Marine Corps Marathon - RunMarathon

Paul and I started off with his wife, Carrie, and a friend of theirs, Billy. Carrie was able to keep her "starting" pace down to our planned 11:00 pace but Billy was pushing us (as well as the rest of the crowd) at around 9:30. I decided to let Billy go off and slowed down around mile 2 and then noticed that Paul had dropped off to run with Carrie, so I was "by myself" for 24 miles.

My GPS unit was really acting up probably because of the tall building, long overpasses, and hundreds of other GPS units. For a while I was 0.2 ahead of the mile markers, then it drifted to 0.5 ahead, and I finished right at 0.8 ahead (27.0 miles). That was a little frustrating.

We obviously jumped in line too early as I was getting passed by some pretty fast runners for almost the whole first half. It was right around then that I started passing people regularly. As I was closing in on the finish (Crystal City and beyond) I was drawing on people's pain as a source of strength for me - as they were walking I willed myself to keep running.

I couldn't get over the amount of people at this race - I knew it was around 30,000, but to actually see it is amazing. The spectators were great too, but as I have done so many solo runs, I was looking forward to Hain's Point "solitude." It was during that section when I had my first mental test - at mile 17 I was like, "yikes, still 9 miles to go - ugh."

Coming back up out of Hain's Point I kind of had a second wind, but the 14th street bridge was kind of hot and slightly uphill. And then the couple "out-and-backs" around and through Crystal City were a little depressing. I was trying to find Paul and Carrie in Crystal City, but it was almost making me dizzy, so I just kept my eyes on the road.

When I passed the finishing area for the last out-and-back, I kept thinking, "how much farther to the turn around." It was at that point that I felt most like walking, so I choked down one more Gu. Coming up the final hill I tried to pick up the pace some and near the top to the finish line, my right hammy and calf tried to cramp up on me every few strides, but I held it off.

The space blankets were really nice, but there was a terrible traffic jam trying to get out of the finishing area. I didn't like going from running (somewhat hard at the end) to just standing there in wall-to-wall people.

It took me quite some time to figure out how to get back to the Arlington Cemetary metro stop, and when I did finally make it back there Paul and Carrie were there waiting for me. They finished together as planned with a time of 4:46:00.

I think if I were to do anything differently it would have been to start slower and run with Carrie and Paul for the whole marathon.

Stood around like a pack of sardines trying to get out of the finishing area. Once I got out, I kind of got a pinched nerve around my shoulder sprain area (from last December).

I walked around plenty trying to find the metro station.


Lack of training for a faster goal time - I wanted to do between a 4:30 and 4:45. Goal attained!


I am now a Marathoner!

I'm pleased that I stuck to my plan of walking the water stations only - I never walked because is was tired. The long training runs helped me realize I needed more fuel during the run - I stuck to my plan of Perpetuem at the top of every hour and a Gu at the bottom of every hour (I was hoping I didn't need that Gu around 4:30, but I did).