What a day!
After getting myself together to get out the door and make the 30-minute walk to the runner's village (through a couple of security checkpoints that took no time given no bags), I had some time to just sit down and relax, waiting for the other 50k pacers to arrive for our group photo. Ultimately, only two others showed up for our photo; I think the others were concerned about the amount of time they had to get into the corrals so passed up the photo.
We then made our way up to the "corrals" to prepare our respective groups with some advice for the race and let them know our strategies for how we were going to be pacing the race. For us, we were going to be going even effort and walking the water stops. I couldn't stress enough the need to not just drink, but to also douse themselves with water at EVERY stop.
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And before you know it, we were off! It was about 65F at the start. Wonderful to stand around in, but already hotter than desirable for running, especially with the high humidity we had. We had a very engaged group, many of whom were willing to chat it up, asking questions and answering others. Sam (the guy in green) was like a drill sergeant with some of the questions he was asking - it was really very amusing, and did get some extra participation. Amusing since a different runner in the group was the ACTUAL Marine drill sergeant stationed at Paris Island. (And who had never run longer than 5k before -- and he was taking on the 50k with less than 1 week's notice!)
Within the first two miles, Otto (my co-pacer) and I drifted apart, he further up than me. I was doing my damnedest not to go out "too hot" with my pace -- and there were a few times (looking at my splits afterward) where I was definitely far faster than I should have been (sorry!). Walking the water stops very much helped get that under control.
As we were approaching our left turn away from Georgetown at about Mile 4.5, we saw the lead hand cyclists zipping down on the right hand side of the street on the marathon course. Along the out-and-back, we had many hand cyclists zooming along, nd thankfully every time they were on the left, so it made things much more predictable than previous years.
Finally approaching the Georgetown merge, and it worked beautifully (unlike in 2019). We merged in with marathoners that were going at about the same pace as we were, and there's plenty of space in Georgetown for that fullness of the field to be present.
However, once we made our way down and around and past the Watergate, we made our way to Rock Creek Parkway (I think that's the road), and it was an ENORMOUS cluster. It is EXTREMELY crowded here for the entire time because there's only two lanes of road. And the water stop on the outbound stretch was an even bigger cluster, given that TONS of people crammed over to the first table making it hard to get around them to get to later more empty tables. The same thing happened on the return stretch.
By the time we make our way to the Kennedy Center, things open up a bit and there's a reasonable amount of space to run. A couple of miles further down, we get to the quietest part of the course: the Blue Mile. Thankfully, everyone was just taking it in, not talking. As we got to the end of the stretch of signs honoring the fallen and we could hear the cheers from the people lining both sides of the course holding American flags, I give a shout to my group, "For all of the fallen we just passed, give me an 'Oorah'!" which got a resounding "Oorah!" response.
We make our way around the end of Haines Point and up into the District ("welcome to the seat of dysfunction!"). Within about a mile or so, one of my group members slowly breaks away from the group (well done, Rita!). And at the next water stop, where I'm expecting tables on both sides (and I'm on the left side of the road at this point), there is no water stop on the left. In fact, I barely notice the water stop on the right, with several tables folded up even. With was a really bad sign that they were already running out of water on the course, despite the fact that we had another couple of hours to go, and that there were still another hour's worth of people behind us, even. (Little did I know at the time that actually wasn't true.)
Slowly but surely, I see another pacer ahead of me, and I think I caught back up with Otto. Nope, it was actually the 4:45 marathon pacers. For about a mile or so, our groups merged up, but they had a bit of a faster pace, so wound up drifting further ahead. But not before imparting some good advice to my group for The Bridge that we were going to get to soon enough: don't look straight out, rather, look down at the line on the pavement. It's just such a LONG stretch where there is nothing to look at, no landmarks, and totally exposed that it is VERY draining, both physically and emotionally.
By this point, another one of my group had broken away, and it seemed like I only had one person from my original group left with me. He was definitely breathing heavily, but he was keeping up. We would intermittently talk a little bit, mostly my imparting what the next thing to expect on the course was, including the fact that I would walk the water stop on the bridge, even though it was merely a filling station (no cups - there never are at that one stop).
