Peter's 2017 LA Marathon Race Report
Peter's 2017 LA Marathon Race Report
TL;DR: I had a great race on limited training and pulled off a BQ with 3:08:39!!!
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/906603181
My last big race was the AC 100 in August 2016. I was pretty burnt out after several years of non stop endurance training so I took a big break. In the 4.5 months after AC I ran a total of 20 times, at a slow pace and never for more than 4-5 miles except for a very painful half marathon in September completely untrained. There were many weeks with 0 runs. I found myself on December 31st with the realization that I was 18 pounds over race weight from Wisconsin 2015 and needing to do something. Being signed up for the LA marathon and it being only 11 weeks out was also a big motivator to get my act together, I procrastinated big time on getting started.
As you can see above, Aug - Jan were real real bad.
Starting Jan 1st up until the Marathon on March 19th I logged an activity in Strava everyday. I started with a 3 week block of a daily running. 30’ at a time the first week, then 40’ then 50’. This got me up to a 40 mile week pretty quickly. After the 3 weeks I built myself a dedicated Zwift computer to get me excited about cycling again, I had taken over a year off of the bike. The biggest thing I learned in my year of doing Ultra Marathons is that as a triathlete I am not a fast runner unless I supplement with cycling. I am not able to do the 80-90 MPW that the run only guys do. After the 3 weeks I switched the running down to 5x per week with two workouts, a long run, and two easy days and also added cycling 3x per week.
For the long run Coach P suggested that I go straight to 2 hour runs, but with walking breaks at first and then slowly reduce the walking until I was running non-stop after 4 weeks. This approach ended up working out really well. I was able to do the running portions at a faster pace and with better form than I would have otherwise.
By early March I was feeling really good. For cycling I was able to hold just under 250 watts for 10 minutes and 200 watts for an hour, far from the 155 watts I averaged on day 1. My long runs were getting better and better where they started to average sub 8:00, even with walking breaks. My final long run went very well, 19 miles at a 7:25 pace with the last 11 at 7:04, and the last 3 at 6:40. At this point I realized that I had a shot at a pretty fast marathon and perhaps even a BQ (3:10). I analyzed the data from my first BQ Marathon comparing pacing vs HR and suddenly 3:10 on paper looked realistic. I had a few back and forths with Coach P and he helped come up with a pacing strategy given the elevation profile of LA. The strategy was to target 1:33 for the first half, and try to hang on for the 2nd!
I also raced a local 5K (really 3.3 miles) a week before the marathon and pulled off a 19:59 (5:57/mi pace) which put me at a 54 VDOT. This was further validation that a 3:10 should be possible.
To help sort everything out I used training peaks to track the build and to make sure my TSB was positive by race day. I fiddled with the taper to bring me in right on target.
I also introduced Stryd into my training arsenal. I never really trained by power, but I collected a lot of data. I am hoping that down the road the data will pay off. I didn’t race by solely by power, but I did use it as a whip/limiter on the hills in LA, more of that later.
I had a pretty detailed race plan as usual, and followed it almost exactly. My Dad picked me up early and dropped me off at Dodger Stadium. It was pretty nice because they had porta potties and the Stadium was open for us to use, so bathrooms were not an issue. I destroyed a porta potty on the way in, and then went pee 2 more times. I then sat down to wait for the race when suddenly “The Running Man” of Pasadena sat down next to me. This dude is a local legend, 70+ years old and does 30+ mile runs every weekend always wearing the same shirt that has “The Running Man” printed on it. This is all the information online I could find about him: https://joeschmo1of3.blogspot.com/2014/02/finds-from-grind-pasadena-running-man.html
Anyway, I took seeing the running man as a good omen. I was in Corral B which is meant for Sub 3:45. I wanted to be sure I was at the front of Corral B so I got in way early, about an hour before the race. I was wearing throw away sweats from the thrift store which worked out well because it was freezing. So many people were standing around shivering. I didn’t get a real warm up in, but I tried to move around and bounce on my toes in the time leading up to the start. I ditched the clothes and took a gel with about 10 minutes to go. The wheel chairs had gone off at 6:30 and the race started 25 minutes later at 6:55. Corral A only had 300 people in it so I got started about 20 seconds after the gun.
