PR Day
Just got home back to Williamsburg after setting a PR and breaking 3 hours in the Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon.
I told people when I got a job in DC that though I'd miss the Berkeley trails, I'd be fine, because I'd just get fast again instead. I'm happy to say that appears to be what I did.
Drove to Williamsburg Friday and got a wonderful 11 hours of sleep. Saturday I tried out my absurdly expensive Nike Vaporfly shoes for a quick two miles with George, then gf and I drove to Virginia Beach to pick up our packets (she ran the half) and meet my cousin and her husband for dinner. George came along and goofed around on the beach a bit--dogs are allowed all day during the off-season.
Despite this being at least my 85th marathon-or-longer, I was nervous for this, since (A) it was the first race in a while I had put real pressure on myself to perform, and (B) relative to my normal 50's and 100's, there's no time to make up time in a three-hour race. One or two bad miles, or one bad need to poop, and your sub-3 goal is done. The nerves affected my sleep for the second half of the night Saturday, enough to wake up repeatedly from upsetting dreams (including one with Aaron Eckhart about our shared alma mater). But Friday night did it's work, and I felt OK getting up at 5:20 to drive to VA beach again.
After finding parking, I had the perfect amount of time to wait in the latrine line, drop off my long pants in the drop bag truck, get to the corral, and find my cousin. It was around 40 degrees at the start, but thankfully talking to my cousin the night before had cemented the fact that I would heat up very quickly after running. (Despite my experience, I have to re-convince myself of the benefit of basing clothing decisions on performance time, not standing-around-beforehand time.) So I started with shorts, t-shirt, gloves, buff, and arm sleeves. I sort of wished I'd gone with a tank-top instead, but it was fine, and I wish I'd remembered afterward to go pick up the arm sleeves I threw to the side around mile 20, but gear worked well overall.
We started in corral two, but there wasn't a big crowd in corral one, and the pace groups for much slower times were in corral one, so we scooted up right before the start, having about a 20-second gun-chip time differential. The crowd wasn't bad, and we had all four lanes of the road the first few miles, so it was easy to get up to goal pace right away. My goal pace was 6:52 (do the math--that'll squeak you in just under 3 hours) but I was willing to accept a few 6:40's at the beginning without getting too worried about going out too fast.
I wasn't sure if there would be pace groups, but there were, and we caught up to the 3-hour group after about 4 miles. The pacer seemed to be fluctuating a bit too much for my liking (maybe too many 6:40's at the beginning, and one that seemed more like 6:30), but in retrospect that's really nitpicking. At around mile 8, I made a poor decision--that mile that was clocking in slightly over 7:00/mile--so I dropped the group, and then ended up taking the full force of the wind my myself for a mile or so. My cousin and I were hanging together up until this point, but when I decided to get in a group again, and chose the group ahead, which was also a 3-hour pace group, instead of the one behind, I started to pull away. (He eventually cramped up pretty badly and finished about 7 minutes behind me.)
I managed to stick with the lead group through 13, and then fell back to the second group and hung with them until about 18. The race is sort of a lollipop north and then a lollipop south; 18 is the southern turnaround, so I wasn't far behind the pace group then, and my cousin wasn't far behind me, but in the next few the pace group definitely started to break up. I lost the pacer from sight, but I was still just doing the math for 26 miles, and figured that it was going to be a squeaker, but if nothing went wrong and I maintained 6:50's, then that would be enough time for the last 0.2, and I've have it.
Other than one botched Gu grab at an aid station, nothing went wrong. I started listening to music at mile 18, and some great songs came on at key moments to help me through the 2-3 fairly windy, concrete miles of the boardwalk. My watch was a little off of the race course (0.27 extra, or +1%) so it was hard to know if I had it right up until the end--I just kept assuming I'd run more 6:40 miles than 7:00 miles. And I didn't know how far off my chip time was from the gun time (though this is theoretically checkable at the few race blocks along the course), so I just hung in there. I always wanted one of these last few miles to be 6:30 or 6:40, but I also wasn't sure I could hack it. My quads were getting really tight, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd just been leveled instantly by a cramp.
There's nearly a U-turn for the last half mile to go from the boardwalk, off on to the main street, and then two right turns to head the opposite direction on the boardwalk (the far more numerous half marathoners have priority in course design). But finally I was on the final straightaway and sped up to about 6:00 pace. I could finally see a clock, about to reach three, and apparently I tied it exactly according to gun time. (Hey, if it works for Jim Walmsley...) And I had 20 seconds to spare by chip time, which is what counts to me.
I was hurting, and the walk back to the car was rough. I believe I said I never want to do that again, but after some soup and beer, I wouldn't be surprised if I registered for Marine Corps Marathon later today. We safely drove back to Williamsburg; I'm not exactly looking forward to the drive home on I-95 tomorrow, so if I'm still sore I may try and extend my car rental, but so far so good.
One more silly fast paved race in April (Cherry Blossoms 10-miler) and then back to normal in May: 10-hour Farm Park Challenge followed by the Massanutten 100 two weeks later.
