With 5 marathons in the bag, I decided to keep going and run my 6th.
The good news is my running for this year has been on track for good marathon training so I didn't need any extra hard training the month leading up to the October 11. Also, I just ran the Reach The Beach relay in New Hampshire on September 12th and that went really well.
The bad news is I've spent the past two weeks dealing with hay fever and low energy. Not the kind of health I like to experience before a long run.
Friday the 10th and the days leading up were packed with logistics and planning. My family including my dad and step-mother were coming to watch the race. Also our friends the Tapanainen's were planning to join. Robyn put a ton of energy into getting everyone ready and the whole trip was a success. I can't thank her enough for all her hard work.
As is often the case with a long run, I spent the night before "trying to get to sleep". Next time, I'll try the Tylenol PM.
We left the house at 5 am, picked up Grandma and Grandpa along the way, and arrived in Hartford at 6:40. Since the bib-pickup was open until 7:30, we had lots of time.
Robyn, the girls, grandpa, and grandma all found a spot roadside about 200 yards after the start and they waited. The crowd near the start was just insane. It felt like all 2000 runners were standing right on the starting line. Too crowded to get into the chute at the front and too crowded to get to the end of line, I waited on the side.
When the gun went off, I pushed through - with a dozen others - and crossed the start just where the chip-reading-mat were placed. I spent the first few miles wondering if I went over the mat and got my chip registered. If my chip was not registered, I would not get an official time. Fortunately, when I looked at the race results later they showed that I did in fact cross the starting mat. Phew.
The family was waiting for me at the 200 yard mark and they were all smiles and cheer. That was nice. Emma caught some of it on video.
It was a fun day for the family and friends with a kid's run around 10 am and a trip to mile 22 to cheer me on. Everyone had a good time. With warm sun and nice fall foliage, how could it be a bad day!
The first 10 miles, I took it easy and tried to stay near 8:00/mile. This felt like a good pace but right from the beginning my breathing was heavier than usual. The 2 week hay fever was catching up with me.
I met some guys running comfortably at 7:30/mile and stayed with them for over an hour. We talked a bit but mostly just kept each other on track.
Around mile 18 I started to run out of gas and dropped back from the guys. This was not fun. The good news is that I had about 10 minutes in the bank. I'd been running 7:40/mile for the 1st 18. Now, with only 8 miles to go, I had some headroom to hit a target of 8:00/mile.
Starting with mile 18, I walked for a minute or so at each water stop. Doing this I was able to finish the race with a run - instead of a walk or a carry.
Around mile 22, Robyn jumped out and handed me a banana. I stopped, gave her a big kiss, posed for the camera, and dropped off my hat. Then I ran for as long as Robyn and the family could see me - about 2 blocks - and walked a bit. This was the drill for the rest of the race.
In many of my races, I've sprinted for the last 2 miles. I was starting to doubt this would be one of those races.
As I approached mile 25 many cheery people were shouting "you can do it". I just smiled and walked by thinking "yes I can, even if I need to walk...".
Mile 26 and only 1000 feet to go. Someone shouted "the finish line is just around the corner". I ran a bit. About 500 feet. Then walked. Ugh. Definitely not sprinting to the finish.
As I approached the finish, I could barely make out the race clock. It looked like 3:29. I said hey, I've got 1 minute to make a 3:30 PR. All I need to do is cross that line! Well, I ran like it mattered and crossed the line with the race clock at 3:31. Knowing I did not start right with the gun, I was optimistic that my overall race time would be around 3:30. That's 8 minutes off my PR (Marine Corp Marathon 2007 - 3:38) and 14 minutes off my most recent marathon (Boston Marathon 2008 - 3:44). Very nice.
We spent the afternoon catching up, sharing pictures and stories. We ate at the Publick House in Sturbridge and visited the Halloween displays there. It was a relaxing afternoon with lots of good food.
At home again in the evening, I verified my race time (3:30:56 - mighty nice), went to bed at 8pm and slept clear through to 7am.
By all the standard accounts, I ran too fast. But hey, I beat my PR and that feels great.
Next challenge: Qualify for Boston: 3 hours, 15 minutes.
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After extensive data analysis of the marathon results, I was able to create a histogram of the finishing times. This was quite fun. Even with the best tools - Numbers on the Mac, Excel on Windows, and MATLAB on Windows - the process of converting the text results (above link) to the below graph took a long time. This could have been done in one step in MATLAB. Too bad I started with Numbers on the Mac.
Anywho, the graph below shows the bins for all finishes between 2 hours and 6 hours. Most people finished between 3:20 and 4:38. As you might expect, there is a steep rise from the 4 people who finished in about 2 hours to the middle and a gradual slope from the middle to the 6 hour mark. Only about 40 people finished in more than 6 hours. Which is almost the same as the number of people to finish in less than 3 hours. Interesting...
I finished in 3:30 which puts me in the 6th bin below (click on the picture for a larger view).
Enjoy.
