2018 Kiawah Island Marathon Race Report, sorta

I don't really do race reports.  Just not my thing.  If something was a total disaster/mistake on race day, I make note of it and remember for the future.  Same with things that go wonderful and work as or better than planned.  But some have been interested in the Stryd aspect of the race, so I will do a short report focusing on my experience with Stryd leading up to and on race day. 

My last tri of the year was the White Lake Half Iron and Sprint Tri on Sep 8th and 9th.   Ever race a sprint the morning after a half iron?  Its fun.  Try it.   I then took a week off and did nothing.  Then loaded up the EN Marathon Advanced, 24 weeks plan ending on Dec 9th (Race day was the Saturday the 8th), and Day 1 of training was Sept 17th.  My run volume the past couple years has been lower than I would like, and lower than it needs to be to perform where I want to on the IM marathon.  So I set a goal of running every day until IMMD on Sept 29, 2019. 

After waffling for a long time, broke down and got Stryd early in Oct.  Did a couple runs, still by pace, just making sure the thing was synch'd to my watch, was giving me numbers, uploading data, etc...  I then did my 3 min and 9 min test to set my zones so I could start to actually train with the thing.  3 min power was 355, 9 min was 332, giving me a CP of 323.  Whatever this means.  Stryd spit out the standard 5 zones.  They were very wide ranging, and the associated paces with them were huge in scope.  So went and plugged the info into the EN run power calculator and got the 6 EN zones.  Ahhh, much better.  Nice tight segregated windows for power targets.  The remainder of my marathon training pace did not exist.  I only ran by power.  Except for Z5 intervals and repeats.  I just do those flat out as hard as I can. 

I found that when doing Z5 stuff, I couldn't hit and hold my Z5 power.  But when data was uploaded later, my pace was at or faster than my Z5 pace, so I wasn't concerned.   The other zones, no problem though.  

I did all my long runs at what is known as The American Tobacco Trail.  Its an old train track bed that is 22 miles long and heavily tree lined.  GPS is useless on this thing because of the tree cover.  This made for perfect conditions to force myself to run by power.  So after near 2 months of running daily, and doing 100% of my runs by power without a care for pace, we are closing in on race day.  I'm feeling great.  My legs feel great.  Everything is great.  Except 1 thing.  My stomach.  For reasons I don't know and can't figure out, I have been having terrible stomach issues for a few weeks.  They caused me to cut some runs short, take breaks in the middle of runs, or scrap the planned run and just do an easy few miles to keep the streak going.  This will play into race day later.

So, skip to race day.  I have my plan all set.  Utilizing the Stryd App and its race predictor, I built my plan.  If I select "speed demon" as my runner type (stop laughing), I get target watts of 273.  If I select "balanced runner", I get 285.  And we can throw out the 305 watt "aerobic monster" as that is not happening.  So I target 285 as the watts I am going to try and hold.  I get up and have my pot of coffee and half the breakfast I usually do (stomach, don't want to upset it).  So we are starting off the day well under fueled for a 3,000 calorie burning marathon effort.  I put Honey Stinger gels and Shot Blocks in my shorts pockets (Desoto Mobius tri shorts, get yourself some).  I put on my hydration belt with four 9 ounce bottles of Gatorade Endurance I mixed at half strength (stomach again, gotta be careful) and walk the .25 mile from my condo to start line.

I line up at the front.  Gun goes off, and BOOM people are flying.  I'm just lopping along, settling into my groove, giving Stryd a good 30 seconds to settle in and then I start to control my effort to keep in my power window.  Mile after mile after mile I'm holding my 280-290 watt window.  My Garmin buzzes every mile and gives me my last split.  Mile after mile right on target, ranging from 7:07 to 7:22 a mile over and over and over.  Or is it?  This is a measured and certified course.  But my watch is going off earlier and earlier every mile compared to the mile markers on the course.  So is my 7:15 mile actually a 7:15 mile?  Or do I need to add the 40 seconds it takes me to get to the mile marker after my watch buzzes?  This gives me slight concern.  But there is nothing I can do about it, and I "feel" like my pace is correct.  But regardless, my power IS correct and I'm sticking to my power numbers no matter what.  But I do monitor the difference between my watch buzzing and the mile markers, well because.  Got to the point my watch was .20 miles ahead of markers.    13.1 is coming up, wanted to be under 1:37. Came in just under 1:35.  Whooo!  Basically all things went as planned, held power, held pace, everything is sunshine and rainbows, until mile 23.   Remember my stomach issues?  Well, to keep them at bay in hopes of not having  to make 15 pit stops at porta potties I made the decision to not fuel very much and gamble on a bonk vs spending half the day in the porta potties and slowly jogging to the next one.  Over the course of the entire marathon I consumed under 400 calories from gels/blocks, and under 18 ounces of half strength Gatorade endurance. Probably around 14 ounces total.  It worked like a charm.  Zero stomach issues.  However, this left me way under fueled.  And at mile 23 I started to feel the effects.  Couldn't hold 280+ watts any more.  From Mile 1 through 22, my avg pwr each mile was between 280 and 290.  Mile 23 it fell to 273, then 268 at mile 24, 262 mile 25, 266 mile 26, and back up to 281 for the final .2.   

Also, at mile 24, my watch and the mile marker suddenly matched!  They had clocks all over the course with elapsed time.  The time at mile 24 gave me great relief.  Just hold steady and don't slow too much and goal time will be hit.

Stryd promises that you won't hit the wall.  It delivered.  The late race fall off was entirely due to under fueling.  At mile 20, 21, 22, and on, from a physical standpoint, I really felt like I was out on a weekend run at a decent pace, but not really all that fast.  No pain, no soreness, no huffing and puffing, no gritting of teeth, or asking why the hell did I sign up for this.  If not for my stomach issues leading up to the race, and not having the ability to properly fuel, the last few miles would have been much better.  Stryd worked like magic.  I am looking forward to seeing how it incorporates itself into my out season and  full Iron training over the next 10 months.  Especially once the southern summer gets here and its 105 degrees with 95% humidity and its easy for my HR to get well into Z5 while I am running at a Z1 pace.  Will be interesting to see how power changes training vs past years of pace based training. 

So, for the data geeks, here are all the final numbers.

Target watts 285.

Final Avg watts 282

Finishing time 3:13:26, BQ (old PR 3:15:16 on 2/14/2015)

45 years old on race day, vs 41 years old on race day in 2015

Avg pace 7:22 a mile

Avg HR 148

Avg Cadence 167

RSS 219 (I have no idea if that's high, low, good, bad, etc...)

Elevation gain 823 feet (flat course, but 40+ turns)

Interesting stats:

At mile 10 I was the 90th runner.  At 13.1 I was 99th.  At 20 I was 64th.  And at the finish I was 57th.  While others were crashing and burning because they went out to hard, controlling my watts (effort) at a steady and even output, I was able to "not slow down" and passed a lot of people the 2nd half of the race.  And saw a good number of people walking in the last 10K and 5K. 

And for those who want to dig into numbers, here are some links for ya.

Stryd file https://www.stryd.com/powercenter/run/6285270170468352

Strava https://www.strava.com/activities/2006731536