Tucson Marathon 2009

Good morning yesterday

you wake up and time has slipped away

and suddenly it's hard to find

the memories you left behind

(song by Nichols and Lane, sung by Joanna Wong - thanks Elaine!)

Luckily we have blogs these days. At least some ground truth for epic experiences like my struggle to come to terms with marathoning.

The good? A spectacular sunrise (captured on my iPhone) 4500 ft (1400m) up at the start in Oracle. What an awesome start and a dream course. Eliminating the Biosphere deviation (2008) meant uninterrupted panoramic vistas of the Santa Catalina mountains coming down Oracle Rd after mile 10.

(This course is nearly as good as when I ran it first in 2006 when there was the luxury of finishing at the Hilton El Conquistador.)

Also good. I bought a new pair of shoes after briefly trying them at the marathon expo on Friday. Newtons. They're quite different from ordinary running shoes. (And priced quite differently too.)

Decided against conventional wisdom to chance them on Sunday for the event. The soles of my feet haven't had the chance to get used to them but they're a dream shoe if you have decent running mechanics.

The final good thing was that I finished. Just under the psychologically important 4 hour mark. You can all stop reading here.

What follows below is a core dump for when this event becomes part of the "misty yesteryears" (song reference).

Time

3:57 bracket. This was my slowest Tucson marathon out of the three I've done.

(In fact, I had a minor heart attack when I looked at my iPod and it said 4:15... turns out I'd left it running after crossing the finish line. Have always been looking to improving not sliding backwards. That would have been a major bummer. Glue factory thoughts. I've never done a marathon over the 3:59 mark, and I really don't want to start now.)

A tale of two Tucson marathons

(2008) Last year, I had nearly enough endurance but I noticed didn't have speed. Although I was unhappy that I faded late in the marathon, still I managed to post an almost respectable 3:41 time. (See report here.)

(2009) This year, I had no opportunity to do long runs. Instead, I hoped 30 min sessions with speedwork on a treadmill would address my lack of speed last year, boost my aerobic capacity and substitute for endurance. Outdoors, I ran 10Ks once a week to save time. The result? I ran with good form for about 18 miles and then suddenly crashed to a limp and robotic shuffle as my leg muscles locked up on me. Last 7 miles was excruciatingly long and pathetic. 3:57.

A Stupid Exercise

Afterwards, I realized this was a stupid exercise. I was also 3 kg overweight (good food in Doha). There is nothing heroic about completing a marathon when one's muscles have quit. It's extremely dispiriting to have to walk unnaturally mile after mile. And the damage to the undertrained and overworked muscles is counterproductive to recovery and fitness anyway.There is no point in entering.

Completing it in just under 4 hours: there is simply no value to this experiment. I've done the "just under 4" before. What possibly more could I learn? I really wish I hadn't run it this year.

Lessons for the Future

Memo to self: I believe there are two necessary and sufficient components to a successful marathon. One is sheer aerobic capacity from speedwork. The second is muscle endurance from long runs. Having just one out of two will only get you so far. But not having the 2nd will result in a total collapse like this time.

Speedwork can compensate for lack of endurance to some degree. In fact, I believe simple speedwork can substitute for half-marathon fitness. But there is something special about the marathon distance: 42.125 km or 26.2 miles of pounding overwhelms ordinary, everyday fitness. It imposes an endurance demand on the human physiological system that requires specific training.

Another way to look at it is total workload. A marathon is about 3000 kcal for someone of my weight. A 10K is about 800 kcal's worth. There is no way you're gonna scale up from 800 to 3000 kcal on race day.

Memo to self: Put another way, if you haven't put in the miles, don't bother to show up. Seriously.If you're gonna show up, respect the distance.

With that in mind, let's roll on and look forward to a decent showing in the Tokyo Marathon (2010)...

[Update: A week later, my left calf muscle is still hurting and my right knee (outside) twinges now and then. Simple overuse injuries. Definitely overdid it.]

another year: another post-marathon blues

	I ran the 2008 Tucson Marathon this past Sunday. It's my second attempt at Tucson. I first ran it two years ago, establishing a true baseline time for my first year as a runner: 3:51. (See off-blog write-up here to see why.) The course is a bit different this year, finishing up in the town of Catalina instead of Oro Valley:
[At mile 26. Nearing the finish line. Picture courtesy of Jim Montgomery.]

I'd say it was definitely harder due to the rolling terrain to the BioDome and back out to Oracle Rd. And I finished with a better time: 3:41.

Still I'm disappointed. Why? Well, look at my split times:

I was on 8:07 pace until mile 19.3. Then I started walking and hobbling alternately for over an hour until the finish. And that put my finishing pace in the toilet, so to speak. But this wasn't meant to happen this year. I thought I'd fixed that.

Last year, I was bummed because despite training specifically for a marathon, I was shocked to have gone improbably slower in Phoenix (3:56) than my first attempt at Tucson - which I didn't do any marathon-specific training for. (See PF Chang post-mortem lament here.)

This year I'm bummed because 3rd time around I thought I had fixed the PF Chang problems: specifically, an inadequate number of long runs.

In short, I believe I trained well this year. I always start at the end of August (beginning of the Fall semester). Indications were excellent. I met my weight-loss goals: I was lighter than in the previous two seasons. PR'ed every one of my training runs by a significant margin. Faithfully showed up at the midweek training runs. Completed all the weekend long runs except one.

Unfortunately, I did pick up an overuse injury in my lower right leg 4 weeks before the marathon, which I traced back to an over-exuberant training week back in October in which I ran 6 days in a row. That week I was running so well, I decided to run extra. Yeah, it was stupid. I blame the endorphins.

However, I was careful to rest my injured leg. I basically cut out all training runs except the long weekend run. And I was able to complete those. I thought I had kept my endurance.

And for the first 18 miles of the Tucson marathon, I was going exactly as well as I had predicted. Just over the 8-minute mile mark. I wasn't stressed. I was steadily running a minute-a-mile faster than 2 years ago. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I could have gone a bit faster.)

And then I fell apart all of a sudden. I went from running to walking. I had plenty of glycogen left. After all, I was quaffing strawberry cliff bloks like candy. No bonk possible.

But then I started feeling my injured leg stiffen a bit. That's not so bad I thought: I can manage one dodgy leg. But then my uninjured leg started cramping and seized up. Electrolytes perhaps? Anyway, the result was another meltdown:

Sigh. How many years will it take? When will I get the training and race day execution right?

A few things are clear:

1. I need to find a training program where I can pile on the miles and not get frustratingly injured. Injury is definitely a limiter in marathon training.
   (Someone just told me about Jeff Galloway's run/walk philosophy.)

2. Maybe I need a running season longer than just late August to December, i.e. come in with more base.

3. I could do with some speedwork. I only managed one speedwork session all semester.

Until next year when I get to try this all over again...

P.S. This year, they had disposable timing chips. Just a printed label that wrap around the shoe laces:

No need to cut the chip off at the end of the race. The underside contains just a simple induction loop: