As with the vast majority of races this year, the Marine Corps Marathon was canceled/converted into a virtual event. Last week I received my package with some of the items that we would normally receive during the pre-race expo.
Registered runners have an approximately 6 week timeframe during which to take one day to run their marathon distance. Today was that day for me. It started out perfectly at about 45F, partly cloudy, with minimal wind. I was clicking along at approximately 7:45/mi pace for the first 16 miles, and it was comfortable. Were the conditions to have stayed nice, I certainly would have been able to do a negative-split time.
However, that was clearly not in the cards for today. Shortly after I passed 16 miles, the weather took a turn for the worse. It started raining, soon to become moderate to heavy rain for the remaining miles. As if that wasn't bad enough, the wind kicked up to about 10-15 mph, with stronger gusts intermittently -- headwind. Oy! What was a comfortable run to begin with became a MUCH more difficult run. My legs changed from being reasonably loose and turning over pretty quickly to noticeably tighter, taking more effort to move along. It was truly noticeable in the change of pace starting at Mile 20. The general trend outbound was uphill, which should have made my attempted negative split manageable, but even the general downhill trend wasn't enough to make up for the worsening weather conditions.
Mile Goal Pace Actual Pace
1 7:45 - 8:00 7:41
2 7:45 - 8:00 7:34
3 7:45 - 8:00 7:49
4 7:45 - 8:00 7:44
5 7:45 - 8:00 7:48
6 7:45 - 8:00 7:53
7 7:45 - 8:00 7:47
8 7:45 - 8:00 7:40
9 7:45 - 8:00 7:45
10 7:45 - 8:00 7:39
11 7:45 - 8:00 7:42
12 7:45 - 8:00 7:44
13 7:45 - 8:00 7:52
14 7:30 - 7:45 7:42
15 7:30 - 7:45 7:18
16 7:30 - 7:45 7:28
17 7:30 - 7:45 7:39
18 7:30 - 7:45 7:35
19 7:30 - 7:45 7:40
20 7:30 - 7:45 8:01
21 7:30 - 7:45 7:57
22 7:30 - 7:45 7:58
23 7:30 - 7:45 7:57
24 7:30 - 7:45 8:22
25 7:30 - 7:45 8:02
26 7:30 - 7:45 8:19
26.2 7:30 - 7:45 8:15
But I got it done. Even though I had the medal ahead of time, I made sure not to remove it from the packaging in advance, since I am 100% on-board with the MCM motto (and title of this blog entry): "Always earned, never given." This was definitely a hard-fought, well-earned medal.
Lunch at Melt was great, and has turned into a tradition for me for my longer long runs and local marathons: bacon cheeseburger, onion rings, and choloate milkshake. Scrumptious! And, yes, of course I wore the MCM shirt and medal out. While the actual marathon wasn't today, *my* marathon was today -- so of course I'm going to take pride in the finish.
Now to get ready for my last marathon of the year (a real, live race) in mid-December.
