Jesse- same question I asked GregW. Hopefully you have a base period coming up soon for some rest before tri season starts.

My tri season starts in about 10 days, but it's really a break as that's just an Olympic tri, less than 3 hours for the whole thing (absent a flat tire or swim fiasco!) Then a half ironman 3 weeks after that. Ironically my running has felt better than ever after the Frederick Marathon and my heart rate is coming down more. You never know what's going to happen right after a race.

GregW- will you run Frederick again if they keep the same course as this year? Good report-the ones with adversity are always the best.

Thanks. No, I don't think I'll run it again if they keep the same course. Besides being hilly, the second half is mostly just ugly. If I want to do a May marathon, then there's a small one that's a double out and back on the Mt Vernon bike path on the same day. May is very risky with respect to weather though if I'm shooting for a good time so I might be done with May marathons. It's a very nice half marathon. It also might be fun to do the 4-man relay at Frederick. I'll call "not it" for the third leg though. By the way, I thought the relay was nice for the marathoners because there were some people out there who weren't fading. There was one woman who started the relay about 50 yards ahead of me and finished in front by about the same distance. On pacers, I agree with Jesse. The pacers did exactly what they said they would -- run even splits. They must have killed the people going up those hills. They also didn't take advantage of the downhills. Once they passed me at 18, I managed to keep ahead of them until 21 while keeping a constant heart rate just by taking advantage of the downhills. Now, I did consider latching onto them at 21 when I knew they were leaving me for good. If 3:20 were my BQ, I think I might have mustered the will to do that.

On pacers, I agree with Jesse. The pacers did exactly what they said they would -- run even splits. They must have killed the people going up those hills. They also didn't take advantage of the downhills. Once they passed me at 18, I managed to keep ahead of them until 21 while keeping a constant heart rate just by taking advantage of the downhills. Now, I did consider latching onto them at 21 when I knew they were leaving me for good. If 3:20 were my BQ, I think I might have mustered the will to do that.

Not only that, but several pacers DNFed!

Ok, I raced last Sunday and BQed for the first time. YaYs. But this race was odd. i did not peak for the race as my goal was to just BQ. In the past my race time has been two and a half minutes faster per mile than my last MAF test. This was both with and without peaking. This Sunday, my pace was only 25 seconds faster than my last MAF test. I think I tapered too much. My allergies might have been an issue, but I did get my downhills in and even did some hills even though I was doing a flat course. I had raced the course last year. No surprises. It just seems that even though the race went well, something was wrong. My turnover was just not there. I am happy with the race, but what went wrong?

Pacer?

Ok, I raced last Sunday and BQed for the first time. YaYs. But this race was odd. i did not peak for the race as my goal was to just BQ. In the past my race time has been two and a half minutes faster per mile than my last MAF test. This was both with and without peaking. This Sunday, my pace was only 25 seconds faster than my last MAF test. I think I tapered too much. My allergies might have been an issue, but I did get my downhills in and even did some hills even though I was doing a flat course. I had raced the course last year. No surprises. It just seems that even though the race went well, something was wrong. My turnover was just not there. I am happy with the race, but what went wrong?

Just so I understand - you hit a PR and you BQed, but you think something is wrong. Did I get that right? Would it have been better if you didn't PR or BQ, but had a larger race-MAF differential?

I guess the best way to put it is, I am very happy with the result, however I feel as though I could have done better. Something was not quite firing on all cylinders and I don't really know what. I am not complaining, just trying to convey a concern. I could be as simple as I skipped all speedwork, but I did that for my first marathon and I don't think that is it. I was expecting the differential to shrink as i got better, but with my last PR being only 4 minutes off of this one and the difference was still 2 and a half minutes per mile from my MAF at that time. I don't know. Something is just not right. See, I told you this one would be hard to nail down.

First of all- YaY from me! Did you wear a heartrate monitor? What was your average heartrate this time versus your other marathons? If you were MAFing close to BQ pace, I'm guessing you pretty much knew you could easily BQ. Maybe you just did not have the fear, excitement and adrenaline going this time and it was more business like. If all else fails and you cannot get to the bottom of this, the default answer of course is monthly cycle stuff

I guess the best way to put it is, I am very happy with the result, however I feel as though I could have done better. Something was not quite firing on all cylinders and I don't really know what. I am not complaining, just trying to convey a concern. I could be as simple as I skipped all speedwork, but I did that for my first marathon and I don't think that is it. I was expecting the differential to shrink as i got better, but with my last PR being only 4 minutes off of this one and the difference was still 2 and a half minutes per mile from my MAF at that time. I don't know. Something is just not right. See, I told you this one would be hard to nail down.

One more question- it appears you did a lot of treadmill work for this marathon training season. Did you do more on the treadmill this time versus past marathons? The only reason I mention this is I've noticed my legs feel dead on race day when I have been running more miles on the treadmill versus outdoors the few months beforehand.

Hey everybody! Haven't been around much lately but finally got a chance to read a few threads. Congrats Willamona and everybody else! Here's a couple races I've done recently...the low HR training that I use as a majority of my training has really elevated me to levels of running I didn't think I'd ever see. Keep up the great work. http://harmerphotos.blogspot.com/2008/05/2008-lake-minnetonka-half-marathon-race.html http://harmerphotos.blogspot.com/2008/04/2008-chippewa-50k-race-report.html