Notes
This went better than I expected, even though I didn't break 3 hrs.
First of all, there are SO MANY people at this race. Ridiculous. I took the scenic train to the start, sat with a woman from Ireland who now lives in New Jersey, and then I actually ended up running a lot of the race with her. Wild. I was also tracking Sam's half on my phone and *holy shit* he's so fast!
The start corral was nuts, so I couldn't get up to the 3-hr pace group before the gun went off. I was closer to the 4-hr group, so I figured I would just catch up the first mile, and I felt great. I didn't realize until my watch buzzed with the split that I had just gotten out in a 6:18. Said, "oh, shit" and kept going until I found the 3 hour pace group, and then I promptly chilled the fuck out.
The course is beautiful-- right along the lake, lots of woods and pines, but still plenty of spectators! I chatted with a few different people during the first half, just vibing. Took water at every station, had my regularly scheduled gels. Came through the half a little faster than goal pace.
At mile 17ish, the hills rolled a little more, and my legs started to feel tired. I had another gel, felt better for a couple of miles, and then I hit the proverbial wall. I felt like I was crawling, but one of my mantras for this race was "relentless positivity," and I knew that I could get to mile 22, because I've done that for long runs. So I kept on keeping on. Told myself to just take a few miles chill, then speed back up. The chill miles happened, the speeding up did not. Finally checked one of my mile splits and saw that it was only a 7:15. Okay. I could work with that. The other runners started dropping like flies at mile 20, which was kind of motivational for me. Hit some hills on the way into town, which were actually fun because I was passing people up them. The last 1.2 miles were so so so hard. But the last 100 meters was all smiles because I'm a contrarian and Spitz told me before my first marathon that people don't look happy while they're finishing marathons.
It's really exciting that I ran a 3:01 off of half-assed training. That means that now that I've got my shit together, I can get some solid miles under my belt and kick ass in the next one. And, more importantly, it was lots of fun, even with a positive split and dying a little.