For well over the past month, it had been hard to fall asleep at night, because I had been thinking about running this race. It has been on my mind almost constantly since I signed up for it, some time back towards the beginning of the year. Initially I had not planned on running a spring marathon, Chicago felt like it was enough to sustain me for a long time, but then after doing one long run with Ryan and Randy, as they prepared for Boston, I decided I needed to sign up for one of my own, and our training cycles would work out well, if I signed up for one the same weekend as Boston. Thus I signed up for Newport, and the training commenced.
Since running Chicago, I started to improve rapidly in my running capabilities. Every race I have run since then has basically been a PR, and this year, they were all huge PRs. I think I owe a large amount of this improvement to long tempo runs and mile repeats, they have really allowed me to push my body hard but not completely overexert myself. Plus the longer workouts make it easy for the weekly milage to pile up, which is also beneficial. So each race I have run this year, I have blown my expectations for out of the water, which has made it very hard to have any goal time going into a race, which has been kind of nice. I just went out there and ran what felt right, and it led me to some great times and races. After Chicago, I have become a much more conservative runner in races, and it has led to some strong finishes and being the person doing the passing at the end of races.
So after a little over 1,000 miles this year and four races ranging from a 5k to a half marathon, it was time to take on my biggest challenge again, the marathon. The week leading up to the marathon, I had off from work for spring break, and this was unbearable, the last time I had a week off from work, I set my weekly milage record by running 113 miles, and now I had to sit around and do nothing, so that my legs would feel rested going into the race. Sadly this was not as restful as it should have been. There is something about taking the milage down that makes the body feel awful! The muscles that attach to my hips were sorer than they have ever felt before, and it felt like my legs were going to feel awful the day of the race.
My dad and I drove out to Newport the day before the race, and even going in to get my race bib, I was not feeling it. I know I had trained a ton, but I had more worry than any other feeling boiling within me. After that we checked into the hotel, and we walked to some Mexican place for dinner, because they had a veggie burrito, and that was the closest thing to my normal diet, you do not want to change it up the night before a race. I do not know what it was, but we were sitting there waiting for our food, and something clicked. I felt ready to race, the small issues that had been plaguing me all week seemed to fade, and my body was ready to go.
All week I had been examining the weather predictions for the morning of the race, and it initially seemed great. It was going to be in the mid-forties with less than ten MPH of wind. Pretty ideal, although I would have been much happier if it was colder, after training in frigid temps for most of the training cycle. Much to my dismay, as the week went on, the temperature at the start of the race slowly crept up to fifty and the wind went up to thirteen! After Chicago, the thought of warm weather and a marathon are very scary, but when I finished eating my prerace PB&J burrito, I walked outside in my half tights and tight long sleeve shirt to head to the start line, and I felt chilled, which was great. I jogged a mile with some strides at the end, ate a caffeine bar, and then did some drills to stay loose until the start.
The race has only been around for five years, so I looked at the times of all the past winners, and I went into the race thinking there would be a chance I could win or at least be in the top five, if I ran to my full potential, especially considering it was taking place the same weekend as Boston, and many of the competitive runners in the area and in the country, would probably be running in Boston. A few people at the front of the start line said they planned on running a low 2:30, which was outside of the range I was shooting for, but it was good to know, and the marathon is a fickle mistress, and ANYTHING can happen over the course of 26.2 miles to the best and most trained of runners, which is also why I only listened to the conversation, because I did not want to say a time and not live up to it. Either way, my goal of placing in the top five remained.
Right before the race started some small guy, who I later found out after the race, that he was only 16, stepped up to the front and gave me and others a fist bump and said good luck. He had an air of confidence intermingled with awkwardness, and it intrigued me to see what he would do. So the race started off, and it starts flat, and then hits a decent uphill pretty quick, so I went out conservatively, and the two guys who wanted to run low 2:30s went up to the front, and the 16 year-old also sprinted off to the front, and I quickly found myself in fifth place, but I thought to myself, there is no way the little guy can hold on to that pace for the whole race, he will drop of bad, and I will catch him, and maybe someone else will fall off too.
My first mile was 6:02, which I was happy with, I wanted to stay around six minutes, but then my second mile was 5:46, and that seemed too fast, so I slowed down some, but if you look at my splits, they are pretty inconsistent. As I went back and forth from what I thought was too fast to what I thought was perfect, and all the up and downs and wind probably added to the inconsistency. It is a very interesting mental game, because it is such a long race, you should not feel like you are trying too hard at the beginning, so it is easy for your body to want to push harder, but your mind must keep you grounded. A big gap had formed between me and the people ahead of me, and temporarily with the people behind me, or so I thought.
Part of the way to mile six as the race meandered through massive mansions along the coast, I heard footsteps behind me. A group from Boston College’s run club had come to the race to hopefully qualify for Boston, and the fastest of them was coming in hot behind me, and right after we passed a couple of people cheering on the side of the road holding up a massive poster of a dog, where the girl was yelling, “This dog is cheering for you!” He passed me, but not only did he pass me, he was chugging along, and he was out my sight pretty quickly. It took a lot of restraint not to pick up my pace and follow, as I now found myself in a lonesome sixth place, but I stuck to my guns and kept on moving along and grounding myself by wondering how much the mansions cost, and how much their property tax would be? My guess is more than I will make in my lifetime!
The course was fairly hilly, and it had quite a bit of up and down. In a normal race, I would take the hills conservatively and the downhills hard, but not today, I still slowed some on the up hills, but not as much as usual, because the effort was more easy tempo, so the gas did not need to be reduced that much, but I did hold back the push way more on the downhill, because if I would have taken the downhills as hard as I usually did, my thighs would have exploded, and I would have crashed and burned again. Conservation is key.
