The Non-Cancelled Marathon Strategy
Carb loading
On Friday, I plan to follow my modified Western Australian carb loading procedure. The goal is to take in approximately 11-12 grams of carbs/kilogram body weight. I haven't weighed myself in months. Steph is going to weigh me Friday morning, but I'm not going to look. I'll record it for record keeping purposes. Sometimes that number gets in my head. But I'm guessing I'm in the 175-180 range based on how my clothes are fitting. So 180 pounds is 81.6 kg. So if I aim for 11-12g/kg bw, then I'm looking to be around 900-980 grams carbs.
So instead of 80% of my carbs being sourced from liquid sources, I will instead get about 50% of my carbs from liquid sources and continue to eat almost normally. The goal is to eat at least 11 g carbs/kg body weight as I did in November/January 2020. I had no ill effects from this strategy prior and felt absolutely great on race day. So early Saturday morning, I will get in my 20 min run w/ strides. I'll drink chocolate milk and Maurten 320. I'll continue to drink Maurten 320 throughout the day aiming for 5-6 total packages. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner I'll eat somewhat normally. I'll drink extra water to thirst and drink 1-2 Liquid IV throughout the day. The 6 Maurten packages would be 480 grams. My dinner is 100 grams per the Hello Fresh recipe. My chocolate milk is 60 grams. My double rice packs at lunch is 160 grams. And my breakfast is around 50 or so carbs. So in total, that's 850 grams. A few snacks here and there will get me to the 980 gram goal.
Race Morning Nutrition
On Saturday morning, I will drink 16-24oz of Liquid IV around 4:30am (approximately 2 hours before my last opportunity for the bathroom around 6:30am). I will eat my PB sandwich around 4:30am as well. I'll drink Maurten 320 about 15 min prior to race start (6:45am).
In-Race Nutrition and Hydration
As for fueling during the race, I'm planning the following:
minus 15 min - Maurten 320
45 min - Tailwind Concentrate
60 min - Maurten Caff gel
75 min - Egel
105 min - Tailwind Concentrate
120 min - Maurten Caff gel
135 min - Egel
165 min - Tailwind Concentrate
There are no aid stations on the course. So Steph will be near the mid-point of the race to pass off water to me. To keep the timing as normal as possible, we plan to do the following:
We bought 20oz plastic sport bottles. Not my favorite choice, but I don't know how disposal is going to go yet.
Race Pace Strategy
Admittedly, I've had a tough time nailing down a pacing strategy I like. I look at historical HR data for marathons (145-151) and see what I've done in training to suggest something in the 7:00 min/mile range is doable. Conversely, I look at my pretty high correlation between my Garmin VO2max value and my VDOT race performance which suggests something a bit slower. I think I'm going to play this one conservatively. The course offers a unique opportunity being an out/back four times course. Which means in essence I get four laps of the same course.
My Garmin VO2max was a 57 at the end of last week. It never got higher than a 57 despite my disagreement with the output. Given the current weather projections, a healthy marathon finish will be between a delta of 6-7. So that puts me between a 3:07:30-3:10:45 or a 7:09-7:16 min/mile. My PR is a 3:14:05 and 7:24 min/mile.
The course design is simple. The grade adjusted pacing is zero.
https://www.strava.com/activities/4015398377/overview
Although there is a tiny bit of GAP on the out and back. But all in all, the variance is negligible. So I will treat the out and back equally.
In training, my body seems to take about 4-6 miles before it really settles in. So I want to be conservative on the first lap. I think I'll aim for 7:20 pace with a 48:02 lap goal. The second lap I'll drop to the low end of my marathon projected pace towards a 7:15 with a 47:30 lap goal and 1:35:31 HM checkpoint. That would be my second fastest of my 15 marathons (Lakefront 2017 was a 1:33:32 and Disney 2018 was a 1:35:46). I should have a pretty good idea how the day is going to go by this point. If things are still feeling easy, then I'll work my way down to the high end pace zone of a 7:10 min/mile and lap of 46:57 (2:22:28 split). This will put me at Mile 19.65. Based on all previous 14 marathons, the inflection point of when my pace begins to fall off is around Mile 18-22. So this is when I will put my complete effort into the final lap. If this goes anything like the Madison November 2020 HM, then while my effort will increase significantly, my pace will not move by much. So I think I'll either hopefully maintain pace (7:10 and 47 min lap) or drop down by about 10s per mile to a 7:00 (46 min lap). This would put my final finish time at between 3:08:30 to 3:09:30. It would also essentially split the difference between my 3:07:30-3:10:45 projection. My hope is that the rush of being a Pac-Man will carry me through the finish line.
Maybe this ends up being too conservative. I can live with that. Even a 3:09 would still represent a PR after 3.5 years of failed attempts. Alternatively, if it ends up being too aggressive, then we'll see that in the last lap. If I can't maintain or increase pace the last lap, then it's hard to say I could have gone faster during the first three laps and done better.
The legs have felt very fresh during the first mile of last Sunday's LR and yesterday's 2x5 min M Tempo workout. Yesterday I was doing a 8:00 min/mile for the first mile and it literally felt like I was walking. Things admittedly got tougher once the M Tempo started and the T+D of 131 did me no favors. Afterwards, my quad area near my knees was protesting again like Disney 2020. Nothing a little ice didn't solve though. Taper Madness is a killer. It's all in my head.
So my final prediction is a
3:09:01.
