Is the runner in your life a data geek? Read on.

I ran the California International Marathon (CIM) a week ago, and I have been trying to understand the wealth of data available to me.

My coach has yet to return from Australia where he competed in the Western Australia Ironman, so I have not had the chance to get his analysis of my race results. But as I picked at the details, there were some things worth learning.

• CIM’s placement of timing mats on the course is messed up, particularly at the 20 mile mark. This makes for some bad surprises in online tracking.
• I seem to be unable to walk and chew gum at the same time. More specifically, when I am sucking down a gel, my pace seems to get really slow.
• My Garmin’s heart rate monitor is pretty much useless in the opening mile or two of a race.
• I am a huge victim of addled brain syndrome in the last few miles of the marathon. My questionable math skills are totally useless when suffering through those last bits of the race.

Tracking errors

In 2009, a friend could track your progress live on the internet as you moved along the course, thanks to chip timing and well-placed sensor mats along the course.

	Calculated	Reported
6	0:47:17	0:46:57
13	1:42:14	1:43:46
20	2:38:30	2:42:50
26.2	3:29:45	3:30:14

 

The glaring bogy here is at the 20 mile mark. My Garmin reported a time which is four and a half minutes earlier than was reported on the website. This is the difference between a 7:55 minute per mile pace (comfortable for meeting the 8:00 minute pace) and an 8:09 average (which means disaster).

In fact, I had a friend who was tracking me live on the internet and sent me a direct message on twitter:

oh no – you are getting slower… I’ve been tracking all morning – you started so fast… run, run, run

This was because he saw my pace go from 7:50 to 7:55 to 8:09 at the 20 mile mark. How in the world was I able to make up so much time, and finish with a 7:58 pace?

Problem? CIM doesn’t put the 20 mile timing mat at all close to the 20 mile mark.

In fact, they have a big archway at “20 miles” which is decorated as a wall, and is hung with advertizing. This is to commemorate the fact that a lot of runners get to about 20 miles into the race and feel like their legs are made of concrete. It’s like running through syrup.

In this year’s race, the “wall” was a good 3 or 4 tenths of a mile past the actual 20 mile mark. Of course, this can make your internet friends question whether you are fading.

Sucking GU makes Dave slow

My coach wanted me to consume about 150 calories per hour, and wanted me to take my customary GU gel during my warm-up before the race, and then every our on the :50 minute mark.

But I notice that the miles I was sucking down the GU are some of the slowest in the race. In fact, the miles at :50, 1:50 and 2:50 are on average nearly 30 seconds per mile slower than the other miles of the race, if I throw out the first and last miles.

Average non-GU miles: 07:52
Average non-GU miles: 08:19

This was a pattern I noticed on some of my long runs too. I just don’t seem able to coordinate my gels and running. I’ll need to talk this over with my coach and see if I should just walk while I am GU-ing to keep my pace up.

You make my heart race

In order to avoid being in oxygen debt, my coach wanted me to do a well structure warm-up before the race and to avoid going too fast in the opening couple of miles.

This meant keeping my heart rate below 150 beats per minute in the opening miles.

But as I started the race, my heart rate comically soared into the 170s, no matter how slow I went. Was my heart really racing so fast?

I decided that I must be picking up heart monitor signals from other runners who were close packed with me. In fact, my Garmin reports that my heart rate maxed out at 179 beats per minute for the first two miles of the race, which is well above my anaerobic threshold of 166 BPM.

Of course, this also made it impossible to figure out if my heart rate was below 150 BPM, so I quickly gave up on that piece of advice and kicked into my goal race pace, which I hit in the third mile.

Marathons make you smarter … NOT!

I remember in the final two miles of the race feeling a little too good. I checked my watch when I hit mile 24 and it looked like I had 19 minutes to run the last two miles and still meet my goal of 3:30. Hey, I can slack off to a 10 minute per mile pace and still be OK!

Well, it’s a good thing that I only relaxed a little, to about an 8:10 pace. When I got to mile 26, my watch showed about 3:27:30.

Holy cow! I forgot about the last 385 yards!

Of course the official marathon distance is 26.2 miles, not 26. So I had about 150 seconds to run the last 385 yards.

Needless to say, I “sprinted” the best that I could, and ended up finishing with over a minute to spare. But this lack of math ability nearly cost me my qualifying time!

The rest of the numbers

As I mentioned before, CIM is a highly competitive race. When I looked at my results in comparison with the rest of the field, it’s sobering:

Top third of men ages 45 to 49
Top third of all men
Top fifth of all finishers (nearly)

Here are the rest of the miles. I’ll be interested in seeing what these numbers mean when I sit down with my coach.

