California International Marathon: Another PR Despite Mistakes

Summary:

• California International Marathon (CIM).
• 2:47:54 -- a personal record by exactly 2.5 minutes (previous PR is 2:50:24 in Quebec). This averages to 6:24/mile and 3:59/km.
• 144th overall (fast field!), but only 6th in my age group 20-24.
• Cold: 25F (-4C) at the start, 35F (2C) at the finish.
• Plenty of mistakes on my side, most notably going out too fast.
• A huge positive split.
• An obnoxious red hat.

Training

This season was tiring. I rushed back into training a little too fast, and that made this season hard, on the edge of overtraining. I hit my mileage PR of 90 miles per week, and got overly ambitious on the next one, attempting three workouts and a 20+ mile long run all within one week. Luckily, I didn't get injured and merely got a little sick (the 46-mile week below on the graph).

I ran 953 miles this season, including CIM.

My lesson from the season's training: continual growth of miles makes it nearly impossible to improve workout paces. Either one or the other, but not both at a time.  Also doing several 5k races shortly after the marathon did not do me any good. This time I'm trying the "three weeks up, one week down" for my mileage and not racing early in the season.

Before the Race

A small crew of us planned this trip far in advance (by my last-minute standards). It appeared a nice idea at the time: I'd have a few months to recover after August and prepare for a race in the good conditions of winter California.

We arrived to a dark, windy, rainy, and surprisingly cold place.
Hard to believe it was CA, on the heat of which I hated a lot.

The crew included the three running divas and Andrew who could easily lift all three of them together (and probably me as well, if I ate less). It was a moderately schizophrenic trip even not considering the race itself.

Each of my marathons in 2013 took down a PR of one of these.

Very serious. Four times as much while driving.

Most of the events and places were insignificant. A standard hotel...

The hotel had a hot tub and ducks. Separately (otherwise it would be boiled ducks).

A usual expo...

The Sacramento Convention Center, where the race expo was held.

Nobody noticed a weird furry boy.

This time I got a sneak peek at the elite suite and preparation. Elite runners, of which there were more than a hundred in CIM, prepare their fluid bottles and submit them so that the race staff could place the bottles on elite tables along the course. My conclusion: female elites put much more of their soul into these bottles than male elites.

One of male baskets.

One of female baskets. Check out this balloon!

Other than this, the elite suite was as boring as you'd be able to imagine. Everyone is nice to each other, no spirit of competition or hostility. Meh.

Other than being a capital of California, Sacramento is a small town standing on three rivers, just like Pittsburgh. The crucial difference is, it works for a town to be small in the East (c.f. New York City), but in the West it looks kinda weird. This coast was designed for the scale, why aren't people flocking in?

Sacramento Downtown.

This is what the marathon course actually looks like all the way
from Folsom to Sacramento.
This was the most boring marathon course in my life.

The weather was by far not as warm as I expected. Foggy humid mornings preceded sunny cold days. A cold front was sweeping across the West Coast.

I have absolutely no thoughts on this fog.

With 25 at the start, this was the coldest CIM ever. Granted, it didn't rain or snow.

It was so cold that trees turned blue.

I was disoriented by the weather since I never thonned in the cold. Oh well, if I made any good decision in this race, it was the one to wear my tights.

Night before the race we trashed this room really well.
It took around ten minutes.

Race

Most of 6500 runners came on specially commissioned school buses, which were stayed near the start line to not kick everyone out into the cold.

An endless line of school buses.

The best part about the race organization was 300+ portable restrooms at the start. Hard to believe, but there was hardly any congestion at all!

A port-a-john heaven. Virtually any race can benefit from more restrooms.

For the first time in my life I have precise splits from the marathon. Too bad they are quite embarrassing towards the end:

1: 6:08
2: 6:27
3: 6:13
4: 6:21 (avg)
5: 6:21 (avg)
    
5.9 mile split: 37:14, average pace 6:19. I was feeling easy and fresh. In the first six miles I dropped the extra clothing: a cotton tshirt (after one mile) and tech shirt (after five miles), thus leaving only a singlet and another tech shirt.


