Grandmas Marathon Race Recap

It was nice to go back to Grandmas Marathon this year.  It’s hard not to look back to 2014 when I set a 25 minute PR on this course and qualified for the Boston Marathon.  I have not been able to reproduce that type of run, but I will continue to work towards that.

For me, the outcome of the marathon seems to always be related to the weather.  If it’s nice and cool, I run well.  If it’s warm, I struggle.

This year was no different.  But I tried to take a better attitude into this year’s marathon.  Although I would frequently look at the forecast, I wasn’t going to have it make or break the marathon.  I’m learning to not worry about the things that are not in my control.  Some of the good learnings I’ve been taken from reading Elizabeth Clor’s book, Boston Bound.  This is a MUST read for anyone reading this blog.  It’s available on Amazon.

I had a sharp training cycle since I had to recover some after the April 3^rd Paris Marathon and there were only 11 weeks between marathons.

The training cycle was very good.  I was hitting the paces I needed to hit and was able to get in one 22 mile long run.

With good weather, I was trained to get a sub 3:35 and qualify for Boston.  But that takes everything to align on marathon day from the weather to feeling good when you get up.

We flew out Thursday morning and arrived in Duluth just past 4 PM on Thursday.  We had a nice breakfast on Friday morning at the JJ Astor restaurant at the top of the Radisson, where we stayed.  Great views of Canal Park.

Friday we went to the expo for packet pickup and they also had a Grandmas Marathon Toyota with everyone’s name on the car:

Friday afternoon, there were conflicting reports for the weather.  While the Iphone’s app was showing upper 60’s at the start of the race and mid 70’s at the end, Accuweather was showing low to mid 60’s for the entire race.

I then took a look at the National Weather Service and they were more in line with Accuweather.  I was hoping they were correct.

We ate at Bellisio’s on both Thursday and Friday night.  We ate early on Friday, at 5:15 PM, so we were back in the room getting everything ready for race day.  My wife was running the half marathon, so she had to head to the bus by 4:40 AM and I could wait until closer to 5:30 AM.

As usual, I took two Benadryl to help ease me to sleep.  It took a bit longer than normal for me to get to sleep, but I felt decent when the alarm went off at 4:10 AM.  I took a look at the weather forecasts and now the National Weather Service was indicating upper 60’s to start and 74 degrees by 11 AM.

My wife left the room at 4:40 AM and I left about 20 minutes later.  I decided to take the train up to the start line.  It was a nice relaxing 1 hour ride to the start line, arriving around 6:50 AM with the race starting at 7:45 AM.

I waited my turn for the porta potty and then it was off to the corrals.  At 7:15 AM, they announced that it was 68 degrees.  It also was humid out.  So at that time, I decided I really need to slow down the pace, maybe 8:40-8:50 to start and see how I felt.  Although I wanted to run 3:35 and BQ, I know that I can’t do that in this weather and if I even attempted to start at that pace, it would be a long, miserable second half of the race.

So I ran the race that the weather delivered.  I started out with an 8:50 mile.  My right shin was feeling tight after about ½ mile.  This has happened on multiple marathons where there is no warmup and you go straight to race pace.  Although I was surprised to get the sore shin running the slower pace.  I slowed more on the second mile to 8:55, but after that the right shin soreness went away and I was feeling somewhat better.

There were small pockets where you would get a temporary breeze to help cool you down, but for the most part it was a calm day.

I found that people were trying to run on the left side of the highway where there was some occasional shade.  So I followed their lead.

I actually got into a nice rhythm in the 8:35-8:45 pace range during the first half of the race.  

I’ve never stopped for a rest room break during a marathon, but 5-6 miles into the race I felt like I needed to pee.  But I wasn’t going to wait in line at a porta potty stop.  But towards the mid-point, I was hitting the section where the half marathon started and there were tons of porta potties around with no line.  So I actually made a stop, pausing the Garmin.  But I was counting in my head so I knew how long I was taking.  I timed the stop at 40 seconds and then continued on.

It was amazing how much better I felt with a 40 second stop.  The next mile, #14, was 8:21, which was 24 seconds faster than the previous mile.  So I actually only lost about 15 seconds at that stop because of the renewed energy it gave me.

