St. George Marathon 2022, part 3 - Saturday (Marathon day!)

After a typically restless night's sleep, I woke up at 3am so that I could be out the door by 4am to make sure I would get to the bus pick-up spot to catch the 4:30am bus. (I got there at 4:15.) It was a quick drive up in the standard yellow school bus to the starting point in Central. It was VERY windy and rather cool (probably about 50F). Slowly but surely, the organizers were lighting many fire pits around which groups of people were huddled for warmth. I'm glad that I had m NYC Marathon poncho, as that made it that much easier for me to stay warm up until the time I needed to hand in my gear bag.

The 5,000 runners self-seeded based on the pacers holding up their signs. I was feeling decent, so decided I would give a shot for the 3:00 pace group. Since that group was all the way up front, it meant that there was absolutely no crowd to fight through -- definitely liked that.

After 1 mile, I recognized that breaking 3:00 was not going to happen, and decided to stick with the 3:05 pacer once he caught me. I was able to do that until Mile 7 started.

I had found out at the expo the day before that Mile 7 was the big hill on the course -- 250 feet of incline in less than a mile. The profile didn't look like it was anywhere near that when I had looked at it multiple times beforehand, so I never did hill work of that nature. It did me in. Maybe halfway up that hill, I dropped down to a walk. And before I hit the top of that part of the incline, the 3:10 pacer passed me. (Shit.)

Right as I was hitting the Mile 8 marker, I started back up at a faster pace, despite it still being uphill, though much less steep. The hill kept going until Mile 12. (Ugh.)

By the time I was halfway, it was about 1:39:00 into the race, and the temperature had hit somewhere around 70F. And despite the bragging that they were one of the best organized marathons in the U.S., I thought they did a horrible job with the water stops. Firstly, there wasn't a set method for whether it was Gatorade or water first, and there were multiple times when they were intermixed, so it was tough to get to the right person. What's worse, the stops were VERY brief. Given how many people were running the race, the water stops should have had twice as much space than they used. I missed getting water to douse myself at a couple of spots because of the crowding and not wanting to stop.

Downhill portions were pretty good, but given how badly I did with the uphills and what it did both to my legs and my HR, I wasn't able to take as much advantage on the downhill portions as I had hoped I could.

Then I finally get to Mile 17 -- and needed a pit stop. A 3-minute pit stop, which I almost never need to do, but clearly I wasn't able to get enough out at the motel before I set off for the bus. Grrr...

I kept on doing the math of what my finish time might be. For a while, it looked like I just might be able to crack 3:13, which I had determined was necessary for being able to improve my Age Championship point total. (Turns out that the fastest in the age group was faster than the "platinum" time, so 3:13 wouldn't have been fast enough anyway.) Nope. That slipped away, and it looked like there was a possibility of at least getting a negative split, even in spite of the long pit stop. Nope... not quite.

Finally I crossed the finish line not in the originally desired sub-3:00, but in 3:20:41. While it's a Boston Qualifier time for me, I have a couple of other better BQs which I should be able to use for 2024.

Hmmm... now to consider whether I attempt the mostly downhill course of Tucson in December, since it is another Age Championship qualifying race.

St. George Marathon 2022, part 2 - Friday (expo day!)

The expo didn't open until 11am, so I had time to kill in the morning. After having a very minimalist continental breakfast included at the hotel (waffle, bowl of cereal, and some OJ), I set off with the intent of going to an overlook that didn't look like it would be too far away. Took a little over 1 mile to get to the trailhead, which was about a 1.5-mile one-way trek to get to the overlook. 

Along the way, I noticed this cute little fella in a traffic circle:

I only went a very short distance on the trail before deciding the better part of valor would have me NOT do this hike. The effort was certainly going to be considerable (which I would have been willing to do Thursday morning), and the footing wasn't all that great at the start. Not wanting to expend a huge amount of energy, let alone risk injury, I turned back and did a bit of meandering through the town (which had been set for Thursday, too).

Best of the views I was able to capture from the hill looking at the surrounding area:

Some interesting sculptures and other landmarks within the town:

Alas, their Mormon temple was under renovation, so I couldn't get any decent photos of it or the grounds.

St. George Marathon 2022, part 1 - bad omens?

Seems like everything was conspiring against me for this race. As you know from prior entries, my training just wasn't up to par on many occasions this time around. 

Then there was the day before leaving and travel to St. George. My flights were originally supposed to get me Thursday morning. At some point in time, my flights were changed, and rather than arriving at 10am, I arrived at 10pm. So much for being able to use the full day to do a little exploring, or go to the concert I was planning on attending. (Glad I was figuring on buying tickets at the box office.)

