Shamrock Marathon, part 2 - race day!

Race day finally arrived, the temperature was wonderful for walking up to the starting corrals, and there was no appreciable wind. I met up with a former colleague - both of us shooting for a sub-3 marathon on the day.

They put both the full and half marathon starts together, so of the 25,000 people running in all of the weekend's events, there were probably 20,000 people there. I like the big fields, but hate the crush of people when we get underway. (Damned if you do, damned if you don't.) But it was easy enough to keep the 3-hour pacers in sight at a constant distance. No need to be in the tightness of the pack, especially since there was no real need for drafting, given the lack of wind.

The course profile shows that it is a generally downhill course with a minor hill at about Mile 4. But, really, it's a flat course. A total of 60 feet of elevation loss across the entirety of the race, when there is one overpass (on an out-and-back) that likely comprises the vast majority of it does not allow for much variation in effort or temporary increases in speed.

The temperature started close to 60F. By about Mile 4, I was overheating enough that I started dousing myself at the all of the remaining water stations with 1-2 cups of water. The pace group was moving ancreasingly far ahead, but based on where we were compared to my pace band, it looked like they were way ahead of pace, since I was spot-on for my pace band. By about Mile 9, as they drifted even further away, I was able to see that we were slowing compared to the expected pace. Mile 10, a drop worse. By Mile 11, I gave the head's up to my colleague that sub-3 was definitely not happening for me, and that if he wants to break away, that he should do so.

Shortly afterward, he did. And it turned out to be a bad choice. By the point in the course where the half and full split onto separate sides of the course, he missed the signage, and stayed on the side of the course for the half marathon. Once I saw what was happening, I shouted as loudly as I could about 2-3 times to try to get his attention and shift him over. He didn't hear me. I saw him make the turn off. (Oh no!) Nothing I could do at that point other than keep running my race.

He caught back up to me somewhere shortly after Mile 14 (by which point the full marathon was below the finish line on the boardwalk), having mentioned that he actually crossed the finish line and had his name announced. He was worried that he would be DQ'd. (He still may be, who knows?) But he eventually kept going a bit faster and drifted ahead. But given that it sounded like he added some extra distance to get back onto the proper course and then caught me so quickly, he added extra distance and higher speed than he should have done. Soon that would become evident, as I wound up passing him again by about Mile 17.

With the way the course is set up, Miles 18 and 19 are part of an out-and-back where the two markers are almost directly opposite each other on the road. As I was approaching Mile 18, the pace group for 3:00 was approaching Mile 19. And, sure enough, they were pretty close to being on pace. So, while it looked like they went out overly fast, at some point they moderated.

We made our way back to the boardwalk, ran up it for a couple of miles before shifting off by a block to circle back around to meet up from the bottom side with that turn off that my colleague had inadvertently taken earlier. After we made the final turn onto the boardwalk, it was about a half mile straightaway onto the finish, past Poseidon and into the finish line.

My official splits definitely show the ever increasing drop-off of my pace compared to the desired 6:52/mile. The initial 6:55 pace was expected and would have improved had the race gone as planned.

While I'm not so sure that the initial spike in HR recorded by my Garmin is accurate, I think the HR around Mile 10 was likely close to right, given how hard the effort was to keep the pace that I had at that point, and that I knew I needed to dial it back and accept that another sub-3 was certainly not in the cards yet.

Ultimately, the final results for me are decent, though I don't expect they will be good enough to keep me in the Top 65 for my soon-to-be Age Group for Abbott's World Championships qualifiers. If I am doing the calculations correctly, this should garner me 3130 points (out of the maximum 4000), and when added to my points from Mesa, should bring me to 6530 (out of the maximum 8000). Right now, if one were to only add my results in (rather an unfair thing to do) and place me into the next age group that I will enter next month, I would be 3rd in the Age Group. Once everyone else's results are added in up through Shamrock, I will surely be lower on the list than that. And then once you get to adding in all the remaining races for the year, it will be interesting to see where I stack against everyone else who has run at least two Abbott-qualifying races.

While I intend to attempt to beat the above time at Boston (shooting for 3:15 or better there, which is unheard of for me), I still won't have a time anywhere close to what I want. And with my pacing a friend at Marine Corps Marathon and then running in the New York City Marathon the following week (which is *not* the race for me to attempt anything approaching this pace), I need to figure out what other race might fit into my schedule to allow for one more attempt at approaching or even cracking 3 hours this year. St. George (UT) and Tucson (AZ) have courses with 2200 - 2600 feet of total elevation drop across the length of the course (WOW!), and California International Marathon has a modest elevation drop of about 300 feet. By comparison, Mesa Marathon had a total of 1400 feet of elevation drop with a minor amount of uphill gains, too. Hmmm...