The Marathon

Background:

Back in my 20’s (and early 30’s) I frequently said I’d run a marathon someday, but not until I felt like I could do it in under 4 hours. Then, seven years ago I ruptured my left Achilles tendon, had a horrible rehab, and said it was clear that I would never manage a marathon. A couple of years after the rupture, I tried running a few times, and developed tendonitis in my right Achilles. My doctor told me not to run anymore, and for a couple more years I didn’t. Then I went to see a sports Dr, who told me she thought I could try running lightly, get PT, orthotics and start gradually. I did start slowly, and last year I ran my first half marathon in 1:51. I’ve continued to have some pain in my right Achilles, but not as bad as when I saw the sports Dr, and my feeling was that if I was ever going to run a marathon, this was the year.

Training:

I’ve been training since January, using a modified Hidgon Novice 1 program, modified to add another 20 miler, and one very low mileage recovery week after the first 20 miler.

I set my goal to 4:10, and was planning to run at 5:55/km (9:32/mile). This seemed like a conservative goal, but in the last weeks I’ve wondered if I could hit it, some of the runs have been tough (but the weather has been brutal this spring too).

The Race:

I couldn’t believe how nervous I was yesterday. My wife said I looked green – and I thought I was hiding it well! I was worried about everything, and just wanted to get started. I did sleep some, but not much, and got up at 3:45 to have breakfast 3 hours before the 7AM start. Last minute panic, I realized I was on the wrong side of the barricades from the bag check, and had to jump the barricade, and run to the bag check as the national anthem was being sung. When I got back in (jumping the barricade again), I realized I was lined up too far forward. I did move back some, but wound up around the 4 hour crew.

The start was ok, and as expected a lot of people were passing me. Just before 10:00 in, I heard what sounded like a heard of elephants coming behind me. Turned out is was a 4 hr pace bunny, doing a 10 min run, 1 min walk, and just after passing me they started to walk. I moved left, and saw another 4 hr pace bunny, doing a continuous run. As the 4 hr bunnies & crowds moved in front, I decided to see how their pace would feel, so I started to run about 30 meters behind the big mob of 4 hr runners. It was nice there, lots of space since most people around that time seemed to be flocking to the bunnies, and I stayed there for a while. I hit the 10k mark at 56:22, about 3 min too fast, but feeling great. So I kept following the pace bunnies, wondering what the average pace should be for that goal, and held that position until the 20 km mark. Around 13 km my right Achilles started to hurt, but it never really got much worse than it was at that point. The second 10 k took 56:54, I was hit the halfway mark with an average pace of 5:35/km(9:01/mile).

Just after the 20 km mark, I realized I had slowed, and picked it back up to a comfortable pace. This is when it got strange. I passed both 4 hr pace bunnies and their crowds. Now I was worried, but feeling good, and there was lots of space in front of the 4 hr crowd too. The third 10 km took 55:44, and I started to pass lots of runners. At this point I was waiting for something bad to happen, I didn’t really think I could hold that pace. The next 10 km took 56:11. I was dog tired at this point, but knew I could make it. My average pace in the second half was 5:25/km (8:44/mile) – a negative split!!! My finish time (chip) was 3:56:51. I had a smile on my face from about the 10km mark till the finish, and kept hearing people yell at me to keep smiling. It was a great day.

My legs are very sore now, and my right Achilles isn’t happy with me, and is swollen and a bit red. So, I have no idea if this will be my only marathon (hope not), but if it is, I can live with it.

Five Days Left

Five days till race day and I'm feeling pretty good. Nervous sure, but physically pretty good. I've had heaps of energy on my last couple runs, 12 km Sunday, 5 km this morning. There's still a bit of a twinge in my right Achilles, but it isn't bothering me during my runs. I'll plan to keep icing it every evening, and doing some stretches during the day. It doesn’t really feel any different than it did when I started training, so I'm hopeful that it won't be an issue.

The forecast for Race day is currently around 5 degrees C at 7AM, with a high around 20 degrees. I'm trying to figure out how to dress for the start. I tried doing my run this morning in shorts and a singlet, with the temperature at 4 degrees C (wind chill of zero). Short summary: I need more clothes than that at the start Sunday, my arms and hands were frozen.

Again with the Shinsplints

I went out for a tempo run Wednesday evening. The plan was to go 15 km, 4 km easy up to the trans-Canada trail, 7 km tempo on the trail, 4 km easy. The tempo pace should have been at 5:25-5:30/km. We had some rain Tues & Wed, so the path was a bit soft. Being my usual bone-headed self, once I got into the tempo portion I picked up the pace, and was running around 5:10/km, then 5:05/km, finally was running around 4:50/km. At the turn around point I was heading into a fairly stiff headwind.

