With the sizable number of pacers staying over at the house, all of the women were upstairs (plenty of bedrooms, since it's a family with four children, all of whom are adults who are out of the house) and the men were downstairs (three of us on air mattresses, and one on a bed in a room that could be sequestered from the rest).
With a 5:30am departure, I made sure to get up at 4:30am. And rather than potentially wake the others earlier than they wanted or be in the basement bathroom too long, I used the one on the main floor, had my usual pre-race breakfast (banana and granola bar), and finished getting ready. One by one, the others emerged, ready to go. 5:20 rolls around, and the question arises: Where's Alex? We thought he had gotten up, but it turns out he was still snug as a bug in a rug. Paul poked him and told him it was time to get up. Alex thought it was only approaching 4:30am, and his alarm hadn't gone off yet -- turns out his watch was still on Central Time! Somehow, in less than five minutes, he was upstairs, ready to head out.
We split up into four cars to caravan. Certain people, including the pacers, were able to get parking passes that enabled them to park MUCH closer to the start line than the generic parking made available at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. We were the third in line (Paul driving), with Diane driving the lead car (with Alex as "navigator").
As we were driving, Paul was telling "the other Paul" and me about the sizable traffic delays they had last year when they departed at 6am, hence the decision to leave at 5:30am this year. Soon enough we get to the exit that I know they are supposed to take, confirmed by his GPS display, and neither of the 1st two cars took it. Paul continued the caravan. "What's going on? That was our exit." I said. We eventually took a different exit (not making a U-turn back to what we should have taken) and strangely made our way to the entrance to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. "What the heck is going on? We're not supposed to be here." As we are approaching, I see the 100% ID Check sign, and start to get my ID out. (I always carry my ID, credit card, and insurance card, in case something goes horribly awry during a race.) We ask Paul in the back seat if he has his ID. "What? No." We start quipping about him getting out and jumping in the trunk. It didn't matter, because the guard at the gate pinned on the map in a phone in the lead car specifically where we need to go, so the rest of us were now tethered.
As we were approaching the exit back to the highway, our GPS was saying to turn left, but the caravan was turning right, so we followed suit. Paul pointed out how the map was showing a road closure and, sure enough, our way was shortly stymied by a police blockade (since the marathon would be running there later), and we were turned away. Amusingly enough, several twists and turns later, we finally made our way to a road that had a sign that mentioned Marathon Parking Right Lane. But it wasn't clear that those in the right lane would be FORCED into the parking lot. After all, we had another 2-3 miles to go to get where we wanted via driving. Well, we were in the right lane, so we were stuck... parking in the main area with everyone else, despite our parking pass that would have let us park MUCH closer to the start. C'est la vie. We were there, albeit later than planned -- the rest of the pace team had to be wondering what was happening. While I was very much spun up through the whole adventure (clear in our group text chat with a few messages I sent asking what was going on), this was fodder for lots of joking later in the evening. (Unfortunately, a fair bit of it at Alex's expense -- good thing he was as good a sport as he was.)
We handed out the pacer sticks to everyone, had our group photo in front of the finisher bell, and had a quick team meeting with some last minute advice dispensed, before we all went our separate ways (last minute prep, porta-potties, and into the corrals by 7:15am to gather up people who would be running with us).
After a brief pit stop (the lines never seem to move well, and there is no pre-set etiquette about how many porta-potties any one line goes to), I got my water bottle* and made my way into corral A, and lined up between the 3:40 and 3:55 pacer. After a couple of minutes trying to see who in my vicinity would be joining the group, I realized that where I should have had two water bottles (one in my hand and one in the back of my hydration belt), I wasn't actually holding a water bottle yet. Dammit! 12 minutes before race start -- no chance there's sufficient time to make my way to our tent to retrieve and get back in time. Sure, if there were nothing in the way, it would take less than 5 minutes, but I was taking no chances. OK, I'd have to deal with just the one -- either by taking cups to drink at some point on the course or refilling my bottle en route; play it by ear. The blessing about that, though, was that I wouldn't have the bottle bouncing on my backside for 13 miles. (And I would be 18 ounces lighter, too. Every bit helps.)
