Here are the basic stats:

Overall Place: 204 / 2353
Age Group Place: 36 / 266
Overall Time: 10:42:15
Swim Overall Place: 579
Swim Time: 1:15:17
Swim Pace / 100 Meter: 1:57
Bike Overall Place: 592
Bike Time: 5:51:27
Bike Pace mph: 19.1
Run Overall Place: 84
Run Time: 3:27:10
Run Pace min/mile: 7:55

Pre Race

Nikki and I woke up early to get our nutrition in a few hours prior to the race start.  So we were up and I was drinking my bottles of Fortify at 4:15am.  I had a little coffee and my usual 3 trips to the bathroom.  I tried to lay in bed as much as I could, but I wasn’t resting well, so I decided to get up and moving a little earlier than I wanted.  We ended up leaving our hotel to make the walk down 4th street and to the Great Lawn around 5:30am.

It was interesting walking right by the finish line on 4th street on our way to the start.  Knowing that at some point during the day I would be running (hopefully) through the finish line that was so abandoned and empty was a little poetic.  I prayed that this feeling was a foreshadow to being a part of something great.  Not only for myself but for thousands of other athletes and family members that were on their own Ironman journey.  I had a little visualization of finishing strong.

We made it to the transition area at 6:00am and as soon as we walked into the area we heard them start calling out that the transition area would be closing in 15mins.  It was very comforting to see so many friends in the transition area that morning.  Jeff, Neely and Casey were all there to help us.  Tyson was there to prep his stuff too.

The amazing thing for me was that I never had too much anxiety the couple days prior to the race or on race morning.  I attribute a lot of that to taking the time to write out my last post: Perspective, Priorities and Racing Ironman Louisville.  When you are willing to take a step back, it can really change your approach to something as simple as a race.  I also think that seeing other people completely freaking out made it easier on me to realize that I didn’t want to spend my emotional energy in that way.

Swim

We ended up getting in the start line next to Ron Shashy.  He and Nikki swam the 2.0 mile open water swim at Cave Run together, so they were a pretty good match to try and stay together during the swim.  Once the race got started, it was amazing how fast people started moving.  I got my goggles on just in time to run on the deck to try and stay in line and jump off the dock. I thought that a time trial start would create less of a crowd in the water, but I had a lot more issues swimming around-into-over people during this swim than I did at Ironman Wisconsin in 2007.

The first segment of the swim is done against the current, but I’m not sure how much it slowed us down?  It didn’t feel like the current was too strong, but I was struggling to find a straight line to swim more than I was worried about the current.  Directions I was given by Gordo after the Cardinal Harbour Race in July were:

A – increase my Monday and Friday swims so that I was swimming 4400 meters during each workout

B – Float the swim at Ironman Louisville

I continued to think about that as I was headed out to the turn around.  Not too far from the turn around I saw other athletes walking in the water.  It seemed a little odd because the Ohio River is not a small river and it should be pretty deep where there where at.  Not too many seconds after that I hit a log in mid stroke that stopped me cold.  I guess they must have been walking across the log.

After the turn around I put myself as far out into the river as I felt comfortable and could maintain my bearings.  The swim back in was fairly uneventful.  I tried to catch a few people’s feet but that wasn’t working out too well, so I used random feet from time to time, as long as I felt like I wasn’t working too hard to stay there.

T1

As I exited the water, I saw that my swim time was 1:15.  Not exactly the start to the race that I was hoping.  I thought that 1:10 to 1:15 was reasonable depending on the water conditions, so at least I was within range of what I thought was acceptable.

Jeff and Neely were again in the transition area.  As I ran my bike out to the mount line, Jeff yelled “Nikki’s about 3mins ahead of you.  She needs some encouragement!”  This was a piece of good/bad news for me to know.  The fact that I was within 3mins of Nikki coming out of T1 was either really good news for me, or fairly bad news for Nikki.  I chose to make it good news for me… thinking that it must have been a tough swim for everyone.  (BTW, Nikki swam 1:09. I’ll let her tell her story).

Bike

The bike starts out on a very flat section of the course.  Nikki and I talked on Saturday about using the terrain as a way to get our effort levels where we needed them to be, opposed to getting caught up in the race and start thinking about riding “fast”.  One sign that I knew things were going my way was when I looked at my heart rate and saw that it was below 150bpm.  This was such a good sign to see because at Cardinal Harbour I spent a lot of time on the bike trying to get my effort levels under control.

Knowing that my efforts were in order, I worked on getting comfortable and drank some water to clear out the Ohio River’s deisel fuel taste.  I also started paying attention to the power meter (that I had thanks to Alan Hawse) to cross check if my heart rates were providing the same feedback that the wattage was saying, it did.

After you get out of Louisville and onto Hwy 42 the terrain starts to become more rolling.  You are also very early in the ride when you start to encounter these hills, which can bring about bad things if you don’t have discipline and stay under control during this segment.  One of the advantages that I had was that I had been in many discussions about how to approach the race day with my athletes and Nikki prior to the race.  It was interesting to see how all the things we talked about not doing, I saw hundreds of athletes doing.

I’ll admit that it is very difficult to slow myself down climbing hills so much all the time.  Being such a light weight guy (136 pounds 2 days prior to race day), it’s pretty easy to climb some hills.  But I continued to cross-check my heart rate monitor and the power meter to keep things under a “lid”.  What was the lid?

Heart Rate – 155bpm.  I did a great job all day of not getting over this cap.  I don’t ever remember a time that I saw it over this level.  I rode between 144 and 148bpm pretty much all day.  There were brief periods that my heart rate dropped below this while I descended but it bounced back.

Watts – 210 to 220.  I was told that I should consider having a “FIRM” cap of 210 on the bike.  So when I saw the watts go over 200 I took notice, when I saw it go over 210 I would back off a little, if I saw it over 220 I did everything I could to get it back down.  Here’s the link to my trainingpeaks account the powertap file from the bike ride: Gary’s IMLou Bike

After riding about 75 miles I decided to look at my average pace to see how things were going.  It said, 18.7mph.  Bummer!  But I knew that I was riding my race and the speed was what it was.  The one thing I also knew was that I felt really good still and felt much better than I did last year at the Great Illini and at Ironman Wisconsin.  The boost to my bike came after the last turn onto Hwy 42.  There must of been a good tailwind because at the same heart rates and watt output I was flying.  It also felt nice to actually pass a few cyclists, opposed to the normal routine of watching people come by and dissappear into the distance.

Power Summary:

First Half – 158watts
Second Half – 156watts
VI – 1.08

I really like this bike course.  I also really appreciate the effort and time I have spent to learn how to descend more comfortably.  If we could find a course that was all uphill, I might enjoy Ironman even more.  The only thing about the loops that were not appealing was the big Ironman painted in the road with a large “don’t” sign painted over it.  Apparently someone doesn’t appreciate the bike traffic.

The other thing that made me nervous on the bike were all the flats.  Just after the second turn onto Hwy 42 that leads you back to Louisville (about 33 miles left), there were a ton of flats.  It made me nervous because I had a hell of a time getting the tires on the Zipps earlier in the week and I knew if I had to do it on the road, already fatigued, I might not get it done.  I have heard people say there were tacks on the road, but I can not confirm or deny that information.  If there were tacks, I guess I was just a lucky guy.

T2

Again a pretty quick and uneventful transition.  The only difference this year was that I changed out of my tri shorts and put on my RaceReady running shorts so that I could carry gels in the pockets.

Run

The great thing about being able to run well and using a conservative race strategy is that you get to the run and feel excited about what lies ahead.  As I started running, I was pretty confident that it was going to be a good day.  The weather was perfect and my legs had no sign of fatigue.

But this good feeling also made me think back to the Great Illini last year and Cardinal Harbour six weeks prior.  In both situations I had some pretty serious break downs on the run.  So even though I felt great and was moving past some athletes pretty quickly, I kept a constant look at my heart rate monitor.

