock on! we will totally have to meet up in madison!