Royal Victoria Marathon- My Debut

Pre-Race Week (A brief account of my journey up to this point) It has been a long 10 month journey leading up to this race. I could not believe that 10 months of training had flown by so quickly and now it was almost time to race. I had spent the first 5 months of the year working on building a solid base foundation, starting off at 50 mpw in early January, and building up to 80 by the end of May. The next 4 months which was basically the whole summer, was devoted to race specific preparation. Due to small setback that occurred towards the end of my hard training phase, I lost 2 weeks of quality work (plus a mileage cutback) in late August, resulting in a 6-week taper, instead of a 3-week one as planned. . Peak weekly mileage was around 85-88 before the injury. As far as specific workouts are concerned, they have been more or less consistent. I have done at least 12 or more 19+ milers including 2 22-milers. Due to the undulating nature of the course, I did specific hill workouts in the middle phase of my training and included hills on some of my longer runs. Tempo and intervals have been relatively consistent for the past number of months. Did a total of 4 tune-up races including 2 half marathons and 2 10ks. (1:26 on a hilly course, 1:25:37, 39:17 for both 10ks) They did not go as well as expected, especially the 10ks, but I guess that was something I had to sacrifice for all that high volume and high intensity training in the summer. Besides I had a bigger fish to fry in October! On top of that there were 2 goal pace runs, one in early August (~13 ran at MP), the other in mid September (11 @ MP) both were indicative of a potential marathon time at least in the low 3s if tapered properly, possibly in the mid to high 2:50s? I contemplated this possibility but I knew I was taking a risk of bonking late in the race if I set my time goal too high. So to keep it safe, my goal of sub 3 was modified again and I decided that I will be happy with anything under 3:10, the Boston qualifying time for my age group, should I fail in my mission in breaking 3 hours. Victoria is a slow course anyways due to its hilly nature and the best times I ve seen, based on previous years results, never went under 2:20. Saturday, October 8th-Off to Victoria I arrived at Victoria via carpool and ferry with my friend (from Coolrunning forums) Ernest and his GF (Lara) at around noon. We went directly to the Expo at the Victoria conference center. After picking up my race kit, I had some fun exploring and shopping the booths and attending the speaker panel sessions featuring a number of Canadian elite athletes including Peter Butler, Bruce Deacon, Simon Whitfield and British marathoner Jon Browne (he ran the Victoria the next day in 63 mins). I checked into the hotel in the mid afternoon and had a sumptious dinner at the organized RVM pasta party. Hit the sack at around 9:30ish and didn t get up until 5:30 the next morning. Sunday, October 9th- Race day matters and such I set off for the race at around 7 am (race start was at 8:30). Breakfast included 3 power bars and several glasses of Gatorade and water. The weather was ideal- 48 degrees at the start and cloudy with no rain. I got to the start at around 8 after a brief warmup. Met up with Ernest and Lara at the start. Ernest was originally aiming for a 2:45 though he has been feeling unwell over the past few days (he ended up with a 2:55) Lara was gunning for a low 3 to sub 3. My goal was a sub 3 but due to the undulating/hilly nature of the course (but nothing compared to the hills I encountered while training near home), I considered readjusting my goal. The out and back course was marked in km markers (I apologize to metric-haters out there!) with intervals of 5 mile markers and a way point (13.1 miles). I was still feeling a bit nervous but at the same time in control. 0-5 km (22:38 ) The first 5k went by quite easily. The faster runners took off My strategy was to hold back during the first half and fly like a bat from hell in (well, an overstatement of course) in the 2nd half. Encountered the first few hills- they were fairly easy to tackle nothing too exciting here 5-10 km (44:37) The next 5k was quite similar in effort & difficulty compared to the first. We had some good views of the ocean at the 9-10k mark. The pace picked up a tad bit (4:13-4:35) except when on the uphills. 