Week Sixteen: Saturday

The reaction I get from most people when I mention that I am doing this is “Why don’t you start with a half marathon?”

Well, I did a half marathon. Now I am gonna’ do a marathon.

I really did not know what to expect for an organized race. I had only run with one other person so I had no idea how I would respond to running in a large group. I also had decided to use some gels, which are essentially packets of nutrients and carbs that are the consistency of frosting.

Brother of Fat Guy and I got to Hudson, WI at a little before 7 am. We already had our numbers with us so we jumped on one of the school busses that were there to bring us from Hudson to Stillwater. We sat in the back, primarily because we are trouble making badasses, and had a nice conversation with a woman who had run Grandma’s and a half in St. Cloud earlier this summer. When I mentioned that I was training for the TCM, she said good luck in a non condescending manner. I keep waiting for these runner types to look down on me because they are so cool and wise about running but so far I have not been ridiculed.

We got to a local park that was serving as a starting line and waited in line with every single other runner for the bathroom. One guy was taking so long I was convinced he was doping but I cannot verify. I didn’t see a needle in the bathroom at least. The race started at 8 and we lined up near the back because I didn’t really think that I wanted to deal with 3 minutes of people running by me annoyed.

We started out what I thought was our normal pace. We spent a good portion of the first 2 miles behind a couple who didn’t know each other who agreed to run together. Since they didn’t know each other, we got to hear a little bit about there lives. I kind of liked this because I did not have an ipod. Since I am preparing for the TCM and you can’t have one on that run I wanted to prepare myself. I felt like the people with ipods were cheating and therefore I decree that I officially beat all of them. If I had music to listen to I argue that when I was going to stop I could pick a song that I simply had to run to.

On that note, we ran about 5.5 miles before I had to walk. There was a water stop every 2 miles and we walked to the water stop and then started running again. Unfortunately, this is where my ability to remember the pacing gets hazy. I tried to run, and then walk, then run, and then walk. It got harder as time went of course. I kept trying to not focus on the miles and use other runners as a pace. We would run in front of someone and then walk until they were ahead of us. My guess is that they were really annoyed by this strategy. But I need so frame of reference since I was not familiar with the course so I had not idea where the mile markers were. I also had forgotten my watch. I feel like this is a good thing because not knowing made me think that I was doing poorly all race.

We stepped it up for the last half mile and ended up finishing in 2 hours 33 minutes. That was 639 out of 685 runners. I was 125 out of 129 in my age bracket. I ran an 11:41 mile.

I didn’t exactly take the running world by storm, but here are the upsides:

I finished

Last Saturday I ran 12 miles in 2 hours 33 minutes. I added one mile with zero time in one week.

This race has made me aware of the importance of pacing. Since I had no watch I had no idea what was going on with our pacing. This lead to us running fast miles early and not being able to maintain. I also need to work on a ritual for the morning run.

All in all a very rewarding experience. I got a shirt.