One of the biggest lessons I learned when running Chicago, is the importance of training with gels and water, so that when it comes time to race and use them, your stomach is prepared. So early on in training for this marathon, I started to train with gels, and on the rare occasion I would have some water as well. It helped, and if I am being honest, I thought I did not need them, but I was wrong, to run as well as I wanted to, they were needed, and I used them on mile six, twelve, and eighteen, and did not feel like using the last one on mile twenty-four, and I got water at just about every stop, and towards the end of the race, the water was very reviving.
Thankful for my new ability to drink water and run a race, I was starting to feel hot about halfway through the race, as I approached the finish line where the marathon kept going and the half and 5k finished, I took off my gloves and eventually threw them into the sand. I was feeling decent going into the back half of the race, but I knew this is where the worst of the hills lay. During mile 15 you go down a fairly steep hill, and it was a little disheartening to know that at mile 24 I would have to climb up it, but at least at that point, it would be the last hill.
As I marched along mile sixteen and seventeen take place on a stretch of road where it went out and back, so this gave me a good sense of where I was in the pack. Towards the halfway point, I had started to make some ground on the little guy, who had dropped from top three to fifth, and I kept feeling like he was going to fall apart. The first three guys were well ahead of me, and the Boston College guy who passes me at mile six, had made it all the way up to second place. Fourth and fifth though were slowly coming within reach, but still a good deal ahead of me, but when I turned around, I realized how alone I was, seventh place was almost a mile behind me, so the only way to go was up, and mile eighteen was up.
I kept my effort consistent and a little conservative on the hill, and as I made it to the peak of that I hill, I realized the fifth and fourth place were not taking the hills as well as I, and we went down the hill, and came to another big up, and I gained more ground. Around mile twenty, it flattened out some, and I was still gaining, and fourth and fifth were waning. So I passed fifth, and fairly quickly after that, I passed fourth, and I felt confident with five or six miles left that they were not going to catch me, unless something went very wrong for me, again, always a possibility in a marathon.
Shortly after I passed those two, there was another out and back, right around mile 21, and I saw Boston College guy had dropped to third, and he looked like he was suffering, and I thought, I can get this guy, but there were still three big hills left, so instead of pushing harder to try and catch him, I stayed within myself and waited. Slowly but surely, I gained the ground. From mile twenty, I had been like a shark, I smelled blood in the water, and I was biding my time to attack, but instead of attack, I just kept doing my own thing and let the prey do the work for me. There was a big up hill, and the Boston College guy slowed way down, and then there was a down, and then another up. Before the up, there was a water stop, and he tried to grab a cup from the volunteer, and he dropped it, and his whole-body language changed, and I knew, he was done. I successfully grabbed the water cup took my tiny sip of the reviving fluid and passed him at the top of the hill, gave him a thumbs up as he mumbled something about his calf cramping and continued on my way. Second place was not visible, and I figured if I could make it up the last hill, I would be safely in third, because it seemed like everyone behind me was running on fumes/falling apart.
It is safe to say at this point, my shark mentality went away, and a more victory tour air of confidence exuded itself from me. After I was in third, I had a big smile, and waved or gave a thumbs up to everyone who was cheering or running the other way to do their out and back. Going up the last hill at mile twenty-four sucked as much as I thought it would, but I was able to finish with a 6:05 mile, so I cannot complain too much. As I ran the final point two down the main road filled with people and then took the awful ninety degree turns to get to the finish line where people lined the course on both sides, I had the biggest smile on my face and felt very emotional, because I had successfully conquered my demons from Chicago. I ran 55 minutes faster, and I had come in third place. It was an unbelievable feeling.
The crowd support and water station volunteers, although at times sparse, I owe a huge thank you to. As I ran by them, I would try to make eye contact and smile and, in some cases, give them a wave and say thank you, and it is crazy how much of a difference it makes, when the tiny connection is made, when they see how happy you are and that their cheering helps. Then in the places where the race doubled back, those people seemed to be even happier for you when you came back around. It might take a little extra energy to give others the smile and say thank you when they tell you you are doing a good job, but it has become very meaningful to me, and I think it has helped to energize me as well. It is funny to hear people as I ran past to say things like he looks like he is having a good time, or he is making it look easy. All good and helpful complements, so thank you Newport for being great hosts.
Also I owe Ryan and Randy a big thank you for being my main training partners for the long runs. They make the miles go by quickly, and the conversations are always good, they have also always believed in me and my ability to run a good marathon going back to Chicago. I have also picked their brains countless times about marathon running race plans and followed their long run milage plans. I hope my pace pushing in the later miles of the run helped you guys out too. And thank you to everyone else a part of the STC family that has helped me along the way cheering for me and running with me.
And of course, thank you to my family for always dealing with the fact that I put running ahead of everything and make it hard to plan around. My Dad drove me to Newport and back and has always been my biggest supporter on my running journey, and to him I am most thankful. After Chicago there was nothing I wanted more than to give someone a hug, I was so defeated, my energy was exhausted, and I felt so bad. So I really wanted support for the end of the race this time, and he was there for me. Nothing better than crossing the finish line and feeling beyond accomplished and being able to celebrate with family with a triumphant bear hug. We also celebrated with a ton of good food and beer the following days.
It is funny that shortly after this huge accomplishment, my stomach decided to shut down, just like it did after Chicago, I guess it is a lot to ask a body to run 26.2 miles hard, but at the same time, after you just want to eat and celebrate, and it is hard to do so when you feel like trash, nonetheless, I will take the pain that came with the incredible time. Also as a symbolic gesture, I wore my Chicago Marathon shirt the next day, as a middle finger to that race, and to say that I am better than I was then. I also qualified for Boston by 22 minutes, so I will see you next year Boston!
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