One Left to Become a Marathon Maniac: The Payne Race Report

May 28, 2009

After my 3:34 in Boston on April 20 and after I put 238 miles in February and 296 miles in March with a peak week of 82 miles I thought I should run the Andy Payne Marathon (in Oklahoma City)  on May 23 to give my training double duty. This would be the third year in a row that I would run Andy Payne after running Boston.  Furthermore, the idea of becoming a Marathon Maniac by running even a third one on June 13th (Maryville, MO) came to my mind. The problem: my left ITB (iliotibial band) was sore after Boston.

Two weeks after Boston, I still felt my ITB at the end of a 10 miler so after a lot of consideration I decided not run anymore for about 2 weeks. I did a lot of swimming to try to keep my cardio up and the usually recommended remedies for ITBs: stretching, foam roller and ibuprofen. That 10 miler 2 weeks after Boston was the longest I ran before Andy Payne, with just a few 4 mile runs and a 6 miler a few days before AP.

Come race day I had to decide what strategy I would follow. Of course the big question was if my ITB would let me finish the race and if I would be willing to drop out if the ITB started acting up. Even though this race is flat as a pancake, it is a tough one due to weather. According to Wunderground.com, temperature ended being 66F at the 6:30 am start and 84F at 10:30 am.

This was the first marathon where I used a Garmin. I decided that I would start around an 8:10 pace and go from there (I secretly was wondering if I could speed up later to try to BQ – 8:00 pace). I took 1000 mg of acetaminophen 1 hour before the start. The first 5 miles were uneventful and I ran those at around 8:06 pace. Around mile 7 I kind of felt soreness in my ITB and decided to take 1000 additional mg of acetaminophen. After that the ITB pain went away. Due to the warm weather I took a gel each 30 minutes for the first 2:30 hours and plenty of fluids from both the water stations and my fuel belt. After that I relied on PowerBar blocks and fluids.

I got to the midpoint with an 8:10 average pace. By that time I started to feel the sun and slowed down…I started seeing 8:30-8:40 miles. When I got to mile 16 I was exhausted and at mile 17 I thought of DNFing. I walked for about 1 minute and then decided to continue. That mile took over 11 minutes…I struggled to get to mile 20 and I got a second wind then. I caught several runners who were walking between miles 21-22.  At mile 22, there was a young guy laying on the ground and some people were assisting him. He started running and passed me only to give out a big scream and stop again. I think he was having hamstring cramps.

After mile 22 I dedicated each mile to each of my four kids and I got some extra inspiration from that. Those miles were run at 10:00 min pace. I caught more runners in that stretch. At mile 25 I had about 5 runners in front of me. I was tempted to increase my pace and pass them but I thought such an effort would be very taxing for my June 13th marathon and just held my 10:00 pace. Final time was 3:56:22.  I placed 28th overall out of 96 and 6th out of 20 in my age group.

I was happy to: 

  1. finish,
  2. finish under 4 hours,
  3. finish a bit “faster” than last year when I also ran AP 5 weeks after Boston (in 3:59:xx, although in even warmer weather) and
  4. finish “healthy” enough that I was still thinking of running the June 13th race.

My ITB was sore for two days after AP but not as sore as it was after Boston. I headed to pool the day after AP and have been swimming 30 min daily since that day using a pull buoy – just arm strokes. I think I will go for my first short run 7 days after AP when I will be 2 weeks out before Maryville. I probably won’t attempt any longer than a 6 miler and I hope those Feb and March miles plus Boston and AP will still be in my legs for Maryville. Maryville is very warm and hilly so I am planning to set my expectations just to finish.

Thanks for reading.

Jorge Carvajal