Running on Beer

The news about the Flying Pig and weather has gone around various media outlets, and my take on it is mixed in the stuff below.

I started my drive into downtown at around 5:00 AM on Sunday morning. Within a minute after I left, I had to tell myself to stop watching the light show in the sky and concentrate on the road ahead. I arrived to my semi-secret parking spot to find a no parking sign on it, so I drove to my backup spot in a lot nearby. I checked the phone where I saw that the PigWorks app posted that they anticipate an on-time start. I dropped my phone – still on do-not-disturb – into my bag with my wallet, a towel, a pair of compression socks, and my 20th Anniversary Flying Pig Marathon jacket and set out to drop it off in the baggage bus and use the restroom one more time.

As 6:15 AM approached, I took the first of five energy gels, a caffeinated Honey Stinger that I talked about in my last post. There was a small pre-race announcement that talked about a coming thunderstorm that was intense. After the presentation of the colors and singing of the National Anthem, we were off to the tune of Prince’s Party Like it’s 1999!

As I crossed into Newport, I recalled advice to not check my watch through the first few miles. Or the last few. Or any in-between. I decided to throw that advice out the window and checked my first split: 8:35 for a congested first mile. No complaints, although I did want to be faster. The next two sped up a little, but maintained some restraint at 8:17 and 8:24. I knew I was doing better than last year since I’m fairly certain all these splits started with a 9.

As I crossed back into Cincinnati from Covington, the sky started looking ominous and there was another light show. I was making jokes with a nearby runner (that said something like “uh oh”) that the bridge would take a lightning strike for us… and that hopefully it would hit the ugly side.

As I snaked my way up 3rd Street and Gest Street to 7th Street, the sky got darker and opened up into a torrential downpour complete with lots of lightning. As we went across 7th, I noticed that the cheering from the crowd seemed a lot louder through here. Nearing the end of this downtown stretch, I heard and saw someone yelling “Shelter in place!” They were wearing all black that I recall (keep in mind that I had my eyes on the road and other runners through here, so that detail is a little fuzzy). I continued on in the large pack of runners that I was in and was throwing down miles in the low-8s (my mile 4 and 5 splits were 8:07 and 8:08, a faster than goal). As I came to the end of 7th, there is a course clock that was still running and I took that as a signal to keep going. I took my second gel, another Honey Stinger.

Meanwhile, the approach to the Clay Wade Bailey was a little wet, as shown in the video on this page (I’d link directly to it, but Facebook sucks and I can’t get a link).

I expected the hill to be tough and allowed my pace to slow going up. I decided that it would be smarter to not destroy my legs over a hill so early in the race and just kept the effort going. As I headed up Gilbert Street The weather started to brighten a little (or maybe it was the lack of shadows from the buildings) and the guy with the megaphone and the letter F was across from Channel 9’s studios telling us that Mr. Gilbert called and said we need to get the F up the hill. The rain was still pouring and as we made our way up Eden Park Drive and through the first relay stop, the course shifted to the left – relay runners that normally had the left lane now had the sidewalk, and all other runners that normally had the right lane ran in the left lane because the right lane was under water.

We pressed on past Elvis, who was out under an umbrella singing about rain. We pressed up the hill and through the split as the rain started to slow a little. I ignored my splits through this area (they were 8:38 and 9:04) and continued through O’Bryonville and into Hyde Park getting back down into the low 8s (8:21, 8:06, 8:02 – my fastest of the race, 8:16, 8:17, and 8:08). I did hear a great song with an awesome bass line in Hyde Park (I think), but unfortunately marathon fog has taken it away from me. I took my third gel through here – one of my remaining Gatorade Endurance gels. My half split was 1:51:09, which was a lot better than last year (1:57 first half split). I did take a Swedish Fish at the halfway point, and fortunately did not take a volunteer’s fingers with it. I may have been close… my apologies to the volunteer!

The second half started with someone cheering that it gets easier here.

It did not get easier. Even the second half of a glass of poison is easier than the second half of a marathon.

–Narrator

The portions through Madison Place and Fairfax are pretty hilly, and we only get a little bit of a rest in Mariemont between them. While I continued putting down splits in the 8s, it was more mid-8s than low 8s courtesy of the hills and accumulated fatigue. By this point, I was in a pack that had thinned quite a bit. I took my fourth gel, also a Gatorade Endurance gel, and pressed onto Columbia Parkway. The stretch on Columbia would be horrible if it wasn’t for the Cincinnati Parrothead Club out there cheering us on. As I made my way down the ramp onto Eastern Avenue, I was really appreciating the overcast sky that had been occasionally dropping some rain on us.

