37th Sub-3-hour Marathon State: The Florida Redo

The town of Celebration, built in the '90s to look like the '20s and '30s

New year, new me! Same ol' Florida. Don't get me wrong, that's a good thing in the midst of a miserable IL winter, but I've been here before. My Melbourne Music Marathon in 2012 (blog post HERE) was a great motorcycle trip; however, I just missed my sub-3-hour goal. Now I'm back in Florida for the Celebration Marathon to close a couple chapters: my motorcycle arrived in Tampa to a new owner just days before I myself arrived to pay Tampa a visit - seeing its new home feels complete somehow. Sad face.

Dad status complete: I've sold the motorcycle

Back to this "new me" thing. It's 2018. I have 14 marathons left and 1.5 years to finish. That's an ambitious goal for me so I decided to try something new: focus on nutrition. Thanks new Fitbit watch! After years of reckless yet gloriously indulgent eating and drinking, I entered 2018 with a plan to track what I was eating. I have NEVER tracked calories and after two days of doing so, I was both impressed and appalled so I made myself a 4-week training plan. Let's not overdo it here!

For those looking to nerd out about the details, here's what I did: the first two weeks saw weekly mileage in the mid 70s (it's been a while since I've been injury-free enough to go that high), down to 40 miles for week 3, then my usual 22 miles in the week leading up to the race. I did not do cross-training or strength exercises - I'll incorporate that in the next 6 weeks leading up to the Lower Potomac River Marathon in Maryland.

During this 4-week phase, I focused on keeping my macronutrients (carbohydrates, fat, protein) in healthy balance all the while operating at a 500-1,000 caloric deficit to lose 10 lbs I gained this summer after injury had me eating and drinking more while running less; carrying that extra weight through my last couple of marathons was noticeably harder. Did I cheat? Hell yeah I did, about once a week! But the weight came off.

Also new to my routine were these Nike Vaporfly 4% shoes that I finally got my hands on (feet in?). I drank the marketing Kool-Aid and was impressed with a pretty astounding lab test (READ THIS). Given the crap IL weather, I only ran in them for 3 miles indoors before leaving town. They felt a lot like my go-to marathon shoe, the Hoka One One Tracer. Are they worth the $250 price tag? Let's find out.

Kick(s)boxing Title Match: Vaporfly 4% vs. Tracer

I spent Friday exploring the Tampa area. I discovered Ybor City while looking for a brewery to visit before the brewery I had planned to visit. Some things never change, nutrition plan be damned! Ybor City is this great little town steeped in Cuban history and more cigar shops per capita than I would imagine anywhere. Tampa Bay Brewing Co. was the perfect place to enjoy good beers and a Cuban sandwich in the warm sun before my visit to Cigar City Brewing Co., which, sadly, wasn't as great as I remembered. C'est la vie.

Hey look, beer and Sasquatch!

I woke up at 9:30 am on Saturday after tracking 11.5 hours of sleep (thanks again, Fitbit)! One of the perks of being away from the kids. I ran 2 miles in the shoes outside for the first time. Ate oatmeal, like I have nearly everyday this month, at Hollar & Dash Biscuit House - we need more biscuit places in IL! Soaked in the hot tub at the Airbnb. Got takeout at Little Italy for lunch. Went to the movies to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (great flick!). Met up with Cheryl and her husband John (Cheryl from back home and travel partner for the St. George Marathon was also running the marathon) for dinner at Thai Thani. Fell asleep to my guilty pleasure - murder mystery shows. I was ready for the race.

I woke up feeling good, which is not what I would be saying had I stayed in Tampa for Gasparilla Pirate Fest on Saturday. You see, 100 years ago, Tampa made up this tall tale about pirates taking the keys to the city as an excuse to throw a massive, Mardi Gras-like parade & street fest. 2017 me would have totally stayed in Tampa and celebrated like a pirate. 2018 me had coffee, a bagel with peanut butter, a banana, and a ponytail (yeah, it's that long now). I made it to the start line with a few minutes to spare.

The first mile started out conservatively then I just went for it. I need a 2:50 in my 1-minute incremental series of marathon finish times. I still walked every water stop but the nutrition plan had me back to taking energy gels (at mile 10 & mile 20). Crossing the half in 1:24 was encouraging, missing a turn at mile 18 was not. This was my biggest fear about this race. Look at that map!

Go ahead and count the turns, I'll wait...

It's surprising that I didn't make several wrong turns. It's a flat course but those turns and tight spaces on the boardwalks weren't ideal. Throw in the FL warmth and shoes that were tied too tight (chaffing the top of my navicular bones) and I backed off the 2:50 goal after the wrong turn. I ended up with a 2:52:46 - good for 3rd place overall (out of 458) and a time I'm pretty happy with. I felt good and I credit that largely to the nutrition plan though I don't recommend it: life is too short not to live on donuts and beer!

Downtown Celebration from across the pond - mile 25.5 on the course

Celebration is the town that Disney built and the race execution is on par with what you would expect if Disney had organized it: scenic and well-marked course through a contrived neighborhood, great volunteers (except the one that let me stray at mile 18 - really my fault for doing mental math at that moment), nice shirt, medal, and blanket swag, and a great post-race food spread. There are enough good restaurants here to entertain me for a weekend: Columbia Restaurant and Celebration Town Tavern were delicious post race lunch #1 & lunch #2 stops. Though I spent my 60th marathon here, I can't imagine I'll be back until maybe my 60th birthday, hopefully to buy that motorcycle back!

Mila loves the blanket

Oh right, the shoes... Save your money. They just didn't provide those extra minutes the study and marketing suggest. Not as compared to my Hoka Tracers, anyway.

Another race, another Stehling race photo