Harrisburg Marathon

I've heard about the Harrisburg Marathon several times over the last few years from several of my fellow pacers, but hadn't ever run it before. This year, I rose my hand early enough to be added to the team to pace. It's nice and close, but at two hours away and a 7:30am start, it's just far enough away that I felt it necessary to go up the day before and get a hotel room. Definitely lessens the stress level quite a bit.

Early check-in was easy, and they oh-so-graciously waived the $40 fee to do so (had they insisted on it, I would've just checked in at normal time, fine), and getting to the packet pick-up was pretty painless. It's a small enough race, there is no expo. And when I got there (about 2pm), it looked like there were TONS of bibs yet to be picked up. Clearly it's such a local's race, most of the people look like they were going to do their packet pick-up on race morning. I hate doing that -- I much prefer having my bib "pinned" to my singlet in advance. And given the fact that I was also picking up an extra set of bib snaps to use, it was best to do that up front.

After lounging in the hotel room for a little while, it was time to get dinner. Only a few miles down the road, it was nothing special, but it was sufficient for what I wanted and needed.

Having brought up my NormaTec boots, I donned those for an hour while watching TV, and then made sure to bring them and my walking pair of sneakers down to the car, since I didn't want to make two trips (or one overloaded trip) down to the car in the morning. After all, there was zero chance I'd be able to come back to the hotel to shower and change with a noon check-out.

Morning arrived soon enough, and I was glad it was simply a 5am wake-up time, to get myself combobulated for leaving the hotel at 6am. Since I was staying at a Quality Inn (breakfast 6-9am), I was able to pick up a simple bagel and couple of small tubs of peanut butter to add to my post-race food. It took less than 15 minutes to get down to City Island and park. (And for family out there, it feels REALLY weird to refer to anything else as City Island than the one and only in the Bronx, but that is the proper name of it.) The pace group team didn't start to meet up until 6:45am, so I stayed in my car, stayed calm, and covered myself with a nice fleece blanket to keep warm. (After all, it was about 38F outside, so the car got a little chilly after I turned it off.)

Eventually we met up, gabbed for a little while (including getting some warnings about a couple of potentially dangerous spots on the course to keep an eye out for and warn our groups), retrieved our respective pacer signs, and took the pace team photo. 

Shortly thereafter, it was time to line up and, and off we went!

Given how small a field there was (< 600), we are all very tightly packed together at the start. While that's not overly surprising, it doesn't give the pacers sufficient room to spread out and make sure we had room to hit our proper stride and expected pace, especially if Garmin decides to be a little wonky. I was pacing 4:10 and I was too close to the 4:05 pacer. My Garmin was telling me that I was going slower than I wanted, but I refused to pass the 4:05 pacer, who could have also been having issues in the other direction with her Garmin. I basically trusted that we would wind up evening it all out by the time we hit the first mile marker -- which is exactly what happened.

I had a pretty good-sized group (once I was able to look over my shoulders and take stock of the situation). Try as I might, though, most of them wouldn't engage when I asked some of the typical questions (1st marathon? Why this one? Where are people from? What is a bucket list marathon?). However, there were two individuals who were definitely talkative, and the three of us wound up holding a decent conversation for several miles. One of them hadn't run anything longer than 13 miles this year, so he was unsure how well he would do, but was giving 4:10 a shot. It was his first marathon, and there were many things that he would wind up learning -- both based on some of the feedback he would get from me and a couple of the other runners, as well as his actual experience on the day. 

Much of the two-loop course is run along the river, sometimes on the lower level directly next to it, and sometimes on the upper level pathway. One of the warnings that we received before the race was that after we make our turn onto the lower level and go underneath the highway, there are a couple of troughs that are used as storm drains. Thankfully, it was easy enough to see the pipes that led down to them to see the subtle dips in the concrete, flag them to my group, and avoid any injuries.

(That's my group in the middle of the photo, during our first lap of the course.)

