Notes
Hi everybody! Thanks to all for your really nice congratulations. I really appreciate it. Finally, my first marathon is over and I can relax a little bit now. I can't believe it happened - less than 9 months ago something hit me about marathon running and I started to run in a gym. I remember one day in January 2011 I was going to run 8 miles and I was very anxious about running such a long distance :-) Few months later, when preparing for the marathon, everythin less than HM was not considered a serious deal :-) Anyway, I first wanted to run Chicago marathon as my first, mostly because we lived in north suburbs of Chicago, but then, due to family reasons we have to leave the States for a few months and Chicago was out of the picture. This way Helsinki was chosen (I was thinking about Budapest also). My first races were 5K (22:24) and HM (1:42:15) - all in March, before we left US. It took me three weeks after HM to start training for the marathon. It's hard to say why, but I chose a plan from Don Fink's book - it's 5 days a week training with 3 out of 5 kind of important days - long run, high intensity training and marathon pace run. First week started at about 4 hours running and it peaked at 9 hours of different types of running later. All my training was on a TM, including all my long runs (5 of them 20+ milers). During my second 20+ miler I had a major bonk - when I was very close to passing out after the run. It scared hell out of me and made me treat those LRs very seriously - I was preparing for them with a lot of thought - earlier nutrition and hydration. 2 weeks before marathon my TM broke and I have to run outside. That was kind of a lucky event, if I can say so. First, running outside helped me discover some muscles which were not involved during TM running and helped to train them a little bit - at least they were not sore after few days of running on the track. And second - I discovered outside was much more fun than on TM inside - that's probably why I run 46 miles during second week of taper (instead of planned 32) - I was very excited. But now I am not sure that I should be running that much - my legs didn't feel fresh up to the day of the marathon. Even on Aug 20th I was wondering how I am going to keep that 8mpm pace.
I would like to apologize before continuing. I was always surprised to read the reports where people were remembering race events in details and how they felt every mile. Nothing even close to what I will write below - I only remember some general emotions and small stuff which was happening during the race.
The marathon day came. Out of our few days in Helsinki it was the warmest one (71 oF) and the windiest one (15-25 mph). Plus - almost no clouds the whole race time. There were about 5400 registered racers. The race started at 3PM - it was warmest time of the day - I guess finns just like the warm weather. According to the race info people from 46 countries were participating. Anyway, the marathon started on time and it took me 1 minute 18 seconds to reach the start line. First two miles it was very crowded but, surprisingly, I managed to run at about 8 minutes per mile during first 2 miles. Yes, I made some effort to keep it at 8mpm - it was exciting to run among so many people, but it was not very hard to restrain myself - I remembered that I have 24 miles more ahead. First race timing happened on 10km mark - 50:03 and 822 position. Up to mile 9-10 my legs felt OK, but then I started to feel that my quads getting some kind of soreness. But it was controllable. I was very afraid of those 11 bridges which I have to cross during the race, but most of them were just flat bridges, except maybe 2-3 wooden steep ones, one of them was shaking when I was running on it - which was not very good because it was closer to the end and the legs were sore by that time. The route was not exactly what I expected - the small uphills and downhills were all over the place. At the very beginning of the race it was not a very big issue though. The bigger issue for me was a direct sun during long periods of time, luckily we were also running among the trees of some alleys and among the buildings of the city. There were quite a few people on the streets supporing the runners and a lot of kids among them. For some reason I felt a desire to hifive people but not very many of them were ready for that :-) Plus, I was not aware what some people were shouting - my knowlegde of finnish language is zero :-).
By half marathon I still felt quite good. No, I was not fresh - but I felt I was still capable to keep the pace. I saw my DW twice by half mark - once at 4 miles and once at HM point - she took some videos (and as I checked after the race I was still looking good :-). At 13.1 miles my time was 1:45:27 and my position was 718. We run through the center of the city and a lot of people and the running was exciting - the legs were not light but I felt I still can keep 8mpm. Actually, the whole distance my average pacing was around 8mpm - I figured that as far as I keep that pace up until the mile 20, I am fine. So, we ran around the city center and then left it to get to another timing point - 30km (19 miles) - 2:29:44 and position 576. I still was not sure that I will be able to run up to the finish, but I was kind of surprised that I felt quite OK at mile 19. Usually during the training by mile 17-18 my only thought was about ending the session :-) Here I felt tired but I was still ready to go. I was passing quite a few runners by that moment, but not too many. Some people started to walk already by 19 miles mark (I saw some walking even at half point). It took me three more miles to understand that I will finish the race. At that point I started to pass people in dozens - I was actually surprised, my legs felt pretty ugly, but I was passing a lot of runners and the thought of the finish line so close gave me some additional strength. My average pacing was still at 8mpm and that was making me feel really good - because it meant I would probablly get under 3:30 - which I was only dreaming about. Especially after that 20miler bonk during training cycle (day later I was asking myself if I could run a faster pace - and I didn't think I could - I was really running on the edge of my abilities, I think - it was really tough - physically and mentally).
Unfortunately, I didn't take into account two things - and that shows my inexperience. First, I didn't expect that the last 5k would be so hilly. There were plenty of up and downhills. And, if at the beginning of the race downhills were kind of relaxing, at 23-25 miles into the race downhills were really hurting. Still, surprisingly I was passing a lot of runners during those hilly places - though I had none of the hill training. The other unexpected thing - my Garmin's GPS. I was keeping the 8mpm pace totally relying on Garmin. But by the point when my Garmin gave me an alert for 26 miles, I had no sign of 42km (kind of equivalence for 26 miles) in sight. Not even close. And I saw the stadium (the finish was inside) in a distance. So, my heart started to beat even faster :-) There was a last hill before we enter the stadium and then there were three of us and 200 meters of running on the stadium track. I was keeping behind one guy deciding to pass him during the final 100m but then another guy behind me spurted and I have to catch with him and, surprisingly, it was not very hard to pass both of them. So, I finished, my hands up and I was able to run in full conciousness. Hoorray! My DW took the video of our finish and was shouting to me congratulations. She was very excited. So was I. Such a relieve! The long first marathon jorney ended. I was happy with the whole thing even without knowing my final time. When I checked my Garmin, I run 26.41 miles still at average 8mpm - that's basically why I had my finish time at 3:31:27 instead of 3:30. I finished at position of 399. I passed more than 400 people after 10K mark.
Today, day later I feel very good. My legs feel it, but I am able to walk around the city. I am not thinking about any next marathons right now - just don't want to. But I know I will run another one - no doubt :-)