Signed up for the San Francisco Marathon!
I’ve just emailed the race coordinators to transfer from the San Francisco Half Marathon to the full. As I realized in an earlier post, triggering muscle cramps during training is very tricky, and leaves me at high risk of injury.
I believe I can safely run about 3 marathons a year. Most experts recommend two, but I’m not shooting for the optimal time. I instead want to use these races as an arena to try out strategies to avoid muscle cramps. It’s possible I could run more than 3 a year, but I will make this call several weeks after the San Francisco Marathon is over.
In my initial plan of triggering cramps during training, I was able to run an experiment (ie try a new technique to combat cramps) every week. Now that I have only 3 experiments per year, I can no longer be as fastidious about experimental isolation. If I were to try each of my strategies in turn, it would take me a year to get through the three approaches I’m starting with. If those don’t work, this project will drag on for who knows how long.
Instead, I will be bundling multiple strategies into one race. Once I find a bundle that works, I can iteratively remove elements. Or, like the superstitious racer who always crosses the starting line with his right foot, I will embrace a funky, complicated racing ritual.
So at San Francisco, I will:
- Take high-sodium gels or salt pills
- Drink pickle juice if I notice cramps
- Consume 2 cups of sports drink at each drink stand, which occur every 1.5 miles or so.
I’ll also need to get my body in marathon race shape with a couple of long runs. I’m hoping to include 3 long race-pace efforts, of 14, 16, and 18 miles between now and the race, which is 7 weeks away. During these or other long runs, I’ll need to figure out how my body handles pickle juice, salt pills, and high-sodium gels.
San Francisco isn’t a goal race, and I will not be attempting a 2:37 time. I will shoot for an aggressive pace, but only in service of triggering cramps.