Eastern Avenue is always a difficult stretch. The first part is mostly desolate – there’s homes but no people for around a mile until you get into the Columbia-Tusculum downtown area (where Streetside Brewing is). Fortunately, there were people through there cheering us on because once the race gets pretty desolate again as it moves through miles 23 and 24. My pace was slowing through this part as expected and it was entirely a combination of small hills and accumulated fatigue. As I went through the last timing mat at mile 25.5, I attempted to pick up the pace a little. I didn’t have much left, but I kept it going. I crossed the finish line in 3:48:19. This time matches my watch indicating that the race time was not stopped for the shelter in place. My last half split was 1:57, while it is a positive split, it’s positive by 6 minutes which I’m fine with.

Thoughts

There are a lot of people that are not in the arena (or perhaps in this case I should say ‘not on the course’) that wanted the race postponed to a later time or cancelled altogether.

According to one “expert” on Facebook, lightning kills. I generally try to avoid running in thunderstorms, but it’s not really the fear of lightning that kills fewer than 20 people per year. It’s the fear of drivers that are generally poor when it’s not storming out. Adding limited visibility to already poor drivers into it is a recipe for an injured or dead runner. Drivers killed over 7,300 pedestrians in 2021 and that number has been climbing. Additionally, drivers injure many more pedestrians: over 60,000 pedestrians in 2021 (source for both: NHTSA Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2021, Table 3).

Postponing to a later time that day (11 AM was thrown out there on Twitter) just puts us in the middle of the hottest time of the day. From a lot of runners that say their PR was chillier weather proves how important that is.

Canceling would be another idiotic decision (and I doubt PigWorks even considered that). By race day, lots of the money they made from entry fees was either spent or committed to be spent. This means they can’t refund fees because they don’t have the money, and deferring everyone until next year would cause PigWorks to have a significantly smaller income than normal next year. Additionally, with such short notice, travelers would end up having to schedule another hotel, airfare (potentially), and meals. I realize it has happened (New York and a certain hurricane come to mind), but outliers need to remain outliers (and an impending hurricane is an outlier).

The financial costs are in addition to the fact that we all trained 3-4 months for these races. This isn’t a community 5k, this is a pretty massive event. Very few people can wake up one morning and say “I’m going to go run 26 miles”, and only idiots do it without some sort of plan or guidance to ensure they can cross the finish line.

As I pushed the button on my watch to end the third 20 mile run of the plan, the marathoner phrase “the hay is in the barn” popped in my mind. I haven’t been thinking a lot about the last two 20-milers, or the other training runs. The last five miles of this run felt like a shitshow. I wasn’t yet aware that I was only 19 seconds longer than the last, which was 38 seconds faster than the first. It took a few days for me to start writing this and realizing those 3:05s are a little bit faster than the 3:11, 3:08, and 3:10 I did last year.

It was in my mind how the training cycle seemed to shift to become faster. I started this training cycle feeling like I had to push myself if I wanted to run sub-9, and I ended with normally going sub-9, sometimes when I didn’t think I was hitting it, and usually only saving the over-9 runs for those that are marked easy.

Last year, I felt like I was never hitting sub-9 paces during the last training cycle. Looking at summaries from 2022 I averaged around 9:10 during the first three phases of the training cycle (+/- 1 second). This time I’m nearly 20 seconds per mile faster (8:53, 8:57, and 8:50 for the endurance, endurance + lactate threshold, and race prep phases).

One of the things that happens when running through a training plan is constantly re-referencing the source. In my case, that’s Advanced Marathoning. I came to the conclusion that something I could have done better compared to last year was the long run. In the book, it specifically states “long runs shouldn’t be slow jogs where you just accumulate time on your feet”. That being said, I did try to push it on the long runs. Not push it as in “see God” or “go to the well”, but not rest on my laurels either.

Last year, I mentioned that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Apparently, I had Mike Tyson’s the quote wrong (mouth, not face), but that matters less than my semi-ok-preparation for the punch in the mouth – the God-awfully hot weather.

This year is likely not going to be different in terms of weather… well, maybe it will be. We don’t know. But I do know that a second issue is that my preferred fuel is unavailable.

I started typing the stuff above this 10 days ago, and after seeing the “Currently unavailable” in Amazon (and seeing similar notes on Gatorade’s website and other places), I ran out to the local running store and grabbed a few options…

That’s six gels plus chews. I had a 16 mile run to try some – I decided against trying all of them. I would have only used two gels for that run (at around 5 and 10 miles), but packed four…

I’ll admit to overconfidence. I rarely get any sort of nausea while running, so I thought I’d be happy with the first gel. Spring Awesomesauce.

