End of the dream - DNF at LWTM

Ok, maybe the post title is a bit over the top. I sat a goal for myself to get healthy and to reestablish a marathon base by running all of the MN outdoor marathons. I was not concerned with how fast but figured that as the year went on, the base would return and times would improve.

A funny thing about the goal is that I messed up the first part by tearing my medial meniscus (again) in my left knee about 6 weeks back. Using a conservative Galloway method and a cortisone shot I got through the first marathon and went in concerned but optimistic for today's Lake Wobegon Trail marathon.

For anyone considering Lake Wobegon Trail, it is a runners marathon, a nice relatively flat course, great volunteers and a low key event exactly what I love. The course was bit more enjoyable than I expected and the aid stations were often and the volunteers were very encouraging. Before every aid station they had signs with positive sayings, I love that kind of thing as it helps reinforce why I do marathons, to take on something that requires the mind to stay positive so that your body does what it's capable of.

Back to my plans for the race, I had tried to increase my running from 75 to 90 seconds in some test runs leading up to the marathon but quickly learned that was a bad idea as the pain would increase with each run-walk iteration such that after a couple of miles, well it just wasn't much fun. So the plan was to go back to 75 seconds of running and then 60 seconds of walking and hoping it would work again.

The plan worked for 9 or 10 miles but then kind of fell apart as the miles went on. I dropped at mile 18 although I had plenty of time to finish in under their 6 hr time limit as the knee pain had caused me to alter my gait such that I was having hip pain which led to my hamstring tightening up which led to my lower back tightening and as I continued to compensate both of my calves decided to whine too and I was just not capable of running and walking wasn't too pleasant either. The bottom line was I knew that I needed to let go of the MN marathon goal and to go and get the knee repaired or fixed by taking time off of running. So I will be making an appointment with an Orthopedic doctor to see what my options are. I am more than a little leery of another surgery as I am pretty sure that they removed about 1/2 of the medial meniscus in my surgery back in 99. If they remove more will I be able to run at all?

Ok, since I always over analyze things, I figured I should do it one more time, so I need to concede that today's DNF although caused by my knee, I did make a couple of minor mistakes that probably didn't help. In the week going into the marathon I did not take aleve to keep the swelling down, I don't like taking drugs of any sort and the pain was manageable but a little less swelling might have helped. I also had my run-walk app stop about 5 miles in which led to me running for probably 3 minutes and based on my previous runs any extra running more than the 75 seconds had always seemed to cause more swelling which would cause a pain increase and once it did it never decreased. I reset the phone and got the app going again and didn't think about until a few miles later when the pain had started to increase consistently and then everything kind of came apart. After mile 9, my mile pace slowed as I wasn't getting the same push off from the left leg and that's when the hip pain started. Another thing I debated doing that may have helped but I chose not to do, was to wrap the knee to try and keep the swelling done, who knows maybe it would have helped. It's also possible that none of these things would have made a bit of difference.

Am I disappointed, absolutely yes but not about the DNF or not being able to finish all of the MM marathons this year, I am bummed to have to deal with the knee. To know that if I try and run, I will have pain is not fun and I am again set up for a bad year of running. Hopefully the doctor can tell me something that doesn't require surgery or for me to stop running and I can reclaim the year.

Goodbye Lebanon Hills for now :-(

I proved something today, what you may ask? Well that's easy, I need to say goodbye to Lebanon Hills and trails in general for at least a little while as today I proved we aren't a good combination.

I was feeling pretty good about getting through Run for the Lakes and thought my recovery was going great but I still took things slow. I ran short on Tuesday and it felt ok, I gave myself a couple of extra days as things didn't work to get out for any runs and since I had convinced myself everything was doing ok and maybe my knee issue was behind me. So, I decided to do an easy 5 miler in Lebanon. After the first mile I knew I had made a mistake so at 1 1/2 miles I turned around and hobbled on back. Apparently Lebanon has just enough stuff on the trail to cause my knee to wobble or something and even the short downhills around Jensen Lake were an issue and for those that know Lebanon, you know how short and not steep the downhills are there.

So for the next few months I will be running on paved bike paths, hopefully that will give my knee a chance to recover and I can get through the next four marathons. I am happy that I have a chance to continue with the marathons but I will miss the trails. It is on trails where I can find true peace and solitude.

The way I figure it, I have until after Grandmas to get back to trails as I will need to do something so I have a chance at Eugene Curnow in July.

On to Lake Wobegon.........................

Galloway Method explained.............

As part of my analysis of my marathon time at Run for the Lakes, I can't help but analyze the Galloway method that I used:

• Run 75 secs
• Walk 60 secs
• Number of intervals 145 1/2

So what does this mean, it means I get to do some extrapolation of my numbers as it relates to running and walking which the numbers geek inside me loves.

For those that just want the analysis, here goes, I first guesstimated my approximate paces for run-walk intervals as I am not sure of how fast (run pace) or slow (walk pace) I managed but it gives you an idea of how much running you still do even when you run 1 1/4 to 1 ratios. You can see my guesstimates for my run-walk ration here and my actual mile splits at the end of this post (my Garmin totaled 26.5 miles).

