I trained aggressively for this race, given that it’s a spring marathon and I have a not so stellar track history with the “winter training” thing. I went into training with the goal that I wanted to get as close to 3:40:59 as possible. If I could hit it, great! If not, I’d have a good idea of what I was really capable of and could adjust for future races accordingly.

During the taper I went back and forth multiple times as to whether to go for the 3:40 or not. A lackluster time at the Shamrock Shuffle along with some lingering ITB issues (and a few subsequent missed runs because of it) had me convinced that I wasn’t quite “there” yet.

I made the decision a week out to just go out comfortably and to see how I felt. No worrying about the pace, just do what feels comfortable. Easy enough.

Race day arrived and it was glorious. Low 50’s at the start, not very humid, a bit of a breeze but not too terrible. Met up with Tim B., Mark-Oblivion R., and Gemma P. at the start before checking gear and hitting up the port-o-potties. Just finished going to the bathroom when the wheelchair start went off, so I rushed to the start, synched the Garmin, and we were OFF.

Mile 1 (8:32) - With all the excitement at the start I realized about a half mile in that I was going quite fast (high 7’s) so I made a mental note to calm down and just ease into a slower pace. Actually saw the Mile 1 marker (I missed it last year) and I was excited to see that “comfortable” was coming in at a pretty quick pace.

Mile 2 (8:45.4) & 3 (8:26.9) – Hit the water stop right after mile 1 (had also missed this last year) and marveled at how much more open the race was with the half folks starting a half an hour later. I hate crowded marathons, so this made the race so much more enjoyable for me. Really was taking it easy and reminding myself at this point that I had a long way to go.

Mile 4 (8:39.8) – Took extra water at the water stop in this mile because I knew I wanted to gu at the 5 mile point but there is no water in sight. Figured that hydrating twice as much a ½ mile before I gu’d would have to suffice.

Mile 5 (8:17.9) – Caught up to the 3:50 pace group at the 5 mile point and heard them chattering about how they were going out too fast and how the windiest portion of the run was going to be coming up. I made a joke to one of the guys that this is where I tuck in behind him and let him wind block for me. Gu’d and then navigated around the pace group (they were going too slow) and found a nice group of people to run behind for a while to block the wind for me. The wind was slightly annoying, but not too bad at this point.

Mile 6 (8:29) & 7 (8:25.8) – Rally monkey sighting at the end of these miles! I knew that there was usually someone from Tim’s posse around here, so I pulled my arm warmers down in the event I could throw them to someone. Big boost of excitement when I saw Tim’s wife, Krista, shortly after the water stop. I high fived her and threw her my arm warmers and kept trucking.

Mile 8 (8:16) & 9 (8:27.1) – Mile 9 is the first mile through Meadowbrook Park, which has traditionally been slow for me the past few years due to crowding and having to maneuver around people. I cannot say how much I appreciated the early start compared to the half runners at this point. I didn’t have to maneuver around ANYBODY. It was so nice, and actually helped me enjoy the park rather than curse at it like I usually did. Saw the same band (shark bandit) that was at mile 9 last year and I kid you not, they were playing the EXACT SAME SONG. Thought of seeing them with Josh, Tim, and Mark last year and had a huge grin on my face for probably the next mile or so. Great boost of energy from these guys. Awesome.

Mile 10 (8:13.2) - Gu’d again at mile 10 and just steadily kept keepin’ on. Was feeling really good and knew that my pace was faster than I expected, so I knew I had some serious decision making coming up.

Mile 11 (8:21.0) – Guys, seriously, can you PLEASE explain to me why on earth some of you have a problem with being “chicked”? I encountered a guy at the 11 mile mark who went back and forth with me for the next 2 or so miles because he did NOT want me to pass him. The small problem being that I was running comfortably whereas he was clearly struggling. Sometimes you just have to chuckle a bit to yourself and keep going.

Mile 12 & 13 (16:29.8) – Totally missed the 12 mile marker. Josh later told me that I hadn’t missed it, it just wasn’t there. Had one of those “oh shit” moments when I looked down and saw my watch at 9:21 without having seen the mile marker. Then I realized my watch also said I was 1.22 miles into the lap and that I must have missed the marker and I wasn’t just running really slow. I realized in these miles that I was on pace to run a PR for the half in the middle of the marathon and I didn’t even feel phased. This made me ecstatic, and I’m not gonna lie, I was just a little bit in awe. Made the final decision to just keep trying to hammer out 8:24’s and to see exactly how close I could get to 3:40 pace. Mentally shifted from “this is fun!” mode to “Let’s do this” mode.

