Napa Valley Marathon - RunMarathon

i would not characterize myself as a cocky individual. however, from my past races, and my recent increase in running, that i was capable of around a 315 marathon...with slight hopes of a BQ. did i mention this was my first marathon?? haha (im young and stupid, give me a break!)

even standing at the start, i wasn't sure how i was going to tackle the race. do i push it? do i cruise it? do i just survive? ended up going by feel

so, the national anthem was sung, the countdown was over and the mass of people started moving towards a common goal 26.2 miles away, Napa, CA. instantly i felt amazing, the week of tapering and the aches and pains all melted away and i ran a nice 7:30 mile.

a quick note, i PLANNED on going out slow, like 8 minutes slow. looking back, i should have stuck to my guns and ran the 1st 5k with an 8 minute average. but i didn't, i made the decision to push it, and shoot for a 3:08. oops

the miles were going by pretty quickly early on, i did have a couple of miles where i had a random nose bleed (?!), which was more annoying than anything else, but i did notice that my heartrate was too high.

i thought the heartrate was more from nerves than from effort tho, so i just kept pushing on with a good group of pacers. although, looking back, i see most of them ran sub 3, so add another oops to the tally!

10 miles down, and everything was gravy! only a couple of miles until the 1/2 way point, my split for the 1/2 was a PR, 1:33...haha again, oops! even after the 1/2 way point tho things were still at a good pace, although the 7s were turning into 718s, 7 28s and soon 7 30s.

mile 18 was the killer. there is a hill that just beat me apart, and i was reduced to walking a little of it. that is when i knew i was in trouble, with 8 miles to go and very very tired legs.

i wasn't physically outta breath, my legs were just shot. i never had to stop for cramps or to catch my breath, just to take in as much aid at the stations as i could.

It was a sureal experience running past the 2-something mile markers, i kept thinking, 'holy shit ive gone a long way', which i guess is better then, 'damn ive got a long way to go'. my pace really fell off bad around 23-25, but i managed to keep moving, just at a 9 pace rather than 7 like before.

mile marker 26 was a very welcome sight, couple more turns and the ordeal was over

pace it evenly
eat a little bit more (only grabbed 1 gu from the course...ate 2 packs of chomps and some oranges)
start slow

sat. my. ass. down.


pacing, stupidity


overall, great race, but some things needed some work:
t-shirts only available in mens sizes (doesn't effect me)
t-shirt design is a grape vine, not very macho
+ it was a tech long sleeve

expo was ok, nothing special
AWESOME free backpack or duffel for you to choose
aide stations every 2-2.5 miles (barely enough)
10 minute free massage ++++