I've heard of Jack & Jill Marathon, but up until a couple of weeks ago, only in Washington State. When the opportunity popped up to pace this one in Poconos, I figured what the heck. It's early on in my Erie training cycle, so it won't cause me any issues, and I can keep helping people achieve some of their goals. Win-win.
Lehighton is a very small town about 25 minutes north of Allentown. Given the size of the field (300 for the marathon, 50 for the half marathon), the "expo", such that it was, was a table for check-in, a table where the shirts were laid out for putting into the bags, a table selling race necessities (for those who forgot or needed more), and a table for the pace group - On Pace.
The signs were customized with our names on them (never seen that before), and they were very comfortable to carry -- only a few ounces each, with an expandable pole and a comfy grip at the bottom, rather than the standard wooden dowel (which I usually put gauze on in one or two spots to have a more comfy grip). And as this was the first time I was pacing for this particular group, I had a welcome gift (the customized board with a "sticker" indicating my pace time and race -- more of those to come with subsequent races for On Pace, to cover the three mantras/slogans that are on it). Nice. And the obligatory pacer t-shirt to wear for each subsequent gig with them.
Early on after I arrived, some volunteers were loading up a couple of trucks with both gear for the water stations as well as lots of signs to place along the route. Among the humorous signs (only one of which I actually noticed on race day):
Nearby was a simple set of memorials.
After my shift at the table ended, I decided to drive up to the park where we would be parking (bus pick was at the finish area to take us to the start line), so that I wasn't first experiencing that part of the trip in the pitch dark. It was very straightforward, despite the hellishly slow traffic in the heart of Jim Thorpe at that hour. Easy peasy to get to.
But given the extra time for that side trip, the fact that my hotel was in Allentown, and their traffic on those roads was surprisingly hideous, rather than go to a somewhat nice Italian restaurant that I had found about 20 minutes away, I found something much more local (two blocks from the hotel). For a hole-in-the-wall pizzeria, the food was pretty good. Chicken Penne a la Vodka -- tasty, albeit exceedingly hot when it arrived.
Race day came, and it was a nice chilly 50 degrees outside. Silly me, I didn't bother bringing an extra layer to wear up to the start line to put in a bag that would be brought back to the start, so I was shivering a little bit -- not much, but still... Rookie mistake.
As is typical for any race, when you arrive at the start area, you scope out the portapotties. Well, there were only 5 of them in one cluster, so immediately, I got on line. As did everyone else. There were maybe 10 people in front of me, and at that, it still took about 15 minutes. Not sure what the deal was with the people who were using the middle three -- maybe the revenge of some food the night before finally hitting? But EVERYONE from the arriving buses had lined up. There was no way that everyone would be able to use the provided facilities -- some would either have to hold it or would need to use nature to answer the call of nature. Thankfully, I was able to dash in and out pretty quickly right before the pacing group took our group photo.
While we were talking, one of the other pacers mentioned the fact that the 3:30 pacer had been locked in at the campgrounds that he was staying at, so he wouldn't be making it to pace the race. And given the 3:10 pacer had already canceled as of the day before (not sure if he was sick or something else arose), that meant that I was going to be leading the first pace group out. Pacing is enough pressure as it is, but there's a surprising amount of additional pressure when you are going to be in the lead pack. Granted, it really wasn't THAT bad, because there were plenty of people running who were aiming for faster times who were in front of me at the start line, so there was always someone that I would be able to be following and keep in sight.
When we first started out, I had a solid group of 9 people. For a field size of 300, where there were supposed to be 12 pace groups, that's a really good size. Given construction on this course's usual route, they had to change things up a bit and insert an out-and-back 4 miles (2 miles each way) at the begging, where the start line was also the 4-mile mark. I took the first two a little on the slow side, because it was uphill. I had the additional speed for the downhill remainder of the race factored into my planned times. As it is, I didn't go quite as slowly on those first two miles as planned, and went a little faster than planned on the second two miles. By the time we had finished those four miles, I was able to shift from using the customized even-effort pace band I had printed (good thing, since it got soaked and illegible soon thereafter) to using the even-split pace band I was given in my pacer registration packet.
(Granted, these two photos were of the scenery after the finish line on the walk back to the car, but it gives a good sense of what we were running within.)
By the time we had hit Mile 6, and that we were running in total shade under a lush green canopy from the trees and next to a gently flowing stream down a hill on our left side, the temps were noticeably rising -- time to start dousing with water at every water stop (every two miles). Given the small field size, each water station only had two 6-foot tables: one with Gatorade, one with water, and not staffed well enough to be able to be handed the cup on the run. So, if you wanted to take anything, you had to stop to pick it up and drink and/or douse. This worked out well, I think, because it forced me to slow down and have a brief recovery walk as I doused and looked back to verify all of my runners had made it through before picking back up with the pace (a little on the fast side to make up for the water station time).
