Victoria Marathon - 2:26:42

I have never been so sore after a race as I have been the last couple days. I expected my calves to be more sore than usual by wearing a 5k flat on my feet rather than a marathon flat, but my entire lower body is shattered.  Today, two days out i'm able to walk around a little easier, but yesterday I was a mess. I remember times the day after a marathon when I was able to go for a light jog, there was no way that was an option this time around. I suppose most people would take a couple of Ibuprofen but I stay away from them because I already have stomach acid problems and it wasn't life-or-death. Anyway I think the root problem, in concert with the shoes, was my ongoing hip/IT-band issues. A couple weeks ago when I was getting fed up with my left-side IT-band/hip I started doing some core-lateral-leg exercises which quickly relieved the acute hip soreness, BUT it also ended up tightening up my RIGHT-side ITband, in the normal way though, around the knee soreness.  Furthermore my calves didn't seem to want to loosen up completely. I took most of the week quite easy to let things recover, and did a bit of stretching and yoga to  help loosen things up, but I continued to feel a bit of imbalance right up to race day.  My hips just did not feel 'right' so when the race started I knew I would have to really concentrate on running as efficiently as possible so as to not fall into compensating one way or another.


I think by doing a reasonable amount of core work and consistently doing hill repeat work I was able to run with good form nearly the whole race. There were no point where I found that my form was falling apart and flailing around. I kept reciting in my head: "drop shoulders, arms down, tuck in elbows, pull hips forward, lift knees" throughout the run.  I actually started this around 7k when my right ITband started to tighten up because I was obviously worried I wasn't going to be able to make it through the race having soreness so early on. The pain never really got too bad, and I think it was due to concentrating on form the whole way. This didn't come without other pains however! As the race progressed my left hip and IT tightened up and calves of course were pretty beat by 30k. One new pain however was in my inner-left-quad. I can only attribute this to running further forward on my feet due to the light flats and forcing my legs to drive up and forward, but I suppose it was some kind of compensating pain for the IT-band/hip. This quad pain was actually what I was most worried about it would get progressively worse throughout.


So other than that the race went quite well, however it was a bit strange in that I ran alone for the entire distance. Alone as in without competitors, but I had my own official-cyclist(Gerry) for the whole race. Like the Edmonton marathon where I had a cyclist for the second half, Gerry and I chatted away most of the race which was greatly appreciated. He waved the early-start-walkers out of the way so I didn't have to deal with them wandering all over the road which was invaluable.  However running the tangent was still impossible for many parts on the course. Regardless the cheering by the other people out on the course was helpful even if I was concentrating hard and paying little attention to the spectators.   Running alone the whole race made it extremely uneventful, the most exciting part being the turnaround where I discovered the second and third place guys were not all that far in front of me and not looking that great. I also discovered that Aaron, Oliver, and Graeme were not too far back!  At this point I picked it up ever so slightly now that I was in the hunt for 3rd place, and also worried about the others catching me as they could work in a pack and there would surely be a breeze heading west.  There were a couple of long stretches on the way back so I could see I was gaining on the third place runner Gilbert Kiptoo. As I reeled him in he was looking over his shoulder quite often and when he realized the pass was imminent around 28k he just stepped off the course and quit.  I had expected this to happen, however for some reason I though't he'd wait till I caught up, but it makes more sense in retrospect, if he was certain I would catch him.  The reason he dropped of course is that the prize money goes 3 deep, so for him to finish 4th or less would be completely a waste of his energy, better saved for the next race.


At this point I had to make a decision to either go after the second place guy(whom I could not see) or to protect my lead on the 3 guys chasing me by easing up a bit and not risk my calves or quad cramping up/blowing apart.  I chose the conservative approach and kept up a good pace but not pushing too hard. My split at 30k was 1:42:29 I think, and my split at 10k was 34:18 I found out after. Shockingly even! I guess by concentrating so much on form I was also being extremely consistent. Anyway, things started getting tough as they always do towards the end of a marathon but with about 5k to go you can see for nearly a whole kilometer(it seems like) behind you, so I looked back, and asked Jerry to do the same, to see how far my chasers are, and neither of us could see them.  Heading into this stretch I could also not see the second place guy Philip Samoei so with this in mind, being firmly in "no man's land" I decided I would enjoy the rest of the race and slowed up a bit more, cruising into the finish. For those who saw me finish and said I made it look easy, well, its because I was going easy! It was really enjoyable to be able to just cruise into the the finish not having to worry about the others, or about your legs blowing up.  And that was that, 2:26:42.


I had thought I was in 2:25 shape, and I still stand by it! I feel like I could have run faster had I put out personal water bottles on the 'elite table.'  I had a really hard time getting enough fluids from the water stations and consequently didn't put my gels down as easy, and I did not take electrolyte tablets which would have likely helped my quad and calves from feeling so bad.  I didn't take them because without much water I was worried my stomach would freak out.  I guess the difference is that I told myself I was in 2:25 shape, but after the race it sunk in that 2:25 is pretty good! For the amount of time I have spent training I am very happy about running 2:26. It was really the perfect day for running, weather wise, and the event went off without a hitch yet again. Big thanks to Gerry, the volunteers and Jonathan for organizing all the elite stuff.


Oh! one last note. Change of plans. I have almost decided to scrap the TNF San Fran 50mi trail race plan, likely going to the Whistler 50 instead. Not 100% sure yet.

Race Week

Just a quick note. It's race week! I'm actually reasonably excited. I picked up some new kicks from Mark and Nick at Frontrunners Westshore out in Langford which i'm pretty stoked about, they're some ultra light road flats. I was worried about wearing my Brooks marathon flats which I wore in Edmonton, thinking they were too bulky and not allowing me to run as efficiently as I am used to, having been training in my minimalist trail shoes. So to have some ultra-light Adidas flats i'm feeling much better about the run. I'm going to take them out for a spin tomorrow morning.


As for last week.....well it didn't quite work out as I planned, and far from what I had set out in my last blog post. Since the post I decided to just do my regular two workout week, and it started out really well, i had a, dare I say, stellar hill session on wednesday.   I had done a strength session the night before so was feeling loaded up, in the sense that I felt very strong, anyway it went surprisingly well, more than 3 seconds per rep faster on average. Come the weekend however I was feeling pretty stiff from doing the core work I guess and when I set out to do another track workout I felt really flat and decided to call it quits after the first rep!  I wasn't feeling like working out on saturday and on sunday I was REALLY not feeling like a workout, so it was doomed from the beginning. Perhaps I should have just taken my good track workout from a couple weeks back and let it be. ANYWAY, its taper week now so i'm takin it pretty easy, going to do some yoga and stretching all week to get balanced and get rid of this stiffness. Tomorrow morning i'm going to take a few turns around the track at 3:20-25/km pace and see how that feels, see if running 2:25 is going to even be a reasonable expectation for Sunday. I hope so, I feel like i'm in good shape and have been quite consistent over the last few weeks. 80 mile weeks in singles isn't anything to write home about but its not too shabby either.  For those racing this weekend too, good luck. Next post, race report!