9 weeks to MCM 2016

Did a 16.5 miler today at sub-10m/m average pace. This was a 37.6 mile week. 

My current thinking on MCM pace is around 10m/m (assuming it's not hot that day).  So far I'm building on my SFM 2016 training and it's going well. MCM has some hills but way way less than SFM so my 4:33 there might be a 4:22-ish given my extra training as well.

My A-goal is of course to get even splits and no fade...pushed quite hard in the 2nd half of SFM and the wheels did come off a little at mile 25-ish.  I lost about 90seconds due to that. No big deal but it was interesting to feel the wall come on quite quickly from mile 24 to 25. 

I'll know more after my 20 milers how the 10 m/m pace idea seems.

I checked out a lot of running blog recaps for information about MCM, and it's amazing how many bloggers just drop the blog completely. 

I'm almost guilty of that but I still make occasional entries and I always make a entries for race recaps. I'm still running!

MCM will be marathon #29, and speaking of that I bought a medal holder (FINALLY) ..I had been using push-pins to stick them up.

Alas, it's almost already full..there's a few half marathons and some age group 2nd/3rd place medals from some trail marathons plus the 28 marathons...so I'll probably have to buy another one in a few months ;)

The caption on the top says "You're only one run away from a good day!". I liked that one the best..my own motto is "Any day you can run a Marathon is a Great Day!"

Gotta get on the ball with finding Marathon #30 and #31! 

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In other news I found this really interesting site called Marathon Investigation. It turns out there are people (actually it seems quite a few) that CHEAT at marathons in order to do things like qualify for Boston. Finding these cheaters is the focus of the site. 

Many people seem to do course-cutting and some lie about their age. 

As I was flipping through the postings on the site I found an entry about the Cleveland Marathon I was at! There was a cheater that course cut that was even in my age group and looked fast. He'd done this at several other races before including previous years Cleveland race.

The dead giveaway for these people is they miss some timing mats and the split where they didn't hit the mat has a crazy fast pace. E.g. they run a normal 10 min/mile pace but they end up running from mile 14 to mile 20, missing a mat at mile 15 say, and the time for that segment ends up implying a 6:30 m/m pace. 

Any runner knows that ain't nobody able to run a 6:30 pace late in a marathon that is normally running several minutes slower.

So you look for missed mats and then crazy fast split that's out of place for that runner's abilities (as shown by previous races too). 

Luckily the race directory figured it out (or the guy at Marathon Investigation let him in on this guys M.O) and he was 'demoted' to the half marathon. And so his 3:37 cheat time looks pretty darn slow for a half marathon.

I'm glad this guy is doing this work. It seems pretty straightforward and not subject to error...i..e he's very careful to not accuse somebody unless the evidence is overwhelming and of course it's the race director's call in the end.

If I ever try to qualify for Boston and succeed, his efforts will make it more likely I get to run it. (Else I get bumped by a cheater..fastest qual time for a given age group gets the slots first..there are a finite number of bibs for each age group slot). 

Why the heck would somebody cheat in a marathon to run at Boston when you didn't deserve it? Crazy.

RunDown: San Francisco Marathon 2016 (#28)

The plan for this race was to target a 4:30 marathon pace (10:17m/m)....I ran Cleveland in May at this pace but SF is much hiller. On the other hand I was better trained. 

In general if I'm not going for a PR I'm emphasizing getting even splits...i.e. having a good, strong second half. It's so much more fun to race that way ...passing lots of young folks that have blown there pacing is good for the ego. ;)

Picked up the bib at the expo and got out of there ASAP. It was in Fort Mason this year, which is a nice place on the water but the parking can be a pain. I got there super early. 

The swag is always good at the SFM. The shirt this year was nice. A *ton* of people wore their shirt in the race. I would *never* wear a long sleeve shirt unless the temps were below 45F. But it is a nice one. 

 I was in wave 5 which starts at 6am-ish. I took this shot in the corral with the new bay bridge (NOT the GG bridge) in the background. You can see the LED art on it that was showing cloud like 'shadow shapes' drifting around.








The shirts are nice, this is the back of the full marathon shirt..the half shirt had the skyline in green which made it easy to tell the difference from far away. 

As usual there were like 20,000 halfers  and 6258 full marathoners. I wore my Maniac shirt and got a lot of "Go Maniac!" shouts from others. I also had some nice chats with a few of then during the race.



The weather was perfect: 55-60F and cloudy. Where else can you run on 7/31 and have that? (Ok maybe Alaska?)

In general my plan for the race worked out pretty well. I ran the flat first 5 miles a bit faster, then I dialed it back for all the mega hills to about mile 17. After that the hills are smaller, but of course your getting more tired so they are very noticeable. 

Then I tried to make up the lost time on the initial hills after mile 17. i almost succeeded but the inability to run the tangents due to crowding cost me too much....I was at 26.5 miles at the finish..ouch, finishing in 4:32:52. 

There's the ~3 extra minutes due to the extra .3 over 26.2 right there. 

I knew that..yup..could see it happening,  but just didn't have enough to make up for it. I did run some fast splits but in the end couldn't close the gap...but I was close ;) In fact, I started to hit the wall finally in the last mile...and only when I saw the finish line could I snap out of it. My last mile pace was 11:24.

Results below, notice I ran the first half in 2:15:46, so a 4:33 means I lost 1m 30s in the second half over even splits. Not bad!

Needless to say, running almost even splits meant I passed a ton of full and 2nd half marathoners that were fading badly, and this helped me push a bit harder. It was good for the 60yr old ego ;)

Bib:	50620
Name:	Paul Rodman
Gender:	M
Age:	60

Overall:	2910 out of 6258
Men:	2179 out of 4122
M 60-64:	28 out of 86 (not bad!)
Age/Grade:	55.07% Place: 1444 / 6258 (not bad!)
Finish:	4:32:52 Pace: 10:25
Chip Time:	4:32:52
Gun Time:	5:04:22

Split Times:

2.3 Mi:	23:04 Pace: 10:02
5.1 Mi:	50:40 Pace: 9:57
5.5 Mi:	57:01 Pace: 10:22
7.5 Mi:	1:18:11 Pace: 10:26
Half:	2:15:46 Pace: 10:22
14 Mi:	2:26:15 Pace: 10:27
16.2 Mi:	2:49:47 Pace: 10:29
23.4 Mi:	4:01:19 Pace: 10:19

A nice cold Lagunitas IPA after the finish. Ahhhhh....

Next up: Marine Corps Marathon on 10/30. That's a nice flat one. But it can get hot.