Run to Win

I felt pretty strong in the last few hundred yards. I waved for the crowd, got them pumped up when my name was announced over the intercom, and hammed it up as I sprinted in. And by sprinting in, I mean picking up the pace a little bit over what I had been running. It is an uphill finish, after all.

The Finish Line

After I passed the bulldog mascot and got into the finisher’s chute, I hung out near the finish line area to congratulate all of the runners that came in after me that I had passed over the last few miles. I was waiting for the marine and for Paul to finish running so that I could chat with them.

A Navy runner finished and had a little trouble after passing over the line, so a couple of marines put his arms over their shoulders and walked him over the medical tent. He was in heaven. “First I run a marathon,” he said, “and then I get escorted around by a couple of lovely ladies.” They just smiled and kept leading him away.
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I was about 4 people away from the starting line when the gun went off.

It took all of about 1 second for me to cross over the line. My goal was to run between 2:40:00 and 2:45:00, and I was hoping to be at 2:45:00 pace halfway through and then run negative splits. Any sort of a PR would make my slowest goal, so I needed to run faster than 2:51:37 at the very worst.

Mile 1: 7:37 / 7:37 (+1:19)
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I am not a big fan of traveling, and getting down to Virginia this past weekend has not made me a fan of it. The only flight that was on time was the one that left Portland for JFK. I’ll leave it at that.

When we arrived in DC, it was raining pretty hard. We met up with my friend, went back to his place, and had a great dinner that him and his wife prepared for us. We did not even bother trying to get to the expo since the plane had been late getting in.

The rain had not let up the next morning when we went into town, but we got to the Armory just after they opened the doors so we did not have to wait out in the rain for very long. The whole packet pickup situation left a bit to be desired though. “There’s a right way, there’s a wrong way, and there’s the marine corps way,” to bastardize the popular saying.
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This week last year was dominated once again by thoughts of the marathon, but this time I wrote my series on marathon preparation.

• My marathon preparation series consisted of 9 articles of 9 bullet points each. The first couple of articles just happened to come out that way, so I ran with it and made an effort to make the rest of them match that format. The articles were written for my friends that were running their first marathon last year, four of whom did it this week last year at the Marine Corps Marathon. I am running the race tomorrow with one of those guys.
  1. What to bring to the starting line
  2. What to pack in your post-race bag
  3. What to do the week before your race
  4. What to do the morning of your race
  5. What to do during your race
  6. What to do after your race
  7. What to do to stay safe
  8. Marathon strategies
  9. Choosing a marathon
• The series on rest continued this week last year with Scott’s article about why we rest and how to fuel it. A simple rule of thumb is to remember that if you do not eat after a workout, then you just wasted your time.
• This week two years ago, I wrote about the Mystic Places Marathon. That race was a lot of fun, but it no longer exists. I also discussed an old weight program that I used to use to get back in shape. My training philosophy has changed a bit in the past two years, though, so I would not necessarily follow that program as written any more.

Last night I only got a bit over a mile in for a run because one of my socks broke; it kept falling into my shoe under my heel. This is disappointing since it was one of my favorite pairs of socks; oh well, that’s what I get for keeping them around for a good decade.

This actually worked out well in terms of pre-flight strategy, as I needed to go to the bank last night or this morning. I took the opportunity to run there this morning, which means that I didn’t take today off but instead got a good 6 and a half miler in. Unfortunately, the majority of that was in rush hour traffic, but the last few miles were not too bad once I got off of the busiest street in town. Still, running as a means of transportation is a viable option and should be used when readily available.

My taper for the Marine Corps Marathon is a little different than usual. Normally, I start 2 and a half or 3 weeks before the marathon and start steadily decreasing mileage. This Autumn, I used the Pisgah 50k as a pseudo-training/experimentation run, so I didn’t really taper much. I only reverse tapered afterwards. I haven’t really tapered much at all these past couple of weeks for MCM. My mileage has been flat for about 5 weeks straight, including this week after the race on Sunday.

I think that this will work out well for me. I feel well rested, and this week will only be similar mileage because the race is so long. I do not have any nagging injuries worse than some bug bites from raking last weekend. This will be a good race, and will lower my personal record by at least a few minutes if not 10 or 12.

Good luck to anybody else that is running this weekend.

It is only a few days before I leave for the Virginia/Washington D.C. area to run the Marine Corps Marathon. I have started thinking about my race strategies and what I hope to accomplish. The race’s website, though, leaves a bit to be desired.

Their course map is atrocious. It is really neat in terms of how it works, but they do not offer a downloadable PDF that I could print off and study. If they do, then I could not find it.

The elevation map is useful, however:

Looking just at the elevation profile, this just might be my easiest course yet. There is a short climb in the third mile up to not even 250 feet above sea level, with another climb up to about 150 feet from miles 5 through 8. After that, you are looking at what has to be one of the flattest courses that I can imagine up until you finish at the Iwo Jima memorial.

My general game plan is to take it a little conservative for the first few miles. If I run at a 7 minute pace at any point through mile 3, I will not mind at all. I will probably let myself stretch my legs out from there through mile 5, where you drop almost back to sea level. I will probably be around 6 minute pace or a little quicker through here. From 5 through 8, I will aim for 6:25 pace or 6:30 pace. Once I am past there, then I will try to run around 6:15 or better for the rest of the race. At a conservative estimate, that puts me at around 2:45:05. That will serve as my base line that I am going to beat.

I have set up the website here to update as I pass each check point. The Athlete Alert system will let RunToWin.com know where I am and will leave an article here on the site. If you were here earlier this evening, then you may have noticed that I was testing the system.

I have decided that I want to run two marathons this Autumn, and I am already committed to running the Marine Corps Marathon. I found out about a new marathon in New Hampshire, the Manchester Marathon. This would be an ideal race to run, because we have friends in Manchester that we could stay with and it would be fun to run an inaugural race. The unfortunate part of the race is that it falls one week behind the Marine Corps Marathon.

The other marathon options in New Hampshire are the Clarence Demar and the New Hamsphire Marathon in Bristol. They are a week apart from one another, but are both a month before the Marine Corps Marathon.

The fourth option is to jump into my first ultramarathon. The Pisgah 50k Mountain Trail Race is in Western New Hampshire, it is over a month and a half before Marine Corps, and it would theoretically be easier to recover from a trail race than a road race.

Of course, the problems there are that I only have a month and a half to prepare for a race that is around 5 miles longer than the farthest that I have ever raced. It would also be the farthest that I have ever run on trails. I also do not know anybody that lives out that way that I could stay with before the race.

On one day’s contemplation, I am leaning towards either running at Pisgah or doing a couple of marathons back to back and running in Manchester. I am pretty sold on running in New Hampshire, since it is closer than Rhode Island and I have already run a marathon in the rest of the New England states. What are your thoughts? Are you running any of those races? What would you do in my shoes? Do you have any suggestions for races that I may have missed?

The Marine Corps Marathon was this morning. Ruben Garcia ran about a minute faster than last year, but it was not necessary to repeat his win. He beat Carl Rundell by over 3 minutes. Laura Thompson was unable to break 3 hours, but she won by about 2 minutes over Brenda Schrank. The top 5 women to finish were all American, as were the top 3 men.

The RIT alumni ran the race, finishing between just under 2 hours and 40 minutes up to just over 3 hours and 30 minutes. All four gentlemen ran their first marathon this morning. Congratulations go to Chad Byler, Bob McCoy, Jon Booth, and Ryan Pancoast. I have been unable to find team results yet from this year, so I am not sure how they did in the team competition. I hope that all four of them forget how much that race hurt so that I can race against them next year.