Then there was the matter of getting a cab to the hotel. First company called: earliest car would be 90 minute wait. (What?!) Second company called: They didn't have any cars available at all, but they could transfer me to the third company. 45 minute wait, they'll call when they're near. (Sigh.) Fine. There were two couples who also wound up calling the same company and arranging for a car. Seems like all three calls went to the same one car, who was willing to take us all simultaneously, bill us on straight mileage between airport and respective drop-offs. (No bargain for us, but wonderful money-maker for him.) I never got a call back from their dispatcher, so had I not actually gotten in the car, who knows what would have actually happened. Fortune for the car. $51 fare. Wow! (Uber was even more expensive -- we all looked.)

I was the 2nd drop-off, and the comment from the driver about it not being a good part of town had me a bit tentative about my choice. (Fortunately, it worked out without any problems.) The motel was certainly less than desirable from the outside, but the room was certainly spacious (not that I used the front part of the suite at all).

Definitely an inauspicious start to the weekend. What would the rest of the weekend hold in store?

Deciding on my goal

Well, yet another long run that was nowhere near what I needed it to be for my training plan. Disappointing, to put it mildly. I was supposed to do 22 miles @ 7:10 (which would be about 2:38 total), and instead I wound up running 20 and walking the last 2, for a total time of about 3:13. Yes, the hills always get me, and there will be minimal uphills during the marathon. The temperature started at about 60F and went north from there, likely passing 70F by the time I was finished, and the temps during the race should be about 10 degrees cooler across the full duration.

So, it looks like I'll be building out a somewhat customized pace band with three separate sets of splits on it, for hitting sub-3, 3:05, and 3:10. Depending on conditions and how I'm feeling, I'll choose one of the pace groups to join and then, depending on how the run goes, may/may not shift to one of the other times.

3:10 is all I need to be in the Top 65 as of now for Age Championships -- assuming that the person in my age group does not run faster than the "platinum" time standard. Clearly, though, faster would be vastly preferable to be likelier to get to and stay in the Top 65. 

Fingers crossed!

Back outside

I finally got back outside for a run -- the temperature broke well enough so that it was in the 60s this morning. While still not meeting the time goal I had, it was nevertheless nice to be off of the treadmill for a change. I need to make sure I get out of my apartment early enough tomorrow morning to take as much advantage of the cooler temps as possible, given that I have a long 22-mile run ahead of me.

2 weeks, now, until race day. Too far out for any realistic forecast, but the current trend looks like it will be ideal at the starting line -- overnight temps getting down to about 52. That and the downhill course will make this a very fast start that I'll need to rein myself in on to make sure I don't burn through my energy too early.

Lack of motivation?

Well, certainly as far as writing blog entries is concerned. It's been about 6 weeks. (!)

Training has been a continual mixed bag. Most of my shorter sessions have been going fine, but I don't think I have properly hit any of my goals on any of my long runs. Whether it be my legs being overly fatigued or my HR skyrocketing too early, something has been going awry, making me very unsure about what I should do in St. George. I very much want to crack that 3-hour mark for a second time, and the downhill course will be ideal, but I have to strategize about how conservatively I need to run during the first half.

While I'm glad my running is going well enough that I don't see any problem continuing to register for Boston for the foreseeable future (I just registered for 2023 yesterday with a BQ-25:05 thanks to Mesa 2022), I would like to beat that mark at least once. We'll see.

Confluence of events

Bad run days happen. It sucks when there are many different factors likely contributing to the problem that you can't figure out how much should be attributed to what factor.

Today, my run was supposed to be 2 miles @ 7:35, 3 miles @ 6:40, 2 miles @ 7:35. Given that I was running in 72F heat and 95% humidity, I knew those paces were NOT going to happen. I know the rule of thumb to adjust for temperature, and was set to do 8:00, 7:00, 8:00 instead.

Alas, that wasn't happening either. While my first two miles were actually slightly under 8:00 each, the next two miles were mostly uphill, and with that humidity, I was fortunate to just keep my 8:00 pace. But my legs were plenty sore from yesterday's double, and by the time I was heading back, given the totality of pace, temp, and humidity (and any factor that COVID-19 might be playing, though I suspect minimal), my HR was sky-high (~190). The last 3.5 miles were done at a walking pace. (Whether I wanted the full mileage or not, I had to do it, since my run took me 4 miles away from my apartment before turning around.)

So, how much of today's poor effort can be attributed to which factor? At the end of the day, obviously, it doesn't really matter. Work on a successful run again tomorrow.