13.40 mi, 1:47:14, 8:00 min/mi, 162 bpm
Official Results:
Gun time: 1:47:38.7
Chip time: 1:47:14.2
Overall: 124th
Men: 93rd
Men 30-34: 13th
- Nice and cool start at low 50’s, with an 8am start. Wore shorts, singlet, gloves, and Garmins
- Made it to the start line with about 10 minutes to spare and found my running partner Whitney (actually she found me)
- We chat a little strategy for a bit but really no time to get nervous… but I felt good anyways
- Big crowd for the first 3 miles..eased up around 2 mi but still a little packed
- Whitney and I held some solid upper 8’s. We were on track for about 8:30 at the top which is what the plan was. At the turnaround, we were at 8:38…no biggie. the plan was also to start nailing some mid 7’s during the downhill.
- I was feeling great at this point, and with some discussions with Whitney, we decided it’d be okay for me to go ahead.
- Even though it was mostly downhills from here, I knew there were some flats and couple of small climbs towards the end, so, I didn’t mind that I hit some upper 6’s. I would try to get some speed going and feel the turnovers come to me. Felt good and didn’t feel any over-exertion my part
- Gu’ed up around 7 mi but don’t exactly remember when. I had plan to just play it by ear whether I was gonna take a gel…and I just went ahead and decided to take one, since I was in a bit uncharted territory with my pace
- It simply felt great passing so many people…(no disrespect)… and nobody passed me since the breakaway. I was actually passing peeps all the way up to the finish. Love it! I greeted a few runners and complimented them while they looked strong… the kindly returned the compliment
- After a couple of miles, my pace started to stabilize…in that, I could see that I could put some control into my splits and still finish with an 8 min avg.
- I was running 6’s towards the end and kicked it with a 5ish pace… I didn’t really realize this though… I was just trying to finish. There were a few folks ahead of me and felt content to just hang behind them but either I sped up or they slowed down but next thing I know, I was next to them…so I kicked it.
- My wife Amy, who was awesome this morning and saw me off at the start, was there..but I missed her since I was concentrating (didn’t want to biff it going 11 mph in front of everyone).
- PR by a couple of minutes
- I think this course was too long. My GPS data shows a ran 13.4 miles… I would expect some +0.1 variance here, but 0.3? Hmmm… at my 8 min pace, I should’ve finished under 45 min. Oh well, still a PR 🙂
- Stuck around long enough to watch Andrew Leatherby win the marathon with a 2:33:07.7 time. I was right there, so I went over there and shook his hand. What an inspiration these great runners are. Just amazing.
Congrats to Whitney!
Now, afterwards, I felt great and hung for a little bit. But once again, I poisoned myself. Because of my effort towards the finish, I probably produced an abundance of lactic acid. Because I didn’t do a cooldown, I didn’t give my body the opportunity to reuse it for energy and plain just get rid of it…so I felt nauseous for the next 3 hours. It sucked…but oh well. Need to cooldown next time.
Now, did this ruin my marathon in 2 weeks? Probably not quite… I feel I probably ran this harder than I should’ve…but mostly towards the end. But it’s no biggie, I felt great and efficient. I don’t feel like I’ve punished my muscles to any certain un-manageable degr
I’m pretty stoked about my 13th division finish…gives me more goals, like a top 10 division finish. So, when I really train for a half, maybe I can go sub 1:40… I think it will be possible.
Sweet, up next: more taper and the Denver Rock ‘N’ Roll marathon. I should be good for a 3:30 finish but I HAVE to pace myself perfectly… that’ll give me the best chance to do so.
Jayson's Adventures 