Wednesday, March 7, 2012

B&A Trail Marathon 2012 – Race Report

I busted my tail like I always do to finish the B&A Trail Marathon with my best effort, but I must admit that I left a little on the race course. Once again, I fell pray to the race day miracle even when I told myself not to. 3:56:40 is my third best marathon out of seven. I improved some from my Baltimore time, but (supposedly) the course was easier. This course is not as easy as you might think. The elevation is moderate, but it is flat and relentless especially when the wind was as strong as it was this past Sunday.

Stupid me, I overheard the Severna Park High School girls thank me for blocking the wind for them and decided to chivalrous and continue to deliberately do so. The only thing is that they were running the half-marathon, I should’ve been running 8:40s but was running 8:15s for miles 6 to 13. I maintained 8:30s from 13 to 19 by latching on to some masters runners who were comfortably pulling me along with their banter about still being athletes. I couldn’t hold on though possibly because I decide to not hang tough when the going got tough.

Miles 23 to finish left me thinking that I don’t like marathons anymore. My diaphragm cramped again and legs felt like they were shorting out (feeling like if I tried to push they’d cramp/seize on me). I am over that now and am resolved to really work hard on short stuff for the Summer and am going to sign up for Baltimore again. I will do much more long tempos to hold marathon paces longer without the drop off. I want to be sure to run a hard half-marathon to give me confidence, because I know I can average 7:30 for a half given that I have average 7:17 for 10 miles.

I will probably do the B&A Trail Marathon again and try to master the course. It was enjoyable, but really cold and windy. It was nice to start in the school and stay warm up to the start. People were friendly and course support was really good throughout. I’ll be back.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

B&A Trail Marathon 2012–Prerace Report

Its been a long time since I felt like blogging. I have, however, had the greatest two consecutive months of training ever. January and February saw me run 20 and 22 times for 185 and 161 miles respectively. There were a lot of slow miles in there, but on Tuesday of this week I ran a self-support 5K in my hilly neighborhood at a deliberate 10K pace in 21:57.

Now its 4 o’clock in the morning and I am just finishing my breakfast part 1 of two packets of apple and cinnamon oatmeal and 6 oz. of blueberry/pomegranate juice.The race is at 7:30 so, in an hour I am going to drink a protein shake, drink 12 oz. of water and get ready to drive to the race.

I got some of that Gatorade Prime 01 (pre-game fuel) that I plan on drinking the prescribed 15 minutes before the race. I did this at Baltimore last year and cannot say it did wonders, but I am looking for an edge in order to run my best race ever. The plan is to go out at 9 minute miles for the first 3 miles, then 8:50/mile for the next 3, 8:40/mile for the next 3, finally miles 10 to the “line” will be race pace (~8:30). I don’t know when I can kick, but I assume that it will depend on how I feel. I am hoping to beat my 2011 SunTrust National marathon time of 3:53 for a new PR. The B&A Trail marathon course is flatter than any other marathon that I’ve ever run and I trained pretty hard. We will see how that pays off in a couple of hours.