2024 Advanced Training and Racing Thread (still competitive jerks) (Read 228 times)

Andy nails a PR in the half too and Dave  with the podium finish!!  I was feeling a bit of training boredom but these results are getting me STOKED to run a race soon.

Steve- Once you get past this bug and get into training and racing you are absolutely primed to follow...

RP - Maybe never ? I ran the perfect marathon, I have very little incentive to ever run another again. That is of course subject to change in the future.

Dave - Yeah, I mostly meant non runners.

Fishy - I did my best to follow your guidance in terms of stealthy good performances 😁

Thanks everybody again for the congratulations, this was a very hard earned victory. I was fighting for a good marathon for 14 years, and I was fighting for a sub 3 marathon for the last 3 years.

I know this was a bit stealthy and that was by design. I wanted to run my hardest race ever with as little pressure as possible, so this time I told nobody about it. I disabled the heart rate sensor in my watch and I also disabled the auto lap. No numbers, just run.

Bienwald marathon race report

TL;DR;

Date: 2024-03-10

Time: 2:58:42

Place: Kandel / Germany

Shoes: Altra Torin 5

Gels: 1 non-caf Maurten around km 16 / mile 10

Chapter 1 - The history

It's fair to say I'm not a natural when it comes to marathons. Before this race I sat with a record of 0x5 against marathons.

I ran my first marathon 14 years ago. That's how long I wanted to tame this beast.

The thought of running a sub 3 marathon appeared about 3 years ago. In early 2021 I ran a 1h22 half marathon time trial, and at the time in the wake of that big PR I got enough courage to try the marathon again after a 5 year hiatus. 

Training was going well, but we started travelling and the pandemic restrictions were causing a lot of stress, and there were many disruptions to training.

The race almost went well but I hit the wall at km 37 with massive cramps on both quads.

Then after the race covid hit me with the 7 day adventure package and it took me months to recover fitness.

It wasn't until early 2023 when I finally managed to run 10k and 5k PRs, then I once again gathered the courage to run another marathon.

It was to be the Valencia marathon in December.

Training went well and while base building I managed to run every street in the city of Porto.

Covid was not playing nice though, I had to DNS a 5k race in August due to 3 days of misery, then it once again affected me after the half marathon tune up race in early October. I was running 7 minute km pace (nearly 12 minute per mile pace)  in that week after the race.

About 2 or 3 weeks before the marathon race, something that in hindsight can be described as long covid symptoms hit me. I simply lost maybe 7-8% of fitness overnight.

One week I was running 4x15 at 4 minutes per k very easy, the next week running 6km at 4:15 was very, very hard.

The race went really bad with me struggling to maintain the pace as early as km 4, suffering aerobically by km 16, then having to drop the pace at the half way mark, and then nearly passing out at km 34 due to chest tightness and breathing really, really hard.

It was a long walk / run from there to the finish line, feeling like the ultimate loser of that day while literally thousands of people passed me.

The one bright side about that day was that I had no cramps at all which I credit entirely to my disciplined regimen of strength training.

After Valencia I've decided that I would take one day at a time and see how my fitness evolved, then when I found myself fit again, I'd choose a marathon and race it.

Chapter 2 - The training

I checked the online marathon calendars thoroughly and found good options (flat / cold weather) pretty much from as early as Feb 18th all the way to the end of April. 

I didn't want to go through an extended period of training though, so the ones from late February to early March were preferred.

I saw this race in Kandel, in Germany, called the Bienwald Marathon. Time wise it would work well, there was a half race on the same day (for my wife). And the training block would be short.

I thought to myself that I needed less training, not more.

I picked up a Hansons schedule that I had stored years ago that goes from 60 miles per week to 80 miles per week at peak. I knew I would not be able to run 80 miles per week, but wanted to use that structure.

I used a little bit of that structure for my training.

Shorter days or days off on Wednesday, big workout on Thursday, long run on Sunday.

The schedule also called for another workout on Tuesday but I quickly realized that was not feasible, so Tuesdays would be either an easy day or a time trial at the track.

