2006- 4:22:57 Net 4:23:08 Gun2005- 4:34:12 Net 4:34:25 Gun
2004- 4:12:17 Net 4:13:02 Gun (PR)
2003- 4:26: (1st Marathon)
What can I say about this marathon, my first, and my PR marathon!! Nice scenic course with a few more hills than I care to remember. Very scenic indeed, nice ocean fronts. I was at the marathon with about forty five minutes to spare. The marathon start time is 10:00 I think this is a little late for a marathon to start.I was actually waiting for the gun to go off. Which is nice for a change. The weather was gorgeous and held up pretty well through out the race. I believe we started at about 45 and we ended with about 58f I don't believe we went over 60F. Towards the end I did feel some rain drops but it never got started.
There was a little hope of glimmer tucked away in the back of my mind that maybe this may be my best one of all. I started out strong my first eight miles I was averaging 8:44- 8:50 which is my BQ qualifier pace. But somehow I started to loose focus. At mile 10 I was at 1:31 should have been about 1:28 it was about mile 11 that I was a full 5 mins behind and at 13 miles I was at about 2:00 should have been at 1:54 so there was still hope that I might be able to get 4:00hrs to 4:05I was steadily falling behind though. At mile 16 this is when I was almost a full 10 mins behind. You may be asking how did I know this. I actually did where a pace bracelet I had made the night before. I figured why not I have nothing to loose.
What really got me was those darn hills. I just don't remember them!!! I never do!! I decided it was a nice thought and I should just run the best I could until the end. So I dug deep and continue. At the end I surprised myself again, I was running 8:50 to just under 9:00. I could not believe I was going at such a strong steady pace for at least 1-1.50 miles at the end of a marathon. I had a nice kick at the end which proves I should have focus a little more on those middle miles . I felt good through out the race. Was a little woozy at the end, I believe that was from my last surge energy.
I never noticed before that this marathon never had time mats at different points in the race for your 10 & 20 miles split. Looking back on previous results there was only a timing mat at about 2.3 miles when we start the race in park. This year they didn't even have that.
Nice surprise one of my Wednesday night running pals was there also. He was doing well. I believe he was at least 15 mins ahead of me. The nice thing about this race besides the ocean fronts, there were at least 2- 3 times through out the race as you were going you saw people coming towards you. I was able to give a shout out to him as we pass "looking good Peter" . We met up at the end and it was nice for a change to have someone greet me at the end of the race. I told him I will be back after football season!!! because this group is year round, heat, rain or snow we are there.
I walked around for about 20 mins. Then I heard them making the announcement for the awards ceremony. So I stood around for that a bit longer. I beleive all the top women was from Russia. Which seemed a little unusual to me. I'm not sure how the men made out.
October 23, 2006
rest
October 22, 2006
26.2 Marathon
October 21, 2006
5 miles @about 10:40
October 20, 2006
0- (the rain kept me in)
2 comments:
Nice job on your 3rd marathon in a month! I love your reviews for selfish reasons, because I am picking a fall marathon for next year (kind of) and you run all the ones near me. I think this one sounds the nicest so far. You have how many more this month? ;)
Nice race report Dawn. I think this is your longest entry ever :)
Impressive pick up at the end when most others die out. If you want to get down to your BQ pace, you'll need to improve you'll need to start doing some VO2max and Lactate Threshold work outs, but you've got all winter to work on these. For now, I hope you enjoy a week of easy running.
Post a Comment