Race Report: Atlanta Marathon

I ran the Atlanta Marathon as my last long training run in preparation for the Duncan Ridge 50K.  Yes, I am now officially one of those annoying people who runs marathons as training runs – how funny!  The 50K will probably be my longest run before the Lookout Mountain 50 miler.  Ultramarathon training is not always all about putting in obscene amounts of weekly mileage.  Time on your feet and training on the correct terrain is incredibly important too.

I often have to remind myself of this when I log onto DailyMile and see the mileage that others have been putting in training for regular road marathons.  The fact is that I’m not (and never will be) an elite runner, so there is no need for me to be running 100-mile weeks.  I’m not trying to win the ultra.  I just want to finish without resorting to a “death march” shuffle at the end and I’d like to be walking normally within a few days of the race.  Also, I have a full-time job and a family so I have to do the best I can with the limited amount of time I have.

I’ve been climbing (and triple climbing!) Kennesaw Mountain weekly for months to get in hill training.  When my big race day arrives, I will have done 1 hard hilly near-marathon on trails (H9), 2 trail half-marathons (Coosa, North Face), 1 hard trail marathon (Mystery Mountain), 1 road marathon (Atlanta) and 1 hard hilly trail 50K (Duncan Ridge).  Time-wise, that has been a 9 hour trail run, 2 3-hour trail runs, a 6.5 hour trail run, a 5 hour road run and a very difficult 10-11 hour trail run.  If Lookout Mountain goes well, I hope to finish in 13-14 hours.  I think I’ll have enough quality long runs in the range of desired my finish time to feel ready.  I trust my coach.  I trust my training.

Oh yeah, the Atlanta Marathon.  So this was another training run and thus another race where I’m not supposed to have a real goal.  But I fell prey to the lure of race prediction calculators and realized that based on that last road 15K I ran, I should be able to pull off a 4:18-4:22 marathon time.  That would be a marathon PR by a small margin, but a PR is a PR.  I figured I should be able to pull off 4:20 or 4:30 at the most without straining myself too bad.  My coach agreed without knowing of my secret calculations.  He was a little more ambitious and thought I could get definitely get 4:00-4:30.  I just wanted a fairly easy race because I want to save my energy for Duncan Ridge and not spend the next 3 weeks in recovery.

Race morning was way more hectic than it needed to be.  The race began at 7AM and for some reason I told myself that I could wake up at 5AM, laze around and get there by 6AM.  It was suggested by the race organizers that we allow an hour for parking, gear check, and my all important double-bathroom trip.  What was I thinking?!?  I live at least 1/2 hour away from the race site and I needed to do all my routine morning things.  I was brushing my teeth and looking at the time and thankfully realized that I needed to be out the door in 30 minutes flat.

I made it happen but my routine suffered.  Luckily parking and such didn’t take too long and the bathroom line was short.  I didn’t have time for a double-trip and I was a little nervous about that.  I had to remind myself that this was not a trail race and bathrooms would be available every 1.5 miles.  What a comforting thought!  There’s a +1 for long road races versus most long trail races.

The Black Girls Run! Atlanta group was going to be out in full force at the event to run team relays.  The Atlanta Marathon used to be held on Thanksgiving Day along with a half-marathon, but this year the track club made it a separate event.  They also added a relay component where 4-man teams could complete the marathon course.  Black Girls Run! Atlanta had almost 20 teams running so I spotted members everywhere.  It was nice to have people to chat with at the beginning of the race.  Their excitement was contagious and instead of getting me keyed up, I actually felt calm.  Maybe the knowledge that this was just a training run helped with that.  I don’t know but I’m happy that was the case.

I lined up with the 4:30 pace group to start and we were off into the darkness at 7AM sharp.  I spotted my coach within the first mile of the race.  He was jogging along casually and filming the race.  We chatted for a bit and he reminded me that the last 4 miles of the course were kind of brutal.  Then he ran off into the distance never to be seen again.  He finished in the Top 50 out of 1100 runners.

The first 8 miles of the race were pretty uneventful.  I felt good and the running felt easy.  I encountered quite a few road hills/long inclines but ran them all.  I fueled using a pack of Honey Stinger chews in the first hour and sipped Nuun from my hydration vest.

