Grand Rapids Marathon Race Report

Marathon Gurus always say that you need to listen to what your body tells you. I should never listen to what my body tells me. The only thing it ever clearly tells me is to go make yourself a big chips and cheese.

Sunday morning I ran the Grand Rapids marathon. I finished with a time of 3:45 which is a personal best. I finished 218th of 738 runners which I suppose is respectable but it's slower than what I had ultimately hoped for. I turned 44 this year so this is the first year that I can qualify for the Boston Marathon with a 3:30 time. The Boston Marathon is kind of the holy grail of marathons so most marathoners have it on their short list of races they'd like to run.

I knew, based on my training that I was borderline as to whether I could run 8:00 minute splits for 26.2 miles. About 4 weeks before the race I twisted my knee running and although it wasn't a big factor I could feel it throughout the race. Regardless, I decided I would go for it, let the chips fly, and see what happened. As you can see by my mile splits below, everything went as planned through 16 miles and then it started to slip away.

1. 7:28
2. 7:54
3. 7:59
4. 7:43
5. 8:00
6. 7:53
7. 8:10
8. 7:49
9. 8:04
10. 7:57
11. 7:55
12. 7:59
13. 8:07
14. 8:00
15+16 16:06 (missed the 15 mile split)
17. 8:32
18. 8:34
19. 8:57 Some cramping in my calve muscles starts to slow me down.
20. 9:09 Starting to realize that 3:30 isn't going to happen.
21. 9:12
22. 9:27
23. 9:26
24. 10:19 Cramping and dehydration is in full bore.
25. 10:26
26. 13.42 (last 1.2 miles) Just glad to be done

After the race sitting in the staging area, Julia, the kids, my Mom and Geoff came over and my mom asked Julia if that was sunscreen on my forehead. Julia said "no that's salt". I rubbed my forehead and it was covered with salt granules that look like they came right from a salt shaker and my head was completely dry. Up until that point I didn't realize how dehydrated I had gotten. I didn't even have enough fluids in my body to create sweat. Usually when you finish a race you start sweating profusely because you're overheated and are no longer creating a breeze with your running. Looking back, I labored through the last 4 miles but I don't remember sweating a drop.

Anyway, to the part about not listening to what my body tells me. All of the marathon training plans I've read tell you to start taking in lots of fluids during the 7 days preceding a marathon. I have never had a dehydration problem in the past. I listened to my body which was telling me "what good will a bunch of extra fluids on Monday through Saturday do for me on Sunday?" So I didn't really do any extra hydrating. On the Sunday morning I drank two glasses of water but even then I was more concerned about not losing time by having to make pit stops. I took in minimal fluids at the first 3-4 aid stations choosing to focus more on pace than hydration. This plan worked well for most of 17 miles but before I realized, it was too late. Once you start cramping from dehydration there is no way to recover before the end of the race.

All in all, I ended the race feeling like I went all out and didn't leave anything on the table and so I have no regrets. I made some huge mistakes by not hydrating probably costing me a BQ, but, oh well, live and learn. I'm pretty confident that, if I had a better hydration strategy I could have kept up the pace. The other thing I need to get serious about it getting my racing weight down to the low to mid 180's instead of the low 190's. I haven't been in the low 180's since I started college but there really isn't any reason why I can't get back there.

Anyway. Next time I'll listen to what the gurus say with the exception of when they tell me to listen to what my body is telling me. My body almost always gives me lousy advice.

Next up. At the moment, the Cleveland Marathon in the spring sounds pretty good but there's plenty of time to decide on that.