10-1/2 way point (1:32:57) The terrain during this stretch began to undulate a bit more, with a few noteworthy hills including a long gradual ascent between 17-18 k. The scenery was great especially when running around the forested Beacon Hill Park and on the seawall/beaches. Only tradeoffs were some headwinds coming in from the Pacific along the seawall. I picked up the pace a bit more (4:10-4:23) and still felt quite good and under control. Passed Lara at around the 15-16k mark. way-25 km (1:48:56) For some reason, this was probably the fastest part of the marathon with splits below 4:10. Terrain was mostly flat with a turnaround point around the 24k mark since it was an out-and-back route. Still felt surprisingly good. 25-30 km (2:10:23) This was where I started to feel some discomfort. This was mostly around my left hip and quad area, both of which tightened up slightly. That bothered me for some time but gradually subsided and did not come up again until near the end of the race. My pace and effort started to pick up significantly, though I had to face another big hill from 28-30k. There were also less people running me than there were in the first few miles of the race It seems like everybody decided to spread out. 30-35 km (2:31:52) Finally entered into the no man s land of the marathon. I was starting to feel fairly tired. There were large expanses in this segment and the next when I was running alone (excluding stragglers/walkers from the marathon), except when passing other runners. I began to really push the pace and effort at this point. The only things that were slowing me down were the hills. 35-40 km (2:53:49) The first couple of km s went pretty well. My legs were getting increasingly fatigued but I still managed to hold the pace. I started running into problems at around 36-37k when my quads started to cramp up (though not too severe). I had been steadily taking in electrolytes via the aid stations since the beginning of the race so that came as a surprise. I had to slow down a little fortunately an aid station was in sight and after getting in some Gatorade, the cramps cleared up by 38k. Passed a number of runners who had apparently hit the wall and were doing the shuffle..it scared me a bit hopefully it would not be me doing it. I glanced at my watch at the 40k mark and mildly disappointed that I just narrowly missed my sub 3 goal...a 3:02-3:03 however seemed possible at this point. 40-42.2 km (3:03:55); 2nd : 1:30:58 This proved to be the toughest stretch. In addition to overall fatigue, the quad cramps came back with a vengeance and increased severity in the last mile. I still managed to grit my teeth, grimace in pain and ran it through, telling myself that there was less than a mile left to go. The cheering crowds helped boost morale abit. The cramps fortunately subsided in the last 300 m, so at least the finish photo would not look too agonizing to look at! Finished with a gun time of 3:03:59 and chip time of 3:03:55 didn t hit my goal time of sub 3, though it was close but leveled my secondary goal of sub 3:10. I was glad that it was over. Official Results 3:03:59 gun, 3:03:55 chip; 65/1958 overall, 62/1084 in division, 3/26 in M2024 AG (a BQ and hardware!) :banana: Splits 1- 4:44 2- 4:29 3-4:41 4- 4:20 5- 4:23 6- 4:35 7- 4:26 8- 4:18 9- 4:24 10- 4:13 11- 4:23 12- 4:17 13-4:23 14- 4:10 15+16- 8:31 17- 4:51 (?) 18- 4:20 19- 4:10 20+21- 8:43 22+23- 8:08 24- 4:02 25- 4:16 26+27- 8:29 28- 4:20 29+30- 8:36 31- 4:22 32- 4:21 33- 4:13 34- 4:18 35- 4:14 36- 4:10 37- 4:21 (cramped) 38- 4:37 39+40- 8:47 41+42.2- 10:04 (major cramp up) Epilogue Overall this was quite a well-run race. Great expo, pasta party, scenery, and post race brunch, not to mention the unusually colored sweat shirts. I would highly recommend this race to anyone looking for a marathon in the Pacific NW. Even though I didn t crack 3 hours, I guess it s pretty decent for a slow hilly course, especially with the negative split I ll probably be under 3 on a flatter and faster one. Anyways now it s onward to a well-deserved month-long break from training/racing. I ll probably take a break from the longer distances next year and focus on getting some fast 5/8/10k times. The base that I ve built up this year will probably help I m really out of practice for those distances