Saturday, November 26, 2011

Race Preview: Rock'n'Roll Las Vegas Marathon

My last race is a week away and I'm officially doing the marathon.  I'm guessing about mile 24 I'm going to be regretting that decision.  I'll also be regretting it around mile 500 of the plane flight the next day.  I'm going to need some Vitamin I and a nice drink for the flight home.

It's kind of weird to see this race season come to a close but I guess this is the event to do it.  I'm already thinking through my 2011 race evaluation and hopefully putting the finishing touches on the 2012 schedule, which is likely to look completely different a year from now.

So my final week of marathon training went quite well.  In fact, better than expected.  I did my 20 mile run home from work and I tried to enjoy every moment of it, just like I will on December 4.  I stopped when I wanted to (not often) and walked when I felt like it (also, not often).  I got home in 3 hours and 21 minutes, which turned out to be a 9:49 pace.  If I run that pace at RnRLV, that will put me crossing the finish line in 4:17, only 13 minutes before the cut-off.  That makes me a little nervous; however, I have hope.   My knee did start to bug me after a couple miles but that went away after 6 or 7.  It wasn't until about mile 15 that the bottoms of my feet starting to bug me.

I knew that the route would probably put me at home in just over 20 miles but I wanted to go an extra 2.  They say things go wrong after mile 20, so I wanted to get mentally prepared for it.  It's not my first rodeo, so I've dealt with that before.  When I was at the point in my run to add that extra 2 miles, I decided to nix it.  Cardio-wise I felt like I could run another 20 miles (at times during my run I thought my heart rate was low) and I was still mentally "in a good place".  My feet where pretty angry with me.  The fore-foot was sore and I had some occasional shooting pain between my toes (planter fasciitis issues?).

On Wednesday, the day after the run, my knees were not happy with me.  They didn't want to go down any sort of decline but that pain was gone by Thursday.  Sweet!  I even did a 6 mile run on Thursday evening and everything was feeling good (besides my gut from the still digesting Thanksgiving meal).

So what are my plans/goals?  I'm not planning for a PR (sub 3:53) but I'm going to try to hang with the 4 hour group and re-evaluate at mile 10.  If I'm feeling up to it, I'll shoot for 3:55 and then possibly the PR.  If I'm not feeling with it, I'll plan to just have fun!  I know that it will be an awesome event with 44,000 participants (6k full and 38k half-participants).  Just the energy alone should help me finish.

3 comments:

  1. Great post! Good luck as you continue your training & approach the race! :)

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  2. 4:30 cutoff?? Really? That's pretty harsh. More than 25% of the KC marathon peeps take 5 hours or more...

    And, good idea to cut it off at 20 miles. Word on the street is that once you pass 20 miles, your body starts breaking down and causes significant damage that you have to recover from, which is why they recommend 2 weeks of recovery after a marathon to allow your body to heal. But I'm not a scientist. =)

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  3. 4:30 cutoff is pretty rough...

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