Notes
Success, brought in the pace group at 3:29:28. Target goal was 3:29:30. 55 at the start, 75 at the finish.
Did a 1/2 mile warm-up run then headed to the start. Got to the corral around 6:30 and started talking to runners who were doing 3:30. Gave everyone I could the sticker for feedback email at marathonpacing.com. I explained that I was going to be running even splits and would be running through the water stops.
We started out and hit the first mile split exactly at 7:59. The next few miles were slightly fast (10 seconds) because of the downhills. After that things evened out and we were hitting splits +/- 5 seconds. A few folks were worring about the GPS pace and I told them I was not going to be worrying about the GPS time, but the overall split times were what mattered. Over the first 8 miles or so we had a pretty big group, probably 30-40 people.
At mile 7 I reminded everyone if they had not taken an energy gel they definitely wanted to do so now. We continued to roll through the miles, with everyone going strong, people smiling and saying they were feeling good. At mile 14 and 15 the splits were messed up, 14 was short and 15 was long. We hit 16 and the times were good again.
By that point I could tell people were starting to get tired, I started working the crowd as much as I could as well as doing frequent checks on people who were struggling. I reminded everyone to stay loose and focus on running smooth. At that point I still had a group of close to 20 people though some were a good 30 yards back.
By mile 20 we were down to 15. The group was starting to spread out and I was yelling at folks to stay with me. Over the next few miles I was losing almost 3 people per mile. I continued to tell people to dig deep, stay loose and strong. I reminded everyone that I was not speeding up, it was that the pace just felt harder.
The last 2 miles I was down to about 6 of the original pace group but I picked up a few new runners. Folks were fading fast, but I continued to yell for them to stay with me or catch up. The last mile I was down to 3, I encouraged them if they were feeling good to go ahead and finish strong. Two did and the last stayed with me until the 26 mile marker. At that point I yelled for Mark to go ahead and he pushed it finishing about 5 seconds in front of me. My time was 3:29:28, and I turned around to see who was from my pace group was coming in. I had about 4 people come in after that were part of my pace group, I congratulated everyone on a job well done.
The course was pretty much the same as last year. Mostly flat, extremely shaded and good fan support. My only complaints would be all the sharp turns, congestion on the bike path when runners are running in opposite directions, and near the finish with the trail construction (why not just detour to the grass or road). Miles 14 and 15 were off, and mile 20 was really hard to see (I missed it completely), and the last mile was short. The pacer station at the expo was not ideal,
Suggestions for the pace director/teams - quite a few pacers had other runners holding the signs, which I would think is not ideal for the runners. Other than that, maybe sending the pacer guidelines as a reminder to everyone.