Galloway Method – estimates for Run for the Lakes Marathon
Estimate 1	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	10,875	181.25	16.91	10.72	4.68
Walking	8,640	144.00	9.29	15.50	6.77
Total	19,515	325.25	26.20	12.41	5.42
Estimate 2	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	10,875	181.25	17.20	10.54	4.60
Walking	8,640	144.00	9.00	16.00	6.99
Total	19,515	325.25	26.20	12.41	5.42
Estimate 3	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	10,875	181.25	17.47	10.37	4.53
Walking	8,640	144.00	8.73	16.50	7.21
Total	19,515	325.25	26.20	12.41	5.42
Estimate 4	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	10,875	181.25	17.73	10.22	4.46
Walking	8,640	144.00	8.47	17.00	7.42
Total	19,515	325.25	26.20	12.41	5.42

So using estimate 2, I ran for ~17 miles at a 10 min 31 sec pace and walked ~9 miles at 16 min 0 sec pace. Doing this pace with the run-walk brought me home in 5 hrs 25 minutes. The way I viewed the run-walk approach is that I did 145 accelerations with 60 seconds of recovery between accelerations. If I had run all of the miles at this pace, my marathon time would have been 4 hrs 36 minutes, if I had walked every mile, my marathon time would have taken almost 7 hrs. So the run-walk approach cost me around 50 minutes off of my best case result but saved me 90 minutes off of worse case.

Considering the knee pain, it allowed me to finish the race with some energy left over and based on my other 35+ marathons it might have been the easiest especially when you consider training, etc....

Galloway provides the following chart for Walk Break Ratios to give you an idea of ratios to pace:

See more at: http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training

He lists the following principles for the run-walk approach on his site:

• Continuous use of a muscle will result in quicker fatigue
• The longer the run segment, the more fatigue
• Run Walk Run is a form of interval training
• Conservation of resources
• Quicker recovery
• Less stress on the “weak links”
• Ability to enjoy endorphins
• Reduce core body temperature

To which I think all I have proven all to be true. My weak links were my training and knee and I maintained a consistent pace which I have not done so in the past.

So what changes should I make for the next race, I could simply increase the run by 15, 10 or 5 seconds per interval which would result in marathon times of (respectively):

• 5 hrs 16 minutes 37 seconds
• 5 hrs 19 minutes 8 seconds
• 5 hrs 21 minutes 55 seconds

Interesting experiment to verify and the good news is in less than 2 weeks I can, so I think I will shoot for 85 seconds of running followed by 60 seconds of walking. Surely I can manage 10 more seconds, right and if I do I save about 9 minutes off my next marathon. First up though I need to test the knee today to see if I can run.

I love this kind of over analysis, stay tuned for more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

15 Seconds Faster
Next Race	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	11,745	195.75	18.64	10.50	4.59
Walking	7,255	120.91	7.56	16.00	6.99
Total	19,000	316.66	26.20	12.09	5.28
10 Seconds Faster
Next Race	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	11,462	191.04	18.19	10.50	4.59
Walking	7,686	128.10	8.01	16.00	6.99
Total	19,148	319.13	26.20	12.18	5.32
5 Seconds Faster
Next Race	Seconds	Minutes	Miles	Pace (min)	Marathon Time (hrs)
Running	11,136	185.60	17.68	10.50	4.59
Walking	8,183	136.38	8.52	16.00	6.99
Total	19,319	321.98	26.20	12.29	5.37

Run for the Lake Marathon mile splits:

Mile	Mile Pace	Total Pace
1	12:10.39	12:10.39
2	12:18.28	24:28.67
3	12:10.90	36:39.57
4	11:56.52	48:36.09
5	12:27.87	1:01:03.96
6	12:17.83	1:13:21.79
7	12:19.70	1:25:41.49
8	12:21.24	1:38:02.73
9	12:14.07	1:50:16.80
10	12:15.01	2:02:31.81
11	12:09.10	2:14:40.91
12	12:01.69	2:26:42.60
13	11:48.19	2:38:30.79
14	12:17.48	2:50:48.27
15	12:23.92	3:03:12.19
16	12:16.33	3:15:28.52
17	12:15.92	3:27:44.44
18	12:16.27	3:40:00.71
19	12:12.19	3:52:12.90
20	12:51.85	4:05:04.75
21	12:16.91	4:17:21.66
22	12:34.18	4:29:55.84
23	12:22.42	4:42:18.26
24	12:33.80	4:54:52.06
25	13:32.42	5:08:24.48
26	12:03	5:20:27.48
27	5:20.35	5:25:47.83

Run for the Lakes Marathon - Follow-up

I thought I would try to capture a bit more of what seemed to work.

When I mentioned I had tried CoQ10 and Glutathione (synthesized from Cysteine) to keep my energy up, it was based on this youtube video from UltrAspire, the presenter is Charles Corfield, an ultrarunner.



To me everything he presented made a lot of sense which is why I found his theory on CoQ10 and Glutathione, quite intriguing. In the talk he said that it was up to the user to experiment with the dosages and decide for yourself if it works, he suggested the following:

Experiment you can try
•Take 1 NAC capsule every 5 miles
•Take 1 CoQ10 (100mg) capsule every 5 miles

At Run for the Lakes, I took one of each around 2 hrs (~11 miles) and 4 hrs (~19 miles) so about 1/2 of his recommendation.

Another decision I made was to wear my Nathan vest which made me look weird at a marathon but I was comfortable with it. It allowed me to carry everything I needed and with the exception of needing a water bottle refilled to skip all of the aid stations. I felt guilty running or walking through the aid stations as the volunteers were very enthusiastic especially the young kids.

For the Galloway method, I used my run-walk app and set it up with the 75-60 repeat. Turns out I did 145 repeats. It was quite interesting how it seemed to focus me and how quickly the second loop seemed to flow by. Again, maybe it was the fatigue pills, the weather, the course and the Galloway method all working together. I do know that my current hope is that my knee gets no worse and ideally feels better and I can repeat the experiment at Lake Wobegon.

I was quite thankful that I was at Run for the Lakes versus Chippewa as I am very sure if I had tried to do Chippewa, I would have had yet another DNF. At Run for the Lakes any downhill was painful, the hills at Chippewa along with the uneven surface would have destroyed me.