2018 3:20 (and beyond) (Read 582 times)

The OKC Memorial races are the largest and most iconic in Oklahoma. The courses, which mostly overlap, are flat to rolling and not overly difficult, but the given the late April race date the weather is a big question mark. While a healthy south wind is normal conditions last year were ~40F, overcast and rainy/drizzly off and on, while this year the start temperature was in the upper 50's with plenty of sun.

Race organization has gone way up in the past couple years since bibs have been checked at corral entrances which eliminated big congestion issues caused by relatively slow runners pushing towards the front of corral A. Knowing that my goal time would have put me toward the pointy end of the race in recent years I found a place about 4 rows back from the front. While I had time goals in mind I decided I'd run mostly by personal feel and data from Stryd since the weather was warmer than what I had been training in.

The gun went off, I took two steps off the line and someone immediately stepped directly in front of me and on my right foot. I managed to avoid falling thanks to reflexively putting my hand out and balancing off him, but this was not how I wanted to start things off. The first mile of the OKC course is downhill to flat, but all the gradual downhill is given back by a short bridge mile 2, which is likely the steepest hill on the course. Going up the hill I hear something fall to the ground and the guy next to me suddenly drops back. Quickly thereafter he's running next to me holding out a car key fob asking if it's mine. I say "no" and he moves up to a couple guys ahead of me who are wearing race team shirts from the LRS, and one of them claims it. Who knows how or if he could have gotten that back if it hadn't been promptly returned.

The climb spreads things out some more and I find myself running in the company of 6-8 others who are keeping about the same pace I am. The wind is quartering into our backs which is certainly nice.

Miles 1-3: 6:28, 6:34, 6:31

Around mile 2.5 we're at the highest point on the course and this starts a mostly unnoticeable downhill trend, with a few rollers. We swing past the capitol building, complete with obligatory "You run better than the government" signs, before heading into some of OKC's oldest and more scenic neighborhoods.

A park at about mile 5.5 has one of my favorite spectators. Each year a man sets up a little scene for himself to watch the race. Last year he had a lounge chair, table and a room divider to emulate a living room, this year it's a big tropical landscape banner behind him with a collapsible soft chair and a stereo blasting Beach Boys songs.

Near the end of this park is the first relay exchange point. My FIL's team had recently lost their first runner, so I was tapped to run the first leg of their relay. Rather than going through the relay handoff, I kept going on the main route and would hand off the relay timing chip at the 10k mark, which is just after where the relay exchange zone meets up with the actual course.

Miles 4-6: 6:27, 6:36, 6:36

Mile 6 turns into a pretty steep 1/4 mile downhill and I toss the relay chip to my FIL and the next relay runner as I go by without having to miss a step. All of the runners I've been with since about mile 2 are still around, and we've been floating around within 25 yards or so of each other since then. They start talking amongst themselves about their goal times and paces. They're talking easily using full sentences, which I likely wouldn't have been able to do. Checking my watch for our average pace compared to what they say they're looking for shows that we're a good 10 sec/mile ahead of their stated goal paces, which I inwardly doubt will end well given the temperature compared to what we've been training in.

Just after this we enter one of the more entertaining neighborhoods and head up Gorilla Hill. The name comes from the neighborhood theme, rather than the toughness of the hill. The entire neighborhood turns out to cheer, with many people decked out in yellow or wearing banana outfits and handing out, you guessed it, bananas. There's a house at the top that is painted banana yellow, complete with a big inflatable gorilla, someone in a gorilla costume, and an inflatable banner over the road that makes certain you know what hill you're climbing.

A good downhill follows this along with a left turn that has us going across the wind and we reach the point at which the full marathon separates from the half. I continue straight, while everyone else I've been with turns to the right. I can only see a couple people ahead of me, but that gives me something concentrate on. One more block and we turn left and merge onto Classen Blvd, which is part of the full marathon course and head straight into the wind, which has picked up since the sun rose.

Classen is the wasteland of the OKC course. This almost imperceptibly uphill segment (~2.4mi for the half, almost an extra mile for the full) is the hardest part of the race simply due to the ever-present south wind, which blows directly to your face. There is also very little crowd support to feed off of thanks to it being a bit more of a commercial segment than residential.

During this segment I try keeping my effort about the same as before, but the wind makes this more difficult to judge. Stryd is giving me numbers just below what I want to average for the race but it doesn't take wind into account at all. My heart rate stayed pretty level through here but in retrospect I think I overdid it a little, perhaps crossing closer to 15k effort than I should have.

