An exercise in Run Durability - My 2016 Dopey Challenge Report
So 4 races in 4 days at Walt Disney World for the Dopey Challenge 2016 gets started with a some early morning fire works, thick humidity, and only one “real” goal. Finish Strong.
Although I signed up for this back in April, I had not really paid it much thought until right after IM Lake Placid. On the run course that day in July with the HEAT all I wanted to do was get out of there, even thinking of every excuse possible to stop after the first loop of the run. Looking back I am not proud of it at all, and THANKFULLY I did not listen to those thoughts and just kept moving. I was getting my ass handed to me physically and mentally and the only person I had to blame was myself. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, have I really done enough? Have I really done everything that I could have to prepare for this? Including setting realistic goals? It looked like this.
So by mid August, I just wanted to slowly focus on not being that guy in the photo above ever again. At first running with relatively low intensity and just being patient in the late summer heat. Well one thing leads to another and by early October about 70 miles per week or more was not really out of the question and slowly became the new “normal”. Adding in some long interval workouts to each week, and continuing to build the weekly mileage up into the 80’s by November and into December there were 3 of 4 weeks just over 90 miles. Overall this entire segment of running felt great.
Day 1 - 6am Thursday and the 5k: 4am and on the first event bus from the hotel, and I was there super early with plenty of time to relax, check my bag, ran a little warm up for about 10 minutes, and joked around with some total strangers. Starting in the first Corral I should have started a little further back in the crowd. The goal for the day was to go out easy and slowly speed up just to get the legs to turn over, but nothing faster than about 7:00/mile. The gun went off and just like in a local 5k, people went crazy the first ½ mile. Regardless, I just ran my paces and was finished without doing any damage and was ready for breakfast. https://www.strava.com/activities/464999938
Day 2 - 5:30am Friday and the 10k: Mother Nature decided to dial up the humidity into some nice early morning rainstorms. Regardless, I was out the door and on the first bus at 3:30am leaving the hotel. Once there I was able to stay dry and about 45 minutes before the start the rain let up, so I got my act together, checked my gearbag, ran a nice warm up and went over to the starting corral area. As usually happens with me, about 10 minutes before the start the sky opened up and it was really coming down. The goal pace for today was to go just run around 9:00/mile. During training Friday was typically just an easy pace effort at that pace and it should fit just fine with what the legs are expecting. After the first few miles I could see that I was starting to run a little faster than I wanted, so at about mile 4 I just started stopping to get my picture taken with some of the Disney characters. Since there was only a couple of people waiting at each one, it did not delay me too much each time but was a fun way to break up the last couple of miles. https://www.strava.com/activities/465701662
Day 3 - 5:30am Saturday and the Half Marathon: 3 am and on the bus again (uggg) and the only real goal here was to just be patient and leave it for tomorrow. Target pace was to stay at about 8:25/mile, drink at every aid station, a gel @ mile 4 & 9, just get it over with, and go eat breakfast. I was able to find a big area next to the starting corrals to jog around and warm up. Within a couple of minutes I was sweating A LOT, with a relative humidity of at least 90% this would be nice practice for tomorrow…hahaha. Just like the first couple of days, once the gun went off, I was running my target paces and seemed to be going backwards (compared to everyone else). https://www.strava.com/activities/466426531/overview Regardless, I just stayed on that target pace for as long as possible, and picked it up a little over the last couple of miles. Afterwards I felt totally fine, soaked from the humidity like I had gone for a swim, but fine. Once I was back at the hotel I tried to relax but stay awake for as long as I could without taking a nap like I had the previous days. I just tried to fill some time with going for a walk around the hotel, and even going in the swimming pool for a while in the early afternoon. This worked out great since I was totally ready to get a good long sleep by about 7pm.
Day 4 - 5:30am Sunday and the Marathon: OK, finally. Even getting on the bus and getting ready before I was still debating with myself about target paces for Sunday. You see, I had been here before and humbled pretty badly. In 2014, I trained like crazy with a goal time in mind; arrogantly I adjusted nothing in my plans or goals and finished with a miserable positive split of about 9 minutes.
Walking to the corrals and the debate continued. Of course there were paces that I trained with, in cool & relatively dry 40 degrees in NJ doing long runs and interval runs in a t-shirt and not thinking twice about it. However, this was Florida and at 3 am it was about 70 degrees w/ 85% RH. Finally, after warming up and getting settled down a little, I figured I would start towards the back of my corral to avoid getting caught up in the craziness in the first mile and just get comfortable about 8:25/mile for the first 5 to 6 miles and just take what the day gives after that. Just before the start I noticed that the 3:35 Pace group sign is towards the front of the corral what would be starting 2 minutes behind mine.
