It's been forever since I've posted anything here. Somehow days turned into weeks and the holidays happened and training happened and this got neglected. But now it's time for a HUGE update.
Last spring, I set out to determine what's harder, a marathon or a half-Ironman triathlon. I did the Half-Ironman at the end of September in Augusta, GA. After that it was time to prepare for another 26.2 miles of agony and misery, or a marathon.
I read several training plans and a couple books before deciding which plan to follow and eventually settled on Hal Higdon's Advanced 2 plan. This was a 6 day a week plan, with 2-3 speed work sessions a week, and three 20 mile long runs followed by a 2 week taper into race week. The meat of the plan was a fairly long Saturday pace run followed by a Sunday long run that doubled Saturday's mileage. And some of those were TOUGH.
I also ran a couple other races leading up to the marathon, as well as something a little different as a 'recovery' race. But more on that later.
Training started in earnest the first week of October, after I took a few days for recovery post-Augusta. I was as fit as I'd ever be, and only had to worry about rebuilding run durability. I jumped right into the plan that started off with a 10 mile Sunday long run, and a 4x800 track workout 2 days later. Fun fun.
Higdon recommends racing often throughout training for a marathon, so I did that. On Thanksgiving day, I ran a local 5K with my wife. I won my age group, but the course was .3 miles short, so I can't claim a PR. However, I did go under 20:00, for whatever that's worth.
3 weeks later, I ran the St. Tammany 10K. This is a qualifier for the Crescent City Classic, so I was motivated to have a good race. I've run the CCC10K twice, and both times started in the middle of the pack, and it's miserable. There's just too many people more interested in walking and socializing to make it a race. I've since decided that unless I can get a seeded slot, I'm just not all that interested in it.
Well, I had a GREAT race, and broke my 10K PR by 2 minutes. Unfortunately it wasn't enough as I needed to go 13 seconds faster for the seeded slot. I ran a 45:12. I needed a 44:59. Blah. That said, I still felt great about my result, and saw that I was making progress towards my marathon goal.
The last race I ran pre-marathon was The Half at the Louisiana Marathon. Higdon's plan called for a 4 mile Saturday run, and an 8 mile Sunday run, both easy. I instead ran 2 Saturday and 13 Sunday. But I deliberately didn't run the Half hard.
At least that was the mindset. 3 miles in and I started running sub-8:00 miles and made it a 3 mile warmup, 9 mile pace, 1 mile cool down. It was a race. The weather was nice. And it was fun.
But finally it was time for the marathon. 400+ miles of training, 3 races, gallons of sweat, and gobs of Gu all led up to this day. And what a day it was. You couldn't have ordered better weather for a marathon. Low 40's, dry, clear, it was perfect.
My goal was to go under 3:40, which would be a 15 minute PR and 25 minutes faster than my first marathon. If everything was better than perfect, I was hoping to go under 3:30, but knew that was a bit of a pipe dream.
I started strong, running right at an 8:00-8:04 pace for the first 8 miles. Around mile 9 my gut and my legs started having disagreements, and those had to be dealt with. But once that was handled I was back on track and feeling good. At mile 16 I was on pace for a 3:35 finish, At mile 19 I was mentally preparing myself for the hardest 10K I'd ever run. At mile 21.5 I made the turnaround on the lakefront...
And ran into a wall of wind. And my legs hurt. And running sucked. And I had to fight this wind for 3.5 miles back into City Park.
And the worst part was the course went under I-610 on what used to be the cart path to the South Course, which meant an uphill at mile 25.8.
I finished at 3:38 and change, leaned on a barricade where my wife and daughter were waiting on me, and just said "that hurt". But 20 minutes later I had a beer in my hand, feeling human again, and pretty happy that I hit my goal.
At the expo for the La. Marathon, there was a booth for Q50 races, a series of trail runs from 5 to 50 miles. I got to talking to Cesar, and eventually decided to register for the half marathon, which was 5 weeks after Rock N Roll NOLA. Recovery Race. Yea.
Lemme tell ya... That ish was HARD. The course was hilly, twisty, uneven, and somewhat hazardous in a couple spots.
It was also a blast! Until the next morning when my calves were so sore I could barely walk. So I'll do it again next year most likely.
Since then, I've been running and lifting a bit for the past month, and took this week off for a mental break. In a couple weeks, I'll be starting a 6 month build to Ironman Augusta again. And I'll actually blog a bit more about it than I have recently.
Oh yea... Marathons are harder. But just to make sure, I'm registered again for RnR NOLA in 2016.. Shooting for a BQ time.
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. - Pre
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