Newport Marathon - 2:43:12 - 4th place
Wow, this one was a surprise. My body managed to hold up and I pulled out a 7 minute PR from my first marathon, New York City. My primary goal was a sub 2:50, and I would have been really happy with running 6:20 pace (about 2:46). Given some of the injuries I've had spring I feel great about this. I guess my unintentional taper (16 miles last week and 13 this week) didn't hurt me too bad.
The race conditions were ideal. Calm, cool and no rain. The course is flat almost the whole way, and after the first 4 miles, there's no sharp turns or anything to deal with. Most of the run is along the bay and it's really quiet and scenic. A way different experience than New York City for me.
Sean Sundwall put on a clinic. Running 2:22 is amazing in it's own right, but you don't see many runners go 2:22 running solo the entire way and winning by 19 minutes. That was a very impressive performance and I'm happy for Sean for breaking the course record and running so awesome. There was a lot of buzz at the race about his effort Saturday. Congrats to a talented runner and a good guy.
My race was pretty consistent. Except for mile 3, in the first 19 miles, my splits never varied by more than 9 seconds! I kept them all between 6:08 and 6:17. I was able to stay in a groove, keep hydrated and fueled and not worry too much about the other runners in the race. At about mile 20, some calf cramping started and my quads starting feeling hammered, but I stuck with it. My calves never fully blew up, which has happened too many times in the past year. I tried some different things that I think worked out. I had great course support from the other runners and from my wife driving the last 10 miles and stopping every few minutes to encourage me. I ended up moving into 4th place the last half mile and holding off a couple of runners that were not too far behind. Second through 7th place were all within about 3 minutes, so it was relatively deep up front for such a small race (750 registered).
My legs are absolutely destroyed today, but amazingly my shin isn't sore. Everything else is. I plan to recover and then try to build a little bit of a base this summer. I know my mileage is still very low by marathon standards. Maybe I'll try another one this fall.
Half marathon splits were 1:20+/1:22+. I'll probably put my mile by mile splits down at some point for my own reference. | 