Disney, Goofy and Marathon Strategy
By2010 started out with Coach Lori and myself heading to Disney to run the half and full marathons. Our training had progressed nicely this fall and with the relatively mild winter we’ve had, almost all the long runs have been done outside. Except for the week leading up to the race, the Coach has spent alot of time in the woods preparing with the long runs. After having run the race, I was disappointed not having signed up for the Goofy Challenge (running both the half and full marathons). For $300+ you get both finishers medals and an additional medal for completing the Goofy. They had over 7000 people run both. Amazing!
Rewards for the efforts
The Disney Marathons are clearly a go to race for the fun of it, especially if you have kids. In addition, if as a long distance runner, you need the external stimulation of people and things going on around you, this is a must do. There are some barren sections out on the closed highways, but the run goes by pretty quick. For us, it was unseasonably cold. Lori had to run in 35F and rain/sleet. My race was <30F and the water stops had ice in the water due to the temps. And contrary to popular belief, there are some “hills”, aka overpasses that keep it honest. This is a PR course and if you can get a good spot on the seeding corral(preferably A), you can look to BQ.
Lori ran in the middle sections and had to battle the casual runners who stopped at every chance to get their picture taken with the characters. The Coach started up front and was fortunate to be within a minute of the official race start and crossing the start line. (That is like flying first class-NICE!)
My goal going into the event was to “have fun” but have a good run. I haven’t run a marathon since NY, three years ago and it was not one of my better efforts, so this was what I had hoped to be a better result. My training was very specific in preparation, since I still had to work/travel, coach and swim/bike. My max mileage week was 35 miles, however, I was very consistant in running 3x every week and focused on 1 long(16-20) run, 1 speedwork, 1 tempo session. PLUS, all but one long run was done on trails or packed gravel trails. I specifically stayed off the hard stuff for the long runs and my joints were grateful. In addition, I have become a huge fan of Zoot’s compression recovery tights. I wore these after every long run and hard effort. What a difference in my post run recovery. Coupled with Hammer Nutrition’s Recoverite, I had no post run “dead legs.”
I was also amazed at the event the number of people I heard that didn’t have a gameplan for their run. How can you train for 16-20 weeks and “just show up?” YOU’VE GOT TO HAVE A PLAN! It doesn’t mean it’s right or perfect, but if you just show up, you are planning to fail. So, what was my plan? Nutrition: 1 gel flask of Hammer gel for glycogen replacement, Powerbar and banana for breakfast and a large coffee. Endurolytes at every 4 miles. Pace: Start the first 2 miles at *8:30/mile and let my body warm up and then ease into a 7:50 pace and negative split for the race. Break it down into 4 sections of 10k+. So, how did it work? Famously, until the last 5k….in post race review, I was underfueled according to my Garmin. I burned 3400 calories for the workout. Pace wise, I was dead on…in fact with the final 10k to go, my mental math told me I’d be around 3:24-3:25 pending any issues. Well…I was feeling completely awesome up to the 22 mile point and we turned back into the wind and I started cramping and my IT bands were screaming. My goal was to be 3:30’s ish. I came in at 3:31. Honestly, I’ve never been a marathon fan, however after this race and result, it has me re-energized to do another one…sooner than last time.
In the taper for the race, I’ve been using the WKO+ software for crunching of all my power and GPS data. This is an amazing software package. In the Performance Manager chart, I was able to dial in the Training Stress Balance to 17, which according the founders is ideal for a peak performance. It was dead on…I felt great and was very happy with my performance, less the under fueling issue, which I can easily fix. It also resulted in a PR of almost 12 minutes from my marathon previous best over 7 years ago! It also makes me realize, WHEN I want to prepare to qualify for Boston, I know how and will. For my athletes, I’m able to analyze their bike power and run data with the software to help “dial in” their race and tapers. The key with being successful with the analysis is to get ALL the data. Bits and pieces won’t do it justice.
