Marine Corps Marathon - RunMarathon

I think my run was pretty good. I felt great during the first half but I held back a bit because I didn't pace well in my last marathon and I didn't want a repeat performance. The weather made for a very different run than what I trained with, too, since I did all of my runs in 80+ degree heat and humidity. I think I drank a little too much because of that, and I seemed to slow a little at mile 17 because my stomach was full of water and I felt like burping (but can't). I had some leg pain around mile 20 and beyond, but I stopped to stretch a few times and pushed through it to run most of the rest of the course. I told myself that if I just keep up the momentum, I wouldn't have to stop. The hill at the end was quite a feat, though. I had no idea there would be a hill there, and I'm glad because I would've psyched myself out!



The course was a lot hillier than I had anticipated! I don't really have hills to train on, but I would've driven to some if I had known what the course looked like.

Walked around, got some powerade and banana, found a Chipotle in the finish area and made a beeline for it. Mississippi doesn't have Chipotle so I've been craving it for a long time! It was the perfect recovery meal, even though I only got a salad with beans and chicken. Lots of protein to rebuild those muscles!


I felt great going into this race and was hoping for a PR, but my last race was very flat and not crowded, so I feel good about my time anyway. I think I handled it a lot better mentally, but my legs were really hurting at the end and even though I had the energy, I was just in a lot of pain and couldn't pick it up.


The one thing that bothered me about the course was the bottlenecks; there were several water stations where traffic just seemed to stop and I couldn't run even if I wanted to. There were also quite a few areas where the spectators seemed to be slowly closing in on the road and the police and Marines had to push them back to the sidewalk. Other than that, the race was managed extremely well, which is to be expected from the Marine Corps. The volunteers were polite and seemed happy to be there (and there was plenty of "eye candy" along the course!) Overall I think it was a great race, and DC is a wonderful place to run.