To achieve a 4:20-4:30 marathon, I needed to keep the pace between 9:54-10:17.  I actually didn’t even know this pace before running the race so I didn’t obsess over my watch.  I had a Pace Tat (that I neglected to apply in my morning rush) with what time I should hit each mile and I used that to keep me on track.  I only pulled it out about every 5 miles.  I was basically running by feel and hoping for the best.  My splits according to my watch are as follows*:

Mile #1 – 10:51
Mile #2 – 10:15
Mile #3 – 10:10
Mile #4 – 10:03
Mile #5 – 10:06
Mile #6 – 10:07
Mile #7 – 10:12
Mile #8 – 10:45

At Mile #8, I snagged a packet of Strawberry Kiwi Accel gel from the aid station.  I’m not a beginning runner, I know the rule to not try anything new on race day.  Why I chose to scarf that gel down instead of one of the many GU Roctane’s that I had in my pocket, I have no idea.  Maybe I’m cheap and was happy to use up something I got for free?  I tend to have an iron stomach and I’ve never had a bad reaction to anything random that I’ve eaten during a race.  But I should have remembered how queasy my stomach was feeling the past few days and how I was happy to wake up that morning actually feeling good.  This was probably not the best time to bend the rules.

Accel gels have some kind of protein component to them that other gels I’ve used in the past don’t have.  If I had realized that, I definitely would not have taken it.  I had not done any walking before then but I took a brief break to slurp down the gel (very runny).  I marveled that it actually tasted good.  I can’t stand the way gels taste and this flavor and the runny texture was more than tolerable compared to other gels.

And this is where the wheels start to slowly fall off my race.  If I remember correctly the course did get a little more hilly here and I was starting to tire.  I started walking a bit more even though I had intended to run to the halfway point.  I started to feel a bit apathetic about the race.  My attitude began to flail a bit and I had to tell myself to buckle down and focus.  Mile #9 of a full marathon is a bit early to have to give yourself a pep talk!  My next splits were:

Mile #9: 10:45
Mile #10: 10:39
Mile #11: 10:44

It is said that it takes about 15-20 minutes for your body to digest a gel.  That rule of thumb has always held true for me.  So after Mile #11, the gel kicked in and I started to feel terrible.  I had this low-grade nausea.  It reminded me of my first trimester of pregnancy.  I never had blown vomiting type morning sickness – just this constant slight nausea that went away when I ate something.  It was the type of feeling that would be just slightly unpleasant if you were sitting at a desk at work all day.  This feeling while pounding the pavement in the freezing cold with 15 more miles ahead of you was very uncomfortable.

I started to feel tired and I couldn’t find that easy pace I had earlier.  I was running slower than before, but I felt like I was working much harder.  I had to take a lot more walk breaks.  I hit the half at 2:13 which was behind my goal time but I didn’t even really care.  I had bigger issues to worry about.  My splits tell the tale:

Mile #12: 11:26
Mile #13: 11:52
Mile #14: 12:10
Mile #15: 10:59

I was happy to reach the 15 mile mark and immediately set about giving myself a pep talk about how I only had two more 5-milers to go.  I was still doing better time-wise than my hot summer training 20-milers.  Maybe I could still finish by 4:30 if my stomach stopped acting up?  I kept drinking and grabbed cups of PowerAde at the aid stations.  I alternated working my way through a bag of rock hard GU Chomps and a broken up Honey Stinger waffle.  Neither appealed or did anything to settle my stomach.  In fact, I didn’t want to eat anything at all but I knew not fueling would be very bad for my energy levels.

I started to fall into a pattern.  The aid stations were 1.5 miles apart so I would walk through the aid stations and then run until my queasy stomach forced me to stop.  I would walk again and then pick it up when I knew the aid station was within 1/2 mile.  The good thing is that when I could run, I was running a decent speed and when I walked, I was about to manage about 15 min/miles.  I wasn’t doing a “death march” to the finish but I wasn’t having fun either.

Mile #16: 13:32
Mile #17: 11:50
Mile #18: 13:41
Mile #19: 12:42
Mile #20: 13:45

The twentieth mile was something of a pick-me-up because I knew this was the last five mile chunk.  The 20th mile also struck a bit of fear in me because I was aware that the last 4 miles of the course were going to suck.  That was the last thing that I needed in my current state.  I was so frustrated because my legs were hurting from the pounding but they weren’t holding me back.  It wasn’t my body.  It was my stupid stomach.  I could only run so much before I had to stop and nothing was helping.

I was at the 3:35 mark at Mile 20 and I knew in my heart that hitting 4:30 was never going to happen.  Even a 4:45 was looking like a big question mark.  Eventually, the 4:30 pacer passed me on by and I didn’t even try to catch up.  I wasn’t really upset though.  The apathy that began before the half never really went away.  I didn’t want to cry.  I didn’t want to quit.  I didn’t hit any real mental lows.  It sucked but I wanted to finish and I felt like I could endure my low-grade misery for a while longer.

