Mankato Marathon

Last weekend I ran the Mankato Marathon.  I posted a recap of the race on the Vakava blog, but left out analysis of the race because that might be more than most readers on that blog want to hear about.  I figured if you have found your way here however that you are interested enough to sift through some more details, or you can always navigate away at any time if you aren't.

First off I'll say I did luck out weather wise.  The forecast was for rain, but all we got was some mist for a while about half way through the race.  It was cold though, probably 36F at race start and not much over 40 by the end of the race.  Overall the temp felt good, but I noticed my legs never really warmed up, so maybe that contributed to their tightening late in the race.  It was very similar weather conditions to R2T marathon last fall where I had a similar issue (although at that race starting too fast was the likely cause of most of my problems).

I was running with one other guy almost from the start and for much of the early race Brian was in sight 200 meters or so ahead of us two.  We hit some hills around mile 7-9 and that is where we caught and dropped Brian and also where the guy I had been running with got a small gap on me, that he then proceeded to quickly widen.  There was one runner in sight ahead who I caught at mile 13, and I didn't see another marathon runner for the rest of the race.  I used to run a lot on my own and then loved to run in packs on race day, but now it seems like the opposite, I do almost all of my running with Nichole, and then on race day I often find myself completely alone on the course.  I really like running alone in trail races, it brings the seclusion of the woods much more into my conscience and I can enjoy just running in the woods.  For a paced road race effort though it is harder to remain focused and remember that I am racing when I'm all by myself out on the roads.

The race started in control, and I really didn't feel like I was working at all for the first 4 miles.  Then when we turned into the wind it was a bit of work but still felt easy and relaxed.  When we hit the hills from miles 7-9 I felt like I was working a bit and still that is when I got gapped.  After that I tried to methodically close distance on the runner ahead of me, who I caught just after the halfway point.  I had one downhill mile at 5:58, otherwise most of my miles were in the 6:10-6:20 range.  The legs chilled a bit going into the wind from mile 14-16, and they were starting to tighten up going down the long hill around mile 18, but I still felt like I was holding pace alright.  Then about mile 20 I just couldn't keep the tempo up any more.  The legs were not going through their normal range of motion, they were not swinging easily, and I really had to focus on the correct motions, which means I was not focusing on the correct tempo.  Pace quickly slipped to about 7:00 miles, then 7:15.  At this point we were running through a park with a bunch of twists and turns, so I couldn't even get into a rhythm at all.  When I got back on to the trail, a familiar section from a bike ride last summer, I told myself to go faster because it didn't hurt more to run harder.  This was true for about 1.5 miles, and I did manage to pull just below 7 minute pace for mile 24, then it did hurt worse to run faster, and I was worried about a leg cramping up because they just felt so tight, so I limped in to the finish.

The race course was a bit long, so according to Strava my marathon distance time was 2:50:38.  Not that it's really worth anything, still 6 minutes over my goal for the race.  On one hand I'm happy I finished and paced most of the race well, but really the race was a failure in that I didn't achieve the goal I set out to get.  I'm ok with failure, but not happy with it by any means.  I still think my goal was an achievable one, and now I have motivation to be consistent about getting long runs in next spring to give myself a better chance of finishing my next marathon strong.

Now I really need to start hitting the strength work hard if I want to see good improvement this ski season.  I was using running as a bit of an excuse to not work on strength too much and risk putting on weight, but now the focus is all about getting faster on skis.  Oh, and having fun, really the focus is all about having fun while getting as fast as I can.  Towards that end this evening I'm picking up a couple pairs of Cat skis from Fit to be Tri'd and strapping a headlamp on my bike helmet to go Cat ski around the arb in the dark.  It should be sufficiently ridiculous to pick my spirits up.