So, I’ve done it.

Cloud 9. When I started running a year and a half ago, I never thought that I’d actually run a marathon.  I wouldn’t even say it was a dream.  It simply wasn’t a possibility.  Then I ran that first 10k race, instead of the 5k.  And it felt good.  Feeling the energy of the crowd and the spectators was incredible.  That’s when it became a dream, a goal.

In retrospect, it was rather funny.  There was no middle ground of doubt.  I went from “There is no way” to “I can run a Half” to “I can run the Full”.  Also funny was the amount of training that I did for the CMM.  It was the beginner plan, and it gave me the bare minimum of preparation.  There would have been NO way that I could have finished the CMM with the goals I set out with.  There was quite a bit of ignorance of what I was in for at the CMM.

I was MUCH better prepared for this.

It’s been a week and some since the Marathon.  I’ve waited to write this to allow things to solidify in my mind.  Some of the things that stand out:

Sunday Morning:

After an AWESOME Saturday, I was in for a surprise.  A great weekend, got better.  My wife had told me about a photographer trying to get a picture of my daughter holding her sign.  She, uncharacteristically, refused.  ”No Problem, I’ve got a long lens”, and he went off.

Based on what they told me, I figured he did what I would have done… Backed off a bit, take pictures of other more opportune targets, and then see if the situation was better.  He did.  But apparently, he really wanted that picture.  He caught them at the 2 mile mark, where my Daughter was completely unaware.

This is from The Huntsville Times.  Now the thing about this picture that was so awesome?

FRONT PAGE! I thought IF he got a picture, it might show up in the Sports section.  No.  We get the paper, and there, right below the crease, is my family, cheering for me.  To say that I was thrilled…. well, that’s just not good enough.

Volunteers:

The Incredible volunteers after the run.  From making HUGE PB&J sandwiches to the volunteers making sure everyone was ok after the run, to the complimentary massages, it was all a whirlwind but appreciated.  Victoria worked over my legs, to the point of knotting them back up.  I ran a marathon.  Those massagers did the same with their hands.  Incredible.

FOOD:

I already mentioned the HUGE PB&J’s.  I’ll do so again.  :)  I think most anything you could have used to recover after the run was there.  I tried my best to sample some of it all.

After race dinner – This was interesting for us.  It was a much smaller event than I expected.  I was disappointed that the timing of the event wasn’t clear.  Literature states that the dinner was at 5pm.  That was the social (cash bar) event beforehand.  The Dinner doesn’t start until 6pm.  Because of this, we weren’t able to stay as long as we would have liked because of our kids and what we communicated to them.  This is a simple fix, but apparently it was this way last year as well, but no one updated anything.

Weather:

What a mix of forecasts we had.  I was really sweating this, as most of the forecasts earlier in the week were pointing to freezing rain/sleet and very cold temperatures.  It wasn’t until a day or so beforehand that it settled down, but even that was kinda iffy.  I was pretty ready for just about everything, but since I was running in Vibram Five Fingers, I was particularly scared of/dreading a long cold rain.  I will continue to dread those conditions, but I had already made up my mind that I WAS running, so, what did it matter?

I burned a fair amount of nervous energy worrying about it.  That’s not good.  But, I also found running friends on twitter and the blogs as a direct result of that nervous energy.

And the weather turned out to be perfect.  Perhaps if I hadn’t worried, it would not have been…

Gels:

I was VERY worried after the Country Music Marathon because I couldn’t keep my gels down.  I had no problems at the Rocket City Marathon.  In fact, judging by my last 6 miles, I probably should have taken another one.  The problem in CMM was not the Gel’s fault.  It was mine.  I pushed way to hard to allow my body to absorb the nutrition.  Yes, I CAN run flat out for 20 miles.  And NO, I can NOT eat and do so.

I went faster in Huntsville, and further.  And I had no problems with my nutrition.  The only thing that changed was that I was better prepared for the race, and my fitness had increased so I was running 8:20 miles at ~150 BPM instead of 9:00 miles at 170 BPM.  I know this is a huge shock to the experienced runners.

Shoes:

I wrote earlier, and on twitter about probably not running the next marathon in Vibrams.  I’m turning away from that standpoint after reflecting.  Would I have enjoyed more cushioning?  YES.  Would it have made a difference?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that I don’t have the problems that typically are associated with Marathoner’s feet.  My toenails are fine.  I had a SINGLE blister that I didn’t even notice until the day after.  I had sore calf muscles for 2 days afterwards.  That’s it.

My Vibrams that fit, REALLY FIT.  I know most of the problems typically associated are due to poor fitting shoes.  Mine DO fit well, and it’s something I’m very reluctant to change.  My Mizuno Inspires fit well, but I was beginning to have issues there, and you know, my feet hurt there too.