Mile	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Comments
1	08:09.09	169	Heart rate too high, must be proximity to other runners’ heart rate monitors
2	08:03.68	162
3	07:42.75	154	Smooth sailing
4	07:43.44	155
5	07:48.09	156
6	07:49.96	157
7	07:51.86	156
8	07:59.20	156	Some slowing / higher heart rate. Taking my first sports gel.
9	07:54.94	158
10	07:48.42	156	Smooth sailing
11	07:45.42	155
12	07:54.92	155
13	07:41.76	156
14	07:54.69	156
15	08:28.76	156	Significantly slower. Long uphill, headwind and taking gel
16	08:05.38	155	Getting back on track
17	08:01.61	156
18	07:53.97	156	Smooth sailing again, but heart rate creeping up
19	07:53.95	157
20	07:58.36	156
21	07:58.47	157
22	08:27.89	155	Significantly slower, taking a gel again. Is this a pattern?
23	08:00.03	158
24	08:08.99	157	Took a caffienated gel to make last miles easier
25	08:08.99	159	Watch reads 03:11. It looks like I have almost 20 minutes to run two miles and can slow down.
26	08:10.64	160
26.2	07:59.00	165	Last two tenths I realize I need to sprint to get done in time.

Does the runner in your life seem satisfied but pensive and thoughtful? Read on.

I have always said that the main reason I race is to set some kind of goal for my running. Running is an efficient way to get needed exercise for good health, but it’s tough for me to get out there and put in the miles without some kind of goal staring at me.

If I’m signed up to run a 26.2 mile race, it’s a lot easier to justify the effort to get out there and run.

So you would think I should be satisfied with just running races and be happy with it.

But eventually, the idea of chalking up just another race failed to get me excited.

So, faster races. First goal: run a marathon in under 4 hours. It took 13 races and losing a bunch of weight before I finally ran a 3:50 race in Sacramento. (Number 12 was actually a maddening 4:01 in Tucson.)

The next goal was to qualify for the Boston marathon, the quintessential goal of every mid-pack long-distance runner. This took me until marathon number 16, which I ran last Sunday at 3:29:40 in Sacramento again. Before that, I was fraught with all kinds of doubts:

• Is it physically possible for me to run an 8 minute average pace for over three hours?
• Could I do the needed training without getting injured, as had happened to me repeatedly. As much as I enjoy running, I hate being sidelined.
• Did I have the mental toughness to actually run so fast for so long? Or would I crumple under the mental pressure and pain, as I had before so repeatedly?
• Later, when I hired a coach to help me qualify, would I be willing to follow his advice or would I believe myself to be smarter and ignore it?
• If I was able to conquer the physical and mental challenges to get ready for race day, would I be hit with enough “unlucky” circumstances to fail to make the goal, things like bad weather, course problems or medical issues. How many times would I continue to try to qualify if I never made it?
• Was the goal really important enough to me to sacrifice for it?
• Could I be happy if I didn’t achieve this goal?
• And as Deb would point out, if I achieved this goal, what’s next? Continue to try to qualify at every race? Slow back to my original pace? Stop running?

So now that I am here, what’s next? What’s the next running goal?

• I really miss doing my training runs with my friends. I had to do a lot of runs at a faster pace, so I did them alone. This really isn’t my idea of fun. So there are strong reasons for slowing down.
• Should I try to push the pace faster? Marc Frommer thinks I could have run a 3:25 under better conditions. Should I try for a 3:20 or faster? Is there really more speed in these legs? Seriously, I’m not getting any younger here, is there room for more?
• And the all-important financial question, should I continue to retain my coach?

So… what’s next?

I have been keeping track of my lifetime marathon finishes. Here is the latest, updated version, based on the results from Sunday:

So far, the trend is on a positive line for the past few years. Some lowlights:

• My Personal Worst is the Baltimore Marathon in October 2001 (yes, just after September 11). This was the inaugural year for the race, the course was very hilly. And, oh yeah, I had walked the Portland Marathon with Deb just three weeks before.
• My next worst came in May 2005 in the Fort Collins Old Town Marathon. In spite of the 2000 foot elevation drop, the high altitudes, high winds and my not being ready for the race really affected my times.
• There is a gap from December 2006 to October 2008, why no marathon? It’s because I attempted the Newport Marathon in June 2007 but only completed half of it – my first DNF. The injury was a tough one to get over.

 

Below is a chart which shows how the entire field of 5845 finishers of the California International Marathon

I’m also highlighting how a few of my friends finished.

