Even though I don't need them, I'm going to start out with 2 very legimitae excuses.
#1: Weather. Way too hot...again. Not as bad as last year, but it was still close to 70 at the start and 80 by the finish. Throw in some humidity and it was far from ideal runing conditions.
#2: Work. Friday I had extremely bad luck at work. Another resident called in sick friday so I got stuck doing his rotation which required an 11 hour shift, most of in on my feet wearing 15 pounds of lead. As was still at work at 7:30 PM when I discoved that the resident assigned to the overnight shift has to go to the ER. Sadly, I was the on-call backup and I got stuck covering her shift. Tried to get out of it with no luck. Thus I did 24 hours of work, finishing 24 hours before the marathon. This really affected my carbo load becuare my diet Friday was terrible and hater a few hours of sleep saturday I only had wbout 8 wakeful hours on Saturday.
On to the race report.
Got to the race by train, arriving abut an hour before the race. One of the downsides of a mega-marathon is that I required much of this hour to walk aroung to check gear, find a bathroom (fence) and get to the starting corral. Because of the above excuses I had the plan that I would drop out after 6-8 miles if it was obvious that I was in for a bad day. Thankfully I didn't need to.
The elites started 4:50 before everyone else and it took me about 10 seconds to cross the line so I had to do 5 minutes of math everytime I saw an official clock.
I didn't have a very firm goal before the race dure to the situation. I would like to run a 2:35, but that seemed doubtful. 2:37 seemed difficult. Anthing under my PR of 2:39:45 would be great.
Mile 1: I was behing abut a thoudand people at the start so I saw a lot of traffic. Didn't waste a lot of energy swerving and settled for a 6:02 first mile. Slowest mile until the end of the race.
Mile 2: Still a lot of traffic and way too many people to consider myself part of a group yet. 5:53.
Mile 3: Still passing a lot of people, but the crowds are thinning. The spectators are not thinning and I got a little too excited and ran a 5:48.
Mile 4: I'm now in a group with abut 5 other runners who seem to be running a good pace. 5:50
Mile 5: It's getting warm out there. I'm taking water/gatorade at every aid station, all 20 oof them. 5:49.
Mile 6: At this point last year I was already slowed down to about 6:20 pace. Not this year. 5:59. Not even close to feeling like dropping out, I feel great.
Mile 7: Had a bit of a conversation with another guy in the group that is 4-5 at this time. 3 of them are first timers from a local college aiming for a sub 2:40. I don't think they made it. 5:46, likely off a little based on the slower mile 6. In fact, I remember seeing two clocks at mile 7, I hit my watch at the second because the first would have been a 5:40 mile.
Mile 8. At this boint the course does a 180 and we head back into the wind. Not terrible, maybe 10 MPH, but still significant. I did very little running into the wind. I mostly drafted off of the college guys. 5:54.
Mile 9. More drafting. Still feeling great. 5:52.
Mile 10. 5:54. I've already seen a couple guys pull of to the side to stretch, vomit, etc. Not a good sing for them.
Mile 11: The two college guys that I are discussing that they are hurting a little and should probably slow down. We are about 30-40 yards behind the next group. There are still 2-3 miles headwind so I push the pace to catch the next group. 5:50.
Mile 12: Recovering from the last mile. Didn't hit my watch.
Mile 13: Headwind ends and it do a little side by side running with the guy that I will spend about 10 miles drafting off of. We never exchange words until the race is over. 11:54
Mile 14: I wrote my report for here and it got lost, so I will be brief. 5:52.
Mile 15: 5:54
Mile 16: 5:57
Mile 17: Somewhere aroud her a guy yelled out that we were in 97t place. I took that heresay as gospen and counted my place from then on, which provided some great inspiration. A topp 100 finish in Chicag owould be awesome. 5:58.
Mile 18: At this point my right hamstring strated hurting a little, not big deal...yet. 5:57.
Mile 19: 6:01
Mile 20. Lost the guy I was drafting off of. 6:05.
Mile 21: Starting to slow. 6:12.
Mile 22: Major sudden pain in the hamstring. I think it was cramping and I pulled it. From experience I know not to stretch unless absomutely necessary so I went on. 6:23.
Mile 23. I am hitting the wall. The lacck of cleep and heat are getting to me. 6:30.
Mile 24: This is where I knew my family would be which provided some much needed inspiration. 6:33.
Mile 25: Running as hard as I can, but the body is not cooperating. 6:35.
Mile 26. At the end of this mile there is a cruely placed overpass. Feels like a mountain. 7:04
Finish: Run as hard as I can, which is not very fast 1:32 (6:49 pace).
New PR by 30 seconds. 2:39:14. 91st place. | 