Marine Corps Marathon - Run

The start near the Pentagon was great, and the announcer before the start was the best I'd ever heard! The first 3.5 miles were at the pace that the crowd was moving. There was no going faster, so I just relaxed and went with it. No need to get pissed off or crazy about stuff I can't control. I was hoping for a 3:45 finish, but I didn't see that pace group at the start, and as it eventually turned out, I never caught them during the race, although at some point I was slightly ahead of that pace time. After it thinned out at around mile 4, I picked up my pace. I incorrectly thought I needed an average of 8:44, but I really needed a 8:34, and while most of my splits were close to this, the last couple of miles did me in for that average. I kept my pace in the "comfortable" range, because this sub 4 time was Pie in the Sky anyhow, since I hadn't done any speed training in several months due to a injury. As I ran along and noted my pace was in the 830s, I was happy. I had a few faster ones due to some good downhills, and the uphills didn't seem to hurt me much. However, I noticed the mile splits on my Garmin and the mile markers on the course kept getting longer and longer apart. It seemed the course was going to be fairly long according to Garmin, by almost a half mile. Whatever. I really didn't matter. This wasn't a PR, and I wasn't trying for a specific time for any real reason other than to give myself something to shoot for. The scenery itself wasn't awesome most of the time, but the crowd support more than made up for it. About half way through I noticed it was beginning to heat up pretty good, and my selection of a dark blue shirt wasn't the best idea. I began making sure to search out the shadiest part of the street from there on out. I was actually holding myself back most of the race because I wanted to make sure I had enough left for the finish, and I didn't want to have to walk to be in extreme pain. Had I known my splits were wrong, I would have made the correction. Oh well. At about mile 18 I felt my legs begin to notice the miles. It had to happen sometime, and I was glad it was later than sooner. Thankfully, it didn't really effect my pace ....yet. As we came back into the main part of D.C. there was some better views to take my mind off the slowly building leg discomfort. I had brought my own water with NUNN in it so supplement the water on course, and that was a great move. The water stops were only every 4ish miles, so I certainly needed my bottle in between. Thank goodness I made that decision. It lasted until the very end, but just barely. At around mile 22ish, my pace finally began to fall. I wrongly believed up to then that I had enough time in the "bank" to make up for this, but then realized that something was wrong and I wasn't going to make my 3:45 finish. I never realized my mistake until long after the race was over. Officially, I crossed 26.2 miles at 3:47., but still had a half mile to get to the finish line. The uphill finish was hard, but most everyone seemed to muster the energy to run up that hill. It was hard no to with all of the Marines yelling encouragement to you the last few hundred yards. I was looking forward to seeing the Marine Corps memorial, but the entire thing was under scaffolding. Geez. I hobbled my way through the next several hundred yards to meet Mary and Conor after the fence . We made our way to the Metro, and back to the Hotel. Mission accomplished.

Get a wrist band with the actual mile splits. Duh.

Eat burger, drink beer, walk poorly.


my brain.


Great venue and huge crowd support. It's a bucket list race for sure.