I had an early cap of 160bpm on the run.  Even with this cap, I went through the first mile in 6:58.  “Yikes, that’s too fast!”  So for the next couple miles I really backed off the effort and my heart rate was sitting in the 150 to 155bpm range.  The second mile was even faster – Huh?  I’m pretty sure that the mile markers early on were not properly placed?

By now, many people know that I’m a big believer in the run:walk method (Episode 172).  And I had a plan to run:walk this marathon – so I did.  Here was the final plan:

first 10k : walk 30sec every other aid station
second 10k : walk 30sec every aid station
third 10k : walk 40sec every aid station
fourth 10k : walk 40sec every aid station or until I felt confident to rip to the finish

That’s also what I did.  I’m pretty proud of how well I stuck to the plan early on in the run because everything felt so easy.  I did allow my heart rate cap move up to 165bpm once I started walking every aid station.  What I noticed was this:

1. The longer the run went on the less my heart rate dropped during the walk portion

2. The middle of the run my heart rate would get back up to the cap pretty quick

3. The last 10k I didn’t have to worry about the heart rate cap, because I needed to work pretty hard to push it up to 160bpm… but it was possible, which wasn’t the case at Ironman Wisconsin.

4.  I walked only at the aid stations.  At Ironman Wisconsin and Great Illini, I used a run:walk method, but by the end of the run I was fatigued enough that I either had to walk longer during the aid stations (GI) or take more walk breaks (IMMoo).

Here are my run splits:
FIRST RUN SEGMENT -  3.38 mi. (22:47),  6:44/mile  (again, there’s no way this is right)
SECOND RUN SEGMENT - 8.25 mi. (37:10),  7:37/mile
THIRD RUN SEGMENT - 13.1 mi. (38:38) 7:57/mile
FOURTH RUN SEGMENT -  15.33 mi. (18:17) 8:11/mile
FIFTH RUN SEGMENT - 20.19 mi. (40:17) 8:17/mile
SIXTH RUN SEGMENT - 25.04 mi. (40:32) 8:21/mile
FINAL RUN SEGMENT - 26.2 mi. (9:29) 8:10/mile

Again the run was where I gained on a lot of people.  I came off the bike in 500th place and finished in 204th place.  Being able to run well at the end of the Ironman is a good feeling, but I still believe that there’s more in my run.  Doing the Ironman Run under 3:15 is something I feel is very doable.

Final analysis:

I love the Ironman distance.  Triathlon is a lot of fun, but Ironman is what I really enjoy.  Maybe because it allows me to never really get good at the swim/bike portions and still do ok.  I have no idea when I’ll be able to do another Ironman, but I found myself looking at the 2010 schedule the other day.  Maybe 2011 or 2012?

What do I need to do in order to continue improve my ability to race with people faster than me?  I have been told:

My hunch is that in terms of your development from here you could benefit from a run focus. For a smaller athlete there is even more upside to devoting energy to the run. However, at the paces you’re running now, you’re probably getting to that point that pure running fitness may be limiting your ability to ‘hold back’ for the marathon. While it is tempting to assess your splits in relation to the rest of your AG, it makes more sense to assess relative to others with similar body type. Generally it pays to play to your strengths.

And

The swim will be a key part of getting you up into the Top 20 in the AG.

The interesting thing as I look at people in front of me (203 of them), only 4 of those 203 people had a bike split that was slower than mine and even those times were close to mine.  I guess this just means I need to continue to improve across the board – swim, bike and run.

Good thing I love to do all three (well… swimming is a part time love).

One thing that is good about writing a race report is that you can go back and review what your thoughts were and how things turned out in the end. In 2007, I did the MedExpress Mountaineer Triathlon to check  my fitness as I got into my final days of Ironman Wisconsin training. A very similar situation to what I did this past weekend with the Cardinal Harbour Triathlon. Here’s a quote from my Mountaineer report:

The race went as well as I could have expected. After all, I did have a personal best at the half iron-distance (4:58:56). I also knew that the bulk of my training over the past 18 months has not been focused on having half-iron speed, it has been focused on having Ironman endurance.

I’ll be honest and say that I walked away Saturday morning with a little concern about how my cycling is coming around. My expectations this year were to finally focus on becoming a more capable cyclist and have dramatic improvements. After the race Saturday I was questioning what needs to happen to finally get that improvement?  I see some improvements in my training but I still seem to lose a lot of race time out on the bike leg.

Looking at my after race thoughts from the Mountaineer allows me feel a lot better. Why? Because I understood back then that half iron speed doesn’t always push out to Ironman performance. (That’s a whole topic itself.) I also know that by using the knowledge I gained from the Mountaineer, I trained appropriately the final period going into IMMoo and had a great race.

So let’s get to all the race details this Saturday:

Pre – Race: The race was in Louisville, so I decided to just wake up early and drive over.  The transition and check in didn’t start until 6:30am and the race didn’t start until 8:00am, so I didn’t have to wake up much earlier than normal.  I had all my gear ready to go and was up at 4:00am and out the door by 4:30.

Once at the race, I was pretty relaxed.  The nice thing about these races is that they don’t have an incredible sense of pressure and feel more like a fun event (which isn’t that what they are all suppose to feel like? Ton of very serious folks in our sport!).  I think that feeling probably comes from Todd and Cynthia Heady (the race directors) and their approach to hosting an event.  They are actually the people who put on the first Iron Distance triathlon I ever did back in 2006, the Runovia Triathlon.

One thing that I did notice quickly though was that the race brought in a lot more people this year than it did last year (it sold out with 300 triathletes).  And there were some fast folks lining up to start, including Max Longree, last year’s Ironman Louisville winner.

The swim: I had borrowed a skin suit to wear and practice with in preparation for the IMLou swim, but the water temperature was 77 degrees on race morning.  While I wanted to practice wearing the skin suit, I decided that the wetsuit was a better choice because I already give up enough in the water.  The swim was in the Ohio River, so it was nice to get a feel for how the current might impact the swim.  It was pretty amazing to feel the difference.  Swimming out (which I was later told was against the current) felt like a tremendous struggle.  Luckily I didn’t completely freak out or kill myself trying to “make up” what seemed to be a lot of lost time.

Once we turned around and headed back to the dock, it was not nearly the struggle and it felt like I flew back in.  I think this is a good sign looking towards Louisville as the swim is mostly downstream, with only a portion against the current to begin.

My average heart rate for the swim was 160bpm.  That’s pretty high as I normally like to swim around the 140 to 145bpm range to remain comfortable.  I was a little anxious and excited to get the race started according to my heart rate too.  When I looked at it just before we took off, it read 142bpm (and I was treading water).

Lesson for Ironman Louisville:  Easy is probably a little above steady effort at the beginning of the swim when I’m all jacked up about the race.  Anything that feels at or just above steady effort, is likely a huge mistake and may come back to haunt me, because if it feels a little above steady – it is probably closer to lactate threshold with all the other hormones mixed in.

swim time: 36:08

The bike: I knew coming out of T1 that I would need to settle things down on the bike.  So I started out fairly easy, got my feet into my shoes and just rode for a few miles.  Even riding easy I was passing a few people here and there.  As I turned off Rose Island Road and onto Hwy 42, I looked at my heart rate and saw it was around 170bpm.

That first little bit of Hwy 42 had a decent little climb, so I really backed off my perceived effort and just tried to be steady.  My heart rate obviously didn’t come down much as I rode up the climb, so I decided to make an attempt to get into a “comfort zone” that would allow me to ride better the second half of the bike.

That comfort zone turned out to be around 160 to 163bpm.  On the climbs it would creep up to 165bpm and it would drop pretty quick on the downhills.  The course was on some of the same roads that Ironman Louisville is on, so it was nice to be on them in a race situation.  While there is nothing significant to the climbs, there are very few completely flat sections.  A lot of rolling hills, but unlike Ironman Wisconsin, the rolling hills allow you to maintain your momentum and there is little technical aspects to the riding. It took me around 15 miles to completely get into that comfort zone, which is a lesson I think I’ll carry forward.

