Erie Marathon - Was It Enough?

The big day finally came. While I drove up from Virginia on Saturday in LOTS of rain bands, that worked its way through and out of the region by early evening Saturday. Race day was gorgeous: Cool throughout (constant mid-50s temp), dry, reasonably low humidity, decent cloud cover (and most of the course is in shade anyway). The only mixed blessing/curse was the wind. It was pretty much steady at 15mph (gust up to 25mph) for the whole race. So, while the wind kept me cool the entire time without need for dousing myself at any of the water stops, it was also more of a net hindrance pace-wise than a help.

I got out the door just before 5:30am and was parked by 5:40am; nice being so close. Given the conditions, I stayed inside the car until 6am and then headed on down the hill to the starting area. Shortly after arriving and chatting briefly with the owner of MarathonPacing.com (for whom I pace a few times per year -- but not today, as I was shooting for my own BQ goal), I crossed paths with one of the people whom I paced in the 3:40 group in Jack & Jill Poconos a few months ago. He recognized me right off. He was shooting for 3:40 again today but hadn't yet found the pacer at that point. We chatter about what his strategy would be if there wasn't a 3:40 pacer -- start slower and break away, chance going on his own at 3:40 pace, or risk going with a faster pace group. Ultimately, I expect that he found the 3:40 pacer when everyone was lining up before race start. Alas, with our respective schedules, I won't be pacing in any of his remaining races this year.

While standing around at the beginning, several of us were chatting about going for 3:15. One person mentioned drafting and I commented that I was never good about that, since I always worried about being too close and kicking or being kicked by the other person. He pointed out that it's not necessary to be as close as you see with cyclists. Rather, being about 3-5 feet away is just fine. OK -- I'll give it a shot.

A guy from Ontario, Canada was interested in pacing with me for 3:15. So, after we got past the initial crush of people, I proposed that we alternate drafting off each other (rather than running side by side). I drafted off him in the first mile, then went in front of him the second. But I wound up pulling away from him (or him dropping back?) in part because my in-mile pace on my Garmin is very wonky, and I can't often tell (at least early) whether I'm seeing accurate times. The next time I saw him was after the turnaround at half-way. At that point, he was about a minute or so behind me. And then, somewhere around Mile 20 or so, he finally caught up to me. He asked what my time was looking like -- at that point it was likely 3:16 - 3:17 -- and he slowly pulled away from me. He was definitely doing well enough to get close to 3:15. He ended up with 3:15:30. (!)

Despite the plan for alternating drafting with him falling through, there were plenty of people in the first half to 2/3 of the race that I was able to draft off of for a bit. Sometimes only a few seconds, sometimes for a minute or longer. Looking at my splits compared to the miles where we had tail or head wind, and the lack of people to draft off of during the second batch of headwinds late in the race, there was certainly a measurable effect. (How much was wind vice how much was just me fading in the last miles of the race, I can't quantify.)

The tail winds were from Miles 4-7 and 17-20 (largely my best splits for each half), and the head winds were from Mile 8-10 and 21-23 (negligible the first lap but highly noticeable the second lap).

Thankfully, I didn't need any of the water stops, since I carry my own and didn't need to douse. The stops left a fair bit to be desired, from what I observed of them. While they were generally highly enthusiastic, there were zero tables -- meaning all of the cups of water were on the ground at the volunteers' feet, so they had to continually bend down to pick them up. (What a pain to do for 6 hours!) And there was no predictable order of Gatorade vice water, nor a different color of cup for one vice the other.

Most of the other logistics of the race worked pretty well. The course was well enough marked and the instructions for where to be were well-communicated ahead of time.

One thing with my preparation that left a bit to be desired... I totally forgot to put on my band-aids prior to putting on my shirt. (For the uninitiated, the band-aids are to take the place of "nip tape", for placing over ones nipples to prevent chafing and the tell-tale bloody streak if it's bad enough.) For some reason, it took until about Mile 17 for me to realize I had forgotten it -- and I hadn't yet started feeling any chafing. But, by the end, there was a little bit of that tell-tale streak on my right side. (*sigh*) I need to figure out a better way of packing some of my items to make sure I don't forget to don those. While I had them in my bag, they didn't make their way out with the rest of the race items.

In the end, despite the stated goal of 3:15, real goal of 3:16 (going off my predicted BQ-9:00 being needed to register), my final time was 3:17:24 (BQ-7:36). Pretty darn good, and quite possibly good enough to squeak in. Boston registration is this week, and we should find out within a week or so thereafter what the buffer actually was. 

I hung around a little while after the race to chat with the aforementioned Canadian, my MPT hotel roommate (and admin of TONS of FB groups I'm in), and to be at the turnaround point (about .25 miles before the finish line) to cheer on the aforementioned former 3:40 pace group member. (If I'm looking up the right name, it looks like he was JUST over his goal time -- 3:40:20.)

By the time I got back to my hotel room, I had the full additional hour for late checkout. Soak for a little while, shower, change, and used the Normatec boots for about 15 minutes or so. Partway through, though -- a couple of minutes after I got out of the shower but prior to my actually getting any of my clothing on, there was a loud knock on the door. "I have a noon checkout!" I yelled out. A few seconds later, another knock. Relatively quickly, I donned my shorts. Good thing, too, because less than 5 seconds after I  did so, the door was opened -- by the owner who was on his rounds making up the rooms. Apparently, he hadn't been told by the person I had e-mailed that she agreed to my late checkout. All was fine, I was able to continue. I managed to get out at 12:02pm.

I made my way down to a hole-in-the-wall burger joint (housed in a Gulf gas station several miles away) that had gotten good reviews and was on my way home. Alas, they're closed on Sundays. (Would've been nice had the info I saw online indicated that!) Eventually, I found another place less than 2 miles away. The burger was ok, but certainly overcooked. 

I asked for medium well. Likely offended the sensibilities of the chef, who not only cooked it to well done, there was also rather a char on the outside of the burger. Oh well. It was reasonably tasty nonetheless. Crispy bacon, cheddar cheese, and BBQ sauce -- hard to go wrong.

The next few days of recovery will tell the tale about whether I should keep my planned 3:55 pacing in < 2 weeks, or if I should shift up to 3:50 (since the pacer they had for that had to cancel, and they would prefer to have the faster of the two times). Hmm... looking at the early forecast, it's going to be a hot day -- starting at 57F but getting to 81 for the high. Given the race starts at 7:30am, I'll be finishing close to 11:30am -- surely it will be 70 or warmer by then. Oy. Decisions, decisions.