Not Quite 15 miler today

After yesterday's hard 10k, I intended an easy 15 mile run today on a new 5 mile loop route I made in Beverly. By "easy" I intended 9+ minute per mile pace. The route I planned loops around Endicott College, a beautiful area with nice views of the ocean as well as of the campus. Endicott College looks like it was made as a movie set for the ideal small New England College. My dream job would be philosophy professor at Endicott.

Dawn over the beach near Endicott College

Things were going fine till mile 14 when I felt a small tweak in my right quad. I noted it, slowed down a bit, and continued. A quarter mile later I felt it again so I shut it down and walked the rest of the way in. I have no pain in that quad walking or climbing stairs. Tomorrow is a rest day, so hopefully I won't feel any more of it on my next run on Tuesday.

1.  10:38
2.    9:31
3.    9:38
4.    9:05
5.    9:08
6.    9:02
7.    9:08
8.    9:27
9.    9:30
10.  9:30
11.  9:30
12.  9:40
13.  9:51
14.  9:47

Another Look at the DeMar Marathon

 Post-race one naturally wonders whether you ran properly in a strategic sense and maybe, if you did something differently, you could have run faster. One thing that sticks in my mind is that during the first half I fell in with a group of runners all attempting to run 3:40 marathons (my goal time). We started to drift apart between miles 8 and 11, with some moving ahead of me, and some falling back. One guy moved ahead of the group, I ended up passing him at mile 25 when he stopped on the side of the road to throw up, and he later sprinted past me at the finish, finishing 2 seconds ahead of me. Another guy noted around mile 9 that we were running too fast for a 3:40 and he backed off. He gradually caught up to me and slowly passed me about mile 21. He finished in 3:39:42, so he ran a very disciplined race, holding that 3:40 pace throughout. When he noted that we were running too fast for a 3:40, that was in the first half when we were running sub 8:20 miles. I knew we were fast, but I also knew we were running downhill and I felt very comfortable at the pace; I was worried that if I slowed down I would be actively braking myself, which you shouldn't do on downhills and is just as tiring as trying to run faster. In retrospect I don't think I would have changed that.

Another interesting exercise is comparing my split times at DeMar with the times in my first marathon at Disney. I put them in a chart with Disney in blue and DeMar in green:

Marathon splits - DeMar Marathon in green, Disney 2015 in blue

Disney is very flat course and DeMar is more rolling, with significant downhills in the first half. The spike at mile 10 in Disney was stopping to visit a port-a-potty, and the spike at mile 20 was exiting the ESPN Sports Center with some congestion. The spikes at DeMar in miles 11, 20 and 23 were all hill sections. It's interesting that I ran a faster pace on miles 11 and 12 at Disney than at DeMar. Also interesting is that the second halfs for both races have a very similar shape. Steady up to mile 20, a slowdown there, recovery, then a significant slowdown in the last 5k, the slowdown at Disney being more severe than at DeMar. Perhaps what I should strive for in my next marathon is to work on smoothing out that last 5k. If I could have maintained an 8:30 pace the last 5k I would have shaved something like 50 seconds off my time.

In retrospect, I ran the race about as well as I could have and I don't think I would have changed much. I went out in 1:49:07 in the first half on a downhill course, and came back in 1:52:28 on a second half that was more challenging than the first half. The last 10k I was in a position to put up a very good time if I could hold it together, and I had not spent so much energy that I fell apart in the last 5k. After the hills in mile 23, I recovered a little and I had some hope to hold that pace to the finish, but the pain was bad enough that I was worried I might cramp up or collapse like at Disney. I slowed down, but did not collapse like at Disney. Hopefully with some more miles in the training bank and experience, I'll be able to maintain pace over the last 5k.