As is fairly standard for me, I would break up some of the early miles with asking my group some questions: which number marathon was this for them, when was their first marathon, what is their favorite marathon, what is the strangest thing that they witnessed while running a marathon. A few times I asked them how they were feeling -- early on they enthusiastically answered some variant of "fine" or "good". However, when I asked them somewhere after halfway to give me an "Oorah" (I know, it's not MCM, but it's a good cheer), they were much more reserved, tentative, and tired. Not a good sign.
At several points during the race, when trying to check my pace on my Garmin, I was dismayed to see obvious errors. While it's possible at stretches I would have slowed down slightly while chatting, there's no way that I had slowed down to a 9 or 10 minute pace. Ugh. And there were several miles where my Garmin was not showing ANY pace whatsoever -- it's as if it totally lost all signal. Given all this craziness on my watch, the only thing I could do is handle pace old-school: compare my total elapsed time at the Mile Marker to the expected total time as indicated on the pace band. That worked well enough; I was always able to see if we were keeping our same buffer that I inadvertently built in the early miles. (Never more than about a minute, so it's not like I was "banking time" as some think they can reliably do. My goal is always 30 seconds under the announced time, so having an extra 30 seconds on that is pretty trivial.)
Very slowly, I would have someone drop off the back unnoticed. But I still had about 5 or 6 people with me by around Mile 20 -- not too shabby. But by that point, it was getting HOT (close to 70 -- ultimately hitting 77). And there were a couple of pretty long stretches that were in direct sunlight; that definitely didn't help. And by the time we hit Mile 24, I noticed that our time had slipped. We were about 30 seconds or so too slow. That's a lot of time to make up in the last two miles when you've got very little left to give.
And, what took an even harder psychological toll on everyone (myself included) was the fact that after Mile 4 (where the profile was definitely known to be 2 miles uphill, 2 miles downhill), the entire rest of the course through about Mile 22 both looked and felt like it was a perpetual, ever-so-gradual uphill climb, despite what was indicated on their website. And even looking at my Garmin afterwards, it showing me the same slow downhill profile, it never felt that way. And that's distressing when you think that you'll have a slightly easier effort on the shallow downhill than on flats or uphill.
One lady who was in my group who needs 4:05 as her Boston Qualifying time and was aiming for 3:50 (to have a very comfortable 15 minute buffer and zero worry about making next year's cut-off) decided she would stick with me at least through Mile 20 (despite the fact that there was a 3:50 pace group she could have joined), and would figure out what she wanted to do at that point -- keep on pace, or do some run/walk for the remainder, but with 3:50 as her outside "worst" goal. With the nearly 10 minutes of extra buffer she gave herself sticking with me, when she finally started her run/walk, her finish time was 3:47:34 -- smashing it with a BQ-17+. Nice!
One gentleman was with us the whole time, relatively quiet throughout, and ever so slowly drifted forward. He stayed in front of me the last couple of miles and had a strong finish with a 3:39:25. And another who finished even faster, at 3:38:02. While neither is a BQ for them, they crushed their goal of 3:40. Sweet!
Looking at the photos, there was one lady who was with the group the majority of the time but that I hadn't noticed, apparently wound up fading a little bit in the late miles to finish in 3:44:40, which is still a BQ-5! Another gentleman who was with me for most of it but also faded towards the end still managed to hit a BQ-2 time of 3:47:59. While those likely won't be sufficient for the cut-off when we register in September, they're still great results.
And there was one guy who kept on drifting in front of me throughout the race at which time I would gently chide him a la "you don't need to break away yet", as he had requested from the beginning. At one point after Mile 20, he had faded - I lost track of where he was. But he eventually made his way back next to me. "I wanted to make sure you were able to cross the finish line with someone." Very sweet. And at Mile 25, I told him that if he wanted to break away, he could. He didn't. And then as we saw the marker for Mile 26, I "ordered" him to push it, to break ahead, and finish strong. And as he did so, for the last two minutes of the race I was shouting at him (ever so much further away): "Push it!" "Finish strong!" "Take it!" Where he doubted at the beginning that he could make 3:40 (where his BQ was also 3:50), and he was distressed at my prediction that BQ-9:00 would be needed for next year's Boston, he finished with a great 3:39:42, more than BQ-10. The look of intense effort on his face in these last few meters is what finishing strong is all about - leaving nothing behind.
I finished a few seconds behind him, with a final time of 3:39:43. Thrilled that I managed to make up the time that I had lost briefly, and make it within the window I needed. And as I found out the times of my other runners, despite their finishing after me, that they still hit such good times. And looking at my Garmin afterwards, because of the several spots that it had lost contact and provided no pace, my watch thought that I only race 23.54 miles. Oy! Glad I didn't need the watch for any sort of proof.
Now that I finally have the photos to see the bib numbers for my group to be able to look up everyone's times, my group crushed it! Out of the 9 of them, 3 of them managed to beat the 3:40 goal time. And 4 of them managed to get BQs! (1 whose BQ was also under the 3:40 goal time.) That's what a pacer likes to see -- a majority of the pace group nailing one or more of their goals.
I've got a total of 11 marathons on my schedule for this year -- for which 5 of them I will be a pacer, possibly 6 (if I get accepted onto the team for MCM). I'd love to see similar results for each of my groups to come.
