Prairie Fire Wichita Marathon Report

My 20th marathon is in the books.  Sunday I ran the Wichita Prairie Fire Marathon.  I'm pleased to say this turned out to be one of my good performances despite not setting any personal records.  

Before I talk about the race, let me first mention the PF Expo the day before.  I was scheduled to work the last couple hours of the expo in the RunWichita running club's booth.  Before that however, I got to meetup with running bloggers Jim (50 after 40) and Michael (Slowly Tri-ing) who were in town from Missouri to tackle the full and half marathons respectively.  I had met Jim before at the Austin marathon in 2011, but this was my first time getting to meet his wife.  Michael was a bit under the weatherly, but we had a great conversion for probably 20 to 30 minutes about all things running.

Blogger Meet up with Jim and Michael at the Prairie Fire Expo. 

As we were saying our goodbyes, the PF race director walk by and asked me if I'd do an interview for the local news.  I spent about 10 minutes in front of the camera, and thankfully he did lots of nice editing so that when it appeared on the ten o'clock news, I sounded halfway intelligent.

Screen shot of my 2 minutes of (local) fame.  Don't try and press 'play' it's only a picture.

Now, on to the race.

My mindset heading in was to shoot for a 3:30 (8:00 pace) if everything was perfect.  If not, I felt setting a new PR was still in the cards, I just needed to maintain an 8:10 average pace, which my long runs told me was possible.  With the injuries I've had this year, my mileage base was low.  I have literally done one 16 mile, one 17 mile, one 18 mile, and one 20 mile run all year, so I wasn't sure how I would handle the last 10k of the marathon.  With that in mind, my 'C' goal was to average about an 8:20 pace, or finish sub 3:40.

My pace wasn't all I was thinking about.  I had a marathon fail last year when I focused too much on pace when there were early warning signs pointing to it being too fast, I mostly ignored them and I paid the price.  Since then I've dedicated myself to paying attention to my heart rate and not allowing it to go over certain levels.

This time around, my marathon would be based off of my heart rate.  For the first half dozen miles, I planned on a HR around 165 bpm.  For miles 7 - 12, I was prepared for my HR to gradually increase up into the low 170s, and make sure it stayed under 175.  For miles 13 - 20, I was hoping to keep HR between 175 and 180.  If I hit 181 before mile 20, it would be time to slow down.  If those heart rates sound high to you, it might help to know that my max heart rate is over 200, and my lactate threshold heart rate was tested to be 183 over the Summer.  By mile 20, it should be pretty obvious how my race is shaping up, and I can go back to running by feel for the last 10k.

Here is my Wichita Prairie Fire Marathon 2012 race breakdown, courtesy of Garmin:

Split	Time	Distance	Elevation Gain	Elevation Loss	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	08:18.2	1.00	39	0	8:18	159	168
2	08:12.5	1.00	0	47	8:12	165	170
3	08:20.1	1.00	14	14	8:20	165	173
4	08:17.9	1.00	50	0	8:18	172	177
5	08:13.8	1.00	6	9	8:14	171	176
6	08:14.6	1.00	17	0	8:15	170	177
7	08:20.2	1.00	0	16	8:20	170	176
8	08:07.5	1.00	0	38	8:07	170	177
9	08:29.4	1.00	49	0	8:29	171	175
10	08:12.8	1.00	16	22	8:13	174	180
11	08:16.7	1.00	52	63	8:17	174	178
12	08:14.5	1.00	55	44	8:14	171	176
13	08:13.2	1.00	54	104	8:13	173	179
14	08:15.3	1.00	33	6	8:15	178	183
15	08:11.2	1.00	0	52	8:11	177	181
16	08:26.3	1.00	46	36	8:26	178	180
17	08:22.0	1.00	16	0	8:22	177	181
18	08:35.0	1.00	14	16	8:35	177	180
19	08:40.5	1.00	43	39	8:40	179	182
20	08:32.9	1.00	74	55	8:33	178	181
21	08:35.8	1.00	0	43	8:36	180	184
22	08:24.1	1.00	39	32	8:24	181	185
23	08:27.8	1.00	69	27	8:28	183	186
24	08:37.7	1.00	32	41	8:38	183	186
25	08:56.3	1.00	33	47	8:56	183	186
26	08:26.0	1.00	25	0	8:26	185	190
27	01:44.7	0.22	0	30	7:55	193	197
Summary	3:39:46.6	26.22	777	782	8:23	175	197

If you take the time to go over my splits above, you'll notice that I ran a pretty controlled race with my heart rates slowly increasing, and my paces staying fairly consistent as the wind or inclines would allow.