It was a quick first couple miles out of Dodger Stadium as it is mostly downhill to Chinatown. I saw my friend Tim at about Mile 2. At this point the 3:05 pace group was right in front of me. I felt like they were starting out too conservative, because the 2nd half of the race is much harder than the first. It makes sense to bank some time on these early downhill miles. My first 5K was done in 21:38 (6:57 pace). Before I knew it we were already at mile 5 or so and starting the big climb up to the Cathedral and Disney Concert hall. Here Stryd came in real handy. I watched my watts and went way slower uphill than everyone around me, just like an Ironman. All the people that passed me I caught right up with at the next downhill. I think in a Marathon people are afraid to see an slow pace on their watch knowing they are seeking a much higher average pace so they push the hills way to hard, and then recover on the downhill. I did a pretty good job of flattening the course with Stryd, my VI was 1.01 and my HR graph shows no substantial peaks or valleys.
At 10K I was at 44:11. The next section of the course was through Echo Park and Silver Lake up to Hollywood. Miles 10-12 were straight and a slight downhill along Hollywood Blvd. This was a great stretch to get in the zone and lay down some solid splits. After the quick Hollywood stretch things get a little hilly leading up to West Hollywood. It was by the Whiskey on other clubs. I came through the halfway point in 1:32, about a minute ahead of pace. I was still feeling pretty good at this point. I also could still see the 3:05 pacer ahead of me. I guess he evenly split the course. There was a pretty good downhill after the the half way mark that I sailed down at a 6:15 pace. Here I passed some guys for good who had been crushing the hills early on.
As Coach P predicted, the race half way point is really at the 16mi mark because miles 16 - 23.5 have significant uphill portions. My pace did slow, but my effort stayed constant until about mile 22. I felt pretty good through the initial part of this section even though we were gradually heading uphill. An old friend of mine was at mile 17 and snapped a great picture of me running down the famous Rodeo drive! My last Sub 7:00 mile was mile 19.
At mile 22 my legs started to give out. I wasn’t out of fuel, I just couldn’t get me legs to respond. From 22 to to 23.5 was the dark part of the race, I just wanted to stop the uphill so I could cruise to the finish. Once at 23.5 I thought I should be able to turn up the pace but it just wasn’t there. My legs were toast! All I could do was muster a 7:30 pace on the downhill. With just a mile or so to go I came upon a wheelchair rider that had crashed. I hope he was ok. He was being tended to by people from the crowd.
I cruised to the finish in 3:08:39, good enough for a BQ with 1:21 to spare. I probably gave up a minute in the last 5K. Security was high at the marathon, no spectators were allowed at the finish line. It was a long walk to the family greeting area. Each step was painful. I picked up muscle milk and got my finishers photo taken along the way. It was awesome to finally see my family. I had to sit down, and then lay down. It took a good 10-15 minutes before I felt like getting up. The burn in my legs was excruciatingly painful.
For nutrition I had a total of 5 Roctane GU gels (salted caramel) and I alternated between gatorade and water each aid station. They actually had gatorade endurance formula.
Jon who is also from EN finished a bit after me and he and my family all went to IHOP to celebrate.
A bit more on power. I did do a critical power test early in the build and tested at 263 critical watts. From this I figured that 230-240 watts would be a good target for the marathon. I ended up with 245 average watts, so pretty close. I am sure my power went up a bit higher over the course of the build. I do think that the Stryd can be used to pace a race, and it is especially useful on a hilly course. It gives you the confidence to know just how much to slow down on a hill. They also recently released more power averaging options in the data field that are useful. I set it to show 30s average power.
