Marine Corps Marathon - RunMarathon


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Arlington, Virginia
United States
USMC
52F / 11C
Sunny
Total Time = 4h 26m 39s
Overall Rank = 8303/20932
Age Group = F30-34
Age Group Rank = 440/1397
Pre-race routine:

Up at 4:45 which felt like 5:45 because of the time change. 6:00 is my normal time to get up so this was probably the easiest race to wake up for! I gathered my pre-race (complete with contractor bag with holes cut out for the head and arms to keep me warm between bag drop and race start), during race, and post race stuff, drank some coffee, ate some oatmeal, and headed out the door.
Event warmup:

Drive to DC, park at the metro, two trains to Pentagon City, walk about a mile to the race start. Luckily there was a constant stream of people walking to the pre-race runner's village b/c there were no signs from the metro! Dropped my bag, got into my contractor bag, headed to the start. My teeth were chattering the entire time, it was cold despite the fact that I was wearing tights and a long sleeved shirt underneath! Brr! I was glad this wasn't a triathlon!
Run
  • 00m
  • 26.2 miles
  •  min/mile
Comments:

The second wave start was delayed because there was a "medical situation" about 100 yards ahead of the race start (turns out someone had collapsed 100 yards into the race - I hope he is okay, the article I read about it didn't give much info about him, talked more about another man who passed away around mile 17, what a tragedy).

Race finally starts and I settle into a comfortable pace, first two miles were uphill so I took it easy, pace was around 9:38 (off race pace of 9:10 miles by :28 seconds which I figured I could make up later). Since I had finished the hard part I figured I could push the pace a little for the next few miles to make up the time. I kept looking for the 4:00 hour pace group, they had started a little further back from where I started and I was wondering if they had passed me without me seeing. I figured I could pace myself pretty well so if I never found them it wouldn't be a big deal. The plan had been to pace with them for the first 20 miles and then drop back to 10:00 min miles for the last 6 miles. This way I would make my target of 4:08.

Next few miles were a little faster but still comfortable 3-8:42, 4-8:30. I had almost made up the minute or so that I needed to be back at race pace so I decided to try to settle back to my 9:10 pace. Next few miles were 5-8:46 (oops, still too fast), 6-8:53 (getting closer), 7-9:12 (got it, finally), still no pace group. I was going to have to do this on my own. Keep the pace of mile 7, easy enough. I wasn't breathing hard, I was feeling pretty good, this was going to be no problem. Mile 8-9:04, 9-9:11 - it was during mile 9 that my ankle pain started to really hurt intensely. I told myself, I can run through pain, I just need to focus on running evenly so I don't injure anything anywhere else because of the first injury (I had done something to my ankle 3 weeks ago and it was still healing).

Mile 10-9:20, 11-8:59, 12-9:16, 13-9:58 (pain was starting to get pretty bad). My half time was 1:59 which was right on pace so I was pretty pleased. But the pain had grown worse and midway through mile 15 my left quad started to seize, I have never had muscle cramps but I can only imagine this is what I was having. It was pain so intense that I couldn't run through it. The more I ran, the more it hurt. This is where things start going downhill. I couldn't feel my feet at all at this point, they had gone completely numb and my left quad was in some major pain. All I could think about was finishing and getting pain killers. To add insult to injury the 4:00 hr pace group came and went right about the time the quad pain started. :( Oh well.
Mile 14-8:58, 15-10:03, 16-10:11, 17-10:15, 18-12:17, 19-10:24, 20-11:04

The last 6 miles were really bad. I was just trudging along, just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other so I could finish and get it over with. I was getting really cold because I wasn't actually working hard enough to keep myself warm. I put my gloves back on which seemed to help. I wasn't even breathing hard b/c I was jogging and walking so slowly. At least the pain had gone away in my ankle, my feet were just shock absorbers underneath the massive pain in my quad. But I was determined to finish, I didn't want to give up because I was in pain - everyone else around me looked like they were going through similar pain.
21-11:20, 22-12:20, 23-12:20, 24-11:33, 25-12:18, 26-11:52, .2-2:43
Post race
Warm down:

Collapsed in the grass, ate some food, and made my way through the crowd to pick up my bag and then headed home.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Given my ankle injury from a few weeks ago I should have deferred this race until next year. I thought I had given it enough time to heal while I was tapering for the race but I don't think that was long enough. Because that race was so torturous part of me doesn't want to ever do a marathon again but part of me wants to train even harder and make my goal time for my next one. I guess first I'll go to the doc and see what is going on with ankle, rest, and let it heal.

Event comments:

Race was very well organized, I enjoyed running all around DC, crowd support was great (though if I do another marathon I think I'm going to wear my name somewhere on me, that helped a lot in Tampa).




Last updated: 2006-05-30 12:00 AM
Running
00:00:00 | 26.2 miles |  min/mile
Age Group: 0/1397
Overall: 0/20932
Performance: Below average
Course: Up a hill for two miles and then very slight gradual hills along the way up and down bridges, other than that very flat!
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall:
Mental exertion [1-5]
Physical exertion [1-5]
Good race?
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities: Good
Race evaluation [1-5] 4