Semper Paratus - Coast Guard Marathon

Let the Armed Forces Challenge begin!

I was somewhat surprised on my 4-hour drive down to first pass a trailer that was carrying two submersible objects that I had to wonder if they were some form of torpedo. And then shortly afterwards, I wound up passing 4 trailers, each one carrying a rather sizable tank on the back. Thankfully, the turret up top of each didn't have its gun attached.

1st up in the Challenge was the Coast Guard Marathon in Elizabeth City, NC. Tiny town with a relatively tiny field running.

A few notable, or (in some cases) semi-hidden, landmarks in the town.

This memorial wall (in front of the Museum of the Albemarle) is made out of dog tags.

A separate memorial park just a few blocks up the road:

But a few quirky landmarks, too:

And a lovely view of the water from the park that we would be using as our starting area and finish festival.

In the morning, while the usual announcements, etc. were being made in the area by the starting chute, there was a Circle of Remembrance held on the pier overlooking the water, being run by Wear Blue to Remember, in honor of those service members whose anniversary of their being killed in action was the April 6-7 weekend. They had strips of names to be read out by all of us who attended. Among the ~30-40 people standing in the "circle," we read out about 50-60 names. And the second time around the circle, those people who wanted to honor others they knew who were KIA called out those names -- another maybe dozen names, going as far back as Vietnam. Very simple ceremony, but meaningful and moving. I've never seen that done before. Rather, I'm accustomed to how the Marine Corps does it on Marathon weekend by having signs on both sides of the course with the photos and names of the fallen lining the Blue Mile (approximately Mile 12 - Hains Point) followed by a phalanx of volunteers on both sides holding the U.S. flag. Always a powerful section with the absolute silence on the course amid the posted photos.

Finally, we were off! It was a beautiful, clear day with ideal conditions -- started in the low 40s with minimal wind. Unfortunately for me, there was no appropriate pace group to join. The fastest half marathon pacer was running for a 1:40 (equivalent to 3:20 marathon), and the fastest marathon pacer was 3:30. And I was looking to hit 3:15, so it was on me to be my own pacer.

The early miles, I did a reasonably good job of maintaining the appropriate pace. And then things got very confusing. Typically, when one runs a marathon, one runs some extra distance, because it's very difficult to run all of the tangents perfectly (i.e., run the exact path for which the official measurement was made), with not knowing exactly where to move, or moving around people in your way, or shifting to the side to pick up something at the hydration station or throw something in the garbage pail. Slowly but surely, it adds up.

After 8 miles, my watch was showing me running about 8.06 miles. Not shabby, but something I noted I need to continue to improve. (After all, that extra distance means I need to run faster to hit my goal time at the finish line.) When I looked at my watch after 9 miles, somehow I was showing as having run only 8.8 miles. What?! Where the hell did the extra mileage go -- approximately 1/4 mile, in fact. Was it just bad placement of the sign? No, because that was pretty much the same thing that kept on happening at each mile marker (with its corresponding painted mark on the ground). And, no, as far as I know, I didn't leave the course and come back in (i.e., cut the course) - I was always in sight of other runners in front of me on the course.

Even worse than that, while there were mostly decent directional signs on the course (especially given there were multiple places on the course where one direction crossed the other direction), they did a HORRIBLE job of controlling the traffic -- and that refers to both runners and vehicular traffic.

There was ZERO indication just about anywhere on the course where we were told which side of the road we should be on (save for one stretch of a wide, multi-lane road we were on for less than a mile). A large portion of the course was on neighborhood roads where it is one lane of traffic in each direction. And several of those had people running "out" and others running "back" in the other direction. It didn't matter much for those of us in the front of the pack, but once there were people actually going in both directions, it was highly confusing, and added more distance to run for those who shifted around coming in the other direction.

What's worse is the fact that many of those roads not only had one lane of traffic open for vehicles (but no indication of which direction they would be coming), but BOTH lanes of traffic were open. Thankfully all of the drivers who drove on the course were going very slowly (so, we didn't have to jump/dodge out of the way of the oncoming traffic), but that there were ever any parts of the course where vehicles are driving at you on your side of the road is inexcusable. As far as I know, no one got injured, but it was definitely a recipe for injuries.

So, because of the confusion about the actual distance combined with the logistics of moving around traffic and/or runners coming in the other direction (adding yet more distance), and possibly expending more energy early on compared to what I should have, I think my time was harmed to a small extent, but enough so that my final time, which was a Boston Qualifier, was not an improvement on what I already had from Mesa. I'm almost happy about that, though, because I have a feeling it would be invalidated for Boston anyway. Why? Because I think the total distance of the course was short. My Garmin showed 26.14 miles run. Not only do I never run a "perfect" race vis-a-vis the tangents, but I certainly didn't do so given the aforementioned logistics.

Despite it not being as good a time as I wanted, I came in 1st place in my age group! Woot!

When I made my way out of the finisher's chute (~11am), they had just begun the awards ceremony for the half marathon. Unfortunately, though, they weren't going to start the award ceremony for the marathon until 1pm (ugh!) - hence the photo here only has me in it... I had someone take it during that down time.

Since my hotel wouldn't allow a late checkout, I went to get lunch. Mmm... tasty burger, as is my wont.

As it was about 12:15 by the time I finished, a little later than that after using the restroom, I made my way back to the finish area (cheering the finishers along the way). Soon enough, it was time for the awards ceremony.

While standing around waiting for my age group to be announced, there were two people right next to me in some measure of distress. One early 20s man (who had just finished his 1st marathon) wasn't feeling great. Despite a running club friend of his telling him to keep walking around, he decided to sit down -- alas, he sat on the ground, rather than on a nearby bench. And after he sat, he decided to lay down fully. He was asked multiple times by many people (including medical staff) if he was doing ok. He never lost consciousness, always insisting he was fine. He was very dehydrated from having thrown up a couple of times on-course, apparently. I had an extra unopened bottle of water still and handed it over. (He declined the bottle of Hoist (electrolyte drink) I had.)

Separately, there was a lady (who was actually one of the top finishers in her age group) who was totally out of it. She was visibly weak in the legs, but was refusing to move over to the bench to sit. In that amount of time it took to insist on that, her legs went out from under her. Thankfully, she was already being supported by someone from behind and one side. Pretty quickly, the medics came over to check her out. She did wind up having everything go grey for a bit, as she recounted it.

I had earlier told the running club friend of the 1st person that I'd help her get him up and over to her car (a short distance away) after the ceremony was done. As we were walking out, he threw up again. Multiple times. And then had to use the porta-potty (which he made in time). Finally, everything out of his system, he was able to make it the rest of the way to the waiting car. Thankfully, he is a local, so he was driven home for his recovery.

All the drama finished, it was time for me to finally head back home. 

Now to make sure my recovery goes well over the next few days, because I have the Boston Marathon next week! Stay tuned.