My First Marathon

Oh look, I have a blog....that I totally ignored for the last 2 months. My bad :) Actually quite a lot has happened since I last wrote, but there's really one one story that deservs an update. Back in October I wrote a blog post about signing up for my frist marathon. Well my friends, that marathon happened. and here's what I've got to say about it.....

Sometime when I was a kid, I decided to add completing a full iron-man race to my list of life goals. I think it was just watching the pure emotion pour out of people as they crossed the finish line that got me, and I just knew from that point on it was something I had to do before I die.

I’m a swimmer, I swam competitively my whole life, I bike a lot too, but running (distance running), well running is by far my weakest of the three sports. I’m not the kind of person to do something just to finish it either, I get competitive with myself and make goals to go after, it’s not enough for me just to finish, I have to race the clock. I knew that if I had any hopes of not only completing an iron man, but in a respectable time, I’d have to really focus on my running. So last fall I signed up for my first running race of any kind, a marathon.

For lack of any better option or knowledge at the time, I decided to follow one of Hal Higdon’s free online marathon training plans. It was 18 weeks long, and would take me farther that I’ve ever ran before. I was nervous about the weekend distance runs, but had no other option other than to tackle them head on and learn from my experience.

You’ll be amazed at how fast your mind switches on you as to what is considered a distance run vs. a short, easy one. When I first got going I remember thinking to myself “okay, 9 miles, you can do this, you can do this!” – then about a month later after I had gone into the 15-16 mile range, I thought to myself, “only 9 (or 11) miles today? That’s easy!”

I battled a couple injuries, did research on them, talked other runners with more experience than myself, and got myself through it. About 3.5 weeks ago, I peaked with a 20.6 mile run, which was tough as hell. The last 4 miles of that run were incredibly painful (though I had no idea at the time what pain would actually feel like on race day) and it made me a little nervous about not being able to even come close to my goal of a 3:45.xx marathon. I kept with the plan though, and eventually tapered down and rested my legs accordingly.

Race day came and I was surprisingly calm. I kept expecting butterflies to fill my stomach in the days leading up to the race but they never came, which I was really thankful for. Also, the weather ended up being perfect last week and on race day, which helped a lot. Before I knew it, I was in my corral and the gun went off. The first few miles were a little tricky to find my pace because of all the people around, but I just focused on controlling my excitement and trying not to go out too too fast. The one thing I didn’t really enjoy was running alongside ½ marathoners at the same time. They were speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, stopping, etc. and then a lot blew by me at mile 12 as they were heading to their finish. I never really got used to it, but after I made my turn to start my second half of the race, it was a totally different race. There was very little crowd support for the full marathoners, and it became totally mental. I’m glad I trained without any music because not having headphones in let me settle into a rhythm amidst the (mostly) empty course.

Once I hit mile 21, I was encouraged, because I ran 21 miles much faster than I had ran my 20 mile training run, and I was still feeling alright. Mile 23 was a different story. I really started to struggle to keep my pace at this point, and while I never hit or found “the wall” I did begin to feel the pain. Miles 24-26 were probably the most pain I can remember feeling in a long, long time. I would keep closing my eyes so I wouldn’t see the road stretching out in front of me, and I’m pretty sure I went to some pretty dark places in my mind. But I didn’t stop. I knew I had to keep moving forward if I had any hopes of nearing my goal.

I kept hoping there would be a mental burst of energy that would kick in towards the end, but unfortunately that never happened. The last .75 miles were tough, but I was able to pick my pace back up closer to my race average. Eventually I turned the last corner and could physically see the finish line about 100 yards straight in front of me, and dug as deep as I could to try and finish strong. I’m pretty sure my form was way off and I looked like a total goober, but I finished. I came in at 3:46.17…..18 seconds off my goal. But you know what? I’ll take it! I came far closer than I thought I would, and despite 2 slow miles towards the end, I ran a pretty good and consistent race that went almost 100% according to plan.

Of course now I have my sights set on higher goals (will be shooting for roughly 3:35.xx next time around), which I think is absolutely obtainable with my new knowledge and experience of what it will feel like in those closing miles. I also now know that I need to focus a little more on running hills during my training. All in all the entire process was a fantastic experience and one I can’t wait to repeat, over and over again.

Iron man, here I come.

