Austin Marathon Starting Line… Ready Set Go! (click on me for full size pic)
Brian’s Story – From Zero to 26.2 miles in 18 months…
Short story: So last week I finished a marathon. The Austin Marathon.
I FINISHED A MARATHON!
Who would have believed it? Not me.
I executed my plan and it worked out, doing 10:07 min miles all the way to a nice 4 hour, 24 minute, 21 second overall time (10:05 min/mile pace).
Long story: Going in to this race I knew my training was spot on, and after the Rogue 30km race I knew what pace to shoot for. The big question was if my right calf was strong enough to take me thru. It had been hurting off and on since mid January so I had no idea what to expect. Would I only make it 2 miles? Would it not even be an issue? Or something in between? One thing I did was put a small insert in my shoe to keep the heel elevated slightly (thanks CoolRunning.com).
The pre race went perfectly. I made certain to have bananas in house for my breakfast this time! I also bought 5 or 6 gels. Got downtown with almost no difficulty and was thru the restroom and on the starting line eating my gel bloks 15 mins early. I had a plan to take in lots of carbs today.
We made it across the starting line 10 mins after the gun and my pacers were already ahead of me. I reeled them in and stayed more or less even with them. I would lose ground to them at every water stop and catch up again before the next one.
The first 8 or 9 miles were uneventful. Just running along, enjoying the sights, watching people. Then I hit mile 10 and suddenly I started to feel a tightening or something in my right calf. I was not happy with this. I had to make it to mile 18 and get my Peanut Butter Gu gel from Joel and Leah and this calf stopping me would not do! I tried a few things and changed up to a very short fast stride for awhile. This seemed to help, but I still was feeling the cramping or pulling or something.
We quickly reached the point where the half marathoner’s cut right and we went left. I almost thought of…. nahhh. First thing after we split off are two miles of fairly steep hills. “So many hills, my calf doesn’t like them.” I just kept chugging along with short fast steps and seemed to hold off any more pain. Once it flattened out things got better. I don’t even think my calf was an issue after mile 15; it just seemed to fade into the background. From there on everything went smooth. Just stay with my pace group. Early in the race I had to force myself to not get too far ahead of them, but later I really couldn’t.
There were so many people cheering from mile 16 on it was great. People giving us oranges, bananas, cupcakes (I had to have a chocolate one!) candy, grapes… so wonderful. Saw Joel and Leah at mile 18+ and got a PB Gu gel!
Shortly after that we hit mile 20. I started worrying. Is this when you hit the fabled “Wall”? What’s gonna happen? My race plan was to start off slow and take in lots of carbs to make sure my body didn’t run out of carbs and hit the wall. And my plan worked. Whatever this wall thing is, if I hit it I didn’t notice.
I really tried to pour on some speed the last 3 miles. I think I did one in 9:30. But I really couldn’t put any space between me and my pace group. Mile 24 was a bit tragic, as I saw a runner twist his ankle badly. He tried to hop on but sadly I doubt he finished. I felt really bad for him.
800m to go and there is one last big steep hill.
More hills? Really? I have proof!
Where did they get this thing from? Okay, chuga, chuga, chuga, chuga, choo choo, made it up, and then… I had to go down a hill. At this point I really just wanted flat pavement to lessen the chance of any cramping or tripping or of my calf finally giving in.
Made it to the bottom and I was at the finish line! Woohoo!!!!!!
Made it. There are no limits!
And now the highlight of the day: my favorite pacer, the guy who saved me from certain doom at the Rogue 30k and who I thanked profusely at the expo yesterday, and who I ran with all day today… he gave me the pace sign! Greatest marathon souvenir ever! Only 20 pace signs and 20,000 people and I’m sure most pacers keep them….
People kept thanking me for pacing after that and I kept explaining my story about how it was my first marathon and he gave it to me. They all said 4:25 was a really good time for a first marathon. That was nice of them. Next year I hope I can do 4:00.
I’m not really a pacer… … but this isn’t proof.
After finishing my calf was really tight and I had to limp to the Austin Runner’s Club food tent. But after a bit, I walked around, stretched it out and was able to walk fairly well. And I parked 10 blocks from the finish so I had lots of time to stretch it out.
So yeah. I did it! Marathon Man is me. I really can’t believe it.
So what next? No running for bit. Probably a lot more biking and swimming in my near future.
— Race Recap Part 2 —
Two days after my mind is still on the marathon… I keep thinking: “From Zero to 26.2 in 18 months!” I’m still amazed. Hard to believe I couldn’t run a full lap 18 months ago.