As should be clear from most of my other race reports, I carry my own water and nutrition on course, only ever relying on the water on the course to douse myself on hot days. (No dousing this time! It was in the 40s most of the race; glorious for running.) However, I still take note of the water stops. I'll often slow down a little bit to help the group get their water and not lose the pack. This time around, though, the vast majority of the time I didn't need to slow, because they were handing out bottles of water, not cups. I just hope they had cracked the cap on them, to make opening easier. The further into a race you run, the more you lose the sort of dexterity needed to open a water bottle. (At least in my experience post-race.) And there was one time on the course where one of my runners asked about Gatorade, and they were told that it was just now being mixed. To me, this is totally unsatisfactory -- no runner should be faced with the decision of skipping the Gatorade or stop running and simply stand around waiting for them to finish their mixing before heading back out, and potentially taking a while to catch back up to the pace group.

Another one of the runners in our group was an Army soldier stationed nearby in Mechanicsburg. One of his goals is to complete the Armed Forces Challenge - which I have just the Space Force T-Minus 10 Miler left to finish it next month. We commiserated over how poorly organized the Army 10-Miler was (despite this being the 40th anniversary!), and he pointed out that there is lots of disorganization within the Army -- rather a disheartening thing to hear. 

As we were nearing about Mile 8 (?), one of the rest stops looked like it had finally finished being put up -- Fireball! This fed into some of the conversation with the first-timer and what he had done re: diet (he changed things up marathon morning compared to what he had done on any of his previous long runs, such as they were). The soldier (who had Red Bull as part of his pre-race) was not averse to getting a shot of Fireball, but definitely not quite so early in the race. While he had fallen off my pack in advance of when we would pass this table on the next lap, I have a hunch he still didn't take a shot. (Based on post-race photos, it looks like he finished in the 4:30 - 4:40 range; can't tell since neither the bib nor the clock is in the shot.)

Before Mile 10, we turned onto a "long" bridge (which pales in comparison to what we run on after we pass Mile 20 in MCM), which is the lead-in to the other dangerous part of the course. Once we descend off the far side of the bridge, and make a steep, sharp U-turn, we turn underneath the bridge in a brief little tunnel, emerge and finish off the cloverleaf to get back to the opposite side of the bridge. At either end of that brief tunnel, though, is a tall metal pole in the middle of the roadway -- far too easy to smash into if you're not paying enough attention. Again, I was able to warn my group in advance (as did the volunteers who were present there), injuries averted.

By that point, and for a few miles, my bladder had been telling me that I wouldn't be able to make it all the way to the finish. So, as we were running back on the bridge and I spied a couple of portapotties on the path we would be turning onto, I asked who would be willing to "take the stick" (the 4:10 pace sign) and briefly lead the group. While the first-timer was willing to do so, there was another gentleman in the pack that mentioned that his friends call him a metronome. Sold! I passed him the stick, and after we made our turn, I saw that one of the two portapotties was available. About 30 seconds later, I re-emerged and shot off as quickly as possible to catch back up to my pack (at about the same time, the lead half-marathoner was passing). The advice that we give to anyone running in a pace group that needs to make a pit stop is to take their time catching up, they have no need to expend a huge amount of energy. For pacers, though, it would be dangerous to follow that same advice, as you don't usually know how capable your temporary replacement is of keeping pace -- you're just taking it on faith. And the other tricky thing is trying to get back into the proper pace. After all, the watch will take a wee bit to average back out the excessive speed you were just running to catch the pack. Thankfully, my replacement did quite a good job, and within a minute or so of doing that pace, my watch was saying we were at the right pace.

Shortly after we finished our first loop, the first-timer slowly but surely broke away. Clearly he was feeling good, and I let him go rather than trying to rein him back in (which I had done a few times in the early miles). Gradually, unfortunately, much of my pack fell off pace. I wound up picking up a couple of people along the way who stayed with me for a while before also falling off.

I thought I caught sight of the first-timer several miles later during an out-and-back portion where he had finally caught up to the 4:05 pacer. By the time I was on the outbound side of the long bridge (about Mile 23), and the 4:05 pacer was coming back on the other side of the bridge, I noticed the first-timer was gone, but wasn't sure if that meant he broke further forward or dropped off. Turns out that he had fallen off that faster pace by then.

For nearly the entire race, I was trying to keep at about 30 seconds under the then-expected time to give me my needed buffer at the end. It crept up a couple of times, and mostly during the last mile. Energy and pace after passing Mile 25 usually increase to some extent, and at Harrisburg, after Mile 25, we are coming off of a short bridge, making a very steep descent on a short downhill segment before running around on a pathway, to eventually get to another short and more gradual downhill. Nonetheless, it is pretty hard not to get a big boost of speed in both of those spots. 

