So finally returned home from my holiday so I’ve been able to upload my VLM run to Garmin Connect and check out those all important stats!
Pleased to see my new 910XT has got the closest to actual race distance compared to any of my previous runs around the city clocking a 26.29 
Generally pretty happy with the pacing, had the Garmin set to manual lap count so I could click off the miles as I went through the mile markers. (Missed mile 15 so had to do a “double click”)
The general slowing from about 20 miles onwards is pretty obvious with the worst mile being 25. ( It came out long as I think I was early with 24 but even so it was around 5:30-5:35 I believe )
Some of this slowing I can blame on the westerly wind that hit us as we came out of Canary Wharf but if I’m being honest a lot of it was to do with the fact that my legs were pretty much done by 20 miles and I was hanging on for dear life!
As mentioned in my race report, aerobically I was feeling very strong and this is backed up by my HR stats. For most of the first half my HR gradually built up to around 163/164bpm and that is where it stayed.This is a few beats less than what I can normally sustain in a marathon (167bpm) but I knew any faster and I would be writing cheques my legs were not going to be able to cash.
As the general fatigue and pain started to hit the legs my HR actually dropped to around 159/160 as even though I felt I had more aerobically I just couldn’t push the legs any harder. In the past I have had issues maintaining a higher HR due to energy levels but this was not the case this time, I still felt I could have given more if the legs were able to cooperate.
This is the first time this has happened to me in a marathon and I have spent some time trying to understand why. I have come to the conclusion (maybe wrongly!) that it may have something to do with my racing/training weight differences for this campaign.
Unlike other years where I have been a lot closer to race weight up to 2 months before the big day,this time I still found myself around a stone too heavy around 5 weeks out.
This means that I actually did most of my key training while “overweight” which explains why some of my key sessions/build-up races were not quite as fast as I’d hoped. The bonus was that when I eventually got down to race weight my heart was obviously benefiting from not having to drag that extra fat around the VLM course giving me that extra aerobic benefit but I don’t think the legs were able to make full use of it as I had not been able to push them hard enough in my key long marathon pace training runs.
So more discipline required,need to get down to race weight a lot earlier in the build up to make sure I get the most out of those key training sessions.
………… so I better go and lose some of that “holiday weight” I just put on 
Sports Massage – Eamonn Deane
Xempo
Running on June 19, 2013 8:05 am
8.32 Mile in 00:58:01 (6:58 min/Mile)
Congrats once more on a stella race, shame about those five seconds though.
Really interesting stuff about the race weight thing too. They do say that the easiest way to increase your VO2Max is to lose a few pounds.
I do have a couple of questions if you dont mind, could you give me an example menu of what you got through when carb loading from Thursday – Saturday?
Also, I am considering buying a new Garmin and cant really make up my mind between the 610 and 910XT. Which one do you think is the better one?
Cheers mate
Carb loading was pretty much the same on all 3 days but with slightly more on the Friday.
Hi carb sugary cereals
Bagels with strawberry jam
Soreen malt loaf
White fresh pasta with a tomato sauce and either chicken or prawns
PSP 22 ( 100g each day )
2/3 pack of “sports mix” sweets each day
Stuck to around 10-11g per Kg of body weight per day (so around 700g of carbs a day for me) but balanced it out with around 800g on Friday and less on the other 2. That was after a full depletion on Mon-Wed where I had probably around 5g a day!
On the subject of the Garmin choice you need to decide which of the following is more important for you as the basic running functionality of the 2 is almost identical.
- do you want a larger screen good for showing 4 fields at once but still light weight watch that has a very long GPS battery life. Get the 910XT
- do you want a watch that actually looks like a watch and can be used as one day to day still having all the same training functionality (minus the multi sport stuff). Get the 610. ( the touch screen also works really well compared to the old touch bezel)
Cheers
Steve
Great stuff. Thanks for your thoughts on the watches.
Not sure I could make myself do the carb deplete thing, I live for carbs!
Hi Steve,
To lose a stone in five weeks is impressive but, do you think you might have lost some leg muscle mass along the way.
Most doctor talk of only losing about 2lb per week as a safe guide line!
Could this be a cause of your legs not keeping up with your heart and lungs ?
As I said in my post Rick, I could be wrong but I think my main issue was not doing enough sustained effort at the actual pace I ended up running VLM at. My halfway split for the marathon was 68:40 which is 5:15m/m where as most of my long marathon pace runs in training were closer to 5:20mm. I think this was partially caused by not being light enough during those training runs. My legs have not been asked to run 13 miles at 5:15 pace the whole of this year up until race day so to expect them to feel up for another 13 was perhaps a little optimistic!
I was only actually losing 2-3 pounds a week ( lost a couple extra with carb deletion) so not really that much more than “recommended” and to be honest I had quite bit of excess upper body fat which visibly disappeared so it was pretty obvious where most of the weight loss was coming from!
Either way, the exact reason doesn’t really matter as they both require the same change, get down closer to race weight a lot further away from race day so that’s what I’ll be trying to do next time.
Cheers
Steve