I wanted to share some quotes I had in my head while running the Austin marathon:
“Pain is only temporary, but failing to finish you will remember forever.”
“Just skate it off, you’ll be fine” – what I was thinking when my calf started hurting. I’m sure my dad remembers all the hockey coaches (and probably him too) saying that to us players when we got hurt.
“From Zero to 26.2 in 18 months” – yes, I came up with that phrase, around mile 20.
And of course my personal mottos: “There are no limits” and “Inspire!”
Probably missing some… oh, the theme from Rocky 1 – “dada da, dada dada da… ”
One more quote, from around mile 10 where my calf started tightening up: “If I can just make it to mile X I can walk the rest if I have to!” I was going to finish no matter what.
Who knows maybe something here will help or inspire someone!
Other thoughts… outside of my worries about my calf giving out the race was really anti-climactic. It definitely went better than my previous race. I never felt at any point that I was beyond myself or my abilities. I seemed to have hit the sweet spot on training, pacing, nutrition, weather, everything. Guess the plan worked.
Good Times!
Ps. I will probably be resurrecting my site, britri.com soon, so check it out in a week or so. I don’t have much time but will cobble something together 😉 .
This is the first week were I would not give myself a gold star for each work out day.
On Monday we got our weights in, but due to some extra work at work, we did not get our swim in.
Tuesday we were able to get the bike and the run in, it was amazing out, in the 80s! On the trainer, we are watching the 3rd batman movie now. Its great but watching it in 30 minute chunks is getting to me. It will be 2 weeks before we get to finish it.
Wednesday was productive with the weights and the swim was ok. Tried some new drills in the pool and it just made me feel slower, weaker and less coordinated.
Thursday morning trainer, lunch run, both went well, then we had game night at the house where we played Lords of Waterdeep. If you are nerdy like us you will recognize its a Dungeons and Dragons board game. This one was very different though and had to be one of the most fun board games I have ever played. It was more of a resource management building type of game.
Friday was thankfully a day off!
Saturday our big plans of getting up early, getting out to the lake for a run and a bike were slightly delayed. We got out about 45 minutes late.
We did 2 laps at lake Pflugerville for 6.2 miles. It was cold and windy. We talked about it and decided to cancel the outside ride since the gusts were getting bad. As we were driving out of the parking lot the rain started up, so I am very glad we canceled the ride.
While visiting some family up at Sun City Georgetown, we got in about an hour of pool time, I had a solid 29 minutes of laps in the 25 meter pool 50 lengths so not so shabby. I also borrowed a pair of fins for 5 laps and it helped my body “click” with the way to move my legs properly. I know I look terrible in the water and am not efficient with my legs. This has caused me to decide to use fins for at least 5 laps every training swim until I no longer have to think about the way to move my legs. (Done well with keeping this up.)
We finished up the day with a 40 minute trainer ride at home then rushed off to play cards at a friends house.
So where we failed this week:
Missed 1 swim
Only did a 40 min ride on Saturday instead of the planned 1 hour 15 minutes.
Leah Notes from Week 5:
I may possibly have gone off the deep end with all the other crap going on if things weren’t going well in this area, but this week in training turned a corner and was… pretty awesome!
Running: The magic is starting to happen with the zone 1/2 running. It’s getting easier to stay in my zone and actually run instead of just sort of prancing and limping along. I clocked two runs this week under 12 min/mile pace averages while staying around 150. One of them even was a 10k run, which is the longest I’ve ran by far since the marathon, and it just felt fucking fantastic and I wanted to keep going. Also, the shoes are working their magic. My heel is not 100% better, but it’s been improving, and running doesn’t seem to really aggravate it, so I’m calling it a win.
I feel like I can actually show my runner card without feeling like a chump this week, finally. I may not be anywhere close to where I was before, but the improving is certainly making me feel like I might actually be able to do something decent by the time I have to rock out with my tri suit on. Running is making me happy again, which is comforting.
Biking: I’ve upped my resistances and my speeds are settling back down to what looks reasonable for me. I’m going to continue doing my monthly test on the easy resistance just to gauge progress, but I need some more quad busting in my life. Also, one leg drills are evil and hard, which means they are going to make me awesome come tri season. Bummed we didn’t get a chance to ride outside this week, but hoping for next week.
