Thunderreport: A Bit Disappointed

As you can tell by this post's title and accompanying picture*, yesterday's San Francisco half marathon didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped. But it wasn't a total failure. Basically, there's good news and bad news (and good news):

The good news: I finished without walking, which was my stated goal for the race.

The bad news: I was slow. Very slow. As in, possibly the slowest finisher to run continuously. My final time was 2:29:05.

The good news: I gave myself a nice high first time, upon which I should be able to improve throughout the year.

(The other good news: The inimitable Lil' Thunder clocked in at roughly 2:03.)

Here's the report: Normally, my report would start on the morning of the race, but the first important events happened on Saturday. For whatever reason, my sleep schedule was a bit off, and on Saturday afternoon, I took a nap. When I got up (and joined Lil' Thunder for a disappointing meal at the highly recommended Zuppa), my back started bothering me for the first time in months. I must have slept in an awkward position, and it was the kind of back pain that really jolts you if you move in the wrong direction. A bad omen.

With the alarm set for 5:30, I turned in at about 10:45, hoping for a solid 6.5 hours of sleep. But it was not to be. My back had me tossing and turning (and - once I finally fell asleep - waking up repeatedly) all night. Despite this, I felt pretty refreshed in the morning. Unfortunately, the back was no better.

Due to an overabundence of caution, the Thunders rolled up to the start line a little more than an hour before the gun. We killed the hour by doing what we do best - making fun of people. For some reason, runners are a goofy bunch, so they are usually easy targets. No coffee, though, which was a major negative, as it was fricken freezing. We waited, shivering, for the race to start. LT promised that she'd stick with me for the beginning of the race. The gun went off, and she zipped out of sight.

The start was horrendous. It was freezing cold, and we had been standing still for at least 15 minutes just waiting. Plus, I had been totally unable to loosen up my back. As we started our way up to normal speed, I felt roughly 95 years old. Every joint felt like it was made of concrete, my back was sending jolting pains through my body every fourth or fifth step, and all of the sudden my bladder was inexplicably full. After a quick sprint into the woods to fix my only easily-correctable problem, I rejoined the slowpokes and started banking the miles.

From the very start, I realized that Jimmy the Greek was full of sh*t. I was not gonna hit 2:16. The first miles were well over 11:00, and though my legs weren't fully warmed up until at least the 4th mile, I knew that I wouldn't be shaving off enough time to hit 2:16. I settled back to hoping for my actual (logical) goal of 2:24 or so. My back pains, however, continued until about the 5th mile. More importantly, I just didn't have "it" yesterday. When I was finally warm, I ran a few sub-11:00 miles (whoopdedoo), but it was way more of an effort than it should have been.

An aside about the course: our route was about perfect. The first 7 miles were through Golden Gate park. Very scenic, largely flat or even downhill, and certainly the only time I've run past a bison paddock. Then, runners are spit out of the park and onto the Great Highway, running along the Pacific for 3 miles south and then back. The out-and-back nature of that portion allowed me to spot Lil' Thunder bouncing cheerfully back toward the finish line, seemingly unaware of the 11+ miles of torture that she had already delivered to her legs.

I think that the fact that the faster runners were just feet away made me try to run faster. I was also passing some runners (OK, some chubby old ladies), which gave me some motivation to try and improve on my relative standing. This energy burst continued until about the 9th mile, when it magically disappeared.

Once I hit mile 10, I just wanted to finish. I had no energy left, and the temptation of walking was great. But my one goal was to keep running, and I did. These miles went very slowly, as the times indicate. As I was passing the 12 mile marker, I took inventory. I felt like total crap, but I went though my body parts one by one, and realized that nothing was feeling too bad. My knees were both a little sore, my back was worn out, my feet were tender, and my calf wasn't feeling normal. But nothing was really yelling at me. My quads and hamstrings felt fine. I was just low on energy. So I tried to increase my pace a bit, and lo and behold, it wasn't that bad. So I decided to push through the last 1.1 mile with all I had.

I turned off the Great Highway, back into the park, and realized that this would take whatever energy was left. The only significant uphill on the course was from about mile 12.5 to mile 13.0. About halfway up, I planted my right foot, and a shot of pain seared the entire back of my body. My knee buckled, and I almost bit it right there. But I regained my balance, and kept working my way up the hill. At the top, I saw Lil' Thunder cheering. She assured me that it was all downhill from there, which it was. I coasted in at 2:29:05. It took almost everything out of me. I'm disappointed, and a bit embarrassed, by the time. But hey, I met my main goal. Here are the splits:


Mile 1 11:53 11:53 (pee break)
Mile 2 11:28 23:21
Mile 3 11:28 34:50
Mile 4 11:06 45:57
Mile 5 11:10 57:07 (another pee break - yes, I know)
Mile 6 10:39 1:07:46
Mile 7 10:57 1:18:43
Mile 8 10:56 1:29:40
Mile 9 11:14 1:40:54
Mile 10 11:26 1:52:20
Mile 11 11:57 2:04:18
Mile 12 11:55 2:16:14
Mile 13.1 12:51 2:29:05 (11:41/mile)

Overall Avg 11:23/mile


Sigh. Now what?

Well, I actually think I'm right on track. Had it been a good day, I probably could have run about 2:24 or 2:25. And the fact is that I just haven't trained all that much. Well under 3 months of training, after over a year of no running. My next race will be May 12 in Oakland. That means that I will have a full 3 months of training (on top of where I am right now). As I mentioned earlier, my mileage will be increased. I'll also add in speedwork, to help increase my tempo. As of today, my stated goal for that race will be a more realistic 2:19. That said, I'm hoping to increase my pace enough to try for a sub 2:15 run. Anyhow, the only thing I can do is get better. And I will.







*Note: the above picture is not of Big Thunder, but actually of Mary Decker following her disastrous fall at the hands of Zola Budd in the 3,000 meter race in the 1984 Olympics. Duh.