Race Report for Cape Cod Marathon 2009

After months and months of planning and training, marathon day finally arrived. We packed up the car and drove down to the Cape on Saturday and stayed with family Saturday night. I was advised to get a good night’s sleep on Friday because nobody sleeps on the pre-marathon night. That turned out not to be the case for me. I got 6 hours of great sleep on marathon eve, and felt rested and ready when I got up at 5am.

Days Leading Up to Race
Before I get to race day though, let me back up a few days. A few days before the marathon, I got a call from Justin (aka Mango). We were chatting about school and life when he asked me if I would mind if he ran the marathon too. He’s a great friend and thoughtful enough to consider that some people might view that as “stealing my thunder.” However, I’m not one of those people. Justin is my best friend and between work, life, grad school, and 90 minutes in driving time, we get to see too little of each other. So, for me, when he asked if he could join me for my first marathon, my response was, “Cool.”

Running Buddies

Now, one more thing about Jusitn - he’s a multi-time marathoner (9 or 10, I think) and an IronMan triathlete. He is about to make the leap into ultra-marathoning and his first 50 miler in two weeks. He had a scheduled 6 hour training run for Saturday (the day before the marathon) and ended up doing about 30 miles that day. He ran with me as a bandit and reserved the right to duck out at any point. He’s a running machine.

My Training
Since this was my first marathon I chose to go with the Tom Holland Beginner plan. Those of you who have followed my training and blog for a while may remember that I suffered bilateral tibia stress fractures last winter. I missed my scheduled Spring marathon as a result and wanted to be extra-cautious about re-injuring my twigs. I followed the plan to a T with the exception of missing one week of training (including my 20 miler) because of some left achilles tenderness and inflammation that I self-diagnosed as a very mild case of tendonitis. Other than that, I ran every training run and focused methodically on my nutrition and recovery periods. I worked a few half marathons, trail runs, and many many 5Ks into my overall training plan and had what I think was a great summer of training. I shaved minutes off my pace and had several PRs throughout the summer. I made it down to my target race weight (165 pounds) 4 weeks before the race and have maintained it since then. For me, the race wasn’t just about the 26.2 miles, it was about the 336 miles that got me to that point.

Pretty cool bib number for a Masshole

The Race
I could not have hoped for a better day to run my first marathon. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was 58 degrees, bright and sunny, with a gentle breeze. I wasn’t just happy for me, but also for my family and friends who would be standing on the course. We got to the starting area about 45 minutes before start time and quickly found Justin and Christina. Justin and I positioned ourselves near the front of the field and headed out when the cannon fired.

Pre-race motivation

April and Christina

Now would be a good time to confess that I really didn’t have a well thought out plan for how I was going to run the race. In the weeks leading up to the race I started playing with the calculator and figuring out time for Boston, time for 3:40, time for 4:00, etc. I wasn’t sure how quickly I should start or how long I could maintain. So, what did I do? I embraced my rookie status and chose to do the EXACT WRONG THING!

Race Start

I went out too fast. I won’t bore you with all the splits but mile 1 was a 7:19. By 5K I was still sub 7:30 and at the 10K mark I was at a 7:36. I think Justin’s first clue that I was headed for an implosion was when we got to the 10K marker at 47 minutes and I told him that I had just taken 3 minutes off my 10K PR. Good friend that he was though, he didn’t say anything. I held it together for the first 13 miles. We got to the Half-marathon marker by 1:44, only 5 minutes off my Half-Marathon PR and I didn’t feel terrible. It’s around this point though that the hills start. I’d say over the entire course there are only 4 hills that I really remember, but the entire second half of the course seems to undulate. Around mile 17 I started to really hurt. For some reason my left gluteal / proximal hamstring really started to throb. I hadn’t experienced this pain on any of my training runs. Twice the pain caused an electric jolt to travel all the way down my leg. I’ve never had a problem with sciatic type pain before, so this was all alien to me. By mile 19 I went into auto-pilot mode. I wasn’t thinking about much other than the next 100 yards in front of my face. Justin and I had spent much of the first 15 miles talking, laughing, and joking. Now, neither one of us was really talking. I struggled on the uphills and did my best to open my stride and sail down the downhills, but I could tell that my pace was getting slower and slower.

My feet were killing me. I could feel at least 3 blisters on my left foot and the tongue of my right shoe was hurting my foot despite a few attempts to fix it. Now seems like a good time to mention the whole shoe thing. I ran the majority of my training runs in my Asics Gel Nimbus 10s, but about 3 weeks before the marathon, I retired them. They had about 400 miles on them. I started running in my Brooks Ravennas. I love them and I figured that 30 or so miles in them was enough of a break in. I brought my Asics for the marathon, but at the last minute decided to go with the Brooks (10 ounces lighter). I hadn’t run any distance over 6 miles in them and I think that might have been a bad decision. Oh well. For those of you NOT faint of heart, here are some pictures of the carnage. If you’re squeemish, don’t click. Nasty Foot One and Nasty Foot Two.

I struggled from mile 19 through Woods Hole leading to Nobska Lighthouse. The lighthouse is right at mile 22 and immediately followed by a damn hill. That hill broke my spirit. I hit the preverbial wall at mile 23 and went into survival mode. My hands and face were numb and tingling. My body from the hips down was just one big lump of ache. Both my hips and my hamstrings were like jello and my calves were all chewed up. I had altered my usual stride early on to deal with the blister issue and when I slipped back into the mid-foot strike my feet reminded me that that was not such a good idea.
I had abandoned my true goal time (3:40) and simply wanted to make my back-up “save face” goal time of 4:00. I did the math in my head and knew that I could make it if I just sucked it up and trudged along. I ran mile 25-26 in an 8:08 and the last 2/10 in 1:54.

Total time was 3:57:17 for a 9:03 average pace.

Still smiling at the finish line

Post-Race Reflections
I was so happy to see my family cheering me on by the finish line. Truth be told I was almost as happy just to see the finish. I heard my name on the loud speaker, grabbed my medal, mylar blanket, and just tried to keep walking. Eventually I found my wife and girls and gave them a big hug. I just remember hugging my wife and telling her “Oh my god. That was the hardest thing I have ever done.” Initially, I was simply happy to be done. Then, after a little time I was secretly disappointed with my performance. I didn’t really reach my goal. Plus, in all my races up to this point I typically finish towards the top. I don’t always place in my age group, but I occasionally do.

Now that some time has passed I think my goal was a little naive. I made the rookie mistake and went out too fast because I didn’t truly appreciate how badly I would feel in the final 6 miles. I learned a lot from this race and know that I will do better next time.

Today I got a little boost. They finally posted the times on the website and it turns out that I didn’t do too badly after all. There were 1100 runners total. Out of those, 791 finished and I placed 275th. So, after getting all down on myself, I still finished in the top 1/3 of finishers. I also did OK in my age group (14-39) and finished 114th out of 247. Not too bad for my first marathon.

Thank you to all of you who have supported me in the lead up to this race. Between friends, family, dailymile peeps, blog comments, podcast listeners, and twitter folks I have gotten so much positive feedback. You guys are awesome.
I’m taking a few days off, but hopefully my blisters will be good enough for a short run on Thursday or Friday. I picked my next marathon. Looks like it’s gonna be the Hyannis Marathon in February 2010. Brrrrrrr!!! At least I’ll be able to do my ice bath in the ocean. : )

Here’s some more pictures. (Click to enlarge).

McKenna with one of my Gu packets

Aubrey

Daddy, give me your mylar cape so I can be a super hero

Post Race Ice Bath

How much time left?