I wanted to execute 3 things:

• Work my way up again to a 2h40 long run
• Complete 10 miles at marathon pace and finish it comfortably
• Improve my times in the time trials

I managed all 3. Somewhere between January 11th and January 30th those long covid symptoms/ whatever it was that was holding me back aerobically disappeared, and I was able to run 10:40 for 3000m which is very close to my peak fitness.

At that point I knew I was in good shape aerobically.

Chapter 3 - The race

We travelled to Karlsruhe in Germany on Wednesday. It's a lovely city, I'm told it's got a big engineering vibe and it shows, the city is spotless, clean, beautiful and well preserved.

It's a stark contrast to Köeln which is a city for the artists and bohemians, which is dirty and smells like piss.

We didn't want to take chances with food, so we stuck to eating our meals at the local Dean & David branches, which offer a good selection of healthy wraps and sandwiches.

We did check out Pinsa Sì, a place for pinsas the night before the race. Pinsa is very similar to a pizza, but the dough is lighter. Just as delicious. The waiter spoke Italian, which was the cherry on top!

Kandel is only a 17 minute train ride again. A very small town of only 2800 people.

The air quality was very good, which is good news to my allergic self.

There's a sports pavilion where the expo happened and which is in front of the start lines.

So people can stay warm inside until it's time to go to the starting block. That was brilliant!

I had recently disabled the heart race sensor in my watch, because it would often confuse itself with my cadence. 

Then I disabled the auto lap, cause I don't really need to know how every km went.

For the race, I had a view with total elapsed time, Lap pace and lap time.

I never pressed the lap button. So whatever was there as the average lap time, it needed to stay under 4:15 for me to run sub 3. That's all I cared.

At the start, I positioned myself just behind the 2 sub 3 hour pacers. There were pacers for the half and the marathon in 15 minute increments, I found that to be fantastic news for such a small event (500 finishers in the marathon , 1500 in the half).

The first few kms out of Kandel are a bit crowdy as the half marathon starts together. That's alright though and I'm mostly staying relaxed and trying to avoid hitting anymore.

This goes on until about km 10.5 where the half marathons turn around but we the marathons carry on forward. 

The group has now trimmed quite a bit to maybe 8-10 people, including the lead female runner.

I find it quite interesting that she was breathing hard as early as km 16, yet she managed to stick with the group and finished in sub 3 hours. She's also in the 45+ age group, well done Lady!

Another rememberable member of that running pack was someone I'm gonna call Mr Stinky. 

Mr Stinky had a strong smell, like he didn't shower for 3 days.

The problem was that he was within the pack and I could smell him either ahead of behind or by my side. But running with the pack was kind of important so I stuck there heh.

The kms tick by and I"m feeling okay. Running with the pack with the 2 paces in front means I don't have to worry much about anything, just put one foot in front of another and patiently wait.

Because the boredom of the marathon is real.

I'd qualify running the perfect marathon is similar to being in the waiting room for a painful medical procedure. And the doctor is late.

So you wait, and wait, and yawn, wait, yawn, then by the end it's your time and it hurts a little, but then the procedure is over and you're just happy you're not hurting anymore LOL

Anyway, at around km 21 we turn to the right side and I can see the 31K mark on the other side of the road. I just think to myself I need to count down to 31K, and then 32K is just next, and then there's only the other half of this race, the last 10km to go.

And that's exactly what I did. Waiting and waiting and waiting. Yawn, some more waiting.

I was still feeling okay at 33 km. Most of the time during that long wait I was just working to clear my mind of negative thoughts. 

I kept repeating "Just sit back, relax, and follow the group".

By the way, a sub 3 hours marathon means 4:15 per km.

4:15 per km means 17 minutes every 4 km. 4.25 * 2 = 8.5 * 2 = 17

From about km 20 I realized it was silly to keep checking my watch at every km, so I just checked every 4km. That worked well until about km 33, then I started checking it every km as I did my countdown to home LOL.

At around km 36 the group dispersed a bit at an aid station, one pacer kept with the front of the group which was me + other 2 guys, the other pacer stayed a bit behind with the lead female and the rest of the group.

This is where I started to suffer just a bit, and by km 38 the suffering was more intense.

I kept repeating to myself "I forbid you to slow down now!"

Then my group lost a guy, then another, then by km 39 it was only me and the pacer running side by side.

