Road Trip! Pittsburgh-bound.

Jason Tripp and I headed out in his Odyssey for Pittsburgh this past weekend and none other than Mark Buschman came out there to support us. We had a blast together, driving up to the Burgh, listening to Boy Bands (to keep Mark happy), chillin' with Aunt Kathy and eating her world-famous home-made Italian Pasta.  We definitely did it in style.

Did what? I don't exactly know.  80º plus Pittsburgh hills felt like hell - but how can i complain when the Boston Marathon runners must have had it way worse?  Mark thinks it is because of all the crap we ate  at the expo.  I wonder if it's connected to my consumption of every gel (3-4) and a 5hr energy (NASTY).  Really, I think that my training regimen was weak.  What happened to me and Jason? Kind of the same thing, but i can only speak for myself.  Felt great at first, like most marathons, keeping a steady 6ish pace up through the first half marathon.  Hills and heat came while fatigue started to set in, but I wasn't convinced I was done for, yet.  I figured I could hold on to 6:10-6:15 and shoot for a PR (anything under 2:43).
1-6:
5:45, 6:05, 6:10, 6:06, 6:03, 6:11
7-12:
6:05, 6:03, 6:07, 6:09, 6:01, 6:17
13-17:
6:18, 6:15, 6:11, 6:19, 5:57,
18-26:
6:26, 6:25, 6:57, 6:33, 6:43, 7:13, 7:06, 8:00, 7:47

As is demonstrated above, I pulled the typical amateur fall-apart at 18.  Started with tiredness and slowing down to try and avoid crashing.  But when 20 hit, so did the cramps in the R calf.  Walked it off a few min and picked the pace up.  But I ran out of Vagisil, and the cramps came back over and over, both calves up through the quads, hamstrings and even the groin, and there was just a bunch of walking and attempts to recover some kind of pace.

Mark is securing a court-ordered subpoena forcing me to publish my workouts.  He has a point. If i publish each workout, the 1 or 2 people who read my blog will have ammo to harass me for slacking (Mark and Pekka).  We'll see if that does anything.

My training 15 wks leading up to Pittsburgh included 3x 20 milers with some race pace thrown in there.  They always involved ample water stops, as is customary at the Bagel Run, which i think might be problematic.  Track workouts or tempo workouts were done almost weekly.
                      mileage
Last                25
                      48
                      66
                      47
                      28
                      41
                      67
                      57
                      60
                      39
                      20
                      34
                      37
                      32
First (wk1)     14

Hanging with Jason and Mark was the real highlight of the adventure.  These are upstanding gentlemen and great friends.