Sunday, September 1, 2013

SSQ Quebec City Marathon- 8/25/2013

It is 5:00am. My alarm goes off. Front Desk is also calling. I check my heart rate. It is 58. Good Start!

SSQ Quebec City Marathon was scheduled to start at 8:30am on 8.25.13. I have been preparing for this marathon for the last two months.  It was dark outside. I was still in the bed, thinking of the events that led me to this moment. Three weeks ago, I ran my hottest long run ever (19 miles at 78 degrees) with the sun directly over my head for most of the run. And then there were the sprints that were supposed to increase my VO2 max. I had been doing random stuff over the last two months to prepare for this marathon. For the first time since I started running, I was training alone for a marathon. I only had couple of months to train so I did not have time to think of a discipline or implementing one during my practices. Training alone, brought acts of randomness from me. I was running during random times of the day. Sometimes, I'd go for a weight-lifting session right after a run or before a run. There were three weeks in July, when i was hobbled by a tear in my glutes because I was randomly mixing up weight-lifting (dead-lifts) with undisciplined sprints. A lack of a training discipline was good, as it kept things very interesting for me on a daily basis. I was loving it. For me, an apple a day, everyday, was getting too boring and this undisciplined approach made it fun. These random runs, also left me injury-prone. Luckily, these injuries weren't anything that stopped me from preparing or running this marathon.

We stayed in the Old Quebec City's Best Western Hotel. I had booked a Hilton in June but for some odd reason, the marathon officials never reserved a room for me, even though they confirmed, or at least I thought they did. Luckily, I checked the reservation a day before leaving for Quebec City and then threw in prayer at Expedia.com and got the only hotel that was not exorbitantly priced (Hilton and others were $400 or more a night, we paid $164 a night at the Best Western).

I called a taxi cab to pick me up at 6:20am from the hotel. I wanted to mitigate any risks with traffic, road closures and wanted to make sure that I got to the starting line on time or early. The SSQ Quebec City Marathon is a "Point to Point" marathon measured in Kilometers. The starting line is in the south shore, in the Lévis, and it finishes in the Old Quebec City, in the north shore. This was mostly a flat marathon with short and steep rolling hills every few miles. This marathon is also considered by ESPN, Runner's World and others as one of the top marathons in the world.

I already knew that travel to the starting line in Lévis was going to be a mix of Taxi, a Ferry and a School Bus.
As long as I made it to the Ferry on time, the rest was taken care of by the Marathon officials. I got to the ferry at around 6:40am. The experience on the ferry was surreal. I was surrounded by runners just like me. Some were likely much faster than I was, some were definitely slower than me and some probably had a pace that I was comfortable with. What I knew for sure was that these people loved to run. I was just in awe of them, staring at their choice of shoes, their accessories, their strides etc. There was a sense of calm in the air as the ferry made its way to the other side of the St-Lawrence river. It was 6:55am but the energy on the ferry was invigorating and infectious. We landed on the other side of the St-Lawrence river and took the school bus to a Lévis Conference Center.




I knew I was participating in a marathon as soon as I walked into the Lévis Conference Center. It was a hall full of runners. Everyone was doing their own thing to relax. Some were warming up, some catching up on sleep, while others listening to music to relax etc. This guy next to me was stretching in ways, i had never seen people stretch in real life before. My gut was telling me that he was going after a strong finish and was most likely going to destroy his own PR. Anyways, I had an hour and a half before my race. I decided to catch some sleep listening to nice 90s and indian beats.

It's 8:10am. Runners were starting to clear the halls. It was time for me to get ready!!


The starting line of SSQ Quebec City Marathon looked similar to any other Marathon, in ways that it was surrounded by crowds of runners and their families that were there to see them off. Thousands of runners, all in one area and to do one thing. Shatter their physical and mental endurance limits.


I see rabbit ears. They are the pacers.

I decided to start out with the 4:00 pacers. I had learnt my lesson from my last marathon. I was going to run with a pace that I was comfortable with. The music started getting louder.

It is 8:30am. I hear the sound of a gun shot. The race has officially started.

I felt good starting out. My energy was not the same as the energy I had starting my Vermont marathon. I thought it was just me running with more experience and thus the nervous energy was not bothering me. I was in total control of my pace, my body and my mind.

