Ran a marathon hard and well for once. Not perfectly; I hit the wall and struggled for the last five miles or so. But I raced. And I didn't walk a step. To be updated later... My mental image of this race will probably start with one thing. I'm parked on a downtown street in Baton Rouge, 6:10am, it's still pitch black outside, and I'm putting on sunscreen. And I'm glad I did. That sun got bright, and I feel a little burn on a couple of areas I missed. Race started just at sunup. I locked in with the 3:45 pacer. Uh, no I didn't. As usual, I fell back behind her. Then I picked it up just a touch, caught her at the 4 mile mark, and felt comfortable at that pace, which was maybe 8:29. So I kept going. Should I have backed off and stayed with her? Maybe. She caught me again at about 10 miles. I think she did a little positive split (last 10K in 53ish), but not bad, and she ran 3:44. Could I have held that pace? Maybe not. I hadn't started slowing down (much) when she caught me. Course wound around, through the LSU campus (not many students out there; not a big surprise considering Monday is a holiday and those still around may well have been out late Saturday night) and through some very nice residential neighborhoods around several lakes. Then we headed east on a very long out and back. They threw in twists and turns so it wasn't as mentally imposing as, say, the out and back along the river in Little Rock, but I remember thinking are we EVER going to get to the end? Finally, past 19, we got there. At this point, I still felt fairly strong. It was humid, although cool, and I was sweating heavily in the first six miles (as a guy who caught up to me on the LSU campus noted). But I was taking fluid every two miles, taking gels every five miles, and I felt OK. Until that return leg. Then the turnover just wasn't there. 8:30 became 9 became 9:30. I'm trying to wring whatever I could out of the legs, but there just wasn't much there. Finally, thanks to that final overpass and dead legs, mile 26 was 10:00 plus. My friend Angela from RWOL caught me about a mile from the finish and wasn't even sure it was me, I looked so bad. "Is it your Achilles?" No, the Achilles has behaved itself, and it did. Your knee? No, I'm not having any real pain anywhere, I just hit the ^%&@ wall. So she cruised on past me, with her lack of training and sore hip flexor, and beat me by a minute and a half. There were a lot of people lining the course in the final half mile, and their cheering finally inspired me to go faster. Which is a little irritating. If I had that in me for the last .22, why couldn't I get any of it for the last 2.2? Of course, I wore my Razorback shirt. I couldn't run a race in LSU country without doing that. A guy I saw after the finish congratulated me for having the stones to run through the LSU campus in that shirt. But I was pretty shocked not to hear a single "tiger bait". One guy said "Go Tigers". But that was it for the verbal abuse. One guy said "Go Razorbacks, for today only." I got a chuckle out of that. And lots of people said "Go Hogs". But the highlight was about at mile 23, when three guys who were most likely LSU students called the Hogs for me. That was on the out and back section, so they'd seen me go by at maybe 16. An hour or so later when I came back, they were ready for me. So I'm finally through. I see Angela again, along with her BF Shane, who broke his marathon maiden with a 3:15, the dog. I staggered over to the state museum which doubled as gear check and got my bag. Then I moved very slowly over to a little park by the Capitol where the race festival was going on. Beer, Cajun food, people sprawled out on the grass. Sprawling sounded really good, but I wasn't sure I could get back up if I sprawled. So I kept moving. Saw Kenny from Little Rock. I used to train with him (and dust him) fairly frequently. Yesterday, he beat me by 9 minutes. My gait is a shuffle, felt like about 12 inch steps. I saw Pat, who had seen me finish after she got through her half. Ran into Angela and Shane a couple of more times. Got some food, got some beer, but decided what I really wanted was rest. So I shuffled back to the car (went too far down and had to double back), drove back to the hotel, zoned out and missed my exit, and had to go 12 miles farther to the next exit to turn around and come back. I'd hoped to be the first finisher from Arkansas, which would have gotten me a cool hat as a prize. Turns out I was fourth. Kenny was third. The guy who got the hat was way faster than me, so that wasn't going to happen, but I didn't know that. If I'd run my target time of 3:45, I would have been 10th in AG (and Kenny still would have beaten me). I'm OK with this finish, though. The nagging Achilles problems definitely had affected my training. I'm still trying to get back in real racing shape after last year's non-running issues. Not enough running at MP in this cycle. Really, not enough mileage. I need to be doing more 60-70 mile weeks, and I will for Bayshore. I'm not fast enough to get by on speed; I need to be strong, and this level of mileage doesn't make me strong enough. If I'm ever going to get back to Boston, high mileage will be what gets me there. I sucked it up, I kept running, and I felt like I squeezed out just about all I had to give on this morning. The humidity and the bright sunshine didn't help, although to be fair the course was pretty shady. But my last four marathons had kept getting slower and slower. Today broke that trend, and it was my fastest race since Boston -- faster than Utah or CIM, and an hour faster than Stockholm.
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