Post Mortem: or Don't Run With The Skinny Chick (She'll Hurt You)

I couldn't stop thinking of her last night.

All night. She trouble my sleep. The trim, athletic girl with the beguiling pony tail who drifted in and then out of my marathon day.

Don't get me wrong. I wasn't consumed with fevered desire for the leader of my pace group. I think a team of Swedish lingerie models with a supply of Cialis would have found me unresponsive last night.

No. It definitely wasn't desire. I was overcome with pain from trying to keep up with her. She went out at 3:35 pace when I would have been lucky to finish in 3:40 with all the stars aligned. Every time I moved in my sleep, the pain woke me.

Post mortem means, "after death." That's a good title. I'm dead. I.Can't.Walk. I managed to PR the marathon and the Houston course by about 4 minutes and 20 seconds, but once again I used my patented negative-negative split method. (TM) Run stupid and then die for the last hour of the race. Specifically, if your goal pace is 8:23, run 8:17 in the hillier first 10k, 8:15 from 10K to the half-marathon point, then slow to 8:52 from 21k to 30k, and 9:31 through to the end.

Then again, I had always envisioned death as being the end of pain. If so, this hurts way too much to be death. That was the most painful race of any type that I have ever done.

The pain or injury that I experienced in my legs back in November/December never totally went away. I babied it in training so that it was never acute and I could fool myself that the problem was healed, but it was there hiding. At the race, I started having pain in my calf and some in my hip flexors associated with uphill running approaching mile 7. That's a bit early in the race to start worrying if your chassis is going to go the distance. I think I altered my stride to deal with it, and by mile 18 I had no stride left. I was pounding along on stiff stumps rather than gliding with an efficient stride. If I tried to lift my heel and pull my knee through, both calves would cramp and threaten to end running altogether.

Essentially, I think the nature of the program and the quasi-injury caused me to peak early. I could have run faster and better back in December or November when I was running times consistent with a 3:40 marathon. I had to ease off, resulting in a taper that was too long, and lost some fitness, which I then squandered on race day by not racing smart.

So, I survived. I'm pleased with the PR, but already thinking how I could have done better. For my own benefit, and for those who are slaying their own marathon demons, here is my version of "If I had it to do all over again," beginning in training and going through race day.

1. Train Harder (kind of): How can I possibly say "train harder" when I hovered on the brink of injury? Well, I'll get to that. On race day, I felt like I had enough aerobic capacity for my pace until the very very end. The problem was muscular endurance sufficient to maintain pace without pain. If I were coaching me, I'd prescribe more muscular endurance training: long tempo runs above race pace, more extended runs at marathon pace, and generally increasing my long run pace by running more of my long runs with groups of runners faster than me rather than lollygagging through long runs listening to my Ipod.

2. Train Smarter (recovery): The reason I started to break down, I think, is inadequate recovery for my age and station. When doing run-focused training, my body was telling me I need a genuine recovery week, with dramatically reduced training, every third week. I think this would allow me to absorb more intense training without getting hurt and continue raising the peak instead of peaking 6-8 weeks before the race and feeling chronically tired and achy into race day. So, I needed to go harder when training, and rest/recover more effectively when not training.

3. Train for Efficiency: On my last marathon PR, I think my stride was much more efficient, in part because of running drills that I included in the program. I didn't do those faithfully this time. I need to be able to start with an efficient stride and then maintain that stride for longer. So, running drills, maybe the Striding On program, and work on core strength, such as with the "Pedastal" program.

4. Run Your Own Race: I don't think I'll rely upon a pace group again. This one went out too fast. Since the first 7 miles of the race have most of the grade changes, that was even more costly than simply running a few seconds per mile too fast. That said, I should have just realized what skinny chick was doing and cut her loose. I didn't. I hung with them for more or less through the half-way mark, and the damage had been done. Even when hanging with them, it did not feel natural to alter my stride or tempo over grade changes to maintain spacing rather than just do my own thing and keep even splits from mile to mile. So, the hard pace felt even harder. Especially on the Houston course, it would work better for me to go out easy through the first hills, gradually come back to the goal pace during the middle miles, and hopefully place myself in the position to run harder from 20 miles on in.

So, there it is. Live and learn.

Now it is triathlon season. I wonder if I can still swim?

One Day: Why

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life."

----Theodore Roosevelt

Two Days: Food! Glorious Food!

So, yeah. Carbs made their reappearance into the pre-race diet in the last 24 hours. I lurves my quinoa and my rice and my spaghetti. And I immediately felt better physically. But also gained about 2.5 pounds overnight, after having maintained a constant weight during Christmas, the subsequent vacation, and even during the marathon taper. How is it possible to eat one wafer thin mint weighing a mere ounce and balloon up more than a kilo.

OK, so that was an exaggeration. I had Chinese food.

And red beans and rice.

And Quinoa and black beans.

DON'T JUDGE!

Next to the marathon expo to get my number and gorge on all the toys and trinkets, like a sugar-highed kid in a candy store.

YIPPEEEEE!

Three Days: Dress Rehearsal

This morning was my final run before the Houston Marathon, so I thought it would be a good day to do a dress rehearsal.

The first part of the dress rehearsal was just the running part. I ran from the gym out onto the course and then traced it back all the way to the finish line at the George R. Brown Convention Center, a route I never run during the prep for the race. I was able to notice some physical cues that will help on race day about my rhythm, breathing, and (strangely) relaxing my feet to smooth out the gait. Knowing the way my little brain works when it is under stress, I also picked out my 200 yard goals that I can achieve in the last 2 miles of the course (run to the top of the rise, . . . to the traffic light . . . to the Hyatt sky bridge and turn left . . . down past the Shell building to Pennzoil and turn right, . . . to the crane . . . to the parking garage . . . to the finish line). It was kinda fun to visualize the day of the race, where I hope to pick up the pace, refuse to let anyone else pass, and kick for home. Mental practice.