And he was breathing quite hard, definitely harder than me.

At around km 40 there was this other guy in a black t-shirt maybe 5m ahead.

I put in a very short surge to get closer to him and started following him instead, the pacer was left behind a bit, and now runner less, with his duty accomplished, he went back to help the other group. What a legend!

Anyway, with 2km to go I started to think it was going to happen. I just worked hard to keep concentration, keep the pace. 

I passed a guy in black near the entrance to the stadium.

I then noticed that Mr Stinky was just up ahead, I had not noticed that he had surged ahead. 

Anyway the race finishes with running about 300m in an athletics track. I entered the track in hot pursuit of Mr Stinky and then put in a surge to pass him. Later I'd see that I sped up to mile pace to pass him, holy shit to think I had that kind of speed that late in the race.

I easily passed by him with thoughts of sprinting to the finish line and having the best marathon time possible.

But then I thought fuck that, I don't want to look like a fish out of water, I want to savour this moment as best as I can, so I slowed down a little and just made sure Mr Stinky couldn't pass me, then did the traditional "show me your biceps" gesture and crossed the finish line.

Then nearly ran over a volunteer who was blocking the way.

Then ran a few meters ahead, remembered to turn off the watch.

And then I finally understood what happens to some people at the end of races.

I got overcome with emotions and cried like a child. This was a dream I was chasing for 14 years. 3 years if you could the specific sub 3 dream. Every time being denied by sickness and cramps. I found my wife and cried for about a minute on her shoulder.

Then gathered myself and found the pacers to thank them profusely.

Then stuffed myself with all the coke, tea, gatorade, water and bananas I could take.

Chapter 4 - The future

With this result I have finally freed my mind from the marathon. The execution was near perfect. I'm not sure I could ever replicate this again with the marathon.

I have very little incentive to go again unless I somehow manage to find a fitness breakthrough.

I'm not ruling out another marathon though mostly because you never say never.

Up next I'd like to run the Porto Eco Trail and finish the damn thing (Last year I was a DNF due to a near heat stroke).

And then there are multiple other things that I'd like to do:

Race an 800m race (never done that before), maybe I can go sub 2:20 or even sub 2:15

Race a 1500m race and take a shot at my PR (4:54)

Chase my 10K PR which is quite soft compared to the rest

Learn how to run in minimalist shoes for short easy runs

Take running less seriously

Break lifting PRs (106kg/234lb in the barbell squat, 130kg/287lb in the deadlift)

Thank you Flavio! You just made my morning coffee a bit of JOY!  I plan to re-read leter today when I need a pick-me-up before my lunch run.  It's bittersweet to hear you're going to be focusing on other distances but I completely understand the sentiment, especially this close after a race like this.  There is absolutely NOTHING like the feeling of knowing that yoou are going to get your goal time and feeling like there is still a tiny bit more in the tank!

Your decision to "just run" and not obsess about all of the little things was spot-on and illustrates that in some ways it is a simple sport....run through the discomfort, dig deep, and persevere!

Flavio—incredible race, and gripping report! Thanks for sharing the whole story. I can see why you got so emotional. I can also see why you would consider yourself done with the marathon. That’s what a smart person would do. You accomplished your goal, no point in putting yourself through the kind of mileage and time commitment you need to train properly, for the unpredictable and infrequent possibility of success. For many of us it’s just an unhealthy addiction, a drug we can’t stay away from. When the reward does come, it’s so satisfying.

“I forbid you to slow down!” THAT is legend. Your legs know what to do, your brain needs to be trained.

Watch: You set it to display total elapsed time, Lap pace and lap time. You turned off auto-lap on your watch, so the whole race was treated as one big lap, correct? So what’s the difference in total time and lap time? I am very different—I do like to see how I’m doing each mile (maybe if I was doing 40 of them instead of 26, I’d feel differently). My theory is to treat each mile somewhat separately—target goal pace for each, but if I’m off for some reason, don’t let that affect the next one. If I can generally keep each mile on pace, things will turn out OK. It’s smarter doing it your way, looking at your average pace for the whole race—you get a better look at how you’re doing. I’ll have to think about trying that. I only display lap distance and lap pace, for 1-mile laps. Partly because total elapsed time doesn’t mean so much during a race—I’m usually not going to try to do math. And partly because the larger size of numbers in a 2-field display actually allows me to be able to read it.