The middle 25 miles of the bike was pretty uneventful.  The one thing that I’m very proud of myself for is my descending ability.  I mentioned after the American Triple T that my descending ability really cost me a lot of time on the bike.  It came up again during our training camp the last weekend of June, so I’ve made a significant attempt to improve that ability.  Interestingly enough, those improvements have not come from spending time descending on my bike, but from my effort to re-frame my mental imagery related to descending on my bike.  This work has paid off!  I won’t go into details about that right now because I’m almost finished with another blog post to share those ideas.

The last section of the bike (once we tuned back onto Hwy 42 and headed home) I decided to give myself permission to ride a little “uncomfortable”.  What I found was that by riding just a little uncomfortable, I was able ride quite a bit faster (and I believe we had a little head wind heading home?).  I also realized that what felt “uncomfortable” the last 16 miles was just about what felt easy/comfortable those first 5 miles on the bike.  Another lesson noted.

Lessons for Ironman Louisville:  15 miles is too long to mess around getting under control.  That is approximately 45mins of time that could be used to hydrate, fuel and just be smart.  Digging a deficit that early in the bike could make miles 80 to 112 feel really rough, not to mention the run.

Fuel on bike: 3 bottles of Infinite (275 kcals/bottle, 500mg sodium/bottle)

bike time: 2:47:54, 20.0 mph / average heart rate 161bpm, max heart rate 176bpm

The run: I’m often confident in my run, so I decided to just get settled into the run early and run the loops.  I knew that I would run:walk, but decided to be agressive in my approach and only walk 20seconds per loop.

I started out wanting to get my cadence and turnover established, so I paid a lot of attention to the sound of my feet.  I also did a few rounds of footstep counting to help me get things established.  I basically just count each footstep for 15 strides and then repeat that for 3 or 4 rounds.  How do I know the number of beats per minute?  I don’t know exactly, but I have a “feel” for what is right.  I guess it is one thing I’ve carried over from all those years of percussion and marching band.

Once I got things established and I made it to the first loop, I checked in on my heart rate – 177bpm!  Yikes.  What should I do?  I never train at these intensities and I still had 11 to 12 miles to go.  “Just go” is what came out.  It was nice to feel so strong and despite the high heart rate, I felt really comfortable.  I had carried a bottle of coke with me to the first aid station (b/c they didn’t have any on the course) so I drank a little more and dropped it off at the water stop.

Out on the loops (we did 3 loops) you really got to see a lot of people so that was nice.  I tried to pick out some of the guys that I knew where up a lap on me and tried to either: A – make up a little ground on them or B – hang even with them.  The one person that I really paid attention to that first lap was Max Longree, I lost some ground to him. (ok, more than some ground).

As I turned off the last loop and headed back to the finish, I was pretty excited to see that there wasn’t a train of folks up the road.  But it also left no one for me to try and catch.  That was a good thing because I felt like the wheels were slowing down.  Around 11.5 to 12 miles the wheels just about stopped!  There were only 2 guys that passed me on the entire run and they both happened in this section of the race.  I assumed that they were both in my age group, but it didn’t matter because I couldn’t lift my effort at all to hang.  It was over as far as my output was considered.  The nice thing about my running is that I’ve been in enough situations where it’s been over and still been able to manage something.  In fact, a lot of my racing in 2008 was done to purposefully make mistakes on the run.  (Which left me dry heaving my soul out at the Great Illini where I still managed a 3:38 and second best run of the day.)

The really tough part about this run was the last 3/4 of a mile was on some pretty thick grass.  As hard as I would try, I couldn’t lift my feet high enough to clear my feet.  It was miserable!  I ended up giving 2 minutes of time back to the age grouper who pasted me at 11.5 (Brian Teller, nice guy from WV).

Lessons for Ironman Louisville:  I am really excited to see how well I ran for 11.5 miles.  There weren’t any mile markers so I couldn’t fully tell you what my paces were at the beginning versus the end, but I’m guessing I went out not much over 6min/mile pace.  And that last mile was probably 8:30 to 9:00.  Multiply that mistake by 14.7 miles and you get 40mins to 1.5 hours of run time problems.  IF you’re lucky that equals 40mins to 1.5 hours added to your run, if you are not lucky and the heat is there you might be looking at 2 to 4 hours of humility.

run time: 1:26:52,  6:38/mile, 175bpm ave heart rate, 187bpm max heart rate (to be fair, I think the course was a little short?)

Final Thoughts: So this weekend I found out what my “top end” is for long distance triathlon.  One way to use the numbers I obtained was to use my average heart rates from the disciplines as caps for my effort at Ironman.  This would put my cap for the bike at 161bpm and my cap for the run at 175bpm.  Looking at those numbers as objectively as I can, I think they are a bit high.  I know that trying to run over 170bpm at any point during the marathon outside the last quarter mile (or closer) might be playing with fire.

From training, I would think that my bike effort should be sitting in the mid 140’s with a cap of 155bpm, hitting >160bpm should be a sign to really watch my motivations and thought process.  I feel like the run should be around 150 to 160bpm, with the first half of the marathon close to 150 and pushing it up near 160 for the 3rd 10k.

So how much time / pacing / speed do I lose by going from my top end to my bottom end?  Well, the great news is I’m not “losing” all that much.  I did an 80 mile ride on the IMLou course the week prior to this race and with an average heart rate of 145bpm I was about 1.5 mph slower than this race.  There were some factors that influenced that ride some, including a riding partner that I rode with, traffic lights and 2 short water stops.

On the run, I don’t fall much either.  I’ve been bench marking my 145bpm and 160bpm paces over my last several run tests.  I had a run test on Tuesday (July, 14th) and in the 85 degree heat I ran approximately 7:20/mile on the UK track.

Granted my training ride and my run test were not done in a race setting and neither of them were done after a swim, but they are benchmarks that I can begin to use as I set up my Ironman Louisville race strategy.

We are 6 weeks out.  Feels good to feel this good!

[note: if you want to see our pictures of the event, you'll have to come on over to my facebook page - Gary's Facebook]

It would probably be a good idea to begin by describing what events make up the American Triple T weekend.

1. Friday Evening Prologue: 250m swim, 5mile bike, 1mile run
2. Saturday Morning Individual Time Trial: 1500m swim, 40k bike, 6.55mile run
3. Saturday Afternoon Team Triathlon: 40k bike, 1500m swim, 6.55mile run
4. Sunday Team Time Trial (Half Iron): 1.2mile swim, 55.5mile bike, 13.1mile run

Looking at the different races and the distances over the entire weekend it can be a little intimidating, but in all honesty it isn’t the distances that you soon find out is the challenging part of this event. The two biggest challenges that were faced over the weekend were:

A – The terrain.
B – The intensity of the early races and the impact upon the Sunday race.

The Terrain:
It says on the website to be prepared for a tough weekend of cycling. I knew others that had completed the weekend or had just done the Sunday half iron distance race and they said to be prepared for the climbing on the bike. While respectful, it didn’t worry me too much because I have always felt steady through hills. In fact, I often feel better at climbing than I do at descending (fear factor?).

What seems to be under appreciated was the difficulty of the run course. The run course was challenging due to the terrain change, but also because it was on trail. The trail was also not exactly what I expected. I guess I anticipated a more groomed trail that allowed for better footing (more on this later).

The Intensity:
One thing that I feel is my strength in Ironman racing is my ability to work within my ability early in the race, which allows me to use my potential at the end of the marathon. A skill that can be difficult to learn, but the one triathlon skill I feel I’ve developed. This weekend presented two situations that don’t allow this “go easy and build” strategy to be implemented well.

1. Teammates. I signed up to race the Triple T as a team. This meant that each race I was counted on to do well so that my teammate could also do well. This is a very different concept for many triathletes. I was also signed up with Jeff Buhr who is a better triathlete, better swimmer, better cyclist and better runner than I am. So not only did I have to hold up my end of the partnership, but during the team events, I knew I was going to have to push as hard (and smart) as I could while he could race a little below normal.