Having looked at several of these before, you can see that there are “peaks” that are well aligned with the various qualifying times for Boston. In other words, there are people hauling fast to get done under the wire so that they can qualify.

Another note – with the difficult conditions, you should be impressed at how many runners finished in under 3 hours. In fact, Jerry finished in 3:01, but he finished 17th in his age group (men aged 50 to 55). Wow! That’s competitive!

Today I ran the 27th California International Marathon (CIM) from Folsom to Sacramento, 26.2 miles of fun. Here are the highlights:

• BQ, baby! (explained below)
• For those with short attention spans, I was training to finish in 3 hours and 30 minutes, a qualifying time for me for the Boston Marathon. My Garmin said I finished in 2:29:44. “Gun time” was 3:30:15, but Boston counts “chip time” (which should be closer to my watch). Anyway, Boston gives you a :59 second grace period, so I’m good either way.
• Edited to add: The CIM website lists my official finish time as 3:29:40 (chip time). So, according to me if anyone asks, my PR is 3:29.
• For such a good result, I am grateful to (in this order): God, my coach and my wife.
• As I crossed the starting line, the announcer intoned, “…and may God have mercy on your souls.” I appreciated the sentiment, if not the sarcasm.
• I heard it was 28 degrees at the start under clear skies. This made it nice once the sun came out, but then so did the wind.  As a Sacramento Bee Blogger reported, “the runners were cursing it.”
• I was surprised that a guy ran into my feet twice in the first mile. “Hey! Watch out!” I finally said. He apologized and darted around me, but he was clearly trying to pass people quickly.
• Best costume: This guy (photo from the Sacramento Bee). Hot pink gloves, arm warmers, singlet and shoes, and a matching tutu. When he passed me, I asked if he had lost a bet. He said, “several”.
• For the first 14 miles, I ran a conservative race, sticking closely to my goal pace. But around mile 13, I noticed my right hamstring start to get sore. At one point I thought I might actually pull my right hamstring again and have to pull out of the race. I prayed that it would hold together!
• I fought the wind several times, but it turned really nasty in a long uphill at around mile 15. My pace dropped by half a minute per mile average on that mile and took a mile to recover.
• At mile 16 or so my right Illiotibial Band started to ache. What a pain in the butt! (Literally). Actually, I seem to remember that the last time I ran CIM in 2006, my IT band started acting up then as well.
• Although there is a net 300 foot drop in elevation, there are a lot of rolling up and down hills through the course. Although my pace suffered in the uphills, I was able to go ahead in the downhills, so it balanced out.
• Other than the wind tunnel at mile 15, I was able to maintain my goal pace of around 7:55 for until mile 22, when my average pace dropped off again to almost 8:30. These two slow miles are where I took my gels and electrolyte tablets, so it seems like I have trouble maintaining pace when I do this.
• Mile 23 to the end showed paces that slowed to around 8:10, but it seemed like I was going to qualify, so I slacked off some. At mile 24.3, I took a caffeinated gel (an espresso Hammer Gel) to make the last few miles go easier.
• The last 385 yards of the race (from mile 26 to 26.2), I was worried that I was going to miss my goal time, so I started really kicking it up, and even sprinting to the end. A good thing too, since I came fairly close to missing my time.
• I followed my warm-up, hydration and nutrition plans exactly as directed by the coach. Since everything worked well enough, it’s yet another reason to be grateful to him!

I try not to let my obsessive tendencies take over. But darn it, with my 16th marathon coming up in three days, the first with my new coach, I have more than the usual list of things to dwell on morosely. And now that I’m in the terrible taper, it’s a grand time to fixate.

