Notes
Warning. This is really really long... My longer RR up to date. I apologize for that beforehand but, looks like, I recollected much more than I thought...
Intro
This race came up on my radar through some online advertising. I remember reading few RRs from fellow runners before, but never was seriously thinking about it being busy with other plans for other marathons. But this time was different - we kind of got comfortable living in Northern California and the idea to visit Los Angeles for the first time plus to run marathon there was very attractive. In a back of my mind I always try to have something to do for other members on my family too :-). In this case I knew my DW would like to visit LA.
So, after thinking over the unattractive marathon price ($145), we still decided to go - on a plus side there was a fact that it's just 5 hours drive plus a hotel costs - not so much expenses comparing to other big races. Yes, I forgot to mention that I was attracted by the fact that the race supposed to have 25 thousand runners and I wanted to experience the big race spirit. So, in the beginning of October I registered for the 2013 LA marathon and made hotel reservations.
Training
But before starting to train for LA, I had to finish my training for CIM 2012. Which I did and ran it pretty strong in a torrential weather and still with a PR. After CIM I had my regular week off running and was thinking about some change in my training. Have no idea why... My previous two marathons I followed Pfitz 18/60-65 (added some miles to regular 18/55 plan) for Avenue of the Giants and 12/70 for CIM. Both times were great successes - for 11 and 6 minutes PRs. But I bought a few new running books - Brad Hudson, Jack Daniels and Luke Humphrey (Hansons) book and was thinking about trying something new. I thought I was not ready for Daniels - because you need to know yourself as an athlete much better than I do (imho). Hudson looked very interesting but, again, for me - too complicated :-) (I explain what I meant by complicated in a minute). And I was very skeptical about Hansons method from the very first time I heard about their plan. And what I heard was 16 miles max LR :-), and of course I understood that 16 miles is not a limit but a percentage of the total mileage.
But few weeks later, after some impulsive thinking I decided to try Hansons. Two things sold me out on that plan - miles recommended to run at MP and simplicity of the plan. Simplicity in a sense that every week of the day I knew exactly what kind of workout I am doing: Tuesday - speed/strength, Thursday - MP run, Sunday - LR - that helped me to set my alarm clock to a particular time in the morning for weeks ahead. That is - every day of the week was set to practically the same time - like for MP runs on Thursdays I woke up at 5:10am, for strength/speed on Tuesdays - at 5:30am, for easy runs - at 5:50am. Comparing to Pfitz - when one week Wednesday is an MLR, next week Wednesday is LT run and next week it's a recovery run. Again, for some runners this may seem like a strange thing to even mention, but for me it was very convenient and less stressful. The second factor - Pfitz 12/70 plan basically has only 2 runs at MP speed - if I remember correctly - total 22 miles. Comparing to almost 100 miles in Hansons plan. Again - I know I can run MPs during LRs, but that would be a different plan.
In any case, with some hesitation I decided on Hansons, knowing that I am planning to run 4 marathons in 2013 and I will have a chance to switch to another plan if I don't like Hansons. The training started with alarming difficulties - during first 3 weeks I was mostly hitting paces on speed workouts but MP runs were taking too much out of me - I hardly managed to finish one 6 miler and two 7 milers - with higher than I wanted HRs and basically I felt dead after those workouts. I didn't know what to think. Though I tried to take it easy but still was a little concerned.
As one of the changes, I decided to fight my addiction to everything sweet. I ate a lot of sweet stuff. I love that - Snickers, nuts, Coke, chocolate stuff. My DW commented on my CIM race photos saying that even 60-70 mpw didn't take my belly off and that was clearly seen on those photos. My weight at the time was about 168 pounds and at that point I had 2 months until the marathon. My DW is a big fan of everything natural, one of them - some drinks/teas which use natural herbs. So, she convinced me to try some mix of herbs (one of them I know is stevia - not a stuff sold in stores as a granular sweetener but a herb) she tried for herself before. The idea was to suppress my sugar dependency and normalize blood sugar.
