Weekend Preview: Race #13, Catalina

Ahh, lucky No. 13. I’m superstitious, and I’m staring at some tough luck this weekend. For starters, I’m going Sunday to Saturday between races and only have five days to recover. On top of that, though, my race, the Catalina Marathon, offers BY FAR the most challenging course I’ve faced so far this year.

Guess My Time And Win Operation Jack Gear!
First things first, I’m trying to raise money, but I’m trying to do that as painlessly as possible. So I’m thinking an easy way is to have a weekly contest to guess my time. Basically, if you think I’m going to run a 3:15, you’d guess my time by clicking here or on the “Donate Now” link at the top of any page and donate $3.15. That’s pretty easy — less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

And when you make your guess and your painless donation, you’re putting a big grin on my face. If you support what I’m doing, please participate in this contest!

The winner will be the person who guesses the closest to my time without going under. If you win, we’ll send you your choice of an Operation Jack t-shirt, tech shirt or sweatshirt. Last week’s winner was Molly Rearick, who has a sweatshirt on the way.

The good news: I’m not too slow, so it’s cheap to guess. The better news: I’ll give you analysis about how fast I expect to run.

Catalina Marathon Preview
This race is going to be tough. I’ve looked at finishing times from past competitors. Guys running 2:55 to 3:00 in road marathons are needing as much as 3:40 on this course. It’s primarily on a dirt fire road, but I’ll be wearing trainers because the footing should be fine.

The troubles come from the hills. I don’t think I’ve had a climb more than 200 feet in any of my races this year. Catalina welcomes me with more than 800 feet of gain in the first 2.5 miles.

To give you some perspective, the Boston Marathon is famous for having rolling hills, including four challenging climbs at the end. Talk about training for Boston with anybody and they’ll talk about hills. A friend of mine in Miami is getting anxious about Boston and worried about his hill training. Here’s the course profile for Boston:

Now here’s the profile for Catalina:

The widths of the 26.2 miles in these two images are the same. And the vertical scale is identical in both. So, when you look at the hills in the two course profiles, you’re comparing apples to apples.

This is not a 3:10 course for me. I’m going to try to keep it under 4:00 and I’d be thrilled if I pulled it off in sub-3:45. This race compares more to the two ultras I’ve run than the 40 marathons I’ve completed. In my first ultra, a 50K, I struggled on hills that were considerably steeper than this. It was my first experience to trail running and I learned that I wasn’t nearly as fit as I thought I was.

Just six weeks before I ran Boston in 3:01 last year, I went 5:37 in that 50K. I don’t remember what I hit 26.2 in, but it was probably somewhere around 4:40. That course was considerably tougher than Catalina, though.

Three weeks after Boston, I ran a 50-miler. The course was run at a higher elevation (4,500 – 6,500 feet) than Catalina (0 – 2,000 feet) and temps were about 85 degrees. Catalina should be in the 50s on Saturday. In that 50-miler, the hills were somewhat tame, probably comparable to Catalina. I did well early on, hitting mile 20 by about 3:00. I fell apart in the heat by about mile 23, though, and ended up needing 10:42 to finish the race.

Coincidentally, six days before that 50-miler, I ran a marathon in 3:11:37, just seven seconds quicker than I ran last Sunday. So, I’m heading into Saturday in somewhat similar condition. The difference will be cooler temps, lower elevation and more experience. So that’s why I think 3:45 is a reasonable A goal and 4:00 is a reasonable B goal. I’m setting my C goal at 4:30. Tiff will be out there and I’ll tell her to be at the finish line by the 3:30 mark, but not to start worrying until 4:30.

If I’m a betting man, which I’m not (how messed up would that be for me to win my own contest?), I’d go with $3.52 donation.

Oh, yeah, so I just mentioned Tiff will be there. We have babysitting! We’re truly going to be stuck on an island without the kids for 24 hours — it’s as much of a vacation as we’re going to get any time soon! We’re also going to get to meet Ally Phillips and her husband, who have been big supporters of Operation Jack since last summer.

The best part? We’ll be home Saturday night in time for dinner, and I will actually have an entire day off!

Don’t Forget To Enter The Contest!
It’s less than the cost of a box of Girl Scout Cookies, unless you think I’m going to struggle. But it’s definitely less than the cost of lunch at McDonald’s.

That’s All For This Week
I’ll post a race report on Saturday. Have a great weekend, everybody!