The Marathon.
The marathon went down on Sunday morning. Fortunate timing considering the rain of the day before. There was still the wind to deal with, though. When the course hugged the coast, the top layer of the dunes blew off and it felt like I was being sandblasted. But the temperature stayed in the low fifties and the sky was mostly clear. In sum, the weather was fair to poor.
Sort of like my race. I had been aiming for a Boston qualifying 3:10. In retrospect, this was a bit ambitious, especially considering that I had not run a marathon before. And had not trained all that well. But I thought I could do it and I started the race on a path to making it. I ran my first mile in 6:20 and blamed the tailwind. It was making the pace feel really easy and I didn't feel like wasting it. At the five mile mark, I was at 32:50, which wouldn't have been a bad 8k time for me a few years back. Even at ten miles, when the course had started to get hillier and the wind was turning into a headwind, I was still at 1:08 or so.
By that point I was starting to get some bad signs in the form of mild nausea. This isn't something that I'm used to in the context of a race, so I just kept running while gradually pulling back my pace. The following sixteen miles were dominated by these features, the nausea and the slowing. At nineteen miles in, I was trading off between a labored jog when I felt mildly sick and a walk or a crouched on the ground stop when I felt more sick. There's nothing quite like getting passed by a few hundred runners.
There was some mild redemption at the end. As I entered Falmouth, there was a growing crowd, which had a fortifying effect. I crossed the finish line with dignity. And, somehow, I had managed to finish the race in under four hours. I was aiming for far under 3:57, but I could have done a lot worse.
Going forward. My death march, as unpleasant as it was, was less taxing than having run the whole thing at race pace. This means that I can start training again soon. The Thanksgiving 5k in Sandwich should be good for rebuilding confidence (and Brother seems interested in running it). And this debacle won't be my last marathon, if I have my way. jbdowse, are you thinking about New Jersey again?
Sort of like my race. I had been aiming for a Boston qualifying 3:10. In retrospect, this was a bit ambitious, especially considering that I had not run a marathon before. And had not trained all that well. But I thought I could do it and I started the race on a path to making it. I ran my first mile in 6:20 and blamed the tailwind. It was making the pace feel really easy and I didn't feel like wasting it. At the five mile mark, I was at 32:50, which wouldn't have been a bad 8k time for me a few years back. Even at ten miles, when the course had started to get hillier and the wind was turning into a headwind, I was still at 1:08 or so.
By that point I was starting to get some bad signs in the form of mild nausea. This isn't something that I'm used to in the context of a race, so I just kept running while gradually pulling back my pace. The following sixteen miles were dominated by these features, the nausea and the slowing. At nineteen miles in, I was trading off between a labored jog when I felt mildly sick and a walk or a crouched on the ground stop when I felt more sick. There's nothing quite like getting passed by a few hundred runners.
There was some mild redemption at the end. As I entered Falmouth, there was a growing crowd, which had a fortifying effect. I crossed the finish line with dignity. And, somehow, I had managed to finish the race in under four hours. I was aiming for far under 3:57, but I could have done a lot worse.
Going forward. My death march, as unpleasant as it was, was less taxing than having run the whole thing at race pace. This means that I can start training again soon. The Thanksgiving 5k in Sandwich should be good for rebuilding confidence (and Brother seems interested in running it). And this debacle won't be my last marathon, if I have my way. jbdowse, are you thinking about New Jersey again?