What a succession of clusters!

Months ago, I reserved a parking spot in the Hyatt Centric hotel in Rosslyn -- something I've done before successfully. It is literally right at the corner of the perimeter of the finisher's village. Unfortunately, when I arrived in the area this morning at about 5:05am, I was greeted by the corner one block away being blocked by police cars. The officers were under orders to not let anyone through apart from vendors and people with physical parking passes from the hotel. Well, no, I bought this online (showed the reservation in the app). No go. Good luck finding other parking nearby. (Ugh!) Mercifully, I was able to find on-street parking only about 1 block away.

After using the facilities in the hotel anyway (and not being stopped by anyone, thankfully), I made my usual trek down to the Fort Meyers entrance (by the charity runner's village). No issues - flew through that area as per normal, and wound up hooking up with someone else doing the same.

Since 2013, I've been going in this way to get to the runner's village. I knew that it was moved compared to previous years, but figured we'd be able to go easily from that normal area to the new location. Well, the police officers stationed there were surprised to see us. They had no clue how we got there, nor that there was a checkpoint that we had been able to get through. They also didn't really know how to get to the new area, unfortunately -- not quickly, anyway. We were directed to the climb the hill up to the overpass we had just passed under -- it's "just 3 football fields away," to walk along the perimeter of the Pentagon, and meet up with everyone getting off the Metro. When we started out, we were at 2 miles -- the normal distance I'm used to doing to get to this long-time runner's village. After stopping to ask directions from a few people on the way, we eventually found the crowd and joined the lemmings. It was a totally ludicrous route that they had us take, going to kingdom come, never actually having a real runner's village that I could discern.

Eventually, after making our way along a portion of the tail end of the marathon course, we came to the various UPS trucks to drop off our bags. THREE miles later -- for a total of five miles excess compared to the race. Ugh!

Luckily, after taking off my long-sleeve MCM mock turtleneck (to leave just the singlet) and finishing my last prep to drop off my bag, I made my way to the meet-up point for the Marathon Maniacs Pacers. Decent group of people gathered. After we took our group photo, we quickly departed, and made our way to the corrals.

After making a quick pitstop and the uncrowded porta-potties, I entered the corral, and had plenty of people asking me what the strategy was for the race. Even effort: slower on the uphills, especially in the crowded first 2+ miles, faster on the downhills, slow during the water stations.

Standard opening ceremonies completed, the flyover was nearly directly over the start line when the howitzer starting the race went off.

The first several miles, there was a decent amount of conversation with some of my group, everyone enjoying the race. Somehwere along the line, the 3:50 pacers actually passed me -- which should never have happened. I was perfectly on pace still, so when someone pointed them out, it was extremely confusing for all involved. After a little while, I finally passed them in Georgetown and kept them behind me the rest of the time.

Down through the halfway mark, we still had a decent group together, and we were right on time per my pace band. (Given that it was actually a planned negative split given the conservative start, it otherwise looked like I was behind, but I wasn't.) Inside the District, the pace started to slip a drop, but still within the buffer I had built in. But by the time we finally Beat the Bridge, and before we got to the off-ramp, my built-in buffer (30 seconds) was nearly gone. Once we got back into VA, I made sure to tell everyone around me that we were slipping off pace, and that if they have it in the tank, they should pull away from me. I didn't notice anyone take advantage of that. By that point, I think many of my group had already fallen back as opposed to breaking forward.

Mile by mile at that point, I was slowing all the more. I eventually took off my knit cap and put it over my pacer sign so that the announcer would not be callling out the pace group when I crossed the finish line, given that we would be considerably late. In the end, I wound up crossing in 3:44:46. Inherently good time, but major fail for someone who is one of the pacers for 3:40:00 (who was shooting for 3:39:30).

Garmin says I ran an extra .3 miles, which translates to about 2-3 minutes. Possible that my extra pre-race mileage took out some of my energy (I never had the chance to just sit beforehand), but there's no way to sufficiently quantify that. And I kept my hat on the whole time, even after the temps were surely in the mid-50s (though I did sneak my ears out to release some of that heat), so it's possible my core temp was a little too high. (Again, no easy way to quantify that.)

Could I have done better? Surely. But figuring out all the lessons to learn is really tricky. Hopefully they'll be willing to have me back on the team next year, though maybe I would be better off with a slightly slower time. (I'll be running the 50k, so, maybe 5 hours (like in 2019) or 5:30.) Plenty of time to figure it out.