I took note of how I was running "a little hot" and advised the one or two people still with me that they should break away as I needed to pull it back a little to hit my time goal. Shortly after they did so, I came across my first timer, found out that he was indeed with the 4:05 pacer for several miles and fell off. I encouraged him to stick with me and that I would tell him when to kick in another gear and set off as fast as possible -- he MUST finish in front of me, I wouldn't let him slow down any further. While he was a little dismayed at having been caught by me (another lesson learned for his future races), he was game for pushing on at breaking under 4:10.

And, given I was bringing the first-timer to the finish line, and told him to charge as fast as possible once we hit the 26 Mile marker, my pace increased a little bit to keep cheering him on and pushing him to the finish. He finished (pictured below) in 4:08:24 (congrats!), and my final time was just a smidge too fast, 4:08:58.93 -- 1.07 seconds too fast for the 4:09 - 4:10 window that I was shooting for as a pacer, with 4:09:30 being the "pin" I was shooting for.

                          

Their intermediate timing mat was definitely not at 7.5 miles, because there is no way I had run a 9:09 pace for that distance, and then slowed down so much to average out to 9:30, and done that on both loops. Makes me also wonder how far off some of their mile markers were on the course.

After collecting the post-race food and heading back to my nearby car, I changed out of my sweaty singlet and shorts and into dry, warm long-sleeve mock turtleneck t-shirt (MCM's ugliest race shirt from 2018) and long running pants. And got my soaked socks and sneakers off and donned a pair of comfy, loose-fitting knit wool socks and my walking sneakers. If I couldn't end up showering and changing properly in a hotel room, I could at least get as close to human again as possible. I sat in the car for a while eating all of the food I had just collected and then went outside (with my umbrella, as the rain was starting up already) to cheer the runners for about 30 minutes before heading on back home. There were no issues along the drive like there were after Atlantic City. Making sure I don't have a lunch after the post-race food looks like it will be a good call.

Finally having gotten back home, unpacked, showered and changed again, I rewarded myself with a tasty post-race dinner of Chinese food (nope - not my usual cheeseburger nor steak). And the fortune cookie that came with it was very apt for the day.

Keep on maintaining!

The last two weekends I've done marathon pacing duties. Since I'm not running NYC this coming Sunday, I actually have it off, technically. But this week and next I'm still doing a decent bit of running (approx 34 miles this week and maybe 49 miles next week) to make sure I keep my legs going and keep my fitness going strong for my next pacing gig on Nov 10.

And then, shortly after that, I have the beginning of my next training cycle, since the next time I will be running for time for myself (to try to get a better BQ for 2026) is in early March. Granted, I will still have 4 pacing gigs during that cycle (3 marathons and one 10-miler), which will certainly throw a few wrenches in it, depending on just how long it takes to recover from the respective marathons. Looking forward to getting back into training to do some faster runs.

Marine Corps Marathon! (Expo and Race Day)

For some reason unknown to the runners, this year MCM provided shuttle service to the expo from only one Metro stop, rather than two. C'est la vie. 

Upon arrival at Gaylord National Convention Center about 11:15am, the line outside the building was building quickly, and it didn't look like anyone was moving yet to get inside. Oy, was this going to be as bad as last year?

After only a few minutes, though, the line started moving.

And we walked down the entire length of the hall inside (as they set up tables as a divider so that people didn't cut to go around or enter the private event on the side), down a  couple of staircases/escalators, back behind them, and snaked around to eventually get to the far end where the expo was being held. Given the logistics, they occasionally have to pause the line entering the expo to get anyone exiting to cross through to go upstairs and out.

At no point in time did we go through any security. It didn't look like they were checking any bags - somewhat surprising. Once we got inside, they had about two dozen marines at computers checking people in and telling them which booth to go to. They had the same sort of system set up as Chicago did last year, which works BRILLIANTLY to get people to move quickly, and the bib was ready and waiting for me when I got to the booth. Love it!

Around the corner I picked up my bag with race shirt in it and meandered through the expo, picking up a couple of samples, including a few mylar sheets -- always useful to have more. I was in search of some Bib Boards or something similar, since somehow I have lost one of the set of four (using three does suffice, though). I'm through with the Race Dots. While they do adequately hold the bib in place without marring the shirt at all, I have wound up losing three out of the set of four because of my having to move my shirt to access the belt I run with (to get out my nutrition, or to put in the emptied water bottle) or otherwise brushing the bib hard enough where the front magnet gets pushed off of the pair, and both wind up falling away. Or something else -- maybe related to when I get my medal at the end.

