Gasparilla '08 Marathon

Ug. It was Clobberin Time alright...'sept the Bigun was the one gettin' clobbered. Super-huge thanks to Diana and Bob for getting up early with us and coming to watch and Sherpa. I'm sure watching a Marathon is about as exciting as watching paint dry. My Sis Allie and her hubby Sam came out later to watch the finish as well. Thanks!

It was pretty ugly. All notions of sub-4:30 were out the window at mile 18. At that point, I was just hoping to come in under 5hrs - which I didn't do. 5:05 was my time. It was a long day.

I guess there's a difference between just getting over a cold, and being better from a cold. So lesson #1 from this experience - when your HR is in the hight 150's and your only running 10:30's - you may still have some lingering problems. Before I got sick, I could run 10:30 - 11:00 at a HR of under 130 in warmer temps than we had on Sunday. So that was a red flag that I should not have ignored.

Lesson #2: Don't try to make up time on a Marathon. There were NO porto-potties at the start of the race, so at mile 1 I had to wait in line 3 back for the first blue bucket I saw. I had hydrated well enough. Mom kept running, and I told her I'd catch up. I didn't think I'd have to wait so long! When I got out of the john, my average pace had dropped to 12:00. I cought back up to my Mom in around a mile and a half, right at the 10:45 pace I had left her at. But I had to run hard to catch her. So that was dumb.

Lesson #3: Even when sick, use your HR as your tachomoter. I should have seen right away that my high 150's and 160's HR was gonna keep me from getting that 4:30 goal and I should have adjusted. Instead I plowed ahead, from mile 7 to mile 13, running sub 10's to try and get my average pace down to 10 per mile; the pace needed to reach my goal. I got down to somewhere around 10:11 average pace, but I really paid the price. I was cooked, done, stick a fork in me, kaput, shoot me in the face at mile 20. It was a suffer fest for the last 10k....and for what? A crummy 5:05, when I could have slowed it down early and possibly had the same outcome but without the agony for the last 10k.

Lesson #4: Landmark running. When it really got bad, I was walk-running for as long as I could stand the running, and I think sometimes I walked too far. For the last 2 miles, I remembered to pick a light pole and run to it, then walk the next set of poles....I made some serious ground on the group of fellow sufferors I had been walking with by doing that, and concentrating on the landmarks instead of the pain was a great help.

Lesson #5: More run volume. I was averaging just at 30 miles of running a week in the 10 weeks prior to this race (not counting recovery weeks), and I don't think that was enough. In the time I have left for CdA, I'm going to try to up that to 40 miles per week. On the flip side, it is very true that of the three events, the run is the one event in an Ironman that if you have to, you can walk. You still have to bike the whole bike, and swim the whole swim.




Mama Bigun did great - busted her 2:30 half marathon goal with a time 2:27. I took some video along the way - of course it's disjointed and hard to understand...I wanted to film more at the end, but just didn't have the heart left for anything but finishing. I'll tell you what - half marathons are WAY more fun than the full. I've heard from more than one person that running the marathon after swimming and biking, for some reason, is easier than a stand-alone marathon. We'll see about that....