A few other things going on as I wind down:

• Phantom pain was here full bore this week. If I hadn’t been here before I would have been real concerned. Sore knees. Sore hips. Dead legs. I know it’s a sign of recovery. If I hadn’t been through taper before I would have been concerned.
• That cold I caught last week is still going on. I’m not real excited because it has settled into a nagging scratchy cough. The interesting thing is that when I’m running everything is good. As soon as I stop it sounds like I’m having an asthma attack. I’m hoping it behaves itself for 4 to 5 hours on Sunday.
• The obsessive checking and rechecking the weather forecast has begun. The problem is every time I look, the news does not get better. Last week we started out with partly sunny skies with temps in the low 50’s at the start and mid 60’s at the finish. That has now morphed into sunny skies with temps in the low to mid 50’s at the start and upper 70’s to almost 80 for a high. The only saving grace is we’re running toward the ocean where the temps are 6 to 10 degrees cooler. I better pack some sunscreen. And I better run fast before it gets hot!

All that’s left is a night of sleep followed by a night of anticipatory terror. Tapir! Oh Tapir! Where are you?

P.S. – If you have friends running the L.A. Marathon (it *has* sold out at 25,000), you can track them here: http://live.activeresult.com/msg/MSG-signup.tcl?event_id=24. Once you set up an account, you can track multiple participants. Among some fellow local bloggers that I know are running – check out Ms. V, Bob, anotorias, chicrunner, and L.A. Runner. Also, kudos to the volunteers like Love2Mags who will be at the 20 mile point catering to our needs. I hope we don’t scare you Mags!

For a complete listing of products included in the HVP recall visit the FDA website.

Speaking of taper, I’m keeping my running light this week:

• Tuesday: 30 minute tempo run. (Done. 3.3 miles).
• Thursday: 3 miles. Stretching.
• Saturday: 2 miles with Cal Coast.

That will add to last week’s cutback of 26 miles. My legs should be fresh on Sunday. Everything felt pretty good during yesterday’s quick tempo run. Taper is going quite well!

I wanted to thank everyone for all the comments and ideas of the last few days. Anyone who doubts the value of blogging – send them my way! Just the ability to share ideas makes every minute I spend here worth it! I thought I would share a few answers and ideas today:

• AZ and Brian asked about my normal race day breakfast. Ha ha ha! If you are new to my blog, my “normal” race day breakfast is a gooey apple fritter. Yum! The heavenly mix of carbohydrates and sugar eaten about 30 minutes before a race is guaranteed to deliver a sugar high at the start line.The problem this time is that 2:30 AM thing. Sorry. No Dunkin’ Donuts here on the West Coast. Most donut shops are small mom and pops and don’t stay open 24 hours. That doesn’t mean I won’t try. I’ll drive past the local donut shop in search of my sugary gooiness, but I’ll pack the bagel just in case.
• Jeri mentions that there is good chance that she’ll still be out when I’m rising and she would send a virtual shout to me. Jer – you realize that’s like 4:30 AM your time. Man. I’m hanging with *your* friends if I ever make it to the Dakotas!
• Tea Time mentioned her challenge of fumbling for the Endurolyte capsules on the run. Here’s an idea. Go get some blue painter’s tape and tape the capsules to your gel packets. Then, to get to your capsules, just grab a gel packet! Works like a charm. Here are some before, during and after pictures:

• Steel Springs asked about my choice of gel flavors. I’ve sampled many gels and fueling options and have pretty much settled on Hammer Gel. It’s consistency is a little more liquid, which means it goes down a lot smoother. I’ve pretty much settled on three flavors – Apple Cinnamon (nice and tart), Tropical (sweet and tart) and Espresso (bitter for the latter stages of a race when sweet is not so appetizing). The latter two are also spiked with caffeine (Tropical – 25 mg, Espresso – 50 mg). And as Jill mentions – even if the pick me up is mental – any little bit in the latter stages of a race helps!
• A final note about sodium intake. Some were a little surprised about the link between sodium intake and fatigue/cramping. I’m still trying to get my hands around this as well. I’ve spent a little time doing research and can’t find anything that unequivocally shows the link between sodium and cramping. There are some studies that claim the reduction in sodium (Na+) affects the ability of nerves to communicate with muscles, thereby allowing them to contract uncontrollably. Other studies say that that is poppycock – that our bodies store about 80g of sodium and is very effective at regulating sodium levels. But, one good piece of information came in yesterday from my friend Lori (an ultra runner) - “one of the interesting things was that the difference in the 100K runners(the DNFers, myself included) and the 100M finishers was the amount of sodium ingested. The finishers consumed alot more than the non finishers.” There you go. Real world data.
• Speaking about sodium, Brian pointed out that each gel also includes sodium. I had ignored that earlier. So, with my 6 Enduolytes and 2 gels every hour, my sodium uptake will be about 350 mg per hour. That’s closer to the 500 mg per hour suggested.

