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Lausanne Marathon 2019 – 2:52:42 (19th OA, 4th M41–50)
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ll writeup with more detail and pictures is here.

Having recently moved from the US to Switzerland, the Lausanne Marathon was my first real race in Europe for a long while. It was also my first standalone marathon in six years.

And it went okay, with a PR and a top-20 overall in 2:52:42.

New life, new priorities
Since 2012, my primary focus has been Ironman. Under François’s expert coaching, this has resulted in steady improvements, culminating with an age-group podium at IMFL in 2017 and a 9:09:17 at Ironman Texas in 2018. But last year, I accepted a job at IMD and moved from Texas to Switzerland. With the new job and the new country, training 15h a week was out of the question, at least for a time. So, I switched my focus from aiming at podiums to just staying fit.

Concretely, that meant a couple of events in the spring—20 km of Lausanne (1:24:03), the Tour du Léman—and the Lausanne Marathon in October.

Good prep
I've suffered from Achilles issues in the past, but I now seem to know how to handle them so, the buildup to the race was non problematical. François designed the year for general conditioning—a mix of bike and running for the most—to help me keep some fitness when training isn’t a priority. We only ramped up the mileage starting in mid August.

Running has been fun, as I’ve travelled a bit, so I got a chance to run in Aix, the Luberon, New York, Florence, and, for the most part, on the shores of the Léman. All told, I had a solid block, which peaked at just over 110km per week , and various runs in the 32-to-38-km range.

So I knew I had enough volume. But not having run a standalone marathon for so long, it was difficult to evaluate how much I could push on race day. My Garmin had all sorts of predictions at 2:43—yeah, right. A recent 10km, though told a different story when I could only barely manage a sub-40. So, I didn't know what to expect.

Decent execution
The organization seeds you by self-reported predicted time. My 2h55 got me in the first corral. The fastest pace group was 3h, so I aimed at being right around them but couldn’t squeeze ahead before the start.

After the gun, it took a little bit of doing to go around that 3h group, but nothing serious. There was then the usual shuffle as everyone fell in position. A few dudes who didn’t look particularly fast overcame me, which reinforced my doubts about how much to push. The first few kilometers were fast—in the 3m40s, one even in the 3m30s, so I decided against pushing more and settled wherever I was in the pack, even though the pressure to keep up with groups around was high. I estimated some 20 or 30 people ahead, including a handful of women. I found a group of five or six and we worked together. I tried to stay shielded from the wind for most of the time and did my share of “pulling” every now and then. Soon, we started to pick-up the not-so-fast-looking dudes who couldn't hold their initial pace.

Food-wise, I had packed two double-espresso gels in a flask; the maximum daily quantity recommended by SiS. That, plus the espresso I had at the house one hour before the start, should have been enough caffeine, I thought. (As an aside, I live less than a kilometer away from the start line. That makes for a really, really relaxed pre-race routine!) I also had a couple extra SiS gels, but that was the mother of rookie mistakes, as I was clearly needing more, and I ran out of gels in the first third of the race. I picked up a couple more at aid stations, but those didn’t feel nearly as good as the SiS ones. You'd think by now I would know how much nutrition to take on long runs; I guess not.

All told, going out was fast—on Sunday, I PRed my 10 miles (3m53 / km pace average) and my 1/2 marathon (3m56) all on the way to Vevey. I knew it would be hard to keep that pace, and I didn’t expect to, as I figured I could settle for a 4:03min/km in the last 20km and still finish with a 4min/km average. But that didn’t work out. I blew up.

I’m usually pretty good at pacing (my 2013 Houston marathon had splits at 6:37min/mile with a variance of no more than 2s), so I’m not sure what happened. Maybe I can't pace well any longer (don’t think so). Or maybe I just started too quickly, letting myself being driven by the flow around and didn’t fuel properly (much more likely). At any rate, my last 10km were very slow, predominantly in the 4m20s and 4m 30s. By then, I was doing tremendous mental calculations to see if I could go sub 2:53.

And, in the end, it was good enough, as I got there in 2h52m42s. That bought me 4th in the age group (over 306 finishers; 1.3%), and 19th overall (out 998 men starting; 1.9%). There was just one guy older than me who arrived before me. 2h52 was also a personal best. In short, it was enough to go away thinking that it’s nice to still get faster as I go older. Not too bad, for a summer chicken.

Major, major thanks to Leslie, for handling all this nonsense (and for the cool pictures and the coolest race-day video ever (below)!). Thanks also to François (francois.modave@gmail.com) for enabling all this nonsense! And thanks to the IMD colleagues and, in particular, Arturo, for celebrating these little victories.

Full writeup with more detail and pictures is here.

http://powerful-problem-solving.com
Last edited by: Arnaud: Oct 29, 19 13:18
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Re: Lausanne Marathon 2019 – 2:52:42 (19th OA, 4th M41–50) [Arnaud] [ In reply to ]
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And you couldn’t find a proper running attire?
Damn triathletes!
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Re: Lausanne Marathon 2019 – 2:52:42 (19th OA, 4th M41–50) [Francois] [ In reply to ]
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Not just the attire; the shoes are from 2013 or something.

http://powerful-problem-solving.com
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