Soon enough, we were off! Temperature at the start was about 70F. Plan for the race was to take the uphills slower and make up the time on the downhills. Most of the course was either flat or small rolling hills, where we would aim for the average. The biggest thing I impressed incessantly on my group was that they need to not only make sure to drink at every water stop, but douse themselves with at least a couple of cups of water. I was highly impressed by the organizers making sure to set up several extra water stations (that contained solely water), presumably with the expectation that lots of the water at all of the stations would be used for dousing, given the conditions.
I was really happy with my group of about 8-10 people. They were responsive to my questions at the beginning, seemed to enjoy some of my anecdotes, and got comfortable enough with me and the others in the group to kick off some of the conversational topics themselves. I had many people who were running their very first marathon, and a couple of grizzled marathon veterans, including a Marathon Maniac who was running his 527th marathon. (It took him about 40 years to get that many under his belt.)
Finally in the lead-up to about Mile 14, I let my group know that I would be stopping for a little longer at the water station to fill up my bottle, but that they should keep on going on pace and I would catch up to them pretty quickly. By the time I caught up, I noticed that the group had actually split into two: the lead group was being headed up by the Maniac (who runs faster when he talks) and a trailing group (which may have fallen off pace by just a small touch). I caught the trailing group and pointed out that I would like us to be able to slowly but surely catch the lead group and re-form. As I did that, and made sure that my pace wasn't anything excessive compared to what the average should be, it seemed like most of the trailing group couldn't keep up, unfortunately. I caught up to the lead group shortly before we arrived at the Fly Zone -- one of few areas that had lots of spectators cheering. (Air Force Marathon provides a shuttle service between the start/finish line and the Fly Zone to give people an opportunity to see their runners at both locations, and it bolsters some of the restaurants and other businesses in the area as a nice side effect.)
On the initial leg of the Fly Zone, there was the overwhelming smell of bacon. Oh, scrumptious! I figured it was simply a tease from bacon being cooked in one of the nearby restaurants. Not so. In short order, I saw several signs exclaiming "BACON!" on the other side of the course, and people handing out cooked strips of bacon. "I am coming for you!" I screamed at the people manning that station.
A little over a mile or so, and many turns through the neighborhoods, later we arrived at the Bacon stop. I wasn't risking the "party foul" of missing the hand-off and dropping the bacon on the ground. I walked the stop like the water stops. OMG! While many people avoided it (it violates the cardinal rule of "nothing new on race day", and it's also inherently greasy -- not something that's advisable during a race) it was glorious. It was such a good relief from the sweet of the Shot Bloks that I use for my fueling. I only took one piece, despite being offered (and wanting) a second. It took a while to manage to chew the first half to then get to the second half -- I needed to be careful not to choke on the bacon "crumbs" that I was naturally creating while chewing. It's not something that one typically thinks about when eating bacon under normal circumstances, but when running a marathon at full pace, it's a very important thing to work through.
Unfortunately, within a few miles more, slowly but surely everyone in this remaining part of the group dropped off, including the Maniac who was at the front of the above video. I was barely holding it together through about Mile 20 or 21, before which I was solo. At this point, it was mostly a matter of making sure I finished healthy and tried to minimize the amount of overage, and all the better if I could manage to help out others on the way.
At about this time I picked up another runner (on his first marathon) who had fallen off whatever pace he had been doing. He got energized when I started passing him, and he stayed with me. I advised him that I was more likely in the 3:55 to 4:00 range, and he was completely fine with that: "I'm sticking with you." When we got to the next hill (which was a fair bit earlier than I expected), I told him I was going to walk up the hill -- worked for him. At the top, there was a medical tent where we each got a full bottle of very cold water. Oh, that felt so good pouring a fair bit over my head at that point, and even drinking some of it (as my water bottle was finished by that point).
