Great Day for a marathon. I haven't posted for a while but Dave told me I had to and Clyde posts comments to my blog from my last post in July so I decided I had better post my races at least...
I have been running pretty good for the last month. The baby being born in July has taken its toll. He is sleeping much better now though so I have been able to get up in the mornings.
I have run the UV Marathon and Park City Marathon since I last posted. Ran 3:29 at both of them. UV I had the stomach flu and PC I was taking it easy so I wouldn't mess up my training.
For TOU Marathon I wasn't sure how hard I wanted to push it for fear of not being able to run the following week due to soreness and mess up my training for SG in two weeks. I decided to just run how I felt. I have been taking a supplement that has really reduced swelling and soreness and post-race and especially post-marathon recovery has been phenominal. I used to have my wife rubbing me down each day for a week after a marathon and had to take a week off from running. This was the case with UV and Moab earlier this year. But PC recovery was great and I rode my bike the monday after and was running with no soreness at all Tuesday.
As for TOU we will see. Today, the day after, I have minimal soreness and have tried a light jog from the house to the car and felt pretty good. I will run maybe 2 or 3 tomorrow morning and see how I feel.
Well, I sat down here to report the race... Kinda got side tracked... So, here it is:
Like I mentioned, it was a great day for a marathon. Nice and cool at the start and just light enough that you could see. I was maybe 5 or 6 rows back standing in the "2:45-3:00" section looking around at a bunch of people talking about how they were hoping to break 4:00. We started out and I was feeling great. I look at my watch and see that we are doing about 5:30 pace but couldn't do much about it as I was boxed in. Soon I was dodging the people that had surrounded me at the start as they fell back to their true pace. I was finally able to slow and settled in at about a 6:40 pace. I knew it was faster than my overall pace would be but the downhill was just enough that it felt right. The first 13 or 14 miles was coming down the canyon and I was enjoying the changing leaves and the scenery and watching MayAnn nervously look over her shoulder on each turn. She wasn't nervous about the other runners though. At the start the Highway Patrol announced that we were to run on the right side of the road as they would not be shutting the canyon down. We had all been told they would and knew they had measured using both lanes. None of us wanted to stay right on those left curves. A few turns into the race MaryAnn was cutting the corner on the left side and a bike cop yelled at her to get on the right and the next time she would be disqualified.
By the end of the canyon I knew I didn't want to keep up the 6:40 pace on the flat. I decided that a 3:05 should be good so that I could at least qualify for Boston and hopefully not damage my body too much. I didn't realize how much slight uphill I would encounter over the last 10 miles and it almost wore me out at times. The thing I am proud of is that I mentally held strong and was able to keep a decent pace through it all. By the end of the canyon I was also worried about my calves a bit but a few miles into the flat and I felt good again.
The main difference between TOU and the other marathons I have done this year is the last 5 miles. I have really died in those miles, walking at UV (I did have the stomach flu and was not able to keep anything down for 2 days leading up to the race), and falling to about a 8:30 and 9:00 min pace at PC, even on the downhill... But at TOU I was able to hold a 7:30 on the flat, 8:00 on the uphill and pushed a few times on the downhill to 6:45. I was mostly tesiting out my energy level and how my quads and hamstrings wold hold up. I had some serious cramping at PC at miles 22-25. I fared much better at TOU with no cramping at all...
The last couple miles through town there were quite a few supporters but many of them were just talking amongst themselves. As I ran the last few miles I could see that I was getting close to the 3:10 mark and was determined to qualify. Coming into the second to last turn at the end I could see people running down the next block in front of me headed right and I was turning left. I realized I had much farther than I had originally thought and was very dissapointed that I would not make the time. But after turning another corner and seeing the finish line I realized that what I was actually seeing was where I had just run a mile or so back. Then as I saw the clock at just under 3:10 I was very releived to see that I would make it. A girl passed me in that last block and I think I had enough in me to outkick her but was not even thinking about that as I was so happy to have just qualified, and with 18 seconds to spare!
| 