Notes
Ran 28.28 miles (10/20) in 3:22:57.61 (7:10.6 min./mi.) Today’s plan, the 2013 Nationwide Children’s Hospital Columbus Marathon in 3:10:00 (7:15.0 min./mi.)
From the moment I had completed the WU miles I knew today was going to be good; felt tremendous. My only concern was how long a time it was from the end of the WU miles and the actual start of the race; had completely cooled down by then, but by the end of mile one, that concern was long gone. When racing, I rarely check my GPS, so when I approached the 10k timing mat and seen that I had yet to break forty minutes I was as shocked as anyone, considering I had planned on getting to this point at ~43:00. What this realization did was give me an incredible adrenalin rush and before I knew it I was approaching the half-marathon mark it a time that alarmed me. I was about eight minutes ahead of my planned 1:32:00. I knew I had to take my foot off the pedal and get back more to MGP miles. Now I started GPS watching, which I hate doing; over the next three miles I got the pace done to 7:07, still too fast. Over the next three miles lowered that to 7:52; that was more like what I was looking for. Then as I entered the Ohio Stadium, while going down a somewhat steep decline into the stadium, my right plataris tendon, suddenly and without warning, become very painful. Uphill’s have never been a problem for this tendon, but down hills, that’s another story. Once outside the stadium, I removed the wrap and compression sleeve and spent several minutes just stretching the area, applied some Freeze It, rewrapped, put sleeve back on and walked for 200-300 hundred meters. Started to jog slowing, it seemed to be better, so I kept picking up the pace. At the slower pace the tendon was more of an annoyance rather than the sharp pain; so I kept the pace modest and but still within range of the goal time.
Very pleased with this overall effort. Even without the tendon issue, I doubt that I would have run a much faster time, maybe a couple of minutes. I think the rest during mile 17 probably allowed me to run the last nine plus miles with relative easy. I'll take this BQ time anyday.
2 Mile WU: 8:16.16, 7:44.06
Mile Splits: 6:40.01, 6:32.11, 6:24.32, 6:19.65, 6:21.19, 6:22.55, 6:25.00, 6:21.10, 6:19.44, 6:20.32, 6:19.20, 6:20.22, 6:24.16, 6:40:16, 6:58:11, 7:41:22, 13:21.04, 7:55.29, 7:55.36, 7:44.15, 7:40.16, 7:30.18, 7:17.32, 7:12.60, 7:10.44, 6:58.03, 1:44.88 (0.28)