I was wrong.

It wasn’t terrible, but definitely not awesome. I think I wanted to like it more because they’re the only company that thought about the logistics of these damn things – the top is meant to stay attached after opening and they have holes to help with putting them somewhere while running. But the gel itself tasted like apple pie filling. If I wasn’t running, I would have been more okay with it. I didn’t finish the gel and discarded it at a pitstop a mile or so later.

The second gel I tried (at maybe the 8 mile mark) was the Spring Mango. I had similarly high hopes for this one, and it was by far the biggest letdown. It was awful. I’m not sure any mangoes were used in the production of the gel, if there was then maybe they should allow the mangoes to ripen before using them. However, it seems to me that it was not mango but instead another orange-fleshed melon: cantaloupe. And that shit is disgusting. One taste was all I needed.

The third that I tried was the Huma Strawberry (at maybe the 10 or 12 mile mark). It was not bad. In fact, I was tempted to make this it and call it done. There were some minor oddities in the flavor but nothing offensive or strong enough to be bothered.

I wanted to try the last one because I’ve heard more about Honey Stinger than most other gels (other than Gu), so I tried it at the 13 mile mark. I got more honey than kiwi and strawberry and there was a little bit of a low spice (kinda like a menthol or something – it was really low… I later determined that it was kiwi). The fruit flavor was so low that I didn’t pick up on the fact that it has a flavor until I went to order some. The spice was low and not offensive – for the timing and given the fact that it’s a gel, it was a little on the pleasant side. It did (to me) edge out the Huma.

The training is done. The miles left are small and easy. That doesn’t really mean easy, but in the week leading up to the marathon the longest run is 8 miles.

I keep looking at the ends of these segments similar to the way NASCAR has competition cautions at the ends of their racing segments (which is partly odd, but may also be justified). It really stems from the end of the Endurance segment, which was a pull-back week where my long runs went from 15 and 16 miles to 12 miles. However, it’s not the same at the end of the next segment – that ended with a 20 mile run. Similarly, the end of Race Prep that signals the beginning of the taper goes out with a similar bang (bang, bang, bang). It isn’t the longest week in the plan, but it’s close (two miles short).

This has been a very different training experience compared to the last four. For starters, I’m going a lot slower. I blamed my last marathon planewreck on training speed being too slow, when it may have been too fast. One thing every book that I’ve read and remember agree on is to go slow on easy days. Initially that was difficult because I was doing what many others do – too fast on easy days, and a little faster on hard days. For both hard days and races (caution, small sample of ONE race) I haven’t slowed down. I may have even sped up, or it might be the slight eupohoria of putting down progressively faster split paces on 1.2k repeats (8:16, 8:01, 7:52, 7:43, 7:31) on the morning that I wrote this paragraph.

One fun part about occasionally thinking about and writing about this stuff is that I’ll realize where I messed up. On the morning that I wrote this and ran those 1.2k intervals, I ran five and the plan called for four. Whoopsies.

The difficult part about changing something this big is the unknown. I’ve put down four sub-four-hour marathons, and my PR of 3:33 seems like it’s slowly fading in the rear view mirror. I have a bonus card, though. There is a saying “everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched in the face”. And in general, that is true. In fact, I’d say it was true for marathons 1, 3, and especially 4. In all three, that punch in the face was heat – marathon 1 had a finishing temp between 64 and 68 (I finished halfway between two observations), marathon 3 it was around 62, and marathon 4 was around 54-58 BUT I had long sleeves on because the temperature skyrocketed from between 36 and 42 when I started (and I messed up with nutrition and hydration too). That leaves marathon 2 as the ONLY marathon I had good weather for – it was around 40, maybe making it close to 50 at the finish – the only thing I did ‘wrong’ was I had a headband on that I wrapped around my wrist about halfway through.

I think it’s safe to say one potential punch is going to be heat. And I have a plan (extra fluid intake plus dumping water on my head, which I tried in a few other races and it worked well). I know another possibility is poor pacing, and that’s all in my control. Another possibility is GI issues. I think I have that figured out, particularly after a rather uncomfortable half marathon.

If you hate the snow, don’t worry it’ll be 80° this weekend 😜

— Allison Rogers WLWT (@AllisonWeather) April 18, 2022

So this is it. Two weeks (ish) until raceday.

After the planewreck of a marathon, I decided I’d do something easier. For some idiotic reason “sign up for a half marathon with a ginormous fucking hill” was the first thing that came to mind.