Here comes totally surreal and hard to believe to (at least for me) stuff. 7 weeks into training, every week I am running my MP runs and my HR is above 170 (max - 188) after mile 2-3 all 7 previous weeks. I feel exhausted after my MP runs. By week 8 I was two weeks into drinking my herbs mix tea - it totally took away my desire to eat sweet junk stuff and drink Coke. I started to loose weight - lost about 3 pounds by week 8 of training. My week 8 regular scheduled MP workout, 9 miles at 6:50-6:52. I ran all those miles @ 6:45 avg and my HR never crossed 170 line. And I felt pretty good after that, I even had energy to run my last "MP" mile at 6:30. Wow, I thought, that's some cool stuff. But I had no connection between sugar, herb mix tea and that workout. Week 9, ran 10 MP miles @ 6:45 and my HR was 170 only during last mile, when I kicked 6:20 last mile for a change. At that point I started to look for some explanation. Week 10. I ran half marathon on Saturday in 1:28:18, then ran strength workout on Tuesday (3 x 2 miles) and then my 10 MP miles on Thursday @ 6:49 with my HR all under 170, even when I ran last mile at 6:22.
That never happened to me in my training before. I trained for more than two years by that time and yes, my speed was increasing with time but HR basically stayed the same. All time I was running marathons, doesn't matter if it was 3:31 or 3:06, good part of the race my HR was above 170, which sometimes is painful, I would say. So, the only explanation I can see is in blood sugar normalization. No, I didn't take the blood test, but in any case I don't have any other tests to compare with. And I don't have any other explanation for this. Plus, in those 2 months I lost about 10 pounds (my weight on race day was 157 lb ), only by not eating sweet stuff I used to eat.
So, my 12 weeks Hansons plan came to an end, I had 10 days taper and was ready to combat LA :-). Weather forecast was totally optimistic - just a few days ago forecast was promising 84 in LA and 73 in Santa Monica, but by the race day it was predicting somewhere around 71/63, which, considering the earlier prediction was totally awesome.
Expo
That a sad part. The price tag for the race was $145. Expo was in the Convention Center downtown LA. Just to get there I had to fight traffic for a good amount of time, which is even by Bay Area standards is ridiculous. Then, to pick up my bib I had to park my car and pay $12 for parking and I probably spent 10-15 minutes at the Expo. And, as a final kick - all I got for my $145 is a nice green t-shirt, a bottle of Arrowhead water and bunch of totally worthless small paper ads. Totally lame and total waste of time - they should send that stuff in a mail to people not to waste their time and efforts.
Race day
Woke up at 3:30am. Ate 2 cups of oatmeal. At 4:30am we drove to Santa Monica to pick up a shuttle which would bring us to the Dodger Stadium. That part was well organized. Took about 5-7 minutes from entering HWY exit, dropping me off and getting on a bus. Took another 25-30 to get to the stadium. 5:30am. Went to the inside of the stadium and sat there for an hour or so, drinking my water. I used an advice from runner Run2thehills and had some warm disposable clothes, which turned out to be very handy - it felt very warm in Santa Monica when I was getting on a bus, but 2 hours of waiting felt pretty chilly sometimes.
6:30am - I decided to visit porta-potties because organizers promised to close seeded corrals by 7am. Man... 25 thousand runners but they have fewer runners "best friends" than CIM had for 8,000 participants. I don't know... Barely managed to get to my B corral by 7am, where they checked my eligibility and I was in. B coral was for runners who had qualifying times between 3 and 4 hours and because I targeted sub 3, I tried to get to the front line as close as possible. Which I did and stayed right behind the guys with "28 LA" sign. I checked the A corral and interestingly enough - I think they had less than 200 runners there.
We listened to the anthem, organizers removed the barriers between corrals and I found myself pretty close to the start line. Women started first (I think 18 minutes before men), and then the "horn" and there we went. Took me 12 second to cross the start line, I didn't have any problem with congestion from the very beginning.
Miles 1-4: 6:53, 6:41, 6:44, 6:38.