Thanks again everyone! Just a couple more runs to go until my victory lap!

On Friday, I posted my starting line and pacing plans. Today I’m discussing my fueling plan. A good fueling plan needs to take three things into account: (1) what should I eat, (2) how much should I eat, and (3) how often should I eat it?

The best resources I’ve seen that discusses this issue are this one and this one from Hammer Nutrition. These are *excellent* technical articles. I would highly suggest that when you have time, follow the links and learn more than you’ll ever want to know.

Without getting overly technical (which means that I’m not going to defend these numbers here), here is what we burn and what we are able to replace during exercise:

The goal of a fueling strategy replace is to replace what we can assimilate. Less and you will visit the wall. More and suffer a whole host of issues – from swollen hands to gastric emptying (yucko!).

The last time I ran one of these abominations called a marathon, I fueled every three miles. This had a couple of positive side effects:

1. Psychologically, I broke the race down into a series of 3 mile segments. My focus was short term (3,6,9,12,15,18,21 and 24 miles). I never got overwhelmed by the thought of 26.2.
2. I downed one Hammer Gel and two Endurolyte capsules every three miles – about 260 calories and 80 mg of sodium an hour. I suffered no ill effects.

While my fuel situation was okay (I finished coherent and standing), my legs were fatigued by mile 14. Interestingly enough, on a couple of longish runs this training cycle (out beyond 12 miles) I also suffered leg fatigue. Reading through the articles, what appears to be happening is I’m just not ingesting enough sodium. So, on my last longish run, I up’ed the amount of electrolytes that I took by 50% with no stomach issues, and didn’t suffer the same fatigue that I had a couple weeks earlier. So with that in mind, here’s my fueling strategy:

• One Hammer Gel every three miles. That will equate to about 240 – 260 calories per hour. I’ll be using some caffeinated Hammer Gel (Espresso – 50 mg of caffeine) for the last three fuel points for that little added “boost”.
• Three Endurolyte capsules with every gel packet. That is about 6 Endurolytes an hour, which equates to about 250 mg of sodium. If I start feeling more fatigued, I will increase my sodium uptake using salt packets (assuming they are available on the course).
• Water. Often. About 30 ounces per hour. The small cups typically used are 3 ounces. I’ll supplement from my water belt as necessary. This should make for an interesting juggling exposition.
• I’ll stay away from the Powerade (course supplied drink) unless I just feel like I want something sweet. I usually get that craving toward the latter portions of the race. I’ll stay with small swigs.

So there you go. All that’s left is the Big Day. Oh. And the day before and the morning of. Remember how I said I like plans?

Day Before the “Big Day”

Only three things to do on Saturday:

1. Stay off my feet as much as possible
2. Check to make sure I have adequate supply of Hammer Gels (9) and Endurolyte caps (27). If not, hit up the Nutrition Superstore in Costa Mesa.
3. Head over to Dodger Stadium for packet pickup around noon.
4. Grab lunch/dinner in Chinatown. Mmmm. A big plate of lo mein sure sounds good!

Then Saturday evening:

1. Prepare my Gel/Endurolyte packets. Put the Espresso packets in my Nathan belt. Put others in my Spibelt.
2. Program the parking lot I’ve purchased parking in in Santa Monica into my GPS.
3. Charge camera
4. Charge cell phone
5. Transfer important things to the gear bag provided at the expo.
6. Lay out clothing, socks, shoes. Make sure I have hat (supposed to be sunny and in the 70’s on Sunday), sunglasses.
7. Pack change of clothes. Nothing worse than cold wet clothes.
8. Set alarm for 2:30. AM. Jeesh.
9. Hit the sack. Hopefully sometime around 10 PM. Toss and turn all night.

The BIG DAY!!!!

1. Up at 2:30. AM. Jeesh.
2. Grab a cup of coffee (as large as possible). Thinking Super Big Gulp size here.
3. Make a bagel with cream cheese. Put it in my bag for consumption later.
4. Get dressed and grab gear bag. Be out the door no later than 3:00 AM.
5. Drive up the freeway to Santa Monica.
6. Fire up the GPS and get to parking lot. Should be somewhere around 4:15 to 4:30 AM.
7. Get in line for shuttle bus by 4:45 AM. Get on shuttle to Blue Heaven at 5:00 AM
8. Get to Blue Heaven around 5:45 AM. This gives me about an hour before I start execution of my start line plan.
9. Eat bagel. Drink water. Take three Endurolytes.
10. Execute start line plan.
11. Execute race plan.

Wahoo!!!! If half of these things don’t go as planned this weekend I still can’t help but have fun!

On a related note – I want to thank everyone for all of your comments and tips. I’ll address a bunch of them tomorrow. Tea Time – tune in – I’ll give you an idea on how to deal with those gels and Endurolyte caps!

