Here
is an overview of my 2013/2014 New Year’s Double Marathon experience!
Allen Double Marathon
Results:
Day
1: 4:25
Day
2: 4:44
Total:
9:09 for 52.4 Miles
Statistics: finished in the top 50% for all statistical categories!
Day 1:
Day
1 was pretty simple and routine for me - two cups of coffee with coconut crème
and a banana. During the race, I had a banana and two salt sticks at mile
13, and the same at mile 19 ½. The race was four out-and-back
loops. While my fastest marathon is a 4:09, I was not planning on
“racing” - just keeping the pace strong. The goal was to finish under
4:30 and feel strong the next day! The only challenge I had was around
mile 21/22; my stomach felt stiff, not like a cramp, but more like
bloating. I wondered if the 2nd banana was too much. I
finished strong, never stopped and had plenty of energy.
That afternoon I had a “fat” green smoothie (spinach, large avocado, chia seeds, coconut milk and berries blended up in a Vitamix®) and Mexican food for dinner with plenty of grilled veggies. While I was certainly sore, I would say I felt pretty good overall.
Day 2:
Day
2 was about the same, except I ate the banana closer to race time (I felt a
little hungry at mile 8 the day before). I also had an almond nut butter
packet and added extra coconut oil to my coffee so I could top off the fat
stores. During the race I stayed on plan - one banana at mile 13
with two salt sticks. At mile 19½ I decided to skip the banana, had the
salt sticks and grabbed a Honey Stinger instead. I took in tiny amounts
of the Honey Stinger (sugar trickling) every few miles and finished it off at
mile 24.
I
felt strong on day 2 up until mile 21 - then I had to run/walk for a few
miles. It wasn’t whether I would finish, but it was more about how long I
wanted it to take! Due to the lack of training for this type of event, I
just did not have as strong of a foundation as I would have liked to have
had. I was able to run the last mile all the way in! While the 4:44
time was not a record (my goal was a sub-5 hour for day 2), it was faster than
my first marathon, so I felt pretty good about it not being my slowest race.
Summary:
In
summary, the race went as planned. I did not plan on running two marathons
back-to-back until Dallas cancelled their race in December. I only had a
few weeks to turn my marathon training into double marathon race
training. I am still amazed that I ran both races on three bananas and
one Honey Stinger! Talk about fat-adapted training really working!
Next
up is my first 50K Ultra in February. I think I will play around with
Generation UCAN on my next few long runs - I believe it may help spread out the
nutrition a little better.
Lessons Learned:
Music
mattered on day 2! By this - I mean I
was pickier about the songs that played on my iPhone when it got tough.
Having a support crew would have helped as well as I ran the race both days by
myself. Next time, I will pay one of my kids to be there and to drive me
home!!!
Finally,
if you train properly and build a solid training base, you can achieve more than
you realize. Training fat-adapted and building up a strong Zone 2 base
will go far and help reduce the risk of injury. I did get ill for a few
days in mid-December; this reminded me that I was not immune to overtraining
and needed to back off a bit after the San Antonio Marathon I ran in November.
While
I did not have a strict race plan, I did set realistic goals and
expectations. The challenge when charting new ground is to keep it simple
and have fun. Running a few back-to-back days helped before the race and
I wish I’d had more time to incorporate that into my training. I hardly
ever run multiple days in a row.
Why I decided to run
this race:
I
wanted to qualify for Marathon Maniac (MM) status (three marathons in 90 days)! In June, I realized I needed to add a 3rd
marathon to my race schedule to qualify.
My 50K Ultra was beyond the 90-day window of the first race in San
Antonio. About mid-November, I saw the hardware they were giving away for
doing a race on both days so I added the half marathon to my schedule.
Then, after Dallas cancelled due to the ice storm, I was in a bind. I had
already run one marathon and had the ultra two months out, so the best way to
accomplish this was to run two full marathons back-to-back! The upside is
- this qualified me for the Iridium level of MM and I got some pretty cool hardware
to go with it.
You
can read more about Plant Powered No Sugar No Grains fueling (PPNSNG), Zone
2/fat-adapted training, and marathon training on my other blog entries:
http://bjtucker05.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-to-train-for-marathon.html
Day 1 & Day 2 Photos:
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