• Running Form – When a runner gets exhausted, their form breaks down. Ironically, it takes more energy to run with poor form, so good form = less energy used.
• Good posture – is my Dad reading this? He has complained about my posture for my entire life, and now I realize how right he is! Good posture leads to good running form. Remember: my Dad saying, “walk a-proud, son”.
• Caloric intake rate – I need to take in about 150 calories per hour during the race. I will burn more calories of course, but I shouldn’t be burning more sugars than this. My coach has changed the timing of when I take them in although not the quantity. Remember: new timing for taking Gu
• Hydration intake rate – New guidance for me is to take in 24 ounces per hour of fluid. I can’t possibly carry this much with me for 3+ hours of running, but I will carry maybe half of that, the rest will be from aid stations on the course. Remember: Drink enough
• Hydration timing – there are 18 aid stations for the 26.2 miles of the California International Marathon. This means that they don’t come along at every mile, and the distribution is uneven (they come closer together towards the end of the race). How do I time drinking from aid stations versus drinking from my own stash?
• Drink Mixing – I carry Accelerade and the race will have Ultima Replenisher available on the course. These are completely different drinks – Accelerade has 80 calories per 8 ounce with a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio and Ultima has only 10 calories per 8 ounces. Both taste pretty nasty, and totally different from each other. I will have to mix the two during the race, so it’s something to obsess over. Remember: don’t biff with different fluids
• Electrolytes – although the fluids I will be drinking have salts and potassium, I like to take a salt tablet (Enduralytes) about once per hour to prevent cramping. The coach thinks I could down a couple and be fine. Remember: my salt tabs
• The Weather – “everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Current forecasts call for partly cloudy and 38 degrees at the start. The rain earlier predicted is likely to wait until Monday. But what about wind?
• Pants – I intend to wear a couple of items I picked up at the recent Portland Marathon expo. One of them is a pair of shorts with special back pockets for gels (in fluorescent green). I wore these for my 20 mile training run, so they should be fine, though the pockets interfere a little with my Amphipod belt.
• Shirt – I plan to wear a technical fabric short-sleeved shirt – black for heat retension, with flames in the armpits. (This is kind of a good-luck shirt for me). Because the temps will be a little cool at the start, I plan to wear the other Portland expo new item: black arm warmers from Pearl Izumi. Remember: Don’t freeze
• Socks – will be my usual Injinji toe socks. Not too much to obsess about, other than forgetting them.
• Shoes – My usual Mizuno Wave Inspire shoes seem to be showing some tread wear, but they seem to be working fine, just filthy still from running Hood to Coast.
• Pre-run Warm-up – my coach has fully programmed the 20 minutes before the race start gun, down to the minute. Remember: Everything I need to do before the gun
• Race pace – I have done enough race-pace miles that I should be able to be OK here. But too often, I tend to do my race-pace miles too fast. If I run an intelligent race, I should be OK. But too often in the last 15 marathons, I have failed to keep my pace under control and gotten into trouble. Remember: don’t run too fast.
• Heart rate – although I want to meet my race time goals, I have advice to watch the heart rate for the first couple of miles to make sure I don’t get into oxygen debt. Remember: Don’t go crazy fast at the start
• Having a “Plan B” – if the race doesn’t go as planned, how do I react to stay on track? Will I have enough presence of mind to know how many minutes I can add or subtract from my pace to hit my goals? Remember: Don’t charge after the pace group.
• Breakfast – Although I plan to eat exactly the same breakfast I normally eat, this will be at 4:00AM, and the race starts three hours later, at 7:00AM. Should I bring along a snack to snarf down before the gun?
• Pre-race dinner – I’ll be downing a carb-rich dinner on Saturday night at around 5:00PM. But since it will be at a local restaurant, there is always the chance that the kitchen staff will not follow cleanliness rules and I will wind up on the pot. Not a good outcome. Unless I buy my own dinner and microwave it in my room, I don’t think I can do anything about this. Remember: Don’t get sick
• Pre-race fuel triggering – I have been following the advice of some elites to do my carb loading only on the day before the race. Start the morning with 2 to 3 minutes of all-out running, which should make my body want to acquire carbs.
• How many carbs? – I read recently the advice that a 170 pound person should take in 850 grams of carbohydrates on the day before the race, representing 90% of calories for the day. Interesting, but I’m not exactly how much food this is, so I need to do some more obsessing planning.
• My spiritual state – am I at peace? Do I sense God’s pleasure when I run? Or am I so stressed about things to stress about that I miss out on the great blessing of running even one 26.2 mile race, much less one which could qualify me for Boston?

Comparing phones, originally uploaded by davest.

at John st clairs house.

Are you wondering why the runner in your life seems so crabby? Read on:

Preparing to run a 26.2 mile marathon is all about tearing down the body through exercise and then using the body’s natural process of healing during rest build strength.

This stress/rest cycle should happen on a weekly cycle (with planned rest days) through the entire training program. But rest is also used to prepare for race day itself. This is done usually in a gradual reduction or “taper” from peak exercise down to race day.

So the idea is to build up to a maximum, then taper down. This results in:

• Monster Month – the last month before your marathon taper. This usually contains the most weekly mileage, the longest long runs and the deadliest track work.
• Peak Week – the Carnage Hall of Monster Month. The most of everything, more miles than any week during the training program.
• The Taper – After Peak Week and Monster Month is a nice gradual reduction of effort, usually over two to three weeks.

