You are brave, that's not a lot of recovery between the 2 marathons. Wouldn't you be better off with a later second attempt?

You are welcome to the Seattle area.
PM me if you need a place to stay or a driver.

A good honest effort there Herbert, always good to know your line, even if you have to cross it!!

I looked at your split times you posted up and saw that you ran 9 of the early miles in either 7;30+ or 7;40+. I think if you analyze it after the fact, this was your pacing problem. I joked about it earlier, but you cannot put time in the bank in a marathon, not without substantial penalties.

I think going forward a 7;50+ to 8 minute pace should be your limit to 20 miles at least. From that point you reassess on how you feel and either hang on, or then begin your negative splits into the 7;30+ range..Doesnt sound like it was a nutritional issue, so pacing should get you there, you are soooo close!!!

The pacing in such a wooded hilly area was difficult as the Garmin was having trouble under the trees, but only 4 miles were in the 7:31 -7:38 range, and 3 miles were over 8. So my overall pace was still pretty steady. usually 7:48-7:53.

Did you use a HR monitor too? That can really help you to even out your pace, especially if you have data points from this race to use going forward..

Awhile back I came across this line in an article about marathon pacing:

“The Bank of Marathon accepts no deposits - borrowings only. Whatever time you think you’re putting in the bank early is drawing interest against your later reserves and must be paid back with interest later in the race.”

Have you ran this one before? If so, ignore everything below...


If you are strictly relying on watch pace for your BQ, be sure that your watch has a reliable mechanism for estimating pace while in the tunnel. Best is a shoe pod, but perhaps a built in accelerometer in the watch is good enough.

Check out my race on (practically) the same course: https://www.strava.com/activities/67096388
that used a garmin shoe pod. You can see that the GPS pace was way bouncier than pod pace in the early tunnel miles. At least it gave me a rough idea, if not exact, on my pacing in there and a decent estimate of average pace for the rest. Of course, it guessed the course was 26.60, so very far from perfect.

It is a super fast course, but does not feel downhill in any real sense. The only thing slowing you down is the road itself, mostly crushed gravel. There are obvious tire paths where the road is smooth, so you will see people staying in those ruts. Therefore, you are less likely to run tangents, which likely contributed to my watch estimating long. I wore some low profile trail shoes, since they would protect better if I land on a rock in the wrong spot. Hokas, or other thicker soles would be great. I would not wear the same flats I used to wear in shorter races on the road. The Nike zoom flys I wear now...yeah, they'd probably be ok.

And if you are staying in Seattle, be aware that it is a good drive out of town. The original company on that course used shuttles and a lot of people had to scramble since they missed it.

Good luck!

I have never done the race before but are you sure it is the same now?

Its an easy course and is also beautiful. I don't run the course but I ride the course a lot. I can never get either my Suunto or my phone to log this ride correctly. The tunnel is fun to go through and is very cold and I've never been somewhere so dark.

There is a somewhat wild story about this race, covered by marathoninvestigator. Check it out if you are curious.

The short story is that the branch off race changed just a bit to differentiate them from the original. The only difference is that the original (that I ran) almost immediately goes into the tunnel, then finishes with a couple miles of flat. The branch off race (that you will do) starts off with some miles of flat, and then it is all downhill to the finish. So, the middle miles (~0-23 and ~3-26) are exactly the same.

As far as I know, the road is still unpaved.

I concur. Congrats on your finish! Much faster than my only marathon time in my 50s.

so, all the tri-geek gear didn't help ?
ha.
still a solid time for a hilly course like that.. well done !

c'mon out next year and run the Colorado Marathon, it is at altitude but check out that profile..

The fastest time in the race was 2:43. And top guy in my age group went 2:58, but he was in the top 5 overall. The next fastest in 50-59 did a 3:24 and thus got his Boston qualification.

https://rightontimeproductions.blogspot.com/...val-overall.html?m=0

I’m usually so amped up for a race that I find HR poor for pacing, especially for the first few miles. My HR is usually above target from the start of the anthem to well into the race...

I find a footpod indispensable for pacing. It’s always superior to gps but especially so in any cases with difficult gps conditions (e.g., many, many marathons at least at some point on the course). I learned that lesson the hard way when my gps logged a 4 min mile showing me bouncing between skyscrapers like Spider-Man while in reality I was plodding down the center of the road.

Good luck in the next race!

I’m usually so amped up for a race that I find HR poor for pacing, especially for the first few miles. My HR is usually above target from the start of the anthem to well into the race... //

It is not some 400m sprint. If you are amped up or tapered, yes your HR will be high at the beginning. But it will level out in the hours you are racing, and provide you with numbers you can use. Not saying not to use your foot pod or GPS, but why not have something that does not get affected by tunnels and trees? Once you do many races with a HR monitor, you will know what is amped and what is real. Good pacing requires a lot of inputs, and reading them correctly. Of course if you ignore your HR during races and training, then it is not much use on race day..

I actually use HR extensively in training and find it very useful (mostly to enforce an easier effort). However, since a marathon can be made or broken by the first few miles' pace, saying it will settle later doesn't really help with that critical part of the race.

Admittedly I haven't put a lot of effort in training into nailing down LTHR, etc. Not sure if that's affected by race day jitters, taper, though, anyway.

It's purely psychological but I do most training at low intensity so race day will be high intensity for longer than training. It will hurt. Usually when I'm hurting but still within my abilities (i.e., not blowing up), if I see my HR and it's high that is a bit disheartening. At those times I'd rather not know it.

Footpod pace isn't affected by anything other than really technical trails where you're more climbing and walking than running but it ignores incline. The stryd power metric incorporates slope but ignores wind and temperature. The former rarely matters much in race but we all saw in April's Boston that a point to point race into a stiff headwind can dramatically affect things. The latter (temp) will certainly impact goal pace. Finally, running downhill to a stryd power target can thrash the legs so caution is needed.

So I agree that multiple inputs could be helpful as there's no perfect single metric for race day pacing. However, calculating in race isn't easy and can be draining.