Notes
What a great day. This is a race report, yet I was not the racer. Spaniel decided to run a race in my neck of the woods and I had a long-ish run to get it. Original thought was that we'd be doing 6:30. Wrong!!!
I met him at the start and explained where I would meet him. It was approximately 4 miles and at this point it was 1/2 and full marathoners and he was sitting 8-10 maybe. He asked if the guy ahead was a marathoner; I said probably not. at ~6 miles the 1/2 folk peel off. The guy ahead did not. Hey Spaniel, he might be a full guy. I thought he came out of the gates a bit fast especially when he reeled off the first 4 mile splits. I didn't care, it was his race. I warned him that there was a lot of race left and to not worry about the guy who was 25 yds up the track. We had Spaniel and two others in our pack. Right about now, a guy breaks from our pack and starts reeling in 1st place. it took about 1.5 miles but when the catch occurred, both kinda sat up. we were still 25-35 yds back. Next is an out and back segment of about 1.25 miles. I set Spaniel loose and waited. At the end of this the 4 leaders were in the same pack. However, Spaniel later told me that upon catching the two leaders the original leader put in a surge, but they all covered. This is like mile 9. Too early for race tactics IMO. Anyhow they lost the races bike leader back there so nobody knew where to continue as they emerged. I quickly ran out front and directed the pack back to the pack and continued with them. At this point the lead 3 were dropping the original leader. There is a bit of a hill to get over a road bridge and Spaniel and crew ran it quite conservatively and within 400 yds everyone's breathing was back to normal. This is where we meet the 1/2 marathoners at their turn-around and it's a bit of a cluster. It's an open course, but I still feel that I am causing pain so I slip to the grass along the trail to let the runners (1/2ers inbound, 1/2ers outbound and naturally lesser pace that the marathon guys who are 4 miles ahead of them. I know this will go on for about 1.5 miles as this is my old lunch time running course. After a bit I decide to jump back on the trail surge to in front of the marathoners and announce to the peoples that the lead marathoners are coming through to create a whole for them to pass through. As we approach the complex turn. (The marathoners ran an inner loop twice and the 1/2ers only once) I had to remind the marathoners we had a left coming up to to go back out on the loop. The races cyclist was still stuck behind us. As we started out onto this loop, one of the pack made a bit of a gain and then there was a gap from 2 to Spaniel, now in third. It was minimal (25 yds total). At this point I turned back as I did not except to be running sub-6:20s. I gave Spaniel some encouraging words and reversed course. This was about 14-14.5 miles into the marathon. I met back up with the lead pack at about 19 miles. The person in second as I left was now in first and second did not look good. I then met Spaniel. He says the gap was 30 seconds and that sounds about right. He also said we was just going to finish in 6:30 and let the guys up front duke it out. I told him that second was fading fast. About a minute later we passed second. Now Spaniel is keyed in on the idea that he's not regulated to third. I turn off at about mile 20 just telling him to maintain contact with first and top not give up on challenging him. He then runs off as I make my way back to the start to prepare for his finish and finish my miles for the day. The end of this race is 2 miles up a slightly inclined road. I went to the car and changed to a dry shirt then headed out to cheer him in. As the lead bike came into view I noted the following running had a primarily white single. FFS, all 4 leaders had white singlets; then I notice that the runner has a face wiping tick that I saw on Spaniel during the race. OMFG, Spaniels is winning. As he approached me cheered, reminded him that he had some tangent opportunities ahead an then he asked where is second. Only then did I look back and it was 300-400 yds back with less that 1200m for Spaniel. He had this. It was really nice to see him have a race that was on lack luster training and yet he secured a BQ, ran a 2:46:2x and WON!!!
Retrospect:
I thought he was breathing too heavy; he says it's normal
I think he started too fast, but obviously not.
I think it was a very well run race by all four race leaders; Spaniel just executed better
It was probably the pacer.