2. Race Design. As shown above the fast / quick races start the weekend and build into the half iron distance race. The interesting thing is that for the prologue I had an average heart rate of 181bpm which actually felt comfortable. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was lucky to be able to pick up my heart rate into the 160’s on the bike (I did hit 170bpm on the run). What feels easy early is often not easy, it’s just a function of being prepared to race and knowing that the race is going to be over soon. Even with the knowledge of 3 or 2 more races ahead, it’s difficult to control the urge to go fast.

My Races

Day 1 Prologue:
This race is a blast. It is very quick which makes me very nervous. This was actually my first triathlon shorter than a half iron distance race since July of 2003 (Tri America in Louisville). Despite the short swim, I still decided to wear my wetsuit, most did not.

Data: swim – 6:12, bike – 12:21, run – 5:54, total – 24:26
Heart Rates: hrave – 181bpm, hrmax – 195bpm (no splits)

Day 2 (Saturday) Race 1:
This was not a great race for our team. I got a flat about 17 or 18 miles into the bike which was frustrating for an Olympic distance race, especially because I had put a lot of effort into the bike already hoping to have a great race. It’s interesting what thoughts go through your head when you are faced with a situation like this. I thought about riding to ride and hope it wouldn’t go completely flat (it did, quickly). Then when I stopped I thought about putting a little air in and seeing if it was slow enough to get me back (I tried and it was way too fast). In the end, I found something that allowed me to keep my cool and remember that the weekend was a long event and that I just needed to finish this race. I found a little saying that really helped me get through this situation while I was changing the tire and after I got back on the bike (and was extremely worried it would flat again).

I kept saying to myself “Be Chrissie, not Norman!” , “Be Chrissie, not Norman!”

I also remembered back to Ironman Canada (2004?) when Gordo Byrn flatted towards the end of the bike and his response during that race and post race. It probably cost me 6 to 7 mins? I mistakenly dumped my bag on the ground costing me another minute or so picking up my co2’s, second spare and allen wrenches.

My teammate crashed during this race… it didn’t cause a lot of road rash but a lot of soreness.

The biggest mistake that I made during this race was not respecting the type of trail we had to run on. Disappointed with my bike, I went through T2 pretty quickly and chose to skip the socks. MISTAKE! The trail tore my feet up. It was a pretty rookie mistake.

Data: swim – 27:00, bike – 1:25:14 / 17.2mph, run – 43:55 / 6:43min/mile, total – 2:37:55
Heart Rates:
swim hrave – 152bpm, hrmax – 172bpm
bike hrave – 159bpm, hrmax – 179bpm (stopped for approx 6/7 mins with flat)
run hrave – 173bpm, hrmax – 184bpm

Day 2 (Saturday) Race 2:
I really need to learn to descend well on the bike. While it may not be wise to cannonball downhill some places on the course, I give up loads of momentum, time and speed because I am unable to descend at even an average level. It was really apparent during this race. My teammate was able to do this race after the morning crash, he ended up being a good motivator for me.

Data: bike – 1:14:32 / 20.0mph, swim – 29:09, run – 45:20 / 6:56mile/min, total – 2:32:18
Heart Rates:
bike hrave – 157bpm, hrmax – 177bpm
that’s all I got… didn’t get a lap after swim and didn’t stop watch after race?

Day 3 Half Iron Distance Race:
I did this race solo because my teammate decided that healing and being ready for Kansas70.3 was wiser. It took quite a bit of pressure off me. My race was an exemplar of what my racing strategy has always been. Steady swim (sadly this swim was pretty poor, not sure what happened because I didn’t feel terrible in the water?)

Bike steady – by this time of the weekend my body had definate limits. Pushing on the bike was limited and even when I would “work hard” my body wasn’t responding and heart rates weren’t climbing (fatigue). Needless to say I think I left all the “speed” in had in me for cycling on the course on Saturday. My climbing gears still allowed me to pass people (until they flew by me on the descents).

Run – My goal was to run under 1:40 for this half. I ran steady throughout the day and went 1:39:11. Very happy with that which gives me confidence. Surprisingly I have not been running as much as in the past .. I just feel confident running, which helps.

Data: swim – 36:30, bike – 3:17:27 / 16.9mph, 1:39:11 / 7:35min/mile, total – 5:35:24
Heart Rates:
total race – hrave – 147bpm, hrmax – 183bpm

I only got the total race and the time on my watch says 5:50, when my time was 5:35 – so it includes about 15mins of post race resting? I don’t remember when I stopped the heart rate monitor b/c I was so focused on running a specific pace on the run with my Timex watch taking laps at the loop.

Lessons to take to IMLOU:
1. swim, swim, swim (open water when possible)

2. bike (my longest ride this year was 4 hours with 2 at very easy, so I’m hoping this will come around these last 14 weeks.)

3. even when things seem like they are not going my way, the run rarely fails on me. that gives me a lot of confidence heading into a traditionally very hot/humid and slow marathon in Louisville.

Final Thoughts:
A great weekend that was probably more difficult than any Ironman I’ve done so far. It would compare mentally to the EndureChallenge that I created and finished last year, just do to the shear speed required to do the events. I can go all day… getting fast is the trick!

Following my typical operating procedures for this year, I’ve been exercising as much as I feel I can without becoming overtrained, yet enough to allow me to feel fit.  The truth is that since my EndureChallenge back in September I have been a little on the lower side of where I would like to be.  After that challenge I took a full week off and then slowly started to integrate some swimming, then running, then biking back into my schedule.  It has been really helpful to have the Ironman Louisville group up and training because they have really motivated me to take care of myself so I could get back up to full speed quicker than normal (Thanks Paula and Lauren!)

I don’t remember exactly when the topic of doing the Rocket City Marathon came up, but I remember talking about it a few weeks after the EndureChallenge.

I wanted to sign up for Rocket City for a few reasons:

1. I don’t want to have a period where I get too distant from a race.  Race consistently to race better!
2. Jeff Buhr had mentioned the marathon, which meant I would have someone to travel with (and run with for a little while).
3. Brad Feld is someone I have been helping train for marathons, but I have never met him face-to-face, so this would be a fairly close race to have that opportunity.

My own expectations:

This is my 6th marathon in 2008 (counting Great Illini IronDistance Race) so I know that I’m on the edge of doing too many long races without being forced to take a long period of rest – or having a period of serious stagnation in performance.  I have tried to manage my expectations all year, knowing that my main training goal was:

“to be consistent”  and “race when healthy and able”

This has meant that my longest training run in 2008 was 19 miles, back in February, when I ran with Allisa as she prepared for the Boston Marathon.  Since that run the longest training run that I’ve done has been 15 miles.  Leading up to this marathon, I had only done consistent runs of 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Two weekends before Rocket City Jeff and I went out on a 15 mile run (Pit Bull @ Todd’s Road) and I told Jeff that I expected to squeeze out 15ish miles.  At that point I was going to walk/jog in order to protect my legs and allow my training to continue as normal (12 runs in 14 days for the IMLou group right now).

What you want to do and what happens on race day is often very different because a race (and ego) can do many things to influence your behavior!

My Race Day Experience:

Jeff and I started running the first few miles at a pace that felt really comfortable, but we had no clue how hard we were running.  My Garmin 305 had not been charged so the battery was already dead before I started the race and Jeff doesn’t run with a Garmin (smart!).  As we crossed the 1 mile mark, the time keeper shouted “6:21, 6:22, 6:23″… oh boy!

Over the next couple miles we backed off a little, but only a little.  We went through miles 2 and 3 around 6:30 – 6:35 pace.  I was feeling really good running at this pace, but in my mind I felt like I was in over my head.  “Hold on to this feeling” is all I kept telling myself.

A group of runners joined us around the 4 mile mark.  It was nice because the group was rather large.  They all seemed nice enough and were running exactly where we wanted to be.  As the group dynamic built I continued to feel really good and just sat in the pack and participated in marathoner’s chit-chat.

