Race report: Grit and Balls

I did it, I followed my race strategy, went out hard and hoped to hold on for the finish. It worked real well for 18 miles and then the wheels came off and the engine seized. I made it to the finish line but not without some serious pain and "Grit and Balls" as Kevin Garnett was recently quoted as saying. Truth of the matter is I left every ounce of effort out on the course. At the end of the day that is all you can ask for, and if you don't reach your goal then at the very least you can keep your head held high. Breaking down the numbers and taking a step back to analyze, it was easy to see what went wrong. First things first I relied on the aid stations for GU and fluids, when at the end of the day it is never too smart to leave anything to chance. My reason for this was a)my disdain for wearing fuel belts and b)having read the race website and being confident they would uphold their end of the bargain. They did not, so I ended up consuming only two Gu's (the first one at mile 12) and probably only got in about 20oz of water/Gatorade. They had advertised gels at 7 of the 8 aid stations and only had them available at 4 (the last one being with 2 miles to go). So poor nutrition and a lack of fluid certainly did not help my result. Going out too fast at the start. This has been a big issue with me at all my races but I was aware of that and although I hit mile 1 at a 6:17/mile pace my heart rate was steady and in control. From there I held a faster than goal pace for as long as I could, thus hitting 5K in 20:20, 10K in 41:44 and the half marathon in 1:28. This translates to a 6:45/mile pace which I have now done for the half marathon distance 3 times. So this was good and truth be told I was in a great rythmn and felt strong. I knew at this point a lack of gels and fluids was going to catch up to me, but the only option I had was to keep runnning and running hard. From miles 13 to 17 I was tetering but was still under race pace until mile 16. From there it was a slow decline until mile 18 where the wall went up and my body had had enough. Getting to mile 20 was a huge relief and I even got pretty excited seeing 2:18 on the clock knowing I had 6.2 miles to go and 47 minutes to do it. On any given day this is not a problem and in fact despite my legs feeling like they were cased in cement I really still felt I could do it. However those that have run this distance or any distance over what they are prepared for knows that no matter how hard you run, and no matter how much your mind wants to do it, sometimes it just isn't there. My body was out of calories and hydration was not adequate. So starting at mile 20 it all went to sh*%. The numbers don't lie, 7:35, 7:50, 8:23, 8:56, 9:03, 9:13, and 8:54 for the last 7 miles. And then came the .2 miles which is the hallmark of the marathon distance. Only problem was that this .2 miles somehow ended up being .5 miles. On any normal day a little extra is not the end of the world but when you are doing the Bataan death march that can be a real long time. It also adds time which in a race against the clock is not a good thing. So there it is, I held a 6:55/mile pace for 20 miles and then promptly hit the wall. Running a final 10K in 56 minutes was a reality check but knowing that I gave everything I had and then some made me ok with the how the day went. A lot was learned and I know that with proper nutrition and maybe a different pace strategy things may have turned out different. I will however not omplain about finishing a marathon in 3:14 so it is what it is. Boston will always be there and this was my first ever attempt at a fast marathon so all and all I am happy. For those that want to see me hit the wall here is the Garmin profile. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/175495384