You did it! You didn't get the time you wanted, but you finished your first marathon and you are a marathon runner! It was fun following your training and hearing about your highs and lows and the Costa Rica trip with the great World Cup run while you were there. I know you are resting now but I think it's pretty obvious that there are more marathons in your future. They are brutal but very worthwhile and exciting. It's the training that sucks.

I hope you get an answer to your throat/ breathing issue. I could be wrong but I don't recall a single time that you ever had an issue like that before? I am sure you are thinking the same thing, but I would like to know what you could run if you didn't have the breathing issue. Lastly, how do you manage to smile for EVERY picture regardless of the amount of pain you are suffering?  Big congrats to you. ((()))

Congratulations on your first marathon Zel, you did it.  I have a similar experience as yours and thus you are not alone.  I ran my first marathon after 6 months of 25 mpw and at the start line decided I could do a sub-4.  Ran the half at 2:01:00.  At mile 17 my pace went from 9:05 to 9:20, mile 18 to 10:00 and mile 19 to 10:20 where the death march continued to the end.  I literally could not run a step faster if I wanted, but I did not walk.  Upon reflection I was too ambitious for my first marathon, and more importantly did not understand what it takes to complete the entire thing.  You know have perspective and the next time will be better prepared to read your body signals, translate your training into specific paces, and set a realistic goal based on current fitness.

I trained using the Hansons’ training paces for a 4-hour goal race, and was able to hit those pace targets consistently when the temperature was under 80 degrees, and sometimes even when it was hotter.  But there was an exception- my easy pace.  I found that the pace I held when maintaining easy effort got slower and slower as the weeks went on.  That was my main indication that I was maybe pushing myself a little beyond what I was able to handle.  But then I would turn in a great quality workout and my confidence would soar again.  

This above is what first caught my eye.  A good quality workout is not enough of an indicator that you can maintain a certain pace.  Gains from quality work are incremental, and not the same as a long run.  A 6 mile strength run improves your speed and endurance, but is not the same as a 16 mile long run.  Perhaps you were not pushing yourself hard enough on the other days, or more likely your training paces were unrealistic.

Go out and plan for some 5k and 10k races.  Yes they suck, but they also help you increase your speed, and train your mind to endure the pain of running hard - the kind of mental fortitude needed to suffer in a quality workout as part of MRT.  Great RR, love the detail and how you remembered all the little things.

In reading through your report, I see four possibilities.

1.  Heat.  I have watched many, many people not adjust for heat.  If it was over 50 degrees and you didn't adjust your goal pace, that could very well be your culprit.  In what was probably my best marathon ever, not my PR, just my best, I saw my first walker at Mile 15 and I saw a lot of other folks run 20 and 30 minute positive splits.  That day it wasn't terribly warm at the start - 61 degrees - but the humidity was awful.  Those who didn't adjust crashed hard.  What were the weather conditions at the start?

2.  Lack of mileage.  This is typically the crash and burn cause.  A 12-15 mile marathon pace run is one thing.  Holding that same pace for another 11.2 miles is a whole 'nother ballgame.  It is extremely rare for anyone to come close to a McMillan predicted time if they're running less than 70 miles per week regardless of how religiously they follow some canned plan.  What was your mileage like for the six months or so leading up to the race?  Don't forget that you have to count any zero mile weeks as well as low mile weeks in your average.

3.  Lack of variety.  Too many runners, in training for a marathon, do marathon pace runs and easy runs and nothing else.  While I agree that the focus of your training shouldn't be on tempo runs or VO2max workouts or even "R" workouts, there is a place for those things even in marathon prep.

4.  Some fluke thing.  The throat issue sounds strange and it's possible you simply got hit with some medical issue.  I am not a doctor nor do I play one on TV so I won't speculate.

Wow Zel, what a great report.  Full of detail and thought processes, it was like being right there with you.

Congratulations are in order, because you finished your first marathon and remained positive even when the time-goal wheels were coming off.  Well done.

As others have mentioned, it is tough to race 26.2 "right" on your initial go-round.  Perhaps a minor flaw of the Hansons "we're training you how to run those last 16 miles well on tired legs"  is that first timers have no data point for "those last 16 miles", period.  Now you do.

Thinking back to my debut in Cleveland, there were some similarities to your experience.  The initial uh-oh moments were shortly after halfway, the water stations seemed hours apart at times, and I wasn't confident in notching the pace up or down to fit the moment, mentally or physically.  I was scared to stray from the pace group.  Something that has helped keep doubt at bay, since then, is trying to view the 2nd half as a stand-alone HM where you're allowed to go considerably slower than your HM pace.

With another cycle and the experience of having been there, you should be even better prepared for the next one.  But for now, recover!  You'll know when you're ready to start training hard again.

Congrats on finishing your first.

I've had good luck on Hansons and used their advanced plan twice. My legs did feel dead and tired for most of it and I think slowing your easy runs is normal when you are tired and doing a couple quality runs each week on top of decent mileage.  I'm not really sure what went wrong. Maybe your goal was too aggressive?  But that's hard to say without a good, non-asterisked recent race result.

Regardless, nice job on toughing it out and I expect a big PR for your next one.

You are very sharp, realistic and able to see things from multiple perspectives.  I am certain with time and reflection you will figure it all out on your own.  In the meantime continue to analyze it all, learning from the negatives (both perceived and real) while building on the positives.

There is a competitor within us all but each of us treats these things differently.  However you choose to proceed the drive, heart and determination you displayed during this cycle and more specifically the race will serve you well in the future!

 

Reflection: In the end, I think that this is probably just another “went out too fast, melted down disastrously” story.  Yes, there are some things I could have done differently, even at the midrace point, and who knows what the throat thing was, but I suspect those are more like supporting details.  Maybe it wasn’t even that I went out too fast for my current fitness as much as I went out too fast for somebody with my lack of experience to be able to handle at this point and in those conditions.  But that’s just it.  I have to say that during the last few miles, I never thought “I am never running a marathon again.”  What I thought was “The next time I do this, I am going to have a much better handle on what my pace should be before I start.”  I had been thinking of running Newport in the spring, but now I think I need to get a clearer sense of where I am and what a reasonable goal would be.

 

The trouble is, I don’t have a single race in 2014 that I feel is indicative of my current ability.  Every single one has an asterisk of some kind.  But at some point, excuses are just that.  Put up or shut up.  Either I can race better than I have been racing this year, or I’ve gotten slower this year even through I’ve been training better.  Or maybe I am just killing myself in training, and have nothing left for race day.  DH points out that I don’t race all that often, and that’s because it does make me really nervous.  I run just to run, because I enjoy it.  But I need a goal to give me a purpose for every run.  Without a goal in mind, I don’t think I could get out and run consistently.  And a great race is a fantastic thing, when everything is going right.  Only I haven’t experienced that in close to a year now, which can be disheartening.

 

Congratulations on your first marathon! The best part is you now have one under your belt and will definitely learn from it. That learning never stops by the way. I quoted the two paragraphs above because I love your attitude in them. It is exactly what you need to be thinking.

I had a rough year in 2012 after a really great 2011. Towards the end of that year I was really questioning where I was headed with running. Keep your head up - that fantastic race IS going to happen again. We all go through some rough stretches. It makes the good stuff even better.

Great job, Zel!!  Your last photo made me chuckle a little - "yes, I am holding it together!!"  lol