Silicon Valley Marathon - Race Report

This past Sunday, I did the Silicon Valley Marathon, my second marathon. I signed up way back in July, before I had even done my first marathon (for some stupid reason). Anyhoo, though I hadn't done a real long run (just a couple of 15-16 milers) since the SF marathon in August, it went pretty well. I actually felt much better at the end than I did for SF, and finished about 11 minutes faster in 4:27 (still dog slow).

Pre-Race Prep

I ran a hilly 25K (about 4500 ft elevation gain) the Sunday before the marathon, which probably was not a great idea in retrospect. My quads were still fairly sore on Wednesday, 4 days before the marathon. I did easy 3.25 mile runs on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday before the marathon, and then took it easy on Friday and Saturday.

The day before the race, I stuck to my normal pre-long run eating routine, with the exception of subbing apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast instead of toast & a banana. Chef Ko's vegetable fried rice (no baby corn) for lunch, and pasta primavera (homemade, of course) for dinner. Plenty of water, and added some Nuun as well to make sure the electrolytes were balanced and up to par. Got to sleep fairly early thanks to a couple of melatonin, and was all set for the morning.

Race Day

Woke up at 4:00am (race started in downtown SJ at 7:00am) and had my normal race/long run day breakfast of toast with PB&J and a banana, 2 cups of coffee, and about 40oz of water with Nuun. The weather was good, but felt like it was going to warm up quite a bit. I didn't feel the need for any long sleeves or gloves, which is not a good sign at 6:30am and you know you're going to be running for 4.5 hours. Ideally it would have been about 10 degrees cooler. Oh well.

I made it downtown at about 6:30 and parked about half a mile from the start/finish. Made it over to the start just in time to wait 10 minutes for the porta potties. As I was waiting in line, I noticed these 2 guys, looked like brothers, chatting it up with their parents. The race starts in downtown SJ, runs along the Los Gatos Creek Trail to Los Gatos HS, and then turns around and comes back. The parents were going to meet the brothers at the HS and give them some Red Bull, etc. for the last half of the race. Didn't think much of it, used the porta potty, and headed off to run.

iPods are really popular at these things (I can't run with music), which gave rise to a minorly humorous moment at the race start. There was a guy running barefoot (which apparently is really the way to go), and I guess this woman thought that was pretty cool. Both her and her running friend had earbuds in, so as she was telling her friend about Mr. Barefoot, she screamed it loud enough for the entire race to hear. I guess she never learned that lesson about wearing headphones makes you talk really loud, which is obvious to everyone but the person talking. Anyhoo, I LOL'ed.

I felt really good for the first 15 miles, and actually ran a faster half marathon than I had in the previous 2 halfs I had done. I am almost certain I can run a sub 2 hour half (not that that is fast), but I'll try that some other time. I normally do a walk/run combo (referred to as the 'Galloway Method') of about 5-6 minutes running & 1 minute walking on my long runs. It had been so long since I had done a long run, though, so I mixed it up a bit and did more like 1 mile run/30 seconds walking. It actually turned out fine and probably helped my time a bit.

I run the Los Gatos Creek Trail a lot (2-3 times a week) and pretty much know every inch of it (it's about 10 miles point to point). I think this helped my psyche a bit, since I had a good sense of distance, etc., and just knew what to expect since probably 70% of the race is on the Trail. What I didn't expect was the little hill that came after the halfway point. It wasn't too bad, though, and I kept on plugging.

I didn't really hit the famous marathon wall this time, which I was damned thankful for. I definitely slowed down a bit, but I felt OK finishing the race. I carried a handheld water bottle for the race, took about 8 SCaps, and about 8-9 Accelerade gels during the race. I also ate a few banana pieces at the water stops and had probably 10-12 ounces of the Cytomax drink they had at the water stops. The heat definitely got pretty bad after about 10. The high that day was about 80, and I could feel it. I started dousing myself with water at about mile 20.

At about mile 23 came the 2nd humorous spot for the day. The 2 brothers I saw chatting it up in the porta potty line passed me at about mile 10. They were looking pretty good, holding up well. One of the brothers, unfortunately, wasn't doing so well at mile 23. He was staggering side to side, walking really slowly and erratically. Almost as if he had been shot trying to cross the DMZ, and he was trying to struggle the last few steps to get back to his side. Except there was about 3.5 miles left to go. I passed him and his face looked like a damned zombie, totally drained. I don't know how/if he made it to the finish, but it reminded me that the marathon is a serious distance that requires serious preparation. Hopefully he made it in OK.

I finished without too much incident, and was actually able to speed up a bit for the last mile or so and finish fairly strong. At the finish line, though, my legs were pretty beat, and I was regretting parking so far from the finish line.

Post-race food included a couple of bags of Jelly Belly Sport Beans and a bagel at the finish along with some random energy bar and drink they had. Lunch/dinner that evening was 3/4 of a large pizza from Sal's. Probably not the best recovery food, but a craving's a craving.

Anyhoo, that's it - here are my various splits: