When Things Go Wrong

Training runs are just that, training for every possible aspect of the marathon. They are opportunities to practice not just the physical aspects of running-- the pacing, the form, etc-- but the mental, and the peripheral (but extremely important nonetheless) such as taking gels (which type can I handle? How many? When should I take them?) and sports drink, when to eat before the run, and things like that.

Yesterday's 18-mile fast-finish run was a tough run for me, because 1) stomach problems required 2 pitstops during the run; 2) I suck at pacing, even with a garmin (GPS). But it may have been the faster pace later in the run that caused some of the stomach problems. The first 13 miles averaged about 9:05. The last five probably averaged 8:30 or faster:

9:16
9:27
9:12
8:37 (pitstop)
8:39
9:02
9:08
9:08
8:52
8:27
8:49
9:06
8:37
7:56 (pitstop)
8:02
8:20
8:38
8:21

I got a little confused with my watch, I had the garmin set to show average pace but after mile 13 I was trying to get the average pace to show 8:40s, which of course meant I was going way too fast. I should have changed the watch to show actual pace for the last 5 miles, because the last mile just killed me. At the end my garmin showed an 8:45 average pace for the entire run, but that does not count the pitstops (I turned off my watch for those).

The thing that really bothers me about yesterday's run is the pitstops. I added 3 minutes (guesstimate) to the overall time to see what my pace would be if I hadn't stopped my watch for the pitstops, and came up with 8:56. Still good for me (I don't think I've held better than a 9:09 pace for the first 20 miles of any marathon), but off by 7 seconds from what I want.

Now, on Wednesday, in the strong wind and on hills, I had a near-perfect run. I didn't need to stop once, my stomach never bothered me, I took no water or gels (or anything), and ran my GMP and felt great after. Yesterday's weather was great, no wind, cool, I only hit some hills at the beginning, mostly, and my stomach was nuts even though I didn't eat anything before the run. So I've been thinking about why this is, and I think 1) on Wednesday, I didn't run until about 10 or 11 am, I'd been up longer, my muscles were looser and my body (stomach) was more ready to go. I did eat breakfast about 3 hours before I ran on Wednesday. Yesterday, I didn't eat breakfast because I started running within an 75 minutes of waking up. The gels on an empty stomach probably weren't a good thing. I also didn't watch what I ate at all Saturday, like I had a spinach salad for lunch, which I would never do in the days before a race.

So from now through May I'm going to start treating the Sunday long runs as I would the race, in terms of eating and waking up, and see if that helps. Right now, I think my absolute biggest problem is avoiding pitstops at the marathon.