Richmond Marathon - Race Report

This was a tale of two races. But I'll get to that shortly.

I woke up at 3:30, walked the dogs and had some peanut butter on toast. Left the house at 5:30, got parked by 6:30, and was at the starting line to watch the 8K race begin at 7:00.

The 8K about to start

The half marathon started at 7:30.

A non-Kenyan is winning after 100 feet!

I headed over to the full marathon start and settled in near the 4 hour pace group. The pacer was a Vibrams wearer too!

The National Anthem played, I gulped down a gel pack, and then we were off! Here's the race broken down in 3-mile increments:

Miles 1-3: 26:58 (8:59/mile)
The beginning of the race was hectic but not terrible; there was some good separation among the runners, and I found some room to run on the outside. I was looking for Wiley so I could toss him my jacket (he was about a quarter of a mile down the route), and after I gave him my jacket I realized that I had lost the 4:00 pace group: I didn't know if they were ahead of me or behind me. I decided that my quick pace for the first mile (8:48) made it unlikely that they were ahead of me, so I resolved to keep trucking at my goal pace and see if they caught up to me.

Miles 4-6: 27:08 (9:03/mile)
The pace group caught up to me around mile 4, which was a relief. I fell in with the pack of about 50 people and breezed along for these miles, enjoying the sights in a nicer part of Richmond. I took another gel pack somewhere between mile 4 and 5.

Miles 7-9: 27:03 (9:01/mile)
This section had a long downhill followed by a long uphill because of the Huguenot Bridge crossing the James River. On the bridge I saw two guys in front of me wearing these shirts:

"Ironman Florida 2012 Finisher"

That's right: these guys finished Ironman Florida last weekend, and followed it up with the Richmond Marathon on Saturday. "Oh yeah, you know just a light recovery run" they joked when I asked them about it. I told them I signed up for 2013 and we chatted a bit about the race. Apparently it was 82 degrees on race day this year, which made for a hot run portion.

Miles 10-12: 27:24 (9:08/mile)
My time was a bit slow in this section because of a few very steep hills that really sapped my legs. There was a water stop at the top of one of them which gave me a nice opportunity to walk for 15 seconds (I walk through all water stops to make sure I can drink easily).

Mile 13: 9:16.
This is where the splits stop. I finished the first half of the course in 1:58:50 according to my GPS (2:01:32 according to the official results). Then my GPS started wigging out: it says my next 3 miles were 5:04, 4:30, and 6:36. Yikes. I turned it off since it was now giving me useless data.

But that was the least of my problems. Around this time I somehow smashed my toe, so I walked for a minute or two before running again (in pain). After that everything fell apart. My legs started cramping, which meant more walking. The pace group slowly got farther out of sight, and with them slipped away my hopes for a 4 hour marathon.

I pushed through the pain until mile 17, which is when I started feeling nauseous and out of breath. I started running less and walking more, and the pain in my toe was throbbing. I was worried that I would injure it severely if I kept going, and seriously considered dropping out. It didn't help that mile 17 was only a few hundred feet from the finish line, where my wife was probably finished with her race and drinking a beer! I was mentally defeated and in a very dark place.

I somehow talked myself into continuing to mile 18, deciding that it was close enough to the finish that I could still drop out there if I wanted to. I settled into a groove of running for as long as I could, then walking for 2 minutes. Mile 18 came and went, and I talked myself into continuing. "Only 8 miles left, you could walk it and still get a PR". I drank extra liquid at the water stops. Other stuff was being handed out at this point in the race too: orange slices, gummy bears, flat coke. I took it all; if you were handing it out, I was grabbing it. Anything to try and breathe life into my legs.

Nothing worked particularly well, but I continued on with my walk/run plan. The 4:15 pace group passed me. I had to walk more than I ran in mile 23, but I kept going. At the mile 25 marker I picked myself up and forced my legs to run the remainder of the race which was all downhill to the river. By the time I got to mile 26 the pain was gone from my legs and I was flying, easily at a 7:00/mile pace (this was mostly due to the downhill slope). I finished the race far from my goal time, but it was still a PR by 21 minutes.

Finish Time: 4:38:58
3043 out of 4716 (Overall)
1867 out of 2540 (Men)
232 out of 298 (25-29 Age Group)

Briana and I after the race

I learned several things from this race:

1. Just because I can run a half marathon at a 9:00/mile pace doesn't mean I can run a full marathon at that speed. This was definitely too ambitious of a goal, and if I had chugged along at a 10:00/mile pace I would have been much better off. 
2. It's not the end of the world if things don't go according to plan. I really wanted to quit the race because I was struggling, but because I continued on I was able to PR by 21 minutes. 
3. Despite getting in a 20 mile long run two weeks ago, I was physically unprepared for this race. For the last 5 months I've been focusing on swimming/biking for my triathlon, and only had a few weeks to concentrate on running before the race. Next time I'll make sure I have adequate time between races.
4. TMI alert: I really need to do something about my nipples. Originally I was planning on wearing underarmor during this race (which would have eliminated any chafing), but it was too warm for that so I wore just a dry-fit shirt. I had to take my shirt off around mile 22 because my nipples were literally bleeding. There were some shocked people at the last few water stops. It's 4 days later and they're still extremely sensitive.