Things to learn about marathons…

Hi Mo,

How’s it hangin’ homie? It’s your four hundred and seventieth best friend Morgan here with a heads up on the 2011 Oakland Marathon and some of my thoughts about what I have learned about marathon running – a subject I still have alot to learn about!

The weather for the run was near perfect with the marathon starting at 07:30 and it was very cool, clear and dry – very very nice!

View Oakland in a larger map

As a smaller marathon too, there were only 897 finishers, so getting to the start line on time was a breeze, not like Paris or Berlin which can be a nightmare, even with an hour to go.

The event was really well organised and I think running in smaller marathons makes much more sense because there’s far more service available than the marathon majors – all the pieces are there, but just none of the aggro.

So what did I learn about marathons? Well..

I think I could have done better if I had really been determined to stick to my per mile race pace. Here’s what I really mean by that.

Don’t overdo it…

I should have got a custom race pace band from these guys and stuck to the timings rigidly. Normally a race pace bracelet has the cumulative times and so on which assumes the terrain is super flat.

In reality of course, you should be running slower up hill and faster down and your bracelet should reflect that.

These guys customise the bracelet so that the pace is terrain adjusted. How’s that for clever?

In short then, you pump in your desired time and the course and they send you the bracelet which is custom adjusted for the course you’re running, so you get extra time in the first three miles to warm up, which by the time you’re fully steamed up, they increase the pace to pay back the ‘borrowed’ time in the first miles.

More than that, each mile’s pace is adjusted for whether you’re going up hill or down, so you’re always adjusting pace in each mile to take account of the terrain – sweet!!

As you can see, the course profile for Oakland was a screamer for five miles from mile five to mile ten, hill after hill after hill, but when I turned the final corner to head down hill, I could see San Francisco clearly and it brought a tear to my eye to think how lucky I am to be here. I do this kind of thing today because one day I may not be able to.

Eat right

In advance of the marathon I had been eating the usual fare of pasta and so on and that was good in the week running up to the marathon. On race day I had been drinking fluids all the previous day and Gatorade especially which just breaks a thirst immediately. I ran with a CamelBak and drank religiously and ate energy chews all the way to mile 18 where I switched to Gu energy gels.

These are thick as toothpaste and you will definitely need water to get them down you. It took me 2 cups of water to wash the stuff down. I nearly gagged trying to swallow the stuff because it was sooo pasty.

Once it was in, it really energised me for the wall which was short and it only took about five minutes to come up, so I managed to pick up the pace and get to the end reasonably sweetly.

The last mile was tough and it was always a great delight to cross the line which was about 250 metres longer than my GPS said, but there we are.

So the official time was 3:37 or 3:36 on my GPS watch. Not a PB at the moment but encouraging enough to make me think more about race tactics and pacing, and trying to find a ticket to the San Francisco marathon in a couple of weeks time.

Next marathon, I will definitely run to the schedule. And why not? I would finish faster if I did – you live and learn I s’pose. That’s experience for you.

So that was it – more silverware for me! I hope you’re well and I’ll give you a call soon.

Much love me old fruit bat,

Morgan
P.S. Don’t you love the long summer evenings? Awesome!