(Official timing chip)

(Click 'view details' for the mile by mile stats)

Full Marathon, It's A Go

A full marathon has been on my list of races to complete for quite some time now, and I've never gotten around to researching it some more until lately. I have 3 race goals for next year, 1) a full marathon, 2) complete a half iron-man, and 3) complete the Shenandoah Mountain 100 [100 mile mountain bike race], of course these are all stepping stones to my real race goal of completing a full iron-man the following summer. For those unaware, an Iron Man is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. Yea.

It's very true that it if you have you eye on an event or race, the best thing you can do is to just sign up for it, because otherwise you'll keep putting off the training and then flake out and never sign up. By signing up first you force yourself to develop some sort of training schedule or regimen, so that you can put it a solid effort on race day. Welp, I'm officially signed up for my first marathon. It's going to be on Saturday March 17th, 2012, here in DC, and it's called the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon USA. I've heard of the Rock 'n' Roll marathon series before, but this is the first time it's coming to DC. I'm very excited and curious at the same time. Excited because I know I'll have to keep my butt in excellent shape all throughout the winter and excited to cross this one off the list, but nervous because I still don't know how it's going to feel when you're searching for strength as you pass mile marker 20, and realize you still have 6 more to go. But there's only one way to find out!

I've found a decent training schedule that lasts 18 weeks leading up to race day. That means that my training schedule starts in just over 2 weeks from now. The details of the schedule can be found here, and there's a screenshot of the mileage and corresponding week pictured below. I'm not going to be starting my training from scratch though, since I've remained fairly active and in shape this whole summer and fall. In fact yesterday I strapped on my trail shoes and got in two nice laps around Burke Lake totaling 9 miles, and a pace much faster than I anticipated on being able to run, encouraging! One day and run at a time though, and hopefully come March 18th, I'll have some excellent news to report!

Rough outline of training schedule. [Click to enlarge]

Yesterday's 9 mile trail run.

Trail Running & European Workouts

I'm still trying to improve my running game, but unfortunately there's not a ton you can do to help with the boredom of running on the road....except to go off road! Trail running is a good bit more adventurous and fun, and I find that my time on the trails goes by much much faster than it does pounding the pavement. There's really not a whole lot to think about while on the road except for how much farther you have to go. This is not the case while on the dirt and gravel trails. 

When trail running, your brain is so active looking at the ground in front of you, looking out for roots, sticks, rocks, holes, horse crap...yea, and so on and so forth. With your brain constantly looking out for things for you to avoid stepping on [or in,] the time seems to fly by and you're wondering how you got to the end of your run so quickly. It may not be quick in the actual sense, but it feels like it. I went ahead and ordered some snazzy new kicks for trail running, and they arrived last week, and I got a chance to take 'em for a spin the following day. Below are my new trail shoes from Pearl Izumi, and my Garmin Connect summary of the quick trail run. 

New kicks.

Bull Run.

So as awesome as the Garmin Connect website is, it's had a few glitches recently, and I just have to share this next bit. While uploading one of my bike rides last week, I noticed two new activities in my account which I didn't recognize, so I clicked on them to try and figure out what they were. Turns out, apparently I've done some slowwww bike riding right on the Switzerland/Germany boarder, and another ride in Germany kinda close to where we used to live in Bonn. I have no idea where these workouts came from but my guess is two seperate people over in Europe are missing their workout summaries, and probably wondering where the heck all their data went! Check em out below!

GPS Softball

Last night was the second week of the season for our men's spring softball team. And while chatting with a few of the guys during last weeks games, somehow the topic of GPS running watches came up, and I mentioned how I had one of the Garmin one's. I said I thought it would be funny to wear it during a game to see what it looked like....so that's exactly what I did. I brought the watch to last night's games and put it on for just the first game. I paused the timer when I was just sitting in the dugout waiting to bat, then started it when going up to bat and when out in the field. [Can you guess which positions I play?] Here's the usual quick glance at the summary. Although I highly recommend clicking on 'view details' on this one to expand the view on Garmin's site. Also, click on 'aerial' view so you can actually see the field.

