Training in Montana

I haven't had a chance yet to upload my mile splits but I'll give a shot at a report. First off, huge thanks to Kam for pacing me the last 16.219 miles. We grew up in the same neighborhood and were good friends and it's really cool that he would give up his Saturday morning this year and last to help me go for a BQ. I feel badly that I wasn't able to do it either year, but we tried.

I stayed at my sister's house in South Jordan then rode Trax to the start and it worked well. Got up at 4:20, cleaned up and took care of business and headed out the door at 5:00. Got to the 80th & Redwood Trax stop at 5:09 which was 14 minutes early. Perfect. The train was right on time, chomped on a bagel and drank a Propel during the 50 minute ride and got to the start 45 minutes early. Made an immediate pit stop then got my drop bag ready, then hit the POP a last time then took off my warm clothes and moved into the starting line. I moved through a lot of people but still was a minute back from the start. 7:00 came and went as the last Trax train had just come in and a few hundred people were trying to get from the platform to the starting line. Finally got started 7 minutes late. Got past the start line finally and started running, then after 1/4 mile there was a funnel due to a weird road and that slowed me down a lot as we headed up the first hill. Got out of there and hit the first mile 30 seconds behind schedule. Cruised along feeling good but had to hit the first POP at 3 miles for a quick urine stop, but thankfully my only stop. Figured it was better to do it with a downhill in front of me. Cruised along, passing groups of people, especially the pacing groups. Those clumps were tough to pass. When we turned East up a hill I knew that would be a toughish mile and it was.

At this point in my write up, I'm bored writing out the details so I'm going to skip around. Nutrionally I determined to take a gel every 30 minutes and a Salt capsule every 60 minutes. I was able to do that pretty well. Pace-wise I was trying to run a 3:13:30 and I used the splits from Tazrunning.com to give me my per mile paces. I bought a tattoo from that site and put the first half on the inside of my left forearm and the second half on my right arm. That was really useful.

As I cruised through Salt Lake I was feeling pretty good and was doing a pretty good job hitting the prescribed paces. Frustrating, though, was my new Garmin as it shows my pace for the current mile but it wasn't super accurate. I tried to hit my tangents but not sure what happened. Frequently in the first half the pace would say 7:33, then when I hit the mile marker the total time would be 7:39 for instance, probably because the mile measured long compared to the Garmin? I know the miles are correctly marked so I'm not blaming anyone, but it was mentally challenging to deal with the discrepancy when I thought I had been doing so well on that mile.

Mile 10 was supposed to be the slowest mile due to elevation and it certainly was. As I ran up the last hill before Sugarhouse Park I said to one guy in front of his house, "Someone needs to level this hill!" He smiled. I panted up the hill. Kam met me at the entrance to the park and this was also the first place I saw my family. It was awesome to see them. At this point I was feeling pretty good but about 1 minute behind schedule. Kam ran next to me or led me the rest of the way. After mile 13 I remember feeling like I wanted to walk, so the mile-by-mile mentality started then. "I can make it to 14". I was breathing way too heavy at that point so I knew I was likely not going to BQ. I'll never know how much my lack of running prowess is self-fulfilling prophecy, lack of proper training, or lack of the right physiological characteristics, but I'd venture to guess it's a combination of the three. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, though, to figure out that a person laboring halfway through a marathon might not hit their time goal. I carried on to the next mile marker, then the next, and after hitting 45th South (furthest South part of the race) I was doing okay until sometime around 17. Running up a slight hill I felt very winded, my head started feeling really tight, and I felt light headed. I yelled to Kam that I felt dizzy and needed to walk. It took a few minutes of walking to feel better. Some nice people handed out sliced oranges and I took a few and that felt great. My family had reloaded us with a new water bottle at mile 16 which Kam carried for me, and I doused my head, front, and back. After a few minutes of walking we started running again, but never broke 8 minutes again. I was done with my Boston dream and at that point all I cared about was finishing. Kam did the math and he told me I could still break my 3:25:03 PR but I didn't care. I wasn't being negative at all, in fact, I was very positive, and I just didn't care. It was actually a huge weight off my shoulders. I was running a marathon, I was doing okay, and I was going to finish. I wasn't going to finish strong, but I would finish solidly. From that point on I tried to maintain a sub 8:20 pace but that didn't happen too often. I just ran. I walked a couple more times, but mostly just carried on. I got passed by a lot of people but I didn't care. I was still running.

As we ran I evaluated my last two bonks and I came to the conclusion that some people can qualify for Boston on sub-par mileage (40-50 mpw) but most of us need more miles than that. I'm in the second category and I'm okay with that. I also realized that I'm much too busy right now with my church responsibilities and will be for the next 4+ years so I won't have time to commit to running 50-60 mpw for a couple months solid. I'm okay with that. In 4 years I'll be 45 and will get an extra 10 BQ minutes. I can run a 3:25 on my limited training. I'm convinced that if I had been aiming for 8:00 miles in this race I could've hit it, but because I was aiming for 7:24 miles I went too fast and burned out. I'm okay with that. I'll focus my sights on 5K to half marathon races, and probably some longer mountain races. I can run far but not fast.

I coasted through Liberty park then down the long street with the Finish line in the distance and Kam peeled off just before the barricades. My 10 yr old boy and 8 yr old daughter were there, waiting to run with me. They ran and I grabbed my daughter's hand and she held her brother's hand as we crossed the finish line. That was really sweet to me. I loved that they could share that moment with me.

Props to Kam for doing a great job as a pacer/mule, carrying water and gel. It was awesome to see my family 3 times during the race then ran with my 10 and 8 yo holding hands the last 50 yards. Well organized race, great city support, awesome aid stations. I definitely recommend the race.

1st half: 1:38:19 7:29 pace

2nd half: 1:53:31 8:39 pace

Major positive split! Woot woot. :)