Notes
Even though this was my first, and knowing that most people just want to finish their first, I did set a soft time goal of 3:20-3:30. I figure if my only goal was to finish, I could just do a solo 26.2 and save myself the entry fee and travel costs.
As I expected, I started out a little too fast. I think I hammered out a couple of 4:30 kms to start and I was through the first mile in 7:15, right around the pace I need to BQ. But I wasn???t going for that today. The plan was to go out a 5:00 per km pace for the first 2 or so kms and then step it up to 4:40 to 4:45 to achieve my goal.
I couldn???t have asked for better starting conditions. It was about 8 degrees celcius and overcast at the start. The sun did come out later though, but good thing it only got up to about 14 degrees. I just wish I wore my sunglasses.
My shins were a little bit tight for the first 5 miles, but I still came through slightly ahead of pace at around 37:00 and the tightness wasn???t anything too crazy. I knew things would loosen up soon and I felt great shortly thereafter.
I went through the halfway mark in 1:38, so I was right on pace. But around this time I felt a blister forming on the bottom of my left foot. I was hoping I was correct in assuming that it wasn???t going to be too bad and it wouldn???t stop my from finishing. Luckily, my assumption was correct. There is no blister and my foot is just a little bit red in that spot. It was also around the half way mark that my glutes felt like they were tightening up.
I went through the 20 mile marker at exactly 2:30 so that gave me about 50 minutes to cross the finish line. Somewhere during the course of the first 20 miles, I decided that I was going to go for sub-3:20. I???m not going to put up all the splits because there are way too many as the course was marked in kms. Did they think the race was in Canada or something?
It was at this point that I decided to dig in and try to pick off a few runners the rest of the way. I proceeded to bang off a couple more low 4:30s, but then my quads starting to scream at me at around the 35km mark. The next km was in the low 5s, but then I was able to pick it up again to the low 4:40s again. It was definitely a push though as it required a lot more effort compared to the first 20 miles. And people were slowing down so I was passing a lot of runners. If I may brag a little, I definitely felt very courageous in deciding to step on the gas at 20 miles as I realized that I may have been prone to bonking or hitting the wall. I know there would have been nothing that I could have done, but I had it set in my mind that I would fight my way through it.
I was pretty spent at around the 38km mark and a couple of 5:00 + kms followed. I just wanted the race to be over, but I somehow managed to get back on pace for kms 40 and 41, going through those 2 in 9:13. At 40km, my quads started screaming even harder and that???s when I realized that I should have gotten somebody to drive me to the race. It was just before this time that I tucked in behind a couple and I had no desire or ability to pick anybody else off. I just used these two to pace me to the end. I had nothing left to lay the hammer down, but I did stay pretty steady as I completed the last 1.2km in 5:33. I had no idea crossing the finish line would be so painful.
I crossed the line in 3:18:43 and achieved my sub-3:20 goal!
First half ??? 1:38:37
Second half ??? 1:40:06
I feel great about only losing less than 1:30 over the second half of the course.
I ran this first marathon to gain experience and to learn to respect the distance. After those last few kms, I have a huge respect for the distance.
With a 3:18 as my first, I???m very optimistic about my future as a marathoner and attempting to BQ in the next 2-3 years once I gain more experience and up my mileage. Having gone through what I went through today, I know there is no way I could have gone out aiming for 3:10 today without walking across the finish line on my current mileage. I guess if it takes 4 years, I only need to shave 3 minutes off my time. I only averaged about 35-40 mpw during my training. I think over the next little while, I would like to build my base weekly mileage to around 40-45 mpw and then get up to 50-60 mpw on average during specific marathon training. I would like to have gotten up there for this marathon, but I don???t think I could have done it without risking injury.
I???m on the ferry now (I was on the ferry when I wrote this, but I'm posting it almost 24 hours later), so that means I survived the drive over here. I had some trouble stretching after the race, as things were just way too tight. I actually had trouble getting on the floor. I had to go from standing to couch, then from couch to floor. Then I almost pulled something, even though I was trying to be gentle. After that stretching and ice bath, I feel as good as I could 6.5 hours post marathon. I???m just a little concerned of getting down the stairs to my car.
Over the next month or so, I???ll recover and rebuild before I decide on anything. To be honest, I have signed up for a few things over the next little while, but I won???t make any final decisions until after recovering.
Thanks for reading, and thanks to a few people who encouraged me to run the marathon this year to get the experience (as opposed to building my mileage and waiting until the spring) and thanks to those who encouraged me to race it rather than to just complete it.