My pace was surprisingly strong. All my practice sprints and long runs in the last two months had made me a stronger runner. Without trying I was able to stay ahead of the 4:00 pacer and even get closer to the 3:45 pacer. I was doing well without trying. The run in the Lévis was absolutely gorgeous. I had St-Lawrence river on my right side and beautiful brown mountainous ledges on my left. We were running on the jog/bike path that traveled the distance of the river. The bike path would sometimes cross an apartment building (beautifully constructed to match the ambience) or other times, we would run through a beautiful park that could only exist in the american north-east. Other times, we went through boutique shops that were lined up around our running path, right next to the water. People were cheering and shouting at us in French. I don't know french but I assumed that they were saying "Good Job", or something like that to motivate us. I smiled at them or waved at them. I saw couple of kids jumping on the side while their parents watched us. I extended my hand to give them a high-five. They gave me five back. The cool breeze from the river also felt good.

It was around 10am and the sun was starting to rise over us in its full glory. It was getting hotter by the minute. I could feel the sun over my head. My body was starting to warm up. I managed to stay ahead of the 4:00 pacer. The moment I hit the half mark (1:59:17), I thought of taking it up a notch, just slightly, for about a mile and then I was going to taper off to a more conservative pace until the end of the marathon. I didn't want to make the same mistake as I did during my Vermont Marathon, so I was not going to push it. My goal was to establish some space between me and the 4:00 pacers so that I could have the luxury of slowing down when I would typically hit my wall (30.5km/19miles). As it turns out, around the time I started to run faster, I saw a rolling hill ahead of me at (23km/14.29miles). In my mind, i wasn't worried as I had been practicing on hills for a while and I was sure that I would make it. That hill climb, the sun and the sudden increase of pace drained me of my energy very quickly. I quickly went from being close to the 3:45 pacers to now being behind the 4:00 pacers. I was still doing well, but all of this happened so suddenly. I started feeling very weak. This is when I realized of my mistakes leading up to the marathon. I was about to learn another lesson.

Tapering is important. Tapering is a process of taking it easy, at least a week before the race day. My confidence in my training was so strong that I thought tapering was not needed for me. I climbed Mt. Monadnock aggressively a week before the marathon day. My nutrition during the tapering week was bad. The day before the marathon, I drove 8 hours while eating Sun Chips, a banana and fried bread. When we got to Quebec City, we ate at this Italian restaurant that served me a large layer of cheese and oily pasta in a small dish. My nutritional choices were very poor and I did not give my body enough fuel to run a successful marathon.

The weakness, I was feeling at the 15th mile, made me realize that my body only had 16-18 miles worth of fuel, when I started the marathon. When I started running a little faster after the 13th mile, I spent whatever remaining fuel I had in the next mile. Now, my body was in the fat-burning zone and the rest of the miles were not going to be easy. This is when the body gets tired and the mind starts to play tricks, also called "the wall". I had hit my wall 4 miles too early. Not good. The body gets tired when it has to work harder to extract energy out of energy sources in the body. Converting carbs into energy is efficient and relatively tireless for the body. Converting fat into energy is a very tiring process. I was getting tired. My cramps started at around mile 15 which lasted the rest of the remaining miles. I was somehow able to focus away from my cramps and kept running. My goal of setting a new PR was no longer achievable. Now, I just wanted to make it to the finish line, at a respectable time.

Walking on a marathon route had never been an option for me. I had never walked in a marathon, no matter what the disagreement was between my mind and my body. This one was different. I was starting to feel wobbly at mile 17. It was clear that if I din't stop or take a break or walked, I was going to go dark. The sun was over my head and it was getting even hotter. I decided to take it easy and walk. That half-a-mile walk was the smartest decision I made since leaving home for this marathon. I was able to refocus and reenergize myself and found a new pace that I felt comfortable with. After that, I was running at 9.5 min/mile pace, which is now a slow pace for me. I remembered a quote that I read on Runner's world. "Pain is temporary. Glory is forever" I thought of this quote and toughed out the cramps, mind tricks and sense of tiredness from the body. I made it to the finish line. I finished at 4:24:58. This was not the time I was expecting to perform at, when I started out, but I had again learnt a lesson that I probably wouldn't have learnt if I hadn't run this marathon. Tapering is important and needs to be respected.



During one of my long practice runs in July, I was racing with a deer for couple of seconds. During my last long practice run, I crossed path with a little garden snake on the road. Running takes you out of your comfort-zone and temporarily connects you with a world that is just you, the nature and the road ahead of you.

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