Race Result

Racer:	Steve Smith
Race:	Red Rocks Marathon
Date:	Saturday, March 5, 2011
Location:	Las Vegas, NV
Race Type:	Run - Marathon
Age Group:	Male 40 - 44
Time:	3:29:21
Overall Place:	10 / 176
Comment:	Good training run ... went in fresh, came out sore, but fresh

Race Report:

It's been a LONG time since I've run a marathon. Umm, lessee ... okay, I can leave my shoes on. It's been NINE years since I've run a marathon. Now, I've covered 26.2 miles in running shoes several times since I ran the Big Sur Marathon in 2002, but I've walked, significant portions, of each of those events: six Ironman races and one ill-chosen open marathon. Of the seven times I've toed the line of 26.2, only once did I even think that I might possibly maybe run the full 26.2 (IM South Africa in 2008).

So, I did a really stupid thing. As I gather the winter training for a spring Ironman (which, I am happy to say, for once, I am training for) I decided to run an open marathon as a training event. Back in the day (2002-2006) I put a lot of thought into how to train for triathlon, mostly for short-course events, but also for ultra-distance events. But it doesn't take a genius coach to know this: an open-marathon, 10 weeks out from an Ironman, is a terrible idea. Just terrible.

But every rule has its exceptions, and I thought a stab at the Red Rocks Marathon made sense for me, at this point in my training. First, and foremost, Wyoming winters, wonderful as they are, get old around March. I need to be someplace warm as spring approaches. Second, running is my weakest sport and I needed a strong run focus over the winter. Third, I have this not-ran-marathon monkey on my back, I need the bugger dead.

So, I put in some moderate winter treadmill miles (average of about 35 miles a week, with a two 50+ weeks). The marathon did its job: I stay focused on running. And I did my job: I went into the marathon fresh, not burned out on run training. More importantly (but we're getting ahead of ourselves here) I did my job by coming OUT of the marathon fresh.

So, this Red Rocks thing. It's hilly. Something like 3,000ft of climbing. There's some up hills and some downhills. It's an out-and-back course in the oh-so-beautiful Red Rocks area of Las Vegas. I guess I knew it was hilly before I registered, but it's not like I had a ton of choices given I wanted to drive and my schedule. Yeah, hilly.

Being a training run, I camped. There's a campground about 4 miles up the road. It worked out nice. There's some world-class climbing in the area and I'm bummed I didn't have more time to put on some sticky shoes and hold onto rock. Oh well, that's Ironman training ... plenty of opportunity to say no to things so that you can say yes to training.

My goals for this race were three: 1) Run the whole thing 2) Negative split by at least 5 minutes 3) Do No Harm.

The run starts early, 6 am. This is kind of a pain until the gun goes off and the rising sun hits the red rocks in the most beautiful ways. So, with a pretty sunrise, I was off.

With the course so hilly, any kind of pace-based effort would be silly. So I had to rely on perceived effort. The course is flat, slightly down hill for XX miles. It then mostly goes uphill to the high-point at Y miles. From the high-point it's mostly downhill to the turn-around. Reverse and repeat (for those disinclined to do the math, that's uphill to mile Z and mostly downhill to the finish).

My goal was to hold my effort back significantly until mile 18, and then run the last 8 miles, mostly downhill and flat, at a strong pace.

And that's pretty much how things went. I actually got antsy and started pushing the pace at about mile 17, uphill, but it felt good. And I was running strong for most of those last 8 miles. Just before mile 25, however, the pounding from the asphalt and the downhills (damn winter and its treadmill-only running) became too much for my quads and I slowed down, but only slightly.

In the end my splits were 1:49 and 1:41. My average pace at half-way was 8:25 and it had dropped to 7:59 at the finish line. As Saturday and then Sunday progressed I'd worried that I'd failed Goal #3, Do No Harm, but as Monday arrived it appeared I'd be okay in a few days.