Next up: New York City on Sunday. Hopefully my recovery this week (with a fair bit of walking on Thursday and Friday) will go well. I won't be running with a pace band, rather will just be running for feel (though I may start with a pace group).

Surprise!

Yesterday, before I helped man the Marathon Maniacs table at the expo, I picked up my bib for the marathon on Sunday. Emblazoned above my race number (1446) was "Semper Fidelis Challenge." What the heck is that? A short time later, I looked it up online and (re-)discovered that this is a defined challenge for anyone who runs the Historic Half (or Devil Dog Double) plus the Marine Corps Marathon in one year. Given that the Historic Half was in May, it's not really much of a challenge, IMO. Nonetheless, I will still get an extra medal for it after crossing the finish line on Sunday. Huzzah! What a pleasant "surprise" to have uncovered. 

T-minus 3 days!

Only three days left until Marine Corps Marathon (and 50k and 10k) returns for the first time since 2019! My goals for this race have shifted multiple times. Originally, in late 2021, I was expecting to make use of my 50k deferral from the COVID-canceled race, and be a pacer for the 50k again. 

Then one of my friends confirmed that she was going to attempt the marathon, and registered for the 1775k in order to secure a guaranteed MCM registration. I joined her on the 1775k and agreed to pace her for the marathon (deferring my 50k registration one last year to 2023). Ultimately, her goal was going to be somewhere in the 5-6 hour range, TBD later in the training cycle. Unfortunately, finally entering her 2nd year in med school, she finally had her schedule, and discovered that she had a test the day after the marathon, meaning that she would need to fly back immediately following the race. And given her planned finish time and all the time that naturally pads on post-race, it would have been very risky for her set this up, so, unfortunately, she had to cancel. Right call, though, as med school certainly should be the priority. She'll manage to get back to take on MCM, but it may need to be pushed off until after graduating.

Once she confirmed her cancellation, I signed on with the Marathon Maniac pace group again, this time for the marathon (since I was already registered for it). Goal time: 3:40. 

Looking forward to be one of the people manning the booth at the expo again, on Friday (4-7pm). Anyone interested in discussing our respective plans for how to run the race, or asking anything else about the course, etc., please make sure to stop by. I've been running MCM since 2012. It's one of the courses I know best.

Looking forward to toeing the line on Sunday!

Oooh - neat opportunity

Not often do I wind up getting a huge grin while reading e-mail. Tonight was one of those rare times. I just opened an e-mail from the NYC Marathon inviting me to participate as a representative of the U.S. in the Opening Ceremony / Parade of Nations that kicks off the weekend that Friday night. Sweet!

What's more, there is the possibility of being the flag-bearer, to boot. (W00t!) Hopefully my answers to their couple of questions are sufficient for them to choose me. We'll see soon enough, since there's only 22 days until that ceremony (and 24 until the marathon).

This is going to be a really fun several days. Expo + Harry Potter show on Thursday, Opening Ceremony of Friday, Funny Girl matinee on Saturday, Marathon Day on Sunday. This should be great.

St. George Marathon 2022, part 3 - Saturday (Marathon day!)

After a typically restless night's sleep, I woke up at 3am so that I could be out the door by 4am to make sure I would get to the bus pick-up spot to catch the 4:30am bus. (I got there at 4:15.) It was a quick drive up in the standard yellow school bus to the starting point in Central. It was VERY windy and rather cool (probably about 50F). Slowly but surely, the organizers were lighting many fire pits around which groups of people were huddled for warmth. I'm glad that I had m NYC Marathon poncho, as that made it that much easier for me to stay warm up until the time I needed to hand in my gear bag.

The 5,000 runners self-seeded based on the pacers holding up their signs. I was feeling decent, so decided I would give a shot for the 3:00 pace group. Since that group was all the way up front, it meant that there was absolutely no crowd to fight through -- definitely liked that.

After 1 mile, I recognized that breaking 3:00 was not going to happen, and decided to stick with the 3:05 pacer once he caught me. I was able to do that until Mile 7 started.

I had found out at the expo the day before that Mile 7 was the big hill on the course -- 250 feet of incline in less than a mile. The profile didn't look like it was anywhere near that when I had looked at it multiple times beforehand, so I never did hill work of that nature. It did me in. Maybe halfway up that hill, I dropped down to a walk. And before I hit the top of that part of the incline, the 3:10 pacer passed me. (Shit.)