I decided to use Greg Maclin's pace band - based on even efforts. I found it very useful, I didn't follow it closely, but it helped me to compare my pace with the recommended paces and make adjustments appropriately. First 4 miles were basically downhill or flat road. It felt easy and nice, but we all know that means nothing at that point :-). I generally tried to keep my average pace at about 6:50 but ran a little bit faster. In another situation I would become concerned, but in this case I checked my HR and it was under 160 - which is totally unbelievably pleasantly crazy for me comparing to my previous marathons. So, I was not concerned with a faster pace because of that fact. Whenever my HR is under 170 is always a good indicator for me.
Miles 5-6: 6:50, 7:00.
Probably, the steepest hills in the race. I ran 5th mile a little aggressively and ran less steep mile 6 slower because of that. HR got higher but still acceptable - 166-167. Took my first gel at mile 5. After mile 6 I felt my legs became kind of heavy and I started to have some doubts about keeping this for another 20 miles.
Miles 7-14: 6:41, 6:46, 6:55, 6:46, 6:48, 6:47, 6:55, 6:56.
Nothing spectacular that I can remember for those miles. Rolling hills, not very steep but noticeable. Ran just a little bit harder into the hills and tried to relax on downhills. Probably ran through some famous landmarks but I have no one recollection of any of those :-). Looks like, at this point I am getting more fun from executing the race properly than from observing the surroundings :-). Crowd support was spotty but in some areas - like once a mile - there were really some big crowds and some of them produced really loud noise/support - which was pretty exciting.
One of the things I would really really PRAISE ORGANIZERS for is water stations. That was a most accessible water I have ever had in my racer's career. They were saying water would be at every mile, but in reality, I think, water was accessible almost every half a mile. Plus, great help from some people and small businesses on the streets - water, bananas, oranges. That was so cool - to basically have water/gatorade access whenever you want. Because of that I was mostly taking small sips whenever I wanted and never had any problems with dehydration. BIG THANKS for that LA marathon! Took my 2nd and 3rd gels on miles 9 and 13.
Miles 15-21: 6:27, 6:44, 6:56, 6:48, 6:43, 6:54, 6:52.
Mile 15 started with a deep downhill, really steep downhill but I tried not to run crazy split. Legs started to feel it but generally felt good, my HR went under 160 on that downhill which was a good sign again. Talked to some guy who had a German (or European) accent on a downhill section - we both basically were looking forward to downhill miles 23-26 :-).
Mile 17, going through Beverly Hills downtown, not very fresh by that time and because of that - pretty focused to keep this thing going and suddenly hear my DW's screaming my name - that was very unexpected and pleasant surprise because I was expecting to see her at mile 18, not 17 :-). But it doesn't matter - got energy boost from that and continued to mile 18-19, where I expected to see our famous runner, volunteer at that race - Run2thehills.
Btw, I looked at the video my DW took of me at mile 17 - that was pretty surreal picture. I don't understand how people around could get inspired by runners like me - totally in-himself person, who doesn't pay attention to anything around him and who looks a little bit like zombie and reminds me somebody who is running away from somebody in a hurry :-). Imo - totally uninspiring :-).
In any case, ran mile 18 through big and loud crowds of cheerleaders teams - judging only by noise level. At that point I didn't really pay attention to anybody, except people at water stations :-) and some dude in a Pope's clothes, whom I hi-fived :-).
By the end of mile 18 I see a water station where R2TH should be and I don't see him, but right at the end of the water supply chain a familiar face pops out and shouts at me - "Oleeeeg!!! Sub-3 babyyyy!!!". That was funny :-) Sorry, R2TH, you may thought I wanted to take your hat off you - but actually I tried to gently tap you on a shoulder :-). Sorry for lack of coordination at that point :-). Took my fourth gel at mile 18.