The hard part for me was that I felt like the group was running well and I wasn’t sure I still wanted to drop out at 13.1 to 15?  I began to tell Jeff that I would be done at 15 as a way to reinforce my decision.  That discussion is something you have to be careful with as you are running a marathon.  You don’t want to say it so many times that you discourage the runners who are planning to take on the whole 26.2, but I still needed to confirm to myself that I was doing the right thing.

The group went through the 13.1 marker just under 1:27, which was what I told Jeff I would help pace him to.  Luckily for me the group dynamic began to change as we went through mile 14.  One of the female runners in the group made a surge (at least it seemed that way) as we went through the aid station at mile marker 14.  It broke the pack up, so I worked pretty hard to get about 3 feet off the back of those in front again, then it appeared that another surge happened.  “Good enough” I thought and continued to run where I was and stopped at mile 15 for my first walking break.

Miles 15 to 25 were actually very little fun.  I walked an awful lot over that period of time, probably 2.5 to 3 of those miles were done walking, the other pieces were done at a jogging effort.

I am always preaching about the benefits of using a run / walk race strategy.  In fact, I think that anyone running over a 3:30 must do it, over a 3:15 should consider it and anyone over a 3:00 marathon should do a serious pro/con analysis.  But there is one thing about the run/walk strategy that must be known:  It must be done from mile one, before you have reached the point of fatigue.  If you wait until you are forced to walk – It’s Too Late!

This race was a good reminder of that principle.  The walking I did in this marathon was by no means a way to improve my race result, it merely was an attempt to decrease the damage that a marathon does to your legs.

Mile 25.  Just after passing the 25 mile mark, Bryan Mullins passed me and I began running with him.  It was nice to finally have someone to run with again.  We finished the race together in 3:17.

Final Thoughts:

Rocket City is a great race.  The expo is small enough that you can walk in and just grab your items.  The hotels are about 100 yards from the start and finish line.  I would suggest that you stay in the Embassy Suites at the start line.

Maybe the most important factor for some runners it the course layout.  This course is a perfect course to try and set a new marathon personal best – it is speedy friendly.

It was a great way to end my 2008 year.  I have also recovered well from the race.  I got a bike ride in the next day, took Monday off and back to running on Tuesday.  2008 was a year to take things as they come, 2009 is a very focused year:  One Day, One Race, One Goal.

Jeff Buhr, by the way, ended up running a 2:57!  Nice job Jeff and what a great year 2008 was for you!  And Brad (with Matt Shobe) ran 4:39, about 20 to 25 minutes faster than he told me he might run the night before – great job Brad, 36 to go.

Where to begin?  I guess I’ll start with last week.  After my last longish run on Saturday the 4th, I decided to take several days off of running and focus on healing my hip.  I think I did everything I could think of to get relief.  I stopped running, I iced like mad, sometimes I used a heating pad, stretched, foam rolled, epson salt baths, meditation, NSAIDS, doctor visits, 3 massages, chiropractic care, e-stim, ultrasound, iontophoresis.  I think that about covers it.  I had little to no relief at all.  I kept telling myself that it was getting better, and come race day it would be just fine.  Positive thinking or just fooling myself?  I did break down about 7 times (maybe more) last week.  I am emotional enough the last week of taper.  Adding injury to the flame just made it burn even hotter.

Saturday I was a nervous wreck. I think it was the most nervous I have ever been before a race.  I had a really hard time settling down, but come race morning I felt a lot better.  Gary and I met the girls at their hotel and we walked together to the race start.  It was about a mile and a half, and and it helped to warm up my already sore and stiff hip.  We met Jeannie at the gear check, and headed off to our corral.  I have to admit, the seeded corral was really nice.  The one and only complaint I have ever heard about Chicago is that it is too crowded, but although there were 45,000 people signed up for the race I never felt like I was being held back, and couldn’t run.  I was grateful for that.

Jill, Amy, Kristin, Jeannie and I all started the race together.  Amy and Kristin were off together from the start and I never saw them again.  Jill found her stride around mile 3 and I kept seeing her look back for me, but I knew she was going to have the race of her life and I didn’t want to be the one to hold her back.  That was the last I saw of Jill.  It was a little difficult to see her go because we honestly did probably 95% of our quality runs side by side.  We even finished the Lake City Half Marathon side by side!  I wasn’t at all upset that she was beating me, but weeks ago before this injury, I had always had this rose colored image of us running together laughing and or complaining as we always did.  Then of course. crossing the finish line both having qualified for Boston.  Doesn’t that sound nice?

Jeannie and I ran together through around mile 7.  We were exactly on pace as we crossed the 10k mark, but I was thinking that it didn’t feel as easy as I thought it should have.  In an instant Jeannie was gone.  I tried to keep positive and told myself that I was running the Chicago Marathon!  Have fun!  So for one mile I took it all in. The crowd, the runners, the town, everything.  It really is an amazing race.  Too bad my enjoyment only lasted one mile…My hip was hurting.  I’d felt it starting around mile 2.  I just wasn’t happy.  I scanned the crowds so hard looking for Gary, but I never saw him.  I told myself as soon as I see Gary or my dad I will just stop.  I wasn’t going to make 3:40, and I really didn’t care to have another 4:00 marathon under my belt.  I never did see Gary and when I got past halfway I was too nervous to stop because I didn’t really know where I was.  I did however see my friend Chris twice!  It was so unbelievably great to see him and his awesome homemade sign.  I was so grateful the second time I saw him that I stopped to give him a hug.  Thanks, Chris!

I tried to stay positive throughout the race, but it was hard to do.  I kept telling myself that if I ran faster the pain would be over sooner.  I got swept up by the 3:45 pace group, then the 3:50 pace group.  It’s not really a good feeling.  It got hot, I found out later it reached 84 degrees at 11am.  I really don’t think much compares to the pain of a marathon.  I kept asking myself why do I put myself through this?  It hurts so freakin bad!  I’m not just talking the hip either.  Maybe I am just doing it wrong.

I somehow got to mile 26 and at last saw Gary and my dad at the finish line.  I squeaked in just under 4:00.  I made it through half of the finishers area when I heard, “Nikki!”  It was the girls.  I was so anxious to hear how they did.  Jill was beaming, and for good reason.  She ran an incredible 3:38!  What a rock star, she did have the race of her life…so far!  Amy went 3:41 just above BQ, but no worries since she already qualified at Louisville.  That girl has oodles of potential.  Kristin went 3:45, but, was battling some pretty rotten patellar tendinitis for the past few weeks.  She hadn’t run all week either, and under the circumstances did an exceptional job.  K, our day will come.  I promise!  Or maybe we can just be half marathoners…   AND Jeannie went 3:40!  I always knew she had it in her.  I’m so proud of those girls!

After a few pictures, Gary, Dad and I started the long walk back to the car.  The girls were going for pizza.  What?!?  I think I’m going to vomit, no thanks on the pizza.  What is with me and nausea after races?  I spent 15 minutes parked over a trash can on Michigan Ave. on our way back to the car.  At least it wasn’t like Phoenix this time, just some dry heaves.

So I was 20 minutes over my goal time.  Am I disappointed? I think I may have gotten out all of my disappointment last week.  I think all of my overactive emotions were due to the fact that in the back of my mind I knew the race was not going to be what I knew it could be.  20 weeks of long runs and incredibly tough speedwork in the hottest months of summer for what?  For nothing?  I’m choosing not to think so.  The marathon isn’t just about running 26.2 miles.  Most of it is how you get there.  Yes, it is a great feeling to cross the finish line and it is incredibly satisfying to reach a time goal, but there is so much more to it than that.  It’s running with friends, pushing each other to places we never thought we could go, having someone to complain about the pain to, and that great feeling of running 40 minutes at a 7:30 pace in 70 degree weather with 95% humidity.  I am not going to let October 12th, 2008 get me down because I didn’t make 3:40, when I made 100% of my training runs starting on May 27th.  (well besides the last week!)  That’s 108 workouts and we ran each of them with purpose and precision.  Sure I’m still a little disappointed, but I know I’ve put in the hard work and someday I will reap the benefits.

