Houston Marathon - Marathon #19

Houston marathon - Marathon#19

Untrained and sore from a half marathon the day before, I finished my first marathon about 4 years ago in Disney World.  As soon as I finished I was put into a wheelchair and pushed away to the medical tent.  The next quarter mile took almost a half hour to walk with every volunteer asking if I was okay and I struggled with walking for 2 days afterwards.  I ended up injured for the rest of winter and spring, not being able to run more than a mile.  You think an experience like that would have ended my marathon career, nope, marathon number 19 in the books!

Preconditions:  This marathon was a C race, pretty much just a workout as I am in the end of my first base building block for the NJ marathon in April.  I debated whether or not to attempt the sub 4 the day before.  I could run about a 4:20 marathon in an easy pace, attempting to run it faster would require some recovery time.  Running it easy was probably in my best interest but I was also looking for some redemption after failing big time to sub 4 during the Chicago marathon.  Plus the mental victory of getting a sub 4 could help motivate future training.  My runs lately have either been at recovery pace (11-12 minute pace at under 130 bpm), easy pace (10:30ish at under 140 bpm) and hard speed workouts.  Not having a long run at marathon pace was my biggest weakness going on to the race.  The day before I spent some time mediating which was new for me.  I got plenty of rest and did a trail shakeout run the day before where I stopped plenty of times to take photos.

Nutrition:  I did a 6 day eating strategy going into the race.  For 4.5 days I focused on raw foods (lots of greens) and then switched to eating more whole grain carbs.  I don't do the huge carb heavy dinners as I prefer having room for breakfast for race day.  For breakfast the morning of the race, I ate 1 banana with trader Joe peanut butter with flax and chia seed mix in a sprouted tortilla, 1 normal banana and 1 apple 3 hours before race start.  I took 2 hammer gel’s anti-fatigue pills an hour before race and a glukos energy gel 15 minutes before race.  Starting at mile 4 I consumed 1 huma gel every 3 miles till mile 19 (6 gels), and ate a bit of gu chews at mile 22 (more for the mental effect).  I drank 16 oz of water, mostly with the gels and took a slip of Gatorade at mile 17.

Gear:  Brooks Pureconnect running shoes (800+ miles on them), salmon hydro handset (it's a 500 ml flask in a body bottle which means it compresses as you drink, the narrow bottle mouth makes it hard to refill but I wasn't planning to refill). 

The plan - My strategy was simple, cruise at around marathon pace for about 20 miles and then run the last 10k hard.  I listened to a few running podcasts the days before the race, one that stuck in my mind was the race recap of the Bandera 100k by Mario Mendoza (who came in first).  He said he saved his emotions for the last quarter of the race and I resolved to do the same.

The course – The Houston marathon course is flat!  Only 200 feet of elevation gain, no cars cutting through the course, weather was mid 30s in the start but warmed to mid 50s by the end so overall pretty good and there was great crowd support.  Only a small stretch at mile 10.5 and around mile 16 felt empty crowd wise but overall there was a good amount of people for a non-world major race.  Your name is also printed onto your bib so people could cheer your name while you run.  The use of a huge convention center as the staging area before walking off to your corrals and as the finishing area was an awesome idea.  Helped keep you warm!

Start line – I met my friend Hong who was running the half marathon inside.  I didn't find any pins in my drop bag so I went on the hunt for some.  Lucky, a volunteer from the drop area had some.  Then the search for the bathroom.  The convention center had quite a few real bathrooms but they were mostly blocked off.  I think there were port-o-potties somewhere but managed to find a real bathroom that wasn't blocked.  I borrowed a Nathan hip belt from Hong's girlfriend, I forgot to bring any sort of belt and my handheld water bottle could only fit half my gels so lucky she had an extra one.  Running with gels in my shorts is doable but uncomfortable.  Hong warmed me about a hill near the end.  In typical fashion I had no idea about anything in the course.  I just knew when looking for trail runs that runners complained about the lack of hills in Houston.  I then I hurried to my corral.  Unfortunately Hong was in corral C and I was in corral B so we split ways here.  In the corral I squeezed my way through to maybe 30 feet behind where the 4:00 pace group was.  Too many people to get closer.  They had a volunteer hold a giant sign for the pace group but as it got closer to the start time, the volunteer went away and I lost where the pace group was.  I'm going to have to pace myself.

For the first half of the marathon my focus was on form.  I kept things internal, didn't allow myself to get influenced by any external stimulus.  I focused on cadence and getting into a cruising rhythm.  A four hour marathon is 9:09 pace.  I ran my first mile at 9:10, almost perfect!  Second mile was 9:07, third and fourth were 9:10 once again.  Things were going well and I was a bit proud of myself for being able to pace so well feel.  After the 4th mile I went to get my first gel.  I struggled a bit opening the zipper on my handheld and getting gel.  It was a bit overstuffed which contributed to the problem.  My 5th mile ended up 9:18 but no worries it was the gel.  Mile 6 ended up 9:20 and I started to worry slightly.  Mile 7 was back to 9:11 but miles 8 to 13 were all around 9:20.  A lot of people in my corral passed me.  It was hard to see my cruising pace was not on pace for marathon pace but I keep the consistent effort.  It was too early to try speeding up.  I finished the first half in 2:02:37 which would have been around my PR for a half an year ago.  

After the half way mark, I felt good so I decided to speed up.  I realized that I won't get the sub 4 if I kept the current pace up.  I now allowed external stimulus in, stopped focusing on form and started interacting a little more with the crowds.  This made me feel better and my pace went to 8:40s.  At mile 16 on a short out and back I saw the 4 hour pace group about a half mile ahead of me.  I decided to try to catch them around mile 22.  I started passing the people that passed me as well.  I probably sped up a little too much and as I got closer to 19 miles my pace started creeping back to 9 minutes.  

I was planning to use the emotions at mile 20 to fuel a hard 10k to the finish but by mile 19 I know I was struggling.  I calculated my time and I know it was borderline so I decided to dip into this well now.  I really needed to make it to mile 24, from there I should have enough motivation (from being almost done) to do a final burst of hard effort.  To dip into the emotional well I simply think of family, friends, teammates.  Some people called my name out which helps.  There was a stretch by memorial park where they played music on speakers which also helped (I don’t run with music).  I probably went to using my emotions too early and started fading by mile 24 but I knew I was close to getting the sub 4 and I was going to make full effort to getting it.

Around 40 kilometers (about 1.3 miles left to finish), I told myself family, friends and I started kicking.  I always been good in being able to kick at the end but this time I feel like I dug in deeper than before.  My mind went full focus into running.  I didn't feel hard breathing or fatigue, I just imagined the finish line just around the corner and focused on getting there.  At mile 41 I finally caught up to the four hour group.  The space to pass the group was in a narrow chute area so I said "excuse me" as I approached and passed through.  Someone from the group said "wow" as I passed by.  I had no thoughts at that moment about passing the group but I now realized this was the moment sub 4 was in the bag.  My garmin watch has my last mile at a 5:37 pace, it's hard to tell how much of that is true since mileage is a bit over (going around people, not running tangents and such adds distance) but if it's somewhat true, it would be my fastest mile yet (my last attempt at the mile was about a 6:20 pace).

After the race, we got the usual medals, banana and snack bars and went into the convention center.  There were changing rooms, more snack bars and they also had a hot breakfast but no vegan options.  I was able to find free parking two blocks from the convention center (I did get there early though) so getting out of the area to a restaurant was quick and easy.  Overall I would strongly recommend the marathon!  My 20th marathon is the Rock n Roll New Orleans marathon in March!