tl;dr version at the end... because, you know, we don't want to include spoilers, or anything.  

For the past two years, I’ve run the Long Island Half Marathon — I PRed both times.  Last year, I intended to do the full, but that was dependent upon the condition that I PR in Tel Aviv.  I didn’t, so I ran the half here instead; and I was glad for that, since it turned out to be terribly windy on race day.

This year, the weather was pretty much perfect.  Some might have called it too hot (and it was a bit warm by the time I finished), but I would always rather be too hot than too cold.  However, knowing that the weather was basically going to be made-to-order only served to increase my anxiety.  Oh, did I mention that I originally registered for the half with the intent of upgrading to the full, pending body cooperation?

I did not get that body cooperation.  The past couple of months have actually been really difficult on the injury front: the knee got really bad following the NYC Half (bad enough to send me to HSS), and my mental state subsequently got even worse.  Which is why I decided to upgrade anyway.  I knew a HM PR wasn’t going to happen on this knee, and this is a PR course.  Somehow it seemed more logical to try and go after a marathon PR instead.  But since my knee decided to keep being uncooperative, I accepted that I likely would not make my (conservative) goal of 3:45… which didn’t stop me from printing out a 3:45 pace band.  You know, as a general guideline.

This is the course map.  I’m not someone who needs visual stimulation and pretty scenery to keep myself occupied when I run, so I’m not really sure why those thirteen miles on the Wantagh struck such fear in my heart.  It’s a long, flat, mind-numbing stretch that seems to go on and on and on and on and on.  (It’s also devoid of shade, which is probably very difficult who have more trouble with heat than I do.  Which is… pretty much everybody.)  Not to mention, the spectators there are few and far between — the volunteers at the aid stations (pretty much every mile, which was great) were awesome, but since you do tend to run faster when people are watching, I use spectators to remind myself to throw in a surge here and there.  I know that doing this makes your original slower pace feel easy again, but I keep forgetting about that when it matters.  Like, say… during a race.

I had to dash out to the expo first thing on Friday afternoon.  Traffic was terrible.  It took way longer than it should have, since the upgrade process was not as quick as I thought it would be.  And I am a little annoyed that yet again, the race shirt is “unisex.”  When are they going to stop calling it that?!  It’s a men’s shirt, okay?  And it’s not fair.  This is my second marathon, and my second unwearable marathon shirt.  Grrr.

As is the case with all tapers, every injury I’ve ever had seemed to crop up in the last few days before the race.  Especially my left ankle — except it felt more like an irritated Achilles, and I’ve never had an Achilles injury.  It was terrible on Friday, but seemed mostly okay by Saturday night, so I taped myself up like a mummy and hoped for the best.

Because it took me so long to get there on Friday, I left super early on Sunday.  I wantedto go to the parking lot near the start, but when I entered “Nassau Community College” into my GPS, she had no idea what I was talking about, so I wound up in Eisenhower Park (near the finish) again… where I “lost” the car last year.  Remember this detail.  It is important. After using the (indoor!) bathroom near the car, I joined the stream of runners heading to the start.  We passed a sign for the Twin Rinks.  Landmark.  Remember this.

At the start, I found Michael and Linus, so of course we had to take a photo.

We then parted ways to seed ourselves.  Last year, I graduated to the 7:00 milers; this year I was demoted back to the 8:00 milers.  Sob, sob, sniffle.

Another concern was my fueling strategy; a gel every five miles didn’t work last time, because my stomach just can’t handle it.  I decided to stick with four, taking one roughly every six miles.  And I thought I remembered reading this somewhere, but looked it up just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things — apparently it is true that you gain some benefit from Gatorade even if you don’t actually drink it, but spit it out after swishing it for ten seconds.  I’ve never trained with Gatorade, so I didn’t want to ingest it; I figured my stomach can’t reject it if it never makes it into my stomach, right?!

Spoiler: this race was much better executed than my last marathon.  (I also achieved the goal from back then: to run a faster marathon than my first half marathon.  My marathon PR now beats my HM PW by over ten minutes.)

It was pretty difficult heading out at that pace; the half and full start together, and I associate this starting line with going out nearly a minute per mile faster.  But feeling like you’re running too slowly is good in the first few miles of a marathon.  I was determined not to try and “bank time” here; if it came back to bite me on the ass, so be it.

The first ten miles were pretty uneventful — though I found the frocked priests cheering outside a church rather amusing, and I still don’t understand the compulsion to holler “WHOOOOO” in a tunnel — and also the most crowded portion of the race.

somewhere around mile 9

After that, my chance to bail disappeared when the half marathoners split to turn right and the full marathoners (OMG, THIS TIME THAT MEANS ME!) kept going straight… on the Wantagh Parkway.