By now it was getting warmer and I could feel my pace start to slow some on the second half of the race.  At mile 17, I actually told myself that I can start working in a 1 minute per mile walk break at mile 20.  Just push on to get to mile 20.

But when I got to mile 20, I said don’t walk and keep running.  Maybe after 24 miles I could take walk breaks for the last two miles.  I had slowed to a 9:14 mile at mile 22 and worked to run a little faster so I don’t get into that give up feeling where you start to lose more and more time.

With 4 miles to go, I saw a bank sign read 75 degrees.  Wow, that’s definitely the warmest I’ve ever seen during a marathon. When I did reach mile 24, I told myself I did not need to walk.  I’ve trained hard and I know I can finish without walk breaks.  Just pretend I’m on the cooldown at the end of a long run. 

When I finished, the Garmin said 3:52:34.  I knew my official time would be over 3:53 since I had paused the Garmin for the porta potty break.  Official time came in at 3:53:15.

They gave a really nice medal and it was another 1+ mile walk back to the hotel.

I didn’t feel bad about my time at all.  I thought I gave a good effort for the conditions and didn’t let the warm weather spoil the enjoyment of running my 10^th marathon.

When I looked at the times, I realized that the second half of the marathon was faster than the second half of my previous 3 marathons – Paris, Disney, Berlin.  So I felt that was a good accomplishment on such a warm day in Duluth.  I felt I ran smart and ran the race that the conditions gave me without killing myself and making it a completely miserable day.  Had I went out fast to try to hit some low time, I would have paid the price on the second half and would have had a miserable finish with a lot higher time.

June 13 - June 19 Training

Monday: 6 miles (9:56).  Very hot and humid!
Tuesday: 1.5 miles (9:49), 4.51 miles (8:05), 1 mile (10:20).  After a 1.5 mile warmup, 2 miles sub 8:00 ,1/2 slow, 2 miles sub 7:45.  Final workout before Grandmas Marathon on Saturday.
Wednesday: 2.75 miles (10:18), 1.25 miles (10:00).  Started outside, but a big storm rolled in so I finished up on the treadmill.
Thursday: 4 miles (9:33).  Along the Duluth Lakeshore.
Friday: 3 miles (9:54).  Last run before the marathon.
Saturday: 26.38 miles (8:49).  Grandmas Marathon.  I will recap this in a separate post.  It was a very HOT day in Duluth.
Sunday: 5 miles (10:46). Let the recovery begin.

Total Miles: 55.4 miles.

My Road to Boston - Recap after the 2014 Grandmas Marathon

Now that I am heading to Grandmas Marathon this week, it's hard to not look back to two years ago when I went to Grandmas Marathon in 2014 and came home with the BQ.

Here was the recap I wrote back on June 23rd, 2014:

 

My road to a Boston Qualifier -

This past weekend was very exciting when I was able to go to Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, and come home with a Boston Qualifier.

15 months ago I didn’t even know what BQ stood for. 

As many of you know, I took up running in March of 2013 and started being coached by Scott Wietecha at the beginning of June last year.  The initial goal was to train me for my first marathon, the Twin Cities marathon, in October of 2013.  My target was to be able to run a sub-4 hour marathon, which was an aggressive goal when you consider I had just ran my first half marathon in 2:22:57.  I needed to be able to go from a 10:55 half marathon pace to a 9:09 marathon pace in less than 6 months.  With a lot of good training in the heat last summer, I was able to finish the Twin Cities marathon in 3:59:33.

After that first marathon, the thought of being able to qualify for Boston still seemed years away.  Maybe with some hard work, I might have a shot at it in January of 2015 at Houston.  If I couldn’t qualify for the 2016 Boston Marathon with a 3:30 time, then I would get 10 more minutes starting with the 2017 marathon.

10 weeks after the Twin Cities, I was able to knock off over 8 minutes off my marathon time with a 3:51:10 time at Rocket City.  But dropping another 22 minutes, still seemed like a long way off. 

After surviving the Goofy Challenge in January, I now had over 5 months until my next marathon (Grandma’s) and Scott was able to shift some of my training towards track and speed work. 

When I entered 2014, I had the following PR’s:

5K: 25:06

10K: 50:18

Half Marathon: 1:52:49

Marathon: 3:51:10

My body started responding positively to the track and speed workouts.  Coming into February, I had never run a mile under 7:30 pace.

