Napa Marathon nutrition plan, or, "how I used up a 3 month allotment of plastic bottles"

It's been bugging me for weeks: my original plan was to just go "ultra-style" and carry an amphipod belt with a 10 oz water bottle and a 5 oz Gu holder. I would refill the water whenever it emptied, and in the process do my best to take in 40-50 oz of fluid over the course of the race. But recently I've been waffling on that, not excited at all at the thought of having a belt hanging from my hips. So I've come up with a plan, and I'm really psyched about it. It took me a couple shopping trips to find what I needed, and a special Napa marathon service to help me out. As it turns out, they take bottles out on the course for you, so I plan to prepare a bunch of bottles that I will have them place at the various water stops. That way I have my water waiting for me, can carry it and drink it for a bit, and when I'm done deposit it neatly in a nearby trash can (I hope - it's not easy being green!).

First a little bit about the bottles: my criteria were, should be between 8-12 ounces; needs a drinking nozzle. As it turns out no bottles fit this criteria, so I had to go with a hybrid model: I bought a 6-pack of these (notice the nozzle) :



















and an 8-pack of these sweet little 10 oz football shaped bottles:



















Next I swapped the caps.

After that I rigged up a duct tape based handle:




















Which I'll use like so:























And finally, I attached an orange marker, so I can see it clearly at the water bottle station, and a gel:

I haven't completely decided what to put in them, but most likely the first 4 will be accelerade and the last two will be Coke. I plan to leave them at miles: 4, 19, 14, 18, 21 and 24.

For nutrition I will carry probably 4 gels (hammer and/or accel gels) with the plan of eating half a gel every 15 minutes. I'll also be carrying salt tablets for extra electrolytes, probably one every 30 or so minutes. And finally I'll have a couple advil. Should I need anything additional I'll get ir on the course, either taped to my bottle or from the gel stations.

As a side note, as I mentioned back in December we Americans go through 25,000,000 h20 bottles every day. Since I came across that statistic I've just about stopped using disposable bottles, but if you think about it it only takes one bottle every ten days per person to maintain status quo. I am really cranking up my allotment, using 3 or more months worth of bottles for this marathon, so I have some making up to do...

Gettin' my ass handed to me

Here's the truth: I've been running with guys who are faster than me on my long runs - and they've been kicking my ass. I haven't pushed like this for several years. Mark and Alberto are 3 hour guys, and they're in that kind of shape. Ian and Ethan aren't there yet with their P.R.s but I think Ethan at least is primed for a breakthrough run - Ian has been travelling a bunch, interviewing for a job at a university, and so he might not be primed. I met these guys through San Jose Fit, and since I was joining so I could run with faster people, I hung with them as best I could, and it's been rewarding and enjoyable. It will also be really interesting to see how the training translates into race times since we'll all be doing Napa. Mark and Alberto are going to try to duck under 3, and Ethan is going for 3:30. He is quite capable of that, but had a bad blow up in his first race - he has problems drinking on the course and I suspect he dehydrated.

Anyway, I thought I'd mention this, since I don't think I've mentioned it in my previous blog posts.

Here's how the long runs go: if it's flat, we run together for first 5 or so. I remind them of the intended pace. They agree, yup we should slow down. We go faster. After 5 miles I slow back to a reasonable pace, the field scatters. They wait for me at the turn. We go again, and we meet up at the end.

If it's hilly, we run the beginning together, I fall back on the ascents, and I chase and try to catch them on the downhill. Then we repeat.

I start feeling slow, but I'm probably getting faster; if I run with the next group the pace is too slow for what the book tells me to run. So I suck it up. The only run I think this may have back-fired was the 23-miler. I was coming into very good form, but running the half marathon and then running a 23-miler was too much. I may not have maximized the benefit of the 23-miler.

Because of the Furman program, I haven't had a relaxing run in probably 6 weeks. It's been interesting. This race is a bit of an experiment so I'm open-minded and I don't mind running hard. Let's see how it feels.

One week till Napa, all systems go

It's been a long time since I ran a serious marathon, really over 7 years. Big Sur was nice, but if I look back on my training my poor result should come as no surprise. With Napa I feel like I did all the work I needed to do, and though I wasn't monk-like in my approach to diet and so on, I feel like I've done enough to ensure a solid performance. In particular I've done track sessions every week, have three 20+ long runs, and have done a long-distance tempo or MP run every week as well. Basically I've done what I can do, and in doing it I haven't injured myself. This week I will do two short but relatively intense workouts, including 6 x 400 meters tomorrow and 3 miles race pace Thursday.