Somewhere around 9 km, my left shin got very painful. The rest of the run wasn't much fun. I'm sure this was a result of going too hard.

I'm kicking myself for not writing down what I did to rehab my other shin in March, but I'm going to try to write it all down now. I found that it took about 3-4 weeks until I was completely comfortable on it again.

1st, icing:

I used a dixie cup frozen, and rubbed it over the painful area for about 10 minutes. I did this daily for about a week.

2nd, stretching:

I found some articles mostly in the forum post linked below, the ones I used were:

1. Lie down on back, extend 1 leg up in air, wrap towel around ball of foot holding onto both ends of towel. Pull one side of towel and it will turn your foot that direction, hold for 30 sec. Pull on other end of towel turning foot opposite direction, hold for 30 sec. Do several times a day. Your ankle is staying at about a 90 degree as you turn the foot inward or outward and your leg is extended straight up. (3x/day)
2. Calf stretches against a wall (2x/day)
3. Eccentric calf stretches on the stairs (2x/day)
4. Sitting stretches: While sitting lift legs onto toes, hold 2 sec, drop feet down then raise toes off ground, hold 2 sec. Do this for about 30 seconds (many times/day).

3rd, Slow Down:

I did my 1st run 2 days after the pain started, but only 5 km on the treadmill and very slowly (6:15/km). I didn't do any runs faster than easy pace for the next 2 weeks.


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Runners World Shin Pain Forum Post

32 km

I did my first 32 km (20 mile) run last Sunday. I kept the pace down, and it took me almost exactly 3:15. I was quite surprised by how tired I got around the 14 km point, but this gave me a good chance to try out a Roctane. The Roctane gave me exactly the kick I needed. All in all the run was pretty uneventful, yes I was more tired than I wanted to be, especially in the last 10 km, but I never felt like I was going to need to stop.

I had Gu's at 6, 15, and 24 km, and think that's about the right spacing.

27 times two

I spent last week in San Diego. I did 3 runs there, heading from the convention center north along the harbor. All of my runs started by 5:30 AM (ouch), and I did 6 km, 13 km, and 8 km. The views on the 1st two just before sunrise were amazing. When I had a view to the south, I could see downtown across the harbor, surrounded by the glow of sunrise. There was a crescent moon just over downtown as well, it was absolutely remarkable.

Then I did a 27 km run yesterday. I felt really sluggish the whole time, which seems consistent with the 6:12/km pace I put in.

The 54 km I did last week is a new record for me.

Shinsplints

On Sunday I did a 24 km run, my longest run ever. Almost everything went well, with the exception of my right shin. My shin was a bit sore for the 1st couple of km, then stopped bothering me. Everything seemed fine until around 16 km, then my shin started to hurt a couple of inches lower than the initial pain. The second time around it was much more uncomfortable. From that point until the end, my shin continued to hurt - not badly enough to slow me down, but it was pretty uncomfortable. The run took me 2:25, and the second half was a bit faster than the 1st. My shin was sore for the rest of the day, I did ice it, wrap it, and take some Vitamin I.

Yesterday I did a lot of stretching, and iced it again. That seems to have helped some. I ran 6 km on the treadmill this morning, and my shin wasn't too bad. I'm planning to take tomorrow off from running, and then run again Thursday. Hopefully Thursday will be around 12 km.

Brutal

Tonight was one of the toughest training runs I've ever done. I should have paid more attention to the Weather Network's "Wind Warning," that was in big bold red letters on their website. The temp was just below freezing when I started, with the wind coming down from the N-W. I headed north to start off into the wind, and almost gave up after 2 km when the lid of a trashcan flew past me in the opposite direction, at waist level. Signs were blown down all over the place. My left quad and right ankle were quite sore. It dawned on me near the end that the reason I was getting so sore was that I was constantly off balance. At one point with the wind at my back, I was actually slowing myself down, rather than pushing myself forward. I did the full 11 km that I was planning on, but it was just brutal.

Checked when I got home. Wind was at 50 kph, with gusts up to 90.

Schedule

I've been following one of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon schedules for the last couple of months. I've modified it a bit by adding an extra 2 weeks to give me one more 28 km run, and one really easy recovery week. I've also modified it a bit to account for the fact that I'll be out of town for a week, and don't think a 26k run is possible while traveling.

Here's my current plan (distances in km):

Back to Training

I've circled the 2009 National Capital Marathon on my calendar.

I'm training now, using a slightly modified version of Hal Hidgon's Novice marathon plan. I'm changing one run per week into a tempo or race pace run, and instead of running 3 days in a row mid week I'm going to put an extra rest day in.

It's too early to say whether this is a realistic goal, but I should know more in a couple weeks - I have a 15 km run this weekend, 16 km next.

Assuming I manage to complete the training, I'm going to use a conservative time goal, probably around 4:15.