Training for the race was Hal Higdon’s Advanced Half Marathon Plan with modifications to move the long run to Friday and keep Sunday as a rest day. I missed one day – a Friday that was supposed to be a long run was moved to Saturday because I was fixing my car, and the Saturday 3 mile recovery was skipped. I did not use any pace goals for any runs, which is different from last time.

On race weekend, it was rainy and chilly. I started out the day before the race with my son’s soccer tournament final. It was a great game – the team they were playing has had their number all season (they’ve played three times, lost 3-0, lost 3-1, and tied 2-2) and after going down by a point the team rose up to score two, one of them on a penalty kick and the other from a corner kick that was kicked in.

Race morning started early – I woke up with plenty of time to eat a bagel and leisurely get ready prior to driving downtown. However, it was quickly thrown into disarray due to a watch failure.

I tried a few things to hopefully get the watch to work – a reboot and a reset via the app, but neither worked. I did wear the watch to (and through) the race and hoped that in the 40 minute commute to a parking spot someone would post a fix to the Coros User Group, but alas, the most helpful was “contact support” (which I did later that day).

I made it to downtown a little more than an hour prior to race start time, and made my way to the starting area to drop off my bag, use a port-o-let, and hang out (giving me a chance to talk with a Twitter friend and talk to someone in the starting corral).

The race went off… however my talking with another runner in the corral prior to the race meant that I forgot to take a Gatorade gel before the race. I was tempted to take it in the first mile (and maybe I should have), but I didn’t. I kept a good-but-fast pace through the first five miles, ending that set of miles with a salute to a WLWT Camera and anchorwoman. Somewhere through here, there was a clock and I was mostly on-pace.

Then came three miles of climbing. I tried to keep my effort in range without overdoing the hill. During the hill, the 1:40 HM pacers caught up with me. I asked them if they were on pace, and they indicated about a minute behind. After the split, I started pushing a little more knowing that the hills are smaller and kept with them. During the downhill, I pushed a little and passed them. I did see a clock somewhere through this, and my mid-race math made me think I was close to pace (and somehow I was right). They kept with me – catching and then me pushing harder and putting some (not a lot) of distance on them. Down Eggleston (MM ~12.2 – ~12.9), they called to me that if they kept ahead of them, I should be around 30 seconds early. So I did. I pushed HARD through the remainder of Eggleston, up Pete Rose Way and up Mehring Way (seriously, fuck you Cincinnati for having these uphills where we want downhills!). Throughout this time, they were calling out time to finish (e.g. “four minutes left!”). When the finish line and gun time came in sight, I pushed as hard as I could and passed under a second before it clicked 1:40:00. Final time: 1:39:48.

Needless to say, I hung by the finish line for a few seconds for the pacers to cross and thanked them since they were the only semblance of time I had AND because they were pushing me.

Post Race and What’s Next

I spent the post-race talking to some of the Brew Runners of Cincinnati, which happened kinda accidentally – I saw the picture of a Streetside canopy on Instagram and made a joke about getting a real beer from them, and they did! The unfortunate thing about hanging and drinking was getting stung by a yellow jacket.

Next race is the Cincinnati Hungry Turkey Half Marathon, which is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That course will be significantly easier than the Pig!

My summer was to be marked by GVRAT progress, which started out with a bang (bang, bang, bang) and was followed by a slump behind the buzzards until finally getting ahead of them in July. As I wind down the first week of August, I feel like I’m going to downshift into a lower gear to start into a half marathon training plan. It’s odd, since I’m typing this on a day that I ran 14+ miles and am only slightly fatigued… in fact, I felt great through 8 miles and my last mile was the fastest.

Going from weekday runs of 6-10 miles to 4-6 miles will feel different, and it will be augmented with no long run because of a local 5k on Saturday. Nothing like starting a training program with a bang (bang, bang, bang).

Speaking of the 5k, it was good. Not great, but good. I spent a bit of time talking to another runner that I see out running (and on Strava) a lot, and he’s usually outrunning me. During the race, there is a turnaround at 1.8 miles, and right before this turnaround is a valley. Prior to the turnaround, down-then-up. After the turnaround, down-then-up. I passed him on that up past the turnaround. I passed several others in the last mile as well as people were gassed from the valley and the loooooong slight-uphill stretch beyond the valley. I’m blaming that on the weight training, and that’s the good kind of blame. I did take two weeks off of weights because vacation (there was no weight room at the podunk-ass cabin I was staying in) and the following week because of race week.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The other thing that is going on is the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee. Speaking of starting with a bang (bang, bang, bang… sorry, the song is constantly stuck in my head. And yes, I’m fully aware that the song is about going out with a bang [bang, bang, bang]). On my current plan and distance projections I should be finishing it close to the end of the month.