Swimming: The fact that I missed one swim sucks, but Saturday’s swim made up for it. Wednesday I swam ok – my (now) normal 1200m in 30, but I did spend some time helping Zliten with his stroke, so if I would have been focused I could have done some more, but it was totally worth it. Saturday, we swam in a real 25m pool at my parents’ gym. I started with 250m (10 lengths) of fin drills and HOLY CRAP those really help you feel out the position you should be kicking in. I took those off and did 52 more lengths (1300m) feeling faster and more efficent than I ever have. I was digging my new music too. I finished 1550m in 32 minutes, which is essentially magic gobbledy gook pace for me. I’m going to be incorporating more fin drills because, well, dang. I suppose I can give a little credit to the fact that I had a cup of decaf coffee and I was bouncy but… yeah… magic swim.
Weights: Lifting less reps heavier is just plain FUN! For someone who really likes seeing numbers and progress, it was sure fun to pile 155 lbs on the squat bar, and 250 lbs on the leg press, 70 lbs on the pulldowns, and 90 on the row. On the machines, I’m about halfway into the stacks, which is nice rather than being close to the top. This week and next week transitions to the real heavy lifting, and I’m a little scared of some of the loads they want me to work towards, but I’ll give it a go to get there, but at least I have one more week before I think about that.
Overall, I feel finally like my body is getting back into shape and feel a little more like an athlete than someone who badly plays one on TV.
By the day:
Monday: Weights: 3×12… 250 lb leg press, 90 lb row, 120 lb calf raises, 70 lb pulldown. 3×25 situps w/twist w/10 lb plate. Swim: bagged due to a 17 hour workday. Tuesday: Run: 3.1 miles, 37:45, HR not recorded (around 150 avg). Bike: 15.53 in 45 mins (harder resistance setting). 3 miles w/u, 3×1 min one leg drills each side (lighter resistance) with a 1 mile rest interval concentrating on either pushing the downstroke, or pulling the upstroke, 2 miles, 5 mins heavy resistance, 5 mins cooldown. Wednesday: Weights: 3×12… 155 lb squats (on smith machine), 90 lb rows, 70 lb pulldowns. 3×25… situps w/twist w/10 lb plate, hamstring curls w/55 lbs. Swim: 1200m in 30 mins. Helped Zliten with some drills and form. Thursday: Bike: 9.5 miles in 30 mins…resistance up + 3×1 min 1 leg drills on each side + busted quads from squatting 155 lbs yesterday = slower (no HR data, but it was around 120 avg, 145 max). Run: 3.1 miles in 36:15. Never thought I’d be so happy to be running sub-12 minute miles. 152 AVG HR, 169 max Friday: off! Saturday: Run: 6.26 in 1:15, Avg HR 153, max 173. Crazy good feeling. Wanted to run forever. Swim: 1550m in 32 mins. Magic swim was magic. Bike: 15.04 in 45 mins, 136 HR avg/161 max. Sunday: off
So week 6 was all the normal things, + 3 – 4 hours Monday to Thursday at the scuba class at night. So we did all our workouts in the morning or at lunch. It made for a rough week.
We watched the last of the Batman movie on the trainer and the new mission impossible this week. Mission impossible was exciting enough I never noticed I was on the trainer.
Then, Saturday we did the t shirt exchange at the Austin marathon expo, then on Sunday went and cheered people on until we went and did our run test at the track. I didn’t take any video of bike or swim this week, but you get lots of in the pool scuba stuff + track work in that last video.
Doing the SCUBA class and getting all the workouts in was difficult and it did make it so this post was a few weeks late. Mostly because I had so much video to edit, since part of the reason for the blog is to also have video of each thing that we can, for practice and fun. So please watch the videos!
The trainer rides this week were not as fast as I could have gone, but the runs were decent. Weights were just killer though and all the time in the pool from swimming and SCUBA really dried me out. Not used to so much chlorine.
Leah Notes Week 6:
Run: Magic is happening. My average pace is now consistently in the 11s below 155 HR. That’s nice. I rarely have to slow down and walk to get under 160, even on hills. I feel like my running is finally at a point where I can incorporate some short strides this next week on one of my workouts without either spiking my HR or re-injuring my heel (that’s pretty much all better too, thanks Sauc0-ponies!) so that’s a bunch of yay.
