This past weekend I ran my first back-to-back marathons with the New Hampshire Marathon on Saturday and the Maine Marathon on Sunday.
I enjoyed the New Hampshire race, despite a few pretty serious drawbacks and running the first half mile behind some guys trying to run 2:20 pace.
The race was pretty well organized, it’s a beautiful time of the year to be outside, and I like challenging courses that are very hilly.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t like most (and which I failed to mention in the video report below) was the traffic that we had to face on the course.
Not only do you have to deal with a steeply cambered road in many places, but traffic makes it impossible to run tangents so you can expect an extra quarter to a third of a mile minimum to be tacked on just from having to hug turns to avoid getting hit.
Not that it was a huge problem, since most of the drivers were pretty courteous to the runners. But there are a lot of twists and turns that you need to navigate.
So, with that slight addition added, here’s what I thought of the New Hampshire Marathon as recorded a few minutes after I crossed the finish line:
Video Transcription
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I’m near the finish line of the New Hampshire Marathon here in Bristol, New Hampshire, and it was a pretty fun race.
They have a really good organization, and the course is beautiful. The leaves are changing and there are great lake views all the way around. It’s the granite state, so there’s a lot of big rocky areas.
One of the disappointments I had was as I was running around the lake, I kept looking off at the side of all the trails thinking, “hmm I wonder where those go.”
Unfortunately it’s a road race, so I wasn’t able to explore any of them quite yet.
But one of the things that I didn’t really like about the course though is that a lot of the roads are cambered pretty steeply. It can be a little hard to be running along because it will put you a little bit off balance.
And one of the other things that I didn’t really like about the course, is a little bit past the half-way point, you actually have to cross over the main course. Now it’s a small race, there’s only a few hundred people I think, so it’s not a really big deal, but it’s definitely something that you want to try to avoid when you’re setting up a course.
When I got here, I was surprised to see my buddy Chuck Engle, the Marathon Junkie, had decided to drive up after his 199th Sub 3-hour marathon last week in Berlin. So here he was. He came out and won pretty convincingly today. I’m not sure exactly what his time was, I’ll get that a little later but he’s definitely got number 200 out of the way. So hopefully I’ll see him tomorrow at the Maine Marathon, I haven’t talk to him about it yet.
For my own race, I was a little disappointed with it. I was hoping to run something under 2:50, at least sub 3.
But as I was running on some of the steeper downhill sections about 9, 10, 11 miles into the race, I pulled something right above my groin and it was just hurting quite a bit on the downhills.
I backed off to a pace that would get me just around 3 hours. But after 6 miles or so of that, even on the flats it was kind of hurting.
I backed off to an 8 or 9 minute pace for the last 5 miles, 6 miles of the race, which meant that I wasn’t able to break 3. But in the last mile I decided to see what I had left. I was able to at least BQ. I ran high 6 minutes for it.
I believe I was 10th overall. I had a lot of fun, even with the uncomfortable parts midway to the end of the race. The weather out here is just beautiful today. There’s a couple of clouds floating around. It’s in the mid 60’s. There is quite a breeze, but for the last third of the race that breeze is at your back. So the half marathoners who start up at the north side of the lake and then just run down, they had some nice fast times.
So if you have an opportunity, I recommend coming out to run this race. Just be ready for some hills, and don’t expect to necessarily run a super fast time.
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Also of note it was nice to see Paul Young again and to meet Brian McNeice. We had a nice group going for about 6 or 7 miles early in the race. I first met Paul back in 2007 during the Pisgah Mountain Trail Race, my first ultra, and ran with him for quite a while. Brian helped put on the Exeter Marathon this past April.
It would have been nicer to be able to race them to the finish line, but Paul pulled away on the steep downhill road sections at the start of the 10th mile, and Brian passed me near mile 14 when I paused to relieve myself around the time I decided that my actual goal wasn’t in my best interest after aggravating my muscle.
Back to Back Marathon Attempts
- My First Attempt at Back to Back Marathons
- Back to Back (Part 1): The New Hampshire Marathon
- Back to Back (Part 2): Bridging the Gap Between Marathons
- Back to Back (Part 3): The Maine Marathon
(Download This Video: MP4 – MP3 – More Info: Race Site – Full Results)
Not what you wanted, but still a great job, Blaine! I’ve been bragging to my non-TM friends about your weekend.
Have you diagnosed the groin pain? Look up Osteitis pubis. That’s what I had. It didn’t really hurt to run but it was painful to sneeze or cough. It took a 1.5 years (and two winters with no running) for me to clear it. Good luck. Nice double.
I had Julia Kirtland take a look at it. I’m resting this week and won’t be doing any running except for Thursday night, and that will be kept to a minimum. I’ll see how it feels next week. If I need to, I’ll skip my 6 hour race in November.