It wasn’t quite as desolate as I had feared — I’m a middle-of-the-packer, so while those way ahead or way behind might have been running alone, I never really was.  But it wasn’t crowded.  This is just the sort of situation I like, and for a few miles, I was thinking that this was my favorite section of the race, random anxiety attack around mile 15 notwithstanding.  But before we even reached the turnaround point at mile 16.5 or so, I was kind of over it.  My ankle hurt, and my knee had been hurting since the first mile, so I was not really a very happy camper.  But hey — less than ten miles to go!  And I really did keep reminding myself that I didn’t have to do this, I chose to do it, and I was lucky to have that ability.

My knee definitely did not appreciate the hairpin turn, but it was nice to get out of the slight headwind.  Of course, that didn’t translate into a slight tailwind; it never does.  Just keep plodding along… any forward motion is good!  Although I do have to say… don’t tell me “You’re almost there!” at mile 19.  That isn’t true unless I’ve already passed the 26-mile mark.  Or am two steps from the finish line.

It was probably somewhere near mile 19, actually, that I began to tell myself this is stupid and I am never doing it again!  Even though I know I won’t stick to it, since I said the same thing after my first marathon, and yet here I am in this position once more…

However, my inner grammar freak was alive and kicking.  I don’t think I even noticed the rest of the sign, but I passed a spectator holding one up with the first line reading, “PAIN IS TEMORARY.”  No, it’s not.  It’s temporary!  I’m sure this made my heart rate ratchet up a few notches.

I kind of fizzled out around mile 20.  It wasn’t like I hit the wall — I didn’t spontaneously combust, or anything.  Especially in comparison with my last marathon, this was more of a gradual up-and-down fade; my legs hurt quite a bit, obviously, but they didn’t feel anywhere near as bad as they did last time.  I kept waiting for the whole “vibrations juddering up the quads with every footfall” thing to happen, but it never did.  My stomach felt a little iffy, but it wasn’t as bad as last time, either.  It probably helped that I was much more conscious of taking the gels with plenty of water this time around.

At mile 22, which I reached around 3:08, the clock read 5:07.  Two spectators were standing there and crying out, “The clock is wrong!”  I suppose it is not unreasonable, in the brain-matter-sucking section of a marathon, to think you’ve entered some sort of weird time warp.  At this point, I began the usual calculations inherent late in a race: even if I run ten-minute miles from here, I’ll still finish under 3:50.  Except that I really needed to run under 3:48:30, because it took me about a minute and a half to cross the start line, and the official time is gun time.

Around mile 24 — finally done with the Wantagh — a guy in a PPTC sweatshirt was standing at the side of the road like a mirage.  He pulled out a bottle from each pocket — water or Gatorade?  I took the water (and I even managed to say thanks!), and then a few steps later I realized I actually wasn’t hallucinating, since I was now carrying a bottle of water.  Wait a minute… was that Nick?!  I was pretty sure it was, but I was not about to turn back around!

Random outtake from mile 25 or so: I am so not cut out for ultras.  And I think my chest might be in danger of imminently exploding.  Along with both of my kneecaps.

and yet this mile 25 photo shows me looking positively gleeful

Those last couple of miles were kind of brutal.  I was running slower than I wanted to (I really would have liked to keep all of my mile splits under 9:00), but even so, it hurt so damn bad.

almost … there …

Though I guess it couldn’t have hurt that badly, since I did manage to pick it up to cross the finish line.  A relative kick, if you will.

As soon as I finished, laden with my medal, finisher blanket, apple, and chips, I headed straight for the medical tent to ice my knee.  The volunteer did a double take when she asked me to specify what was wrong with it and I told her I had fat impingement syndrome, plica syndrome, and bursitis.  But my doctor said I could run the race!  After twenty minutes or so, icing done, I attempted to stand up and go about my merry way.  Trouble.  I knew that would happen, which is why I didn’t want to sit down so soon, but what else was I supposed to do?!

After passing through the exit, getting my photo taken, and receiving a food bag, I limped about the finish line festival area for a bit and stumbled across Ernie.  This turned out to be a very good thing, indeed, because without him I probably would still be wandering aimlessly around Eisenhower Park.

We went to get our bags from baggage check — and took a photo, of course.