I also did my 30 min run test Sunday. It almost wasn’t a fair test because a) I put in over two hours of training the day before instead of resting and b) I spent 5 hours that day before on my feet volunteering and almost 2 hours cheering that morning for the marathon. My leggies were toast during that test, and I had a bit of an allergy flare up (snot snot snot lungs blech), but I got on with it the best I could and maintained a 9:35 average pace for 3.13 miles in 30 mins, with a 170 avg HR. That’s right – 21 seconds faster per mile at 5 BPM lower. I just could not shove my heart rate up any higher. I’ll take it. Hoping I can get a really solid test in next month and see that number improve even more.
Bike: Just lots more solid work on the trainer. The one leg drills are helping me feel more fluid. I’m going to try and start changing up my resistances like yesterday, where I did the first 40 at 2/5 resistance and the last 20 at 4/5. I also need to be getting outside more – there’s just no good places to ride that don’t involve lots of stoplights and riding in 2 mile circles near us so we wait until the weekend so we can get to Pflug or Veloway – and then life gets in the way and driving 30 mins away doesn’t sound so good so we trainer.
However, last year, we didn’t have trainers and we did our first outdoor ride in March, and were huffing through rides longer than 10 miles, and I clocked my first 30+ mile ride this weekend and regularly hit ~20, so there’s that. I’ve got a pretty decent base riding flatlands, I just need to get some force in my leggies for them thar hills. Because my first 70.3 has a LOT of them.
Swim: Loving the swim lately. Did my swim test Saturday morning, and I took 2 mins 15 seconds off my time (went from 23 mins to 20 mins 45 sec for 1050m). Enjoying swimming with the fins for warmups and/or intervals during easy days. I’m futzing with the MP3 player a lot less. I’m spending a lot less time waking up my stroke and having things just fall into place. Going a little faster doesn’t make my form fall apart.
Being here so far from the beginning of the season makes me happy. I’m pretty sure I’m going to blow all my swimming times from last year out of the water if all continues on current course and speed. Also, I wish that Lake Pflugerville would hurry up and get warmer so I can swim in it.
Weights: Another good MT (transition to maximum weights) week. I leg pressed 270, squatted 155, rowed 100, and upped my pulldown to 85. For the lighter stuff, I’m doing situps on the incline now with a 10 lb weight and not completely dying. Calf presses are at 90, and hamstrings I’ve inched up to 60 (need to work on these).
Now that my swim/bike/run is going better, I sorta look forward to these days less than when everything else was awkward and wrong and this was my only happy, but it’s definitely making me stronger, less jiggly, and more badarse and allowing me to have better days at the other 3 disciplines, so I’ll keep on with my 2xweek lifting heavy things even if I’m not celebrating the whole way to the gym each day.
Week 7 brings our first “race” – the Indoor Tri. I predict I will kick my swim and bike’s hiney from last year, but not quite be able to hold the 8:35-ish pace I did last year for 20 mins on the run. But who knows. It’s been a while since I knocked out anything but an EZ run on a treadmill and noticed my HR was about 20 BPM below what I would expect outside. 20 BMP up these days translates to about 2 mins/mile faster (11:40s to 9:40s), so by that magic I should be able to hold about 7:40s at 175, which I’m pretty sure is not the case. But hey, it will be interesting to see. I placed 2nd in the under 40s last year, but that really depends on who shows up – it’s not like you know how anyone is doing until you see the results, you can’t really run anyone down.
By the days:
Monday: Bike: 9.35 miles in 30, 117 HR avg/136 max Weights: 3×12… 270 lb leg press, 95 lb rows, 75 lb pulldowns. 3×20… situps with 5 lb plate on incline, calf raises w/100 lbs. Tuesday: Swim: 1110m in 28 mins. Run: 3.1 in 36:04, 150 HR avg/171 max Wednesday: Swim: 900m in 22 mins. Weights: 3×12…. 155 lb squats, 100 lb rows, 80 lb pulldowns. 3×20… situps on incline w/10 lb plate w/twist, 60 lb hamstring curls. Thursday: Run: 3.4 miles in 39:45, avg 155, max 186? (garmin was being weird at the beginning so I don’t think this is accurate. Bike: 15.25 miles in 45 mins, 139 HR avg/199 max (I KNOW this isn’t right) Friday: off Saturday: Swim: 1050m in 20:45, Run: 3.86 in 45 mins, HR avg 152/max 170 Bike: 33.5 miles in 1h30. Sunday: Run test: 3.13 miles in 30 mins (avg HR 170). +1.25 mile warmup and cooldown. (did a swim also but that counts for next week)
Total: about 8.5 hours. I was short 30 mins this week of the 9 hour training goal, but I did scuba for 6 hours so I’m calling it a wash.
