Sunday, January 29, 2012

Maui Ocean Front 1/2 Marathon ?!Race!? Report

Leading up to this race I did one of the best jobs I've done at hitting my workouts and especially my key workouts. I felt very confident that anything over 1:55 would be a disappointment.

We left Vegas on Thursday am before sunup and not only got on our preferred flights but got upgraded to 1st class on both of them. Pam & I arrived in Maui a little after noon, got checked into our hotel and had a nice little run along the ocean before dinner. Friday am we went for another short easy run I did a few short race pace efforts and then we loaded up for the day and went snorkeling. Had a nice dinner, went to bed about 8 or 9 Hawaii time and a couple of hours later the wheels started to fall off of my race. I woke up about 10 or 11 with a nasty stomach ache, which soon became apparent was some kind of 24hr flu bug. I spent the majority of the day Saturday in bed, I did make it out for a little sun, wind and beach time later in the day and felt like I was somewhat on the mend, I was pretty sure it was 24hr bug anyway. I didn't eat hardly a thing Saturday but did fall asleep about 5 pm and slept pretty much straight through until it was time to get up for the race on Sunday. I decided I'd give the race a shot, I paid for the damn finishers metal and was determined to get it.

Well race morning I did have a little bit of an appetite and a pretty big concern of being dehydrated. I had a protein smoothie and a couple of bottles of Gatorade before we left for the start. I had a protein bar before the race start or part of one anyway and headed to the start or well, the port a john. The time was short to the start the line was long but as weak as I felt I didn't see it as a big deal. I was one of the very last starters to cross the start line about 2 minutes after the gun. It was probably for the best as this way I didn't get caught up in the moment and go out to fast. I had a lot of bobbing and weaving to do the first mile or so then settled into a comfortable pace. I had a water bottle with me and finished that pretty much by the turn 24oz I also had a goo that I took between mile 5 & 6. I was starting to think that I could come close to a 2 hr race if things continued as they were. I picked up the pace a little at the turn and felt ok all things considered and passed quite a few people between the turn and mile 9 then all of a sudden I began to get some kind of pain in my abdominal area or cramping, whatever it was it hurt like hell, so I backed off a little and a little more and the pain continued until I was walking, now a lot of the folks I had passed began to pass back, just not much I could do about it at this point. I ended up run walking the last 3 miles, I was just thankful that I finished. We didn't hang around for long.

I came in 12th out of 20 in my age group with a time of 2:18:48 Gun time and 2:16:59 Chip Time Results

** Mile * * * Pace * * *Avg HR
1. ** 1.05 * * 09:08 * * 136
2. ** 1.09 * * 08:43 * * 145
3. ** 0.99 * * 09:05 * * 145
4. ** 1.06 * * 08:59 * * 144
5. ** 1.04 * * 08:59 * * 147
6. ** 1.03 * * 08:54 * * 148
7. ** 1.14 * * 08:50 * * 152
8. ** 1.03 * * 08:45 * * 156
9. ** 1.05 * * 09:15 * * 154
10. * 1.03 * * 12:47 * * 143
11. * 0.92 * * 14:27 * * 133
12. * 1.07 * * 13:00 * * 134
13. * 1.01 * * 12:20 * * 137


My original plan was to warm up for a mile and a half or so before the race and go out the first mile at about a 9 min pace or just under and pick it up to between an 8:40/:30 to see how it went and then go from there, hopefully to get the average as close to 8 as I could. I did have to make one port o let stop at about mile 10, I'm officially calling this a Shitty Race!!!!! :)

What lingering affects from that bug were either gone or suppressed for the balance of our stay in Maui and we had a great time!!