The other part of the dress rehearsal was actually doing the "dress" part, and I found out "what not to wear." I'm trying to come up with a plan of how to deal with a really cold start line, the chance for warming during the race, and yet "don't do anything new on race day." I like the way tights feel on my legs, and they don't get too hot, but after 2o miles they have a tendency to chafe some very odd places on the . . . on my . . . well, on the wobbly bits. So I experimented with going Speedo under the tights, thinking this would preserve, protect and defend said wobbly bits.

FAIL

So help me, God.

Dave Scott and Mark Allen notwithstanding, men were not intended to run in Speedos--even Speedos concealed under running tights. I'll just leave it at that.

So, the plan--especially if you are local and might try to spot me on the course--is to go to the start gate with a long sleeve to discard and loose running pants that I can chuck just before the gun or leave on as conditions dictate. If I keep the pants, I'll have running shorts I have used on long runs. Up top, short sleeve red top that will be high viz in the crowd. For warmth: arm warmers, black skull cap and black gloves I can chuck or hand off when it gets warmer.

Oh, and plenty of Body Glide, especially on the chestal area. With temps in the 40s, it is going to be Nipperific.

Four days: SHUT THE F*** UP, JOELLE. JUST DO IT.

You know these two--Bob and Jillian, light and dark, sensitive and coarse, good and evil, yin and yang, matter and anti-matter. They are the two halves of the guilty pleasure that is The Biggest Loser.

But last night, we risked the creation of a black hole sufficient to suck down the known universe when matter and anti-matter collided. Bob, in his words, was possessed by Jillian Michaels. He melted down and went "China Syndrome" on Joelle, a contestant that was faking positive outward talk to cover up that she was really quitting on the team.

Check it out:



Bob's meltdown is now my mantra.

Like everyone, I've got my own negative head talk that tempts me to pull back before giving it my all. I can cover it with words, or try to rationalize. But on Sunday, it's time to

SHUT THE F*** UP.

NOT ONE MORE WORD.

JUST DO IT, JOELLE.

JUST DO IT.

THREE . . . TWO . . . ONE . . . GO.

Five Days: Conditions Are Perfect

So, my last marathon, in Florida, was a hot and humid, Equatorial Guinean death march over four hours twenty minutes long.

Thirty minutes slower than my PR.

And then the next week they ran the Houston Marathon in perfect conditions where I KNOW I could have PR'd, had I not just flogged myself in Disneyworld.

But I haven't been obsessing about the weather.

Much.

Or long.

Sersly. I only checked it 8 days before.

And seven.

And six.

And I only checked here.

And here.

And here.

Looks like the consensus is for cold temps at the gun, right about 40 degrees, with highs no more than the lower 60s.

Meaning it should be no warmer than the mid 50s when I finish.

By 10:40 a.m. or earlier.

Conditions are perfect. It's Business Time.

Six Days: You Might Be Tapering If . . .

You might be tapering if:

1. Everything hurts. Everything. Feet--from the little bony parts to the stiff plantar fascia parts. Shins. Knees. Quads. Ass. Groin. . . . . Teeth. . . . . Eyelashes.
   
2. Your hypochondria knows no bounds--to the extent that you can't tell what part of the pain is real, what is psychosomatic, and you think you feel a sinus infection coming on but refuse to go to the doctor for fear that he'll confirm your worst fears.
3. It could be a tumor.
   
4. You feel like a cripple getting out of bed every morning and groan so loud you get "shushed" by your spouse.
5. It takes you 40 minutes of running before you even warm up enough to feel like you have a stride and can breathe normally. You wonder why anyone would run six miles and then order a side of 20 to go with it.
   
6. Doing your pre-load scrub of carbs from your diet makes you crave them even more--you want a carb so bad it would be justifiable homicide to shove a child into traffic for their bag of pretzels.
7. YOU'RE NOT SHOUTING!!!
8. You keep track of your pee color and your salt intake.
9. You're not crying, you just got something in your eye.
10. You dream of running someone down and ripping their legs off in the last 400 meters of a 42 kilometer race.

This is healthy, non?

Seven Days

One week from right now, I'll be experiencing some reality--finding out if my training was true, or just truthiness.

Seven days, and I'll be running the goal race that has guided my recreational hours since August.

I will look myself in the face at the starting line and inquire, "are you really willing? Are you able? Did you train with integrity, or did you just get by?"

Seven days and there will be no faking, no cramming, no room for equivocation.

The training was either enough, or it was not.

I either did it with sufficient faithfulness, or I didn't.

I will either push myself past my limits, or I will accept some perceived limit along the way.

I will either race wisely, or I will make a costly mistake.

I will either focus, or listen to voices in my head that belong to a doubting desk jockey who must be slain every time I do this type of race.

Seven days from now, the Houston Marathon will be run, and I will be one in the crowd, running alone against myself, and I'll be running together with the support of thousands, and best of all a few friends.

On paper I should be able to run about 3:40:00. Some of the speed work would indicate a faster potential, but the endurance workouts negate that. And again, we don't run the races on paper. I've never run anywhere near 26 miles maintaining an 8:24 per mile pace. So, what gets you off the paper and onto the roads? What gets your feet moving in the direction of the unknown?

Faith--But not leap in the dark faith. Faith built on workouts, past performances and pace charts, kind of like a kissing cousin of being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1)

So, I intend to line up with the 3:40 pace group, discipline my pace through the first 20 miles or so, and see who gets dropped.

Me?

Or the group.

We'll see. In seven days.