I ran the Hill Yea! 5K on February 8^th and set a PR at 23:16 and had my first ever mile under 7:30.

3 week later, Scott paced me on a 5K at Hendersonville High School and I was now down to 21:33, with my first ever sub 7:00 pace run. 

The following week I ran the Tom King half marathon and hit a big PR with a 1:42:05 time, which was a PR by over 10 minutes.  When I fed that time in to the race prediction software, it came up with a marathon time of 3:33:37.  This was the first time that I thought I could actually consider going for a BQ at Grandma’s if I had really good weather.

I continued to work on speed and improved on my 5K time with a 21:17 at the Middle Tennessee Shootout to win my age group.

In April I ran my first 10K of the year at Purity on April 12^th and had over a 5 minute PR with a time of 45:04.  The next week I went to Louisville and knocked off another 3 minutes off my Tom King PR with a 1:38:46 time at the Derby Half.

When I put the BQ time of 3:30 into the race prediction software, I had now beat the 5K, 10K, and half marathon times that the chart was showing for my BQ pace.

I would spend the next two months doing a lot of training at the 7:55-8:00 pace.  This was the BQ pace that my legs would run over and over.  Several long runs would end with 8-10 miles at this pace. 

But there still was the factor of the weather.  It’s amazing how many times the weather forecast changes in the couple weeks leading up to a race.  And the different weather sites can vary quite a bit as well.  Early forecasts had the lows in the 60’s, then upper 40’s, then back to the 50’s.

I left Thursday morning for Minneapolis where I had a rental car to drive to Duluth.  They had to re-route the plane around several storms and at one point they announced they may have to land in Sioux Falls, SD, if the storms didn’t clear in Minneapolis.  No doubt that sent some worries into my mind.  That could mean several hours of delays.  Luckily, all of a sudden they said the storms had cleared and we were given a landing slot.  It was still 2 hours, 45 minutes in the air form Nashville to Minneapolis.

A big sigh of relief as we landed.  They gave us a rental car with Massachusetts plate.  Was that a sign for Boston?

We were able to get up to Duluth and checked in by 2:30 PM.  It was amazing how cold the air felt.  I couldn’t believe somewhere in the continental US could be this cool in the second half of June.  I went out for a 5 mile run around 3:30 in the afternoon. I ran along the Duluth shoreline and it was nice and cool.

Thursday night I went to bed at 8:30 PM and slept 11 hours, before heading out for an easy 3 mile run.  I know it can be troublesome to sleep the night before a marathon, so I made the sure I got the extra sleep on Thursday. 

On Friday, I started the day with some French Toast, had deep dish pizza for lunch, and had the spaghetti dinner at the expo on Friday.  I had to get some carbos in.  I hydrated well with some bottles of Powerade during the day.  I decided to take a Benadryl on Friday night and was in bed by 9 PM.  Surprisingly, I had a really good night of sleep. 

Saturday, I woke up at 4:45 AM and felt really good.  I had 2 Clif bars and a banana for a total of 600 calories.  I ate two granola bars before falling asleep to give me an additional 200 calories.  I needed to ensure the fuel tank was full to carry me through the marathon.  I strapped on my fuel belt that I bought at the expo that had 5 GU’s attached to give me another 500 calories for the race.

I went downstairs at the Holiday Inn at 5:30 AM to get ready for the 5:45 AM bus to the start line, for the 7:45 race time.  I really nice bus showed up and several of us went to that bus, but we discovered that bus was for the “elites” and we were shown the city buses for us non-elites.

It was pretty cool outside, around 50, but it was raining a little in Duluth.  It was around a 25 mile bus ride to Two Harbors where the race was to start.  Having overdressed for so many runs this past winter, I finally was going to run with just a shirt and singlet and a pair of thin gloves to keep my hands warm.  I wore my gear check clothes (sweat pants/sweat shirt) on the bus so I would be warm when I reached Two Harbors.

When the bus arrived at the starting point, it actually felt really nice out.  The rain had stopped, the winds had died down, maybe some patches of fog.

I waited until about 30 minutes before race time to take the sweats/sweatshirt and then I handed in my gear bag.  Remembering how nice that garbage bag kept me warm before the Disney marathon, I had brought a garbage bag from home and kept that on until it was close to race time.