Upcoming Races!

I’m still looking forward to the Hudepohl 14k and the Flying Pig Half Marathon (in the fall). Unfortunately, this damn virus variant has decided to uglify everything. Fortunately in Ohio (and many other places), the vaccinated population seems to be doing well. The unvaccinated are currently flooding hospitals and making another wave of the virus we can’t seem to get rid of. Fingers crossed that PigWorks can make two races happen amidst all of this.

This was my fourth marathon. Like many, I have aspirations to qualify for and run Boston Marathon someday. I’d like to think I’m making progress – my first marathon was 3:45, my second was 3:33, and my third was a 3:40, a performance I attributed to hot conditions. I had high hopes going into my fourth marathon, but plane wreck is a good descriptor of this race. I’d call it a train wreck, but since I ran around an airport I figured it was more of a plane wreck than a train wreck.

Background

In December 2019 or January 2020, I signed up for the Flying Pig. It would be my second Pig, and fourth marathon. I started training and as the Bockfest 5k came and went (another race by the same group – Pigworks, which I have done every year since it’s inception and it’s part of a Beer Series of races) things were starting to look bad. By March 15, 2020 Ohio closed. I decided that a self-supported marathon was not in the cards, partly in response to my experience training for the Columbus Marathon (it was hot AF during the training and race). I deferred.

With Covid-19 case numbers going down in Ohio in the winter, I decided to use my deferral code on January 15, 2021. I also decided I would not defer again (because that really seems to me to be a douche move unless I encountered a real injury). I DID know that there was a chance to go virtual. After some virtual races in the latter half of 2020, I felt mentally ready and decided to go all in.

On February 4, 2021 I received an email from Pigworks that they submitted a “Return to Flight” plan with the local governments (side note: there are several governments involved, the race goes through two states, three counties, three cities, two villages, and probably a township too, and each has their own government). After praying religiously for two weeks, Pigworks sent out another email that the race would be virtual-only. They also indicated a possibility for a combined Flying Pig/Queen Bee event at the end of October. Incidentally, on the April 30, Pigworks announced that the October races would be in-person.

I started the Hal Higdon Advanced Marathon (I) plan with the race date set for May 2, 2021. I made a few adjustments to bring the race date to April 30, 2021 (a Friday).

Training

After my first three marathons (and complaining here about my quads-of-fire), someone suggested that I do squats and single-leg deadlifts to hopefully ‘fix’ that problem. Since it seems like that person was on to something (I mean, logically the advice is correct since these would strengthen my quads), I added those in following my hard workouts using a kettlebell that can be “adjusted” by adding 5 lb plates. I also added pull-ups into my routine, since I tend to start and stop my runs near a set of pull-up bars. I did put a hold on these during tapering.

The plan includes a mix of easy, long, tempo, pace, hill, and interval runs. I could mostly hit my pace runs, sometimes my tempo runs, and did ok at the intervals. I missed one run during the cycle. One thing that I noticed was that in weeks 7, 10, 13, and 15, there are some medium-long marathon pace runs on the day prior to long runs. These are on top of another day of speedwork that is usually two days before those marathon pace runs.

Race Plan

I tended to do my running in a township park and a subdivision next to it, and had every intent of doing the race there. I had port-o-lets, my car (in case I needed to switch water bottles or the like). I have a friend along the route that told me that I could stash a water bottle on his property.

Two things happened that pulled my initial plan off the rails. The first is that Pigworks was telling people to run from May 1 through June 15 (which I paid only half attention to). The second is that while looking through the Facebook group, I saw someone mention they were running around Lunken Airport. That got the wheels turning since the Lunken Airport/Armleder Park route is longer per-lap and less hilly… and I only have to watch for cars that will likely mostly be moving forward (people backing out of their driveways sometimes suck). A kinda-third thing was that I was supposed to do fieldwork on Friday, but that didn’t materialize thanks to some contractors that can’t ship stuff on time.

I wanted to break my PR (3:33), but given (gestures at everything around) everything going on and the fact that I’m carrying stuff, I’d be happy with sub-3:40. I planned on a Gatorade Gel 15 minutes before and every five miles. Additionally, I planned on carrying Gatorade Endurance Lemon-Lime and drinking around every 2 miles, adjusting for feeling and heat. I found on my last chilly 20 mile run, I went through under 16oz of Gatorade. For this, I was going to run with one bottle of Gatorade and have a bottle of water in my car at the ready that I could pass by at 10.14, 20.28, or 26.07 miles… yes, that’s very precise for measurements from Google Maps Aerials. Oh, and I’m not stopping at 26.07 miles unless I’m dead.

