Notes
Good effort. Ran with Patrick for the first 12 miles or so and we were rolling along pretty easily, just like one of our Sunday long runs. At that point he said he was going to let up a little bit to keep from blowing up later, but I was feeling good so just kept the effort where it was. It was getting warmer with every mile--temps were around 70 by the finish. Handled the hill at 15/16 really well, saw the family for the 3rd time there which was nice. The last loop was a bit of a grind, got to the bike path and just tried to push all the way home. There was a slight headwind on the bike path for the last 4 miles which was good for cooling but not great for going fast. I was fading a bit anyway so it would have been tough to mount any kind of a kick.
Love the finish of this race. You can hear the hoopla from half a mile away and it just pulls you along when things are getting really, really tough (and they were.)
Half splits were 1:26:55 / 1:27:14 which is not bad given how much warmer it was in the 2nd half.
I never really felt hot but was sweating like crazy the whole time. Singlet and shorts were soaked all the way through, but never had any cramping issues at all and never really felt all that dehydrated. No issue with water sloshing around in my stomach, either. The new nuun tablet routine worked like a champ.
Wore the A5's and I'm pretty sure those are the lightest shoes I've ever run a marathon and the only true racing flat. Feet and legs feel better than after any marathon I can remember.
Overall a really good day. I may have had some hope for a PR going in but really in my 2nd marathon in 5 weeks and on a warm day, this is a win. Knew pretty early it was not a PR day--we were rolling miles in the 6:30-6:40 range and it felt easy but they needed to be 6:20-6:30 and feel just as easy for it to be a shot at a PR. So just took what the day gave me and ran a really smart race.
Interesting tidbit per the runpix app on the VCM website: over the last 6 miles I passed 9 runners and 0 passed me.
Patrick wound up about 80 seconds behind me in 2:55:28. He was staggering a bit after the line but rallied okay was fine later. Good to see him slay the sub-3 dragon after his bum luck at Boston.
Whole family made the trip. Everyone got along pretty well despite the close quarters. Saw Trish and Brian downtown on Saturday night, had breakfast with Bucci and Chris, and rode the shuttle with them and Patrick. Fun with the Buccis and the Hoenigs at the pool with the kids after the race. Decent dinner at the Windjammer with the Hoenigs and then after the kids were in bed shut down the upper deck pub. Really fun weekend.