Post Race Thoughts

5-28-08
Wednesday

I decided not to run track last night as my legs were still quite sore. I did walk two and a half miles and that felt pretty good. I will probably run tonight.

I am not real happy with my trail run after the 10 mile mark. Though I did ok in 11 and 12, 13-15 were horrible as the cramping basically stopped the consistency of my pace and I lost somewhere around 6-8 minutes total.

As I think back and critique my performance Sunday, I have many questions to answer. My race plan seemed right and I executed it well. In my training runs, mostly 5-8 miles in length on Pineland trails, 6-13 miles on the road and a 15 miler on somewhat easier trails, I experienced no muscle fatigue or cramping in the quads or Calf's.

I geared my training along the lines of a half marathon except I ran longer miles on the long runs. Most of my training runs other than the 15 miler was at a faster pace than my 25K average.

The only other time I experienced the cramping in the quads was the marathon in 2006. So what do these two races have in common that would explain the cramping?

In both races I supplemented with endurolytes, I drank Perpetuem paste that I washed down with water at the aid stations, I also ate a gel pack every 45 minutes and drank Gatorade at the stops.

I felt at the time that I hydrated and fueled properly. One thing I did notice, is that I didn't sweat as much as usual but at the same time my pace was slower and my heart rate was lower.

I did walk a couple hills in the 6-7 mile area to keep my heart rate around 150-155.
and I did feel some muscle discomfort before the 10 mile mark but it did not slow me down or concern me at the time. Actually I was worried about my Hamstring causing problems and that was fine through out the race.

Is it possible that I ran too slow in the beginning or that I hydrated too much? Perhaps I didn't train right, maybe for a race this difficult I should have trained on the scale of a marathon instead of a half marathon? Run longer periods of time.
My longest run was 2hours and 40 minutes, the second longest was only 1 hour and 50 minutes and then a lot of runs in the 1 hour to 1 and a half hour range.

I guess before I run another long race, I should figure out where I went wrong. At least now I have a PR to beat in the 25K trail race.