And precise? Yeah, I figured out the measurements (0.42 miles from the starting “loop” to the first intersection, follow all the way around to go straight onto the Armleder Connector (at 4.5), loop through Armleder and make the turn at 8.85 to go along the golf course (all the while keeping myself from yelling “FORE!” at any morning golfers). Go back to start and turn around (at 10.14 miles) but proceed back along the golf course (yell “FORE!” for some extra motivation now!) and make the turn onto the Armleder Connector at 11.43 miles. Return from Armleder at 15.78 miles and proceed straight along the east side of the airport (15.78 miles at the end of the connector). Make the turnaround by the car again at 20.28 miles and proceed back the way I came (staying along the west side of the airport), making the turn towards the golf course at 24.78. Now might be a great time to start yelling “FORE!” at any golfers I see. Make the turn towards the car at 25.63. Based on my calculations that probably aren’t correct, I should be turning around at 26.07 and crossing the invisible Finish Swine nearby.

In the days leading up to the race, dinners consisted of sausage + corn + buttered noodles, pizza, and spaghetti with meatballs. The pizza dinner was out, so after dinner we went down to the airport and Armleder park to scope out the bathroom situation. Two port-o-lets near the ballfields (near where I was parking), one near my entrance to Armleder park, and a second in Armleder park at a main shelter.

About a week prior to the race, I came down with a sinus infection. I was able to keep with the last easy week of tapering pretty well, and it started providing for some pretty epic snot rockets.

Race Day

Before

On the morning of, I did a semi-normal long run morning routine that added a cup of coffee, some toast with peanut butter, and a visit to the bathroom before my drive to the airport. Upon my arrival at the airport, I visited one of those port-o-lets, ‘suited up’, and I was off. I wore a long sleeve shirt, shorts, my hydration vest, gloves, and a headband. I was unconcerned with the coffee since I used to sip a little coffee on my way to runs all the time (back years ago when I worked in Downtown Cincinnati).

Miles 1-6

I started along the west and south around the airport and continued into Arleder Park. I generally felt great until I made it to the intersection of Airport and Wilmer, where I nearly got hit by some fucking moron in a full-size pickup that is clearly compensating for lack of intelligence (and probably another thing). Around two miles in, I switched my watch face to distance-only because I didn’t want to see the pace (it does show the elapsed time in a small font on the face, but I have to look for it). While I felt good, my pace actually was slow compared to the other marathons I ran. I noticed multiple other groups down here doing their virtual races. Splits: 8:42, 8:31, 8:27, 8:31, 8:34, 8:35.

Miles 7-13

I didn’t feel all that bad, and noticed around mile 7 a ‘funny’ feeling in my stomach- and not ‘I’m going to puke’ funny or anything like that, closer to butterflies but not quite. It was a passing feeling. I called an audible, noticing that the temperature was going to be increasing rapidly – instead of returning towards my car via a path going along the north side of the airport, I continued back the way I came along the east and south sides of the airport to end up at my car around halfway. This worked slightly in my favor, as I dropped off my gloves and headband and picked up my hat and sunglasses. Narrator: “he should have grabbed his second water bottle” Splits: 8:27, 8:31, 8:44, 8:47, 8:48, 8:49, 8:51.

Miles 14-20

The wheels started falling off here. I didn’t actually feel bad, but the numbers aren’t lying that my pace was slowing. The heat was beating down by this point, and I had pulled up the sleeves on my shirt. I had continued on the same path as I started – along the west and south side of the airport which still had shade in a few places, and continued into Armleder Park again. Fatigue was starting through the end of this set of miles, but it seemed less-bad than previous. Splits: 9:00, 8:56, 9:03, 8:55, 9:08, 9:11, 9:17.

Miles 20-26.2

I stayed in Armleder Park, which was in full sun because I didn’t want to finish miles away from the car. I figured that I wanted to return to the airport at 23.75 miles. Narrator: “He started the return trip half a mile early”. After passing the 20 mile mark, my quads started to fatigue as bad as possible. This is one thing that felt similar to every other marathon I’ve run, despite me adding some exercises to attempt to reduce it. I did find out that my previous audible to NOT go along the north side of the airport was a good one – there is a short but very steep hill that can best be described as a quad killer, particularly when you’re making the turn to start down that quad killer at 24.4 miles. Throughout this time, I wanted to walk (but refused) and at times did feel a little nauseous. Splits: 9:41, 9:49, 10:12, 1:33, 10:32, 10:17, 1:53 (9:20 pace).

Overall time: 3:58:47.