Unfortunately for me, I played awful last night [at least while batting] so the majority of the lines are either my playing in the outfield chasing fly balls, or running from home to first base, and then back to the dugout. If you expand onto the full Garmin site, and then click on on 'player' in the upper right hand area, you can then hit the 'play' button and see an animated tracking icon follow all the lines as the game progresses. At any rate, I thought it would just be interesting to see what it would look like, and see how well the watch works in other situations rather than just running. Also, I hit a top speed of 15mph running to first base. I know I can run faster when not running through dirt in cleats though, so I may have to clock myself using the watch since every time I try and run past a temporary radar clocking station it never seems to pick me up. 

......I wonder what else I could use it for? Suggestions?!

Road Bike Weekend

We had great weather this weekend, and I did not let it go to waste. On saturday morning, I headed out to join the Bike Lane group road ride. This was only my third week joining that ride, and already I can tell a bit of a difference in my legs and how well I can make it through the ride. I've really enjoyed these rides so far, and although I wont be able to make it the next two upcoming weeks [I'll be in Colorado!] I'm looking forward to the next time I can get out there with the group. Here's a side by side comparison of the three rides for the previous weeks.

[Click to enlarge]

The middle ride is a bit of an outlier, since I got separated from the group by accident, got lost, and the wind gusts were up to 50mph. Not so much fun. But if you look at the first and third rides the big differences are the time it took to ride, and the average mph. I rode about 15 minutes faster with an average speed about 1.5mph faster as well.

Yesterday was even better weather with temperatures approaching 60 degrees with nothing but sun outside. So in the afternoon I headed out to the W&OD trail for another 30 mile ride. I parked in Vienna and rode all the way out to Carolina Brothers in the Ashburn area, turned around and headed back. The ride back was faced with a lot more head wind, and when your legs start to get tired towards the end of the ride...it pretty much stinks. Anyways, I rode by myself, and there is quite a difference between that, and being able to ride in a group to draft off the folks in front of you. For the Tour de Cure ride in June, I think I'm going to up my distance to the 100 mile ride, so I'll definitely need to work as a team with the other guys to minimize fatigue throughout the day. Anyways, here's a snapshot of yesterdays W&OD ride.

[Click to enlarge]

What outdoor activities did you get to do this weekend?

Upping The Distance

Since I've been trying to run more frequently [thanks to my cool little running watch], I decided it was time to start upping the distance of my runs little by little. Previously, I was running just over 4 miles per run, nothing huge, so yesterday I had planned on running roughly 5 miles. I was coming to the end of my run and realized I was about 1/10 mile short, so I did one extra lap around the block to get over the 5 mile mark, and ended up just a hair short of 5.5 miles. I know it's not a long run by a lot of people's standards, but it did feel good to run a little farther than normal. I'll probably stick at this distance for a little while, until I feel comfortable upping the distance once more. 

Also, I ran this one at a slightly slower pace, to try and keep my heart rate a little more in check with where it ideally should be. Throughout my whole life and during strenuous exercise, my heart rate has always been slightly above average. Even when I was in peak swimming shape in college, after a hard EN2 set, my heart rate would be somewhere around 205-210bpm [and this was when I was in the best aerobic shape of my life], I don't know why, but it's always been like that. During some of my previous runs and rides, I'll feel pretty good and move at a decent pace, but my heart rate goes right back into that 'too much above my max' zone. Let's see what happens when I run at this slightly longer distance, but at a slightly slower pace for a little while. 

At any rate, the weather yesterday [and today] have been a God-send, so I'm taking full advantage of it. Run yesterday, and another long ride planned for the morning. Here's a snapshot of yesterday's run. Happy Friday folks!

Yesterday's run, [click to enlarge.]

66 Run

I went for another run this afternoon out to 66 and back from my house, it was a little bit longer than the previous runs (not by much though) but considerably faster than my last run of 4+ miles. I'm getting better! If I'm able to keep up 3 to 4 runs a week, and as my legs start to adjust to the increase workload, I'm going to start upping the mileage of the runs little by little. Here's a quick comparison of the 3 recorded runs thus far [click to enlarge.] 

Oh, and at the time of this run, it was about 28 degrees outside. :)

Garmin Watch, Lorton Run

I went for another run this afternoon, this time just some roads down in the Lorton area. I didn't go quite as far, but I definitely ran faster and much harder this time around. Let's see if I can keep this up!

Just for fun, here's a side by side comparison of the two runs. I'm really really digging the Garmin Connect website as I discover more and more features. [Click to enlarge picture]