Surprise - The Las Vegas Marathon Race Report

Or “How not to run a marathon”
Or “What the heck I am doing out here??”

Surprise! I decided to run a marathon!

What? You don’t wake up on Sunday morning an say “Today is a good day to subject my body to absolute torture?”

Truth be told, I’ve been sandbagging my post since Silverman. I have been secretly training (if that is what you call it).

I am not sure if I did it for the ‘shock’ factor or so that you couldn’t say “Jeez, man. You just finished your first Half ironman. Maybe you should take it easy. You know, you have 6 months of intense training coming up. A month off wont kill you!”.

Of course I know that you guys wouldn’t say that. Hell, if anything you’ll point out Baboo’s schedule and tell me to get moving!

How about a recap?

First lets cover my pseudo training and then we’ll eat the big enchilada.

Since Silverman, I have had 4 weeks to train. I need one week to taper so essentially I have 3 weeks.

As I said before, miraculously, I had almost no soreness from Silverman and that very next weekend I was out there running.

I figured I already had a base, I mean I had just finished running 13 miles! Never mind that they were brutal miles, I did them. I also have read (somewhere) that biking can equate to running. So for the Silverman, I did bike/running mile = 15.85 and for the run I did = 13.1 equaling 29 miles! Woohooo! I have this distance in the bag! Of course, the trick was to put this to the test and see if it was anything like real life.

To be smart, I broke my long run into separate runs. This way I can still cover the distance but not put too much stress on my body.

3 runs for 21 miles!

The original plan was to do this the (semi)smart way and get two short runs in during the week and one long run at the weekend.

This is the ‘what not to do’ so let me dispense with a nice little gem. Don’t be an idiot and try to combine your two short runs (that you missed, because you got lazy) into one run. That would be a LONG run!

1 run for 12 miles

Another gem??

Don’t go bike riding with your friend who is ‘dying to do those sisters’ on the same day that you have your long run planned! Nothing like tiring out your body on some monster hills and driving your HR up to 181 and then turn around an run.

For my long run, I decided to combine all last weeks run into one run. I got it done, but it wasn’t easy!

1 run for 21 miles

Want another gem of ‘what not to do’?

If you are following your own plan, follow YOUR plan, not listen to someone else and taper when they taper. They have been training properly, they’ve followed their plan the entire way, you on the other hand are flying by the seat of your pants. You need to get all the mileage you can.

Needless to say I either got REALLY lazy or I followed someone else's taper program.

Week 3 runs:

5 miles!

My training fell into a deep abyss. Which bring us to the final week, which conveniently is another taper week!

First order of business, donate blood!

I like to donate, I think that it’s easy to do and helps the world, but it probably shouldn’t be done the week of your marathon. I’m just saying!

Now that that beauty was out of the way, it’s time to help a friend move. I recommend spending both Friday night and Saturday helping. And for extra kudos, stay up extra late on Friday.
One more thing? OK, How about fight a cold. Nothing says Marathon ready like itchy throat and a deep cough.

OK. Let’s race!

Not to be outdone, let’s leave some surprises on race day too. First off let’s not wake up until an hour past time! Now rush, rush rush. Get out of the house.

And because you’re in such a rush, now is a great time to forget your morning nutrition. Just leave it there on the counter.

Despite all these shortcomings, I have a damn GOOD race!

Because we were so late, we rushed right into the race. Parking was surprising easy to find and it was a breeze to find the race. I was able to slip in the queue near the front and actually had better placement than last year!

There was no warm-up but there never really is any warm-up at a big race like this. This meant that there was no sitting there in the cold for twenty minutes freezing. Just show up and run!

I will say that last years race was a lot better! Last year there was a band every couple of miles and that really kept a person going. This time there was nothing.

But they did seem to learn their lesson from last year and there were lots of Port-potties. Seemed like there were a row every couple miles. Even out in the boonies, there were random honey pots.

Last year, I ran the half with the Mrs., this time I was lucky enough to have the Mrs. sherpa for me. It was great to have the family show up at random spots throughout the course.

Thank you!

The miles didn’t exactly fly by but they did go by a lot easier than for my 21 miler.
I finished the half in 2:29, which was perfect. If I could keep that pace up I’d finish the full in 5 hours.

Based on the pace of my 21 miler, I was looking at a 5:30 race. I had hoped that the taper and the race would bump me up to a better rate.

So far it was going good. I made a goal of mine to run the entire way. I only walked the aid stations. It was easy at first but come mile 20+ it was nearly impossible.

I started to slow down around mile 18 and come mile 20+ it was a slog fest. I never walked but it might have been faster to.

In the end I was able to finish, but my 5 hour goal was lost. I finished in 5:17 and change, which worked out to a 12:07 pace.

The jury is still out on the biking miles equals running miles. According to the equation, I can do 29 miles. I couldn’t imagine going any further. But then again, for Silverman, I was limping and crawling my way to the end. Perhaps if I had to do 29 miles this time, I would look almost exactly the same.

SO that was my first marathon. At least that is out of the way, but I still can’t imagine doing this after biking a 112. This seems impossible!