Marathon #19: Quad explosion in Las Vegas

Alright, marathon season has officially started for me and this one needs a bit of a debrief 😂 My training season wasn’t too strong this time; a lingering shin injury didn’t allow for a high training volume and only one singe training run over 30k. But I already paid for the race, the flight and the room, so I decided to go for it anyway. Mt Charleston Marathon turned out to be a brutal race. It starts in the mountains North-West of Las Vegas at an elevation of 2300m. At 6am, when it’s dark and a chilly -12°C. The course takes around 2000 runners down into Las Vegas, where it’s 30 degrees warmer. The course features an average decline of 4% which sounds great, but is something you can hardly train for in Ottawa. The first half was great. A pace of around 4:10min/km felt almost effortless and the half marathon was done in well under 90 minutes. Beautiful sunrise and scenery. My initial injuries (right shin and left calf) were not present at all, and I secretly hoped it would all just keep going to the finish line. But after 18 marathons I know that the race really only starts after 30 kilometers. Today, it started much earlier. My quads began to hurt at kilometer 25 to a point that I was seriously worried not being able to finish. I had to massively slow down — not because of exhaustion, but because of muscular malfunction; the legs just wouldn’t move the way I wanted them to. I had a similar sensation in last year’s downhill marathon in Washington, but it started much lighter and was less intense. I walked the water stations but forced myself to pick up running again every time; at a pace of around 5:00 to 5:20. The course got much flatter towards the end and it almost felt like running uphill. Only for the final two kilometers my mind won over my body again and pushed me over the finish line 30 seconds below the Boston qualifying standard 😅 (which, as we all know, will likely not be enough). So whoever says that downhill running is cheating, please try for yourselves — it’s a very different kind of challenge!