I did seriously contemplate ducking into a port-o-potty so that the disgusting smell would force me to throw up.   What stopped me is that I really hate vomiting (I always cry!).  I also didn’t want to lose whatever calories I had ingested for fear of ending up worse off than I started.  I wasn’t eating nearly enough and it was really hard to choke down calories.  I kept up with the fluids and PowerAde from aid stations for some energy.  I totally ignored my remaining gels once I finished my Clif Bloks and Honey Stinger waffle.  I just couldn’t eat when “food” made me feel even queasier.

Mile #21: 12:27
Mile #22: 13:43
Mile #23: 13:10
Mile #24: 14:01
Mile #25: 12:57

The last 4 miles of the course were as brutal as promised.  We covered the hilly part of the Peachtree Road Race course and a bunch of other hills.  Instead of being a burden like I imagined, the hilly nature of the course actually worked in my favor.  I had to take frequent walk breaks anyway because of my stomach.  The hills gave me a legit excuse for walking because everyone else around me was walking at that point too.  As I had done for most of the miles after the half, I walked until I felt solid again and then I ran – rinse, repeat.

You know that you really don’t care when you don’t mind walking during Mile 25.5 of a full marathon.  If you can’t pull it together during the home stretch, you are probably either sick or injured.  Mile #26 was covered in 12:29 about like the rest of my miles.  I did rally for the last .2 miles because no one wants to just saunter across the finish line when there are tons of people cheering.  All I could think was “Thank God this mess is over so I can go sit down somewhere.  Anybody got some ginger ale?”  Notice, no crying!  I didn’t shed a single tear during this race – not for my upset stomach and not for my unrealized PR.

Photo courtesy of D. Baltimore from Black Girls Run! Atlanta

My final time was 4:55:32 a personal worst for a road marathon.  That’s good for 811/1126 overall, 284/427 in my gender and 44/69 in my age group.  I was definitely in the bottom of the pack this time.  I  have the worst luck with long road races!  The first one was randomly hot and humid and I felt like crap during the second.  At least, I didn’t come into this one with a singular goal.  So while I was a little disappointed, I was not absolutely devastated like before.

I was actually kind of proud that I finished while feeling so crappy for the so long.  While knowing that I can keep going through adverse circumstances is good, prevention is better.  I need to learn how to diagnose what was wrong (lingering sickness? reaction to the gel? hydration/electrolyte issue? too little fuel?).  I also need to be better prepared.  I am ordering some ginger candies (supposed to help settle your stomach) and I’ll add chewable Pepto-Bismal tabs to my race day supply kit stat.

I’m pretty much over long road races now and it has nothing to do with my performance issues.  All of that pounding on the concrete was a real shock to my system.  I haven’t done a long run over 10 miles on the roads in months.  It gets boring really, really quickly.  The novelty of running around areas that I tend to drive through wore off after Mile 3.  Without the need to constantly stare down at the ground to avoid tree roots and stuff, my boredom was endless.  I need distraction and I didn’t find it on the road.  I think I am going to max my road race distance out at the half-marathon.  And really, there aren’t that many road marathons hosted near Atlanta.  There are tons of trail races and ultra distance races nearby all year round but maybe 4 or 5 big marathons here.  I won’t be missing out.

One good thing about this race was the support and feeling of family.  I actually felt home in Atlanta for the first time in a long time.  I’ve lived here nearly fifteen years, and Atlanta sometimes just feels like the place where I live, not home.  On Sunday, it really felt like a place where I’ve planted roots and have history.

Out on the course, Black Girls Run! Atlanta was absolutely everywhere volunteering and supporting other members.  I was wearing my T-Shirt and I got so much love out there.  It was amazing.  One lady I was running next to commented to me that I was getting all the support!  The huge group of cheering members at the finish line almost succeeded in making me cry.  There are so many negative stereotypes of black women in the media (like Basketball Wives or Real Housewives of Atlanta) that to see so many united for something positive, for the sake of fitness, was just amazing.  I got a little choked up – but I didn’t cry!

I also ran into bloggers (Wifey and Jason Rogers), employees from the Big Peach where I am constantly buying stuff, DailyMile peeps, and old friends from years ago.  Now this is the kind of experience that you won’t have on the trails with all the solitude and everything.  It was nice, really nice.  This was a good race even though it wasn’t a good day for me.  I’ll be back next year…for the relay.

*NOTE: My splits might be a little weird because the calibration on my watch is off a bit per mile and I used its Auto Lap feature to get the miles.  My watch said I ran 25.1 miles which is wrong of course so the splits are approximate.