Austin Marathon 2015 Race Report

Dear Future Self,

It's been a while since you ran the Austin Marathon and you might be thinking about running again. Stop!!! Think! Take some advice from someone who's been there. PR Marathons are tough! Remember hobbling the 8 blocks to the car? Watching the pace group in front of you get slowly further away while you pushed every step? Do you??!? Bill Rodgers said "If you're not sore, you didn't get your money's worth" and you always get your money's worth. Are you sure a half marathon might not be a better idea?

But, you can do it! You went out fairly easy, like you planned, but didn't wait until late in the race to start speeding up, just in case it was your big PR day. That story ends with a lot of crying when it ends with crying -- you were straining with everything you had to hold pace towards the end and eventually you couldn't do it. It was super difficult, but you know how to push hard every single step when it gets tough. The weather might do anything! It can be cool and relatively nice for the whole training season and then punch you in the face with a warm, humid day. Joe Gault told me that Mike Tyson said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

You've gotta train smart. At some point in the middle of training, you're going to have that "at the buffet" feeling and it is going to seem like more is always more, without limits. It is not. If you decide to bump up your weekly mileage a lot without sleeping, eating, and massaging yourself constantly when you're not running, then be prepared to work checklists of overtraining symptoms again. Especially eating! You gotta keep up with getting calories in when you're training really hard. And, don't keep up quite so well when you're not training hard!

Do your exercises and stretches! Pay attention to little pains before they get to be big. You don't want to take a couple days off 3 weeks before your race with blah blah tendon pain. Or, waste any time reading those injury web sites and imagining the worst-case scenario. Fixing your form when it starts to detoriate helps too.

Run hills. You never regret having hill training in your legs on race day. Work downhills too, not just ups.

Run with your friends! It is more fun.

Figure out your nutrition. Those bathroom stops sucked! Maybe an all-liquid diet??!? For a couple days??!? It is your job to find something that works, not put up with stuff all through training and then realize you don't have a plan for race day. But, keep drinking that apple/ginger/honey/malto stuff. It tastes good! And, caffeine at the end of the race helps.

You know now that a peak workout doesn't guarantee anything. It's a freaking marathon, nothing guarantees anything. But, build to something like 5 MGP + 3 easy + 3 MGP + 4 easy + 5 MGP. If the last 5 doesn't feel pretty reasonable, then MGP is probably too high or you'd better have an easier course/better weather card to play. You know yourself well enough to know that you don't get that much out of being tapered.

Hugs, You

Splits (from my watch): 8:23 8:09 7:59 7:48 7:32 7:36 7:49 7:58 8:01 7:46 8:05 7:46 7:50 (1:42:58 half) 7:40 8:03 7:37 7:32 7:34 7:39 7:31 8:06* 7:36 7:31 7:53 7:54 8:19 2:43 (3:26:20 finish, 24 second positive split)

What went well:
  I freakin' PR'd!
  I got to run with my friends from Austin Fit for a while, and Ashtyn gave me some great advice at a critical time near the end.
  I was brave (or stupid) enough to start pushing early, around mile 12, even though there was still significant elevation left to climb
  I noticed when I started overstriding late in the race and was able to correct it
  I got calories in on schedule and stayed cool
  I started off under control I pushed hard every step when things got tough at the end.
  I really don't think I could have gone much faster unless I thought it was much more important (e.g. life or death or very important time goal)
  Sugar food "nutrition" bottles jammed in the back pocket of a tri top worked well
  Brooks Adrenaline GTS aren't cool in any way, but they have a history of working well for me

Things to improve:
  2 bathroom stops (miles 15 & 21) for about a minute total lost + some worried running miles. Maybe all-liquid diet the day before?? More extreme measures?
  I didn't do as many hill repeats this season and the hills at the end really hurt.
  I slowed down significantly the last 3 miles.
  I had two minor injuries. Need to work flexibility and stabilizing muscle strength to stay strong.
  I flirted with overtraining. I should work minimum required training and rest more when work or life gets really stressful and busy.
  Trail running is really fun and I should make the effort to get to the trails one night a week.
  I got thirsty. Should probably have walked water stops later in the race to get more fluids down. Walking and getting rolling again is something to practice.
  I put a little too much focus on Decker Challenge and was worried that I needed to catch up on Marathon training, which led to some overreaching and a suboptimal January of training
  Tri top's zipper sawed holes in my chest when open. Leave it up!
  Need to set watch so I can see seconds.
  I forgot about gun vs. chip time when I tried to calculate our pace, etc.


