Notes
Fox Valley Marathon – September 19th, 2010
Weather: PERFECT; 58 degrees at start, partly cloudy, light breeze
Finish Time: 2:54:27 – 4th overall, 1st in 25-29 age group
This was exactly what I hoped for when I signed up for it a few months ago. I had a modest goal and I was able to enjoy the satisfaction of going out and attaining it. I enjoyed the competition of the day and the challenge of pushing myself. Having this marathon on my calendar has motivated me to figure out how training fits into my current life situation. I'm looking forward to easing back into it over the next few weeks, enjoying the fall and then having a solid winter.
Splits/Narration:
1-6:20
A few half marathoners took off pretty much right away. In my mind I wanted to wait a few miles before I even though about settling in alongside anybody, so I intentionally ran on the other side of the road than the few other marathoners around me. I need to settle into MY pace and then, after a few miles, I can start thinking about the competition. Approaching the first mile, I was honestly unsure as whether or not I’d be sub 7. So, as I passed the marker and saw my watch tick from 6:19 to 20 I literally gasped. I know this mile was a tad downhill but it didn’t seem THAT downhill. It seemed easy though, so I didn’t panic.
2-6:19 (12:40)
Thought I was slowing down, apparently not. This mile was definitely more downhill than the last one though because it was when we turned from rt31 and down onto the trail. Some Indian guy (Neil is his name as I would later find out) without a shirt on insisted on falling into a rhythm right next to me and making conversation once we got onto the path though. I was a little bit peeved because I wanted to just relax and be on my own.
3- Missed the mile mark as we went past Fabyan FP. Probably because there were tons of people there and it was really loud an exciting. Tried to just focus on relaxing.
4-12:51 (25:31)
Neil was still with me and it was clear we were going to stay together for a while. By t his point I had found out that this was his first marathon. I could tell he was working harder than I was. I kinda felt bad for him when I realized that he was probably going to pay for trying to hold onto my pace this early on. I made a few comments about how long the race is and that it doesn’t really start until about 16 miles, hoping he’d get the clue that slowing down might be a good idea. He stuck with me through ten though.
5-6:19 (31:50) At this point we were just heading south along the west side of the river trail through Batavia, North Aurora and Aurora. It’s a pretty redundant section, but that was okay. The point of this part of the race is to just relax and let the miles go away with minimal effort.
6-6:22 (38:13) There were also a bunch of small wooden bridges we had to cross that were wet and a tad slippery. It wasn’t a huge deal but Neil would curse and get really upset every single time we hit one like it was a banana peel in Mario Kart.
7-6:29 (44:42)
8-6:33 (51:16)
9-6:32 (57:48) Settled into a good rhythm with the 6:30s.
10-6:30 (1:04:19) As we approached the turn around (the results say that the mat was right at 10 miles, it was probably about 200m past it though) I got to see, coming the other way, where the competition was. First place looked smooth and out of reach. The pack of 2nd, 3rd and 4th didn’t seem more than 2 or 3 minutes ahead so I knew that if I could just not overreact and stay strong that I could maybe catch them in the early 20s. Took a gu packet at this point too.
11-6:51 (1:11:10) I felt like we didn’t fall into the same rhythm as earlier after the turn around so when we hit the next mile mark in 6:51 I freaked out and picked it up a tad. I would soon find out that the marker was probably just off by a little bit, as was the case for at least the next ten. I think that all the even ones were early but I could use the odd ones for accurate 2 miles splits. Just focused on rhythm throughout this section.
12-5:29 (1:16:40)[12:21]
13- 7:07 This was the first time in the race that I felt tired and actually started to question my early pace.
14-5:48 (1:29:36) [12:56] Oddly enough, I started feeling better these next few miles though.
15-7:01 (1:36:37)
16-
17-12:14 (1:48:51) The path is a bit windier in this section than most other parts, so I was able to hear people cheering on the runners in front of me at a few points. That got me excited and I started thinking about catching them. The fact that 16-18 was a nice net downhill didn’t hurt either.
18-
19-13:07 (2:01:59) The net downhill of 16-18 meant that 19-21 was uphill. I didn’t completely fall apart at this point but I could feel everything getter a lot harder very quickly.
