The Aftermath

I hope I didn't bum too many people out with crappy experience yesterday. Especially considering that a number of you have your own marathon to run in 6 days. I'll just outline things that I have come to my mind over the past 24 hours and hopefully that'll be the end of that and I'll move on.

Going out too fast. I know I already mentioned it, but it can't be emphasized enough. One should not go out too fast as one will pay for it in the end. I learned this lesson last year in a spring marathon, which prepped me for Chicago last year. I guess I needed a gentle reminder of this fact.

Salt intake. The going out too fast thing aside. One potential issue that I may have is salt intake. The cramping sensation was new to me and having followed Steve's trials and tribulations with his cramping issues, I think that I didn't take enough in the days leading up to the race or during. Last year in Chicago, they were using Gatorade Endurance which apparently has twice the sodium and three times the potassium content of the regular stuff which probably contributed to me having a good race. This year, I had lots of salt on my face after the race yesterday so I must have lost a lot and didn't replenish nearly enough since they use the regular stuff up here. I will have to look into getting some salt sticks or something to take during the race.

Didn't drink enough. I had a concern with having to stop to pee towards the later part of the race so I probably didn't hydrate properly the morning of or even during the race and I think that dehyration had a definite part in me bonking. It's better for me to overdrink and have to pee than to underdrink and hit the wall. It's much easier to take a one minute break to pee than it is to do the death walk which will cost much more than one minute in time.

Caroloading. I don't think I carboloaded properly this year. I had basically pigged out on carbs on Friday and come Saturday, I only had some energy bars for breakfast and a light pasta dinner. I did this last year out of necessity and thought I would try to repeat the experience. I had forgotten though that last year, I also probably ate about 10 gel packs the day before which added both carbs and electrolytes to my diet. I didn't eat any this year.

I've seriously giving thoughts to doing the race in two weeks, provided I have a decent recovery. I know it's highly not recommended and to quote from Pfitz book.

"If you have less than 4 weeks between marathons, you're on your own. Your main concern should be recovery, recovery, and more recovery not only from your first marathon but also from the lobotomy that led you to come up with this plan."

But hear me out, there's a reason to my madness. The December marathons that I'm considering are all net downhill courses which as Quinto Sol has pointed out can be quad busting. I want to try and get a feel for how the quads would react to extended periods of downhill running and the Toronto course is pretty much mostly downhill. After that race, I'll have 7 weeks to a December 2 marathon. Even if I do sign up, I'm fully prepared to DNF if I have to.

Speaking of the Toronto course, I noticed today that the course profile pic I posted yesterday is different from the one they posted in the spring time. This past spring while deciding which Toronto marathon I was going to do, I had commented that one of the marathons (ie, the one in two weeks time) had changed courses. At the time, I actually would have preferred to do that one instead since it was later in the year (and thus cooler) and was a net downhill course. The one wrinkle to the new course however was that it was to run through a park area at about the 30km mark which had a fairly steep hill. I figured that any benefits to the net downhill course would be lost trying to run up a hill at the 30 km mark (like in Boston) so I ended up deciding to do the flatter and earlier Scotiabank one. Looking at the elevation profile today, I noticed that there no longer is the big bump at 30km. I investigated a bit more and looking at the route, the course doesn't even run through the park anymore. When the hell did they make this change? If I had known about this before, I would definitely have pushed my training back two weeks and retargeted that marathon instead since the one concern I had was now gone.

Well that's it for my bitching and griping, I'll be all happy and cheery at least until Sunday night when all of the Chicago runners will have finished. For those that are doing Chicago, I just want to wish all of you a great last week of the taper!