Forums >Racing>Nyc marathon - incredible - puzzled by having to slow down at mile 13?
NYC Marathon 5 Nov 2023
Incredible unbelievable amazing race
Perplexed by having to slow down at mile 13 after running at 9 min pace- thought training was sufficient
Ran half race in 1:51 in September, ran 5 training runs between 17 to 21 milers in sep/Oct comfortably - 20 miles training in 3:12 ave 9:37 ; ran 35 to 46 miles per week sep, Oct before taper
Felt bloated and nauseous at mile 13 and got worse - dry heaved after finishing marathon
Ate pasta 3 days before- reduced vegetables - not sure if maybe too little protein
Drank a lot day before
Took day before very easy
Morning of- wave 3 1020am
Starting 6am 2 bags oatmeal - did not finish, ate banana
Glass of water, cup of tea
2 glass water with liquid iv
Bottle water on bus from ferry
Bottle water in village before start
Race
.5 Medjool date every 30 - 40 minutes
Drank sips slowly every water stop
Slowed down at mile 13 feeling bloated / nauseous - run a bit and had to walk a bit
First Half in 2, 2nd half in 2:50
Don’t know why ‘crashed’ at 13 in marathon? Any thoughts?
maybe overhydrated? Protein deficiency? Other?
Still had great race and enjoyed immensely
Thanks
Runs in the rain
You drank quite a lot of water before the race without much salty food. My guess is your electrolyte balance was thrown off making you feel sick. Other thought is there are days when we just don't feel too great and these seem to be due to random, unpredictable factors.
Long distance runner, what you standin' there for?Get up, get out, get out of the door!
+1. Most likely too much water with not enough salt. Liquid IV has a decent amount of sodium but you drank a lot of water outside of that.
Runners run
My 2 cents - less to do with fuel/hydration, more to do with training. Yes you had mid-30s to mid-40s for a couple months before the race, but for most of the year before that (and years prior) you were more in the 20-25 range. You didn't have the mileage volume, over a long enough time period, to support turning a 1:51 half into a 4:00 full. You can get by in the 40s, although 50s+ is better. But it's not one training cycle - getting better at marathoning is a multi-year proposition, maintaining high base mileage over an extended period of time, with a few months of more focused training a couple times a year for a race. Mile 13 is a bit earlier than I would've expected you to feel it, but you were running fast - you didn't have any training runs at a pace near 9:00, other than your half race.
Additionally - NYCM is a tough course - did you train on hilly routes? And it ended up getting a bit warm and sunny - everyone I was tracking had a positive split, some pretty substantial. Those factors didn't help either.
Dave
Mmmm Bop
You don’t have to be perplexed anymore as I can explain as I ran it in 2016.
The first half of NYC is easy and flat…but the second half is different with the bridges and the subtle hill before you reach Central Park.
It’s one of those courses that once you’ve run it you’ll learn from mistakes and be be more clued up if you decide run it again!
5k - 17:53 (4/19) 10k - 37:53 (11/18) Half - 1:23:18 (4/19) Full - 2:50:43 (4/19)
Thanks all for helpful thoughts and feedback
i ran the last 10 to 15 of the nyc marathon route multiple times in the 6 weeks prior to tapering
I was also doing medium longish tempo runs on wednesdays of 8 to 12 miles
I also ran the Philadelphia marathon in 2021 where I was running 920ish / mile for first 21 and then had similar nauseous chest bloated feeling and slowed down to 426
i was surprised by being unable to run normally starting at 13 miles- the 9 min pace didn’t seem sufficiently faster than my training runs or parts of my training runs done a bit faster or my half to cause that kind of slowdown
trying to really understand what could have been going on in my body starting at mile 13 to cause slow down and feelings-
thanks again for all thoughts and suggestions
mike
Intl. correspondent
9 min per mile was very likely too fast for your fitness if you only have a 1h51 half and very low mileage.
