The short story: Marathon debut, 2:21:46, negative split (71:10 / 70:36), and actually ran a half-marathon PR for the second half of the race.
The long version: Today was a most excellent day. It was fun and rewarding and just felt damn good to run fast. I've put in a lot of miles this winter in an effort to get myself back to a competitive level of running. Four to five months ago my goal for this race was to get to the starting line healthy and run under 2:37 (~6 min pace). As the spring (or endless winter) progressed, consistency was the name of the game, and my fitness steadily improved. A week after running a half-marathon PR at the Provo City Half, I did a 13 mile tempo that told me I had jumped to a new level. For the last 3 weeks leading up to UVM, my workouts were fantastic, and I felt great pretty much every single day as I tapered down the mileage. I knew I was ready for a special run today. My goal was to run ~1:13 for the first half and then negative split... but even with that objective in mind and realizing that the marathon is a long race that deserves a lot of respect, my real "plan" was to run without any external or internal limits... to just go out there, lay my cards down, and let it happen... I woke up almost every hour last night hoping it was finally 3:30am and time to get going.
Now to the race... perfect temps at the start, cool and dry. Bryant Jensen and the 2 Kenyans separated right from the gun, I hung back in the second pack w/ Paul, Dave, Clyde, and Sasha. The first mile felt super easy (5:47). We picked it up a bit on the second mile (5:29) but it was still conversational. The gap to the lead pack was getting big, so Paul and I took off a bit after 2 miles. Mile 3-5 were 4:59, 5:17, 5:23. Paul kept increasing the pace so I let him go, realizing I was going at a nice tempo at that point. Mile 6 was 5:15, then we hit the rolling hills for miles 7-9 (5:32, 5:31, 5:44). The next mile was back to 5:15 for a ten mile split of 54:16. A little faster than planned, but I was feeling great, despite running alone since the ~5.5 miles.
Miles 11-13 were 5:25, 5:36, 5:23. I passed one of the Kenyans at the 12 mile marker and moved into 4th place. Came through the half-marathon in 1:11:10. Faster than I thought I would, but I was feeling great, and the plan was to run with no limits, right? I knew that unless one of the guys ahead of me really blew up, they weren't coming back, and nobody from behind was going to catch me, so I focused on running my own race.
Miles 14-20 were 5:28, 5:23, 5:37 (uphill the whole way, I was actually really happy about this split), 5:22, 5:16, 5:24, 5:15. Twenty miles in 1:48:31, and that means my ten mile splits were 54:16 / 54:15. Very consistent. Miles 21-22 were 5:22, 5:17. Now I'm starting to feel it a bit. Not really in my legs, but in my TOES! I could feel a couple blisters coming at about 16 miles. Now they were hurting pretty bad, but nothing I couldn't fight through. Miles 23-24 were 5:26, 5:37 (hill). Hurting a bit but keeping it together... For the last few miles I started thinking "keep every mile under 5:30, and break 2:23"... Mile 25 was 5:21. Back on track. Andrea was at this point and cheered me on. Put the pedal down a bit and ran 5:13 for the 26th mile. I'm trying to do the math in my head... can I possibly get under 2:22?... when I hit the final chute I saw 2:21-something on the clock, then put my head down, and just absolutely went for it. The crowd was great, and anyone that saw the finish can attest that I was probably the most excited 4th place finisher of all-time! Ran 57 seconds for the final 0.2, almost tripping over my own feet as I was pumping my fists, and came in at 2:21:46. The second half of the race was 1:10:36, which is the fastest half-marathon I've ever run.
I had to take my shoes off as soon as I finished, so I just sat down on the ground and waited for Andrea to come find me. Needless to say, my excitement doubled when she told me that she won the half-marathon! As happy as I've been about my improvement curve over the past 6 months, I'm even more stoked for her... and I honestly mean it when I say that there's no way that I would been able to run so well today without her day-to-day support.
This race feels good in a lot of ways. I'm sure I'll have a better perspective on it in the next few days. For now I'm just going to enjoy it and not try to over-analyze it. I put in the miles, did smart workouts, had fun doing it, and executed a great race today.
It was great to finally meet a bunch of you guys today. Hopefully Andrea and I will see you at a lot more races in the future. I also want to thank Hyrum and the UVM staff for putting on an excellent event... every detail was covered and very professionally done.
Now we're going to take a few easy weeks, ski, bike, hike, and let the bodies re-charge.
The next marathon is going to be Philadelphia in November. Goal time... TBD :-) ...but if I've learned anything about myself in the last few months as I've built up towards this race, its that I'm not putting any limits on what I'm capable of.
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