6: 6:26
7: 6:19
8: 6:26
9: 6:21
10: 6:16

The first 10 miles flew by quickly. The rolling hills were more annoying and distracting than I expected: it was difficult to go through them with equal effort.

11: 6:22
12: 6:23
13: 6:14

13.1, half split: 1:22:54, average pace 6:21. Everything looked good, and I thought I had a solid shot at 2:45.


14: 6:15
15: 6:23
16: 6:14
17: 6:15

I was wearing an obnoxious red hat, hoping to dump it a few miles into the race, but it was too cold, so I kept running in it till the end. I took it off for five minutes several times, but started freezing and put it back on.

Smiling through mile 17. Don't trust this: I was not feeling great already.

18: 6:31 

I twisted my left ankle in this mile. The road was banked, and I misstepped. It wasn't too bad, and I could keep running.

19: 6:19
20: 6:30

20 mile split: 2:06:46, average pace 6:22. At this point my left hamstring started hurting,

21: 6:21
22: 6:29
23: 6:34
24: 6:40

The last 2-3 miles were a huge strugglefest. I tried going faster many times, but my legs only lasted 50 feet and slowed down again. I don't think mental toughness can help in this situation: the body simply does not work, physically.

25: 6:44
26: 6:51
26.2: 1:30 (6:51 pace)

The capitol was pretty much the only noteworthy site on the course,
and it took 26 miles to see it.

Clearly I didn't have a very good control over pace: the difference between my fastest and slowest miles is 43 seconds. It is as big as the difference between my interval pace and tempo pace, or marathon pace and easy pace.

I have no idea what distance splits 1-4 measure.
Results.

When the race was over for me, I had a volunteer help me walk as I couldn't really manage it. I was in a lot of pain, as it often happens.

Crossing the finish line, I could barely move.

Another unusual thing about CIM: they handed out soda immediately after the finish. Coke tasted really bad at that time.

About to tip over.

The bag return was awkward: all the bags were laid out on the ground, and few volunteers ran around them. I started to get cold quickly there -- the air temperature was around 35.

A christmas tree near the finish line.

The bag return, by bib number.

The (happy?) Hound finishers of CIM.

Lessons

I made a number of serious mistakes in this race, and I was lucky that they didn't cost me more time. Here's the lessons I should remember:

• NO STARTING OUT FAST: I got carried away and distracted this time, forgetting that 6:08 isn't my marathon pace yet. The first miles must feel like a jog if you want your last miles to not be a jog.
• Need better fueling approach: I overloaded myself this time. I took one gel before the race and then tried to get one every 50 minutes, but it was too hard to combine it with water. I lost 10 seconds on every mile where I ate a gu, trying to get water at the same time. Eventually my stomach just shut down, and every time I got water I felt like throwing up. Maybe I should put less stress on my digestion or take gels and water separately.
• Need better gels: the standard gu gel doesn't seem to cut it anymore. I need something less viscous and more fluid so that I could take it without water, and it wouldn't plug my stomach.
• Say no to thick socks: it was probably the dumbest mistake of all, to wear thick socks in a marathon. I was more concerned about not being cold than about the socks crushing my feet. It turned out to be painful in the end.
• Need specific muscle exercise: hamstrings and feet seem to be my weak spots. Also, my quads are always destroyed in the end of marathons, maybe I should squat more. 
• Tights are good: it was great to run at a temperature that was comfortable to my legs. Also, I didn't chafe at all thanks to the tights.
• Gels between gloves: it was a good trick to wear a gel between two layers of gloves -- no effort needed and easy to get it out.
• Check the shoes: it is likely that I ran the whole race with Corkum's heel lift stuck to the bottom of my show. This would explain the hamstring and ankle issues I had. There is no definitive evidence though.

Even a smaller change in shoes could mean an end of a long race.

If you want to see better photos of the race, visit this gallery.

I'm finally done with this race. Such a relief.
I'm allowed to be fat for a couple of weeks.

The next big race for me is Boston in April'14. I hate running.