During this stretch I quite slowly pass a handful of people, including a guy I talked to before my 10k, and who I ran in to half an hour before the race started. He had told me that he planned on aiming for 1:20-18 but that his car had been hit a week or so ago and he was a little sore from that. He said he was hurting from the wreck, but thought he'd make it just fine by slowing down. In the distance I can also see the local-to-me fast guy, who finished Botswana right about the same time as DWave.

Miles 7-10: 6:40, 6:36, 6:46, 7:02

Finally moving off of Classen we head back into the neighborhoods which brings some relief from the wind thanks to changes in direction and tree cover, and a few more spectators cheering us on certainly help. Mile 11 seems to just last forever. From my knowledge of the course I'm certain I should have already been past it, and in trying to keep my effort up I don't think to check distance on my watch. Cue mile marker 12. I some how completely missed the marker for 11, and the knowledge that I'm not fading like I've been starting to think I am is a good boost.

Right about here I catch up to my local fast guy. We have a quick chat and he tells me he went out way too fast (same 1:20-18 as the other guy) so soon after Botswana.

Turning the last corner to the final stretch (now into the wind again, though I don't notice it) I can see two people in front of me. The first is way ahead with no hope to catch him, but I pass the other guy with about 1/8 mile to go and recognize that this is the same guy who I was chasing during my 15k in March who gained a 30-40 second lead on me after the turnaround. I completely miss the mile 13 marker (I've never seen this or the mile 26 marker in the 3x times I've finished these races). My stomach quickly starts to go south and the thought that I may have immediate need of a trashcan comes to the front of my mind.

I cross the second timing mat, stop my watch and walk forward toward the closest volunteer who is holding out a bottle of water and thankfully my stomach immediately calms down. 1:28:01 official time, and the time on my watch. I walk ahead slowly while waiting for local fast guy and pulled-away-from-me-at-the-Beacon-Run guy who both finish pretty close behind and have a good chat about the race as we slowly work our way past the army of volunteers handing out post-race goodies.

Overall I'm quite happy with my effort level and performance during the race, though I certainly don't feel that my finishing time reflects my fitness. I'll certainly take the 11 second PR considering my previous record was on a day with near-perfect conditions and that entire course had less elevation gain than was on the bridge in mile 2 of this race. Taking a look at Stryd afterwards my average "power" across this race and my previous 15k is essentially the same, which gives me a good idea of what I should be able to sustain across these distances in the future, which can help with pacing. Temperature at the start of the race was a good 15 degrees warmer than the usual in the past couple weeks for the same time of day, and at the finish was close to 65. I really think my time on the treadmill in my warm-to-hot garage really helped me out with regards to this. I'll be sure to do this again for any future spring races.

What's next? I definitely want to try improving on my 5k PR before the heat really sets in, and I'd like to try running a mile on the track as well, though the latter scares me more. And I'm still considering my bad idea trail 50k. And of course I need to find a fall marathon upon which to mount an assault on my BQ time for 2020.

Ace: I really liked Endure.  I liked lots of things in it, but in particular a brief section where he says a) lots of of innovations lead to 1-3% improvements in performance b) when you do several of those things together it leads to ... 1-3% improvement c) which suggests it's brain/"placebo" not the innovations d) which makes me a little smug about choosing cheaper things than VaporFly shoes to stimulate my brain/placebo effect.

OMR: Good to know I can summon you, like Jim's Kat can summon CalBears.

McB: Nice recc for the NJ marathon!

Keen: Congrats on your small PR.

Dad: Some of the best things have happened as a result of my bad/worst decisions.

Clever:  If you park at the finish and follow the obvious wide trail uphill, you can't get lost.  There are ways to get on it further out i-90 but usually you have to park and then work your way up to it via another trail.  The mile markers were horrible in 2017 - I hit mile 3 around 29 minutes, and I averaged 7:27 for the race.  You run downhill at the same HR you'd run on a flat marathon, maybe slightly higher at the beginning due to the altitude (a few beats at the most).  But you do have to have some sense for the HR.  I'd try to figure it out in your training.  I would plan assuming it's by HR or feel, and if you get lucky the mile markers will help you.  I doubt you will get lucky but one can hope.

