6 Days To Go: What Went Wrong Last Time

The next few posts will detail how I'm going to approach this marathon, but before I do that, I wanted to take a step back and review my performance from last year and see how it will help me strategize for October 3rd.

My first marathon was a great experience.  I enjoyed the training, and I enjoyed the race.  I remember most of the race in vivid detail, and count it as one of the most exciting moments in my life.  That being said, the quality of the running was mostly disastrous.  Here's why:

• Unrealistic Expectations.  I didn't have a firm time goal in mind for my first marathon—I merely wanted to finish.  But, I did have a secondary goal of 4.5 hours.  My issue was that I based this entirely on my training paces, which is a horrible way to predict race performance.  Doing a 20-mile training run and saying "yeah, I can go faster than that on race day" is very, very different than doing a half marathon and saying "what can I learn from this about my fitness?"  So, I went into race day thinking I could average 10'18" per mile when that was very optimistic.
• Starting Too Fast.  This is the big problem that everyone has on their first marathon, and I was no different.  Not only did I have a pace goal of 10'18" per mile, but I did my first mile in 10'18".  I tried not to get caught up in the excitement, but I did.  I had a few other miles in there that were sub-10, and I charged up the hills early in the race.  All my energy was expended far too early, and I paid the price when my quad went crazy 18 miles in.  Ironically, my quad cramping up made the effects of "hitting the wall" much less severe because I had to slow down tremendously.
• Training Errors.  Hal's Novice 1 plan did exactly what it said it would do—get me to the finish line.  I have no doubt that I could have finished the marathon faster and in better shape by following this plan had I not made these mistakes.  I missed/cut back some training as part of a trip back home and then I got sick.  While missing 1 or 2 workouts aren't the end of the world, my progression upward in miles moved backwards.  I missed one of the  16+ mile runs and a number of its supporting runs, so things like this contributed to me being a bit undertrained.  This wasn't a huge problem, but it's something I keep in mind.
• Improper Distance.  I relied on my Nike+ gizmo last year to tell me my distance.  For my 20 miler, I left home, followed a route, and when the gizmo said that I hit 10 miles, I turned around and went home.  I didn't have the greatest relationship with my Nike+ gizmo, though, and it may have caused me some problems.  Even after calibration, the distance ended up being off by a significant amount—I figure that my 20 mile run was closer to 19 miles than 20.  Not a major discrepancy, but over the course of many miles, it adds up to a lot of miles that I should have ran that I didn't.
• Nutrition Issues.  For the most part, my nutrition in the race went well.  One problem I had was that I wasn't used to Powerade straight-up.  In training, I would mix it 50/50 with water so it would taste better.  On the course, I had to take 1 cup of Powerade and 1 cup of water and drink them separately (no, I didn't have the mental capacity to make mixed drinks after 20 or so miles).  When I reached Summit Avenue, it was tough to drink the Powerade because it just didn't taste great, so I went for water almost exclusively, and my caloric intake suffered accordingly.

Those are the places where I saw problems with last year's performance.  Stay tuned for how I'll take these problems and fix them for this year's race.