I am also considering race strategy, and rather than worry about mile splits I'm thinking of a positive split approach, running the first half in 1:43 so I have four extra minutes on the back-end to get to 3:30. If I hit 3:30 that will be a good indicator that my training was right on, and in addition I feel there is some head room to get faster in the future. I'm not thinking "what if I miss", but I am mentally giving myself ten minutes of cushion (3:40) to judge the race a success. And I'll give myself ten minutes of upside as a stretch goal. Basically, the last 6 miles are a mystery to me: I've worked a lot on my mental toughness this time around, and I'm hoping I can use those lessons at the end. Obviously though there is no way to know until we get there.

Front Row Seat at the Suffer Fest

Woody Allen once said showing up is 80% of success. So I knew when I showed up at Robert's market on Monday morning in the pouring rain, that we were going up to watch the Tour of California. The fact that neither Chris not Pat had called to cancel meant that they were in too, and I was impressed that we were all too macho or stupid to call it off. Pat pulled up in his car, followed shortly after by Chris, who had ridden an extra ten miles from his house and assured us we'd be just fine (the fact that he'd already been riding made any remaining thoughts of bagging this thing moot).

The route we took was Portola Valley Road to King's Mountain and then up and over Skyline. The first 6 or so miles were enough to test our gear - I don't ride in the rain too often and so was undecided on what jacket to wear. I started with a microfiber jacket but quickly realized that, unlike in running, the wet from the rain was going to chill me to the bone, so I threw on a two-layer (think fleece inside, water "resistant" polyester on the outside)jacket. It soaked in a lot of water but was warm enough to insulate me and my four other layers underneath. We saw no other until we got to King's mountain, and then the die-hards started appearing. Plenty of folks were going up on their bikes, others were making the drive. All-in-all I think riding the bike was less stressful, especially afterwards when traffic was at a standstill.

Nice climb and we were nice and warm by the top. Up there it was pretty serious chaos, with CHP all over trying to control things, random volunteers directing traffic, and cyclists, hikers, etc hanging around in the cold. Down the backside of Tunitas we went, descending into progressively colder environs. We wet up camp about two miles down and waited for the parade.

After all the work it took to get up there, the race was by in a flash. Seeing the pros ride these roads is impressive. Seeing the convoy pass by is, well, frightening. If I wasn't wet already, the Rock Racing driver might have done the job. How more spectators don't get run over is a mystery. the Rock team car is a two-door Cadillac, and the driver was driving like he was on Highway 9 rather than a one-lane back road, built mainly for cyclists and pot farmers. and full of cold, wet, screaming fans.

The descent and ride home were, well, cold, but we got into a good rhythm following each other's rooster tails, and got back in one piece. Round trip was about 26 miles, with a one-hour interruption.

In Case you Missed it...

it sounded like a good idea when he announed it in September, but Lance Armstrong is backing off on his transparent drug-testing program. Read about it here. really that's a shame, because having that kid of tranparency would have been good for the sport. Of course, the reality is that public data doesn't always clarify, apparently reading the data is quite complex and specific to the individual, as we learned last year with the Slipstream testing - basically the layman can't understand it.

Too bad for cycling, too bad for Lance.

races I might medal in

I was always unusually fast at pounding a beer. In my college days there were few faster, large or small. I practiced my freshman year in the cafeteria. I would pound 8 ounce glasses of milk with my dorm-mates and rarely would I lose. I quit the milk circuit after my friend Kevin surreptitiously spiked my milk with about a half cup of salt before the race, leaving me gagging and in second place. But I bumped around the beer pounding minor leagues for a couple more years before hanging it up for good.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that now that I'm back running on the track, I might have a chance to run a respectable "beer mile". The point of the beer mile is as follows:
1) Drink a beer
2) run a lap
3) repeat 3 more times

Now this race is not for big slow beer drinkers. Honestly it probably favors running athletes (ultimate, soccer) more than ascetic distance runners. The local winner last year went a 6:42, obviously no slouch.

If your specialty isn't drinking, maybe you can find a local doughnut run. Basically, this is a 5K with donut stops. The first donut you eat takes 15 seconds from your overall time, the second takes 30, and for each successive donut the time bonus increases 15 seconds. So if you eat, say, 5 donuts, 3:45 comes off your finishing time. Think you could break 15 minutes?

Suffice to say I won't start training seriously for either event before I finish Napa, but we all have dreams.

tapering

it's official, the last of the long training runs is in the books. freaking finally! We did 23 on Saturday, Coyote Creek trail. Much nicer than I'd thought it would be, it gets so dang hot in the summer but right now it is lush. For a long flat run it isn't bad...

as for the run itself, well my fears were justified. It's been a heavy week, with 13 on Sunday, 7 Tuesday and 6 at the track Thursday, and my legs were beat up going into this one. I hung onto a brisk pace for about 16 miles, but slowed considerably towards the end, finishing the entire 23 with an 8:30 average. Still and all it was a good week, totalling 49 miles. I'm ready to bring it down a bit, race like hell in a few weeks, and then switch out the shoes for the bike for a little while.