Pacing AC

So, in the last post, I critiqued the marathon, but didn't actually talk too much about the experience I had while pacing. It really is a whole different experience running a race 1) by yourself, 2) with one or more friends, or 3) as a pacer responsible for getting the group across the finish line by a certain time.  Most of the time, my experiences are in the first category. And if you want to read some of my experiences in the second category, go back to this year's Dopey experience -- especially for the marathon on Disney Marathon weekend in January.

I started out the weekend at the Marathon Pacing table at the expo, for the last few hours it was open on Saturday. As people came up asking all manner of questions (What pace should I run? Will the pacer do run-walk? What are these strips (the pace bands) for and how do they work? Do I need to sign up? How should we find you in the corral?), several of the pacers and I would answer them, give appropriate guidance and advice for certain aspects of the race yet to be run, and provide as much encouragement as we could. It's always nice when you get a decent number of people that have identified their goal time as being the group that you are leading.

On race morning, the pacers (almost all of whom were staying at the Showboat Resort, about 1 mile up the  boardwalk from the start line at Bally's) met up in the Showboat lobby for a pre-race photo before making our way down to the start line to have an official pre-race photo taken.

The weather was positively gorgeous, albeit a touch chilly when the wind decided to gust a bit. That would surely end quickly enough after we set out. After doing our last prep work (restroom, gear check, etc.), we all lined up in the starting chute in increasing order of finish time. At that point, the race opened up the back of the pen and the 2,200 runners filed in among us. It was far too crowded to be able to take a group photo of my pace group before the race. Or, frankly, even the ability to realistically chat with any of them. (Hopefully they asked and we answered most of their questions the day before at the expo.) Soon enough, we were off!

Inside of the first mile, after the crowd thinned out enough where it was pretty clear that the people right around me were aiming for my 4:20 time, I called out and asked them to self-identify. I definitely had a good-sized group of more than a dozen. At least 4 of them had also self-identified as 1st time marathoners. It was interesting hearing how one of them had chosen to run this marathon, having started off the prior year doing a 5k and making the decision to lose weight (ultimately dropping 50 pounds), stop smoking, and stop drinking alcohol. He gradually increased his mileage to a half marathon and then decided to take the leap with his buddy on doing the marathon. He was certainly holding back in reserve a decision as to whether he'd run any more in the future until after finishing Atlantic City. I advised him to wait multiple days or longer after finishing before he makes the decision -- after all, he won't really be sore until two days afterwards.

Twisting around a few miles of Atlantic City streets, we eventually made our way to the Boardwalk, still having a pretty easy time of it all. Every now and again I would ask a question, or bring up an anecdote. Invariably, someone asks how many marathons I've run (AC was 67) and which was my favorite (I'll be able to settle down on NYC or London after one more chance for NYC in 2 weeks). Recounting my time in London leads to my talking about my abortive GWR attempt dressed as a chef, and then my successful attempt dressed as a super villain. 

We "dropped off" the half marathoners in the group past mile 11, where they did a U-turn on the boardwalk to get back to the finish line, while we continued onward to the end of the boardwalk before turning onto more city streets. Within a mile or so, I had come to the conclusion that I needed a quick pit stop. When I run considerably slower than my normal pace, too much water goes to my kidneys. So, I teed things up by asking who would be willing to take the sign and keep the pace for me. After all, it's the sign that people need to keep sight of, especially if they are not directly next to me or able to see me as opposed to the sign. It took a couple of times asking and looking around before that same 1st timer said that he was willing to give it a shot. I handed off the sign and darted into the portapotty as the group charged on. Mercifully, it was a brief break (maybe 20-30 seconds), and I quickly got back onto the course and sprinted at a much faster pace than we had been running, but well within my capability, so that I could minimize the time away from the group. They were rather surprised when I announced myself and reclaimed the sign. But my stand-in did marvelously, as I was able to confirm at the next mile marker that we were still exactly on pace.

As we got to some of the additional water views (was it still the ocean, or an inlet?), the wind picked up something fierce, often as a headwind. That certainly sapped some strength from all of us. While I "checked in" a couple of times to see how everyone was doing, conversation was more difficult for everyone, myself included, so it got a fair bit quieter save for the occasional cheer I would give to our group or to an oncoming leader or other pace group or fellow Marathon Maniac ("Go Maniac!"). This is definitely an area for pacing where I need to improve my game. While I can't expect much to be said by my remaining group, I can still try to engage them with some more meaningful encouragement. That will be easier on courses that I know really well (such as MCM 50k this coming Sunday).

We finally finished the extra stretch of city streets, painfully made our way up the ramp from street level onto the boardwalk (that 6 feet elevation gain across, what 20 feet) felt horrible, but was over as quickly as it began, and made our last turn for the home stretch -- that being about 3 miles.

Despite the difficulty of the city street headwinds that we encountered, I still had a good core group remaining with me. I actually didn't appreciate just how many there were until I saw this photo. I don't think I have ever had this many people remaining with me this late in the race.

Now, as one of the spectators aptly put it, it was all mental. My legs were tired and it would have been easy to drop pace to make that go away, but I had a job to do, and I was going to do my best to accomplish it. I called out some of my typical late-race mantras at the appropriate spots: "Only 5k to go!", "Just over 2 miles left!", "*NOW* you can legitimately say that!" (to the person at Mile 25 who yelled out "you're almost there"), and some variant of "Bring it!" when the finish line was tantalizingly close in the last .2 miles. (I think I actually said "If you've got another gear, use it!")

I looked at my watch, and I saw the "pin" pass. (The pin is this group's ideal finish time -- 30 seconds underneath the published goal time.) But I knew that I would be able to make it underneath the published goal time, now it was just a matter of how close to the pin would I get. In the end, I got 4:19:53. During the last mile or two, two of the people from my group slowly pulled away (to finish in 4:19:17 and 4:19:22). And the remaining people (whose bibs I could make out from the photos) finished anywhere from 4:23:12 to 4:46:52. My temporary pacing stand-in ultimately finished in 4:30:41 -- great job! And the one half marathoner who I could see in the photos actually finished in a great time of 2:08:38, which means they picked up a big head of steam after breaking off from us, since if they continued at our pace, they would have been closer to 2:09:45.

Unfortunately, given the logistics of getting back to the room for check-out, I couldn't stick around to try to see my other group members finish and give them one last cheer. (Just like I won't be able to do that at MCM, given how the finish area is structured. Hopefully I'll be able to shepherd everyone in in front of me.) But it was a really great day, and I look forward to pacing an increasing amount, as I adjust my personal goals so that there is only 1 "A" race per year that has a goal of a sufficiently good time to not only qualify me for Boston, but also enable me to be accepted in. The other races, I can be more leisurely on, pace (hopefully some of the Majors, even), and maybe even run with Achilles International (once I go through some of their vetting).

(Postscript: While I generally dislike MarathonFoto, I must acknowledge the fact that all of the photos in this post were from the official photos that MarathonFoto took. Atlantic City Marathon's registration actually included all of the photos for free, so I can't complain about the cost this time around. My biggest gripe is with how relatively few photos there were. While there were 49 photos in my profile, a LARGE percentage of them were exact or near-exact repeats. There were maybe a dozen truly unique photos in total. Still, they definitely break up a blog post nicely and do a good job of memorializing this event.)