Nutrition Plan:

4 hours before race start: 1 cup (pre-cooked dry volume) instant mashed potatoes, 1 pancake, 1 banana
10 minutes before race start: 24 oz. gatorade + maltodextrin. A few sips of water
Miles 0-14: 10 oz. Maltodextrin/Honey/Apple Juice Concentrate/Ginger/Water mix. Approximately 50% of energy gel concentration.
Miles 14-20: 4 oz. Gatorade/Malto/Caffeine. Approximately energy gel concentration.
Mile 23: One Vanilla Bean Gu Gear:

And now, a familiar look in a new place: www.austinhealingmassage.com

Merri and I made a web site for her business and it came out nicely: http://renohealingmassage.com/

stuff from hong kong...

some dim sum and some isoms:






family resemblance?



she wanted me to promise not to post this. what are brothers for?


i like to ride the bus around in the morning and read the paper. you can see a lot of hong kong from on top and in the front.



the family likes to ride in the back. it is, literally, cooler and there's more legroom:





kowloon is being rebuilt taller, now that the airport is outside of town. the terracing (every 10 floors, and these are just regular buildings in this part of town) in the bamboo-scaffolded buildings reminded me of pagodas:



there are two "mountains" that i've climbed the most. kaitsi !gubeb / brukaros and fung wong shan / lantau peak. i'm not aware of more beautiful places on this earth. this time up fung wong shan, there was a cool layer of clouds blowing through:









the claim that this is the world's largest outdoor seated bronze buddha makes me wonder how big the world's largest outdoor seated buddha is. is there a buddhas.com?



there's also a "wisdom walk" that, frankly, kind of rips off stonehenge. it is these tall wooden pillars arranged in the shape of an infinity symbol. the pillars have sayings on them. the one on the right was my personal favorite.



i lived in this house in tai-o. it was at the end of the line on this island that was the end of the line after going traveling the length of this other, sparsely populated island. we lived in this house, and within the first week had seen our housemates playing with a baby cobra they'd found in the garden and eaten strange meat soon after one of the pet dogs disappeared for good. they've recently remodeled it and it is looking good:



they make some of the best shrimp paste (they put shrimp out in the sun to "ripen"--you don't forget the smell) and dried seafood products anywhere. mom and dad were particularly excited about this shark's skin:



then, we took a boat ride to go look for dolphins and see the sights.



we didn't see any dolphins, but we did see this rock that "looks like a general"

jasper national park isn't a place that you can really take a picture of. imagine a range of sharp snow-covered mountains on either side of a valley:



this picture doesn't do it justice. there's a really cool section where it looks like a flat sheet of rock just got bent up into a 40 degree angle. i can't imagine how cool it must look to climb up to the corner... i hope to know someday:



went to denver and got a little upside-down with the cousins:




joshua saved us from viewing a moment of marital bliss:


the way back to texas was flat and i went kind of fast:


alice in the toot and totum has a son in kansas and made me promise to stop by when i came through amarillo again:


caught some rain on the flat, wide, straight road back to austin:


so i drove straight through two full tanks of gas on the way back, made it to cisco and the hwy 183 turnoff and didn't want it to be over. there was a dirt road headed south one turn before 183 and i figured i couldn't possibly get lost when i knew i was just west of the highway. the grass was green, the hay was bailed, and the cows were happy:

(picture to come)

this farm implement looked cool:


a (formerly) private moment between dolores and i:


i took these at a closed gas station, and a neighbor drove by soon after to make sure i wasn't messing with anything. i called these people to see if they needed any help, and they said they were all set. i don't know why you'd bother to get married unless you were driving away in an old enough vehicle that this might happen:

Am safely home in Austin. Will put the rest of the pictures and such up shortly.