Pacific Shoreline Marathon - RunMarathon

I started off the run on a solid pace. I have been training to run a marathon at 8 min pace but clearly I'm not quite there yet. From mile 2-4 I was running right next to a woman with an IM hat on so after 2 miles I asked her if she would mind company for the rest of the race. She said she would be thrilled so I turned off the shuffle and ran with Becky the rest of the race.

This turned out to be extremely helpful since I did not suffer alone and because her and her husband (who rode next to us at different points on the course) were both extremely friendly and nice. Her personal best marathon is a 3:01 and she has done 10 IMs including Hawaii so I asked her all about triathlons and marathons and everything else. She kept a steady pace until we both started suffering as you can see from the splits.

I was feeling strong and comfortable until mile 20 at which point I crashed and burned. Not uncommon but I think some of the crashing could have been minimized if I had properly fueled during the race. My fueling consisted of 1 Gu at mile 10 and some Amino Vital between miles 11 and 22. I took water at a lot of the aid stations but did not begin doing so until mile 6 or so. I ended up finishing the marathon on fumes and with massive amounts of tightness in my quads, calfs and IT band.

I should have had a fueling plan and stuck to it. I was lazy about planning my fueling before the race and thus went into the race with no plan. While I know I could not have held 8s the whole way I could have faded in a more gradual fashion had a taken better care with my nutrition.

It also would have been nice if I hadn't gotten a chest cold on Thursday which I was fighting during the whole race.

Ate and tried to find Becky's husband in the crowd.


Sickness and nutrition (and the common lack of distance training).


This is a well organized and well run race. I highly recommend it.