I don’t know about this.  I am REALLY happy in my Vibrams.  It’s possible that I’d do better on long distances in a cushioned shoe, but it’s also possible that I’d just screw something up that wasn’t broke.

My guess is that my feet were going to hurt after 26.2 miles, regardless of the shoe.

What’s next?

Oh my.  I still don’t know.  I enjoyed this event so very much.  I’ve been REALLY happy to run without a plan.  But I’ve also really enjoyed working on speed, and I’ve made some great progress there.  I’m partial to hitting the training again, get the fitness REALLY up there, and push hard for the Boston Qualifying time.  For me, that’s 3 hours, 15 minutes or 7:25 per mile for 26.2 miles.  Dropping more than 30 minutes from my time is going to be TOUGH.  But you know, not very long ago, I didn’t believe running a marathon was possible.

Life changes.

Part 1 – The Build up

Saturday.

Up early, but not nearly as bad as the past. Having a room that overlooks the starting line absolutely ROCKS. Bananas, grits, bread and coffee were my breakfast as I prepared to go.

Did I mention the weather? I still don’t know what’s going on at this point. I have figured out that it’s probably going to be warm at the end. But going down to the starting line in the cold isn’t exactly attractive to me. We THOUGHT the weather (rain/snow/mix) that had been bouncing around the forecasts was going to hold off until the afternoon.

Conversations the previous day on twitter help formulate the plan:

• Shorts.
• Compression shorts under (because I don’t wear one without the other)
• Short sleeve tech shirt
• Covered with a long sleeve tech shirt (Because I’m turning into a wimp about the cold).

And then I put the shell on as well, because I don’t want to be wet and cold for 20 miles.

Finally, Gloves. The heavy HVAC ones from Brooks. Because I can run in 60 degrees, and my hands will STILL FREEZE.

So, we meet up with Team Weber in the lobby of the Embassy suite. I’m asked to run in the 3:40 pace group instead. Tempting, but if I’m feeling that good, I’ll make it up there in the second half.

Of course, I didn’t actually put on any of my monitor equipment (HR or GPS), so it’s back upstairs for a final pre-race bathroom break and to get wired up.

Back downstairs and out the door. The Family is going to see me off, then head back to the hotel for breakfast. I make it across the street, realize it’s STUPID for me to be wearing the shell, and start trying to find them to hand it off. It’s 45 Degrees at the start, with a bit of Sun. It’s hard to believe I was worried about the weather, as this is GREAT.

I’ve already figured that I’m going to start around the 3:45 pace group and go from there. I’ve set my goals:

1. Finish. Anything else is gravy, but this one MUST happen.
2. Sub 4 hours. To come out and beat a 4 hour marathon was definitely something that I wanted. It’s a meaningless number, that somehow has tons of meaning. 4:00:01 is much worse for me than 3:59:59.
3. 3:45 or better. According to running formulas, I should be able to run a 3:30 marathon based on my Half and 10k times. I think it’s possible, but it’s going to take the PERFECT day for me to do it.

The start is a rush to me. Nice satisfying BANG from the canon to get us underway. 20 seconds or so later, I’m across the start line, and it’s ON. But I’m very determined NOT to burn out immediately. I’m also very wary of my foot, so sticking a little behind the 3:45 group is definitely part of the game plan.

Catching up to the 3:45 group quickly, I established that the pacer was Eric, from Rocket City Marathon Training. I’d found the blog earlier, trying to get a feel for the course, and was happy to find out that Rocket City Marathon was going to have pacers. As a bonus, he was going to be the pacer for the time I was looking to run. I enjoyed talking with him during the first half. I can’t say we discussed anything that was going to change the world, but it was very nice to have someone to talk to as the miles clicked off.

Mile 2 came up quickly, and as I looked to the right, I saw the family! I thought they were heading to breakfast, but apparently they decided to take advantage of the course design and walked over to cheer. Cutting across the group, with apologies! A quick High Five to my little girl, and a pat on the head to the boy and I was hurrying back to the pace group.

I can’t tell much about the miles after that until we hit the single lane on the road that extends FOREVER. I understand why the HTC doesn’t allow headphones, as this stretch especially would be dangerous with them, but MAN, you NEED them there. I don’t know the area enough to tell anyone WHERE it was, but I’m sure every runner on this course knows what I’m talking about.

Somewhere around half way, Eric had to hit the port-a-potty. We drank at all of the aid stations, which was great, but it was also definitely loading up the bladder. He ran ahead, telling everyone else not to follow. No problem. I basically kept going, speeding up a little bit, thinking that I was probably going to have to do the same soon as well. It would be better to have some extra time when that happened.