Okay – so honestly – it’s time to start filling in the blanks for race day. There are two things that are missing right now – my race plan and my evening before and morning of plans. today I’ll make an attempt to tackle the first half of my race plan – the Start Line and my Pace Plan.

First things first. I’m old enough now to realize that once you get out of school, plagiarism is acceptable. Interestingly enough, have you tried to Google “Marathon Race Plan”? Nada. No wonder marathons are getting so popular. You can’t go anywhere and see all those things you really need to think about before tackling one.  There’s a lot out there on race strategies, training plans, and the like, but nothing that succinctly puts it together in one place. Even though my marathon experience is limited, now that I’ve done it a couple times I know there are a few things that I can do to (a) reduce my pre-race stress, and (b) maximize my intended performance. Here goes:

Start line plan: I am the type of person who really needs to start the day out right. If I stress myself here, the rest of the day will be hell. But, this is a delicate balance. If I arrive too early, then I spend my time thinking about what is about to happen. If I arrive too late, then I stress about not having enough time to properly prepare. Here is the plan for this marathon:

1. Arrive in my corral 20 minutes pre-start. This means I need to be in the start area with my pace group at 7:05 AM. This also means that I should be in the porta potty line around 6:45 to make sure I am adequately “watered”.
2. Find somewhere to sit. Stay off my feet. Find the pace group. then find a place to sit.
3. Relax. Visualize. At least try to relax. Visualize the proper pace. DO NOT start thinking about the course, mile 3, mile 6, etc.
4. Stand up 5 minutes prior to scheduled start. 7:19 AM.

Race pace: Lots is written. Execution is the key. The big question here of course is the proper pace and the proper pacing strategy. My first marathon doesn’t count because I had no idea what I was doing. My second marathon I tried to keep an even pace from start to finish. That lasted about 14 miles.

I’ve been talking to a lot of people in my running club about this point in particular. There are two schools of thought. One says stay slow for the first half, then pick up just a few seconds per mile. This camp says I should pick the 5:00 pace group and go with them to the half, and then pick it up from there. The second camp says run comfortably for the first half and then decide what to do from there.If my goal is 4:30, then run with the 4:30 group and see where things lead you after the first half. The one thing they both agree on is that if the first half is uncomfortable, then rest of the race will not be better.

The best pacing plan I’ve seen lately was one done by Lisa (Discovering the Meaning of Stonehenge (a runner’s journey)) for her recent sub-4 PR at Surf City. The key quote:

“Yes, there is the chance that I could have gone out at 8:50 and continued to be strong throughout and gone on to hit my BQ time of 3:50.  But I didn’t want to chance it.  I have no regrets on how I ran this race.”

Wow. There it is. My entire professional life I’ve been trained in the discipline of the plan. Make a plan and stick with it. Don’t make a plan and deviate, unless you have planned the contingencies. A marathon is tough enough. To have to think about contingencies on the course won’t make it easier.

So here is my pacing plan:

1. First half: I have signed up to go with the 4:30 pace group. Start. Cruise. Slow down. And then when things feel okay, slow down more. Keep the pace group in sight. DO NOT get out in front of them.
2. Second half (up to 20 miles): Keep the pace group in sight. Cruise some more. At mile 15, focus on 3 mile segments. Make it through the 18 mile distance that was problematic in training (Yikes! How did that doubt filter itself in?)
3. Third half (past mile 20): HTFU. Push just a little bit. Let the pace group go. Focus on turnover and breathing. Focus on the next three mile segments. Only two left – miles 21 and 24.  Don’t focus on the Garmin. Don’t focus on other runners. Don’t focus on those passing me or those I am passing. Focus on the feel. Daniel-san. Booleezoo in. Booleezoo out. Koolozoo eyes. Relax.
4. Finish strong. Arms up. Shoulders back. Don’t forget to SMILE!!!!!!

Tomorrow – food and drink.

So this got me thinking. I’ve been running for 18 weeks through cold, wind, rain (well okay – rain a couple of times) and I’ve been pretty healthy. So what gives? I slow down one week and whamo! Well, it happens there may be a link. From an article on Runner’s World Online:

“One possible reason: A major mileage cut can signal to the immune system that it’s okay to back off. But by maintaining volume, your immune response remains constant.”

I wouldn’t think that I would be susceptible. After all, the article says a “major mileage cut.” Face it – my first week of taper was greater mileage than the week prior! Ha ha ! Whatever the reason – I’ll be attacking it with the zinc lozenges this week.

This raises another interesting debate though. On the one hand, the current body of knowledge says maintain intensity but reduce volume. On the other hand, this article says reduce volume, but not too much. As with the rest of life, there must be a delicate balance here. Oh well. Time to pop another Zicam.