Finally finished with everything in the expo, I showed up early at the Elevated Running and Pacing booth to start my shift. There were LOTS of people who stopped by to ask us questions: do they need to sign up (no), how would they find us in the morning (look for our signs held high within the corrals), what was the race strategy, how would I handle the hills, would I walk water stops, etc. The most frequent issue was which pace group should they join. Often, they were trying to decide between my 3:55 group and the 4:00 group. The conversation always centered around their true goal: did they want to crack 4 hours (hit 3:59:59 and they're happy -- go with 4:00 pacer, break away on the last hill) or did they want to be significantly below it (stick with me the whole time).

Oddly enough, there was one person who was looking to have a huge negative split. While the theory of going slow to start and save energy for using in the second half is sound, the times themselves were impractical. He was looking to do the first half with the 4:20 pacer with a goal of finishing in just under 4:00. Hopefully I was able to convince him of how ill-advised that plan was.

After the shift ended, I headed on back and wound up having a slightly early dinner. It's quite good, and a good deal. And it's always dead when I arrive (and usually when I leave). Amazingly enough, it was actually pretty busy when I was leaving. Very tasty. I really should go more frequently than just once a year, the night before MCM.

Finally back in my apartment, I set everything out that I would need to wear for the race, and put everything into the bag that I wanted checked for after the finish line, including a little bit of extra food. Of course, it took me a while to get to sleep -- my adrenaline had already been pumping for a few hours, despite doing whatever I could to stay calm.

Morning arrived, I did my pre-race prep and got on the road to Rosslyn. Thankfully, the hotel where I get a parking spot was technically outside the perimeter of the Finisher Village this year, so it was painless getting into the garage to park. One last pit stop in the hotel bathroom and then I headed out on my walk towards the Runner's Village. (I verified at the expo that going this way would be permitted, despite an indication on the map indicating that no entry was permitted into the Runner's Village from the north.) Surprisingly enough, there was pretty much no one else at that time (about 5:45am) walking towards that security check. Strange, because there is usually a handful of people walking that way. The security check took about 5 seconds, and it was a total of about 20-30 minutes worth of walking to get from the hotel to the Runner's Village. I'd rather have a slightly longer walk than have to wait for Metro and hop onto a likely very crowded train, and take a potentially long time to get through security at the south end of the Runner's Village. YMMV

Gradually, the Elevated Pacing and Running pace team gathered up at the designated spot. We chatted it up, and eventually took off our extra layers to take the group photo with our pacing singlets visible. (It was quite chilly for those few minutes, since I had been wearing my nice, warm NYC Marathon poncho until then.)

One last pit stop before heading to the corrals to gather up our respective pace groups, the Marathon Maniacs in the group gathered up at the designated spot for the MM photo. Alas, the initial photo was taken prior to the MM/HF banner arriving on the scene. Oh well.

For some reason, despite the fact that both sides of the roadway were open, and they had both arches per normal, there was NO ONE on the left-hand roadway. WTF?

In the corral, slowly but surely, people started to gather around me. Many asked the same sorts of questions as I had gotten at the expo the day before. I told them about the several hills, "rated" each of them (the first is the worst, until the end), and how I would handle them. I also cautioned them about one of the water stops where we are going uphill on a very narrow strip of road -- that they should make their way over after the first few tables to grab their water. And a few minutes before the opening ceremonies, a friend from college (who had pinged me a couple of weeks beforehand to note he was running his first marathon and was going to be aiming for 4:10 or 4:15) showed up to join my pace group for the first few miles, fully expecting to fall off that pace and drop back to the "proper" group for his goal.

Opening ceremonies complete, the Osprey helicopters slowly doing their flyover above us, the howitzer finally sounded. We were off! (Well, it took about 7 minutes to walk to cross the start line.)