And it did happen. About the 500 yards after Eric peeled off, I started looking, with a bit of urgency. Unfortunately, it wasn’t for another 3-4 miles before I saw the next potty. I had picked up a bit of a gap, but it wasn’t enough. I came out behind the group. Now, I’m fairly competitive, so I ran out at a much quicker pace, ate up a fair amount of the difference, and settled down to slowly make up the difference.

I slowly reeled them in until I had closed to about 30 feet around mile 20. That was the closest I got to them again. I had a surprise waiting for me. The Kids and Family had finished their breakfast, had missed me at least once on the course, and made the decision to get ahead of me and WAIT. So, around mile 20, there the kids were, on both sides of the road, undoubtably running back and forth, TRYING to trip any runners.

I had to stop. I wasn’t tired, but this was going to be a stop.

Picture time:

Side note: Don’t attempt this. It’s stupid. Picking up your little girl in a bear hug is absolutely recommended. Doing so at 20 miles into a marathon, with 6.2 to go: Stupid. I lost so much strength doing this, and felt like I was going to fall, with her in my arms. DUMB.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m not smart.

I think I only lost about a minute there due to stopping, but it doing so killed my 3:45 goal. Slowing up, breaking pace and repetition took a fair amount of energy to get going again. I was off pace. And my feet hurt. Look at those pictures. I told you in part 1, I wasn’t going to run this marathon in shoes. No, I was in my Vibram FiveFinger Bikilas. No cushioning, no padding. And those are the old ones, which have almost all of the rubber worn away as well. The older pavement and roughness was acting as meat tenderizer on my feet, and it was adding up.

Even though I KNEW I was off the 3:45 pace group, I was ok with it. Seeing the kids out there, getting that love, well, I don’t know if it cost me 3:45 or saved my race. Probably both.

From miles 17-20, I was hitting 8:20, 8:14, 8:19 minutes per mile. After that, I was 9:04, 9:03, 9:20 (water stop), 9:04. I knew I couldn’t push ahead to 3:45 again, and I lost my competitive urge to do so. I backed off, without realizing it at the time. Looking at the HR and pacing data now, it’s obvious.

It wasn’t until 24-25 that I hit the wall. My 25 mile pace was 9:45. My feet hurt, and I just couldn’t push faster. I was hitting my low point.

I also couldn’t do math. My foot pod wasn’t calibrated EXACTLY on, and was over reporting my progress. I knew this, and had been able to do the math in my head to adjust. Naturally, as the miles added up, the error margin caused the overall distance to be more pronounced. But now, I couldn’t figure out what the factor needed to be, and determining the distance to go was rather funny. I was coming up with multiple, wildly divergent numbers every time I looked. I slowly realized I needed to forget about what the watch was telling me, and just pay attention to the mile markers and time shouters.

THIS helped me. I realized that even if I walked, I’d finish. Even if I walked, I’d probably finish under 4 hours (although not by much, and as I said, I wasn’t able to do math then.) It also helped that I was picking up some people and shouting for them to keep on pushing. Giving others encouragement to finish was helping me finish.

I didn’t need to walk. Realizing that my goals were in my grasp was all I needed to understand. I kept running. My last mile was 9:10 pace, and I was heading to sub 9 pace for the last .2 miles.

Now, here is where things on the course are fun. You run right by the Emergency room entrance for Huntsville Hospital. In the last .2 miles of a MARATHON. I’m surprised they didn’t have crash carts outside waiting.

The other fun thing was that I couldn’t figure out where the finish line was. I was on the right course, following the signs and volunteers, and I saw something ahead. But I couldn’t figure out what that blue thing was. I knew I had to run into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn, and the finish line was there. So until I was RIGHT on top of it, I thought I had to run through it, and then to the finish.

I did regain sanity. I realized it WAS the Finish. The Clock hanging from it helped a lot. I’m glad I had my glasses on, because there were tears streaming.

Goals:

1. Finish. This finish felt better than anything other race. I was definitely crying, and I was definitely smiling.
2. Sub 4 hours. That time is GUN time. Chip time is 3:51:58. Remember what I said about those :59′s versus :02′s?
3. 3:45 or better. I missed this. If I had stayed with the group instead of having to catch it, I think I could have done this. But I didn’t, can’t change it. And I WOULDN’T change stopping for the family. I’m OK missing this one. It’s still awesome.

Part 3 – Wrap up and thoughts. SOON.

Wow.

That’s still the best word that describes my experience. Now that THAT is out of the way, let me warn you. This is going to ramble. It’s going everywhere. It’s going to be critical. But, before you start thinking I’m being harsh, read An Open Letter to Huntsville. I loved this race. I loved the city, the support, and the people involved.