I got the official qualifying time, but I doubt the 1:21 gap is good enough to actually make it into the Boston Marathon. Next up is the San Francisco marathon where I hope to finally go Sub 3:00 and ensure that I get into Boston 2018! Special thanks to my family for putting up with my shenanigans and to Coach P for taking the time to help craft this comeback.
If you had asked me back in January what my target time would be I would have said 3:30, but ideally crack 3:24. I cannot believe that I pulled off a BQ time of 3:08 in such a short timeframe. And what I really can’t believe is how high I placed. I was 199 out of over 18,000 people overall, and 37th in my age group out of over 1,400! I am on cloud 9!
Comments
I'd like to BQ when I turn 45 next year and the standard is a manageable 3:25 (I did 3:27 at the St George Marathon in 2015). How do you feel the ultrarunning translated to marathon training? I'd imagine you have a big aerobic engine from that and all the IM training.
which Altra's?
Grats for the BQ! thats something I should try to go for soon
@Francis Picard Thanks! Go for the BQ, we need EN in Boston!
Congrats on a stellar race. It's pretty amazing to see you go from 0 to 3:08 in a few months. If you stay consistent with your training, I think you'll easily BQ in SF (plus, unlike LA, I think the last 5-6 of that race are flat/downhill). Your report only made me itch more to get back to Boston, but with a full dance card this year, maybe I'll see you there in '19. I'm also looking forward to your return to multi-sport. Regardless what you do, stay healthy and have fun.
MR
Now to start sorting through your data....
~ Coach P
Something else cool happened. Stryd is working on some internal project for better run analysis and they put out the call for 10 guinea pigs to have their Stryd data analyzed. I am on the list!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/strydcommunity/permalink/1702248023406588/
I have a call with them tonight. I will share what I learn.
Thanks Again!
Super interested to hear about your Stryd data analysis.
I know you'll continue to get stronger and crush San Francisco and ensure your Boston run! I have a BQ-2:44 and hope to be joining you in 2018-
@Coach Patrick
Thanks! I hope to be there too in 2018!
As for the analysis is wasn't earth shattering but it was pretty cool. Basically they were just trying to get some user feedback on some new features they are developing. The first is the power curve, but the novel thing they are doing is showing a heat map under the curve where the hot spots show where most of your training time is spent.
For my heat map there was a hot spot in the 220-230 watt range which is my easy/TRP power. Interestingly there was another hot spot in the 300-350 watt range. I do a lot of strides, hill repeats, and toward the end of the build I was doing 200s/400s so it was picking that up. There were a couple other warmer spots, such as where I do my mile repeats. One weird thing is that there didn't seem to be a hot spot at what ended up being my marathon power 246. I train either above or below. Maybe I need to spend more time at marathon power?? It is kind of a neat snapshot of training all in one picture. The guy also talked about the possibility of showing what the heat map of some elite runners looks like for a comparison.
The other feature he showed was a spider map where each corner was a datapoint that compared with all other users of Stryd. The 4 corners were, w/kg, long run something or other, leg spring stiffness %, and something about fatigue but was explained to be more like tolerance of fatigue, not something like TSB.
For my data I was toward the upper percentile in all 4 areas, but my relative weakest area is w/kg. I would believe that, I have never had that good of top end speed. The other 3 categories seemed to be all in line with each other.
He also asked me lots of questions about how I train, my endurance history, what technology I use, what other data platforms I use, etc... He also asked for feature suggestions. I told him that the two main areas of where I see power data being useful is
#1, pacing hilly courses
#2, improving run efficiency
I told him it would be good if they go after #2 by offering some of live coaching capabilities, or at least after the fact analysis on this point. It would be cool if on a focused run, it could tell you that your form is falling apart, or perhaps offer some suggestions about how to improve the form. Perhaps this is asking too much from the technology.
Anyway, I am glad they are listening to customers!