Well, after all the doom and gloom weather forecasts leading up to the race, it certainly was a beautiful day. After several days of clouds and rain, the sun made an appearance early Sunday and the early morning temps were around 45. Beautiful morning! I had slept well two nights before the race and was feeling rested, relaxed and ready to roll. I chatted with a few familiar faces at the start, then got down to business. For some reason, my watch decided to show MPH rather than pace, so that threw me for a loop. I then realized that I just needed to run 9 MPH to make my goal, so after a mile warm up (6:48) I settled into my pace. I met a couple of Northwoods teammates early on and we ran together for most of the first half. I found we were pushing the pace pretty hard, but that extra push got me to the half at 1:27, exactly where I wanted to be. We had a bit of a shock at the half, because the clock was reading 1:25! I figured the clock was wrong or I was in for a world of hurt in about an hour. I ignored the clock and settled back into my 9 MPH pace. I wasn't feeling particularly good at 14 and one of my teammates had gone ahead, so I was about ready to settle for my B goal. As we made our way up West River Road, I was still laboring, but I was still locked into my 9 MPH and the miles up to 20 continued to click by pretty quickly. The real test was about to start, the hills from 21 to 23. If I could hold together a 7:05 pace through this stretch, I still had a chance. This year the hills did not sink my ship. I hit mile 23 knowing I still had to hit 9MPH for the balance to make sub 2:55. I took a caffeinated GU at 23, gritted my teeth and pushed as hard as I could for the home stretch. Mile 23 was 6:48, not good. Mile 24 I saw my GPS flash a 9.1 MPH and mile 26 I actually hit 9.3 MPH. The last two-tenths is all down hill and I pushed as hard as possible. You can see the clock from the top of the hill and I knew it would be close. I was almost sprinting at the end as I saw the clock getting dangerously close to to 2:55. As per usual, my right hamstring started to vibrate, but I knew I was okay. Chip time: 2:54:58. Wow! Awfully close. Good enough for a top 5 AG finish and another PR!
This is my third marathon training cycle in about 16 months, without much time off and I am looking forward too backing off a bit. I think I will skip a spring marathon and maybe shoot for 2:53 (2 hours plus my age) in the fall of 2014.
Happy Running!
Rick
Amazing job Rick!
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