Notes
Didn't have a great Saturday. My back tightened up badly on the train ride down, I forgot my prescription meds and generally felt tired and unenthused about the whole thing. Between the unplanned trip to CVS, getting lunch, going to the expo and going to dinner, I ended up walking about 4 miles in Philly. Made me glad I ran late in the morning and didn’t get a jog in. but I got a little rest before dinner. I enjoyed dinner with L Train, Mrs. Train, Jason (stadjak) and a dozen other nice peeps. Then went to bed early.
Race morning I was up early and cranked the heat up to 80 in my room and took a hot shower to loosen my back. The walk to the start was short and it wasn't nearly as cold as I thought it would be. 41 according to Weather Underground at 5am. PERFECT conditions. I got right into the black corral and spotted the 3:15 pace guy. Hadn't planned on running with the pace group but I figured it would take the thinking out of things. He said he'd target 3:14:20. We'd start at 7:40 or so and then pick it up a bit. My new plan was to hang with them and hopefully pull away in the late miles and get into the 3:13s.
Everything went according to plan at the start. Hit 7:40 on the dot and it felt easy. More importantly, my back felt a little tight but much better. And my right foot, which had been bugging me felt OK too. But lot of jostling and contact for the first 5-6 miles. Everyone wanted to be right on the pace guy’s ass. Everything was great but then I had to make a pit stop. Ran by porta-johns at 2 water stops because they were full. Finally found an empty one right after mile 7. Lost 40-50 seconds there and it took me until mile 12 to catch up with the pace group. I felt like I gained the most ground on the hills at mile and 8 (7:10) and 10 (7:24), which weren’t really that bad. I forgot to turn off the auto-pause on the Garmin so now my Garmin was off. Best I could tell, I came through the half around 1:36 and change. Then I had to pee again. This set me back a bit further from the pace group.
Took me until just after the turnaround at mile 20 to catch the pace group. So, it took me about 7 miles to make up the 50 seconds or so at the porta-john. I passed one guy around mile 16 who had fallen back from the group and aksed him, “is it me, or is the 3:15 pace guy running hot?” “He’s waaay hot” was his reply and he seemed pretty pissed about it. But at least that made me feel better. My Garmin’s average pace said 7:17 so I added 4 seconds to that. So I felt like I was in good shape.
After the turnaround at 20 (the 2nd of two 180s in the course that truly suck) I knew I wasn’t going to crash. I felt good about the next 6.2 miles and just focused on keeping good form and not getting sloppy. I got in tight with the pace group but we had to start weaving a bit around walkers and franken-joggers and other sorts of suffering. Around mile 22, I was right next to the pace guy and I felt like he slowed a bit. By mile 23, I was ahead of him and decide then to leave. By mile 24 (7:18) I was pulling away and picked it up a bit. Mile 25 was 7:12, mile 26 was 7:24, last .3 miles I was running 6:47 pace or so, dropping everything I had. Really long 4 miles. My back and abs had tightened up and I hurt from the waist down. At mile 24, I just told myself over and over, you can do anything for 15 minutes. 15 minutes. Then it was 10, then it was 7. One mile left. The crowd was great nearing the finish. I knew I had the 3:15 and just wasn’t sure whether I got <3:14 but felt I was close. Ran it in as hard as I could and there was no question that I left nothing on the course. That was as hard as I could’ve run. Right after the finish, the first person I saw was Nader who came in right before me. We ran into Walt and walked back together.
It wasn’t until I got back to my hotel room that I found out via text that I had hit 3:13:48. Was psyched to get into the 3:13s. That’s where I thought I’d end up. For some reason, I had 3:13:30-something in my head before the race so I had a good idea. Very happy. I have finished marathons. I have run a marathon. Now I can say I raced a marathon.
Chip: 3:13:48, clock: 3:14:51
Garmin time: 3:12:13, 26.35 miles (auto-paused at mile 7 and mile 13)