Thursday, November 15, 2018

Redemption Run - Part III

Victory!

The Las Vegas Rock -n- Roll Marathon 2018 is in the books.  I finished in 4 hours, 44 minutes and 26 seconds – exactly 23 minutes and 23 seconds faster than last year!  I finished with no digestive issues, no leg cramps, and with energy to spare.

The changes I made from last year to this year definitely helped.  One change I didn’t make:  my choice of running buddies.  Sue was amazing – as she was last year.  She kept me on pace, jogged backwards to stay with me when I slowed, and cheered me on the whole way.  She beat the Boston Qualifier time for her age group by 10 minutes and took not only her age group but the group ahead of her.  Yeah, she’s that good.

It’ll be a while before I hit my Boston Qualifying time.  I’m counting on my better times to intersect with an older age group by 2021.

In the meantime, Sue and I are scheming on our next marathon – 2020.  Destination:  Hawaii!



Friday, November 9, 2018

Redemption Run - Part II

The race is in two days!!  At this time last year my stomach was churning with anxiety.  What had I gotten myself into?  Were my friends and family members correct in accusing me of being crazy? 

The day before a race you’re supposed to seriously carbo-load.  That means at least four grams of carbohydrates for each pound of body weight.  For me, that’s 408 grams of carbs the day before the race, and since the race in question is run at night, about half that on the day of the race.

This is a lot of carbs!  To put it in perspective, my go-to nutrition bars contain 30 grams of carbs each.  A bottle of sports drink contains 55 grams. A Science in Sport gel contains 22 grams.  Add that to some real food and it’ll be a great day to eat!

If only…  Some people eat under stress.  Some people cannot eat under stress.  I fall into the latter group, and last year I literally couldn’t eat all the nutrition supplements I’d packed.  Nerves!  This was the one time in my life that I wished I were a nervous eater.  Because my lack of food intake bit me about 3 and a half hours into the race.  It’s so cliché to say “I hit the wall” but that’s pretty much what happened.

This year will be different.  I’ve trained well – with my longest run being 4 and a half hours.  I’ve done it before, so I know I can.  And I’m counting on my stomach to willingly accept the massive amounts of food I’ll be eating in the next two days.  Wish me luck. 


Sunday, November 4, 2018

Redemption Run - Part I

The Las Vegas Rock and Roll Marathon – my second marathon ever – is a week away.

I’m calling this my redemption run.  Yes, I finished the first time, but it was a poor finish in my mind.  I ran out of steam at mile 21.  My legs cramped at the end of the race, and I had to take a nap before I could even enjoy my post-race mimosas!

I can do better.  As I evaluated my failings in last year’s race, I realized that I was tripped up by two things:  nutrition and nerves.  I’ll address nutrition in this post.

My nutrition plan for last year was Clif Bloks – with caffeine – during the race.  I guessed that one block an hour would be good enough based on my body weight and the number of carbs per block.  I also counted on the caffeine to keep me energized during the evening run.  I was wrong.  At about the 3 ½ hour mark I hit the proverbial wall, and unfortunately, the caffeine caused a major digestive issue.  Thank goodness there was a real bathroom at that point in the course.

I am going to talk about poop.  I hope you’re not too offended. 
Runner’s bowels are a thing.  According to a post from the Mayo Clinic, “The cause of runner's diarrhea isn't clear. Contributing factors likely include the physical jostling of the organs, decreased blood flow to the intestines, changes in intestinal hormone secretion, increased amount or introduction of a new food, and pre-race anxiety and stress. What is clear is that food moves more quickly through the bowels of athletes in training.”

Anyway, what was I thinking?  Of course caffeine makes me poop.  It’s part of a time-honored morning ritual that works for many people.  I needed a new nutrition plan, and I needed to test it well before the next marathon.

First test – raisins and orange juice.  Hey, ultra-runners eat real food, so I thought, why not?  I tried this combination a few times and came to the realization that a) raisins make me poop, and b) orange juice makes me poop.  Scratch that…

Science in Sport to the rescue.  As a marathon participant I received an offer to try “what’s on the course.”  I’ve never been a fan of gels, but I needed something better and the offer price was right.  I was surprised by the size of the packets – they’re much larger than the more common gels.  I guess this makes sense – they advertise that you don’t need to take them with water.  The water is included.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the texture – it’s more like Jell-O that hasn’t quite jelled than the sticky goo I was used to.  I’ve used these on several training runs now and they’ve kept me going with no digestive effects.

According to Science in Sport (SIS), your body (liver and muscles) can store about 2000 calories. According to my trusty Garmin, I burn about 480 calories per hour.  If only I could finish a marathon in under 4 hours.  Not going to happen, so I’ll need to supplement. One SIS gel contains 90 calories.  One per hour worked in training, so that’s the plan.  Wish me luck.