Run: Race Previous Next

Notes

Champaign-Urbana Marathon

http://illinoismarathon.com/races/marathon/

Goal is 2:59:59. The dream is something in the low 2:50's, which would be a big jump.

** As an important note - even though I'm going to be a little bit more negative than usual here, I actually feel pretty proud of this race. I went for sub 3 and got closer than I probably should have on the training so far. That's part of why I'm picking this apart. If I cheat a little bit and take out the bathroom stop, I ran 3:01:30.

Also, this race (splitting the halves) would be 1:30:30, 1:32:31 - aka 6 and 7th fastest halves I've run and comfortably faster than anything between September 2014 and August 2018. **

Summary: I can't actually be too upset with this race, but I'll put my 20 mile split (2:17:10) down and note that's dead-on pace for 3 hours.

Things for next time:

1) Figure out why I bonk hard at mile 20 (or failing that, how to work around it a bit better). Madison 2018, Grandma's 2011, and this all had at least a reasonable section of a death march in the last 6.2. Heck, even Madison 2014 did as well. I don't think it's lack of fuel unless it's something where my body isn't pulling the calories out on the go?

2) Figure out stomach issues. Again, Grandma's 2018 and this race had (short) gastric distress. Not super serious, cleared up after a quick stop, but a quick stop is still a quick stop. I suspect nerves to some extent, but I'd expect something with that for a half as well. Then again, I'm not sure that I've been as hyped for a half, so give-and-take.

Splits from the race:

10K - 42:18, 6:49 pace

10mi - 1:09:45, 6:59 pace (includes 90 second bathroom break)

Half - 1:30:30, 6:55 pace

20mi - 2:17:10, 6:52 pace

(So the final 10K was ~45:50 or 7:25 pace; +30-35 seconds)

I find that interesting - Grandma's 2011 has something similar - the last 10K there was 46:30, +15.

Madison 2018 - last 10K was 46:59, +20-25.

That's an interesting pattern that I want to dig into more for a variety of reasons. Is my fallback pace just something around 7:30 ish?

I think I need to learn that 6:50 pace maybe a little better... Or, failing that, get some sort of marathon pace more established.

Notes/Thoughts

1) I ran the first 8 to 10 miles roughly with the 1:30 pace group. That was pretty good, but I ended up running a little hard to stick with that group. They were hustling, which seemed a little odd for the pace group.

2) Looking at the mile-by-mile splits, I'm actually more annoyed than I was day of race. Miles 11 to 20 were at the same pace as miles 1-10 and then I finished out with a 46 minute 10K.

3) Fueling was good - ran with four gus in the light grey shorts, two on the left, one on the right, one in the zippered back pocket. They ended up being unobtrusive, which is something that I was a little concerned about.

4) Course was really nice, despite being very twisty. Lots of support, which I did appreciate.

5) Logistics in general were easy. We stayed about 10 minutes away from the start, but there was a laughable amount of parking at the starting line (it is a football stadium, after all). We got to the start line at 6-ish since I was expecting traffic, but there was basically none.

6) Sitting around for the 45 minutes beforehand was not too bad. Should have had a little more water, but that's a minor complaint.

7) The medal is gaudy and not in a particularly fun way. In my opinion, too many colors and they just don't quite tie together. It's on par with the Haunted Hustle 2018 medals.

8) Post-race, I was pretty shelled (no duh). But I didn't fall across the line! I also missed Maria's finish because she was 10 minutes ahead of where I was expecting - did get to see Cody's finish though!

9) I'd run this race again. It's a reasonable size and there's a pretty big block of fast runners for the first half. I wasn't sure about the half runners running the first 12 with us, but that actually worked great - the course would have been very quiet without them. The second half of the course was pretty quiet anyway.

10) The college radio station, as far as I can tell, played Queen's Don't Stop Me Now for the entire race. That's... something.

Spoiler - Maria, Cody, and I all ran this and all PR'ed by at least three minutes. We'd all run this again - logistics were slam dunk easy, traveling there is not awful (easier than Grandma's), and the course is deceptively cool. If you're okay with lots of suburbs and quite a few wide open vistas/spaces, I'd recommend the course.