From my last blog entry, you know that I injured myself but decided to go ahead and give the marathon a try and see what would happen. I am not going to go into too many details on this post because frankly, that would be boring. I will try to focus on the particulars and anything else notable for the historical record.
Race day was cold and windy. I opted to wear tights under my running shorts to keep my legs warm which normally I would not have done but with the hamstring injury, I decided it would be better overall to keep my legs warm.
As I mentioned previously, my goal was to simply finish in about 4 hours. When the gun went off, I started conservatively and ran the first mile in about 9 minutes. The first several miles went well and I was maintaining a pace that would easily put me under 4 hours. I did slow down on some of the more hilly parts of the course but I was able to pick things back up after those tougher miles.
The wind was a killer. Not only was it physically difficult to run into the wind, it was also mentally tough to keep going with it blowing into my face. Crossing the Leigh bridge was especially tough. There was not much chatter around me as everyone seemed to be struggling. The Leigh bridge section is from about mile 15 to mile 16 on the RVA Marathon course and that is where I really started to struggle. You can see from my splits that mile 16 was the beginning of my fade. I did manage to pick it up again a little later. But that did not last long. Here are my splits for the entire race.
Lap
| Distance | Time | Pace | GAP | Elev | HR |
| 1 | 1.00 mi | 9:00 | 9:00 /mi | 9:01 /mi | -8 ft | 142 bpm |
| 2 | 1.00 mi | 8:50 | 8:50 /mi | 8:45 /mi | 22 ft | 142 bpm |
| 3 | 1.00 mi | 8:43 | 8:43 /mi | 8:42 /mi | 4 ft | 140 bpm |
| 4 | 1.00 mi | 8:38 | 8:38 /mi | 8:36 /mi | 7 ft | 143 bpm |
| 5 | 1.00 mi | 8:42 | 8:42 /mi | 8:39 /mi | 7 ft | 142 bpm |
| 6 | 1.00 mi | 8:54 | 8:54 /mi | 8:41 /mi | 26 ft | 144 bpm |
| 7 | 1.00 mi | 8:38 | 8:38 /mi | 9:01 /mi | -144 ft | 136 bpm |
| 8 | 1.00 mi | 8:49 | 8:49 /mi | 8:44 /mi | 8 ft | 138 bpm |
| 9 | 1.00 mi | 8:52 | 8:52 /mi | 8:54 /mi | -20 ft | 136 bpm |
| 10 | 1.00 mi | 9:00 | 9:00 /mi | 8:49 /mi | 20 ft | 137 bpm |
| 11 | 1.00 mi | 9:16 | 9:16 /mi | 8:56 /mi | 33 ft | 140 bpm |
| 12 | 1.00 mi | 9:13 | 9:13 /mi | 8:58 /mi | 31 ft | 139 bpm |
| 13 | 1.00 mi | 9:22 | 9:22 /mi | 9:16 /mi | 7 ft | 137 bpm |
| 14 | 1.00 mi | 8:51 | 8:51 /mi | 8:52 /mi | -24 ft | 140 bpm |
| 15 | 1.00 mi | 8:58 | 8:58 /mi | 9:06 /mi | -55 ft | 140 bpm |
| 16 | 1.00 mi | 9:46 | 9:46 /mi | 9:32 /mi | 34 ft | 143 bpm |
| 17 | 1.00 mi | 9:44 | 9:44 /mi | 9:29 /mi | 38 ft | 141 bpm |
| 18 | 1.00 mi | 8:54 | 8:54 /mi | 8:47 /mi | 32 ft | 147 bpm |
| 19 | 1.00 mi | 11:07 | 11:07 /mi | 11:10 /mi | -31 ft | 131 bpm |
| 20 | 1.00 mi | 11:23 | 11:23 /mi | 11:11 /mi | 12 ft | 132 bpm |
| 21 | 1.00 mi | 11:34 | 11:34 /mi | 11:31 /mi | 1 ft | 128 bpm |
| 22 | 1.00 mi | 14:38 | 14:38 /mi | 14:36 /mi | -5 ft | 109 bpm |
| 23 | 1.00 mi | 11:42 | 11:42 /mi | 11:39 /mi | 0 ft | 137 bpm |
| 24 | 1.00 mi | 12:11 | 12:11 /mi | 12:17 /mi | -23 ft | 139 bpm |
| 25 | 1.00 mi | 13:17 | 13:17 /mi | 13:02 /mi | 22 ft | 143 bpm |
| 26 | 1.00 mi | 12:44 | 12:44 /mi | 12:50 /mi | -38 ft | 136 bpm |
| 27 | 0.32 mi | 3:22 | 10:23 /mi | 11:29 /mi | -96 ft | 142 bpm |
