Notes
Old PR – 3:05:55 (Boston 2010)
Goal time <2:59
First half – 1:29:05
Second half – 1:26:07
Finish time – 2:55:12
As you can imagine, I am so surprised and excited about my performance at yesterday’s race. I don’t recall many of the details, but I will try my best to tell you a little bit about what I saw, and what I was feeling at various points in the race.
I’m not going to go through a really detailed background on this, but as many of you may remember, I took a long break from running from late 2010 until May 2012. The Chicago Marathon was my comeback marathon, and I chose this race because my last marathon was Chicago in 2010 – a DNS.
Pre-race began two days prior for me, when the person I was sitting beside on the airplane recognized me from a recent local 10k, and invited me out to pre-race dinner with some other local runners. I think my seatmate was gunning for sub-2:57, and he suggested that we go out together, since I beat him at the aforementioned 10k. I could only laugh at the notion of taking a stab at 2:57, confident that epic carnage would ensue over the course of the final 4-6 miles. Given my recent 38:08 10k and how comfortable my MP runs were in the mid to high-6:40s, I thought sub-2:59 was a reasonable goal. I decided to go out with the 3:00 pace group and pick it up later on.
I’m not going to bother with mile-by-mile splits; please see my log if you’re interested.
5k – 21:01, 21:01 elapsed
I actually decided to go out ahead of the 3:00 group, not realizing that they probably would start out too quickly. I clicked through the first mile in 6:47, and they passed me shortly thereafter. I just decided to latch on with them and see what happens. I was quite overwhelmed with the amount of crowd support right from the get-go. I ask myself if it will be like this the entire way, and if so, that would be amazing!
10k – 21:09, 42:10 elapsed
I’m still with the pace group and this is feeling very comfortable. The pacers and I finally settle into a groove after about 5-6 miles after hitting a few quick early clicks. I took my first gel at mile 6.
15k – 21:08, 1:03:08 elapsed
Very nice. I feel like I could do this all day. I’m a bit surprised at how crowded it still is and what a gong show the aid stations are. Even when I shoulder checked and pointed, I still got a little tap on my back for impeding another runner.
20k – 21:14, 1:24:32 elapsed
There was amazing crowd support just before the 13-mile mark, which caused me to kick it up a notch due to the excitement. It’s around this time that I pass the pace group and have to make a decision. I took my second gel at around mile 12.
25k – 21:03, 1:45:35 elapsed
I run through the half way point in 1:29 and some change, and as previously mentioned, I have a decision to make. But before that, it’s around this time that I hear Chelsea Dagger playing. I didn’t know if this was to pump up the Blackhawks fans, but as a Vancouverite, I can’t help but think this is some sick fucking joke on me. You probably have to be a hockey fan from Vancouver to understand this. In any event, I can’t help from laughing hysterically. Ok, so I don’t know how far back the pace group is, and I’m about a minute ahead of pace and feeling incredible. Do I just cruise along knowing that there is still a lot of hard work ahead and just try to get my sub-2:59, but more importantly sub-3? I decided to cruise ahead, since I was feeling amazing and who knows if I will ever have a race like this again. I decided to accept whatever happens next.
30k – 20:49, 2:06:24 elapsed
Not much going on here, but the splits are getting a wee bit faster. At around mile 17, I came to the realization that this was going to be my day. Yes, I know there is still much work to do, but in my mind I’m confident that sub-3 is guaranteed. A little bit later, a guy passes a water bottle to another guy, and that guy passes it to me. That felt really cool, but I also couldn’t help but feel like a wanna-be elite douchebag. I took my final gel just before the 18-mile mark.
35k – 20:37, 2:27:01 elapsed
The famous 20-mile mark is coming up, and I do my first bit of mental math. Although I was still confident with my current pace, I just needed to assure myself that I have a good chance of cracking 3:00 as long as a make it to 20 miles with 45 minutes to go, just in case. As I cross the 20-mile mark, I tell myself that I need to step on it a little bit just so I can keep up my current pace. But what happened instead was that I sped up and never looked back. Ok, I looked back once when my seat mate called my name after I passed him at around mile-21. He was having a rough day.
40k – 19:56, 2:46:57 elapsed
I really can’t believe what has unfolded in the second half of this race, but the requirement to keep my mental focus is starting to wear on me. It is also late in this stretch that my legs start to feel fatigued and heavy. I just keep motoring along, making targets ahead and passing many people. I do a final bit of mental math and realize that I have a shot at sub-2:55 if I really boot it for the final 2.2 km.
Last 2.195km – 8:15, 2:55:12 elapsed
This part really hurt, but now I’m trying hard to beat the clock to 2:55. Just 1km to go, ok now 800m – that’s just twice around the track, you can do this! I give whatever kick I can muster for the final .2 miles and raise my arms in jubilation as I cross the finish line in just over 2:55. I really can’t describe how I was feeling at that moment, but it was freaking amazing. Although sub-3 was always the goal when I started by comeback last year, I would never have guessed that 2:55 would be in the realm of possibility.
Post-race thoughts
I don’t have much to say here. Sure, I had a pretty big negative split so maybe my goal setting was off, but I seriously had no idea this could happen. Maybe I could have gone out with quicker time in mind, but who knows how it would have ended. It was just good ‘ol race day magic.