Aftermath

As soon as I got back to my car (after a short walk), I started into that second bottle of water, finishing most of it before driving back home. When I got home, I drank a glass of chocolate milk, had another glass of water, got a shower, got another glass of water with some leftover pizza for lunch, another glass of water, half a small glass of beer (I homebrew, and this was from a keg, no beer was wasted), at dinner I had a half glass of wine (with a little bit of steak and potatoes and corn), and a full bottle of a nice strong bourbon barrel aged doppelbock. Even after all that, my ‘pee score’, which took 8 hours to test, indicated that I was pretty dehydrated into the evening.

I certainly feel more sore than after both Glass City and Columbus – in fact, I remember being able to walk down stairs forward 2-3 days after Columbus and at 2 days after this one, my quads are still pretty sore.

Data Exploration

I looked at some comparisons among the four marathons. The first 20 miles of this marathon was 10-15 minutes slower than all my prior marathons. The last 10k was 10 minutes slower than my fastest, and two minutes slower than my prior-slowest. Looking at my 20-mile training runs shows me a few things too…

20 Mile Runs	FP 2018	GCM 2019	Cols 2019	FPVM 2021
20m #1	2:57:22	3:03:55	3:08:00	3:07:00
20m #2	2:57:58	2:57:30	3:01:27	3:11:37
20m #3	N/A	2:56:19	2:58:18	3:09:36
Plan	Higdon I-1	Pfitz 18/55	Pfitz 18/55	Higdon A-1

Obviously, my 20 mile runs were slower. I mostly blame that slowness on having some longer M pace runs prior to those 20 mile runs. Looking at my GCM and Columbus training logs, I saw that very few long runs were preceded by a double-digit run… in fact, NONE of the runs preceding a 20 mile run in my training log were longer than 5 miles. Conversely, the three runs on the day prior to the 20 mile runs were 10 miles, and 2 * 10 @ M pace (12 miles factoring in warm-up and cool-down).

Another interesting thing is that for GCM, I ran the most during training: 768 miles. Columbus was a close second with 760 miles.

	FP 2018	GCM 2019	Cols 2019	FPVM 2021
Max Week	47	58	54	62
Total Miles	615.5	768.3	760.5	741.6

Looking at the plans themselves, it’s not a shock that the Pfitz plans were more mileage than the intermediate plan used for FP 2018. FPVM was a different beast – it had around 20 fewer miles, but a longer maximum week.

So looking at all this, the plan hurt. I can’t say it’s a bad plan, but perhaps my implementation of it… maybe I was running too hard for the M pace sessions and allowing the 20 mile runs to be ruined because of it. I think my next marathon will use the Pfitz 18/55 plan.

Aside from the plan, dehydration definitely hurt the race. I went into it hoping the temperature would stay down and it didn’t, and I didn’t adjust correctly. Had I been running an in-person marathon, I likely would have been taking in fluids every mile, not sticking with every-other-mile as I did.

My quads hurt me, which is irritating since I was trying to work against that. The single-leg deadlifts and squats should have helped alleviate this.

My weight may have played a role in this, but I don’t think I was significantly heavier than I was for Columbus, and less than 10 pounds heavier than I was for Glass City.

Next Time

I’m about to spend the rest of the year training for a few half marathons – at a minimum I want to run the Flying Pig Half Marathon on Halloween. I don’t know if I’m going to do a second or a third and which it might be among the Honor Run Half and the Hungry Turkey Half. I’m also hoping that Pigworks will convert the Hudepohl 14k to an in-person race.

I also don’t think I can significantly improve without actual weight training. And by “actual weight training”, I’m not talking about squats with a 30 pound adjustable kettle bell, I’m talking about 200+ pounds on a bar. I still remember by high-school highest squat weight, which was 310 lbs. I also want to do some on a bench press, and definitely continue pull-ups. The problem is space and ceiling height. I am not going to sacrifice parking in my garage for this, and my basement has a low (7.5 feet) ceiling. I’d have to “evict” my kids from the basement, but they have enough of the house so I’m okay with that.

During the two weeks following the groundhog’s prediction of six more weeks of winter, Mother Nature went on a tantrum proving the rodent correct. Nobody in the science and engineering fields want to assume a rodent could control a few computer models, but when the weather forecasters started looking at the data and telling us it would be bad, we listened. We hoped they were wrong, and to a degree they were – we didn’t get 10 inches of snow in one of the forecasts… but we did get a half inch of ice.

I’ve fallen three times in the past while running, and near-fallen many more. Two of those three falls were on ice (the third was on mud, which can feel like ice in certain circumstances). All included lots of foul language. All included pain. Since I’m not into pain and my last fall (due to mud) also included blood, I’ve moved a lot of my running to the dreaded treadmill.

