Another MCM Report - Short recap of a long race. (Read 559 times)

I've read so many fantastic race reports that proved very motivational that not adding my own seemed a bit unfair. So a tip of my hat to those that came before me and here's my tale. History I ran four years of cross and two years of track in high school. Those performances led to a discussion with the head coach at Marquette University and he invited me onto the track team as an unrecruited walk-on. During my time at MU, my niche was as an 800m guy because, as everyone knows, long-distance runners are kind of weird. I also had no endurance but that's another issue. I eventually earned two varsity letters and was lucky enough to be awarded a partial scholarship. Upon graduation, my priorities changed and running took a back seat to debits, credits, and diapers (not always in that order). Every odd month or so I'd go for a run but the breaks got longer and longer while the waistline continued to expand. That lasted for about 14 years until my brother (who also ran at Marquette) completed a marathon in October of 2007 in under four hours. I thought, how hard could running a marathon really be, and I committed myself to running a fall marathon in 2008. Training So the next day I went out and ran three miles. Then I repeated that. Over the next four weeks I ran three miles 14 times until I bumped it up to four miles. I followed this pattern until my long runs were 8 miles which wasn't until week 19. In my excitement I planned every single run of 2008 and, being such an expert, knew that over the summer I'd have a weekly long run, a Monday tempo run, and a Wednesday speed workout. I'd include three runs 20 miles or over, top out my weekly mileage in the upper 40s, always love running, eat lots of vegetables, floss daily, and never stay up late watching B grade movies. What I found was it's a little more difficult actually training than planning to train via an Excel spreadsheet. I discovered that hard workouts now take days to recover from and not hours. I found that long runs tend to wipe me out and that my pace was all over the place. There was the thought at the beginning of a 16 mile run as to whether or not I'd even finish it as I had never run longer than 10 miles before this cycle including my days in college. I made many adjustments to my training as I went, mostly decreasing the load and decreasing the intensity but I did feel prepared heading to the race. The Race For my first marathon, I chose the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC and ran it with my brother. I thought a big one would add to the experience and selecting one outside my area of the country added some pomp and circumstance to the event. My goal was to break four hours and I had enough confidence to be dangerous. I was out in a comfortably slow pace (10mm for the first two miles) and I settled down into the race closing in on the four-hour pacer just before the 10 mile mark as planned (1:30:49 at 10 miles). I moved through the half-marathon at 1:58:25 and felt great. I crossed 16 miles in 2:25:06 and was still focused but before I reached 19 miles I knew my goal of sub-four would have to wait. I struggled to the finish by shuffling/walking/jogging in 4:27:37 and have an absolute newfound respect for distance runners of all kinds. This is a point in the race where I thought if I could bite my tongue hard enough I could take away some of the pain in my legs. It was a great experience though. My favorite moment of the race was, without a doubt, crossing the Potomac for the first time near the 4.5 mile mark in front of the crazy, loud crowd and a fantastic fog that made the scene right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I loved that moment. I'm very happy to be running again and I'm very happy to be a small part of this excellent RA team. Thanks for reading.

Nice report Lank and good job on your first marathon. I can relate to a lot of what you wrote as I was an expanding 43 year old 2 years ago when I started running again. I'm actually surprised I've stuck with it this long but training for races really makes it fun. And I hear you on recovery time. My mind might be that of a 30 year old but my legs remind me of my age. I'll be running my first marathon Sunday in NY and I hope I can do as well as you did. Again nice job!

Congrats on a successful first marathon!! It's great to read your background in your report. MCM 2008 was my first also. The fog was one of my favorite parts too.

...my priorities changed and running took a back seat to debits, credits, and diapers (not always in that order).

Yep.

In my excitement I planned every single run of 2008 and, being such an expert, knew that over the summer I'd have a weekly long run, a Monday tempo run, and a Wednesday speed workout. I'd include three runs 20 miles or over, top out my weekly mileage in the upper 40s, always love running, eat lots of vegetables, floss daily, and never stay up late watching B grade movies. What I found was it's a little more difficult actually training than planning to train via an Excel spreadsheet.

Yep again. Great job, Lank! Very good report and excellent first marathon! Not too shabby for a bean counter, not to mention one of the funniest damn people at RA. You got the next one planned yet?

Congratulations!! Great job on a first marathon, even if it wasn't the sub-4 you wanted. When is your next one??

Awesome, Lank. I always pictured you as a dead ringer for Pre, though.

Yeah, I was just getting used to the mikeymike doesn't look like David Ortiz news and now this. Nicely done Jeff, congrats!

Thanks for posting your report -- I really enjoy reading reports of races I myself ran

Great job, Lank and congrats on your first marathon. Maybe we'll link up next time.