2013 - Rock n Roll St Louis - Half Marathon Recap

Well it's all over. I've taken my time writing this post for a couple of reasons. It really does signify that my first major race is in the books, I'm heading into the next couple months of maintenance work and have to make a decision about my next race.

Well it was quite a week at our house last week. Elijah, my 4th son (8) who just had his tonsils out, spent Thursday the 24th in the hospital, the same day that my mom and step-dad came into town to see the race. Some flight delays put them here just in time to grab a quick bite to eat before we headed to see Noah (14) and Ethan (13) march in the Vandalia, Illinois halloween parade. So that was fun.

Friday, my folks and I headed into St Louis to the Health and Fitness Expo held at the America's Center. I got my race packet and swag bag and we cruised the booths getting some freebies and drooling over some Garmin watches, 'The Stick', and more training gear than you can shake a stick at. I was a little disappointed at the expo as I had hoped some of the local stores that showed up there would have had some better pricing on items. I didn't feel like there was anything there I couldn't pick up on Amazon for either the same price or cheaper, and don't get me started on the 'Official Merch' prices. I about wet myself looking at those price tags. I guess I better get used to that being the way these expo's go.

Saturday night we got to bed early and got up at 4:00 Sunday morning to head into St Louis. The race packet suggested being there 90 minutes before the race. So at exactly 5:30am I stepped into the fenced off area. It was in the mid to upper 30s at that point and I was a bit chilly. I think I was one of only about 100 people milling around at that point. At around 6:00 I dropped off my gear bag and headed to find the brave souls who ventured into STL with me, my mom, step-dad and 3rd son Justin (10).  We chatted while trying to stay warm until about 6:45 when the crowd really started to thicken. I downed a couple packs of Hammer Gel and I headed to my corral.

The race started at 7:00 and my corral crossed the starting line at 7:07. What a rush. I blinked and it seemed like we were already a mile into the race. The pace was decent. I'm not used to running in a group like that, so just keeping up put my first mile was at a 9 minute mile pace. Pretty much right where I wanted to be to start. Then I kept the rest of the race under 8:45 the rest of the way. Here I am at mile 1.5 where my family saw me last before the finish line. I really felt great, like there was barely any effort for at least the first 5-6 miles. Then after that it was a little more work to keep my pace. Part of that I think is because that is where the crowd started to really thin out and I had to drive my own pace and I had passed the pacer for the 2:00:00 half marathon and so it was harder to gauge at any given moment if I was gaining or losing time of my desired pace.

The trek through St Louis really was nice. It really showed off the variety of landmarks and scenery in the downtown area. At mile 5 I took 1/2 of my nutrition bottle and then the rest at 9 miles. I had packed an extra single serve Hammer Gel which I took at mile 11 to give me a final boost through the end. I did find myself a little disappointed as I came up on mile 11.5 or so that I had not trained for the full marathon. I knew that I was only about 15 minutes out from finishing and I was not ready for this very cool experience to end.

But all good things must end eventually and so as I turned east onto Market and then on to Chestnut, the finish line approached and I gave it my all. An extra cool boost was that Chrissy had made it down in time with the rest of the crew and I saw them on my final approach. That really gave me a boost for that last tenth of a mile or so. So this pic was taken by my Mom, Step-Dad and Justin, while I was waving to my wife Chrissy, Noah, Ethan, Elijah, Isaiah, Miley and Judah.

The finish line area was well stocked with fruit, Powerbars, drinks (Gatorade, chocolate milk, water, etc), space blankets, and the coveted finisher medals. I had my finisher photo taken and left the 'secure area' to meet up with my family.

Official time was 1:52:25. I am very pleased. I had originally set out to have a sub 2 hour time, even if it was 1:59:59, but beating that by almost 8 minutes really was great.

We caught some lunch at the Hard Rock St Louis and made it back to the stage to hear our hometown favorites The Madison Letter play the finish line stage.

So Rock n Roll Marathon Series, total winner in my book. The event staff was friendly, the event was organized well, I'm hooked. I've not decided 100% to do a full or half marathon for my next event, or if I should head up to the Illinois Marathon or the Nashville Rock n Roll Marathon. They are on the same weekend in April 2014. Either way, I look forward to it.

So that's it. For now I'm focused on some weight training and maintaining some decent weekly mileage until the next training cycle starts in January.

