On May 5, 2003, I wrote, in article
<[email hidden]>:
Quoted message said:Ran the Adidas Vancouver International Marathon on Sunday,
my first marathon, and my second race. I finished in
5:05:12. Nothing cramped up, I didn't hit the wall. I just
ran and ran.
I ran it again yesterday. This time, I finished in 3:55:53
(unofficial mat-to-mat time from my chronometer).
I'm happy that I came in under four hours, but I know I have
the potential for a better time. Projecting from my 8 mile
tempo runs, I can probably run in the 3:3x time range now. I
did a few things wrong in my taper. Two weeks out, I went
for a hard hike, climbing 2900 feet of elevation over less
than two miles of trail, not having done that in a good 8
months. Personal best on that one, 45:xx minutes. But the
right knee suffered a little. About 11 days out, I went to a
track, and did hard 400 meter repeats, in the 1:15 to 1:18
range. I was just going crazy, not knowing what to do with
myself! Two days after that, I ran a crazy 8 mile tempo run
like a race, achieving a personal best time of 57:13, which
is substantially faster than my best 10K race from last
November! Not only did I pull my right hamstring, but in the
remaining days to the race, I felt overall tired and run
down. I went for some easy, slow runs, but they were hard
anyway. I did an 8 miler some six days out, and then a 9
miler two days before the race, and an easy 5K run the
afternoon before: over a mile to the track, an easy four
laps and then back. The hamstring still hurt a bit.
The night before the marathon, I loaded up on carbs a little
bit and had just a light dinner. In the morning, I had three
coffees and two waffles with jam, that's it. I wanted to
keep an empty bowel during the race, and just take in the
pure carbs that absorb in the upper gut and leave next to
nothing that would, err, stop you in the middle of the race,
if you know what I mean. 🙂 I mixed up an entire bottle of
``power slime'' out of pure maltodextrin powder, some fruit
and water, and that's what I consumed during the first half
of the race, thinning it out gradually by adding water to it
at various stations. I didn't consume any solids at all. No
energy bars, nothing.
It was a frantic race for me. I barely even paused at water
stations. I opened up my bottle ahead of time, and refilled
as fast as possible, and then hit the road immediately. At
one point when the temperature rose, I wanted to take off
my shirt, but I waited to get help with that from a
supporting friend. I peeled off my shirt, turning it inside
out, and then kept running while he, running along side me,
reversed it for me to make the bib visible, so I could tie
it around my waist.
I experienced a strange, disturbing dizzy spell for about 20
or 30 seconds at around only the 8 kilometer. I ran through
it at a reduced pace and then it went away. I suspect that
was the effect of the power slime spilling glucose into the
bloodstream. I mean, I put scoops and scoops of the powder
into that bottle, enough to give it the consistency of snot;
just thin enough to still pour out.
I hit the halfway mark at about 1:50. (I don't have exact
splits because I accidentally erased them at the finish,
darn!) I maintained
3:40 pace until somewhere around 18 miles, when I was
passed by the
4:45 bunny. Argh! It must have been a dust bunny because I
was sure eating her dust. 🙂 Other than the reduced pace,
the last 8 miles were okay. I readjusted my objectives a
little bit rather than to try hitting a now impossible
target, thereby making it even worse. Only the last 4
miles were a bit hard. I seem to recall that I hit the 22
mile mark at around 3:13:x, slower than in training. And
you can see what huge time delta that is to to 3:55:53.
If I recall that split time right, that's heck of a long
freaking time to run 4.2 miles, if you can call that
running. I think it was that climb over a 150 foot tall
bridge that made it long; at that stage, even a small
hill slows you down tremendously. Finally, in the very
last mile, I suffered from a bit of dehydration, or low
blood sugar or something. My hands and forearms were
tingling and I felt like lying down. I tried to sprint
for the finish in the last few hundred meters. I seemed
to be going way faster than anyone around me; I think I
passed about four people in the last 100. I was lifting
those knees, arching that back and pumping those arms
bent at less than 90 degrees. I could hear crowd members
cheering me on to keep it up to the finish! There will be
an MPEG finish cam video mailed to all finishers in about
a month, so I will get to see what my ``sprint'' *really*
looked like.
Past the finish line, I was in bad shape for a few minutes.
I think I practically collapsed on top of one of the
volunteers, and I was just groaning for water. But I
quickly revived myself. I munched on a bagel and some
yogurt, collected my finisher T-shirt, etc. At one point I
climbed over a fence to avoid pushing through a crowd of
people. I sprinted across a parking lot and jumped over a
concrete barrier. A guy sitting there said ``Try that
*tomorrow*!'' 🙂