Pacers: I usually don’t use them. I did at Chicago, for a few reasons: my goal happened to be a time that had pacers, I figured at a race like that I’d be able to trust them, and also that race is notorious for GPS signal going haywire in the early miles. For someone like me who’s a slave to my watch—it’s so freeing! No brainpower needed, just run. It’s great how it worked out so well for you. I will say, dropping back to help people isn’t necessarily doing their duty. Their job is to finish at (slightly under) their assigned time. Don’t adjust based on people with you that you see, because you don’t know who’s farther back that you don’t see, who may be trying to catch up to you. I can’t speak to the exact situation at this race, but I do quite a bit of pacing and that’s how we’re expected to handle it. Although when there are two, you might be able to manage something like that.

Mr.Stinky LOL. Thank god you got him. Congrats Flavio, as always a very nice race report from a forum legend.

I can however tell you why you didn't break it earlier. It is just not possible to run 42km with only one gel. That is crazy, you didn't fuel properly. Impossible if you don't add carbs and salt, how do you think your Italian body is able to do it? It's impossible. You are the only person I know, managing to run sub 3 basically on empty....

Congrats. You could do much more. Should enlist for London, Berlin, NYC, Boston now. Don't wait, just do it.

 

I've run 3 sub-3:00 marathons with no calorie intake as well as a 3:00:59 and a 3:01:48. That was fairly typical 40-50 years ago before gels were invented.

Agreed.  My only sub3 was with one gel just past mile 18 that was being handed out at the race (and I think I'd have done it even without that gel).  I ran a handful of sub-3:10s with nothing but water on the course.

Great report, Flavio!  You crushed sub3 by over a minute!  Well-executed race...

Andy - great stuff and a big endorsement of the work you've put in over the past while.

Flavio - nailed it. It sounds like you hit point of marathon suffering relatively late so I guess you judged the race really well.  Surging past Mr. Stinky must've been immensely satisfying.

Gotta say, I've been fortunate never to have a Mr. Stinky in any of my races (unless of course I was that guy... I hope not). Sounds horrible.  But admittedly I have a very limited sense of smell, which helps.

Also, you are welcome to join the marathon retirement club. It's quite good.

Fishy - Thanks, yeah, I was definitely overthinking a lot of things, in part because I kept being denied.

WCRunner - Thanks, yeah I have this feeling I might be able to break 2:20. I've run 65 seconds for 400, though to be fair that was 4 years ago.

Dave - Yeah, I just got lazy to configure the watch face, lap time was the same as total elapsed time.
Re: the pacers I guess I misspoke. That pacer didn't drop back to help people, it's more that at the aid station people had to make a single line so they could grab the cups (the cups were laid on a table, there were no volunteers handing them out), so naturally some people were further ahead and some a few meters behind.
It just turned out that after that aid station there was a small gap between the pacers and it kept like that going forward.
The pacers did cross the finish line in 2:59:37, so they did quite well I'd think.
Fun fact: One of the pacers had to stop by the side of the road to take a leak, but he easily managed to catch up to us within about 3km, what a beast (he's got a 2:30 marathon in Berlin IIRC).

Andy - thanks for the race report, I agree with Steve that you definitely got a faster time in you.
The work you've been putting in is producing great results!

Mick - Awww I'm a forum legend LOL
Gels might be overrated, or at least people vary a lot in terms of how much glycogen they can store and how much carbohydrates gels help them.
Either way, on the preparation for Valencia I tried consuming gels during long runs and I'd always struggle a lot to take them down.
So this time knowing I'd have a hard time consuming them, I just put one in my back pocket, just because.
Oddly enough that one went down just fine.
I also consumed gulps of electrolytes and coca-cola a couple of times, I'm sure that helped.

Steve - Weather was absolutely perfect. 10 to 12c, dew point around 3 to 5c I guess, a bit cloudy, there was only a few short sections where the wind could maybe be a problem but nothing to write home about.
Re: Mr Stinky, I think it might also be not using the best practices when doing laundry, I know that happened to me in my early 20s.