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.