Tucson, Arizona United States 60F / 16C Sunny

Total Time = 3h 20m 34s Overall Rank = 123/1017 Age Group = M40-44 Age Group Rank = 23/95

As many of you are probably growing tired of hearing, I started running as a separate discipline in October 2005. I had a done a couple of seasons of Triathlons and just got tired of getting smoked on the run after a great swim and a strong bike. After 4 half marathons, my run was improved and found that I wanted more. So, I bagged most of my Tri Season to focus on Marathoning. The pinacle of that effort was my 4th marathon, Orange County Marathon in January of this year. I ran a 3:36:37 and felt like this was a very solid effort and a proper gauge of my fitness level at the time.

I made a couple of decisions on the way home from that race:

1). I was going to try and Qualify for a slot at Ironman USA at Lake Placid
2). I was going to try and Qualify for the Boston Marathon

When this journey began, I could not imagine running a Marathon, and was even more dubious about the idea of an Ironman. If nothing else, OCM gave me a different perspective and maybe a little more imagination that day. So, as it turned out, I cranked up the training intensity for Ironman Calfornia 70.3 in March and ended up running a really strong race far beyond my stated goals. Best of all, I was able to get one of the 7 qualified slots for IMLP that were allocated to my Age Group.

Of course, Ironman Lake Placid was an experience that our language has so few words to properly describe.

So, I laid out a plan to trim that final 15 minutes off of my marathon time in an attempt to run a BQ. (40-45 AG = 3:20:59 or less to Qualify) My original plan that I sketched out read something like this:

1). Long Beach Marathon, 10/14/2007 - Tuneup Race
2). California International, 12/02/2007 - BQ Attempt
3). Orange County Marathon, 01/06/2008 - BQ Attempt (If Necessary)
4). Pacific shoreline, 02/04/2007 - BQ Attempt (If Necessary)

The plan called for a 19 Week Training Cycle leading up to CIM and I would train through Long Beach. (I added a Post-Race Recovery Week to the plan to make it 19 weeks) I also had a secret goal that if I achieved a BQ early, I would use one of the remaining races to get as close as possible to a Sub-3 Marathon. (A Secret Goal)

Of course, in September, my whole plan had to be tossed. I re-injured my shoulder after my weekly ocean swim with my training group and ended up back in the emergency room. The doc that "Reduced" my shoulder informed me that surgery was the next indicated step. This seemed a bit wacky to be but I guess when you dislolate more than once, it strongly suggests that it will continue to happen.

So, after an MRI and some goofing around with my insurance company, it seemed that I would only have one and only one shot at achieving anything in the way of a marathon this year. Long Beach was safe, but everything after that would likely be Post-Surgery and probably out of the question.

So, if a BQ time was to happen, this was it. As most of you heard in my LBM race report, I had pretty severe breathing problems that struck at mile 16. I had maintained a BQ pace up to that point and was pretty frustrated. After a checkup in the med-tent, I "Jogged" into the finish for what was pretty close to a personal worst. Definitely not even close to what I had hoped for and certainly a very sour note for the end of my very short marathoning season.

As luck would have it, my insurance and doctor spent more time than anyone expected nutzing around with paperwork and a very short window of Opportunity opened up for one more marathon. Santa Clarita was 3 weeks after Long Beach and in true freakshow fashion, I decided to run a Double.

My goal for the race was to finish strong, run a good race and not focus on time. To that end, although I wore a watch, I only captured one lap time. (The Half way) My intention was to run a negative split and try and place as high as I could in the standings. The weather was forcast to be warm and the Santa Ana Winds were expected to hit about mid way through the race.

The results were exactly what I needed. I ran a negative split, ran down a bunch of folks in the last 10 miles, and best of all, placed 46th overall with a 3:33:08. (This was a new Personal Best 3:29 over my OCM Time) I was stoked with the results and not the least bit unhappy with the idea of putting the BQ goal back on the shelf for another year. Yeah, it was going to be next Winter before I had another opportunity to run another marathon. I have a full season of Triathlons scheduled including Ironman Coeur d'Alene in June.

But guess what, a week after Santa Clarita and my doctor's office calls to schedule my surgery: They said the first date available was December 5th and if that did not work, it would not happen until after the holidays. (Well Yeah I am going to take the 5th) So, after about 5 minutes of mental deliberation, I decide that CIM is a go and this is going to be my BQ Shot.

Then things got complicated. by the time I had worked everything out, registation at CIM had closed. The Website said their would be registation at the expo but I EMailed the RD to make sure that if I made the drive up there, I would have a slot. As it turned out, there were only a few slots available and the RD could not guarantee I would get one. She strongly suggested I get someone to register for me as soon as the expo opened and got confirmation before driving up.

So after some more deliberations, I decided to run Tucson instead. It is billed as BQ friendly and like CIM, is basically a downhill afair. Best of all, I was able to register online immediately and reserved a cheap hotel room right on the course.


Pre-Race

I scored bigtime because two RT folks were also doing this race and I was the slowest runner in the group. We all got together for dinner at Pei Wei and I had a very nice time. I finally got to meet JValentine and offer much thanks for being one of the first folks to welcome me to the forums 2 years ago. I also got to chat with "261 to 26.2" who had previously done this course and as it turns out, also suffers from 'Adult Onset Fitness'.

I woke up early on Saturday and drove out to Tucson (About a 6 hour drive) and even met up with a few Triathlete folks at the expo from the Tucson Tri Club. At the expo I found one piece of kit I was missing for the race and I was set for the day. (I needed to get something to keep my ears warm that I could toss during the race)

During the afternoon, I was able to drive the course and compare it to 261's Motion Based data from 2006. Guess what, the course is different. As it turns out, they added a bunch of hills between 10-13 miles and brought some other hills much closer to the finish and also added a few new hills to the last 2 miles of the finish. Definitely need to construct a race plan carefully here. (Maybe this was not news to many folks, but seemed to catch more than a few off guard)

Race Plan

My race plan was simple. I wanted to run as even splits as possible and for the first time, run a Time Trial instead of just competing with the field. From the previous years results, it seemed like this race was about 15-20 minutes faster than Santa Clarita and so I was going to be nowhere near FOP. (More like middle of MOP)

My marathon goal pace is a 7:30 and I figured I can run a bit faster downhill, and more than a bit slower uphill, so it would probably be a wash, What I did not want to do was get really frisky early on the downhills and blow up climbing the hilly sections at the half and again at the finish.

So, I figured as long as I was at 8, 16 and 24 about on the hour, I was basically on pace. (I was going to refrain from micro-managing my pace for this race) THis would put me within striking distance of a BQ time. (Maybe have to put some extra heart into the finish to just make it)

Bussed up to the start line and met up with 261 (Sam) and we chatted for a bit. Saw JValentine as we were lining up and wished for some good luck. Time to get my "game Face" on. Ran about .8 miles with some short pickups and tried to stay warm.

The start was 38 degrees at almost 5,000 ft and the finish was forcast to be sunny and 60 degrees at ~2,000 ft. I was wearing my 2XU Triathlon Suit with a short sleeve tech shirt over the top, arm warmers, a hat and my new ear warmers.

Also decided to stick with my existing nutrition plan the I first developed for my Ironman but I vowed to stick with it late in the game even if my tummy did not like it so much. This included using just water on the course at the water stops and not carrying a Water Bottle.

The plan goes something like this:

Pre Race: 2 Clif Bars + 1 Gu, 2 Cups Water right before warmup
Every 2 Miles: 1-2 Full Cups of Water
Every 4 Miles: 1 Gu

Through 16 miles, then

Every 3 Miles: 1 Gu