At the first "cut through" between the two sides of the roadway, there were several people who were taking it. I told everyone in my group to stay the course, there's no reason to add on the extra bit of distance already -- we'd meet up with them as per normal. But as we continued and got closer to Mile 1, just about EVERYONE was crossing over the simple median to be on the left-hand roadway. I was immensely confused as to why it was happening and couldn't see far enough ahead to see if there was an obstacle that was in the way prompting this, so I gave in and joined the lemmings. From what I could tell later on, the trucks that were blocking the right-hand roadway were properly positioned to make sure that anyone running that way would have turned correctly so that they'd merge up with the left-hand roadway, so the early shift was unnecessary. Thankfully I knew the course well enough to know we were not going astray by following the lemmings (unlike the mishap at the start of the Combos Marathon in 2023 - oy!).

From the early gathering in the corral and through the first few miles, while I was warning everyone about the usual tight crowd, it really wasn't at all crowded. There was room to move at the desired pace from the very beginning -- unheard of in my now 11 times running MCM or MCM50K. I don't know what the underlying reason was (that many fewer people? really?), but I was happy for it.

I chatted up with the group in earshot, asking some of the standard intro questions like where everyone was from, how many first-timers, why choose MCM as their first marathon, etc. It was a large enough group that there were a decent enough number of people who engaged. Definitely made it more interesting for me, and hopefully that helped everyone else in the group, too -- even those people who were simply in receive mode and concentrating specifically on their running.

As we took the initial miles slowly, we finally got past the top of the hill near Mile 3 and just flew down toward the GW Parkway. Garmin would later record that as a very fast 8:20 mile. I think it was early enough and on enough of a slope where it didn't really cause problems for my group. I gave fair warning many times that we'd be flying there, and that I would be reining it in as much as possible so that I didn't "blow up" the group -- I didn't want to drain their energy ultra early. Once we got onto the parkway, all of the rest of the hills we encountered were more easily controlled as far as speed. (Well, except for the really short but really fast one leading out of Georgetown toward the river.)

Having left Georgetown, made our way past the Watergate Hotel, and turned past Batman onto Rock Creek Parkway, we were about a mile or so away from the next water stop that I primed my group for as early as the start corral -- do NOT take the water from the first few tables, wait a bit so that you aren't part of the cause of the huge back-up/traffic jam of people that usually happens there, in this already crowded location. It was certainly less crowded than normal, but they also heeded my advice, which certainly helped even more.

After we exited the out-and-back, as we were in the vicinity of the Kennedy Center, one of the women in my group took a really nasty fall - it's unclear what she tripped on/over. Several of us stopped, helped her get back up, saw that she was ok. I advised her that she may want to stop at the next med tent to have them check her. She was definitely shaken, but shook off the sting of it (there was no noticeable bleeding, at least, at that point), and she slowly ramped up to running. A couple of times as she was running next to me I checked in to make sure she was still doing ok. I'm really happy to say that she stuck with the group for the vast majority of the rest of the way - only dropping off pace a little bit at the very end of the race. (I would find out afterwards that she went to the med tent after the finish line to get cleaned up. She was a little sore, but not appreciably any worse for wear.)

Because of some construction that is going on around the Tidal Basin, we had a slight diversion here which took us next to the back side of the MLK, Jr. monument (we were only able to see the large stones but not the sculpture of the man himself), and then to a brief out-and-back at the Jefferson Memorial (above), prior to making our way out towards Hains Point.

Finally at Hains Point, and we got to the Blue Mile. This is always a somber mile of the course, usually very quiet where people reflect on the sacrifice of the fallen service members pictured on the boards we run past. Alas, just as we were entering this portion, another member of my group tripped on something (I think it was one of the cones in the road) and had a brief fall. Not nearly as bad as the first lady's, she was up quickly and barely lost much momentum. But myself and a couple of others were chatting with her, checking to see that she was ok. While it felt awkward to be talking at all during this stretch, it was by far more important to make sure that she was doing ok. Soon enough, convinced she was just fine, we fell back into silent mode until we got to the flag-bearers at the end of the mile, which is always a loud, rousing portion.

The back side of Hains Point prior to getting to the hill that would take us into DC proper always feels a helluva longer than I remember. It's a bit of a motivational suck. I need to do a better job of engaging the group to prop *them* up at this point (which, in turn, would prop me up and make this more bearable). But by halfway into the race, everyone is far more focused on their specific performance (cadence, breathing, eating and drinking, etc.), including myself, that carrying on a conversation (even one-sided) is hard.

