"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail"

Got my butt out the door early this morning...woohoo! Only and easy 4 miles. Wanted to get a run in and have time to make breakfast for the family. Most of my runs have been after work. It's good to get a feel for what it's like to run in the mornings. Race day is only 6 more wakeups away. I sure love the anticipation leading up to a marathon. 

After my run, I made pancakes and waffles for the family (my in-laws were still here). I'm such a bad influence on them. They see the types of food I eat and must be thinking "and this guy runs marathons".

bfast: 1 waffle and 2 pancakes w/ strawberries and whipped cream, butter, syrup, 1 cup of coffee, 1 cup OJ. 

lunch: Pizza Hut buffer (I'll spare the sordid details). It was my wife's parents' treat..I couldn't say no. Though I did drink water with the meal.

dinner: Sonic Chicken Wrap, oranage slushy. 3 homemade cookies.

(I plan to go coffee-less for the rest of the week..I only back-slid this week due to my MIL being in town, and it was there). I am so weak...

Rest day.

Not much to report today. Less then 5 days until Cowtown!

Ran 5 easy miles after work with Darin. AP: 7:50

PC: 30-30-30-30-50 (yes, that's for real...even surprised myself)

bfast: 2 bowls honey nut cheerios, 1% milk

lunch: brough lunch from home (sandwich, chips, 16oz Sprite (no caffeine this week), yogurt, and a mini-cupcake)

dinner: French dip, chips, milk, 2 mini-cupcakes (the birthday cupcakes are almost all gone...can't wait)

4 days 'til Cowtown!!!

Today was actually a rest day. The weather was so beautiful at lunch time, (75 degrees) I decided to walk around outside. I tried to call my father to wish him a happy birthday, but no answer. So, I called my mom, and talked with her for a while. Most of my family is in Illinois. They miss me (not sure why) :-)

About 2 days 'til Cowtown. The current weather has temp at start time around 44 degrees, but 20 MPH WIND OUT OF THE NORTH!!!! The last six miles of this marathon come from the south...so can you say 20 MPH headwind?!?! There's still time for the weather to change..I just hope the wind is a little calmer until we finish. It is what it is...this should make pacing extra fun!!!

bfast: 2 bowls cereal, 1 banana, milk

lunch: sandwich (some kind of deli meat, not sure what), strawberries, chips, Sprite.

snack: yogurt

dinner: about a pound of cheese tortellini and red sauce (marinara). milk, a handful of yogurt covered raisins.

 OK...what happened to Teena's account! Did she say too many bad words and get kicked out? :-)  What's up?

Ran an easy 4 miles at just under 8:00/mi after work with Darin. Darin's running the 1/2 marathon on Saturday with his 15 y.o. son. This might be the year when the boy overtakes his father and finishes first. This will be his son's first 1/2 marathon, and he might be in for a little surprise. It's all about preparation and pacing. We'll see if the old, wiser patriarch prevails! :-)

My shoulders were a little sore today during the run. No more pushups until after Saturday!!

Tomorrow is packet pickup. I'll head to downtown Ft Worth and lunch time and get all my goodies. I'll pick up about 5 GUs or PowerGels--I'll probably get three of them with caffeine, for the extra boost in the second half. This is exciting!!!!!

 I'm messing with my Garmin today, trying to figure out which fields to display for optimum pacing. I'm turning OFF the auto-lap feature, so I can manually hit the "lap" button at each mile marker to give me a more accurate idea of where I am. Even if my Garmin says 26.5 miles when I finish, I'm still only getting credit for 26.2, and need to make each lap average 8:23/mi...I'm going to have "Avg Lap", "Last Lap", "Laps", and "Current Lap" on one screen. HR, elapsed time, distance (in case I forget what mile I'm on), Avg Pace on the other screens. I'm also going to wear an "old school" Timex on the other wrist -- I'll probably set the timer to 3:40:00 and start it counting down once I cross the finish line. Sometimes it's easier in the later miles to divide the miles remaining by the time remaining to figure out what kind of pace I need to maintain to the finish. Can you say, I'm overthinking this Pacing role just a little bit..:-)

OK, enough of my pre-race babblings..

bfast: shredded wheat, milk

lunch: PBJ, small bag of potato chips, yogurt, grapes, water

dinner: Chicken/pasta/spinich/bleu cheeses/ strawberry salad, milk, 2 biscuits w/ honey.

Well it's off to my massage appointment....(my wife is a massage therapist...lucky me!!!!)

Cowtown Marathon - 3:40 Pace Group Leader.

That was a blast!!!! I was so worried about the weather, and I guess I must have prepared for it and managed to hit my splits fairly closely. At the expo yesterday I bought an optic yellow/green sleeveless windbreaker..I was thinking wind break, and maximum visibility for the pace group to find me. It turned out to be just what I needed. I also bought a new headband / ear covers...wow, they were perfect for today (I usually wear a stocking hat or stay inside when it is cold outside). Not sure why I've never gotten one of those before. They're great.

