PDX Marathon Post-Mortem

Race Summary:

The goal was sub 4 hours.

The actual time was 5:26. Obviously not what I had in mind when I started. Here's what happened:

Background: 

I didn’t know if we were traveling in the fall, so once I knew for sure I’d be local in October, I signed up for PDX Marathon. Training had been put together with duct tape. I maintained about 40km/week of volume, peaking at 60km.

My longest run was 16 miles. I had planned a 20 miler the week after the 16 miler but due to some smoke due to forest fires nearby, I figured it'd hurt my lungs more than help if I were to be outside for 3 hours in terrible air. Instead I did a 20 mile row session inside. 

The following week I did 13 miler, tapering down to 10k for the last week, then finally some random 3-4k dog walk/runs and a 5k shakeout the Saturday before the race.

Still, I felt like I could rely on the conditioning I had built for Eugene in April-- I hoped I could at least maintain it during the summer. I felt more conditioned for Eugene, but I felt like my strategy going into PDX was going to be a lot more sound. That is to say, I actually *HAVE* a strategy for Portland :).

Race Report:

I started off the race feeling great! I was hitting all my splits without straining too much. At the 10k mark, I had to remind myself to not get too excited and instead maintain a slower pace.

Was on track for first half but the race fell off the rails after the first HM.

Combination of the heat, the slow uphill section of the second half of the course, and most importantly, my lack of conditioning did me in.

My HM split was about 2:05 which meant that there was no way I’d be able to negative split the second half. Instead, I rolled to my B goal which was 4:15. Around mile 15, that wasn’t going to happen either since my legs seized up in a bad way. My hip adductors were in a lot of pain and I was doing what I could to keep my hamstrings from locking up.

This is about time I jumped on the struggle bus. 

I end up moving by at least power walking through Reed College. Eventually I recovered enough to start playing mental games with myself— I’d jog from one tree to the next then start walking again before I started cramping. 

Around mile 17, I ran into a buddy who also happened to be boogie-ing through the pain. He also found a spot on the struggle bus so we kept each other company. We played the “let’s run from landmark to landmark” game and tackled the course about 200 meters at a time. 

Amazingly for me, the moving around helped me recover from my cramps and I felt a bit of a second wind at around mile 21. 

My friend was dealing with an old foot injury and wasn’t as fortunate as I was, so he needed up needing to power walk the rest of the way. He let me go on ahead and we parted ways at around mile 22. 

From there I kept myself engaged by repeating phrases to myself over and over --  “quick feet,” “I love hills,” “let’s go let’s go let’s go” among other things, along with cheering on anyone who passed me and thanking every volunteer and spectator in my path. 

The last 4 miles was a struggle, but I had a found a way to run/walk without triggering any cramps. Effectively it gave me a way to at least pump out 11-12 minute miles while managing the pain.

I made it to the end and took home the W while I could. Again the time was disappointing but ultimately I learned a lot of valuable lessons. Without question I’m ready to go again.

Lessons Learned

What worked: 

• My gear - My kit was 99% all old stuff. I followed "nothing new on raceday" rule with the exception of my socks -- the ones I already owned were stinky and needed washed. So the socks i wore that day were brand spanking new. Since I was familiar with everything, I had zero issues with chafing or blisters or anything like that.
  

• My nutrition and hydration plan: this was the first marathon I’ve run without having to poop. Yay! Also I felt like both my hydration and nutrition were in point. My 5 serving GU flask worked perfectly. I didn’t have to awkwardly open individual packets. I took a swig whenever I felt like my body needed it. Never did I feel thirsty or feel like I had no energy. 

• Positive self talk: runners can be an extremely positive bunch. Like Girl Scout levels of positivity. Without context it sometimes comes off as a little disingenuous, grating, even obnoxious! It’s not that we’re delusional— it’s quite the opposite. There are points of time where the pain and discouragement can be relentless. The only way to process the pain, then is to crowd out the negatively with equally relentless positivity. The positive talk prevents you from wallowing in self-pity and instead reminds you of things to be grateful for. Most importantly, it builds resiliency. As opposed to thinking “woe is me,” you’re now thinking “ok, what am I going to do now?”

•  Cramp Recovery: I learned A LOT about cramps this race. In the past, once I cramped up, the race was basically over in my mind. Maybe because I already knew how they felt, I didn’t panic, I knew what they were, and I took steps to recover. My calf flared up in a bad way as I crossed the finish line, so much so that the medic asked me if I needed to sit in the medical tent. 

I politely declined and calmly stretched out my calf for about a minute. The cramp went away and after that I walked around as if nothing had happened. 

The same goes for the hamstrings. 

Obviously I don’t want to cramp in the first place but now I’m a lot more confident that I can work through them. Ride out the waves of pain and it will get better.

 

What needs to be improved:

• My conditioning: at no point did I feel like I was overreaching, cardio wise. I can thank my rowing for that. What needs to be improved is my specific running muscle adaptations.

I relied too much on cross training to get my volume in and simply didn’t spend enough time on the road to get my running muscles more conditioned. I need to put in the miles. It’s as simple as that. Put in the work and everything else takes care of itself. 

Also what did me in was weakness in my hip adductors. They were the first to go, and probably the hamstrings had to overexert themselves to make up for the weakness in the hips. 

Again not a surprise since rowing is essentially a one dimensional exercise so lateral motion isn’t really exercised if at all.

To counteract this, I’ll have to double down on some more drills and band work to attack that adductors during the off season. 

• Pacing: My pace plan was good, but my GPS distance and the mile markers on the course got misaligned pretty quickly. My watch had a time of 1:58 at the HM mark, but the actual course HM mark was maybe 1 km further than what my watch showed.  When I actually got to the HM course marker, I was already approaching 2:05 and that’s when I knew my A goal was out of reach.

To fix this, I downloaded an app on my watch that helps to align the racing splits to the actual course distance markers. Its actually pretty easy to be misaligned with the course markers, since the miles are measured assuming the shortest possible path is taken. Normal things like weaving through traffic, or stepping off to the side can add a lot of extra distance when you add it up over the course of a marathon.  

 

In conclusion, I had nothing to blame for my bonk except for my own lack of fitness. 5000+ other people ran faster than I did, and they did so with the same course and in the same heat. A larger aerobic base would have meant more energy for me to control my body temperature. But instead the heat exposed my weaknesses and showed me why its so important to get those miles in during base building. 

I don't have any races planned for the rest of 2022, and will be looking at my calendar for 2023.  The short term plan is to back off my running during the winter months and come back around February with some speed training and then ramping up to as many sustainable miles as possible.

I think that about wraps up my takeaways for PDX marathon. Thanks for making it this far.