Grandma’s Marathon – June 22, 2024 – 3:26:58
Not every race can be a PR and that was certainly the case this time. With that said, there were many things that aligned for this race and I felt lucky to be running it. Earlier in the week, weather forecasts were predicting thunderstorms and heavy rain on race day and race organizers and sent out communications that the status of the race would be a race day decision. For those of us who had signed up to run the Twin Cities Marathon in the fall we faced the prospect of the two biggest marathons in Minnesota being cancelled. Fortunately, a day or two before the face, the path of the storm changed slightly and moved south of the race course. While it would likely still be a wet race, the chance of severe weather was far less likely. Not only that, but the conditions of the race looked to be almost perfect. It would be in the 50s for most of the race with a relatively strong tailwind through most of the course. It seemed like I had a pretty good shot at breaking 3:20. I’m learning though that when it comes to marathons things often don’t go to plan and what may seem like a sure thing almost never is.
While it’s hard to say exactly why I was about 12 seconds per mile slower this year than last I have some ideas:
1. My training and fitness weren’t at the same level as last year
For my first marathon, I followed my training plan too closely and rarely made adjustments based on how I was feeling or to try a different workout I read about. For this marathon though, I barely followed a plan at all. I had a rough idea of where I wanted to peak mileage wise and tried to do at least one hard workout a week, but mostly made it up as I went along. According to Strava and Garmin, I wasn’t in as good of shape as last year. Some of this was intentional. Last year I felt like I had put everything into Grandma’s and then had trouble recovering for the Twin Cities Marathon in the Fall. I wanted to leave some room to build more mileage and intensity through the summer, but was still hoping I’d be able to race as least as well as last year. It didn’t work out that way unfortunately. If I had been in better shape than last year, then most of the other points below wouldn’t have mattered in my attempt to break 3:20. With that said, it’s generally better to be slightly undertrained than overtrained. It’s possible I was a bit of both.
2. My taper may not have been adequate
My plan was to do a three week taper or maybe more like two and a half week taper. I was feeling pretty good going into the taper and if anything I felt like I could have done more so didn’t necessarily feel like I needed to start my taper right at three weeks out. It still ended up being about the same regardless, with the exception that maybe I snuck in one last big workout. That first week of the taper though wasn’t my main concern, it was the penultimate week leading up to the marathon which was tricky. For well over a year, we had planned a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park. It’s a trip that had been on my bucket list for a while and we were all excited. It wasn’t at the ideal time within my marathon training block, but I’m try to fit my running around my life and not the other way around so it was a concession I was trying to make. We left on a Saturday which is the day I normally do my long run so knowing I wouldn’t have time to do a long run the day we left, I snuck in a slow eighteen miles the day before we left. It was especially hard because I had underestimated how long the route actually was and did it without water or fuel. Those types of runs are the ones that can leave me feeling especially beat up and this was no exception. With that said, I had plenty of time to recover since all I had to do the next day was drive. We decided to stop and spend the night in Rapids City, SD where I did an easy six miles and once again drove the majority of the next day. Arriving in Yellowstone tired from driving and hungry, I decided to forgo the run and take an off day. I probably needed it.
The next day I found a nearby trail to run on, which probably wasn’t the best idea in Yellowstone due to the large number of bears (we saw a bear almost every day we were in Yellowstone), but I did my best to make a lot of noise and had bear spray with me. As a compromise with my wife both out of a concern of wild animal attacks and to maximize the time we had to hike and see the wonders that Yellowstone is known for, I decided that the next two days I’d just run around the roads near our hotel in the morning before we would head out for the day. This allowed me to fit in some faster paced running and still enjoy an amazing view for my runs.
As far as my actual running, I think everything basically went to plan on the trip. What I didn’t account for was the time I wasn’t running was spent hiking around Yellowstone. Most of the days we spent in Yellowstone ended up netting over 30k steps per day when you include my runs. This was far more exercise than I’m used to getting in a standard day sitting at my desk and likely isn’t the type of thing you should be doing during your taper. I figured it wouldn’t majorly affect me though because I still had one last week to taper and could taper extra hard the week of the race, but I’m not sure I was 100% rested on race day. The morning of the race by HRV was at 79. Today about 8 days after the race by HRV is 89 and I’ve done only two very easy runs, lifted weights and did some stair stepper, but have otherwise spent the week recovering. This is close two where my HRV was during my taper approaching last year’s Twin Cities marathon which was cancelled which tells me maybe I needed one more week of taper to be fully ready for race day.