Regardless, according to the book "The Athlete's gut" (which I highly recommend as it will explain to you all the possible causes for bloating and nausea during races), you should avoid foods with fiber, fats or protein the few hours before and during a race.
You should stick to easily digestable carbs (that's why most people go with gels) and perhaps also some form of salt (Gatorade, Powerade, salt sticks, etc). The reason is that these are easy to digest and your stomach will empty very quickly, the key thing is that the stomach is emptied quickly.
Fats and protein will take longer to exit the stomach and will cause issues later in the race.
And fiber will have you feeling bloated + probably also stomach trouble.
PRs: 1500 4:54.1 2019 - 5K 17:53 2023 - 10K 37:55 2023 - HM 1:21:59 2021
Up next: some 800m race (or time trials) / Also place in the top 20% in a trail race
Tool to generate Strava weekly
Did you follow a similar diet during training, especially on long runs (ie oatmeal before, dates during)? I eat oatmeal meal or oatmeal pancakes or muffins before runs with no issues, but I'm sure this would send some running for the nearest POP or woods.
No gatorade on course? That can wreck my stomach since sometimes it seems very concentrated.
Problem Child
NYC Marathon 5 Nov 2023 Incredible unbelievable amazing race Perplexed by having to slow down at mile 13 after running at 9 min pace- thought training was sufficient Ran half race in 1:51 in September, ran 5 training runs between 17 to 21 milers in sep/Oct comfortably - 20 miles training in 3:12 ave 9:37 ; ran 35 to 46 miles per week sep, Oct before taper Felt bloated and nauseous at mile 13 and got worse - dry heaved after finishing marathon Ate pasta 3 days before- reduced vegetables - not sure if maybe too little protein Drank a lot day before Took day before very easy Morning of- wave 3 1020am Starting 6am 2 bags oatmeal - did not finish, ate banana Glass of water, cup of tea 2 glass water with liquid iv Bottle water on bus from ferry Bottle water in village before start Race .5 Medjool date every 30 - 40 minutes Drank sips slowly every water stop Slowed down at mile 13 feeling bloated / nauseous - run a bit and had to walk a bit First Half in 2, 2nd half in 2:50 Don’t know why ‘crashed’ at 13 in marathon? Any thoughts? maybe overhydrated? Protein deficiency? Other? Still had great race and enjoyed immensely Thanks
Did you ever do any of this during a 17-20 mile run? glass of water, plus tea, plus two cups of water with liquid IV before a 20-26 mile run is a lot. Add in water every stop mile for 13 miles. Try drinking this much any day of the week and see how you feel. Every 9 minutes drink 2 ounces of water for 2 hours without urinating.
My honest opinon is you crashed because you deviated from your training. You didn't race like you trained. You raced like you THOUGHT people run a 20 miler, and had fears about hitting the wall at mile 20 which resulted in you hitting the wall at mile 13. You're body decided if you're going to fill it as much as you did then exercise was taking a back seat.
Many of us aren't sure what the hell point you are trying to make and no matter how we guess, it always seems to be something else. Which usually means a person is doing it on purpose.
VDOT 53.37
5k18:xx | Marathon 2:55:22
Tome thoughts:
A possibility is that you just had a bad day. I have run 13 full marathons, and two of them (in 2010 and 2016) were a full half hour slower than they should have been given my training and preparation. I have never been able to figure out why those two races were so slow compared to the other eleven races.
Also, I agree with the posts that imply you may have over hydrated. I used a number of medium and long runs on warm days to study hydration and dehydration. From that, I was able to make a chart of total sweat loss vs distance and temperature. I also learned my tolerance to dehydration. It's as follows:
Sweat loss Results
3 lbs No noticeable effect
5 lbs Slight increase in effort to maintain pace
7 lbs Need tempo effort and heart rate to maintain normal training pace
9 lbs Struggle to walk
I drink enough so that my estimated sweat loss for a particular distance and temperature will be no more than 5 lbs. I get no benefit to drinking more, so I don't.
