The Philadelphia PHlop

It's been a few weeks since Philly. I'm over it by now, but might as well vent it out here for one last time for the record.

The unfortunate thing is, there are soooo damn many pieces that need to come together for running a marathon. If just one of those pieces doesn't work out, then the entire effort is at risk of being compromised.

There are the obvious ones: your months upon months of training, overall health (injuries or sickness), the weather, the wind, what you eat in the days and week leading into the race, digesting what you've eaten so you don't get cramps, hydrating, wearing the right fucking socks (preferably ones that don't give blisters), the right shoes, keeping shoelaces tied, remembering your gu, making sure a safety pin doesn't rub you the wrong way, anything to prevent chafing at mile 23, getting to the starting line on time, going out too fast, going out too slow, tripping on something... the list goes on.

Marathoners have nightmares because of all these things.

And then there is a far less obvious piece in the puzzle: Sleep the night before the race. It generally isn't on that list. We know we need it, but common knowledge is that you don't get 8 hours before a marathon... your nerves will keep you restless. But most people still wind up with about 5 hours of sleep. That's plenty. Being well rested two nights prior to the race is far more important. But there is a point where the lack of sleep will effect your ability to battle.

I've encountered premarathon insomnia once before, in Rotterdam. That was more due to international travel and jet-lag than anything else. I got no sleep in the flight over, then like 15 hours 2 nights prior to the race, then maybe between 3 and 4 hours of sleep the night of the race. It did effect me, and I was tired but still able to run. Hell, I even PRd it at the time.

Philadelphia was a different story.

We stayed in a really awesome, older hotel in a bustling part of the city. It would've been perfect any other time, aside from the night before a marathon. What was a really huge hotel suite at a great price, might as well have come with a curse as the streets were alive until 4am on both Friday and Saturday nights. It was like a circus out there, and I heard it all. In this case, my nightmare scenario became the inability to have a nightmare.

On Saturday night, I tossed and turned, my mind raced, cars honked, people screamed, drunkards hooted and hollered. 11:00 became 12:00; 12:00 became 1:00, 1 became 2. ...Sirens wailed, douche bags raced their cars up and down the streets, bums bellowed, I constantly got up to pace the suite and piss out days worth of hydration (seriously, I must've peed no less than 20 times during the night)... I went absolutely fucking apeshit... The next thing I knew, I was still awake at nearly 4-fucking-am. Just before falling asleep, I started to think about pulling the plug on the race. Then by some miracle, I drifted off.

I woke up at 5:30. No more than a whopping 90 minutes of sleep. Not quite the ideal situation.

That's pretty much how Philadelphia played out. All other things had lined up perfectly well... I had great training, I was healthy, I was feeling fresh (aside from no sleep), and the weather was a perfect 40 degrees with only a touch of wind. To the best of my knowledge and experience, this should've been a gimme-PR. Unfortunately, I ran on a quarter tank of gas.

There was nothing I could do about getting only an hour and a half of sleep.

So I choked down some coffee, took a shower, flooded myself with gatorade to try to rehydrate after pissing it all out, and jogged a mile to the starting line.

I figured that I could at least gut out 13 miles. If it was horrible, then I'd have an easy out at half way.

As the race began, I didn't feel all "that bad"... However, to add to the ugly scene that was already messing with my head: The first four miles were horribly mismarked. I had no clue how fast I was going until probably the 6th mile... it felt like a 6min pace, or maybe a touch faster... but my splits came in at 540, 630, 511, 550, 558, then 6:00. By the time I settled down, it was clear that I might've gone out too fast.

Regardless, an even effort race on that course would've warranted a faster start, so I still had comfort in the first 10K. I was clearly tired, but I think the adrenaline made those early miles go somewhat smoothly.

I ran through a series of hills in miles 7 through 13, and rounded out the first half at about 1:18:20... faster than I would've liked for a negative split but oh well.

In the next few miles, I knew I would give something back. It was just a matter of how much and when. Then it hit me at about 15. What should've been an easy/sightly down hill mile became difficult. I started to get sore and stiffen up. It was way too early for that under normal circumstances. So I managed the decent. I willingly went from a 6:00 pace, to a 6:05-6:10. By miles 20, I had to pull back to a steady 6:15 in the final miles.

There was nothing I could do. I was out of gas. Not a terrible crash and burn. More like a controlled escape... an ejection, and then ride it out in the parachute.

And there you have it. Instead of blow out a sub-2:38, which in my mind should've been a gimme... I ran a solid 15 miles, then gutted out an annoying 11 miles for a 2:39:40. Out in 1:18:20, back in 1:21:20. My worst positive-split marathon in years.

It clearly wasn't too terrible though... because I crossed the finish line, walked through the crowd, and to spite myself, immediately jogged over a mile back to the hotel. Oddly, that didn't even feel that bad? I was just pissed.

It's been nearly a month now, and I still feel that I was cheated. Months and months of work and a shit ton of miles, and all for a mediocre race. Oh well.

The only thing I can do from here is take vengeance on Boston in April... and I'm gonna fucking blow the doors off that thing.