Race Day Nutrition and Hydration

So with race day only 10 days out, I'm getting pretty excited. I've had a few training runs that have left me very encouraged, while others have left something to be desired. I'm still working on my pacing strategy in order to hit my mark. I just don't have a good feel for what 'race day adrenaline' is actually going to do for me and how long it will help sustain me at a slightly faster pace.

One thing that I am pretty well set on at this point is my fueling and hydrating plan. I've decided that since I have spent my entire training cycle wearing my Nathan Elite One Plus belt, that it will be going with me. I actually just picked up some Race Number Clips to add to it. So far in training I've been taking in water every 1 to 1.5 miles on long runs, and keeping it at less than a mouthful. I'll be adding an Endurolyte Fizz tablet from Hammer Nutrition to my 22oz water bottle (probably Mango flavored).

As far as fueling goes, I'll be using Hammer Gel. My plan is to take 1 or 2 single serving packs 15 minutes before the race. Then have 3 servings (from my 26 serving jug) in my 5oz flask. I'll take 1/2 the flask at 5 miles and the rest at 9 miles. I also plan on keeping an extra single serving pack on me in case I need a boost towards the last couple miles.

So yeah, nothing new on race day for sure. These products have done well for me over the last 20 weeks and I feel good about bringing them with me.

Rock and Roll St. Louis is this month!

In 27 days I will be standing in my starting corral at the St. Louis Rock and Roll Half Marathon. I signed up for it 4 months ago and in the last 16 weeks have put in 72 workouts with a total of just under 500 miles. I have 3 more weeks of hard training and a week of taper before the actual race. I'm feeling good about my prospects in my first 1/2 marathon. I think a goal of under 2 hours is attainable. It will not be easy, but no goal worth attaining is easy.

Half Marathon Training - Week 7

I was off to a pretty slow start on Monday. I was pretty sore still from Saturday's 14 miler. But I still got out on the road. I put in a very slow 5 miles instead of an easy 6. Tuesday was supposed to be 5, so since I was feeling a bit better, I switched it up and put in my 6. Wednesday was a 7 mile tempo run which I was able to complete successfully. Thursday was a 5 mile easy and friday was off. Today I wanted to stay in bed, actually the voice in my head was telling me to take Saturday off altogether. Forget that. I was on the road at 4:35am and did the 14 mile loop again. A bit slower than last week, but still with a good 11:01 pace.

13 weeks to go until the race!

I read a great comic this week from The Oatmeal about running. Beware, The Oatmeal can be a bit crass from time to time, but the author really has a way of getting to the truth of things. Enjoy:

Half Marathon Training - Week 5 & 6

Week five was a self inflicted rest week. Knees and Achilles were aching, so I took 3 days off and did some shorter runs for the rest of the week. Only got in about 18 miles total for the week.

Week 6 was back in full swing.

Monday - 6 miles easy
Tuesday - 5 miles easy
Wednesday - 6 miles ( warmup: 3x1600 @ 8:59 w/800m jogs: cool down )

Intervals went well again. But it was super muggy, like breathing in a sauna! But I hit under my goal time. Actually the first mile interval was a 7m:52s mile. Best mile ever. Slowly making progress. Trying to focus on a faster cadence and shorter stride to speed myself up rather than trying to have a long stride. Seems to help.

Thursday - 5 miles easy
Friday - Rest
Saturday - 14 miles - 10m:47s average pace

So I was a little concerned about this run. It was a mile longer than I've ever run before and I was trying out a new route. I was also hitting the road about 15 minutes earlier this time. So the first half hour or so of my run was pretty dark still since I started at 4:15am. But the weather was cool and beautiful and I watched a lovely sunrise over the Illinois countryside. I like this new route through the woods and through farmland. I'll be doing it again next weekend. My body felt pretty good the rest of Saturday, but Sunday I was hurting pretty well. Lots of foam rolling, ice and NSAIDs and I'm coming back together for another week of work.

Half Marathon Training - Week 4

This was a 'recovery' week. Monday through Thursday were 5 mile easy runs and Saturday was a 6 mile easy run. I was hoping the easy runs would let my achilles feel better, but alas it's still tender. In addition to Sunday, I am taking Monday off from running to give it a breather. I watched this video from Competitor.com and will be trying to incorporate this stretch into my daily routine to see if it assists in Achilles mobility.

