BQ by 40

It’s been a roller coaster year for my running. 8 PRs this year, including back-to-back 10 miler PRs (-10 minutes each time) and a PR by 55 minutes (3:39) at Flying Pig. Then came a rough showing (4:42) at the Hatfield-McCoy Marathon, followed by tendonitis and an SI joint injury. My physical therapy ended September 25th, so the Flying Monkey marathon came just 8 weeks + 3 days after physical therapy ended. I made it up to 50 miles for one week prior to tapering (40, 30 and 14 miles for the 21 days prior to Monkey).

We had a send-off for a co-worker (beer involved) on Friday, and then wine Saturday, so hydration wasn’t optimal.

On to the report:
It seemed to take forever to get to Mile 2. This was no trick by the Monkey RD; my Garmin 305 confirmed that I was only at mile 2. There’s nothing like wishing a MARATHON was over at mile 2. This feeling continued through mile 6. I managed to get a little benefit on the first couple downhills, but my joints paid a heavy price for the extra speed I gained. The downhills also caused so much friction that a large, heart shaped blister formed in the front arch area of my right foot. (The good news is, my forefoot actually went numb from the pain).

It was at this point that I resigned myself to slower marathon than I had hoped for that I started enjoying the scenery. The trees provided a nice autumn picture, the sun highlighting the trees at times. At each water stop I paused, mostly to rest.

By the second half, I couldn’t control my stride enough on the downhills to get much benefit from them, and had some pain reminiscent of SI joint pain at mile 18, and had to walk the downhill. …I had several miles in which I had to break stride and walk, principally miles 19-20, where the full elevation was scaled in two miles, mostly in 19. Amazingly, I had something in the tank left for the last two miles, and managed to get my second best marathon time (4:30:30) on minimal time to train after recovering froom injuries.

Due to the cool conditions, I held things together here better than my Hatfield-McCoy performance. I’m certain that a summer Harpeth Hills course would have been far more brutal than H-M. H-M has one huge hill and some relentless small hills. Flying Monkey has several relentless large hills:

Elevation Data

Splits

I ran the Home Run 5 miler in Bernheim Forest this morning.

I’m pretty sure that I was first Yum team runner in. Couldn’t quite
catch a female runner with a Swags sport shoes shirt on.

My time was 37:03 (7’25″ pace). The race was a nice hilly course,
with very chilly air. I left my cotton running team shirt on over my
technical shirt the whole race.

My first two miles were run in the sub 7:10 range. Mile 4 had an
steady hill leading to the final turnaround.

The turnaround was 3/4 miles out, just below the crest of the hill. I
made the turnaround at a dead stop and wanted to curse the slight
uphill before the long gradual downhill towards the finish.

In the final stretch, 0.2 miles out, I passed the lead teammate and
pushed ahead, lungs burning, legs numb… and then it was over.

Elevation chart (pretty flat in comparison my usual routes):

The award/bib:

Update:
We won our relay (4 x 9.2 miles) by two minutes.

I noticed something this morning preparing for the race: I had received what appeared to be a seeded bib despite last year’s 57:27 time in this event.

In registering, I’m sure I might have had some lofty goal such as 45 minutes… about 1:26 off my 10k PR… but nothing seed-worthy. I’m sure it was a mix-up involving people wanting to give out pretty red bibs with double digit numbers on them.

Of course, I didn’t remotely think about lining up in the seeded area, but perhaps I should have lined up in the area right behind it–with 3,000+ registrants, there are a lot of downsides to being modest about your abilities when lining up.

Weather was periodic drizzle and mild.

I lined up in about in an area where most people appeared capable of a 7-8 minute pace, and set my Garmin 305 to pace a 7’25″ pace for 10 miles (46 minute 10k). By the first 1/4 mile, I had fallen 150 ft off that pace, and rapidly lost ground until about 300 ft. I slammed my tender right foot into the ground stopping for a wall of walkers, and limped for a few paces until the adrenaline overcame the soreness.

I managed to hit 7:45 pace for the first mile, despite the crowd. The second mile, I went on a passing frenzy. By the third mile, I had very little left. I managed to push it the 6th mile to salvage a respectable time–47:47–1 minute and 20 seconds off my PR from the 2008 Rodes City Run. I should have lined up better, but given my ankle issues and lack of conditioning recently, a decent performance.

Splits from my Garmin (6.25 miles. That’s either a very efficient run or a short course.)

1 Mi 7:45 7:45 7:45      1 Mi 7:06 14:51 7:06      1 Mi 7:55 22:46 7:55      1 Mi 7:52 30:38 7:52      1 Mi 8:05 38:43 8:05      1 Mi 7:16 45:59 7:16      0.25 Mi 1:45 47:44 7:00

Elevation Chart: