Unsolicited Advice for the First Time Marathoner (4)

So, it's the week of The First 20 Miler of your Training Plan.  No worries right?  You ran 18 last week, and you're cool as a cucumber.

Wait, you're NOT cool as a cucumber?  Well why the heck not?  It's only 20 miles...

Obviously, no one in their right mind uses the word "only" in front of "20 miles".  I'm all about the idea that you need to Respect The Distance, and your first 20 is actually the hardest thing you will ever do marathon training.  Much harder than a marathon, I promise.

So here's what I want to mention today.... no matter how the 20 miler goes (or if it was last weekend, no matter how it went), it doesn't make a lick of difference on race day, as long as you completed the 20 miles (or darned near....).

Maybe it was, or will be, the greatest running moment in your life and you finished with a smile on your face, your hands in the air and a spring in your step.  Congratulations, you are in the 1% of the population who has had that experience.  Go pat yourself on the back, take an ice bath and skip the rest of this blog post.

Or, maybe it will be like my first 20 miler.  Here, let me take you back.  It's October, in Central VA.  This could mean 30 degrees with icy patches, or it could mean mid 80's with high humidity.  lucky me, after a two week cool down, my first 20 was on that 80 degree day.  I was carrying water, I had a route planned, and I was with my exit buddy.  We were together and this was like, totally, going to be IT.  We were prepared, and had had a fantastic 18 miler the week prior.... flash forward 3 hours to us shuffling along side a road, nearly out of liquids, sun blazing down on our salt crusted bodies.  I seriously considered laying down in the dirt and taking a dirt nap before finishing the run.  It was the hardest thing I have ever done.  Every fifty meters or so, my feet would slow their shuffle until I was walking.... walk for a minute.... drink... a few drops because I was going to run out on the next sip... pick it up, "run" for a bit.... feel my feet slowing... damn, I'm walking again.  And the cycle repeated until I stumbled blindly to the end of the 20 miles, wishing that I was dead and convinced that if my life depended on running another 10K that I. would. never. make it.

I was ready to walk away from 2.5 months of marathon training because I would NEVER make it.

Only guess what happened next?

I had a stellar run on my drop back week.  I mean, like the easiest twelve miles EVER.  And I started to wonder where I had "gone wrong" in my 20.  I examined my food diary, and nixed the previous day's menu from my diet.  I considered my sleep habits, and went to bed early for a week.  I fueled my body with H2O.  And I called on every runner I knew to see if they would take a "leg" of my 20 mile run so that me & T would have company.  I also came to understand that I finished my first 20 because I made myself do it.

When the next 20 came around, I was a nervous wreck, and, of all things, I was running a low grade fever.  Still, I sucked it up and started the run.  It was hairy, oh sure.  It had a few touchy moments (like remember when T lost her panties on Gayton Road?), but...  at mile 20 we were a half mile from the start point, and I had no intention or reason to stop and walk.  I was mentally able to push to the finish.

My first 2 twenty milers were the two hardest runs in my life.

My first marathon was not defined by either of those 20 mile runs.  On race day I brought a valuable lesson to the start line.  I had learned on those 20's to understand the difference between wanting to lay down in the dirt on the side of the road, and having to lay down in the dirt on the side of the road.

And they are Two. Different. Things.

(by the way, that "low grade fever"?  Turned out to be Swine Flu.)  


got an idea?  got something you're dying to know?  got a TMI issue you don't know how to answer? please leave it in a comment.

Unsolicited Advice for the First Time Marathoner (3)

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal, nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude" ~ Thomas Jefferson.
Seems to me like if he were alive today, he'd be one GBA marathoner...

We'll call todays post:


Mental Stamina and How it Relates to Fashion.

What ~ WHAT?

...I know what you're all thinking, how does fashion relate to mental stamina, and where does Thomas J come into the equation?  Seriously, did you see Jefferson's socks?  He's a man after my own heart.

Aside from picking your race and coach/training plan and, if applicable, your SportsBackers MTT color, is there anything more important than choosing your outfit?

 Well,  no.  Not really.

Because you need an outfit that doesn't chafe, or tire you, and it helps if it's one that encourages you, or inspires others to encourage you, and finally, one that makes you feel good on the course.

And one that doesn't chafe,  yea, I said it twice because it's that important.

I like to know these things way out.  Partly so I can test for chafing in all weather conditions.

And more importantly because I like to use a lot of visualization when I'm preparing for a marathon, it works for me to know what I'm going to be wearing well in advance.

In my case, my typical running garb includes outfits like this...

(T & Me)

and this...

(Kc & me)

and this...

(T & Me)

notice anything?  (other than my need for volume and that I apparently always stand on the Left) Yea, I like to run in a skirt.

There are a lot of reasons.  One is that I feel feminine and sexy in a skirt.  And powerful, because, let's just face it, my quads are, ah, muscular... yea, we'll go with that.  

These are all tools in my toolbox of mental strength.

I also like tall socks.  They don't really do anything except help me start conversations.  Also a tool in my box.

If you're building a house, you don't try to do it without the proper tools, right?  In fact, you wouldn't start any big project without the tools you need.  You would go get them before you started, and make sure you had enough supplies to get through the project.

So, along that line of thought - Marathons are long.

That's so dumb right?  Of course we know they're long.  But that longness doesn't just translate into physical tiredness.  It also goes with mental exhaustion.  My first marathon I had NO IDEA that the mental exhaustion would be such a big deal.  I went in mentally undertrained. er, mentally untrained.

