Lessons learned
I ran the San Francisco Marathon on Sunday. The results are posted online, so you can take a look for yourself. (Spoiler: I finished in 3:25:57.) You can also see a video of me crossing the finish line. If you look closely, you might notice that my running stride looks rather awkward. Taking a closer look at my splits, you might also notice that my pace slowed dramatically during the second half of the race.
This was my third marathon, having run the San Francisco marathon last July and the California International Marathon in Sacramento in December. The first marathon was about finishing; the second one was supposed to be about speed, but ended up being far too much about walking. I gave myself an overtraining injury about two months before race day, and by the time I recovered, I wasn’t fit enough to achieve the results I was looking for.
I started this particular marathon training cycle late, primarily because of work pressure. What was supposed to be a 16-week training cycle ended up being less than 12, and many of those early weeks weren’t as intense as they should have been. However, given the circumstances, my training went quite well, and I went into race day cautiously optimistic that I might even qualify for the Boston Marathon, which requires a time of 3:10 or better. I tapered properly, I loaded up on carbs, and I fuelled and hydrated myself appropriately before and during the race.
What caught up to me were the hills. It shouldn’t really have been a surprise that a training regiment consisting almost entirely of flat terrain isn’t the best way to prepare for one of the hilliest marathon courses in the country. I felt great during the first half, but I knew by mile 15 that the second half was going to be painful. My calf muscles started warning me that they’d had just about enough, and I had to slow down. By the end of it, I was having full-on muscle spasms; I would walk until they went away, and then resume running, attempting to moderate my stride and pace to keep my legs functioning. I barely made it across the finish line.
Just prior to the marathon, I read a book entitled Run: The mind-body method of running by feel by Matt Fitzgerald, which changed my perspective on training. Of course, by that time, it was too late to make any adjustments for my current race, but I came away with the conclusion that I was being lazy in my training. Each of my training runs was at the same speed on largely flat terrain. I did essentially no interval training, no tempo runs, and no hill training. I was building up running volume, but I just didn’t put in the type of work that I needed to do to reach my potential as a runner.
My performance at this marathon was quite good by conventional standards; I finished in the top 7% of runners at this marathon, which is something to be proud of. However, I think that I have the potential to be a sub-2:45 marathon runner if I commit to pushing myself in my training. I won’t get there this year (I’m going to aim for a 3:10 finish in Sacramento in December), but I’ll continue to strive for improvement in every race I run. The winner of this year’s San Francisco Marathon is 37. I’ve got some time.
