It's Me, I'm the Bonk: Dancing With the Bonk Monster Through the Vernonia Marathon

I've bonked at every marathon I've ever run. Every single one. Going into Vernonia, I was mentally bracing for it again. I was going to feel good but right at mile 18, Lucy was going to grab the football right as I was about to kick it. 

Except this time I came to realize something: I was Lucy. I was sabotaging my own efforts. Whenever I ignored my fueling plan, whenever I surged to pass people or weave around a crowd, whenever I picked up my speed to negative split the back half of the race, the football was long gone before I ever started running to kick it.Good Grief!

The bonk wasn't something that just …. happened. It was something I did to myself. It’s me. I’m the bonk. 

For Vernonia I was determined to break the cycle.

The first thing I dialed in was effort. I was determined to maintain a consistent effort the entire way through. Part of maintaining that effort was locking in my cadence. I chose music that was 180 bpm on the dot to maintain running efficiency. I went through every song on my playlist manually on songbpm.com and vetted each one to within 3-4 beats of 180. What I discovered was that a huge amount of Tejano and Cumbia music is dead on 180 bpm. So while everyone else was listening to music to hype up or to distract themselves from the pain, I literally let the my legs move along with the rhythm. My playlist was four hours of bangers. No skips.

The other thing I did in relation to effort was resist my temptation to surge or to pass people. This was a *huge* problem of mine in the past. I *hated* feeling boxed in and I also hated not being able to see what was in front of me. So I resolved to focus on my own efforts and stay steady eddy the entire 26.2 miles. Where I was in relation to anyone else did not enter the equation.

I also crafted a fueling plan. I didn’t want to leave my nutrition to chance. I learned from coach Jason Koop that keeping water and electrolytes separate gives you a lever to pull if something goes wrong. If you're already taking it all at aid stations (e.g. Gatorade, which is basically a chimera of water + electrolytes+ and calories), you've lost that control.

My DIY hydrogel formula handled the electrolytes and the calories. And I only used the aid stations for water. I grabbed cups on the move, slowed down just enough to drink, and kept going. Stopping to walk would have cut into my pace more than the recovery was worth.

Of course, it would only be a matter of time where I would be outpacing other runners. If I passed anyone, it was only because I'd been slowly gaining on them long enough that overtaking didn't require me to go any faster. It felt much like a semi truck passing another semi truck on the highway — no drama, no surge, just slow inevitable geometry. Once, for three or four miles of the course, I stared at the back of one guy and fought every instinct I had to just pass him.

I knew if I passed him I'd have to maintain that speed the rest of the way. Otherwise he'd just slowly reel me in and pass me back. That's embarrassing. Playing leap frog out of ego would have burned unnecessary calories. Instead, I focused on “baila esta cumbia”-ing down the course for as long as possible.

The Last 10km: The Battle Begins

The plan was just to make sure the football was still in front of me. I still had to run up and kick the football. I didn’t face any trouble with cramps up to this point so I was very happy about my plan. I had a puncher’s chance of reaching my A-Goal of sub 3:45.

Mile 22 is when I felt danger on the horizon.

My HR was sitting in the 160s and I couldn't bring it down. I knew that picking up the pace was risking a cramp. The last 4 miles is going to be a dance with the bonk monster. So I made an executive decision: ditch the current “one gel every 5km” and switch to “one gel every 20 minutes”. With an elevated HR, I knew my body was using almost 100% carbs for fuel. If I couldn’t keep the HR down, then my brain would start throwing sand in my gears to force me to slow down. The gels would keep the engine going. I took my last one around mile 25. My body probably wouldn't process the sugar fast enough to get it to my muscles in under 15 minutes, but the hope was that tasting the sugar would signal to my brain that we weren't in danger of running out of fuel. If I was going to bonk, then I want to bonk knowing I did everything I could to fuel myself.

I was still in a huge amount of pain, but I was able to manage it to the point where I could ride the line between moving forward and seizing up. I could sense the finish line and that gave me just enough motivation to keep it moving.

As I circled the Banks Middle School track, my calves froze up 200 meters from the finish line. I stopped momentarily to recoup. The clock said I still have just under minute to break 4 hours. I gave it another go and crossed! My official time 3:59:46. About a ten minutes faster than my previous marathon PR. Disappointed I didn’t get sub 3:45, but satisfied that I finally got the 4 hour monkey off my back.

 

 

Thoughts from my couch

Another thing I need to keep reminding myself is to celebrate the W (or grieve the L) on race day. Take the medal, don’t undercut the finish with second guessing. Enjoy it!

Leave the breakdowns (intellectual, or I guess emotional if it didn’t go too well. Porque no los dos???) for a different day.

Race Viet was on Sunday. I turned into Couch Viet on Monday and now I have thoughts:

The whole thing taught me that execution is a massive part of the marathon distance. Holding back, fueling on a schedule, refusing to get competitive with other runners — every good decision I made out there was a decision I'd already made before the race started.

The cadence was pre-solved by the playlist. The electrolytes were pre-solved by the hydrogel. The surging instinct was pre-solved by swallowing my own ego. If all the thinking is done before hand, you don’t waste as many calories making ad-hoc executive decisions. All you need to do is ... show up and execute.

The structured speedwork I'd done in the build made marathon pace feel almost like a shuffle. So when I actually did need to shuffle, it was at mile 23 and not mile 18. Five miles of death shuffle avoided. That’s huge. People argue on the internet all the time about what counts a “junk miles.” I will point at the post-bonk death shuffle as the definition of “junk miles.” You’re not gaining fitness, you’re not improving form, you’re just shuffling to survive.

This has proven to me that I have an execution plan that’s workable. For the first time I’m excited to run another marathon and not angrily signing up for the next one to plot my revenge. Instead, I want to run again to iterate and improve. See the football, leave the football where it is, then kick the football.

For next marathon, I’m absolutely keeping my playlist. So good. For nutrition, I’m going to just go straight into taking in gels every 20 minutes. The more gels I can take in without GI distress, the better. This must be non-negotiable for me.

Well. That’s all I got for you today.

Now go run.