I went into the corral and went to line up at the 3:25 pace area.  I figured this would be a good pace area to start so I wouldn’t have to pass as many slow runners.  I took my first GU around 15 minutes before the start, as planned.

The race started about 5 minutes late, but finally I was off and running.  For the first half of the race, I knew to stay close to the 8:00 pace, at least within 5 seconds either side.

I would change the GPS watch so it would be on my lap pace.  I would adjust my pace to make sure I was staying somewhere near 8:00, preferably just under. 

I hit the first mile at 7:56.  I was in the range I needed to be.  At the start of the second mile, all of a sudden my shins were sore, both of them.  I’ve had this happen before on the cold runs where you aren’t properly warmed up and going straight to a fast pace.  I knew to just push on and forget about them.  I knew it would go away in a mile or two and by midway through the 3^rd mile, the shins were fine.

I had anticipated the first split was at the 10K mark and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get too far under 8:00 that early on, so I was making sure I wasn’t dipping much below 8:00, and right at 8:00 or so was fine.  I was also making sure I took a GU nearing the 5 mile mark. My plan was GU at 5, 10, 15, 20 miles.

I finally hit the 10K mark at 49:24 and I was pleased with that.

With the GPS on the lap pace, I was taking each mile one at a time.  Each mile was just as important as the other miles.  I had to stay focused and on pace.  I was concentrating on my breathing and taking nice strides, and keeping good running posture.  The runners were pretty well spread out by now so I was able to take good tangents.  When I saw slight curves ahead, I tried to get the best tangent to the curve.

I was also making sure I didn’t lose any pace going through the water stops.  I would notice people running slightly ahead of me would all of a sudden be behind me after the water stop.  I may have splashed a few cups of water on the volunteers in my attempt to grab them without losing pace, but you have to do what you have to do.  I felt I didn’t lose any time on the water stops.  I would grab a cup about every 2 miles and drink just a small part of it and keep moving.

I wanted to make a mental note of my time when I was approaching the 13.1 mile split.  I looked down and it showed 1:44:10 (officially was 1:44:12).  With the same pace in the second half, that would equate to 3:28:20.  So I was still right on target for a BQ.

After the halfway point, I started pacing more towards 7:55 rather than 7:55-8:00ish.  It was still feeling pretty cool outside, so temperatures warming were not a factor at this point.

At around the 19 mile mark, all of a sudden I felt that first feeling in my stomach that I might get when I’m starting to be tired or feel a bit sick.  But I had to push on. I only had 1 GU and wanted to wait for mile 20 to be finished.

I took the GU at mile 20 and all of a sudden I felt re-energized.  Wasn’t sure if it was the GU or the fact that the first 20 miles are out of the way and now I have the toughest 10K left in a marathon and I was also now getting to the section where there were more fans cheering, which helps.

I had watched the preview online of the course and was anticipating lemon drop hill on mile 22.  When I finally was approaching it, I sped up to attack it. I didn’t want to lose any pace on the hill.  It wasn’t terribly steep, but if you keep the same effort, you would lose some pace.

When I got to the top of that hill, I kept the same effort that I used to get up the hill.  Now I was running around a 7:40 pace in miles 23 and 24.  Even though I knew I had the BQ at this time, I was remembering the last words of advice that Scott gave me.  He said if you get to the point you are certain you have the BQ, don’t enjoy the moment and press on, every second counts. 

The adrenaline starting lower the pace more on miles 25 & 26.  It was nice to see my wife cheering me on with about ¾ miles to go.  I just kept pushing, keep breathing, do not stop to enjoy any of this and I was able to give a good sub 7:00 pace that final .2 miles to the finish line for a 3:26:51 finish.

I almost always get sick after races, including half marathons, but I was feeling good.  Not even close to feeling sick.  All I could say out loud is that “I’m going to Boston!”.

I took a rest day on Sunday to end a 121 consecutive day run streak that included 1021.8 miles (8.4/day).

Until the next marathon.