It is now a week after the Flying Pig Marathon (podcast here) and two weeks after the Country Music Marathon (podcast here) and I thought I would sit down and write some lessons I learned by taking on this challenge and how they could be used in future marathon running programs.

The Back Story:

To keep it as short as possible; Nikki didn’t get signed up for the Derby Festival Half Marathon before it closed. She decided to go to do the Country Music Half Marathon, I chose to go with her and also decided that trying to do the full marathon was a good idea. It seemed like a fun idea because we had a friend running the full marathon and I thought it would be enjoyable to run it with her.

Even before I started the Country Music Marathon, I thought about the idea of possibly doing the Flying Pig Marathon the following week. Why? I am not completely sure, but I have known local runners that have done it before and it intrigued me.

So here’s the reality: I was under-trained for a single marathon (i.e. no traditional marathon training, just regular, daily run or bike), let alone being prepared to run two.

My mindset leading into the runs:

The one thing that I was absolutely confident I had to do to survive this experiment was have a solid and healthy strategy even before I ran the marathons. These strategies included some of the following ideas -

a. Run with Nikki and Jill at Country Music and have fun – But, make sure that effort remained as low as possible and if I started to develop too many aches / pains (i.e. notice my hip and hamstring problem come back) back off completely and finish run by myself.

b. Walk! Walk every aid station at both marathons.

c. Be aware of heart rates. The normal average heart rate I see for a marathon is around 178bpm to 180bpm. Because I had done zero speed work or even tempo runs, I knew that if I ever saw heart rates that high, I might be entering a dangerous zone. You can read the Flying Pig Stats to see the specifics, but I had planned on keeping it around 160bpm during the first half and allow the natural cardiac drift to occur during the second half of that run.

d. Recovery. Making the turnaround to run another race in 8 days I knew that I would have to do all I could to help myself recover. This meant as perfect nutrition as possible, extra sleep, stretching and massage if I could get it scheduled.

What happened after the Country Music Marathon:

You can read the race report to see what happened during the marathon, but what happened after the marathon was where I see some of those important lessons occurring.

1. Nutrition sucked! All week long after the marathon I felt myself craving sugar. One of the big hurdles that I have been trying to clear this year has been getting away from my soda habit. It has actually been going really well, which I have attributed to training less hours a week and not putting the pressure on myself to always be at a fitness peak. By taking some stress away from my physical training, it has allowed me to emotionally and energetically clear that soda habit of late (I even dropped 5 pounds in a couple weeks prior to the marathon).

That all went downhill after the CMM. I felt tired quite a bit, which lead to me seeking caffeine and sugar.. i.e. Mountain Dew. The ice cream cravings were pretty big too.

2. Yoga helped. Nikki and I went to our regular yoga class the day after the marathon, which helped my hips. Ironically, I felt more soreness after the yoga than the marathon. But I didn’t develop the normal post marathon shuffles that happen the few days post marathon.

What happened after the Flying Pig Marathon:

1. You can take the nutrition lesson that I learned after the Country Music Marathon and multiply it by 10. Yikes. I seemed to be in a fatigue pit that no amount of Mountain Dew, coffee or ice cream could solve. The scary part for me is that I gained 4 of the 5 pounds back, which shows the really poor cycle that can be created when a runner or triathlete gets into an overtraining – to – crash cycle. (Yes, this experiment put me into an overtrained state).

2. I couldn’t get enough sleep or rest. Lisa wrote a post about sleep that came at the right moment. The issue for me is that my 6am appointments are not so much concerned about me sleeping in (although if they can, they will change at times). And I have to admit, this week was very difficult. I tried to take a nap during the week, but that is difficult because my body normally doesn’t like to nap. I did crash for 1.5 hours on Monday!

3. My workouts after the Country Music Marathon were terrible! In fact, I had a zero quality workouts during the week. I was able to ride my bike a few times, but mainly I was out there spinning the pedals.

How does all of this apply to a typical marathon program:

Lesson #1: Don’t overreach with the long run. I realize at first thought the long run doesn’t equal the marathon, but for some – a 20 mile run in the training program could take a long time. I personally believe that being aware of the time on your feet is more important than the distance you run during the long run. (My marathon times were 3:47 and 3:20. Durations that I have seen people used to accomplish their 20 mile workouts.)

Why? Because if a person overreaches for the long run, it can often leave the runner in an overtrained state that they have to recover from all week long. Leaving the weekly workouts nearly ineffective – especially if you want to include regular tempo or interval runs, that would normally be associated with an experienced or advanced program.

I talk a lot about marathon programs addressing this issue in my podcast: Double Long Strategy

Lesson #2: When you are training, pay attention to your emotional responses to your nutrition and food choices. If you find yourself craving foods that you don’t normally crave, it could be one of the first signs that you are becoming over-trained. Some of the foods that might be included here are: sodas, bagels, breads, snack foods, ice cream, etc. – basically, foods that are high in sugars or low quality carbohydrates.

I rarely found myself wanting vegetables and even some fruits didn’t meet the needs I was feeling. The emotional response to these foods was surprising also. Not only did I find myself craving them, but after I would eat them I would feel a little more happy and energetic. That lasted an hour max and I would be fatigued and moody again. (Likely an glucose and insulin cycle of peaking and crashing?)

Lesson #3: When you decide to take on high(er) amounts of training, make sure you also build in the necessary recovery aids also:

3a – Massage. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a massage during the week between the CMM and the Flying Pig. But I was able to get in the week after the Flying Pig. It works miracles sometimes on my hips. This is a practice that I used all of 2007. A regular massage as a way to assist my training and recovery. I have become a huge believer in the benefits because when I stop going (as in the beginning of 2008), something creeps up on me.

3b – Yoga. I can say the same thing for yoga that I just said for massage. Combining the two practices makes all the difference in my continued injury prevention when the training ramps up.

3c – Rest and Sleep. As I mentioned, Lisa wrote a post about this recently. I think that as endurance athletes, we are typically self-motivated people. Often this comes with a side of compulsiveness. These personality traits are also the type of individuals that can often see rest as laziness. Sleep is wasted time that we can be productive.

Recently I was reading the Runner’s World article that highlighted the women running the Olympic Trials. They seemed to do it all: work, be a mom, household management and run everyday to train for the Olympic Trials. It was impressive and I wondered how they did it. When did they sleep.

I also read those articles asking myself if I could do it? Interestingly enough, if you read the article interviewing Deena Kastor, she says this:

“RW: Besides doing the mileage, what’s most important to your preparation?

DK: Recovery, definitely. Sleep is huge for me: I take a one-to two-hour nap daily and get eight to 10 hours nightly. When I’m awake and training, I expect so much from my body, so I really need to let it rest as deeply as it works.”

This isn’t the only example I have found discussing how high level athletes are also high level sleepers. It deserves an entire article itself.

Lesson #4: Race Strategy means everything on Race Day. This is the one lesson that I really wanted to point out. Up to race day, your training plan, recovery, rest, nutrition is what you should be primarily concerned about – But come race day none-of-that-matters if you are not willing to follow a sensible race strategy.

I’ve seen it done many times, athletes train hard and appropriately, but get to the start line on race day and throw out all the common sense lessons they learned during their training. I have done it numerous times in my own racing career. But after 9 years of training for endurance events, I feel like I’m finally getting a handle on how to manage the physical side of racing along with the emotional, mental and spiritual side of racing.

In marathons it can be incredibly hard. You’ve trained for 20 weeks (or what the program dictated) and get to race day in hopefully the best shape of your life. Combine this scenario: Best shape of life, nerves about the race, motivation to do your best and 1000’s of others around you facing the same adrenal unleashing. Without a thought out race strategy to manage those variables, race day can become a much longer day than necessary.

If I was honest with myself, I think that testing race strategies for a marathon was one reason that I wanted to do this 2 marathons in 2 weekend challenge. Because I knew I was coming into races under-trained, there would be no room for error on race day.