Brew/Jim's Kat:  I don't need pacers, my schedule/pass is highly unpredictable, and I'll be more willing than usual to drop halfway at this race just to avoid going backwards with rehab.  It would be fun to see you out there somewhere, but I don't want to prompt someone to come out and wait for me when I may have dropped long before.  Thank you though.  Especially NeRP.

Oregon: Woah!  That's big news about the Portland Marathon.  Too bad...

I was signing up for a 50k that's next week and looked at my ultrasignup results.  And the TWOT race is listed.  I had not seen any previous online evidence that I had completed the loop.  They do call it a '25' miler.  But it's more like 28 according to my watch.

Doesn't have my two lap finish at dirty German when I attempted three for a 50M two years ago, though.  Uberendurance has that result on their page, at least.

either i peaked a month ago, or 3 speed workouts a week (at least 2 on track) doesn't work for me, or maybe i have some iron issues?. going to talk to coach (not the one i've been complaining about - the other, our assistance coach ) tomorrow and also get labs done this week. i'd be fine with a mini-break now to reset. as of now, i'm signed up for a road mile on sunday - we'll see about that - and i can't let the team down for Bay to Breakers centipede at the end of May.

Run easy for a week.  For me, I found that 2 quality sessions a week works best long term.   You are doing the smart thing to reset as digging a hole is the last thing you want to do.

Thanks, all! Sorry to drop such a long RR... Maybe we need a dedicated thread in the sub-3:20 group for these and we can just link to them (for those of us who aren't blogging).

RLK - Bummer the race didn't work out like you wanted. 3 speed days a week is a lot, but then again you are younger than most of us. Hopefully you can sort things out.

Oregon - Whoa regarding the race. Are they talking about bringing it back next year, or are they just done? Or is it too early to know?

Got up late today, but still managed almost 5 miles. The temperature always seems to take a big jump up after the Memorial races every year.
My work has a team steps competition that starts tomorrow as part of a wellness/fitness thing. Given the general lack of physical activity by those at my work even some short runs should lead to a big advantage for my team!

McB "Fine" is acceptable. I mean...he's related to me. He is kind of at a deficit.

keen I'll read the paragraph you wrote to start this page when I don't feel like working much. Kind of in a productive mood.

rlk I agree with the "have fun running" because as much as I hate doing trails and hills it kind of helped me get OUT of race mentality and figure out what it is people do when they aren't running races every weekend or month. Maybe go watch max run around Miwok this weekend. Bring him a Pliny or something from Cellarmaker. Maybe hit up Mill Valley Beerworks after. Oh yeah, I was thinking about you when I watched a Sage Canaday video about my new toy. Mostly because every time I watch his videos I think about you.

Trail race photos. Bib 16. Proof it's possible for me to enjoy the day while missing 3 turns and climbing 3,300 feet in 13 miles. That's 16,246 gain if I did 64 miles out there (5 laps). Good lord that's a lot. Scroll to the bottom and see why it's called "Dead Truck Canyon". Ace could probably identify it.

Great luck max.

I acquired a LumoRun from my MIL. I've never seemed to care about a lot of technique while running mostly because I've always been able to PR everything. I'm curious to see how this works and I get to do it solo since everyone else wants to run hills.

rlk, for pinpointing, it is always a work in progress.  Go with what you know works for you and you kind of learn as you go.  I have made every mistake multiple times and still continue to find things that work better.  For me, the things that I respond best to that I know of as we speak are the quality sessions that I enjoy doing and fell good about them afterwards.  I hate the pain train of fast intervals and prefer the slow death.

Some people can handle 3 hard sessions a week.  For me the mental part plays a role as well.  Sometimes knowing that you have to do a hard session is stressful just thinking about it, doing it two days a weeks gives me that break to relax.

Two weeks ago I was supposed to have a big quality week and just was not feeling it.  I tried to start a hard session and it just wasn't there and bailed right away.  I felt that if I really dug deep that I could have finished them.  I decided to just run easy instead and the next week I had a great week.  Missing split times can play with your head.  Sometimes you just need to cut yourself some slack and remember that you are not a machine.  Sometimes there is no explanation why things don't work out and others they do when it shouldn't.

How to get free photos of yourself running in six easy steps!

1. Go to the park to run.

2. Notice that there is a race that's almost over.

3. Run your usual route, away from the straggling racers.

4. Notice that a photographer is about to photograph you anyway, despite the fact that you don't have a bib and you are separate from the racers.

5. Give him a look that says, "Really?"

6. Check back in a few months for your photos!