Race Report: my first marathon attempt

Marine Corps Marathon
October 29, 2006

The start was very crowded and (from where I started anyway) very full of slow people. I spent most of the first 3 miles concentrating on figuring out how to get around people. It was great to see Meg and my family (and Susan) at Spout Run. Despite my own advice to Ron & Dave that when in doubt I never regret wearing less adn always regred wearing more, I was so cold at the start that I left on my long sleeve shirt. Before the gun went off for my wave (20 mintes late) it was already clear that was a mistake. I tossed it to Meg at mile 2.5. I peed in the woods running down spout run, and glad I did since my bladder was bothering me from the (much delayed) start and it never bothered me again.

Except for the first 3, I ran the first 14 miles in about 9:15. Then my hip (IT band) and feet and ankles really started to hurt -- something that hadn't happened on my recent 14 or 21 mile trainers. Actually they were starting to get uncomfortable even earlier, like mile 10, and my run was a story of steadily, gradually increasing pain after that. I felt okay cardio-wise but it definitely saps your will when every step brings pain. Not sure what the problem was there. The last time I had this kind of IT pain was on my first 1/2 marathon run the previous March. Maybe I trained too little, or too much. (Actually, it's probably just a result of wearing shoes :)

In Hains Point around mile 17 is when I first saw people starting to lose it -- a woman puking, later a guy, and tons of people whose legs were seizing up beneath them around me, and off on the sides trying to stretch them out. I felt a little like a guy running up Omaha beach on D-Day, people falling all around me, no choice but to keep pressing on and hope I didn't get struck.

On the 14th Street Bridge, I did get struck as my left hamstring totally locked up. I limped a little ways and then thought to myself "NO WAY am I letting this happen to me! Begone, cramp!" And lo and behold it dissipated. This is the same thing that happend to me on the DDT triathlon. Not sure if it's mind over matter or I'm just lucky (though I do think you can think away things). Five minutes later still on the bridge the same thing happened to the other hamstring but I banished that/was lucky there too.

Overall, I was definitely hurting in Hains Point and on the bridge. Around mile 19 we passed a medic tent in Hains Point and I stopped and asked the guy, "do you have any painkillers?" and they gave me 2 tylenol or something. My foot & hip pain did dull somewhat several miles after that, but by then I was in a different kind of pain altogether, something I will call for lack of a better term "mile 23 pain."

After mile 14 I fell from a pace of 9:00-9:15 to around 9:45. Starting with the last mile in Hains Point, mile 19, I fell further to around 10:45-11:00, and basically stayed there the rest of the race.

On the bridge I was suffering and two perky girls eased past me, chatting as happily and calmly as if they were sitting on a Metro or something. Given how I was feeling, I couldn't believe it. I decided I would try to follow them and stuck behind them the rest of the way across the bridge trying to suck up some of their relaxed, not-in-the-slightest-pain vibe. It at least helped me focus and keep me from slowing down too much for a mile or two. For the rest of the race I continued to try latching onto just-slightly-faster-than-me people to keep me going.

The highlight was seeing my family at the Crystal City Spectacular, which was really cool and festive. I was really looking forward to that from when I first started to go downhill at mile 14. At the mile 23.5 aid station I walked for the first and only time, for about 60 seconds. That was enough to get me home.

The low point was the long stretch of Washington Blvd where it runs alongside the West (?) side of the Pentagon -- it was a depressingly long, ugly, straight stretch of road at a time when I was really ready to be done with this marathon. I was very glad to curl down to 110 -- even though there was still a while to go, it meant the end was really in sight.

Several people recommended that I write my name on my shirt and I felt really funny about doing that but by the time the 5th or 6th person recommended it, I decided to do it, and I also put a peace sign on there to counterbalance the militaristic side of the event a little and also make my statement about the state of the world. I'm so glad I did! It really made the race super-enjoyable. There were so many great, spirited spectators who filled me with good cheer all along the route, calling (or in some cases entire groups chanting) my name and yelling peace! and things like that, that it really made it super fun!

The only negativity in the whole experience was after the race was finished, when the poor setup and crowd control made for a very lengthy and frustrating time getting my bag and getting out of there.

Overall, it was a race of gradually increasing pain -- I could tell early on that no matter how slow I went this would not be one of those days where I had a little juice left over at the end, but a slog to the finish. But, it never got nearly as bad as my DDT triathlon run. (I like to imagine that that experience helped toughen me up mentally for situations like this -- but I'm not sure I'm really tough, perhaps just at the point where I'm resigned to being miserable sometimes (then again maybe there's no difference)). And no matter how miserable I was, the crowds always helped me take my mind off it.

Here is a graph showing my mile splits:

I would say it was tougher than my first 1/2 Ironman, but easier than the second.

I got a time of 4:18:50, and I am satisfied with that -- it is probably about what I would have placed money on getting. For what it's worth, my placement was as follows:

Overall: 6,983 out of 20,855 finishers
Men : 5,138/12,757
Men age 35-39: 1,047/2,395 (note that this category constitutes more than 10% of all the finishers!)

Generally, I was near the bottom of the top half of the field.

Comments

[shelley]

I ran this too. It was not my first marathon but more hilly than I expected or trained for. It blew my mind how many people (guys and a few girls) just pulled over on the side of the road to pee. Never seen that before. I don't know if it was due to the forest area or what but wow.