Here are a couple posts discussing race day strategy implementation: Flying Pig Marathon Race Report (pay attention to walk/run topic), Ironman Wisconsin Race Report (pay attention to my bike analysis), and Einstein, Relativity and Triathlon Training – which discusses basing your race strategy on reality and not hopes or dreams.

Final Thoughts:

I hope that this challenge that I put myself through and by being my own lab rat will help you in your own marathon journey. These lessons were a great learning tool for myself and as I mentioned at the end of the Flying Pig Report, I learned a lot about why I love to take on this journey of endurance again.

The Flying Pig was my second marathon in 8 days, as I ran the Country Music Marathon the Saturday before. I have been asked a lot of questions about why I would want to do this, especially because of the training I was doing prior to these runs (i.e. lack of specific marathon training).
I want to answer some of those questions, but I would like to address those in a separate post. I’ll title it; Things I learned by running two marathons in 8 days: And how these lessons can help you. (I’ll write that post soon and come back here and link to it.)

Right now, I want to focus on the Flying Pig Marathon itself. The course, the race organization, how I ran and how much I enjoyed it.

The basic statistics for my run are here: Flying Pig Marathon Stats

The Flying Pig Marathon Course:

There is no doubt that the marathon course is not the easiest course that I’ve run. I ran the marathon back in 2003 and remember it being challenging. This past weekend it did not disappoint. The one change since the last time I ran it was that the Kentucky loop was at the very beginning of the race, opposed to being at the end. This is a welcomed change because running over the bridges at the beginning on fresh legs was much easier than I remember running them on tired and weary legs towards the finish. Even though they weren’t demanding on my legs, they posed a challenge for me to keep my heart rate down where I wanted it – so I had to incorporate a lot of self-restraint during that section.

As you run back into Ohio, the course doesn’t get forgiving. The hills keep coming in a continuous pattern, and once you get to mile six, you have a pretty steady uphill run for approximately 2 miles. This early into the run, it is essential to not get too excited (or discouraged) by the hill. It’s way too early to spend all your extra energy.

Looking at the elevation chart they have of the course, you would think that after the half way point, you would be gradually running downhill the rest of the race. While there are not as many climbs as the first half, the second half still has it’s challenges and is by no means a flat or fast finish.

The two things that I really love about this course is the scenery. Having just run the Country Music Marathon, I can make a pretty decent comparison to it (and similarly to the Rock N Roll in Arizona), and personally I think the Flying Pig is the most scenic and appealing course of the group. The other great thing about the course was the crowd support. If you listen to the podcast, I will mention a couple spots during the course where it just feels like miles that people are stretched out on both sides of the run. I don’t remember getting too lonely at any particular time during the run (opposed to the Derby Festival Marathon), even though a few periods were more sparse than others.

Overall, I have to rank the marathon as difficult to run, but worth the work. (Hard to believe that my marathon PR is still on this course?).

Oh yeah – I forgot to mention – They have the best swag of any marathon by far. They gave out towels, medals, posters, t-shirts (all typical) but they also gave out a very nice Flying Pig duffle bag. This is something they’ve given out both years I’ve run it.

How I ran the race:

I was very happy with how the race turned out, especially considering how I went into the race. The hard thing for me to accept at times is not being on top-of-my-game. What I mean by this is that I am not so competitive with myself that I can’t run a race to have fun and just enjoy the event; but when I have a day like Sunday, I have a lot of – “if I only did x” – thoughts.

There will be a lot of discussion about strategy, training and all the other performance variables in a marathon program in the “lessons I learned” post. But there is one thing that I’d like to highlight here, which will be worthy of repeating many times:

A walk – run strategy is a very effective methodology and race strategy for most runners doing a marathon, and essential (in my opinion) for first time marathoners.

I realize that this is a concept that I have talked a lot about in the past (like.. here, here, here), but it is so useful that it is worth discussing on a regular basis.  Because it is useful doesn’t mean it is an easy methodology to implement; in fact I have found it is the most difficult teaching lesson for 85% of the runners that ask me for help.  They often feel defeated when they resort to a run/walk pattern, they are sometimes told they are not “true runners” (kid you not!).

That is the great thing about this journey of endurance.  We get to learn about our bodies and what they can do physically, our minds and what it can handle, our egos and what it controls and our spirits and where they will take us.

My run walk strategy for the Flying Pig was pretty simple – walk 20 seconds at every aid station.  This was changed early into the marathon because I was having a difficult time managing my heart rate (ego) and pushed that 20 second walk to 30 seconds.  There were times early on that I felt like the aid stations were very close together and was walking too often, but I stuck to the program I decided on prior to the race.

Towards the end of the race, I moved back to a 20 second walk and skipped the final aid station around mile 25 (was shooting for 3:20 at this point).

It was a very satisfying experience.  To put myself in a race that I’ve done before, in a condition that wouldn’t allow me to have a personal best, and then be able to mediate all the negative thinking, push my ego to the back seat while I tried to develop a better understanding of how my mind interacts with my body, to take the time and enjoy the crowd, to view the scenery – and then for a few miles – allow my body to experience pain.

It was a great experience.  I have often wondered what I will do when I get to an age that it becomes unlikely that I will be able to set new personal records or race longer races – Will I continue to race?

After this weekend, I think I can say yes.  And while that answer will come one day, I have found the better (and more self-rewarding) competitions are between my ego, body, mind and spirit.  Not with a training partner or a clock.

Taking that lesson into all of my races will be a challenge, I am sure.

So I made it to the Flying Pig Marathon this weekend and did another podcast from the course. I’ll write a race report regarding why, how and all the other lessons soon. And I’ll try and get the audio edited and the podcast up later this week. For now here are the stats:

One note – they had a fire on the course and had to change the route around mile 20. I don’t really know how that changed the splits.. but it is a part of the info I guess. (If nothing else it gives us all a “I had to run a marathon that was ‘x’ longer once” story).

lap 1 – 1.02 miles / 7:48 / 7:39 pace / 170 bpm
lap 2 – 0.94 miles / 7:02 / 7:32 pace / 164 bpm
lap 3 – 1.09 miles / 8:12 / 7:32 pace / 164 bpm
lap 4 – 1.01 miles / 7:12 / 7:08 pace / 163 bpm
lap 5 – 1.01 miles / 7:39 / 7:34 pace / 166 bpm
lap 6 – 1.03 miles / 7:49 / 7:36 pace / 161 bpm
lap 7 – 1.01 miles / 8:31 / 8:28 pace / 165 bpm
lap 8 – 1.01 miles / 7:57 / 7:52 pace / 166 bpm
lap 9 – 1.01 miles / 7:41 / 7:38 pace / 164 bpm
lap 10 – 1.02 miles / 7:16 / 7:10 pace / 164 bpm
lap 11 – 1.00 miles / 7:09 / 7:09 pace / 163 bpm
lap 12 – 1.04 miles / 7:45 / 7:30 pace / 164 bpm
lap 13 – 1.02 miles / 7:24 / 7:16 pace / 169 bpm
lap 14 – 1.01 miles / 7:13 / 7:09 pace / 170 bpm
lap 15 – 1.01 miles / 7:10 / 7:06 pace / 171 bpm
lap 16 – 2.02 miles / 15:04 / 7:29 pace / 171 bpm * missed lap
lap 17 – 0.98 miles / 7:16 / 7:25 pace / 174 bpm
lap 18 – 1.05 miles / 7:50 / 7:28 pace / 170 bpm
lap 19 – 0.98 miles / 7:33 / 7:43 pace / 175 bpm
lap 20 – 1.01 miles / 7:51 / 7:46 pace / 175 bpm
lap 21 – 1.01 miles / 7:37 / 7:31 pace / 174 bpm
lap 22 – 1.04 miles / 7:50 / 7:33 pace / 178 bpm
lap 23 – 1.03 miles / 7:34 / 7:24 pace / 180 bpm
lap 24 – 1.02 miles / 7:46 / 7:39 pace / 181 bpm
lap 25 – 1.22 miles / 8:50 / 7:15 pace / 183 bpm
lap 26 – 0.23 miles / 1:33 / 6:47 pace / 191 bpm

Race Result Splits:
6.8 – 53:16
12 – 1:32:52
13.1 – 1:40:16
19.7 – 2:28:36
25.2 – 3:13:35
26.2 – 3:20:40

Other Notes:
1. I walked every aid station but the very last one (wanted to go for 3:20). I used a mixture of 20 second and 30 second walk breaks. To learn more about this, you’ll have to check out the podcast. It is something that I mentioned several times.