Into Crystal City, we only had a few miles left. Alas, they didn't have the one fire hydrant going that they frequently do (dang it!). Down and back, and I long since wasn't able to read the tiny print on my pace band, but kept on doing the math of what the pace needed to be. Each mile marker I'd do the math again, and we were spot-on for hitting time -- tighter than I like being. Each time, I would make sure to tell him, so he could make his decision at any time to break, and I could give him advance warning if we were falling off pace. But, thankfully, I managed to push through.
The last two miles apporaching and passing the Pentagon to get to the Iwo Jima Memorial finish line is DREADFULLY dull and difficult. All the moreso on hot, humid days. We both kept pushing, hurting. We had 1.2 miles left, and 12.5 minutes to cross the finish. At my 10:30 pace, we were barely going to make it if I picked it up a touch. When I finally saw the 26 Mile sign (a few hundred yards in advance), I yell out to him and anyone around me "If you've got another gear, use it on the hill!"
We finally make the turn onto the hill, and I scream at everyone in front of me, "Move. Take the Iwo! Run, run, run! You got this." I then look to the right side an make a scooping motion with my sign to everyone else, "Come on! Take the hill you got this!" I then make sure that I'm pushing it as hard as possible. I look at my watch and see how close I'm getting to my goal time and just how much further I have to run. Will I make it? I started to doubt it, but pushed myself "Go! Go! Get it!" and stop my watch (without looking at it) as I cross the finish line. "Keep moving! Don't stop! Out of my way! I can't stop so fast! Watch out!"
Finally, after getting some dirty looks from my fellow exhausted runners, I managed to get down to a slower pace and look at my watch: 5:30.00 -- you're shitting me! I don't believe that it was exactly on the button, but didn't know if I spilled over or went under time by the fraction of a second. Turns out, I barely made it under the wire: 5:29:59. Phew!
I met up with my running buddy briefly, and with my co-pacer (who said he had finished only about 30 seconds earlier -- which really was my goal time).
After getting the medal and passing up a photo at the memorial, I made my way to the post-race drink, food, and "paper" jacket, but the fence set-up was so cramped there were multiple bottlenecks. "Move people! I need to keep moving, or I'm going to collapse." Mercifully, I managed to get out of there without getting light-headed (I did a good enough job hydrating today as opposed to Atlantic City last week), eventually stopping by the med tent for some Tylenol (to belay some of the expected pain). Not too much later after dropping some stuff in my car and taking advantage of a real bathroom in the hotel, I got back into the car to head on home.
It wasn't until my return drive that I heard on the radio that the race had shortened the time limits by 30 minutes because of the humidity. Apparently there were LOTS of people in distress on the course and they were overwhelming ERs, and ran out of medics/ambulances on the course. When you get down to it, the negative effects were eminently obvious before the race started when they made an announcement that 23k people were running, and they had 30k gallons of water. There is no way that 1.33 gallons per person across the entirety of the course was going to be sufficient when most people would not only be dousing themselves with multiple cups of water at each stop (like me), but also drinking the water (thankfully, I carry my own for drinkning). They knew far enough in advance just how warm and humid it was expected to be, they should have arranged for more water and cups. That they didn't was a MAJOR fail on their part, and certainly one of the causes that led to how many people were in distress during the race.
Glad to have survived well and brought some of the group across the line under time. Now it's a week of recovery leading up to my (currently) last race of the season: New York City. I figure I will wait until Wednesday or Thursday to decide what I want to do for a goal on Sunday. Though I may just wind up going solely by feel, not looking at the watch at all at what my pace is and having it be whatever it turns into. After all, I'm not pacing for anyone, and there is zero change that I will get a BQ on NYC's course (let alone one that would be useable to actually get in for 2025), so is there a particular reason to try to hit a time? Not really.
Looking forward to getting another MCM in the books next year. I need to decide if I want to bother continuing with the 50k or bring it back to the marathon. The medal for the marathon is generally better than for the 50k. This year, the "extra" that they were supposed to have in the hidden compartment was a set of MCM dogtags. No such thing (or any other extra) accompanied the 50k medal Heck, anyone who might have wanted to engrave it couldn't, since there was insufficient space on the back of it to do so, given what was already there.
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