This is my hubby's 1st marathon, and really my first with training. We decided to run with the 4:00 run/walk pace bunny, who told us he planned to do even pace, 10&1, maybe bank 1' for the 1st half, walking strategically at water stations, and running slower on uphill and faster on downhill to achieve an even effort.
All this sounded very good, until the execution.

Right off the 1st k, we're already 20" behind. By 3k, we're 1' behind! To be so far behind so early in a marathon is disastrous, as even I know it gets harder to run faster as time goes on. I tried running faster to move ahead of bunny and my HR went up to LT. Pacer by now also realized he's slow, and started running at an eratic pace.

Instead of long ears with pace time, the bunnies were wearing a shirt with the pace, and was supposed to be holding up a sign with their pace. As they got tired, none of the bunnies were holding up their signs, and I couldn't tell where they were at all. Whoever decided to make the bunnies hold up the sign clearly did not think it through.

Our bunny was never walking through aid stations as promised. I couldn't run and drink at the same time, and as I walked to drink, I quickly fell behind and had to chase them, taking my HR to LT time and time again. By halfway, I already had almost an hr at LT, which meant disaster, and I was totally spent.

My split at 10k was 57:23, it's supposed to be 56:41. At the half, it was 2:01:12, supposed to be 2:00. Even though the splits in the 1st half didn't look bad, the pace in between were all over the pace and the effort was not even at all. Not the way to run a marathon.

I ended up running by myself the 2nd half. On the various turnarounds, I realize that the pace bunny took a toll on most of his group with his uneven pacing, including my hubby, who's lagged further and further behind. I took an advil at the halfway mark, but it didn't really help. My right IT started to complain, then my righ arch started to cramp, then the right calf. I had never experienced arch cramping, and it's a weird sensation. I drank some of my magic potion, and the cramping subsided.

But by 30k, I was mostly walking, I was tired and my plantar faciitis was complaining loudly. To add insult to injury, the winds were brutal, 30kph ++++ with much stronger gusts. Even walking against the headwind and crosswind were hard. My HR was now mostly in Z2, clearly not where it should be for racing. But since I've already spent the max at LT during the first half, too much lactic acid has built up, and I couldn't run any more.

The volunteers, however, were great. They provided lots of encouragement. My split at 30k was 2:57:23, projecting to 4:09. At 35k, my split was 3:32:14, projecting to 4:16. I continued to lose time but managed to jog most of the last 500m and finished 4:25:23, which was actually 20" slower than my one and only other marathon at Casino Niagara 9yrs ago, which was run with 0 marathon training and 1 wk after my Duathlon Worlds.

As I crossed the finish line, I saw my hubby waiting for me. He surprisingly finished only a few minutes ahead, clearly another victim of our bunny's poor pacing. We got our medals together and took a couple of pix.

Not follow pace bunny.
Run my own race, even effort at high Z3 (~149-150HR) throughout, like my HIM effort.
Not follow 10&1 strictly, but walk through and drink at every aid station instead.
Relax neck, shoulders and arms every walk, as they are a little sore the day affter the race.
Do not use the Reebok bag as water bottle holder. I got a little bruise in my lower back from it the day after the race.

Following bad pace bunny.
Strong winds.
Plantar Faciitis


My race was bad, mostly because of the bad pacing by our bunny and the strong winds. I could often rank top 20%, if not higher, in my AG, but only slightly better than avg today. I felt cheated as my race time clearly was significantly slower than what I'm capable of running. The course was not flat as advertised, lots of ups and downs. But it was great to run the marathon with hubby, his first and probably last, and probably my last too.

The race was marred by a most unfortunate incident - a 27yr old half marathoner died at the race. But on the good news front, 2 Cdns qualify for the Olympics, first time in a long time. Ed Whitlock broke another world record - 3:15 for an 80yr old. But his record was overshawdowed by Fauja Singh, who broke the world record for the oldest man to ever complete a marathon at 100yrs old. Hats off to him, to stay on his feet for 8+ hr today, under brutal conditions with very strong winds and rain.