New Orleans Marathon

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/440405880

Well, since my last post I had a few good weeks at end of December and then got injured.  Not sure what it was - tendonitis or pulled groin or both, but it hurt like hell to run, so I took some time off and by the time I decided to get in and see the doctor to make sure it wasn't a pelvic stress fracture, almost 2 weeks had past.  Now those were probably the 2 most important training weeks for a marathon, so that pretty much blew any hopes I had for a good marathon time.  Then when I tried to come back, my quads just filled with lactic acid after a relatively easy 5 mile run - not sure what that was about.

So I slowly come back, but my hip is still bothering me all the way until the day of the marathon.  The Dr. gave me some topical anti-inflammatory which I was taking religiously and that helped to settle things down.

Marathon day rolls around and I walk to the start with my daughter Erika who is running with me (well starting at the same time anyway).  So it is fairly warm and humid at the start - so humid that there was a deep fog.  Well, apparently my body didn't like the humidity or the warmer temps.  My heart rate was too high from the start, hanging in the high 150s even though I was only going about 7:15 pace.  Now if I was smart, I would have slowed down right then until I had my HR in the low 140s, even if I had to walk, but I just kept moving along hoping beyond hope that my HR would come down. 

Next time, I will have one number showing on my Garmin for the first 6 miles: HR.

Split	Time	Avg HR	Max HR
1	07:23.6	151	160
2	07:20.1	157	161
3	07:13.1	156	160
4	07:07.9	158	161
5	07:11.6	159	162
6	07:05.4	158	161
7	07:09.8	158	161
8	07:13.9	156	160
9	07:15.4	155	159
10	07:09.6	156	158
11	07:17.0	154	158
12	07:25.1	152	156
13	07:23.4	151	154
14	07:24.1	150	156
15	07:18.4	153	156
16	07:41.1	149	153
17	07:45.7	146	150
18	08:31.3	142	149
19	08:36.8	141	147
20	09:00.0	137	147
21	08:47.3	141	146
22	08:39.6	143	151
23	08:19.4	147	152
24	09:01.7	145	149
25	08:54.3	144	151
26	08:24.2	149	161
27	02:30.9	160	165

Anyway, the numbers tell the story.  My quads gave out at about mile 15 and I just struggled the rest of the race.  And of course it took me forever to recover.

The good news is I had a great time with my wife, daughter and her boyfriend, my brother, sister-law and niece.  The other good news is my daughter had a 10 minute PR.