2. I actually negative split a marathon! This is a first time… well…. I ran 1:40:16 the first half and 3:20:40 for the marathon. I guess this is the “if only” story I get to tell about this marathon. If the marathon was only 26.2 miles and not 26.x miles, it would have been a negative split – right?

Gary and I left Lexington around 11:30am. On time, for once. We got to Nashville, went straight to the expo and were in and out in less than an hour. We even got to see Denise Austin up close and personal. Now that’s not someone you see every day. We escaped the expo just as the lines started to form.

Off to the hotel. Oh dear. After hours spent on travel websites and hotels.com I picked a total crapper. It smelled worse than my feet after a marathon, and the noise from the highway was deafening. (I know I’m complaining, but I actually slept on the floor of the bathroom for a few hours to try to get some rest and relief from the noise) I even put the empty bags from my Luna Moons on the pillow next to me so I could smell the sweet smell of blueberries instead of rancid feet.

We woke up in the morning to some pretty serious rainfall. (this is the last complaint of this report, I promise) It was expected, and it also looked like it wasn’t going to last the entire morning. After taking the shuttle to the start line, and waiting in the long line for the potty, Gary and I met up with Jill in Corral 4. It stopped raining! A few anxious minutes later we were off. I was glad to have found Jill as we had planned to run the first 11 together. Then she and Gary would split off and run the rest of the full marathon.

I felt comfortable with our pace for the first few miles, but at mile 2 I realized it was because it was around an 8:30 pace. A little slower than I planned, but I felt like I could make it up. I really enjoy running a race with my friend and husband. It makes the miles go by a lot faster. We walked 30 seconds through each aid station and I was feeling great until mile 8 when Gary told me I was no longer allowed to walk through the aid stations. I heard this as “you’re off pace, pick it up, no more fun”. It was what I needed to hear because I did have a goal of 1:45 in mind. So we picked it up until mile 11. Gary and Jill went to the left and I went to the right. It was a little sad to see them go, but I was SO grateful not to have to keep up with the two of them for another 15 miles. I only had 2 to go! I kept seeing the flag for the 1:45 pace group getting closer and closer. I told myself I’d be happy with 1:47, but each time we turned a corner the flag seemed that much more reachable. I really think I gave the race my all, and I think I ran smart. I guess I could have run faster in the beginning, but I like the way I ran, and still reached my goal. I crossed the finish line in 1:45:18.

The crowd support was fantastic, and the bands were great. The course was a little more rolling than I expected, but it helped me to really enjoy the downhills. I highly recommend this race to anyone, first timer, or not. After I got through the finish line, food, etc. I headed to the marathon finish line which is just a few steps from where I finished. I picked up my gear and realized that the car was probably pretty close to where I was and set out on a search that only took a few minutes. One huge benefit to running a half marathon compared to running a full marathon is that you can actually move around afterwards. I got to the car, changed my clothes and headed back to the finish line to watch the finishers and wait for Gary and Jill. The convenience of the race, and gear check, and parking for this event was all really great.

Gary and Jill came through at 3:46. A PR for Jill by 6 seconds. I don’t think she was too pleased, but considering she ran with me for a few 7:30 miles during the first half I think she had an awesome race. She is going to rock Chicago. The fact that Gary can run a marathon on a whim and run 3:46 is absolutely amazing to me. How do I get to that?

Splits from my watch:

mile 1 – 8:26
mile 2 – 8:28
mile 3 – 8:26
mile 4 – 8:09
mile 5 – 7:46
mile 6 – 8:11
mile 7 – 8:17
mile 8 – 8:08
mile 9 – 7:32
mile 10 – 7:30
mile 11 – 7:50
mile 12 – 7:57
mile 13.1 – 8:38

Actual race splits:

5k – 26:13 (8:27 pace)
6 mi – 49:28 (8:14 pace)
10 mi – 1:20:54 (8:05 pace)
13.1 (finish) 1:45:18 (8:02 pace)

This race was a little bit different for me, so the race report will be a little different. In this report, I will not include race strategy or performance details. I posted the race data from my Garmin yesterday, that should be enough to explain that side of the race.

I ended up getting into the Country Music Marathon on a last minute whim. Here’s how that happened: Nikki was planning on running the Derby Half Marathon and had trained for that race. A little over a week ago, she got an email saying that the Derby Half Marathon and Marathon was full. Her comment to me was,

“I guess you are not doing the race”

Which was fine with me because I wasn’t really excited about doing the Half Marathon anyway. Then I asked,

“I don’t think you signed up either. I don’t remember getting the receipt for your registration?”

It turned out that she hadn’t signed up. She ended up calling a friend (Jill) that was doing Country Music and decided to go to Nashville. Long story short, Nikki ended up not being able to travel with Jill… Nikki was going to go alone… I said I would go with her… I decided to sign up to do the full marathon.

The Marathon Course – the scenery

The half and full marathon runners are together until the 11 mile mark. While the first half of the marathon has some scenic areas (actually a couple different scenic neighborhoods), the full marathon offers an even better enviornment to run through.

There are two stretches after the courses seperate that were very refreshing. The first section was an approximately 1.5 mile stretch that was along a bike path that was along the river. While there were no spectators during that section, it was nice to get out of the streets and run with Jill in a peaceful and more relaxing setting.

The second section was between miles 23 and 25. That section was a loop through a park, evoking similar peaceful thoughts. A welcomed thought when you are at those portions of the marathon.

The Marathon Course – the terrain

I ran the 2004 Country Music Marathon and since that time I’ve been telling people that the course was a flat race. I apologize to anyone that I’ve given this advice. The course is not flat. It is not a particularly fast course either.

There are many sections during the course that have some type of hilly terrain – it never has a long stretch (multiple miles) of running that is forgiving or that would allow you to pull back large amounts of time lost on previous hill climbs.

Nashville as a host city

I just completed the Rock N Roll Marathon in Arizona this past January; given that the race was put on by the same race organization, I think it is fair to compare the two events. I personally enjoyed the venue, course and atmosphere of the Country Music Marathon more than the Rock N Roll in Arizona.

The one thing that made my experience in Arizona so rewarding was the Team in Training involvement, but overall, Nashville is more my style. Not only do I enjoy country music, but the downtown in Nashville and the entertainment options in Nashville are more appealing.

Lodging

We signed up late for the race and were left seeking hotel space at the last minute. We ended up staying at a Quality Inn off of Interstate 24, which was about 3 miles fromt he finish (Titan’s Stadium). A perfect location because it is easy to get to the stadium and they have buses running to the start line.

As we checked into the room I thought we had got lucky, as the lobby was clean and modern. Our room turned out to be “the worse room we’ve ever stayed in,” (a quote from my never-likes-to-complain wife). Besides the damp and mold / moist smell, it felt like it was two feet from the interstate traffic. In fact, after a couple hours of trying to sleep, Nikki got up and went and tried to sleep on the bathroom floor to get away from the noise.

That’s all I say about that. The hotel that Jill stayed in was a nice place that was on West End. I don’t remember the hotel’s name, but it was across from the Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery. A great place to get something to eat. I had the porter, which I can recommend, along with the Buffalo Burger; great post race recovery food!

Final Thoughts

I have now done the Country Music Marathon twice. It is on the top of my favorite marathon list to this point. For those of you doing a 50 States and DC challenge, I suggested making the CMM your Tennesse stop.

This race was personally satisfying. Running with my wife and a good friend and just enjoying the day is a great way to spend a Saturday – add in another 30,000(ish) runners and it becomes a party.