A year ago today i ran my first Marathon at the lovely Potomac River Run Marathon. In the past i avoided marathons for longer races. My first really long distance race was the JFK 50 in 1984. In avoiding marathons i missed out on a LOT of fun. In my first marathon i found out how charming a distance it really is. You start hurting somewhere around 18-20 miles and as soon as you know it, the race is over. In my first Potomac River Run Marathon I was barely in shape to finish the distance so i did a walk/run patter on 20 minutes run and 10 minutes fast walk like i do on long training runs. The race was delightful ! I got to see the sun rise over the Potomac and the entire path along the C & O canal path was scented with the intoxicating fragrance of black locust flowers. It was quite hot that day too. Today it was quite cool and there were fewer flowers blooming but the path along the Potomac was wonderful. This time the river was VERY high and it was a little intimidating for me to run along the canal path with a precipitous drop into fast moving water. The power of water has been an ongoing theme in my weekend runs.
I started the race with the hope that i would be able to break 4:15 in order to qualify for the Escarpment Trail race in July. I love the course there ! I was running quite a bit faster than i normally do in training but my heart rate as measured on my GPS was suitably low. Even from the beginning the fast pace hurt. I kept it up til about 8 miles when i realized that there was no way my legs were going to let me get away with it. I train slowly so that is pretty much what my legs want to do. From 8 miles to 20 miles i went into a holding pattern just trying to keep proper form and cadence. A few trips to the bushes to deal with digestive issues slowed my time a bit. I should stick with my usual omllet for race day breakfasts. After 20 miles i realized i was hurting a bit from moving faster than usual so instead of slowing down i pushed a bit. The harder effort made the last miles drag a bit. I played tag with a woman named Mary from Georgia. We stayed together til almost the finish where i picked up the pace to around 8 minutes a mile. I wanted to at least finish under 4:40 but i ended up 18 seconds over. No problem. Mary got a hug when she passed the finish line. After finishing i took off my race number and went for a walk. While walking i picked up random trash left by the racers. I really wish that people would be more respectful of wilderness. The C & O is a thin sliver of lovely wilderness from Washington DC to Cumberland MD. It’s not a city street in a city Marathon.
Wile walking i saw Tammie Massie coming in for a finish. It was very nice to see her. I had hoped to run with her but she got a bit of a late start and had to take it easy for the first couple of miles to warm up her legs. When i turned back to the finish i saw Tammie had the same idea to walk off the Marathon so we walked and talked about ultramarathons for quite a while. She is doing the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning which is 4 tough 100 mile runs in 4 months. The runs are The Vermont 100 miler, Wastern States, Leadville and Wasatch. She was very lucky to get in the Western States lottery. Lots of people try to get in but don’t.
After walking with Tammie i spent some time helping move stuff back to the van for the race director. People did seem surprised that i did that after running a marathon but for the most part the distance is not that hard for me. The difficulty comes in at running fast and that is self limiting. I’m just pretty slow. Maybe i would go faster if i trained faster but i like to creep along in my training runs ;-)
The food after the race was really nice. There were bagels and there was pizza, fruit and even some sharp cheddar pieces. I wish some of that food had been out on the race course rather than just gels, water and gatorade. That sweet stuff might have been the cause of some of my digestive distress. I forgot to bring along some salt so i did take some gatorade for salt and as usual,.that is a mistake. The usual packets of Medjool dates and almonds with one hammer gel kept me well fueled. I’m just spoiled with good ultra aid stations ;-).
After i had been moving stuff for the race for a while i got in touch with Laura. She was less than a mile away. It was sweet to hear that. I wanted a bath and a nap. These early morning race starts get me very sleepy.When we got home we had a nice cup of coffee and i got cleaned up before we had a long nap. We awoke for dinner, ate and after dinner i wrote this race report.
It was a good day. Other than sore feet probably from the rocky path i feel like i have had a very good but not overwheming workout.