Along the way, I kept on encouraging people who looked like they were struggling, but also making sure they knew the reality of the situation with me passing, that I was closer to 4-hour pace than 3:50 like the sign said.
As we approached ever closer, I tried to figure out what the likely time would be, but never saw a Mile 25 marker to help figure things out. (Apparently no one saw a marker for that point.) I knew I'd be under 4 hours, but would I be under 3:55, at least? I had run about an extra 1/4 mile across the length of the course (which equates to about 2 minutes), so without knowing what the mark was for Mile 25, there was no telling. After all, how much further off on distance was I, too? And there wasn't a Mile 26 marker either. So, even though I recognized that I was in the vicinity of the finish line, I didn't really know just how much further was with each of the next few turns until I entered the straightaway with the finish line in front of me and a 13 Mile flag for the half-marathon (which finish line coincided with ours).
I likely killed a couple of extra seconds doing a little playful posing for the camera before doing a finish line jump, which they didn't quite capture.
It took a bit to cross the start line, so the tale isn't *quite* as bad as the time above my head would imply. But not all that much better. My official splits:
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Boy, howdy, what a HARD day. Totally spent. Shortly after getting the medal and photo, I walked through a nice mist shower and collected my post-race food and drink. Thankfully the food was pre-set inside of easily carried boxes.
As much as I wanted to get out to the finish line to cheer on finishers, I needed to take care of myself first. My vision was slightly affected -- not quite dizziness or blurriness. Hard to describe accurately, but something I am accustomed to when truly spent after a hard run, and thoroughly symptomatic of being dehydrated. I chugged down a couple of bottles of water, and slowly went through some of the food, even though some of it was not overly palatable to me at the time -- I desperately needed to make sure I got some more calories and salt into my system. Gradually my vision returned to normal and I started feeling fairly decent, though obviously still tired.
Good timing, too. Because just around then, one of the guards came by with a Boston Dynamics robot dog.
One of the Galloway pacers' young (pre-teen) daughters was in the tent with us asking why kids her age weren't allowed to run or pace, and saying what she would be able to do. (Based on what I was inferring from the father, it sounded like she was not yet running, that most of this was just talk.) There isn't anything to stop her from getting into running and training up, eventually running in the races she's old enough to enter. And, once she has enough of that under her belt, she'll be able to look into pacing. Hopefully she took to heart some of what I was saying.
More and more pacers arrived in the tent, some who had hit their marks, others who were over by larger margins than I was. The last of our group of pacers arrived, and shortly thereafter a few of us took the golf bag with all of the pacer sticks back to the house for eventual shipping back to On Pace Race.
Showered and human again, I donned my Normatec boots to help speed along my recovery (and hopefully encourage some of the others to take advantage of them). Two of the other pacers plus one other person there took advantage of seeing what it was like to use these. They seemed favorably impressed with what their legs felt like afterward.
We had a late lunch of burgers, hot dogs, and chicken, and some traditional fixin's, sat around and chatted - some about the day just run, and plenty else. We did eventually have a repeat of the pasta dinner, took advantage of the hot tub, and dessert of s'mores around the fire pit, during which time Paul recounted his vantage point of the morning snafu of missing the exit and my reactions, and our mutual "blaming" it on Alex, dozing off as navigator right beforehand (where it was apparently dueling GPS systems saying different things for the same point in time). The way everyone's vantage points were explained led to much laughter - no recriminations anywhere around that fire pit.
That was it for me. Once we hit the sack, everyone thoroughly spent, I had a somewhat restless night's sleep, partly worried about whether the Uber I had ordered would actually arrive at the stupid-early 4:30am pickup I needed for my 6am flight. They were all likely still asleep when I walked in my front door at 7:30am, and were all set to have a pancake breakfast. (Darn, that would have been nice to be around for. There were 5 packages of bacon defrosting on the counter when I left. Oh, that smell would have been divine.)
Looking forward to pacing with these peeps again. While Air Force may not happen again given other races on the schedule, I don't doubt I'll cross paths with many of them on other pacing gigs.
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