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Comments: The race: yup, it was hard. There were good moments, a lot of them. I ran with the eventual ladies winner for several miles early, and then again late in the race. My wife has no worries, but I do enjoy talking with ladies while I am racing smile emoticon. I had to stop and use a porta around mile 19. It got really hard about 23 miles in. But it was mostly just running, running as smooth as I could at the pace I had to have to BQ. At the end I felt elated, exhausted, but mostly relieved. 3.5 years of training. Several thousand miles, injuries, failures, and the pure joy of running. Back to last night. On the way home, after telling Kerry about how I felt before the race the answer struck me. I was afraid. Every race before I "bonked. I started strong, and ran well then fell apart. I ran well for 13, 14, 16, 18 miles, then it's over. The legs turn to burning lead, stride shortens to a death shuffle. Worst of all is the mental anguish, calculating what this new pace will yield until the moment, with miles left that you know you cannot reach your goal this time. Once again it is a failure, once again, it hurts physically and mentally. What's next? Well, I did just qualify for Boston. It would be a shame not to go. I guess I better start training What would you do differently?: There's lots of things I would like to do differently. What I WILL do is simple. I will continue to train. I will run hard on my hard days, and easy on my easy days. Doing so I will get stronger, fitter, faster. I will run more marathons. Some slower, many faster. I will mix in at least one Olympic triathlon a year, maybe even run a full IM distance soon. I will progress until age slows me down. Then I will continue until I can continue no more.  Post race
Warm down: Finish line, collect the medal, eat food, run into old friends and visit with them bragging about my first BQ! Hang out for 35-40 minutes, eating more food (Chobani yogurt) while waiting to collect my 2nd place AG ribbon. Then head to my sisters to pick up our boy and head for home! What limited your ability to perform faster: Figuring out how to poop before a marathon.... That is 1.5 minutes per race of free time I am giving up. Train myself to handle more hydration and nutrition on the run. Event comments: Low key race. More geared to t he 1/2 marathoners than the full. Still adequate support for the full. 2nd year running this as a full. I will keep this one on my calendar. Last updated: 2016-05-22 12:00 AM
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United States
YMCA
45F / 7C
Overcast
Overall Rank = 13/192
Age Group = 40-44
Age Group Rank = 2/12
Woke up at 03:40. Ate my normal breakfast of oatmeal, chia seeds, yogurt, and blueberry porridge. Skipped the toast I normally have. The wife and I then drove the 45 miles from home to the finish line.
Wake up in the middle of the night to the thought, "I don't want to run this marathon today". Offer up a prayer asking for comfort and peace, then sleep until the alarm goes off. Sit around at the start, and actually think about changing my race distance to the half.
I've never felt this way before a race, I couldn't figure out why I had these thoughts. Decided I was running the full and sucked it up. The start was chilly, stripped off the warm clothes and put in my drop bag. Lined up, visited with a nervous kid, he was going for a PR in the half, I figure he was around 12 or so. He was psyched up :) I had already lost contact with my wife when she hit the porta lines one more time before the race start.
It's a marathon, so the warmup is the first 2 miles. I lined up near the front. I knew I wasn't going to blast out of there, but the course is nice and wide for the first 3/4 miles. If anyone wanted to pass me there would be ample room. It surprised me how many people did pass me, granted I caught most of them later. I kept it smooth and under control, just 1-2s faster than my goal pace over the first two miles. The perfect warmup.