Mile 14 (8:18.0) - Crossed the half at 1:50.17, a personal best half by 3 seconds. CAH-RAY-ZEE. At this point I started calculating how much I had “in the bank” time-wise. Was happy to add an extra 6 seconds to my “banked time” when I hit 14.

Mile 15 (8:24.1) – This mile is always hard for me. I don’t know if it’s just mental or if there is a slight uphill or what, but I remembered struggling here last year as well. I had started catching up to the 3:40 pace group here but they were a ways in front of me. I was beginning to pick off the stragglers from the pace group, but struggled a little bit to keep pace. It wasn’t feeling “hard” yet, it just wasn’t “easy” like it had been in the previous miles. Gu’d when I hit the 15 mile point and hoped that would give me a bit of a boost.

Mile 16 (8:26.3) & Mile 17 (8:25.7) – Even though this mile was slower, it felt a lot easier than the previous mile, so my spirits started lifting again. At the end of this mile there’s a slight downhill going into the 17 mile marker and I remember telling myself to just use the downhill and take advantage of it to make up a little bit of time.

Mile 18 (8:14.7) – I wasn’t really sure where this mile came from (time-wise) while I was running, but I just looked at the elevation profile and much of this mile was a slight downhill, which explains things a bit better. I remember thinking how good I felt on this mile, and I was so excited that I was doing so well. Last year it was around 18 that I just gave up, so it was nice to feel relatively strong at this point.

Mile 19 (8:26.3) – I knew here that I had quite a bit of time banked, and that if I could just push through the next 7 miles I’d have a decent shot at hitting a BQ time, but this was the last of my “on pace” miles.

Mile 20 (8:40.9) – Just after the mile 19 mark I spent some time fumbling around for my inhaler and getting another gu out. It definitely cost me a bit of time in this mile, but I also knew that NOT doing these things would cost me much more time so I was ok with that. I was a little disappointed to see such a slow mile pop up but I was still feeling pretty decent.

Mile 21 (8:45.8) – This is where two things happened. 1) I started hitting the wall. Very rapidly my quads started to get very heavy and just were not moving me forward as efficiently as they had been in previous miles. 2) The wind. My God, the wind. 25 MPH gusting to 40 MPH by this point. In reality, it probably had hit me in the previous mile as well, but it wasn’t nearly as noticeable because I hadn’t smacked into “the wall” yet. It was just a struggle to keep moving forward and was sucking up so much of my energy.

Mile 22 (8:57.0) – About halfway through this mile I became ok with the idea that the 3:40 time goal was not going to be happening today and I dialed back to “do the best that you can.” I knew it was going to be a massive PR regardless, so I just wanted to keep soldiering through and to be able to say I did the absolute best that I could.

Mile 23 (9:11.2) & 24 (9:36.4) - This is where the miles start getting really not pretty. But when “not pretty” = 9:36 pace, I guess I can be ok with that.

Mile 25 (9:56.8) & 26 (9:01.3)– Effing hill for almost the first half of mile 25. Tons of people walking but I knew I had to keep shuffling forward. The downhill offered some relief and just the fact that I knew I was nearly done kept me moving. The wind wasn’t head-on at this point, but it was still gusting to the extent that it was still massively affecting me, probably more in the head than anything. I was cursing Mother Nature with some pretty mean words right around here.

.2 (2:27.0) – The course turns a corner and heads South right about where the 26 mile mark appears and it’s nearly humorous because this also happens to be wide open and there was a head-wind that was just INSANE. I literally started laughing because it was just so absurd. It was one of those moments where you felt you were running in slow motion and Chariots of Fire should be playing in the background. It certainly was not the triumphant sprint to the finish that you would expect once you hit mile 26. It was a relief to get into the stadium and have some shelter from the wind.

My watch said 3:46:15 but the chip indicated 3:46:13. That’s officially a 21:29 PR and I could not be happier. I’m proud of myself for making the choice to go for it in the middle miles; at no point from mile 5-20 did I feel like I was going uncomfortably fast. I just know that I have work to do so I can finish the last 10K much stronger next time. Had the wind not been so prevalent in the last 10K I think I probably could have broken 3:45, but I still just flat out hit a wall. I’m not going to dwell on it too much, just going to learn from it and use it as fuel to follow through on the training during the next cycle.