Notes
This race went far, far better than I ever expected. The weather was great, about what I’d been prepared for, though I hoped for even cooler (low 50’s) instead of high 50’s.
I’d done some toughish 10 and 12 milers at 7:20 on my normal course, which is hillier than the DRC, so I felt OK shooting for 7:15:-7:20 average pace. The plan was to do 7:30, 7:25, 7:20 on the first three, just because of last time I ran the DRC, and blew my race in the first few miles. After that the plan was for 7:20 down to 7:15 through mile 9, hopefully averaging 7:20 pace or better up to that point, then driving down closer to 7:00 pace for the last ~4. I was about 95% confident in hitting 1:37, 80% confident about 1:36, and maybe 60% confident I could hit 1:35, if everything went right. I finished in 1:33:15.
The main contributor to the unexpected fast pace (avg. 7:07) was how easy the course was. It felt like it was somehow downhill the whole time. My legs really wanted to go faster in the first three miles, but I held back. There was a funny water-holder in this part that was hawking his “lake water” really loudly and asking for tips. There was some older runner dying very obnoxiously around mile marker 3, and it was annoying. He was like choke breathing and then gurgle mouth-vomiting and groaning and shouting really loudly. Everyone kept looking at him to see if he was race dying or really dying. The “hilly” area between 3.5 and 5.early was not much to speak of. Passed a few folks and kept myself from speeding up too much. Basically by mile 4 or 5, I was already sitting at 7:30 average pace, though, and it was coming easily. I was high 150s/low 160s, with 170 at the top of a hill. Pretty neighborhood through mile 6. I was 20 seconds under 7:20 pace at 6 miles and 29 seconds under at 7 miles. I was sticking next to this young guy through most of that, up till about mile 7.5. I felt OK, it was downhill, and I wanted to go ahead and make some time. I think I ran my first 7:00 somewhere before 8. The big hill at 8 was nothing, and I realized just how creamed I must have been at that point the last time I ran this race. It just wasn’t hard. I passed an older Ironman guy around here, and he was breathing a lot harder than I was. It was going to be a good day. I was 46 seconds under at 8. It didn’t hurt hitting mile 9 in sub-7, so I kept pushing, trying to squeeze as much race as I could out of the last 4 miles. I was passing about one person every 30 seconds. I ran the tangents. I shot the photo guy a finger gun, or tried to. I was running 6:45 pace. I passed a gaggle of runners around mile 11 and they seemed to be having a good time. I wonder if they were racing or just out for a run? I passed Russ around mile 12. I didn’t really hurt at all until this mile. I was trying to hit 6:30, but I had also calculated how far ahead I was and I knew that 1:35 was in the bag, 1:34 was quite likely, the only stretch was 1:33. That’s what made me run harder. A female was trying to keep ahead of my through mile 12.75, but I finally edged past and kept kicking.
I rounded a corner at mile 13, and I could hear Beckett screaming “Go, Daddy, go!!” It worked. I was quite proud to run that last stretch as hard as I could. So fun. I’ve never had a race go so unexpectedly well time-wise like this. My first marathon was close to the same feeling, although I wasn’t really trying to hit a PR.