My first full marathon was 4:01 with a one minute negative split a few months after a 1:53 half marathon. But I ran 1842 miles that year (2007). Your mileage is low enough that your marathon time will likely be slower than what your half marathon time would predict. Long runs will not make up for lack of base mileage.
I ran NY last year when it was hot. At that point, NY was my 29th marathon but first NY. I too crashed at 13 - most likely due to inadequate fueling the day before, morning of, etc. and most of all the humidity that day (ran too fast at start for hot/humid conditions). But for me the most difficult thing about NY was getting to the start line. I stayed near Central Park. I had to take the subway, then fight my way onto the ferry, then stand in a very disorganized non-line for about an hour, then fight my way onto a bus without being trampled, then sat on the bus for 1/2 hour and THEN I got to the start area where I waited around.
I've done Big Sur three times and had to get up super early (3:00 a.m.) take the bus down Hwy 1 to the start and wait at the campground for hours but that was a piece of cake compared to getting to the start line in NY. All other marathons (Boston, Chicago, Berlin, Rome, etc) have been much easier to get to than NY. I think that is one of the many factors that makes it more difficult to run than the average marathon.
Mother of Cats
I concur with everything said here - especially the focus on nutrition/hydration. That is a LOT of water, and no salt taken in while running. I know that when I take in too little salt I feel the exact way you describe.
Also - why did you choose to use a small amount of medjool dates for your fueling in the race, instead of gels? I know that there are articles on the internet suggesting that one can use dates instead of gels when marathoning, but...you can find just about anything on the internet. I know that they are easily digestible compared to other foods, but not when compared to a gel (they have fiber - gels don't). And they may have potassium, magnesium, and calcium, but not salt. Salt is crucial on a warm day.
Additionally, when I do the math, it looks like you ate 4-5 dates total over the race (1/2 date every 30-40 minutes during a 5 hour marathon). A date is ~67 calories, so that means that your total caloric intake over the marathon was roughly between 250 and 350 calories That is WAY TOO LITTLE in my book. I take in that many calories each hour when racing a marathon (and I am most likely smaller than you - I'm smaller than almost everyone).
I really think that you need to revisit your fueling during the race, changing both your method of fueling and how much you consume.
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350 calories for a race isn't a lot.
As a reference this is MY pre-marathon race setup.
1 bagel with nut butter on both sides with a small amount of water because of how dry this is
1 caffeine pill (same effect as coffee without the liquid)
2 hard boiled eggs
1 gel every 45ish minutes. Whatever coincides with an aid station so I can wash the gel down.
Looking at the TCS New York Marathon course there are a LOT of hydration stations. I learned at Boston to keep track of the TIME inbetween drinking. With water EVERY MILE you'd be at a full bottle of water just before mile 20. For my training runs I consume about 1 ounce per mile of water when it's hot. For a hot race I'd pour the water on my head. I don't think I could stomach 1 ounce of water per mile in a marathon.
Former Bad Ass
I agree on the fueling; that wasn't enough. I also agree with Dave that you probably were also running too fast for your training mileage even compared to the 1:51 half.
Damaris
Thanks again for all the thoughtful responses - much appreciated
might mean I have to give marathon another shot- so many variables!
on the salt side, I had put salt on the dates and in the bag I held them in - wanting unprocessed food was date driver
agreed that seems like too few calories from half date but don’t think that would’ve impacted me so early- don’t want too many to avoid stomach issues - need to find the sweet spot
Run 4/week: 41.7, 37.5, 36, 30.9 (half race), 39.3, 36.4, 46.2, taper Were last few weeks
first time I have tried any higher intensity training with multiple mid week 8 to 12 mile tempo runs
I did same prep and nutrition on training runs except drank more because start race at 1020 compared to normal training at 730- tricky to adjust because of later start time
It feels like maybe overhydration with insufficient salts - possibly under training but feel like that would have impacted me later - I lost steam before I got to the hard parts!
thanks again for all the advice - much appreciated and still appreciate any further thoughts or suggestions