Prepare your head the way you prepare your body, train it, and as a result, be strong on the course.  The methods of mental training are probably as varied as marathon training strategies.  Giving credit where credit is due, I adapted my mental prep strategy based on exchanges with a few marathoners I know - Mel's strategy was my foundation, with elements from Q and T added in for good measure.  Oh yea, and all these people are running COACHES.  Just saying.

My method, the one that works for me, is as follows.  As I get about 6 to 8 weeks out from a marathon (or half), I like to picture myself on the course.  I like to envision the road melting under my light swift feet, I like to imagine my strong legs pulling me along, and in my imaginings I'm always feeling good running with good form, no matter where I am on the route.  The closer I get to the race, the more concrete these images become.  What does all that do for me?
You know, sometimes I'm not sure it does anything except take up some of my spare time during the taper...  

I'm pretty sure that the positive visualization helps me capture the moment when I am on the course.  At Richmond '10 I was "galactically bada**"... it's just a fact, right?  One of the reasons I was galactically bada** is because I embraced the idea that I would be, days out from the actual race.  I saw it clearly in my mind, and when I felt a trickle of self doubt on race day, I banished it with GBA** thoughts like, "why are you doubting yourself?  You're totally going to be a galactic bada** at mile 22... mile 23... mile 25".  And I was because I believed.

In my case, part of my mental training strategy was because I knew I wanted to be strong when I got to T, and darn it, that's what I was... right up until I started dry heaving, but I suppose that's an unsolicited advice topic for another day.

Unsolicited Advice for the First Time Marathoner (2)

I was thinking the other day about things I wish someone had told me before my first marathon.

Things that made me SO nervous, things I obsessed about that turned out to be nothing, things I didn't think twice about that turned out to be something worth obsessing about, and I think I finally concluded that the one thing that bothered me the most was "What if I cannot over come THE WALL".

I obsessed over this one point for months on end.

Only, I discovered something on race day...

There is no such thing as the wall.

No, I'm being dead serious.

You have trained your body with a solid marathon training plan in the months leading up to race day so that it can go this distance.  So on race day if you are fueling properly, drinking as needed, pacing yourself according to your own goals and not your neighbors or the elites running out front... there is no need to fear the wall.  I've heard runners say it happens at mile 18.  I've heard them claim it at 22.  Frankly, I've been to both those places twice on race day and haven't seen hide nor hair of it.

Did I feel despair?  Sure.

Was I freaking tired?  Absolutely.

But here is a photo from me at Richmond Marathon mile 22 of 2009.

and here is one from me at Richmond Marathon mile 22 of 2010.

If that's what the Wall looks like, well... bring it ON! I'm just sayin'.

Besides, we've already established that in 2009 I made a bunch of rookie mistakes.  If there was a wall to be found, surely I would have discovered it.

I am not saying that you cannot find a huge mental block constructed of hopelessness at the marathon distance.  If you go looking for it, you can find almost anything at a marathon, including a grown man in a tutu and tiara, or a viking hat, or a pink running skirt.  What I'm saying is that the physical end to the ATP in your system caused by a chemical failure of the mitochondrial electron transport chain resulting in a complete shut down of your muscles... aka, The Wall, isn't really even a possibility.

You have to believe all this, or you would never have signed up for your first marathon.


Mental block is not the dreaded wall.  A friend of mine says it best, "Mental issues are not training issues".  I believe that is true, they are a lack of preparation of a different kind.

Unsolicited Advice for the First Time Marathoner

I've been stalking reading a lot of blogs lately about women out there conquering their first marathons.  I'm proud of you all.  You're all going to be amazing.

Uh, on that note-

Dudes, you all need to RELAX!

The marathon will come to you, you cannot rush it.  So all this worry about "how do I know how to pace myself" nonsense going around, is just that... nonsense.  Listen to your body and you will know the answer to your pace.

I recommend running your first marathon at what I like to call your "happy pace".  If you are going out of finish, then you should look back through your training log/run journal (you are keeping one right?  along with a food journal/diary?) and look at your average for your 16, 18, 20 milers.

For me, on my first marathon, this would have been around a 10:30/11 minute pace.  And yet somehow I thought that I was going to head out on race day and run a blistering 9:50 pace.  The reason?  Well one of those online calculators said I could, based on my Half Marathon PR.

Never mind that when I ran that Half Marathon I was trained to perfection, had peaked at the right moment, the weather was more than perfect, and was doing the hilliest routes I could find to prepare for a pancake flat course.  I somehow thought that because that calculator said it, it would happen.

Consequently, I went out a bit too fast.


(snicker snicker... that's probably the understatement of the century right there)

So for those of you looking to FINISH your first race in a way that makes you proud, accomplished, have you smiling at the end, and, probably the most important thing of all, shouting from the rooftops that you are a MARATHONER, might I suggest just taking for what it is?

A 26.2 mile learning experience.

Because nothing you ever do before hand will prepare you for the things that will happen on race day.  Some of you will go out and have a PERFECT DAY.  Some of you will not.  There is no telling which of you will fall into one category or the other.  But at the end of the day, if you run your happy pace for the first 20 miles or so, you will finish the race, and you will be a MARATHONER.

AND no one, and I mean this, even an elite level athlete, is going to EVER say, "oh, you only ran your first marathon in XYZ amount of time?"  No I assure you, what people will say when you mention that you ran a marathon is:

"Holy CARP, seriously?  YOU are AMAZING!  Did you know that only less than 1% of the population will ever do that?"