I’m one of the “lucky” people that own a treadmill. I didn’t actually purchase it, it was given to me by my in-laws that were previously using it as a laundry rack. It’s potentially the worst best treadmill one could have. By “best”, it seems it’s screen is entirely a reactive output device – I’ve “rolled it over” once – the display maxes out at 99:59 (also known as 1:39:59), and I’ve ran over two excruciating hours on the thing. Since it wants to stick with the 2021 theme of “hey 2020, hold muh beer!” (and 2021 has definitely been drinking), the display has given zero fucks about working at all. It will normally turn on when I start the treadmill for a 1-2 minute warm-up walk, and by the first half mile decided that it no longer cares if the treadmill is even running. Sometimes it will pop back on when I put my water bottle back into the cupholder, only to run for 10-20 seconds and then stop.

I never suspected that the treadmill is accurate at all. I guess that is keeping with the treadmill’s history as a torture device.

A few years ago, I decided to purchase a Garmin Footpod to pair with my Garmin watch. This was because I didn’t think anything was reliable – the treadmill definitely wasn’t, and the watch was a piece of trash, so what better thing to do than sink the cost further? I later realized that there is a hack to the Garmin Forerunner 220 when GPS is off – snap your wrist a little when your watch arm is going back.

Cue last summer. Sick of my Garmin’s shit, I bought a Coros Apex. The Garmin footpod doesn’t work with it… or if it does, I don’t know how to get it to work. But let’s be realistic, Garmin is arrogant, phlegmatic, and lifeless. If there’s one thing that’s amazed me about Garmin, it’s the emails claiming they’ve fixed an issue that come in SIX WEEKS after I figure out a workaround. So not being able to get their ANT+ footpod to work with my ANT+ capable watch is not a shock and absent more information, I’m blaming Garmin.

So the Coros and the treadmill… I figured out “the hack”, and I like it better: increase my cadence. I did have to “game” the watch and treadmill to get the distances in the range of what I think they are. I’m not sure I have it correct, but it’s not telling me that I’m going 10:30/mile pace when I know I’m going faster than 9:00/mile pace. That matters for longer runs.

Back to Torture. It’s been in the 20s when I’ve been outside, which is not horrible, but the snow and ice has been unrelenting. Running in slush and snow is slower because I don’t want to fall, and that’s assuming I go outside to run. Or I run in the road, which has it’s share of issues (drivers). That’s the problem with spring marathons – ice and snow during training. After my first marathon, the Flying Pig, I recall someone asking “where was all this warm weather during my training?”. It wasn’t me that asked, but I knew what they were talking about.

Fall marathons are another beast. I ran Columbus in October 2019. While the start line was chilly, I remember getting back to my hotel room covered in salt crust from sweat. I crossed the finish line and made a bee line to a misting fan, and that was after passing a medical crew going backwards on the course with a wheelchair to pickup a victim. I also remember several runs where I ran low on fluids because summer in Cincinnati is hotter than Hell with a significantly higher humidity. I’m sparing the graphic details of the effects of extended dehydration, but we’ll leave it at “it’s scary”.

The rub is that it’s currently the dead of winter and my basement is only warm in the office… partly because I closed off the vent to the rest of the basement, which is where the treadmill sits. The room keeps a relatively constant 64, which is too cold for comfort and a bit warm for running.

After running a semi-non-snowy Friday in the park+subdivision and passing another runner that was using the road while I was on the snow-covered sidewalk, I got out onto the road and have done more than a few miles there. It sucks when I have to use my lights to tell drivers to give me some space, and when I have to pass a school bus, but it’s better than the alternative.

During the following week, Mother Nature apparently felt different and decided that some warm temperatures were in order to finish out February. I had a day of fieldwork and came home to temperatures high enough to wear short-sleeves. I had a few others that were long-sleeve only. Of course, snow and ice takes a while to melt…

But Wait, There’s More!

The Flying Pig made the decision (or the decision was forced on them) to go virtual for the spring. While I am mentally prepared to run a virtual marathon, I’m having a tough time not having angry thoughts about “we can lift the curfew but we can’t race in-person” and “we can put 20,000 people in GABP but we can’t race in-person” and “we can stuff people into Newport Aquarium but we can’t race in-person”.

The Flying Pig did reschedule for October 31, 2021. If things continue on the current trajectory, I plan on running the half marathon.

Meanwhile, I just got the instructions for the Bockfest 5k. These include a printable race bib (which I won’t wear) and printable mile markers (no thank you).