As I ran north on Arthur Ashe Boulevard, it happened. My hamstring decided it had had enough. However, it was not my left hamstring that I had been rehabbing. Nope, it was the right one doing the same thing that the left one had done. I was forced to walk. I walked and hobbled for the next couple of miles. I looked at my watch and did the math. I could finish well within the cutoff if I simply walked the rest. But the thought of being out there in the cold for that much longer was not very appealing. I tried to stretch some but even that was difficult. I was finally able to start a little shuffle and did a shuffle/walk for the rest of the way. It was painful and down right miserable. However, I had been in this position before. During Ironman competitions, the last part of the marathon is always a death march. I knew I could just keep going and finish so I pushed through the misery and ended up finishing.
Out of the three marathons I have run, this was the slowest. It was even slower than at least 3 or 4 of my Ironman marathons. But I managed to finish and did not really do any damage to my body.
After the race, I went and got my bag of stuff that I had dropped off at the start earlier that morning. I took off all my wet clothes and put on dry clothes as quickly as possible. I then hobbled my way back to my office and used the bathroom and put on all my jackets and another hat. I also gobbled up some candy and had a Red Bull.
I was following Melissa on the marathon tracker and estimated that if I hurried, I could catch her finishing. I made it back to the course in time to see her running up Franklin to the 5th street turn. I ran with her for about 25 yards before my legs demanded I stop. She continued on to the finish and I walked down to meet up with her. She had a fine race of course. She is the pacing queen and always knows how to stick to her goal and finish well. I am always impressed with her determination and accomplishments on and off the race course.
And that was that. I had a nice build up to a potential PR and then blew it by getting injured. However, I learned some lessons that I will talk about in my next blog post.
Since the RVA Marathon, I have done a few races. I did the Countdown to None 5K in Vienna, VA on New Years Eve and got 1st in my age group.
Later in January, I ran the Frostbite 15K. I went out a little hot and struggled towards the end but managed to have an OK race. I got 13th out of 50 in my age group on what proved to be a challenging course.
Yesterday, after a last minute entry the night before, I raced the Shamrock 5K here in Richmond. Considering I ran 12 miles the day before and did a short but high intensity trainer ride afterwards as well as a 1 hour trainer ride a few hours before the 5K, I was pleased with my result. My goal was to keep up with Justin and then try to out sprint him at the line. I was able to hang on to him and then towards the end step on the gas a little to put some distance between us and then finally sprint down the straight away at the finish. I ended up 3rd in my age group. Not too shabby for running on tired legs.
For the upcoming season, this is what I have on the calendar so far:
| Date | Race | Location |
Saturday,
March 28th
|
Monument Ave 10K | RVA |
Saturday,
April 4th
|
Smithfield Sprint Triathlon | Smithfield VA |
Saturday, May
9th
|
Kinetic Half Triathlon | Lake Anna, VA |
Sunday, May
10th
|
Kinetic Sprint Triathlon | Lake Anna, VA |
Saturday, May
16th
|
IM 70.3 VA Blue Ridge Training Camp not a race | Roanoke VA |
Sunday, June
7th
|
IM 70.3 VA Blue Ridge Triathlon | Roanoke, VA |
Sunday, June
28th
|
Rev3 Williamsburg Olympic Triathlon | Williamsburg, VA |
