Race Reports

Why my heart exploded at the Las Vegas Half Marathon

The Las Vegas Marathon was in early December, just a wee bit over two months ago. So why in the hell am I writing my race report now?

Shortly after the race, I came across a car accident that involved a fully engulfed charter bus filled with nuns and orphans. Apparently they were on their way to help rescue some puppies at the local animal shelter. Being the noble individual I am, I stopped, asked if they could kindly get their burning asses out of my way because I had a pressing date with a bath tub and a few bags of ice.

Ever since then, I’ve been plagued by mysterious illnesses and locust infestations that have kept me occupied and made getting this wrap-up, well, wrapped up. Also figure in that there’s not much to report on a running race. Not very exciting stuff, but here goes:

The race that was not a race
I don’t particularly care for marathons and have no burning desire to do one as part of my “List of 100 Things I Want to Do Before I Croak.” However, since I was training for the Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon at the time, I decided having a half marathon on my dance card midway between my last triathlon and the Quad would be a good event to keep me honest in my training efforts. For those of you unfamiliar with the Quad, 16 of the 42 miles are done as a run, nordic ski and snowshoe, so running fitness is a key component.

I signed up for the half marathon and wasn’t the least bit concerned about a finishing time. I just planned to stay in Zone 2 or below and use the race as a training day. To achieve that, I would run four minutes then walk one minute and repeat throughout the race.

That plan was thrown out the door the moment I arrived just in time for the fireworks display and starting gun. (Note to those of you wanting to enter this race: Parking is fucked. The freeway offramps are blocked and access to Las Vegas Boulevard, where the majority of the race is held, is non-existent. I saw people bailing out of cars on the offramp and hopping chain link fences a mile from the race.)

As I’m sure is the case with most marathons, it took several minutes for the back of the pack to move en masse to the finish line. However, all was cool as they had an Elvis impersonator belting out some classics to keep us all entertained.

Once I crossed the start line and started running, I noticed a young gal moving up from behind and keeping pace with me. She kept looking over and finally ran up alongside me.

“Are you doing the full or the half?”

“Just the half,” I replied.

“So am I. How long do you think you’ll take to finish.”

I paused. “You know, I haven’t a clue.”

“C’mon! How long do you think?”

“Well, I’m figuring somewhere between three to three-and-a-half hours.”

I can’t even figure out how to type the sound she made when she rolled her eyes. It was something like a guffaw. She went from the polite “can we be best friends?” to instant she-bitch and ran off.

Runners are a weird bunch.

Remember I said that I was going to run/walk? To make a long story short, I blew that off in short order. I was feeling so good, I just kept running…and running. I told myself I would take my first one minute walk break at the 20-minute mark…then 30-minute. Finally, I forced myself to walk for two minutes at the one hour mark.

From that point forward, I would keep running at an easy pace and then treat the last three miles of the race as an all-out 5K effort. Just to see how I would respond.

Here’s where it gets interesting
Leading up to the race, my longest distance was eight miles. Once. The rest of my infrequent runs were of the 30-45-minute variety where I would cover only two-three miles because I was “building my base.” In other words, turtle slow.

Even though I ran the race with only two, two-minute walk breaks, I kept pace with a Dr. Seuss and her Elvi Clan the entire flipping race. Dr. Seuss was the head cheerleader and coach for a half dozen young women who were in their first half marathon. She had them on a strict run-walk break schedule of about six minutes running, one minute walking.

Note the key difference: I ran, they ran/walked. We crossed the finish line together. That should tell you something about the benefits of the run/walk methodology.

Once I hit the 10-mile marker, I decided to put on the burners and see what I could do the last three miles.

Look at the HR data below to see what happened starting at mile 10.

Abso-friggin-lutely nothing in terms of speed. I felt like I was moving faster, yet the blue line (speed) tells all. My heart rate (the red line), however, went through the roof. I stayed in the 190s for the last three miles. For the increased stress on my body, I gained nada.

To me, that is quite a fascinating little bit of scientific research. What it means in the big picture to me, other than I need to run more, remains a mystery.

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