But I’ll still be critical. Of myself. Of the little nits that bugged, perhaps only me.

And I’m going to be sappy, too. Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride – Not unlike some of the roads I’ve recently ran on. It’s not short. I’ve gone from an initial plan of 1 post to 3 now.

First: I DID IT.

Did What? Build-up time.

I’ve been running since May 2009, and was on track to do a full marathon in my first year. That would have been the Country Music Marathon. I wrote about that here. It didn’t work for me. So, I recovered from that, and kept running. And pushing. And running harder. I felt defeat, and I didn’t like it.

I went further, and I went faster. I’ve made great increases in my running speed in the last year and half. I’ve changed my stride. I’ve dropped so much weight, my wife feeds me double portions whenever she can, trying to fatten me up.

An additional component is that I am running in Vibram FiveFinger Bikila’s. I first started running in these before the Country Music Marathon, and absolutely LOVED them. It felt so much better to run in them rather than ‘normal’ shoes. But I couldn’t wear them in the CMM because it also meant that I had to effectively start from scratch on my mileage buildup, and deal with the fact that there isn’t any padding in these things. It has some protection from the road, but not a lot. You can feel the road, you can feel the difference between surfaces, and that’s incredible. It’s also a bit tough since very few surfaces we encounter in the modern world are perfectly smooth. You also work the muscles in your legs harder, because they are absorbing a lot of impact stress. You build muscle, and you improve your form. Several of the injuries I felt before Country Music Marathon disappeared after I started running in Vibrams. Form change by shoe requirement is my guess, but either way, I wasn’t about to change again.

As the summer finished up, and we got closer to the marathon, I re-raced my first two races.

The first was the Franklin Classic 10k. Last year, I ran it for my first race. I wanted to do the 5k, but was pressured, correctly, into the 10k. I did it in a not very impressive 1:01:04. I didn’t know how to pace myself after effectively living in Denver, and could have done better. I had loads of energy left at 8k, and my negative split was awesome, but not enough to save the time. This year, I ran the 5k in 23:44 or 7:38/mile, trying to keep it slow, saving energy. Because right after the 5k, I ran the 10k. I WANTED this run. I knew I could have done better last year. This year, after the 5k run, I did the 10k in 46:59 or 7:33/mile. I was MUCH happier now.

The second race was the Nashville Half Marathon. First year, it was a training run for St. Jude. Could I actually run 13.1 miles? Yes. It took me 2:08:35 or 9:48/mile to do it. This year, even though the race organization was the worst I’ve seen, I ran a 1:41:30 or 7:44/mile pace. That’s after a 3 mile warmup run as well.

Things were looking much better for me, in my quest to recover from the Country Music Marathon.

My training was fairly uneventful. I’d average around 50-60 miles a week. Long runs on Saturday, towards the end with Team Weber in Franklin, TN. Often times earlier on, I was running with them and never knew it. I recall quite a few times where I was doing a solo run, look over my shoulder, and there was the same couple of people, running almost exactly the same course. Rather funny to me when I finally met them before a long run. I’d do mainly speed work during the week, running twice a day several days a week, and some endurance Wednesday as well.

I would run early morning, then Monday nights head to the Tin Roof 2 for the Fleet feet social runs. This was never a real social run to me, as I would always find someone faster than me…. and do my best to catch them. Rarely would I actually do so, but it kept me pushing harder. Thursdays would end with the Endurance run at Sol Restaurant in Franklin. I’d often run TO the run, relax into a 4-5 mile run with the group, and then run home. It was a great way to add 12 miles into the schedule, and I really enjoy running with that group.

Then, 2 weeks out, I hurt my foot. Well, SH@T!

So, I tapered, if you can call it that. I think of tapering as reducing mileage so as to hone an edge on a razor. My taper was going from 55 miles in the week before, to less than 10. It felt like a BLUNTING, rather than a taper. But I wanted to heal that foot, and not take any chances with it. So, little runs, 3 miles. It got better. I started to feel more encouraged, but still cautious.

Friday morning arrived, I did a 2 mile run, and all felt well. I was running. I was ready.

We drove down to Huntsville, checked into the Embassy Suites (which I can not recommend highly enough), did packet pickup and a quick look through the Expo. It was small, as should be expected. And honestly, I didn’t need anything. I’d brought practically ALL of my running gear since the weather forecasts were changing radically. Over to the Carb dinner, with 2 kids and 3 adults. Again, no complaints, and I was able to get both kids to eat SOMETHING, once they saw the desert trays. It was a win, and it was time to rest before the run.

Part 2 – The Race.