Alan Watts

June 6 - June 12 Training

Monday: 3 miles (9:50), 3 miles (9:44).  3 Miles on the treadmill in the morning before leaving Las Vegas and then I ran an easy 3 miles in the evening after getting home.
Tuesday: 8 miles (9:22).  20s pickups on each mile.
Wednesday: 2 miles (9:44), 5.23 miles (8:04), 2 miles (10:24).  Two mile warmup, followed by 4 mile tempo from 7:45 to 7:30, 1/2 mile easy, 4 x (30s on/60s off), 2 Mile Cooldown.  I got a PR of 13:32 on the Lower Station Camp to Big Station Camp segment on Strava.
Thursday: 7 miles (9:28).
Friday: 6 miles (9:11).  4x30s pickups.
Saturday: 14 miles (8:49).  Last 4 miles sub 8.  Felt really good on the last 4 miles which I ran in 7:56, 7:48, 7:35, 7:26.  4:50 AM start to beat the heat!
Sunday: 2 miles (10:55), 3 miles (9:45).  Ran in the 90 degree heat!

Total: 55.2 miles.  Drop in mileage for the taper week with Grandmas Marathon next Saturday.

April 3 - June 5 Training

Took a break from updating the blog with my training so last couple months, so here is a recap of the past 8 weeks while I have been training to get ready for Grandmas Marathon on June 18:

April 4 - April 10: 26 miles.  Taking an easy week after finishing the Paris Marathon on April 3rd.

April 11- April 17: 51.3 miles.  I ran the Purity 15K as a tempo run on April 16th in a time of 1:17:26 (8:19).  Still recovering from Paris.

April 18 - April 24: 61 miles.  First long run of 18 miles on the weekend with 4@Easy, 4@sub 8:10, 4@Easy, 4@Sub 8:00, 2@Cool down.  Felt good and I was able to nail both fast sections.

April 25 - May 1: 65.3 miles. I ran the Nashville Rock and Roll Half Marathon on April 30th as an easy run with a time of 1:59:55 (9:10).  Although when I saw the clock getting towards 2:00, I had to spring to the finish to get under 2 hours.

May 2 - May 8: 51.1 miles.  I went back home to Owatonna, Minnesota, and ran the local half marathon with my Mom, sister, and brothers there to watch.  I finished in 1:45:36 for a 3rd place age group finish.

May 9 - May 15: 77 miles.  Ramping up the miles to get ready for the June 18 marathon.  20 mile long run at Shelby Bottoms with a pace of 8:50.

May 16 - May 22: 85 miles.  Thursday I ran 10 x (1/2 @ 7:55 + 1/2 @ 8:15) which was a good workout.  Ran an easy paced 22 mile long run on Sunday at a 9:08 average pace.

May 23 - May 29: 74 miles.  With a race coming up on May 30th, I had a 17 mile workout on Thursday that included 4 x (3 miles @ 8:05-7:55 + 1/2 mile slow). 

May 31 - June 6: 78.4 miles.  Spent the last few days of this week in Las Vegas and ran 20 miles on the treadmill Sunday with a 15 mile progression from 8:34 to 7:42, averaging 8:14.

March 29 - April 3 Training

Monday: 5 miles (9:17).  Running weather has been great in Paris.  Good, cool running.
Tuesday: 4 miles (9:05).  Through in some pickups running along the Seine River.
Wednesday: 7 miles (8:43).  2 Mile Warmup, followed by a 4 mile progression of 8:20, 8:10, 8:00, 7:50.  1 Mile Cooldown.
Thursday: 5 miles (9:17).
Friday: 4 miles (9:27).
Saturday: 3 miles (9:53).  Final taper run for Paris.
Sunday: 26.4 miles (8:39).  Paris Marathon in 3:48:11.  Will give a full recap later this week.

Total Miles: 54.4 miles.

March 21 - March 28 Training

Monday: 3 miles (9:32), 5 miles (8:57).  Easy running.
Tuesday: 5 miles (9:34).
Wednesday: 2 miles (9:02), warmup. 7 miles (7:47), alternating 7:50/8:10 paces each mile.  2 miles (10:08), cooldown.
Thursday: 1 mile (9:56), 4 miles (10:22). Garmin reset after first mile.  Easy running. 3 miles (9:36).
Friday: 2 miles (9:30). Quick treadmill run before heading to the airport to fly to Paris.
Saturday: 5.26 miles (9:10).  Jetlag run in Paris.
Sunday: 12.7 miles (9:26).  2 hour easy run in Paris, 7 days to the marathon.

Total Miles:52 miles.  Full taper week heading into the Paris Marathon.