As expected once we are moving I cannot ignore the humidity, but I feel fine and the plan is to drink at every aid station and take a gel about every 4 miles (4,8,12,16,20&23). One thing about these events, there is no shortage of sports drink or water on the course and I took at least one cup of each every time.
The early miles I just tried to keep at or slower than the 8:25, but just before mile 8 I noticed that the 3:35 pace group were only a few feet behind me. Since the plan was to slowly pick up the pace, now seemed like a good time since I did not want to get behind some big group. They were right behind me until just after mile 16 just before the ESPN sports complex (mile 16.5-20.5) when I started to pick it up a little more and the gap started to open up. At this portion of the course I started to notice that I was passing a lot of people. Although my pace had increased slightly, I was noticing that there was a lot of carnage along the way.
Once out of ESPN and past mile 20, and knew that I could hold my current pace but wanted to just pick it up a little more. The last 6 miles were just fantastic. Saying that about the end of a marathon on what are supposed to be tired legs might sound a bit sarcastic, but not this time.
With a strong finish over the final miles through Hollywood Studios and Epcot it felt totally different from how I ran that same course in 2014, or how I felt in July. https://www.strava.com/activities/467513878
Above is at Mile 19.5 at the Baseball Stadium at the ESPN Complex, Below is almost at the finish.
The patience with the training over the last few months and patience with the execution of those last few days had helped to make the final miles fell great. Finishing strong with about 5 minute negative split, on day 4 of 4 of what is more of a challenge of sleep deprivation, yea I’ll take that.
Thank you for all your support and encouragement.
Comments
John, I am very impressed with your accomplishment! The photo of IMLP vs the last photo from your Dopey Marathon reaaly shows the work you put into this. You body comp changed noticeably. The last photo looks like it should be on the cover of Runners World. Your form right there is perfect. I have enjoyed racing and training with you for IMLP. I always get a charge when I see you on the course. It is clear I will have to work very hard to catch you on a course.
If you don't mind, can you give me a ballpark on how much registration and lodging was, for all 4 days?
John, way to lay it all out there, post the work and follow it up with Performance man!
Thanks for making us stronger!
SS
Wow, IMPRESSED!!
@ Scott, check your message box, I sent you some details.
Yep, gotta say John very impressive on your OA performance and wowzer on your last day marathon smoking time and strong run. Congrats are in order for taking it on and your trg regime proved you were ready for it.
PS, awesome picture show and I liked all the gangsters you met !
@Steve, the real challenging part to all of it was figuring out how to insert all those photos into a forum page
@Patrick, I will reach out to her later today.
@Tim. Only 6 days a week, and typically took Wednesday Off.
On most weeks, and majority of the mileage was easy miles around 9:00/mile or slower.
Using a base target marathon training pace of around 7:25/m, and going from there I really only did 12-15% (10-14 miles) of the weekly mileage at that pace, and maybe 8% (5-8 miles) of the week at doing either long intervals at about half marathon pace, or shorter intervals around 10k pace. Overall once the miles per week started getting over 70 I was trying to be really conservative about pushing to hard a pace.
Typical Monday: Easy recovery run day after the long run the day before (8-12 miles)
Tuesday: Interval day. w/ 3 mile warm up and 3 mile cool down. There were a few Tuesdays where I was tired or in no mood so I would just take that as another easy day. (11-16 miles)
Thursday: 8 to 10 @ 7:25/m w/ 3 mile warm up and 3 mile cool down (14-16 miles)
Friday: Easy recovery run day (10-12 miles)
Saturday: Easy start about 9:00/m and if felt run the 2nd half around 8:30/m (10-14 miles)
Sunday: Long Run day.(18-20) Always started real conservative and would negative split, but target nothing faster than about 8:00/m. A few of these I tried to go 7:25 the last 3 to 4 miles but only if everything felt good.
For me anyways, little things like the 3 mile cool down really helped clear out any aches or pains after doing something like 1 or 2 mile intervals, and the longish easy run on Mondays were nice mentally since I knew if I just went out the door and got it over with I only had one more run (on Tuesday) and I would get a day off.
Unfortunately, between the above and work and travel for work I did not have time for much else. However, I did make an effort to use that stick roller a couple of times a day and it seemed to help.
I am not sure what is next, I have not signed up for anything in 2016. I like and hate the idea of a later in the year Ironman like Maryland or North Carolina but still not sure. Funny that in the "New World of Triathlon" that there are more Ironman races than ever before, and they are not sold out in a matter of minutes. I also like the idea of training hard on the bike this spring & summer with no real goal in mind other than to just improve myself and enjoy the process for a change.
Thanks for your support.