Marine Corps Marathon - RunMarathon

This was my first marathon, and although I have done other endurance sports, I wasn't really sure what to expect other than some serious pain.

I had followed Higdon's Novice 2 plan, and had done a lot of running by my standards (40 mpw) during the peak training. I knew I would finish no problem, it was just a questoin of how hard I pushed myself to drop those few minutes. I trained almost exclusively by myself, except for one 7 mile mid-week run with a friend who would also be running the MCM, and was shooting for a sub 4-hour run. During my training, I had a sub 4-hour goal, because otherwise I would have really slacked off. My last long long run was 22+ at a 9:39 pace, and that was pretty easy, so during my taper I came to the decision that I would back off on my goal, just run at a comfortable pace and enjoy the spectacle of being part of a marathon.

So Sunday morning, the forcast is upper 50's, cloudy, windy, possibly some rain as Hurricane Sandy comes closer to DC (!) I could live with this, two of my long runs were in torrntial rains and I survived those. I get off the Metro at the Pentagon, walking with the huge mass of people toward the start, and within about 10 minutes of walking, I come upon my training partner. What a shock for both of us! She tells me that her brother, who she had trained with the whole time and was planning to run with, was sick and wasn't going to run the marathon. I was very bummed to hear about that for both of them, I can't imagine not being able to race after all that prep, but I know it does happen. Anyway, she is very excited to see me because now she has someone to run with. I was thinking "well, I really don't plan to go for sub 4hour anymore..." but she was so excited to have someone to run with, I started getting excited myself about running with someone. She has a Garmin, while all I was going to use was the little wristband for pacing so I figured this would be a good way to pace, and what's the worst that would happen? I blow up at the end? (foreshadowing?)

We get up to the corrals, and walk around the side and jump in to the 3:45 pace group because the 4 hour group was too full for our comfort. We were only there about 10 minutes before the cannon went off, which was perfect to me, I hate waiting around. When we finally cross the start line, about 5 minutes later, we're off with the masses. Our first mile was about 9:30, then we started picking up the pace as we were able. The pace felt very comfortable to me, even as we picked it up to about 8:45 or so. I was taking gatorade, and some water, and downing Cliff shots, around miles 4, 11, and 15 I think. Running together gave us two separate cheering sections, too, which was a nice bonus. We hit 13.1 at about 1:56, which is right where we wanted to be, I was feeling good, even though this was the Haines Point section with fewer spectators, and I felt like had the most wind. I did try to draft off other runners a little here, but that kind of threw me off my pace either trying to catch up to a pack or slow down to stay behind a pack. We past mile 15, and rounded around where the MLK memorial is, and my running partner said she was starting to feel bad. I gave her the usual pep talk, and about a minute later one of her other training partners popped onto the course to run with her. We all 3 stuck together for the next couple miles as we turned around and made our way down to the Capital, but I felt like we were starting to slow down. I was a couple paces ahead, then her partner, then her. I heard him say "we've been running a 9:15 pace since I joined you" and I could tell they were gradually slowing, so I decided to keep up my own comfortable pace, and pulled slightly ahead of them. I figured "hell, I've run at a sub 4 hour pace so far, why throw it away now? I may as well go for it."

So I passed my family one last time there, and turned to head onto the bridge, which from reading was a tough part of the course. It was. There did seem to be a slight tailwind, but it's just a long, straight section with few spectators. I can't imagine how difficult it would be if the sun was out and the wind was blowing the wrong way. I kept rolling at pretty much the same pace, until we made it to Crystal City. I must have hit mile 20 right about 3:00 even, because I thought, "a 60 minute 10 k, I can do this." I got to mile 23, and stated to feel some twinges in my left hamstring. By the end of this mile, I had to start walking for 10-20 seconds as my leg cramped. I was still slightly ahead of where I needed to be, so I figured I could walk a little and possibly still make it, although I really had no other choice but to walk with the cramps. I made it to mile 24 at 3:40 and realized this was going to be tight to make it. I walked more, ran more, but had to keep resorting to walking due to the cramping. By the time I hit mile 25, sub-4 hour was out the window, so I pretty much took it easy from there, for the first 3/4 mile or so. I ran some, but walked more and more here, until the final 0.2, where the crowds were bigger, and I could shuffle and at least appear to be running. I ran up the hill, and crossed the line in 4:05:xx. Got the medal, picked up my bag from the UPS peeps, and met back up with my running partner to swap stories of the final 6 miles. She cramped badly in Crystal City, somewhere around 22 I think, to the point that someone (I'm not sure who) wanted to pull her off the course. But she soldiered on and finished right behind me at 4:08:xx.

It was good to do a marathon, it was something I'd always wanted to do, but I don't expect to be back at the starting line any time soon. I don't love racing as much as just running, I think my last race was over 2 years ago, and it was a triathlon, and my last running race before that was a 5k about 5 years ago, with some mountain bike races scattered in between those two. My hat is off to those who train and push hard enough to do them!



If I could have taken in more liquids I think I may have done better. Maybe added some salt tabs, but I didn't do that during my training, so I didn't want to change anything. I think it was just warm enough that I out-sweated my liquids. I probably went out too fast. Taking it easy would have reduced the cramps maybe, but I don't have any regrets about my pace, since I decided in my head to go for sub 4-hour I had to take it out faster than I was really comfortable with.

The long walk up the finishing area to meet with people


I did about as well as I wanted to with the amount of training I was willing to put in, which was the bare minimum.


I skipped pretty much all the post race stuff, when I'm finished a race, I'm just ready to go home.