I think it worth to mention another great convenience at that race - clocks at every mile marker. That was a big help - starting from mile 7-8 I was making add/divide operations in my head to understand my speed from the organizers point of view. I started to do that because my Garmin became more and more out of sync with mile markers the more race progressed. Basically, by mile 18-19 it was 0.2 miles ahead of actual mile markers - which could easily add about a minute or more to my time. But even by mile 20-21 I was about 20-30 seconds ahead of schedule (by my calculations). Took gel number 5 at mile 20.
Miles 22-24: 7:02, 7:01, 7:02
This was the end of generally less steep than at miles 5-6 but much longer incline - it started from mile 16 and ended at about mile 23.5. So, the race was closer and closer to the end but the body/legs became less and less cooperative. And long incline resulted in slower pace. I was actually expecting downhill right after I hit mile 23 (took my last gel there), but took another half a mile to see the long awaited downhill.
That's why, when I checked my pace at mile 24 and saw 7:02 I started to shake my head in disbelief - I thought I was running strong but the watch didn't cooperate :-). I was also shaking because after I calculated the clock time at the mile marker, I understood that I was on a that border between sub 3 and almost sub 3. And when I was shaking my head, I heard some male's shout from the side - "Don't worry man, you've got it" :-). I didn't see faces, but that was really cool to hear.
Miles 25, 26, 26.2: 6:28, 6:25, 5:49
That man was right. Nothing but downhill from mile 24. No sun, the temperature is totally awesome. My HR at mile 24 is still 167, I sped up running 20-25 seconds faster than my MP pace and my HR still was 168 and 169. Totally awesome. I ran the last mile along the Ocean Avenue, the crowd is crazy loud, I have few runners ahead of me and they run strong and I cannot get them, but they are cheering the crowd and probably loosing some energy, so, I make my last kick and manage to run last .2 miles at 5:49 pace passing those guys :-).
I wish I raise my arms at the finish - because it would look cool on the camera - I found some video of the finish of non-elite runners. Anybody who wants to see, could check this link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3otnN1cC3S4 - starting from 5:07 till 5:11 - that's me finishing in a yellow t-shirt :-). Took some time to catch my breath, got a really nice looking medal and that's it. I saw the clock - it was saying 2:59:10, but I knew it is sub 3 and all the rest didn't really matter. Still, for the record - chip time is 2:58:58.
After the race
So, I walked to a family reunion area and sat under K sign waiting fro my family, really tired but happy. It's such a great feeling when you work hard for something and that hard work really pays off. My DW and DD showed up in 10-15 minutes - the finish parking was really impossible thing to do, so they parked far away and didn't manage to video my finish. By some coincidence, when they ran to the race area they saw my running back turning from San Vicente Blvd to the Ocean Avenue, the street with the finish line. So, I have some shaking footage of a my back running far away ahead. My DW was surprised that at mile 26 I was still running faster than her :-).
In any case, that was really unexpected, such a strong race from me, where I mostly was in a control of the pace and could adjust it pretty easily when necessary. I could not really wish more after running my tune in half 4 weeks before in 1:28:18. Well, it happened and that's all what really matters. I placed as 133 out of more than 23,000 marathoners and 6th in my age group. Pretty cool, considering that I placed 109th in my first half marathon among 500 runners just two years ago (which was still pretty good :-).
Last bit of statistics - my 10K splits:
42:46, 42:17, 42:13, 42:59
Now I have 3 more races this year, but will take it easy for the next race in May and will not be targeting a new PR but would love just to run another sub 3. Which I think, is doable. I may target a new PR in Chicago, considering that it's totally flat race, of course, if the weather cooperates. And then, just for fun I am running CIM in December as my local race - great course and great organization.
Just a last note - I think I didn't catch the spirit of the big race :-). When we started, I had just few hundred runners ahead of me. And during the race also the streets I was running along were scarce of runners. I had much better feeling of the "BIG RACE" 3 months before, at CIM, when I was extremely late to the race start and started behind 7 thousand runners and have to pass, probably, 6,500 of them :-). It was pretty cool, but I would still prefer to be on time for any of my future races :-).
Thank you for reading this opus and hope it was not too boring.