So you can see why a runner might be a tad grumpy during Monster Month. But they ought to be much more friendly during the taper.

Not so! Even though the lower mileage and stress of the taper is a nice reprieve, the lack of running starts to take a physical and mental toll as well. Running is often a great way to absorb the excess adrenaline of modern life. Less running means runners feel the effects of stress more, until the final week when the runner’s brain is full of phantom doubts, pains and worries. The actual starting gun of the race becomes a relief!

Since I have a marathon coming up on December 6 (the California International Marathon in Sacramento), I am finally past Peak Week and on to the taper.

• Last week’s long run was 20 miles, this week’s is 13, and on down from there.
• Previously I would try to average 40 to 45 miles per week, with a Peak Week of 50 to 55 miles.
• This time around, working with my coach, I have been averaging 36 – 38 miles per week with a peak of 42 miles.
• For the past three or four marathons, I was running a lot of 20+ mile long runs, sometimes as many as 5!
• This time, my coach only has me doing a single 20 miler.

In spite of fewer miles run, and fewer “20s”, my times have actually been improving far better than before. And I don’t feel like I’m constantly aching from running. And as an added bonus, I think I am probably less snarky.

Conventional wisdom says you can count on improving your running for about seven years. Beyond that, you probably can’t count on improving. It’s more likely that your times will degrade as you age.

I have been running marathons since 1998, 15 races completed so far (and one I DNF’ed, which I don’t talk about). This means I have been running for 11 years, so am I out of luck?

After the first marathon, I had a goal to finish a race in under 4 hours. It took me 8 years of running to get there. The next logical goal seemed to be qualifying for the Boston Marathon. For men of my age, this requires finishing in 3 hours and 30 minutes, about an 8 minute per mile average pace for 26.2 miles.

My first attempt to train for and race a “BQ” was in June 2007. The result of this training was a “Did Not Finish” on the race and a serious injury that took 6 months to recover from. Talk about an epic fail!

After recovery from the injury, I improved my times to 3:47 and 3:44. Could I hope to improve to 3:30, since I have been running for longer than that seven year magic number?

I started working with a coach (Mark Kendall, of SpeedSHOT Racing) in May of this year. Instead of wondering if I could improve, I’m amazed at how much has changed:

• I’m drinking a lot more fluids – hydration is super important in running, and I thought I was drinking enough, but apparently I wasn’t. I now drink three times as much fluid as I used to, and it keeps me from fading in the later miles of a run.
• In addition to core strengthening exercises, Mark has me working on upper body strength. I’m doing pushups regularly now, maybe for the first time in my life. It really improves my running form.
• I’m eating more than I have been, to try and build some muscle mass.
• My running posture is totally different now. This alone accounts for a significant improvement in speed. (I’m also standing a lot straighter than I used to).
• In only six months, my aerobic threshold has improved by over a minute per mile.  This is apparently the point where the body starts burning sugars instead of fats. Below this pace, you have a lot more fuel to burn and can run a lot longer.

So there is actually quite a lot which has changed for me, even though conventional wisdom would suggest that it’s impossible!

Milestones moments. I think I just had one.

Think about those times in your life when you prepared yourself and worked towards a goal. The goal has not been achieved yet, but it’s in sight.

When my daughters walked forward to get their high school diplomas, I knew they hadn’t “arrived”. It was like my own high school graduation. There were many more milestones to come. They might even (perish the thought) stumble before the next milestone. But there is a sense that someone (in this case, the school district) is saying: “You’re ready!”

Many couples stand before the minister or magistrate and declare their intent for a life-long marriage commitment. If the pastor or priest has done their job right, they have spoken with the couple and assessed their seriousness of intent and ability to commit. Although many marriages end in divorce or unhappiness, that promise, sealed with a kiss, is an affirmation: “You’re ready!”

Maybe it’s the driver’s test or the training certification.  Perhaps it is as humble as the food handler’s license. No guarantee of success, but someone has basically said it: “You’re ready!”

I just completed another 20 mile run over the weekend, leading up to a marathon on December 6. And sent my times and heart rates to my coach.

My goal this time is as clear as I can make it: to qualify for the Boston Marathon. This requires me to run 26.2 miles in under three hours and thirty minutes.

After looking at the weekend’s numbers, and using my latest aerobic testing results, my coach’s mail said those two magic words: “You’re ready!”

So much could go wrong in the next three weeks. I could get a serious injury or an illness. On the day of the race, I could have a gastric problem or the weather could turn nasty. (Or the darn Boston Marathon could fill up, I suppose). No guarantees. But at least, I’m ready.