Right as I was hitting the Mile 8 marker, I started back up at a faster pace, despite it still being uphill, though much less steep. The hill kept going until Mile 12. (Ugh.)

By the time I was halfway, it was about 1:39:00 into the race, and the temperature had hit somewhere around 70F. And despite the bragging that they were one of the best organized marathons in the U.S., I thought they did a horrible job with the water stops. Firstly, there wasn't a set method for whether it was Gatorade or water first, and there were multiple times when they were intermixed, so it was tough to get to the right person. What's worse, the stops were VERY brief. Given how many people were running the race, the water stops should have had twice as much space than they used. I missed getting water to douse myself at a couple of spots because of the crowding and not wanting to stop.

Downhill portions were pretty good, but given how badly I did with the uphills and what it did both to my legs and my HR, I wasn't able to take as much advantage on the downhill portions as I had hoped I could.

Then I finally get to Mile 17 -- and needed a pit stop. A 3-minute pit stop, which I almost never need to do, but clearly I wasn't able to get enough out at the motel before I set off for the bus. Grrr...

I kept on doing the math of what my finish time might be. For a while, it looked like I just might be able to crack 3:13, which I had determined was necessary for being able to improve my Age Championship point total. (Turns out that the fastest in the age group was faster than the "platinum" time, so 3:13 wouldn't have been fast enough anyway.) Nope. That slipped away, and it looked like there was a possibility of at least getting a negative split, even in spite of the long pit stop. Nope... not quite.

Finally I crossed the finish line not in the originally desired sub-3:00, but in 3:20:41. While it's a Boston Qualifier time for me, I have a couple of other better BQs which I should be able to use for 2024.

Hmmm... now to consider whether I attempt the mostly downhill course of Tucson in December, since it is another Age Championship qualifying race.

St. George Marathon 2022, part 2 - Friday (expo day!)

The expo didn't open until 11am, so I had time to kill in the morning. After having a very minimalist continental breakfast included at the hotel (waffle, bowl of cereal, and some OJ), I set off with the intent of going to an overlook that didn't look like it would be too far away. Took a little over 1 mile to get to the trailhead, which was about a 1.5-mile one-way trek to get to the overlook. 

Along the way, I noticed this cute little fella in a traffic circle:

I only went a very short distance on the trail before deciding the better part of valor would have me NOT do this hike. The effort was certainly going to be considerable (which I would have been willing to do Thursday morning), and the footing wasn't all that great at the start. Not wanting to expend a huge amount of energy, let alone risk injury, I turned back and did a bit of meandering through the town (which had been set for Thursday, too).

Best of the views I was able to capture from the hill looking at the surrounding area:

Some interesting sculptures and other landmarks within the town:

Alas, their Mormon temple was under renovation, so I couldn't get any decent photos of it or the grounds.

St. George Marathon 2022, part 1 - bad omens?

Seems like everything was conspiring against me for this race. As you know from prior entries, my training just wasn't up to par on many occasions this time around. 

Then there was the day before leaving and travel to St. George. My flights were originally supposed to get me Thursday morning. At some point in time, my flights were changed, and rather than arriving at 10am, I arrived at 10pm. So much for being able to use the full day to do a little exploring, or go to the concert I was planning on attending. (Glad I was figuring on buying tickets at the box office.)

Then there was the matter of getting a cab to the hotel. First company called: earliest car would be 90 minute wait. (What?!) Second company called: They didn't have any cars available at all, but they could transfer me to the third company. 45 minute wait, they'll call when they're near. (Sigh.) Fine. There were two couples who also wound up calling the same company and arranging for a car. Seems like all three calls went to the same one car, who was willing to take us all simultaneously, bill us on straight mileage between airport and respective drop-offs. (No bargain for us, but wonderful money-maker for him.) I never got a call back from their dispatcher, so had I not actually gotten in the car, who knows what would have actually happened. Fortune for the car. $51 fare. Wow! (Uber was even more expensive -- we all looked.)

I was the 2nd drop-off, and the comment from the driver about it not being a good part of town had me a bit tentative about my choice. (Fortunately, it worked out without any problems.) The motel was certainly less than desirable from the outside, but the room was certainly spacious (not that I used the front part of the suite at all).

Definitely an inauspicious start to the weekend. What would the rest of the weekend hold in store?