Marine Corps Marathon - RunMarathon

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

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


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.


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).