Drove to Williamsburg Friday and got a wonderful 11 hours of sleep. Saturday I tried out my absurdly expensive Nike Vaporfly shoes for a quick two miles with George, then gf and I drove to Virginia Beach to pick up our packets (she ran the half) and meet my cousin and her husband for dinner. George came along and goofed around on the beach a bit--dogs are allowed all day during the off-season.
Despite this being at least my 85th marathon-or-longer, I was nervous for this, since (A) it was the first race in a while I had put real pressure on myself to perform, and (B) relative to my normal 50's and 100's, there's no time to make up time in a three-hour race. One or two bad miles, or one bad need to poop, and your sub-3 goal is done. The nerves affected my sleep for the second half of the night Saturday, enough to wake up repeatedly from upsetting dreams (including one with Aaron Eckhart about our shared alma mater). But Friday night did it's work, and I felt OK getting up at 5:20 to drive to VA beach again.
After finding parking, I had the perfect amount of time to wait in the latrine line, drop off my long pants in the drop bag truck, get to the corral, and find my cousin. It was around 40 degrees at the start, but thankfully talking to my cousin the night before had cemented the fact that I would heat up very quickly after running. (Despite my experience, I have to re-convince myself of the benefit of basing clothing decisions on performance time, not standing-around-beforehand time.) So I started with shorts, t-shirt, gloves, buff, and arm sleeves. I sort of wished I'd gone with a tank-top instead, but it was fine, and I wish I'd remembered afterward to go pick up the arm sleeves I threw to the side around mile 20, but gear worked well overall.
We started in corral two, but there wasn't a big crowd in corral one, and the pace groups for much slower times were in corral one, so we scooted up right before the start, having about a 20-second gun-chip time differential. The crowd wasn't bad, and we had all four lanes of the road the first few miles, so it was easy to get up to goal pace right away. My goal pace was 6:52 (do the math--that'll squeak you in just under 3 hours) but I was willing to accept a few 6:40's at the beginning without getting too worried about going out too fast.
I wasn't sure if there would be pace groups, but there were, and we caught up to the 3-hour group after about 4 miles. The pacer seemed to be fluctuating a bit too much for my liking (maybe too many 6:40's at the beginning, and one that seemed more like 6:30), but in retrospect that's really nitpicking. At around mile 8, I made a poor decision--that mile that was clocking in slightly over 7:00/mile--so I dropped the group, and then ended up taking the full force of the wind my myself for a mile or so. My cousin and I were hanging together up until this point, but when I decided to get in a group again, and chose the group ahead, which was also a 3-hour pace group, instead of the one behind, I started to pull away. (He eventually cramped up pretty badly and finished about 7 minutes behind me.)
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| Splits |
I managed to stick with the lead group through 13, and then fell back to the second group and hung with them until about 18. The race is sort of a lollipop north and then a lollipop south; 18 is the southern turnaround, so I wasn't far behind the pace group then, and my cousin wasn't far behind me, but in the next few the pace group definitely started to break up. I lost the pacer from sight, but I was still just doing the math for 26 miles, and figured that it was going to be a squeaker, but if nothing went wrong and I maintained 6:50's, then that would be enough time for the last 0.2, and I've have it.
Other than one botched Gu grab at an aid station, nothing went wrong. I started listening to music at mile 18, and some great songs came on at key moments to help me through the 2-3 fairly windy, concrete miles of the boardwalk. My watch was a little off of the race course (0.27 extra, or +1%) so it was hard to know if I had it right up until the end--I just kept assuming I'd run more 6:40 miles than 7:00 miles. And I didn't know how far off my chip time was from the gun time (though this is theoretically checkable at the few race blocks along the course), so I just hung in there. I always wanted one of these last few miles to be 6:30 or 6:40, but I also wasn't sure I could hack it. My quads were getting really tight, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd just been leveled instantly by a cramp.
There's nearly a U-turn for the last half mile to go from the boardwalk, off on to the main street, and then two right turns to head the opposite direction on the boardwalk (the far more numerous half marathoners have priority in course design). But finally I was on the final straightaway and sped up to about 6:00 pace. I could finally see a clock, about to reach three, and apparently I tied it exactly according to gun time. (Hey, if it works for Jim Walmsley...) And I had 20 seconds to spare by chip time, which is what counts to me.
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| Chip Time |
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| We should've posed in front of the cool permanent Neptune statue, but this was neat too. |
I was hurting, and the walk back to the car was rough. I believe I said I never want to do that again, but after some soup and beer, I wouldn't be surprised if I registered for Marine Corps Marathon later today. We safely drove back to Williamsburg; I'm not exactly looking forward to the drive home on I-95 tomorrow, so if I'm still sore I may try and extend my car rental, but so far so good.
One more silly fast paved race in April (Cherry Blossoms 10-miler) and then back to normal in May: 10-hour Farm Park Challenge followed by the Massanutten 100 two weeks later.
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