Up at 5:00. In downtown Ft Worth by 6:15 (7:30 start time). The owner of Pizzeria Uno (yum) is a local ultramarathoner and opens the restaurant up to the local running club...can you say "flush toilet?" (sweet). I felt like I was in the elite tent or something :-)

Mosied a block down to the starting line at about 7:15, and stood in a freezing wind tunner for what seemed like an eternity. While there a local newspaper reporter took my picture and asked me a bunch of questions, so maybe I'll make it into the Startelegram tomorrow.

I was a bit nervous as the wind was at a constant 20+ MPH directly into our faces at the start.

The race started about on time at 7:30 and we were off. I kept telling myself not to do my usual take off too fast routine. My first split was a bit slow...so I made up for it in the next couple miles.

The miles just flew by. A few people were talkative, which really helped. A few people were going for Boston qualifiers, one guy was running his first marathon. I have no idea how many people were in my group until the half marathoners split off from the marathon route at about Mile 8.  I looked back to see a pack of about 20 runners. It stayed that way until we hit a gradual uphill section around mile 14, when I noticed we had lost a few. At about mile 16 we headed back into the wind and up some hills, and then they started dropping like flies. I did my best to keep and "even effort" -- going slower up the hills, and a little faster when the wind was behind us.

At the halfway point we had about a 2 minute cushion built up. This isn't much..but I knew we would almost all of it. With 5 miles to go I remember calculating that we would have to run 8:40/mi for each mile on the way back. By mile 23, my pack dwindled to 3 other runners. With 1.2 to go, it was me and one other guy. By the finish, I was all alone (the one guy with me ran up ahead a little -- I guess he didn't want me in his finisher photo :-).

When I saw the finish line with .2 miles to go I was about 2 minutes under 3:40. That's the first time I was sure I was going to hit my mark (or close to it). I finished in 3:39:39 (according to my watch...official results aren't out, yet).

The woman I lost w/ 1.2 miles to go finished about a minute behind. She still BQ'd! ..and the guy who stuck with me the whole way and ran ahead at the finish, it was his first-ever marathon.

It also turns out that the man and woman who finished directly in front of me were using me as motivation. The woman thanked me for not passing her :-). I think some people think of pace group leaders as The Grim Reaper or something and the "3:40" sign I was carrying was some sort of sickle!! :-)

Overall, this was a very satisfying day on so many levels. I managed to stay healthy all week even though I had a sore throat almost every morning and evening (no coughing..could be allergies). I met my goal pace (OK, I was 20 seconds fast...but what's that over 26.2 miles??) I had a blast and met some very nice people. I would highly recommend running a marathon as a pace leader, if ever the chance arises. My PR is 3:20:02 (SGM '07), and I found the 3:40 pace quite comfortable to maintain. So, if you pace a group you might want to pick a group that is 20-30 minutes slower than your current abilities.

Pace Report: 3:39:39

Weather: 35-45 degrees, Wind: 21 MPH NNW

Cowtown Marathon - Marc Elliott - 3:40 Pace Group leader Date: 2/28/2009 Time: 3:39:39 Distance 26.27 Avg Pace 8:22 HR avg 152 Lap Lap# Time Distance Tot Dist Pace HR Elapsed Time Projected 1 8:50 1.02 1.02 8:39 162 0:08:50 3:47:30 2 8:01 1 2.02 8:01 170 0:16:51 3:39:08 3 8:06 1 3.02 8:06 156 0:24:57 3:37:02 4 7:54 1 4.02 7:54 147 0:32:52 3:34:47 5 6:48 0.84 4.86 8:05 147 0:39:40 3:34:25 6 9:39 1.17 6.03 8:14 148 0:49:19 3:34:51 7 8:33 1.01 7.04 8:27 151 0:57:53 3:36:00 8 8:38 1.01 8.05 8:32 150 1:06:31 3:37:04 9 16:18 1.99 10.04 8:11 146 1:22:49 3:36:42 10 0:02 0.003788 10.04 8:48 147 1:22:51 3:36:42 11 8:03 1 11.04 8:03 148 1:30:54 3:36:13 12 8:07 0.98 12.02 8:16 145 1:39:01 3:36:20 13 8:36 1.05 13.07 8:11 146 1:47:37 3:36:14 14 8:25 1 14.07 8:25 148 1:56:02 3:36:35 15 8:10 0.99 15.06 8:14 149 2:04:12 3:36:36 16 8:13 1 16.06 8:13 151 2:12:25 3:36:33 17 8:43 1.01 17.07 8:37 150 2:21:08 3:37:09 18 16:58 2 19.07 8:29 153 2:38:07 3:37:46 19 0:06 0.011932 19.09 8:22 150 2:38:13 3:37:46 20 8:24 0.98 20.07 8:34 155 2:46:28 3:37:56 21 8:10 0.98 21.05 8:20 151 2:54:38 3:37:59 22 8:51 1.03 22.08 8:35 153 3:03:29 3:38:21 23 8:34 0.98 23.06 8:44 154 3:12:04 3:38:51 24 8:51 1.02 24.08 8:40 157 3:20:55 3:39:14 25 8:39 1 25.08 8:39 160 3:29:35 3:39:34 26 8:14 1 26.08 8:14 161 3:37:49 3:39:26 27 1:50 0.21 26.29 8:43 160 3:39:39 3:39:31