Lessons learned from a big, hot mess

All the stuff I got from the Boogie Marathon

Readers may have noticed that it has been two weeks since the Boogie Night marathon that I ran and there hasn't been nary a post from me. Normally I would have posted earlier, but as the title of this post implies, things did not go well. To be honest, it has taken me almost this long to process things in my mind and get myself back into the running groove (I actually started the draft of this in the middle of last week, so about 10 days). Now I'm trying to identify what positives I can from the experience along with any lessons learned.

Before getting into what I gleaned from this latest running adventure, let me go over how things panned out. First things first - the official time was 4 hours 50 minutes 50 seconds, making it the slowest of the three marathons I have run. As you may recall from my last post before the race, I was worried about the impact of the heat, the impact of the course having more hills than I anticipated, and my own assessment of where I was with regard to long runs (tending to fade badly after about 15 miles). All of these concerns turned out to be on point (I wish I wasn't right).

Start line thermometer 15 minutes before the start.

For the race itself, I got off to a good start. The course was configured so that we did a roughly six-mile loop that brought us back to the start/finish line and then we headed out and back 2 miles to make a 4-mile leg and a total of 10 miles for one lap. So the marathoners did 2 laps plus 1 extra loop. For the first loop, I was only about 30 seconds off my hoped for pace (9:00-minute miles). The out-and-back leg then reared its ugly head. Where I had struggled a bit with the hills during the first loop, I was able to set a nice pace by following a group down the hill for two miles. Yes, I said down the hill, so you know what that means. We then had to run back uphill for a solid two miles. That really got to me. I still managed to hit the 10-mile mark at about 92 minutes. Still in my window for a 4-hour marathon, but I no longer felt confident as I could tell I had used up a lot of energy that first lap.

The second lap was more of a struggle, especially with trying to stay hydrated. I also started to fall off my pace quite a bit and by the time I started up that long 2-mile uphill climb the second time I knew I was not going to make 4 hours. Mentally, the challenge then became to set a PR. When I hit the 20-mile mark, I still had a little cushion for a PR, but not much. Even worse, I was quickly fading. Another challenge I had was a mix of good and bad. Despite what to me was turning into a poor effort, I was still in sixth place overall at that point. The problem was I was basically running by myself so I had no way to pick another runner to try to pace off of or anything.

The final loop was pretty much a disaster as I was giving out of energy by that point. Which was too bad as the temperature had finally gotten cool and it was decent running weather. I had a handful of other runners pass me during that final loop, but most of them were doing the 50-mile race.

In the end, I placed 8th overall (the night of the race it showed me in 9th, but apparently something got adjusted) and sixth for the male runners. Poring through the results, I also determined I was second in my age group with another 50+ finishing 2nd overall. This was out of 38 runners doing the marathon.

Post race - managed a smile despite being wasted from the effort.

In terms of the factors I was worried about, I have not decided which had the bigger impact on me - the heat or the hills. According to my Garmin watch, total elevation change was just over 2,300 feet. That is about a third of what the Blue Ridge Marathon was and almost double what I normally do on most of my training runs. It was definitely a lot more than I was expecting. And of course, it certainly seemed like I spent a lot more time going up than going down. The biggest issue though was clearly the 2-mile uphill stretch on the out and back leg. That was such an unrelenting stretch to have to deal with.

The heat was also a big factor. At the start of the race, the thermometer at the start line showed a temperature of 94 degrees. That was easily hotter than anything I had trained in this year. Kind of like a couple of my training runs, despite this being in the evening, there were stretches where the sun was beating down on us to add to the high temps. These conditions existed for about the first 16 miles. For the next 4 miles things were transitioning to being dark and then for the final 4 miles, the temperature finally started to drop.

So what are some of the things I learned from this experience and were there any positives?

First, I am clearly not at a place in my fitness journey to where I can cram two marathons within such a short time span. With only 7 weeks between events, I don't think I was able to get my body fully back up to marathon condition after the 3 weeks of taper for the Blue Ridge Marathon followed by 2 weeks of recovery. During my training run I peaked at only 45 miles per week. I will clearly need to up my game in terms of weekly mileage if I want to get to a sub-4 marathon.

Second - the impact of the heat is no joke. Which is a bit odd to me as the previous two summers the heat did not seem to bother me as much during my runs as it is this year. I have to guess that is because I am so much leaner now.

Third - on a positive note, I completed three marathons within a six-month span of time. I am actually kind of proud of that, especially considering where I came from. Last December I just wanted to know I could complete a marathon. Now I run them without that question in my mind - it is now a question of how fast.

Fourth - during this six-month period I've managed to maintain my weight. Which is good considering how many tales there are of people who lose weight only to gain it back. Running was a key component to my weight loss efforts and now it is part of my weight maintenance.

With the Boogie Marathon behind me, I'm looking forward to what is next. I am planning to do a marathon in late November or December. I'd like to do one in November so I can say I did 4 in a one-year span, but some scheduling conflicts may prevent that from happening. That call will be made later. For the rest of the summer, I have something a little different planned - which will be the subject of my next post.

Some scenes from the run, which was in the middle of nowhere:

"Base camp" - we came by here twice each lap - handy for refueling/refilling the water bottles.

Part of the loop portion.

Big field on the loop portion. Probably cannot see the deer stand in the distance. The course actually looped around and followed the back side of this opening as well.

More of the loop early in the marathon. Actually heading downhill.