As I quipped a couple of times as we were running in its vicinity, the sight of the Capitol building is absolutely majestic. Would that what happened *inside* the building matched the view of the exterior.

Once we got around the east end of the Mall and were about halfway back on the south side of it, one of my running buddies who was in the 50K called out my name as I was about to pass her. We chatted for about a minute. She was aiming for 4:45 for the 50K, and despite hoping that she wouldn't have seen me until a little later in the race (from a pacing perspective), she was fairly positive that she would be able to maintain about a 10 minute per mile pace (I was doing under 9 minutes, hence the quick conversation) she would be able to get a PR with 4:45. (Turns out she nailed it at just over 4:45.)

As always, the bridge back into Virginia, which feels like it goes on forever (because it's about a two-mile stretch of highway before the off-ramp) was dreadful. I was able to engage in a couple of quips, and made a few other comments related to things on the course to beware of which helped break up the monotony a little bit. (And got some basic math wrong, partly because I didn't realize we overlapped with only *part* of the 10k, not with the full remainder of it. Yet another example of "marathon brain" that I had mentioned multiple times during the race.)

As we made our way around the Pentagon, someone who had been shooting for sub-4 noticed me pass him and he quickly latched on, indicating he was going to stick with me so he could hit his time. I told him to stay with me to Mile 26 and then haul ass up the hill to the finish, the same thing I told my group at the very beginning, and repeated a couple of times in the last mile. Where I normally advise people along the lines of "If you've got another gear in you, pick it up" after we pass Mile 25, I was fairly certain that those in earshot would not have been able to do that. So I repeated once more that I wanted to see them all pass me at Mile 26 and run up the hill as fast as they can.

                                                     

And as we were making the turn to "Take the Iwo," I said that multiple times to everyone around me. And at one point (pictured below, I think), I also showed "CHARGE!"

As always, too many people stop RIGHT at the finish line. No, people. MOVE! Get out of my way - I can not stop on a dime and do not want to barrel through you. It takes me a few seconds, since I'm going full tilt to get through the finish line. 

I met up with one of the other earlier pacers who was waiting to hand off some pace signs. As I was standing around waiting to do similarly, there were many people who came up to me and thanked me for pacing. While the vast majority of my group seems to have finished within the 3:55 - 4:00 range (having fallen off pace in the last 1-2 miles), they were quite happy to have hung in as long as they did and, ultimately, to have finished.

It took the standardly long amount of time after picking up the post-race food and drink (though no paper jackets this year - shucks!) to make my way through the finisher's village because family/friends crowd around the exit rather than stand at more remote (and easily found) locations. That area is always such a cluster, it's immensely annoying, since I want to continue moving (though now I just need it to be at a normal walking pace, not a crawl).

Having gotten my drop bag from the UPS truck, I made my way back to the hotel where my car was parked and took my time in the restroom to change my shorts and shirt, and put on my flip-flops. SO much better. And once I got to my car, I actually switched out of my flip-flops and into knit wool socks and a different pair of sneakers than what I ran in, for the drive back home.

Having learned from Atlantic City, I chose to NOT have lunch. I ate one or two of the extra items I had brought with me, but that was it., beyond the post-race food we were handed, and a couple of small containers of chocolate milk I picked up along the walk. (Damn, is that great to drink immediately post-race.)

Finally showered and changed, I made my way for a celebratory dinner, and picked up dessert to enjoy later in the evening.

Next up? Harrisburg Marathon in a couple of weeks -- pacing the 4:10 group. So far, recovery has been going well, my legs feel fine, and I'm ok for running already.

Outlook is good for MCM

Over the past three days since my glorious sprawling fall at Atlantic City, I have gone on the elliptical and stair stepper (Monday), and run on the treadmill a total of 15 miles (Tuesday and Wednesday), and iced my knee at least once a day to help minimize swelling. So far, so good. Active recovery is working well, and it seems like all systems are go for being the 3:55 pacer at MCM.

And what's more, it looks like we'll have some great weather to contend with, unlike most years. Yes, it'll start really chilly in the low 40s, but it won't even hit 60 by the time I cross the finish. It's hard to get any better conditions than this. All I need to do is wear appropriate additional layers while standing in the corral that I shed about 5-10 minutes before the howitzer goes off, and I'll be warmed up by the time I'm about 1-2 miles in. (Maybe on the long-ish side, given the fact that the starting miles are always extremely crowded.)