And then… guess what?  I can’t find the car!  I thought it would be easier this year because I did the full and the lots wouldn’t be so crowded by the time I finished, but evidently that is irrelevant if you park at the farthest possible point from the finish line… so far away that even hitting the panic button won’t help.  And remembering the “bathroom house” won’t help either if there are half a dozen of them near every parking field. But there is only one Twin Rinks sign.  Which Ernie and his phone graciously helped me find.  Seriously, I need to come up with a better system for remembering where I left the car.  Even though it probably worked out in my favor that I had to do all that walking before folding myself up for the long drive home.  And my shoes deserve a special mention here: I hate the colorway, but my Launch 2s made for a fantasticmarathon shoe.  I’m sure it helped that due to the design, I had to go up half a size, but unlike last time (Ghost 5), I did not get a blood blister on my toe, nor did I feel the need to rip the damn things off my feet ASAP.  I hadn’t planned to, but I actually drove home still wearing them and felt perfectly fine.

According to my Garmin, I ran 26.42 miles (longest distance ever!) in 3:48:16, 8:38/mi.  These are the official results:

Let’s do a bit of analysis on these splits, shall we?

10K — 53:48, 8:39/mi pace
10mi — 1:26:08, 8:37/mi pace
HM — 1:52:26, 8:35/mi pace
20mi — 2:52:12, 8:36/mi pace
FM — 3:48:11, 8:42/mi pace (it says 8:46 because that’s based on gun time, which irritates me to no end)

It really was moving along quite smoothly until that 20-mile mark!  Which is longer than I held it together last time, so there is that.  I was expecting a positive split, so that came as no shock — but it wasn’t as bad as last time, either.  I think then it was something like 1:56 and 2:04; if my calculations are correct, this race’s first half split of 1:52:26 means I ran the second half in 1:55:45.  Considering that I did a single 18-mile run (well, two, but one was on the AlterG) before the race… I don’t really have any right to complain.  These results are better than anyone logically could have expected.  It’s a PR by 12:45; I would be insane to be unhappy with that.

135/635 OA, 25/193 F, 9/33 F30-34.  I assume these are based on gun time, too.  Grrr.

Even though it is a huge PR, it doesn’t make much sense to look at McMillan predictions (since my half PR predicted a much faster marathon), but I’m going to do it anyway, just for kicks.  Or to pander to my ego, since I’ve already blown all of these times out of the water (the mile in a TT — my official mile PR is two tenths of a second slower), except for the 15K — and the plan is to remedy that next month.

Mile: 6:44.8
5K: 23:25
4 miles: 30:26
5 miles: 38:50
10K: 48:38
15K: 1:15:21
10 miles: 1:21:17
Half marathon: 1:48:25

The strangest thing about this race is that while it was incredibly painful, I was pretty much fine the next day.  I felt a bit stiff and creaky upon awakening, but everything loosened up after I walked around a little.  Except for the fact that my knee hurts (and I think it hurt more than this after the NYC Half), I don’t feel like I ran a marathon at all.  I have no idea why that might be, but it’s incredibly bizarre and somewhat disconcerting.

It also makes it really, really hard to stick to my resolution to not run for two full weeks.  I thought the first ten days would be a breeze, since I anticipated being in a great deal of pain at first, and then I’m going on a dive trip next week to prevent myself from running when I shouldn’t.  Even though I love running on vacation, but whatever.  I thought the real difficulty would begin once I got back from my vacation.  But I want to run now.

However, I want this injury to be fixed even more.  Running on a bum knee for the past ten months has been fun, and all, but I’m sick of it.  I’m pretty sure this won’t happen, but I would love to find out what I would be able to do in the marathon if I made it through a training cycle completely healthy.  I’m less than fourteen minutes away from a BQ; attaining one doesn’t seem so outlandish if I can just not get hurt.

If.

THIS is when a “WHOOOOO!” is appropriate!

tl;dr version: I PRed by 12:45 and finished in 3:48:11, which also happens to be more than ten minutes faster than my HM PW.

Dang, congrats on the pr and great splits...that's a good indicator you are getting faster by managing your effort..enjoy your recovery and be well!

I just ran a marathon with knee pain and I know the feeling.

Oh yeah, knee problems in my last marathon too; I was praying it would hold up, but it started hurting ~mile 5 & continued for the rest of the race. But not sure it affected my pace, just really, really annoying.

Your splits are awe inspiring!

Nice PR (and more miles for our Team).  Glad you found your car.  Congrats !!!

Congrats, that is indeed a massive PR!  Hope the knee issues clear up for you!!

And I agree with you ten million percent on unisex shirts.  I'm thin but not tiny, and I can practically go swimming in small unisex shirts.  Newsflash: men and women aren't built the same.

Congrats on the PR and thoroughly enjoyed your comment to the medical tent volunteer.

Congratulations on the PR!

I hear you on the men's shirts. The 5k I did last week switched to tech shirts last year. Men's tech shirts. I already gave last year's away. The sleeves are too long, even a small is too big and they just don't fit right. I'd prefer cotton, I think tech shirts look funny with jeans/ normal clothes.