Gabe's St George Marathon Race Report
Race Report: St George Marathon
The Short Version
|
Results Time |
Average Pace |
Results Place (Div out of 393 / Overall out of 5462) |
Results Percentile (Div % / Overall %) |
|
3:27:33 |
7:54/mile |
101 / 707 |
26% / 13% |
I did it – I beat my goal of a sub-3:30 marathon! Three years ago I would never have thought it possible. Thanks to EN for making me believe I could challenge myself.
Background
If you’ve been following my running adventures this season and know my backstory, you can skip this section.
With the move to Utah this year, I had to be time efficient this year. I promised my wife I wouldn’t do a full Ironman this year because the chaos of starting a new job and moving.
I decided to focus the first half of my session on getting faster at the 70.3 Ironman distance. I did St George 70.3 in May, setting a course PR of 5:48, and Boulder 70.3 in June, setting at PR of 5:22.
The second half has been focused on maximizing my run. It has been the sport where I’ve had the most improvement since getting into triathlons three years ago. That is probably due to me running consistently for over twenty years as a recreational runner and building run durability. I didn’t run fast but put in a lot of miles, even when my weight broke a deuce (200 lbs). I started out in EN last May with a VDOT of around 37-38 and entered this season at 42. St George Marathon was circled as my A-race, and I was stoked to find I got in through the lottery. I did Porter’s Half Marathon near my house in Draper in July as a warm-up event. I set a PR of 1:36, which translates to a VDOT of 47.
You can read my St George Marathon race plan to understand my strategy for the race.
The Race
The day before the race, I did a short shakedown run on the marathon finish so I could visualize the last mile. I noticed it was not only warmer for St George this time of year, which is normally perfect running weather in the 60s but it was already in the 70s, it was also more humid than the usual arid desert air. I worked up a good sweat over only 2 miles. I knew that I’d have to adjust my expectations by 2-4 minutes due to heat. I’d also have to stay hydrated and supplement with S-tabs. I decided I’d go without my running vest, carrying gels in my pockets and feeding off the course for hydration.
Race morning I woke up at 4AM and executed my morning plan. By 4:45 I was lined up for the bus and arrived at the race start around 5:40. It was much colder at the start since it was at 5000 ft of elevation but there were fires to stay warm. I ran into Trevor from SLTC, who had trained with me, and we chatted by the fire.
I made my one big mistake while getting ready. I took off my morning clothes and put them in my drop bag. The line for drop bags was chaos, and it took too long. By the time I went to line up, slow runners had crowded the start. There was a fence to create a starting chute. I decided not to climb over the fence and risk falling. However, when the gun went off, it was almost 2:30 before I could get to the start. Next time I need to line up early because this ended up costing me 2-3 minutes as I had to battle my way through the field.
I spent the first 3 miles fighting through slow runners. People lined up in the 3-hour corral who were walking at mile 2. I was pissed and had a hard time settling into a good pace. By mile 4, things spread out enough that I could stabilize my HR and pace. I decided the “perfect day” was off the table, which I had pretty much already decided the day before when I determined it would be a warm day. I would focus on breaking my goal of 3:30. I would go conservative the first half and pour it on the second half.
Mile 7 coming out of Veyo (famous for its amazing pies!) saw the biggest climb of the day. I shortened my stride and upped my cadence to flatten out the hill. Just like cycling, people were hammering the hill, then recovering at the top. I poured on the speed at the top.
It was a gentle uphill going up to about mile 11.5. I stayed in my box and kept my heart rate in Z3. At the halfway point at mile 13.1, I saw I was on track for a sub-3:30 race if I could just match my split from the first half. My plan was to negative split, so I felt confident I was on track.
Miles 14 started the big descents. I lengthened my stride, trying to capture all the free speed. There were a series of descents all the way down to Red Hills Parkway at about mile 23, where the course meets up with the St George 70.3 run course. A lot of runners gave out and shuffled or walked down the hills. I ignored the pain radiating from my quads and kept the hammer down. The next time I do this race, I’ll prepare with even more downhill running. I’ll do something like start from Snowbird and run down Little Cottonwood Canyon.