Hopefully I'll have a nice sized group with me and most of them stick it out through the finish (and even push on ahead within the last mile). And, with good fortune, maybe one or two of the course photographers will get a good enough photo that captures most of the bibs of my group so I can look up afterwards what their respective results were.

Atlantic City Marathon 2024

It's nice when I get to pace a race that is relatively local to me. Enough so, at least, that I can drive up one day, stay overnight, and drive back after the race is done. While the expo (and the race start/finish line) is at Bally's, the majority of the pacers were staying at the Showboat hotel.

I'm not overly partial to casinos, and while the rooms that we had look like they were updated recently, much of the downstairs attractions (as evidenced by this wallpaper on the entryway coming in from the parking garage) is a bit outdated, IMO. C'est la vie. It's not like I'm actually spending any appreciable time in the hotel -- I never do. It's always just a crashpad, to me.

The expo was about a mile away. And, boy howdy, despite lots of establishments being open for business, one that was closed certainly evinced the clouds of smoke that I couldn't avoid on the walk:

Because of some late injuries and/or illnesses, there was a bit of juggling around of the pacing assignments. Part of that had me moved back to 3:50, and that pacer bumped to 4:10. Seemed odd, since just the day before, a local Atlantic City media outlet published an article on the marathon with a focus on the pace group, and the (former) 3:50 pacer was featured in it. Given my upcoming pacing gig at Marine Corps Marathon, I asked him if he wanted to swap, so he could be back on his assigned 3:50, and I would take 4:10. He gladly accepted.

The morning of the race itself was beautiful. Cool temps around 50F with minimal wind. Unfortunately, there were also no clouds in the sky -- so there was no escaping the direct sunlight and slowly starting to bake as the temps gradually rose. Still, for Atlantic City, you couldn't really ask for better conditions than what we had.

After gathering at the hotel lobby, we made the mile walk down the boardwalk to the starting area to take the obligatory pace group photo.

We made our way into the starting chute behind us and lined up in order, waiting for the organizers to open up the back gate to allow the runners to file in and find their starting places. Over the course of the next ~25 minutes, people congregated and we chatted them up about some of what we planned on doing for the race. For me, pretty straightforward re: slowish start while it's still crowded, and slow on the uphill highway ramp we go up on Mile 3, faster on the back side -- everything else is pretty much flat and even pace. Both marathoner and half-marathoners would be together through about Mile 11.5, at which point the half-marathoners would make a U-turn, split off, and continue back to the finish line.

8am arrived and we were off! While I wouldn't use the phrase "I was flying" to describe my pace, unfortunately I went flying less than 100 meters after the start line. (!) Whether I tripped on a slightly raised screw, nail, or plank of the boardwalk, down I went. Hard! Mercifully, everyone who was behind me skillfully dodged around me, rather than trampling me, and after a couple of seconds, I collected my dropped water bottle, made sure I had my pace sign, shook out my stinging right hand (multiple times), and set back out. What a way to start out a race and inspire confidence in the group of runners who were looking to me to get them across the finish line both in one piece and on time!

This time around, I didn't have a very talkative bunch of people. Two or three who were closest were gladly chatting it up, but whenever I tried engaging people who were slightly further behind me, I didn't get many responses. I wound up telling them about the only other time I fell in a race (not pacing), talked about a few of my other marathons run (London, NYC, Disney), and asked them about their running goals. I had at least a couple who were running the half, and several who were running the full. But I'm not sure I even had a total of 10 with me at the group's largest. (Alas, there aren't many photos that captured the group.)

We were spot on pace by the time those running the half had to split off. Actually, we were about 30 second ahead of pace, I think - which is where I wanted to be at the very end of the full. I encouraged those breaking off to keep their current pace or even pick up steam to blast through their planned goal of 2:05. At least one person who peeled off did just that, finishing in 2:03. Great job!

But, as is often the case, despite keeping pretty accurate pacing (always seeing quickly if I'm running a bit too fast and dialing it back), slowly but surely, my group faded off. By the time we were off of the Boardwalk, I think I lost almost everyone from the initial group. However, soon thereafter, I picked up at least 1 or 2 new people who would stay with me most of the rest of the way.