20-6:46 (2:08:46) I think this was another short mile, not actually a 6:46, but I’m not really sure. By this point I was so out of my earlier rhythm that I could tell the difference between 6:30 and 8 flat, so I’m not really sure what to make of mile splits from here on out. The lack of long runs and base really started to show itself here.
21-7:02 (2:15:48) This mile felt like my last hurrah. I was doing some math in my head and though that if I could get back down to the 6:40s that I could still break 2:50 (I’m not sure if that math was accurate or not) and I also knew that I was approaching another crowded section, so I didn’t want to look bad there.
22-6:58 (2:22:47)
23-8:13 (2:31) Again, I don’t know how accurate this split was, but I can tell you that it was definitely my worst mile. I was quickly loosing motivation as I saw sub 2:50 as out the window and had given up hope on catching anyone. The turnaround at 18 had shown me that I had a huge lead on everyone following me too, so I wasn’t even thinking about being caught. These are the sections that I think the larger marathons are the most helpful for. The positive of a small marathon is that I can just get into my own rhythm and not get carried away early on. I remember passing what seemed like 100 people between 23 and the finish, even though I was slowing down a bit, when I ran Chicago in 2005.
24- I was really surprised when I saw myself coming up on the 4th place guy, who was really hurting. This was a huge mental boost and motivated me to get my butt back in gear. I also realized that 2:55 was slipping away.
25-14:24 (2:45:25)
26- I found myself looking down at my watch every 20 seconds, driving my legs as hard as I possibly could, desperately trying to hang on to sub 2:55 and maybe even catch another guy who may be dying.
26.2-9:02 (2:54:27)
Felt AWFUL at the finish. Just sick. The same defeated feeling you get when you just spent 20min throwing up. The idea of putting anything back in my body was disgusting. I took a few bites of a banana and a few sips of G2 and some water but that was it. Waited in line for the free massage. In order to get in line you had to fill out some stupid survey. All sorts of 10min paced half marathoners and 20milers who were finishing around the same time as I did were jumping in front of me in line as I tried to fill out the survey which I could barely read or comprehend. Eventually, I just scribbled my name on the top and gave it to the lady collecting them. I had to “stand” there for 25 min waiting for a massage, feeling sick to my stomach, and with my calves and hamstrings locking up. All the while, the joggermoms who got in line in front of my while I stared at my survey sipped diet coke and talked about their favorite part of the course and how many 13 mile marathons they’ve run. I wanted to just start yelling at them. Unfortunately, the only thing I could do was hunch over and lean on a table. Even the massage therapists were commenting on how it seemed unfair that I had to wait in line behind all the people. Oh well, I eventually got my very awesome and helpful massage and then walked around for a bit. Took a long time to get my appetite back. Any time I stood up I felt nautious. Even after we got back to my parents house, I just stretched out on the couch. Eventually I was able to make my way upstairs to the shower, but once I was in the shower I decided to just sit down and not move for 20min. That made Jane kinda nervous. She thought I had died in there or something. After drying off and zoning out on the guest bedroom bed for another 20min, I made my way back downstairs, saw that my dad had made some French Onion dip to go with a bag of Fritos while watching the Bears. Suddenly, my appetite was back and I stuffed my face with Fritos and dip. By the end of the game I felt like myself again, so Jane and I drove home, at which point I downed a bunch of leftover ribs and a High Life. After another little nap we headed out to Augustino’s for dinner where I enjoyed a sausage and onion Calzone.
A couple other notes:
-This is a graph showing daily distance for my training
http://www.runningahead.com/logs/cb26bbe65e624de6a9e6a687f089b4bc/tools/graph?l12=2010-09-19&g12=2010-03-22&x=12&y=20&t=0
Looking back on my log, I realize that I was in worse shape than I thought. Over the past 6 months, I had run over 15 miles FOUR times. How did I not fall apart even worse? (Or am I just mismeasuring my runs?)
-Neil ended up running 3:08 for 14th place. I'm pretty sure he was still in 6th at the 18mile point
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