The National Marathon in DC - anyone run this? (Read 1014 times)

Ran the half as a training run and had a nice day. This race may be getting too big. Many complaints at the crowds at the beginning, but I felt we moved fine once across the start.

Water stops were very crowded and people grabbing and yelling for water. I run about midpack and felt for the runners after me. I think they had plenty of water, but not enough people to pour and hand out.

Great medal this year.

Agreed -- the corrals were a bit odd.  I was assigned to "corral 2" - 6:31 to 7:45 -- but then the only marker I saw was for "6:52 pace" - i.e. 3 hour marathon pace.   I thought the crowds cleared out well though.  By the end of the first mile, I felt I was in the clear.

I like the course a bit, though it is challenging.  

I ran the half, and my race went well, in the sense that I PR'd, didn't do anything stupid, and left it all on the course.  I had a time goal that I missed by 2+ minutes, but I was uncertain as to whether I'd hit that goal anyway.  I missed a good chunk of my training cycle this winter due to injury, and as it turned out, I simply didn't have the fitness to support my time goal -- I was on pace for the first half, and then the legs locked up, and I more or less death marched to the finish.   Pretty painful, but I managed to hang on and salvage a PR, and I feel good about that, at least

Hm, looks the same.

 

2010: http://www.nationalmarathon.com/SunTrust_National_Marathon/SunTrust_National_Marathon_Course.htm

 

2009: http://dcist.com/2009/03/street_closures_metro_schedules_for.php

 

 

Hills in first half, mostly flats in second half, except after Anacostia  there's some rolling hills.

 BTW, based on something Tramps wrote elsewhere, I reexamined this, and there is an extra U detour in 2009 between mi#19 and mi#20. It throws all the mile markers off between the two years, all the way up to mi#26, and I don't know how they reconciled that -- was the end different? It didn't seem different.

 

... I took Metro and ended up wishing I drove, not that it makes you feel better

Last year I took metro and they didn't open my station at 5AM like all the other ones -- dunno if they forgot or what, but eventually some metro worker hurried up and found a cluster of us runners waiting dejectedly at the stop, and opened it -- I dunno, 45minutes late? There was someone calling over the loudspeaker when we finally got in, asking the station agent to please call in to confirm if the station was actually opened.

Plus baggage claim was a mess.

So we chose to drive this year, and that was bad too. Leaves us not wanting to do it again, but, maybe we'll forget about all the bad stuff by next year.

I wasn't late to the start,  but I couldn't get into the proper place.  I was in a crush of folks that felt downright unsafe.  I finally climbed over a barrier and walked on the outside and climbed back in.  I had see the 4 hour pace ballon, but then that person moved back and I found I was in the wrong place.    I then worked my way as best as I could and stopped eventually because it was just too hard to fight through the crowd.  The start was the most disorganized thing I've ever seen in a race. 

Hearing that they closed a parking lot makes sense.  I couldn't figure why the traffic was so backed up though we came in pretty early (it wasn't quite 6 when we got within a few blocks and it all stopped).  There wasn't any good reason that I could think of since the streets shouldn't have been closed yet.  Thank goodness I was with someone who wasn't racing, so she could drop me and another friend off and then figure out how to park. (Good thing, my friend placed 3rd in her AG).

I thought the weather was HOT.  I was happy with last year's cool weather.  I was just miserable by the end.    I'd decided ahead of time that I wasn't in shape to run well, and I'd not try to push through and leave everything on the course, as I don't want to have to take much recovery time.   Of course, the problem with that strategy is that it left me mentally unable to stay focused by those last miles.  In fact, I seriously considered dropping out as early as  the halfway mark.  The only reason I didn't is that we'd made the kids miss their first soccer games of the season to come meet me at the finish. 

We stayed over in DC Saturday so I went from the race to lunch at Eastern Marker with RA folks, to the National Mall and museums with my kids without showering (my sweaty stench helped thin the museum crowds around us.)  Saturday evening, my husband went down to the hotel bar after I went to bed.  (We were at the Willard so he was hoping to see someone "cool." His idea of cool is Eric Holder.) He ended up drinking scotch with Rachel Maddow and her girlfriend.  Now that's cool!