Marathon Me

The half-marathon is probably my favorite distance to race. I know, I know, you’d never know that based on how many half-marathons I did last year (2) versus how many marathons I did (20). But the reality is that I do love this distance, you can run hard and not be dead for several days afterwards. It’s long enough that you feel like you can eat whatever you want afterwards (which I did, boy did I ever), and the weather typically isn’t a big factor.

So this Sunday we headed to the start of 3M. My father-in-law would be looking for a new PR (which he’d get by almost 5 minutes) and I was looking for a New York Marathon qualifying time (Sub 1:23). My brother-in-law got sucked into working the weekend before a big meeting with WalMart and so we would be running without him.

My typical pre-race dinner these days is Chicken Fried Rice, which is awesome. But Vance still hasn’t gotten on board with this and still clings to old myth of Italian food and thus Saturday night we wound up at Johnny Carinos. The service was horrible and the food was barely passable. My food came out cold and everyone’s orders took forever. Everyone except me had some stomach issues after eating there that night, this should have been foreshadowing for me, but I didn’t pay attention.

We get to the race start about 10 minutes before the gun goes off and I assume Paul Williams had been there for an hour (later I would learn that they had been there for even longer than that). I walked to the starting coral and hopped in line. The gun went off and we did the powerwalk/try to run/walk/try to run/dodge/push your neighbor for the first half mile and then the road opened up and I was able to get into my rhythm.

I needed to run a sub 1:23, which is 6:20/M pace. My plan was to run 6:20 or better for the first 10 miles and then try to hammer the last three miles since they are mostly downhill.

I pushed it a little bit the second half of mile 1 to try and get back the time I wasted jostling with everyone and came in right about where I wanted to be: 6:15. So I’d had 5 seconds in the bank and only 12 more miles to go, so far so good. Scott Tracy comes up to me between mile 1 and 2 and we run half mile together until the two mile marker which had to be mismarked. I ran a 6:53, so now I am almost 30 seconds behind the goal time and I was working pretty hard for that mile. Everyone around me is complaining and Scott just says we aren’t going to panic yet, we will panic later if we need to. Then he pulled away on the way to winning his age group with a 1:19 time, way to run.

I pick up the pace a little more for mile 3, and log a 5:54 which gains back 26 seconds and I am now almost even, so my 3 mile time was 18:02 and perfectly on pace, I feel like Nancy or Paul with those metronomic-like precison, which makes me believe mile 2 was long and mile 3 was short, but the first three are accuratly measured and I am on pace, New York here I Come.

I would run miles 3-6 with a friend of Scott’s who would ultimately crush me at the end.

The next few miles are really fun, lots of good downhills, I run past the Ship of Fools around 3.5 and get a speed boost from all the cheering, I only regret I didn’t notice the beer, or I would have grabbed it. I know there was apparently a huge sign, but I was oblivious at that point. Mile 5 has the biggest downhill of all and it’s a great mile.

3-4: 6:07
4-5: 5:48

The ghost of Johnny Carino is beginning to haunt me, so I back off the pace a bit for the next two miles, then back off some more.

5-6: 6:24
6-7: 6:22
7-8: 6:37

It’s not helping, I am in big need of a porta-potty but I don’t see any. I pick up the speed hoping this will bring me closer to a porta-potty.

8-9: 6:19

I have about 20 seconds in the bank at this time. I’m trying to keep it together, but alas, no such luck, I am about to explode, still searching in vain for blue cabinet of miracles, but none are to be found. Finally I can’t take it anymore and pull of to the side of a road and lose about 90 seconds taking care of business. I emerge from the wilderness quite refreshed and decide perhaps there is something to that whole “Gallow-pooping” and I drop my pace down to 5:30 trying to take advantage of how good I feel, I decide to try and gain as much time back as possible trying to get to mile 10, and then I figure I will have an outside shot of New York and will just need to endure 3 hard miles. Mile 10 comes in 7:15, I’ve given back all my buffer and am now 40 seconds in the whole. I will need to run between 6:05 - 6:10 for the last three miles and then give a hard kick for the last point 1 to punch my ticket to New York.

I dig down deep, I am not capable of running 5:30 pace any more, I grunt and struggle and push to maintain close to 6:00/M. Mile 11 goes down in 6:01, I’ve taken back 19 seconds. I need 6:10/M or better for the final two minutes and I’m going. Mile 12 I back off a little, but am still pushing it, 6:08, I gained 12 more seconds. I am now within 10 seconds of goal, and I know I am going to do it. We pass by the stadium and my legs are churning, my breathing is ragged, and I have a s*it-eating grin on my face as I know I am going to make it. I hit mile 13 in 5:57 and can see the finish line. If I can make the last .1 in under a minute I’m headed east.

The final .1 is a blur, it takes me 36 seconds. Even Shelley’s camera can’t keep up with my lightning-fast, high-octane, blazing speed.

I held roughly 6:00/M pace for the last 3 miles and just squeaked under my time goal with a 1:22:37. I was 34 seconds slower than last year, but I felt pretty good other than the pit stop. I’m putting my foot down before the Austin marathon and I will be eating chicken fried rice for dinner that Saturday. I will eat solo if that’s what it takes, can’t afford to be Gallow-pooping out on the marathon course.

It was a great day as several friends hit half-marathon PRs, Allegra and Paul’s daughter Lindsey, and my father-in-law notched a 5 minute PR, from the San Antonio half marathon. He looks totally ready for his marathon debut in March.

I love this race and am making a vow this year, to try and stay with Scott Tracy next year … until at least mile 3 or 4.

Afterwards I got to see my wife and son. Christopher challenged me to a cookie eating contest and in the end I think we were both winners and the Nutter Butter and Oreo’s clearly lost.

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