Speaking of reduced volume – last night was a nice easy 4 miler. I’m digging this taper stuff!

Here’s the deal. The Los Angeles Marathon sent their official “Final Race Instructions” email. Anyone who has not grown up or lived in L.A. for a while might be a little intimidated. Some of the gems:

• “You must wear your Bib on the front of your shirt and leave the B-Tag attached to your bib. If you do not wear the Bib and attached B Tag, your marathon time will not be recorded properly.” I wonder how the B-Tag works if it’s under layers of clothing? How many will I see duct taped to a shoe? I wonder how many will be disappointed that their start time isn’t recorded?
• “The ChronoTrack Timing System uses the disposable B-Tag which is attached to the runner’s race bib. You will not need to remove the tag from the bib to put on your shoe. The timing device remains ON YOUR BIB.” I wonder how many people won’t read this?
• “ARRIVE EARLY, ARRIVE EARLY, ARRIVE EARLY!!! Let’s face it folks, this is Los Angeles, so even though it is a weekend and you will be leaving your house or hotel before the crack of dawn, you have to factor in traffic, congestion and crowded parking lots. We strongly advise all participants to arrive at the Stadium a minimum of 60 minutes before the race and 90 minutes is even better!” Anyone who has lived in L.A. for any length of time gets this. Sorry tourists!
• “ARRIVE EARLY, ARRIVE EARLY, ARRIVE EARLY!!!” So, let’s see. I’m on the 5:00 AM shuttle to Dodger Stadium. I probably need to be parked about 15 minutes before that to make sure I get to my shuttle. 30 minutes of traffic once I get off the freeway to get to the parking lot. One hour drive to Santa Monica. Hmm. Leave home at 3:00. AM. No wonder Marathon jumped!
• “Running 26.2 miles in and of itself is fun” Hooohooohooo! When was the last time *these* folks ran 26.2?
• “The Honda LA Marathon has stocked the race course with TONS of excitement to keep your energy level up and lots of fun things to look forward to throughout the race. There will be 25 entertainment centers, 4 City Block Parties, Cheer Alley, and over 50 additional entertainment sites located throughout the course.” Like I care? Hey dudes! I’m running a race! There better not be a block party at mile 23….
• “Please situate yourself in the start area according to your anticipated minute pace per mile, i.e. ten minute miles. This system is for your safety and the safety of other participants. Pace per mile signs will be hung along the sides of corrals, starting with a 9 minute pace all the way through 13 + minute pace per mile.” I read this as self policed corrals?  For 20,000 runners? I spell that C-L-U-S-T-E-R-F….
• “Diversified Paratransit shuttle vans will pickup runners who are unable to complete the Marathon starting at the Mile 7 water station and continuing through mile 23 and transport them back to the Runner Drop Off location at 2nd Street and Broadway in Santa Monica.” Bwahahahaha! (Ugh……)
• “If you want to store anything, there will be a bag check located in Lot G at Dodger Stadium.” Cool. “Due to heightened security reasons we will only accept the clear plastic bags of runners belongings. Non-transparent bags or back packs will not be accepted.” Hmm. Now that’s different. I wonder how many people won’t read this? I hope they have extra clear plastic bags at the bag drop!

No wonder Marathon is hiding! Maybe I can entice him: “Don Francisco will be providing coffee throughout the day for spectators and participants.” Here boy! Here boy!

Hmm. I wonder if I should be concerned that the title of the pdf they sent is “2010/03/10-Race-Instructions-revised.pdf” “Revised”? Make some room there Marathon. Where’s the mud pit?

• Taking it eas(ier): I’ll be maintaining intensity but cutting back on volume.  Last night I pulled off 6 miles at an average pace of 9:28. My longest run will be this weekend at 8 miles. Nothing else over 6 for the week. Sunday’s run will be in the two mile range. I could get used to this.
• Eating: I’ll be putting a little greater emphasis on carbs this week. But – I’m not going overboard! Instead of chicken and rice I’ll have rice and chicken. (YESSSSS!!!!) I’ll be limiting some foods high in saturated fats like  ice cream that my body will glomp onto. (NOOOOOO!!!!) Oh well. The added weight certainly won’t help on race day.
• Race plan: It’s time to formalize my plan. I *think* I know why I’m doing this. Time to be held accountable. Look for this by the end of the week.
• Day before and race morning logistics: This will be done solely for reduction of stress. My stress. I love a planned world. I don’t deal too well with surprises.

It’s nervous time. I think I’m a lot more nervous than the last time around in October…

Oh – an answer to a question that I asked yesterday about B-Tags. A comment posted by WadiaSoft directed me to ChronoTrack’s website:

“If you are using the single use ChronoTrack B-Tag as a timing device for your event, please ensure the following in order to receive an accurate time.

So now you and I know. I feel sorry for anyone who won’t get a start time because it’s cool and they decide to wear a jacket….