3. My pacing strategy didn’t go to plan
Since last year’s race went so well and I ran solid negative splits, I figured this year I would start closer to 3:20 pace and then just have to run the very end a little bit faster maybe running closer to even splits. I also figured since I had such good heart rate data from the previous year telling me what heart rate I should be at, I could run close to or around the similar range I spent the majority of the race last year at which was my zone 3. Maybe it was because I didn’t sleep the night before the race, or getting to the starting line was especially challenging with traffic this year which resulted in me getting into the starting coral late, but by the end of my first mile, my heart rate had already reached into my zone 4 and I was running at a slower pace than the last year because I was stuck behind a wall of people. Even though my watch said I was already around my lactate threshold, I felt like I was running fairly easy and relaxed so basically ignored my watch for the rest of the race and just tried to run on pace. Since I started the race four minutes or so after the gun went off, the pace group I wanted to run with was way ahead of me and I would never catch them. Based on my watch, I ended up spending about 2 hours and 40 minutes in zone 4 and 40 minutes in zone 5. I was only in zone 3 for less than 10 minutes. While I was able to hold on for 18 miles or so, my pace eventually started to slow little by little. Regardless, my slowest mile was my first at 8:27, but I didn’t have it in me to run the last 10k faster like I had the previous year.
4. I was hungry
The final possibility for why this race wasn’t my best is because around mile 18 or so I started to feel unusually hungry. I knew I had started to get a little behind on my gels because I took my second gel about five minutes later than I intended because I lost track of time. In addition I ended up someone missing another gel somewhere in there because I ended the race with 3 gels. One was definitely an extra gel and one I think I got so far behind that I didn’t fit it in, but I can’t figure out what I was left with a third extra gel. In addition, I hadn’t eaten a great dinner the night before. The day before last year’s race, my son and I got a nice breakfast at the hotel restaurant of eggs, toast and hash browns. This year I figured I do something similar and went to a favorite breakfast spot of ours in Duluth and ordered something similar. For whatever reason, this was extremely filling and I ate at this breakfast closer to lunch time. By the time supper time rolled around, I was still pretty full and didn’t especially want to stuff myself, so I had an RX bar and some dried sweat potatoes I had packed and a couple chocolates that were complimentary of the hotel I was staying at. My wife was questioning my choice of dinner the night before the race, but at the time I thought nothing of it because I didn’t want to feel extremely stuffed and bloated the next day. It’s possible that this contributed the the ravishing hunger I felt from mile 18 on. I don’t normally take a lot of the extra food that is being handed out at this race, but this year everything seemed good to me. Watermelon, Powerade, orange, banana, I took it all. Better senses prevailed, but even the beer spectators were handing out sounded good to me for a second. After the race, in the rain, I spent a good amount of time bouncing between the various food tents eating whatever I could get my hands on. Though it didn’t rain especially hard, the race organizers had also warned that running in the rain can deplete your glycogen stores more quickly. I don’t know if that was a factor or I just under fueled for this race, but while I’m not typically very hungry while running and sometimes even have trouble getting my gels down, this was the opposite. I was very hungry and had no troubles eating during the race.
Final thoughts
The race itself though was a great experience. I feel like based on how I was feeling that day, I ran a good race and stayed relatively strong to the end. Like last year, the energy at Grandma’s is special. The race starts serenely tracing the shore of Lake Superior with long stretches where the only sound you hear is thousands of runners feet rhythmically hitting the ground. Then around the halfway point the energy from the crowd really starts to build and continues as you make your way into Duluth. I have a long history of traveling to the North Shore long before I ever started running, so Grandma’s will always be on my list of races I want to run and it’s hard to imagine having a bad experience regardless of the result.
Many things went well and I think I’ll incorporate them into my next race.
- I have proven I can probably up my energy intake slightly either in the form of a bigger breakfast or trying to take my gels slightly more frequently and perhaps fitting an extra one in.
- I should run based on effort and ignore my heart rate during the race. This year’s Grandma’s and last year’s were wildly different as far as heart rate is concerned. Up until mile 18 or 20 my pace wasn’t vastly different, but my heart rate was.
- I listened to my body and took breaks when I felt I needed them which has allowed me to remain injury free. I could have possibly pushed myself a little harder to arrive at the starting line in prime condition, but I could also have ended up injured.
- This training cycle I spent more time in the weight room at perhaps the expense of some weekly miles, but I don’t regret that and I don’t think that affected my race performance negatively. In anything I think it’s been a contributing factor to staying injury free.
Next up. Twin Cities Marathon 2024.