Competitor.com Monday Minute - Wall Ankle Mobilization

I also got my Road ID gear this week, a Road ID sport and a nice Road ID visor at an inexpensive price.

I also picked up a couple tubes of Endurolyte Fizz from Hammer Nutrition. I tried the Grape flavor on my 6 mile run on Saturday. It was a nice light grape flavor added to 22oz of water. I'll do a post on it later.

Half Marathon Training - Week 3

The first half of the week went really well, but I peaked on my wednesday tempo run. I pushed pretty hard and really knocked it out. I was worried about keeping the prescribed 9:47 pace for the middle 5 miles, but instead ended up with a 9 minute pace average for those miles.

But I paid for it. Saturday's long run hurt. By the end of it, my knees were aching, my hip flexors were shot and my right achilles was tender. I'm glad that next week is a recovery week: 5 easy runs. I just need to force myself to keep the pace down even if I'm feeling strong. I'm gonna start the week on the treadmill to do just that.

Week 3 of 21 overview:

Sunday: Rest
Monday: 5 Miles - Easy Run
Tuesday: 4 Miles - Easy Run
Wednesday: 7 Miles -  Tempo Run - 1 mile warm; 5 miles (9 minute pace); 1 mile cool
Thursday: 4 Miles - Easy Run
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 13.1 miles - 11:18  pace (long run)

Half Marathon Training - Week 2

This week started out a little rough. On Sunday, I came down with some sort of stomach bug and it knocked me down for a good 24 hours. So my Monday workout was nuked. But that's ok. I had a 5 mile easy on Monday and a 4 mile easy scheduled for Tuesday. So I just did the 5 on Tuesday and moved on.

Wednesday was killer! It was my first time to hit the track for intervals. It was hot and muggy, so breathing well was tough. After the warmup mile, I kicked it up into the first 1600 fast interval. 9:04 pace was really fast for me. I realized though that this was my target pace for the race in October, so I better get used to it. Interval 2 and 3 got hard, but I managed to keep it going and made pace for the run. I used the updates to Runtastic Pro app to help with the intervals. You can custom program an interval plan and it will tell you when to speed up or slow down. Very handy. 

Thursday was a nice easy 4 mile run, I kept really close to the plan pace and didn't push hard at all. I've read some articles lately that suggest this for easy runs. 

Friday was another day off, I decided not to cross train, just to get some extra rest for the long run.

Today was a long run. it went very well. I tried some Cytomax in my water bottle and had tropical Hammer Gel in my nutrition flask. Overall it was a very good run. I got to also sport a new Under Armour running outfit from my mom and stepdad. Thanks guys!

I've  been having trouble with GPS tracking and got the suggestion from Runtastic's website to turn off wifi on my phone for better gps tracking. I tried this today and got a near perfect GPS track for thie run.

Week 2 of 21 overview:

Sunday: Rest - Came down with Stomach Bug
Monday: Rest / Sick
Tuesday: 5 Miles - 10:25 pace (easy run)
Wednesday: 6 Miles -  warm; 3x1600m (9:04pace) w/800m jogs; cool (speed work)
Thursday: 4 Miles - 11:07 (easy run)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 13.1 miles - 10:43  pace (long run)

Half Marathon Training - Week 1

I think for the next section of my blog, I'm not going to bore you with daily updates, instead moving to a weekly review of my progress. I've got till October 27th to get in the best shape of my life and hopefully post a great time in my first major race.

Week 1 went like this:

Sunday: Rest
Monday: 10.5 miles - 10:14 pace (this was before I started following my training plan)
Tuesday: 4 Miles - 10:43 pace (easy run)
Wednesday: 7.25 Miles - 10:49 pace (tempo run)
Thursday: 3.3 Miles - 10:50 pace (easy run)
Friday: Cross Train - Insanity Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs
Saturday: 13.1 miles - 11:07 pace (long run)

I was happy with my long run at 2h 26m, obviously I have almost 2 minutes a mile to shave off in the next 20 weeks, but hey. I done crazier things.

I need to speed up my tempo run a little next time. I've gone back to the training calculator and changed the times a little to reflect what my times were this week as a starting point.

Next week I have speedwork (intervals) instead of a tempo run.