If someone said to me yesterday: “The last marathon I ran was Philly 9 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve taken a 4‑week R&R break, averaged 20 miles/week, and my long runs have been two 10‑ milers and a 12‑miler. I ran a tempo run last Monday, an 8‑mile run yesterday and a hard 4‑mile race today. I’m thinking about jumping into a marathon tomorrow morning on a whim. Do you think I should try it?”  Of course, my reply would be, “Certainly not. Why would you want to do something foolish like that?”  As you might guess, I was the guy asking the question and I gave myself some good advice....which I then ignored. I told FrankS at the Race for the Pies yesterday that I had toyed with the idea Friday, but came to my senses. Well, later yesterday, I lost my senses again, drove to the marathon headquarters in Clearwater Beach and registered for today’s race. Why did I do it? I guess I was just feeling whimsical and foolish. J

 

Actually, I did have a few reasons for running the marathon....none of them good ones. It was an inaugural race and I’ve never run an inaugural marathon.  I’ve never attempted a marathon for which I didn’t train and wanted to see how close I could come to a peak race that I wasn’t prepared for. I had a long run scheduled for today and told myself that I could run about halfway and drop out if I didn’t feel good. (Fat chance!) I told you they weren’t good reasons.

 

I should have listened to my own advice. I finished the race, but it wasn’t pretty.

 

I needed some last minute carbo‑loading. So, I stopped on the way home from registering last night for a fried grouper sandwich, french fries and a Guinness. J  Later last night, I had a large slice of the key lime pie that I won as an age group award at yesterday’s race. I finished topping off my fuel tank on the way to the race this morning with a banana, 12 ounces of coffee, 12 ounces of Powerade, and a Power Bar that I got in a race packet last week.

 

After several days of very good running weather this week, including near‑perfect conditions yesterday morning, the winds shifted to the southeast yesterday afternoon and brought warm, humid air into the region. The temperature was 62 at 6 AM this morning as I was driving to the race site. Darn! Just what I didn’t need on top of being unprepared for a marathon....heat and humidity.

 

I had no basis for setting goals for this race. Both last week’s 5k and yesterday’s 4‑mile races equate to a 4:00‑4:05 marathon, or about 9:15/mile pace. However, race equivalency tables and formulas assume that you are trained for the distance you plan to run and I wasn’t.  So, I applied “Kentucky windage” to the projection. I assumed that the lack of preparation was worth about 30 sec/mile and the warm weather another 30 sec/mile. A pace of 10:15 would yield a race time of 4:28:30. So, I set two goals. A floor goal to simply finish and a time range goal of 4:20‑4:30.  My race plan was to run 10:00‑10:15 pace and see how long I could hold it before the wheels came off the cart.

 

I blew my race plan from the outset. I felt pretty good at the pre‑dawn start and for the entire first half, which was run in a southerly direction down a string of beaches into a cooling 5‑10 knot headwind. So I let myself push the pace a little. Every mile in the first half was faster than my race plan. They ranged from 9:23 to 9:50. My half marathon split was 2:06:20. I knew I was setting myself up for probable problems later, but just wanted to push the pace to see how long I could maintain it.

 

Shortly after the half marathon point, the course left the beaches and headed inland for a couple of miles. After that, the rest of the race was run in a northerly direction, which took away the cooling breeze. The temperature continued to rise into the low 70s with the mid‑late morning sun beaming on our backs. My splits steadily slowed as I tired and overheated. I realized after 20 miles that I was on the verge of hitting the wall hard. So, I started walking a minute at each mile marker, plus through the water stations. After 23 miles, I increased that to a minute of walking every half mile. My splits deteriorated to as slow as 11:30.

 

I finished in 4:27:54 clock time (4:27:33 net time), which was about a minute faster than my “Kentucky windage” projection. I was satisfied that I did about what I expected, but I ran a lousy race. Huge 15‑minute positive splits. I really think that I could have run closer to 4:20 with smarter race execution and might have run under 4:20 if we had had yesterday’s weather today.

 

I haven’t run a marathon this poorly and hit the wall so hard since my third marathon in 1984. And I can’t blame it all on the weather and lack of preparation. I simply deviated too far from a responsible race plan.....I blew it. I just took this race too casually in all respects and paid a price.

 

OK, I’ve done it once.....never again. Next time I’ll follow conventional advice and avoid stepping into a tough race very unprepared or deviating from a logical race plan. Just color me foolish, even stupid, for this one. J

 

Jim2

 

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