Recovery week 1:

Tue: 4 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 4 R

Fri: Rest

Sat: 5 R

Sun: Rest

Total: 13 miles

Kentucky Derby Marathon Race Report

Goal: 3:10. Secondary goal: 3:20.

This training cycle didn't go well. Only 12 weeks, only 55 peak mileage, workouts goals regularly missed. So I wasn't sure what to expect, but I decided to go out at 7:10/mile pace, and we would see what happens. This one time I decided I wouldn't mind crashing.

The race was as lame as it gets. Staggered start, so you don;t know who you are racing against, and self service water stations, where you had to stop and fill your own water bottles. No sports drinks, just water. You start whenever you want (basically). I was assigned a 9am start time, but I made it to the starting area by 8:15, and they told me I could start whenever I was ready. Since the weather forecast was predicting rain, I decided to go early. I crossed the start line at 8:28.

I had two small bottles of Gatorade with me on my belt. I thought I would drink those first, and then pick up water on the way. This plan was fine, except for the added weight and inconvenience of running with a hydration belt, which is probably negligible.

I left the start line, and turned toward the first park turnaround. All excited, and helped with the downhill, I started a bit fast, but I expected it.

Mile 1: 6:49

I turned around in the park, and I moderated my pace, to ease my breathing. Everything felt OK, except that by mile 2, I somehow was 0.2 mile ahead of the mile markers according to my GPS. This discrepancy stayed for the whole race. This is not a huge difference, but it is very suspicious that it happened basically in the first mile. I think there was a misunderstanding between course marking and measurements. I feel like we really run a long course this time. Perhaps they measured the distance of River Rd, and marked the course on the Louisville Loop. The difference would be about right. All the splits below will be GPS splits, and my total distance will be 26.4 miles.

Mile 2: 7:11

Mile 3: 7:09

We went up the bridge, and I made sure I didn't push hard. But you don;t want to slow way down, either.

Mile 4: 7:23

Down the bridge, turn on the street by the river and just continue. Trying to remind myself that this must feel easy.

Mile 5: 6:46

Mile 6: 7:16

This was the first time that we ran on a bike path with all the half-marathoners and this sucked. In normal races, even if you run in a crowd, after the first few miles, you run with people with similar pace. Not here. I had to zig-zag around slower runners, even walkers.

Mile 7: 7:17

Not sure what happened here - maybe straight roads, or less crowds, but somehow I sped up a bit.

Mile 8: 7:06

Mile 9: 7:09

I felt good, my breathing was easy, but for the first time, I had to stop for water. I picked up a bottle from a table. I tried to unscrew the cap, and drink from it - I did manage, but it's not a substitute for a paper cup. Finally I had to stop briefly to load the water to my belt bottle. I must have been pretty fast otherwise, because even with this, my next mile split was

Mile 10: 7:21

Mile 11: 7:08

We were getting close to the far out point of the course. Some mild tingling of tiredness started to get to me. Bad sign.

Mile 12: 7:11

We reached the far out turnaround point here. When I turned, I decided that I must take the miles between here and mile 20 quite easy. I knew that my starting tiredness is very early, and it would bite me bad at the end. But I couldn't avert the disaster.

Mile 13: 7:19

Mile 14: 7:20

I still fell strong, and these miles felt easy. It was just my experience that told me that the trouble was coming.

I stopped for water again, and I wasted about 30 seconds here. I had trouble removing the cap from the bottle, then fumbled around the with my belt bottle and the water bottle. Of course, the people who this mattered was a tiny minority of all runners - for the half-marathon, you can easily carry enough water (or you don't even have to drink very much), and the majority of the marathon runners run-walk, or just run the race casually.

Mile 15:7:41

I focused on easy breathing and thinks were OK, but it was surreal to image that more than 10 miles were left. I felt like I could do 2-3 more, but 10 seemed a lot. I started to compute how fast I would need to run the rest for my B-goal, and that still seemed easy at this point.

Mile 16: 7:11

The next mile was slightly uphill, with bad traffic and some mild headwind.

Mile 17: 7:33

I still reminded myself that I must take it easy until mile 20. I started to feel that regardless, it will be the end for me anyway.

Mile 18: 7:28

Things started to unravel quickly. This was a well predicted wall that I was hitting hard.

Mile 19: 7:48

We went up the bridge again. This wasn't unexpected, and though I wasn't fast, I could still run. In fact I was expecting here a Boston style meltdown, which didn't come.

Mile 20: 8:36

Down the bridge, I felt downright fine.

Mile 21: 7:27

The next part just got to me. It was under the interstate, a really ugly part of the city. All concrete, homeless people and trash all around. Only marathoners did this last loop, and the majority of them were walking. I just focused on keeping running.

Mile 22: 8:02

Mile 23: 8:08

Things started to turn really ugly here. I didn't have enough willpower to get over it. My legs felt jelly, I had trouble breathing, everything is in pain. Full blown bonk set in.