I did a good job executing on my nutrition plan along the way. I took 3 Gu Salted Caramel gels, 2 S-tab salt pills, and walked 10 paces at every aid station to drink Gatorade Endurance.
Mile 24 came rolling up. To my surprise I hadn’t hit the wall and gone to the dark place where every step is a conscious thought. However, my left calf started to threaten to cramp. I’d feel a twinge of the full leg cramp coming on, the kind where your whole leg seizes up. I knew I had at least 3 minutes to spare to meet my goal and decided not to risk blowing up the last 2 miles. If my leg seized, I’d lose a couple minutes waiting for it to abate and then shuffling to the finish. I decided to cruise in at a 8:30/mile.
The run course goes about 1/2 miles beyond the St George 70.3 finish. I rounded to final turn onto 300 and knew it was about a 1/3 of a mile to the finish from my shakedown run. I took my headphones off so I could take in the experience. I surged into the finish and saw the gun clock was right at 3:30. I knew I was about 2:30 behind the gun clock, and pumped my fist in victory knowing I had beat my target!
This was a huge PR for me. I absolute crushed my previous PR. I had never run a sub-4 hour marathon in 5 tries during my days as a recreational runner. This was my first sub-3:30 and sub-8:00/mile marathon. I also negative split the run by over 2 minutes, despite cruising the last 2 miles. It was a hell of a day!
|
Location |
Time |
Pace |
|
5k |
24:31 |
7:52/mi |
|
10k |
47:55 |
7:42/mi |
|
13.1 |
1:44:50 |
7:59/mi |
|
30k |
2:26:37 |
7:51/mi |
|
FINISH |
3:27:33 |
7:54/mi |
What’s Next…
My running adventures aren’t over yet for this year – I am doing my first ultra in November with the Antelope Island 50k. I plan to dip my toe in the ultra-waters this year with a 50k and then tackle a 50-miler next year.
Here is my roadmap for next season. I’ll continue with the spilt season of triathlons followed by running adventures. My A-race triathlon is Ironman Boulder, where I want to break my time of 12:31 from IMAZ by at least an hour. Then I’ll ramp up for my first 50-miler and cap off the year by running the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim (R2R2R). I’ll insert local half marathons as opportunities come up.
|
Event |
Event Type |
Date |
|
Moab Red Hot 33k |
Trail Run |
Saturday, February 13, 2016 |
|
Buffalo Run 25k |
Trail Run |
Saturday, March 19, 2016 |
|
St George 70.3 |
70.3 IM |
Saturday, May 7, 2016 |
|
Boulder 70.3 |
70.3 IM |
Saturday, June 11, 2016 |
|
IM Boulder |
Ironman |
Sunday, August 7, 2016 |
|
North Face Challenge Park City 50-miler |
Ultra Trail Run |
Saturday, September 24, 2016 |
|
Grand Canyon R2R2R |
Ultra Trail Run (not an organized race) |
Sometime in October |
Comments
Losing that excess baggage helps, eh? Talking about the vest, but body comp is a big plus, too. A great springboard to your upcoming ambitious plans.
Gabe, in the short time I have known you, it boggles my mind how much you have progressed!
A sign of hard, smart work and great tenacity to improve!
Congratulations on and textbook, negative split marathon! Very hard to pull that off on such a long distance run!
SS
@Steve, thanks! Tip of the cap to Coach Patrick for the awesome custom training plan.
@Doug, thanks! My previous marathon experience was pushing too hard the first half and then folder like a lawn chair the second half. The EN training taught me to be disciplined and run my own race. Pretty stoked with the result!
@Al, thanks for the feedback on my race plan! I decided to go without the vest based on the feedback from you and the team. I like it for long runs and will wear it for my 50k where the aid stations are 5-6 miles apart. But it was nice not to carry all that crap. And, yes, running is a lot easier than when I weighed 200 lbs about 5 years ago.
@Shaughn, many thanks for all the support and encouragement on EN and Strava over the last year! I still owe you a beer for all the mentoring on IMAZ. Hope we get to meet up one of these days so you can collect.