How not to run a marathon

So you are just improving and improving and then it all caves in. Well, that is what pretty much happened to me at this years Cayman marathon. I started with high expectations, but ended up walking for a fair amount of the way and with a time that was far off my goal time. My final time was the slowest to date and even slower than the marathon split in my recent Ironman. I ran the first quarter marathon in 43 minutes and the half in 1h33, but then it got ugly time-wise. What went wrong? I think it is a combination of different factors.

First, I haven't been feeling at the top of my game the whole week. On several occasions I have had fairly severe headaches and generally felt a bit miserable.

Second, and potentially related to the above, I never felt good at any point during the marathon, even from the outset my stomach was giving me trouble and felt slushy, i.e. the feeling you get when running with a stomach full of water. Although I had breakfast at 3am in good time for the 5am start it was as if none of that food had been digested. The result was that I hardly had any fluids (water or Gatorade) or gels on the first 21 km.

Third, I have been pushing my body to new limits the whole year, with a half Ironman in May, an Ironman in October, an Olympic distance triathlon two weeks ago. The accumulated fatigue from these events may have taken its toll.

Fourth, my peak event this year was the Ironman in October and I have been doing no long runs since finishing that event. While you can get away with shorter distance running for a half marathon, going the full distance requires the long 2.5 hr+ runs.

A fifth and final reason could be pacing, i.e. going out too hard. However, I doubt this was the case, since my training has for the past 4 months indicated I could run at the pace I was going. I had actually planned to run the first half just under 1h30m, but even that didn't happen.

If I was to pick the main one reason, I think it was my stomach and lack of fluid and energy that caused the grief. After the race my stomach was seriously upset and I ended up vomiting and doing other nasty things for about an hour before I felt any better and could sleep a bit. I would have loved to be at the awards ceremony, but I was simply too ill and tired to even consider it.

My race disaster aside, my training buddies all did very well, Scott and Marius setting new course records (full and half respectively) and Russ and Beth both setting PRs. So we must be doing something right. Anyways it is time to relax for the rest of the year, train very little (if any), drink some beers and have fun with family and friends.