AC Marathon recap

Another long race in the books. Overall I'm pretty content with my results and extremely proud of my wife for her race. I'll give an overview and then go into more detail below with some pictures and data.

Me: 3:05.xx (5 min off my current marathon PR - through 13.1 in 1:29)

Maddy: 4:17.xx (a 35 minute PR over 2011!)

Some background: Maddy and I both went with a somewhat minimal training plan for this race. We can pretend it was on purpose, but we started out with an idea of doing some longer runs, and they just never happened. Neither one of us ran more than 2.5 hours in prep for this. We did some back to back days - 2 hours one day and 1.5 the next - which I think really helps you learn to run on tired legs. And, frankly, I think the long marathon run is overrated! We might have gone a little too minimal because we both felt it toward the end of the race, but (on top of the 20+mph headwind the last 10k) I really don't think we needed more long miles, just more frequent miles if that makes sense. We each did three runs of over 2 hours. I think that number needs to be closer to 5-6 long runs spaced out over 8 weeks.

Anyway, I went out based on HR. Looking at my last marathon I figured I could hold low 170's for the marathon distance if I didn't have too many spikes, and that's what I did.

 

Miles - split (HR)

1 - 6:35 (175)                                                          14 - 6:39 (173)

2 - 6:52 (176)                                                          15 - 6:55 (174)

3 - 6:52 (176)                                                          16 - 6:55 (177) 

4 - 6:44 (174)                                                          17 - 6:48 (181) *too much!

5 - 7:01 (174)                                                          18 - 6:57 (181) *too much!

6 - 6:44 (172)                                                          19 - 6:58 (182) *too much!

7 - 6:45 (173)                                                          20 - 7:04 (183) *too much!

8 - 6:46 (173)                                                          21 - 7:01 (183) *too much!

9 - 6:56 (172)                                                          22 - 7:32 (187) *too much!

10 - 6:45 (171)                                                        23 - 7:58 (185) *too much!

11 - 6:44 (171)                                                        24 - 8:15 (180) *too much!

12 - 6:39 (170)                                                        25 - 8:15 (174)

13 - 6:36 (173)                                                        26 - 8:11 (173)

Finish - 3:05 (176)

Miles 10-14 were straight downwind. It was nice and easy. Miles 17-26 were straight into the wind. They HURT! I made a conscious decision to ignore my high HR and just let it go for the rest of the race. I picked off 3 people in those last 10 miles and even encouraged some of them to group up with me and run together to protect ourselves from the wind. No one would hang though. Disappointing was that I got passed (AGAIN!!) in the last mile of the race. I also had a guy within probably 100m that I just couldn't reel in over the last 3 miles. We were both going slow, but he held his distance.

I guess based on my pre-race thoughts that I earned an A-/B+ for the day. I'm capable of more, but I am happy how I ended up given everything that went in. The bottom line is that I'm fitter than I was on Saturday and ready to recover and get a nice strong off season plan underway, so I'm ready to go for IM training in a few months.

Thanks for reading!