Speaking of wind.  That was the main enemy of this race.  The official wind data reports showed 12.3 mph average wind speeds with sustained winds at 23 mph, and maximum gusts of 31 mph.  That coupled with 58º starting temps, and finishing temps in the mid 60s with sunny skies.  It seemed no matter which direction we ran there was a headwind.  Of course there were some tailwinds to help out including most of the last two or three miles, but the damage was already done.

My official chip time was 3:39:46.  I missed my first two goals, but scored on my third.  When all the above factors are combined with finishing only 5 minutes over my PR, I felt really good about this race.  I'm honestly not sure what I could have done differently that would have given me a faster time.   This might have been my smartest marathon to date.  Compared to the rest of the field, only 13.4% of the runners finished ahead of me whereas last year that percentage was 0.5% higher.

Marathon Pics:

Rate My Ensemble:  Ladies, Fashion Police (and queer eyes for straight guys), do I get extra points
for successfully coordinating different brands of blue shorts and shirt while having an exact color
match?  Or do I look like a box of pastel chalk threw up all over me? 

High five for my 8 year old who's now inspired to run a half marathon.  Is my hair on fire?

Crossing the finish line in 3:39:46 chip time.

Finisher shirt.  Check.  Finisher medal.  Check.  Time to find the beer garden.

It's really hard to smile looking into the sun.  My wife and kids come out to support me at all my marathons.
Note: Wife behind camera.  She's a great race photographer.

My 4 year old daughter had a long morning.  She fell asleep on the car ride home.  But that doesn't stop us
from taking her picture when she pouts.

Update:  If you would like to read more about the race itself and less about me, visit my next post where I review the Prairie Fire Marathon.

Johnston's Half Marathon Race Review

Saturday I ran the Johnston's Half Marathon in Wichita, Kansas.  Here's a brief description off the race's website: 

Following last year’s popular course, the route starts through the streets of Wichita’s beautiful Riverside Neighborhood. Then it runs along the Arkansas River until it loops by the Keeper of the Plains. Onward you’ll run, past Waterwalk and Exploration Place until you return along the river and to the finish at Central Riverside Park. This is a fast and scenic course!

Let me pause while you Wikipedia all those landmarks...  ...  ...  They are what our Chamber of Commerce likes to think of as tourist attractions.  The Keeper of the Plains is kinda our 44 foot version of the Statue of Liberty while Exploration Place is as close as we get to the Smithsonian, only 15x smaller and more for kids. All kidding aside, I really don't have anything bad to say about what Wichita has to offer, it's just a smaller market.

Although, there is one more thing I would add to the race's description...  "Get ready for some rain."

I don't know what it is about the last 6 months here in the Midwest, but I had gone over ten years without seeing much more than a couple sprinkles during a race.  Now, 5 of my last 7 races including 2 full marathons and a half marathon involved rain.  More on that later.

This is typically the one half marathon I run each year.  It's probably the second most popular race in Wichita. Over 900 finished it this year, and I'm sure those numbers were down due to the fair weather rain wussies out there.  Last year there were over 1,200 registered, and registration has grown from year to year.  One of the reasons I like this race is because I see so many running friends there who I don't normally get to hang out with.  After the race Sunday, I can think of 19 meaningful conversations I had with friends.

Did I mention rain earlier?  I knew it wasn't going to be good when I looked at the hourly weather forecast that morning and it had a picture of Noah's Ark.  Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it said there was a 100% chance of precipitation during the race.  With a bit of luck, there was only light rain off and on as the race got underway.  A couple miles in, the course narrowed to a bike path, which wasn't a bad thing except there quickly came some little valleys here and there that contained mud and water runoff.  If you put forth some effort, you could maneuver to different sides of the path to avoid the water hazards.  Outside of that, the first 10 miles were fairly uneventful weather wise. There were water and Gatorade stations about every 2.5 miles, and I took a drink at each one to make sure I was hydrated.  Temperature was about 60º for the race, and although that is warmer than ideal, the rain kept me cool enough to mask any sweating that I did.