The young guy running beside me here (by this point, we were on the final stretch of the marathon, returning on the boardwalk) is a recent graduate of the police academy and he knew several of the officers on the course who were keeping everyone safe and controlling traffic. Amazingly enough, he is not too long post-surgery from a nasty fall during the running part of his fitness exam -- the details were a bit gruesome to envision, and despite it, he gritted it out and passed that exam. Bad@$$!

Though he had started to pull away from me around Mile 22, our positions switched when he slowed down at a water stop and I didn't. Slightly dispirited by the fact that he was no longer in front of me (which was his goal), he stuck with me through about Mile 25, at which point he found his next gear and took off, finishing in just over 4:07:00! Fantastic! When pacers come across the finish line without anyone in their group, this is the preferred reason -- because we got them far enough to the point they could kick it up a notch and maintain for an even faster time.

Goal time for a pacer is alway 30 seconds under the time on the sign, with a 30 second buffer on either side. Given the ignominious start and the increased heat in the latter part of the race, I'm quite please at having been in the sweet spot, with a final time of 4:09:10.

After getting some water and Powerade, and collecting my checked gear check bag (with flip-flops and change of socks and sneakers in it), I did what I have only done once before -- gotten medical attention... for the injuries I had sustained at the very beginning. Thankfully, there wasn't all that much that had gotten into the wounds, which were mostly slightly scraped up bruises. There really wasn't any broken skin or bleeding, but the peroxide used to clean off the wounds still stung like the dickens. While the bandages they had really weren't all that great (latex adhesive that didn't do a great job of sticking), it was enough to get the job done that I needed for the time being. I would wind up replacing them after I got a shower -- many hours later, unfortunately.

I was disappointed that the kitchen for The Yard wasn't open (as it had been last year), but happy that I was able to get my post-race burger not too far away at Johnny Rockets.

After a quick pit stop, I made my way back to my car (having brought all of my stuff there before the pacer meet-up, since I knew I wouldn't make it back in time for even a delayed check-out), changed out of my racing socks and sneakers for a comfy pair of knit wool socks and dry sneakers for my drive back.

[Warning: Mild TMI below. Nothing more related to the race itself, but wrapping up my experience on the day nonetheless.]

While it took only 3.5 hours to drive up, it took quite a lot longer to get back home. And it wasn't just because of the additional traffic on 95S in Maryland. About an hour after lunch, I started to have a hard enough time breathing because of a reflux type reaction that I  held out long enough to pull into the rest stop in Delaware, parking and taking a half hour to recline and try to relieve the pressure. It seemed like it had worked reasonably well, at least enough that I'd be able to get home before having to do anything else. Nope! My body had other designs.

The pressure increased again, compounded with frequent hiccups (really painful in this instance, more so than they typically are), and I pulled off again at Maryland House. And getting there was atrociously slow because of the traffic -- the frustration certainly made everything feel all the worse. This time after parking (and while it was still daylight), I opened the sunroof a bit and cracked my windows, reclined a decent bit, and was there for about 90 minutes. I knew I was slightly dehydrated, and I felt like I was on the verge of a hypoglycemic reaction. I eventually remembered that I had an extra bottle of Powerade from the race inside the car, so downed that. It definitely helped with the near hypoglycemia, but did nothing to alleviate any remaining pressure, which had gone down somewhat.

I finally decided that I should get back on the road. It was after 7pm, and I still had another 90 minutes to go (which would be more like 2 hours given the traffic). I got past Baltimore and the pressure and hiccups returned. And right before I got to the split in the roadway that would take me to the Beltway, I felt horrible and knew that I absolutely had to get off to the shoulder immediately, lest I get into an accident. Thankfully, there was enough space for me to get over the one lane and then into the very wide shoulder, put the car in park, got the car door open and turned my head toward the road and... you guessed it... "returned" some of what I had ingested earlier in the day. I can only imagine what the people passing me were thinking had happened. I've never had this happen to such an extent before. I think I may need to rethink what I have as a post-race meal, now. While I still need to have as much protein as possible, I need to avoid the grease. Lesson very much learned.

As much as I was not happy about having to regurgitate a bit, I must admit that nearly immediately I felt SO much better. The pressure was gone, as were the hiccups. Once I was able to assure myself that everything was cleared out that needed to be, I fluidly got back into traffic and finished the remainder of the slow drive home. Finally.