Well, let's see. This was a fun race. My wife, daughter, and I went down on Friday and stayed with Dustin and his family. They are always great hosts and friends. In the afternoon we stopped by the expo and ran into some other friends. Later we went on a short hike and then had a great spaghetti dinner.
In the morning we got up at 4 am and made it on one of the buses in plenty of time. I got kind of scared by the Winchester Hill as we were driving, but it didn't turn out to be as bad as it looked. At the starting line, it was nice that I was able to go into the "elite" area. I'm not elite, but I guess my estimated time was low enough that they let me in. It's worth trying to become elite, though, because they have special potties and fires, etc. It was fun to meet some of the bloggers. The time went by quickly, and soon we were off.
I had decided to run with Clyde and Logan's 3:00 pace group just to see what I could do. I wasn't sure what I was capable of, but it was worth a shot. Things went well for the first 3-4 miles. I ran with Dave S. Around mile 4 or 5 we fell off the 3:00 group. I think the group went through the fourth mile in about 6:16. The pace felt OK to me at that time, but I just felt like it was pushing the pace too hard too fast for me, so I backed off, as did Dave S. We ran together down to Veio, and then Dave thought he might have to stop due to his lingering injuries. But fortunately he was able to keep going. We stayed together until about mile 10 (which was nice to be together on the hills).
I felt great on the hills until about miles 11 and 12. But it wasn't bad. I had warned myself that those hills would try to trick me into thinking the entire race would be that hard, and that's what happened. But fortunately the downhill came again soon. I went through the half marathon at exactly 1:30:00, which was awesome. That's a PR by five minutes!
I just kept telling myself that I would hold a steady pace and then if I was in reach of breaking three hours at the end then I would see what I could do. This was good. I just stayed relaxed and was running below 7:00 almost every mile. It was especially helpful to stay relaxed on the steep downhills. I'm pretty sure I would have regretted it if I pounded through those miles too hard. In fact, this was one of my keys to success...to run a strong, even pace but not to where I was straining.
I saw my wonderful wife and daughter at mile 23. That gave me a big boost. Huge boost. And then I struggled through the last 3 miles. I looked at my watch way too many times, and it didn't make the miles go any faster. But to my surprise, my mile splits were still decent. The worst one was mile 26 at 7:41. So I didn't really crash.
I brought some Clif Shot Blocks with me, and they were good. I ate half a pack at miles 5, 10, and 16. I probably should have eaten the last one around 21, but I couldn't stand the thought of eating any more. That may have caused me to lose steam at the end. The water stops were fine. I just grabbed cups and ran a few steps to stay out of people's way, stopped for a second and drank it down.
I was happy with my time. It qualified me to run Boston and was a 17 minute PR. I tried to BQ 4 years ago, but I didn't prepare enough and failed. So it was nice to do the preparation and succeed this time. I wasn't really disappointed to miss 3 hours. If I stick with marathons, I believe I can exceed that goal in the future. One thing that really pleased me was to see that Dave S finished and set a 12 minute PR.
The last thing I want to say is that I'm really grateful to Dustin not only for letting us stay with him but for encouraging me to get back into running about a year ago and commenting on my blog (along with many others) throughout the year. It really was a motivation to know that someone was going to notice if you did a good workout. And thanks to the rest of you who have gone out of your way to post comments. And most of all, thanks to my wonderful wife and daughter for being so supportive of me pursuing this hobby.
Oh yeah, one more thing. It was a mental victory for me that even though I was slowing down at the end that I found another gear and passed some people in the last 0.2.
What's next? We want to go to Boston 2010 if we can manage it. Besides that, I want to work on my speed and speed endurance. I hope to do a fast short race (5K or 10K) before the end of the year.
Here are my splits from the marathon:
6:53
6:44
6:27
6:23
6:35
6:30
6:34
7:24 (uphill)
7:20 (more uphill)
7:01
7:12
7:00
6:51
6:59
6:49
6:42
6:55
7:00
7:23 (hill)
7:00
6:54
7:12
7:15
6:55
7:25
7:41
1:29
