Back to Back (Part 3): The Maine Marathon

So after running the New Hampshire Marathon on Saturday, and doing my best to make sure that I recovered as much as I could on Saturday afternoon and evening, Sunday morning was the Maine Marathon.

I’ve run the Maine Marathon before. The first time I ran it was actually my second marathon back in 2003 when I basically was 9 weeks before the race I realized “Oh! You know, a week from now I’ve got a 10K that I had signed up for,” and I hadn’t been running. And then I realized, “Oh! I’ve got 9 weeks until my marathon.”

So this time I was certainly in a much better shape than I was the first time I’ve ran the Maine Marathon, which was very nice.

I was kind of hoping originally to run sub-3 on the course, but given how I had pulled a muscle or aggravated it or whatever the case was on Saturday, I decided that it would be in my better interest to just go out nice and slow and enjoy the experience rather than risking hurting myself too much and being absolutely miserable.

So I did a little bit of a warm up first thing in the morning before the race started and my groin area like right at the bottom of my abs here was definitely a little bit tight. But it wasn’t super painful.

I decided I didn’t really need the warm up. I would just stick to the minimum amount. The biggest thing I needed was just to make sure that I finished and that I wasn’t hurt in such a way that would take me out for a long time.

So within the first mile, I had settled into a comfortable pace where it not only wasn’t hurting, but wasn’t really aggravated. I was just running about 7:30s or so, chatting with people as I came upon them, and pretty much just having a good time.

One of the biggest differences that I found between running this race in 2003 and running it a couple of days ago was that I actually knew a lot of people. Not just in the race, but along the course. I was constantly hearing people cheer for me, which was really nice. I enjoyed that a lot.

I feel bad, because a few times I would hear my name and I’d look up, and I have no idea who it was that had called out my name, but at least I got to wave at most of the people that I saw that I knew.

Because the half-marathoners turned back, as well as the marathoners unless they were pretty close to me in the race, I got to see them on the out and back as well. So I got to see a lot of people I knew, and that was a lot of fun.

My general game plan was just run whatever was comfortable, don’t worry about the pace. Anytime I came to one of the steeper downhill sections, I would walk. So instead of walking the uphills like you would normally find people doing, I was walking the downhills. That seemed to work out pretty well.

There was a few points in the race where I was definitely a little uncomfortable in the area that I had pulled. But my muscle soreness and anything outside of that felt absolutely great, and for the most part I was pretty comfortable.

I even had a few miles in the second half of the race where a relay runner had come up on me and was running at about 7 minute pace, maybe a little bit quicker, and I just kind of picked it up and ran with him without any trouble until we came to one of the steep downhills and I had to let him go. I wasn’t too worried because he was going to be handing off pretty soon anyway.

Once I came up on some of the people that I recognized that had run in New Hampshire the day before, or if I saw somebody that I knew that was walking, or somebody who was just walking on the downhills, I would slow down and I would actually walk with them for a little bit.

I saw Larry Macon. He ran on Saturday in New Hampshire but I didn’t know he was there, since I hadn’t seen him. But I walked with him for probably about a mile and he’s just a wonderful guy and I hope he made his flight.

Then towards the end of the race, I saw my friend Randall Tuttle who looked about how I felt around that point in my first marathon. So I wound up running the last couple of miles with him and helping him get to the finish line.

My final time was just over 3 hours and 50 minutes. It certainly wasn’t the kind of speed that I was hoping for when I originally went into the weekend, but I had a lot of fun running.

When I got into the finish line, I saw what is the most brilliant idea, and something that I’m definitely stealing for future runs. A guy that I’d met, and I think I’ve done a hash run with him before, but I saw him at Great Cranberry Island, Jake Holtz, had a Guiness in one hand and was wearing a bathrobe.

Now how brilliant is that?! The bathrobe is just like the perfect post marathon way to keep warm. You can take those space blankets that they give you, and those work out pretty well in the immediate short term, but I’m definitely having a bathrobe at the finish line for my next long event like this because that’s just a great idea.

And thanks Jake for giving me your last Guiness because that went down very well and is much appreciated.

We didn’t stick around for a very long time. I got a quick massage after the race. They were very efficient, much more efficient than in New Hampshire, and there were a lot more people doing massage. It was a pretty short line to begin with, and they were getting through it really quick.

I said, “Hi!” to a lot of people as I saw them, made a quick stop to the food tent, and then was on my way home to just get cleaned up and take a nap.

Since the marathons, I’ve felt okay. I haven’t been doing much in the way of running and I’m planning on taking most of this week off (mostly because I’ve pulled a muscle.) Everything else feels really good.

If it hadn’t been for that muscle pull I would definitely keep running throughout the week and just continued my training, but as it is I don’t want to risk getting seriously hurt.

I had a massage a couple days after the race, and I’m going to take it very easy this week. Everything the day after the race was a little stiff after I’d get up from sitting down at my chair and work for a while, but otherwise I feel great. No long term effects and I can’t wait to do it again.

I ran 7 hours and 7 seconds as my combined time for the two marathons, so that’s the bar I need to beat the next time. Hopefully I can beat that by over an hour the next time I do a back to back. Obviously that’s going to depend on which races I choose, but I think that I’m capable of it and I’m looking forward to it.

If you ever decide you want to try back to back marathons, it’s a great experience. Especially if you can find ones close together like New Hampshire and Maine where you’re going to see the same people at both races. It was really neat to see how many people there were that ran both of them. I must have spoken with at least a dozen people, and I know that there was quite a few that I just saw that I didn’t even talk to that I know had run. It’s just a lot of fun.