Athens Ohio Marathon race report 04.06.08

It’s taken me a little time to write-up a race report about the Athens Ohio Marathon that K & I ran this past Sunday but here we go finally. I picked this spring BQ attempt race for several reasons but the main reason being that it was a flat & fast Boston qualifier race so I wouldn’t have to wait till Chicago again in October 2008. I followed the advanced Furman Institute of Training FIRST program once again for 16 weeks as I did for Chicago 2007. My training cycle was very strong even with the normal style Chicago winter we have had this year. My cross training days were spot-on for those 16 weeks also but there’s one variable that we cannot control at all when it comes to race day and that is…

Mother Nature…

At the start of the un-chipped race at 9am it was already bright sunshine & 56 degrees and when I finished on the Ohio University track at 12:41:49pm it was even sunnier & warmer at 73 degrees with a very constant 12mph southeast wind all day long. I ran the race in my summertime track workout style singlet & shorts so it wasn’t a problem of over-dressing at all. It was just that my body was not acclimated to this very quick change in weather so abruptly when you’re used to training outdoors in the 20 to 30 degree temperature range. The course is an out and back on an asphalt bike path which is a converted rails to trails path. A lot of the path is in wide open fields following the Hocking River and at the sections that have tall trees that didn’t help much as their where no leaves on the limps. This equaled being hit by direct sunlight for at least 90% of the time while on the race course.

At the starting gun I was on the startline with the full & half marathoners and as the cannon went off I controlled my pacing the first mile and a half to the trail head as we all then headed northwestward to the turn around point at mile 13.1. As I cruised at a comfortable normal training pace of 8 minute miles or very slightly under, drinking enough water with my eGels & lava salts every 5 miles I went through the 13.1 mile turn around at 1:45:02 and was immediately greeting by a very constant southeast head wind which would last till the finishline a half marathon later. I only used my Polar HR monitor with it’s watch to lap time my mile split times and that’s the only time I saw my HR values since I was running by PEL. By mile 18 my body was just locking up from my lower back all the way down both legs to my feet. It was a strange new feeling to me as if my legs lost all their stride-ability. I try everything over the last 8.2 miles to over-come this problem but nothing was working as the direct sunlight, wind and warmth had done my body in basically.

The last 2 miles you follow the Hocking river southeast (which was even windier) towards the Ohio University track that you run a 600 meter lap to finish I was dicing with a young man that was about half my age but the really benefit was he was 6’6” tall with a Mohawk haircut. I used my cycling knowledge and drafted him to break the winds and as we entered the track I remained in his draft until 200 meters to go I decided to use the track energy for the pass on him and as I pulled along side of him my first (and only) cramp of the day knotted my right hamstring badly so I back off the throttle and cruised around the last track corner. In the corner I noticed the fresh water in the steeplechase pit and though how refreshing that looked to lounge in at that point but with 100 meters to go I crossed the finishline with a time of 3:41:49…not a bq, not a pr but the best run I could do on this given race day.

Went I got home I downloaded my Polar HR data and then that’s when I really noticed the real reason for my problems at the Athens Ohio Marathon…my average HR 149bpm in the opening 13.1 miles were about 9 to 11 beats per minute higher than that same minute mile pace I trained at home all winter in the cooler/colder temps especially via the 5 – 20 mile training runs I did for this race preparation. By mile 16 thru 18 my HR was bouncing into the higher red HR zone which is not good for a marathon distance even though my mile pacing did not quicken and then you could see via the HR chart when my body & heart had enough of this un-seasonable warm temperatures. My body went into a fail-safe mode for survival at that point even though I was trying to fight through this situation…

And on a different note…

Kristen had a fantastic marathon race as she really had no goal time in mind but I had a feeling see was looking to PR under her previous best at Maui in September 2006 when we ran together and she PR there with a 4:24:xx time. As I waited for K to enter the track she was well under the previous best time for herself but I could tell she was hurting, so I provided words of encouragement as she crossed the finish line with a new PR time of 4:18:44…I was very, very proud of her great performance and as she got her breathing back after a few minutes she informed me that she was fighting right-side stitches from mile 17 onwards which makes this even more of an incredible achievement for her

Below are some results links if anyone might be interested:
http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?rsID=60994&orgID=234635&pubID=2

http://www.athensmarathon.org/results.htm

Thanks for your patience and spending the time to read our race report

b