Mile 24: 8:35

Mile 25: 8:51

We had a few small hills for the end. I was so finished. I kept calculating what my time would be if I walked from here. But I didn't.

Mile 26: 9:20

To add insult to injury, I knew I had 0.4 miles left, not 0.2. I summoned my last piece of energy to jog to the finish line.

Last 0.4: 8:21 pace

Total time: 3:20:21.

It seems like this is 19th overall out of the 460 weak field, and 3rd in my age group. I do not deserve any of that.

This was somewhat expected after the weak preparation. It is disappointing that I started out my training with hopes of 3:05, and I couldn't even run 3:10 (or 3:20). Also, my last 3 marathons ended very similarly: crashing and running a 10-minute positive split (actually Boston was even worse).

This gives me strength to continue. Recover and start training for the fall. Let's regain the lost glory. Let's run a strong marathon for a change.

Week -1 may have been the crown jewel of this crappy training cycle. I had to skip my Monday run, because I had a COVID shot and I just felt quite crappy all day. Even Tuesday morning I was not 100%, but I decided I should be good for my track workout.

It didn't go well. I had 4 x 1200 for the day, and I thought maybe I should be strong and recovered enough to run them at my VO2 max, which I though was around 4:32/1200 m. I ran the first in 4:30, and I felt perfectly fine. The second was OK for two laps, and then something hit me. I finished it in 4:33,but I knew I was in trouble. The third and fourth were 4:41, 4:47, and those were the best I could manage. Who knows why. My legs felt jelly, my stomach was about the erupt, and I couldn't breathe.

I'll get my exercise induced asthma checked out after the race. Maybe I just couldn't get enough oxygen into my body. Something changed after my early summer illness. But it is also possible that it's just age, and gradually worsening systems.

With the skipped run on Monday, I only ended up running three times. The second was a recovery with strides, and the last one was a 12-miler today. At least this one felt very easy. I almost felt refreshed at the end.

The hay is in the barn. Marathon week follows now.

Mon: 6 R

Tue: Dress rehearsal: 7 w/ 2 MP

Wed: R

Thu: 5 R w/ 6x100

Fri: 4 R

Sat: Race

I have finished week -2, but I'm not getting any faster. The two workouts this week was a 5x600 (2:12, 2:15, 2:15, 2:16, 2:13). No real paincave, except for the last lap. This is not bad, especially two days after a 20-miler. ~53 VDOT.

But that's not my actual fitness for sure. My 5-mile LT run kind of sucked. Splits were 6:32, 6:39, 6:55, 6:41, 6:35, but the last bit was way too hard. This is lower than 52 VDOT. Granted, the terrain had some rolling hills, there was some wind, and over 70 degrees, but these are week excuses. In reality, the neighborhood course is not hilly, the wind was not strong at all, and 70 degrees with the sun setting is not hot for just a 5-mile effort. I didn't feel great during the day (almost passed out a few times when standing up quickly, so I may have had some blood pressure or hydration issues), and I didn't feel great during the run either.

For my long run, I checked out the marathon course. I got lost 3 weeks ago on my 20-miler, but this time, I've found the trail. I do like it, but it's not flat. I picked up 325 ft elevation in 16 miles. I felt tired, but not exhausted by the end, despite this being less than 24 hours after the LT run (which was also a total of 9 miles). So this was, by design, on tired legs.

Next week taper starts, but some hard workouts remain to be done.

Mon: 7 R w/ 8 x 100

Tue: 8 w/ 4x1200. Let's try to run the 1200's at real VO2 max: 4:32. This will be hard.

Wed: Rest

Thu: 5 R w/ 6 x 100

Fri: Rest

Sat: 12 MLR

Total: 32 miles

After the slower 4 x 1200 (see last post), things got a bit better. I felt fairly fresh all week, and I ran a fine 20-miler on Saturday. Average pace was 7:48, and I felt fairly strong all the way to end, except maybe the last mile.

BTW, hydration is a huge problem with most water fountains and bathrooms still closed and you can't just walk into businesses any more for water like we used to. On my Saturday run the only water fountain I had was at mile 5, and the same one coming back at mile 15. The only reason I survived is that it was pretty cool (55-60 degrees). Unlike last week.

Training gets gradually easier from here, but there are still some hard workouts.

Week -2:

Mon: 8 w/ 5x600

Tue: 6 R

Wed: Rest

Thu: 4 R w/ 6x100

Fri: Tune up race, but I'll just do another 5 mile tempo, or maybe 6, if I feel really good (unlikely). Total of 9-10 miles.

Sat: 16 L

Total: 43-44 miles

I guess the main feature of this week is the lack of a medium long run midweek. That would hopefully make me fresh for Friday. We'll see if I can do something reasonable. I might just try this on the track.