It was lucky that the day before the race my friend drove me around most of the course. I got myself familiar with landmarks and especially with elevation. It was good to know what to expect so that I would be able to pace myself accordingly.
Besides the minor injuries in my right knee and left calf, my biggest worry was the weather. Thunderstorms were being predicted. Therefore I was fearful on how this was going to affect performance. Luckily thunderstorms never materialized. Instead a steady drizzle greeted us at the beginning and it was never much of a nuisance in the end.
The race itself started with us facing the arches and going into the direction of the Budweiser factory. The first 2 miles, I ran around 6.40s pace mile, but I knew I would not be able to sustain the pace. Besides that the marathon, half marathon and the marathon relay events started bunched together. I did not want to get carried away by starting too fast. Therefore I settled into a more reasonable rhythm of around 7.00min pace.
At around mile 9 marathon and half marathon runners were divided and finally could clearly distinguish who the other marathoners were. At this stage we were nearing Forest Park, my legs were still fine and I was keeping pace well.
Somewhere past mile 13 my legs started feeling heavy. My quads started to feel like stones and I worried about the hilly portion from miles 16 to 19. But I trudged along and hit mile 21 under 2h27, still running just under 7min mile pace.
Then trouble started. My right calf started to twitch and knew that I could cramp soon just like in Boston. To avoid this I had fueling myself steadily with Gatorade every mile or so. And took the energy gels every 30 to 40 minutes. In the end this was helpful. I naturally slowed down to an average of 7.20s but the cramps never came, though I would kept feeling a twitch here and there every half mile or so. I kept moving and even passed a couple of runners the last 2 miles. Seeing the arches again (despite the heavy fog) and the rain getting stronger just made me more anxious to get to the finish line.
It came soon enough and wished I had a sprint left in me to finish under 3h05 (official time was 3h05m02). But I can relax knowing that I will be running Boston next year. I will surely be running another marathon in the fall, hopefully NYC, when I hope to have a stab at the under 3h marathon. Till then it will be shorter races. I already signed up for the Brooklyn half in 6 weeks and that I will run for fun.
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1 comment:
Again, great job! All you have to do now is drop 5 minutes and 2 seconds off that this fall. With a full training program, that will be no problem for you.
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