Looks like a picture from "Rave Run" in Runner's World, except without all
 that scenery and stuff.

Somewhere after getting past 10 miles, the rain really started coming down.  Water made its way into my eyes and I did my best to ignore it.  One thing I thought to myself being the awesome optimist that I am was that rain water doesn't sting your eyes like sweat does.  The middle miles of the course is a loop, but several miles before and after that follow the same out-and-back path including the valleys mentioned above that contain even more mud and water by now.  So, with the rain coming down in sheets, I was also running through puddles of mud and water.

Not everything sucked.  By now I was on my way to a negative split for the second half of the race, and with the faster pace, I started to focus on each runner in front of me and running them down one by one.  Not sure how many I left in my wake (get it? wake?), maybe a dozen, but I do know no one passed me the last 4 or so miles.

Pretty awesome picture of the conditions, just wish my eyes were open
 instead of acting like windshield wipers.

I have made very good strides these last couple months since recovering from my hip flexor, but going into the half marathon, I was sure that I wouldn't be able to maintain a 7:20 pace that won me an awesome PR last year.  Still I hoped to run a 7:30 pace, maybe faster if I underestimated myself.  As the race went on, my GPS reported a variety of paces, but I knew I was in the ballpark of where I planned to be.  I told myself in the last couple miles that no matter what my time turned out to be, I should be happy with my performance.

I crossed the finish line with an official time of 1:37:23.  Despite what I just told myself, I was mildly disappointed not to be in the 1:36:xx realm, cause it seemed a long way off of my 1:36:02 PR from last year.  In reality, I surpassed my 7:30 goal pace by averaging 7:26, and I did it in warmer than ideal 60º weather while being hampered by the rain.

2Slow4Boston Johnston's Half Marathon
Chip Time	1:37:23
Overall Place	58/923
Age Group	7/59
Average Pace	7:26

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR
1	07:35.3	1	7:35	162	174
2	07:24.6	1	7:25	173	180
3	07:33.6	1	7:34	174	182
4	07:28.3	1	7:28	177	185
5	07:18.1	1	7:18	178	182
6	07:19.4	1	7:19	180	187
7	07:29.1	1	7:29	182	186
8	07:28.4	1	7:28	180	186
9	07:29.1	1	7:29	182	186
10	07:23.4	1	7:23	184	188
11	07:13.0	1	7:13	187	190
12	07:20.4	1	7:20	186	189
13	07:06.0	1	7:06	189	193
14	01:18.0	0.2	6:39	194	195
Summary	1:37:27	13.2	7:23	180	195

After the race I was hanging out, having all those conversations I referred to earlier when the awards started.  I made my way over to continue my socialization skills that us engineers need to work on from time to time.  Little did I realize until they called my name as the 6th place runner my age that they were handing out awards for the top 6 runners in each age group.

40 - 44 age group winners (The big guy was a race official).

My marble age group award.

For whatever reason, the data entry people screwed up a lot of runner's information before the race so the results had a lot of omissions and errors.  One friend had her bib number assigned to another guy, and she had to inform them of the error for her to get her age group award (Now I see her listed in the results with 2 different finish times).  After I got home from the race, I went to look at the online results, and I was now listed as 7th in my age group meaning I didn't deserve the age group award that I got.  I mentioned it to the race director who wasn't concerned.  He told me to just keep the award, but it doesn't feel right.  I felt a little funny about getting an age group award anyway that wasn't for the top 3.  Should I keep the award along with the story to tell?

Official shirt and finisher's medal.

In case you were wondering, this is a cropped picture of my left foot.
 If this grosses you out, feel free to focus on my manicuring skills.
Thanks to running in soggy shoes most of the race, I rubbed the skin
raw between the two toes.  Why it happened in this spot is
 beyond me, but I ran a full marathon in the rain last December
without a problem.

Next on my agenda is some 10k training.