Go St. Louis Marathon

Earlier today I competed in the annual Go St. Louis marathon. While in terms of triathlon, my background is in running--marathons are actually something a bit beyond what I traditionally ran in terms of distance. So, completing one for me is not like Kara Goucher branching out from the 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) to run the marathon (26.2 miles) since my events were 800 and 1500 meters in college. Kara is basically quadrupling her race distance whereas I am actually running over twenty five times as far--not even close to a fair comparison. Incidentally, both Kara Goucher and Ryan Hall, two of America's premiere distance runners, are racing in the Boston Marathon tomorrow 4/20/09. I hope they both run smart and well and though there are prognosticators who expect(?)/predict an American win after a 25 year drought, I have my doubts on the likelihood of that occurring tomorrow.

My last race of this distance was the Honolulu marathon (12/15/08) which of course resulted in my squeaking in a personal record by about a minute in 417:36. Today I went into the race with the minimal goal of just setting a PR though I expected that I would be able to run closer to 4 hours if the weather cooperated. In Hawaii that was my goal too but a very heavy rain in the first hour and the packed course for the first 3 miles threw off my plans to run close to 4 hours in December. Too many slow runners started out close to the front of the pack and trying to navigate my way around them took lots of effort and slowed my time considerably for the first couple of miles. Of course here in St. Louis for the Go race the rains decided to descend upon me once again to attempt to thwart my personal record breaking effort. I think my new goal for the next marathon is to run in a race without rain--nothing would make me happier at this point.

To be fair, the rain in St. Louis today was not nearly as bad as the downpour in Hawaii--though the Honolulu rains only lasted for about an hour and then stopped. Today the rain was pretty much constant except for maybe 20 minutes in the middle of my race. Due to the rain, my temporary insanity, or the desire to do something bold, I opted not to try and run even or negative splits which is something I always advise people tackling the marathon. Instead, I decided to run this race like the Kenyans do--go out hard and try and hang on.

As a result, before the race I found the 3:50 pace group who planned to average 8:49 miles the whole way and planned to stay with them for as long as I could. I stuck with that group basically through the first 13.1 miles and then opted to let them go since the effort to stay with them was starting to cause me to work too hard. By way of explanation, my theory on running marathons is that the race should be divided into two parts, the first 20 miles, and the last 10k. For the first 20 miles the goal is to complete that section using as little energy and effort as possible to arrive at the start of the last 10k in a decent time so that you aren't too tired. In other words--you should feel at each moment of the first 20 miles like the pace is comfortable and relatively easy to maintain--that you could increase the pace at any point if you needed to do so. The last 10k is usually the gut check where things start getting hard on the body and the mental side of the race is sometimes more important than the physical side. Unfortunately, some people take that a little too far and think that no long distance running is necessary (crossfitters) and the mind can overcome glaring physical deficiencies. I think that is just absurd and reality has a habit of educating such individuals of their ignorance.

Anyway, for the first 13.1 I was still in cruise mode though I could tell that left to my own pace I wouldn't be nearly that fast. I came across the 13.1 marker in about 154:00 which is actually my second fastest half marathon ever--I have run several around 159-204 and my p.r. from the Clayton half marathon race is 145. While today's half marathon pace was not super fast--it was the fastest I have ever run half of a marathon before.

Also, there was a point on the course in Forest Park where they had us do a short out and back where I said hello to a runner I know from the triathlon club, Mary, who was probably about 2 minutes behind me. Mary was running in her first marathon, is a pretty good triathlete, and not carrying any excess weight like your truly so I figured that unless she blew up I was going to have to have to push it to keep Mary from leaving me behind on the rain soaked streets. Of course, Mary passing me would not be the end of the world, but I think there is an inherent desire in each runner to run their best race possible and finish ahead of runners they have trained with in the past.

The rain slowed the pace and my shoes were soaked within the first three miles or so. The good news is that there weren't nearly as many runners as in Honolulu or Chicago so I didn't have to fight to go past slow runners, and I was able to maintain that 8:49 pace for the first half of the race. After the halfway point I slowly backed off that pace averaging around 9:00 to 9:10 depending on how I felt, and of course the topography became more challenging in the second half of the race. For those not familiar with the course, it starts near City Hall, and proceeds to Broadway, down to AB, then up Chouteau. We cruise down Forest Park Parkway area for a bit and finally enter Forest Park, then Clayton and U-City. We cruise a couple of miles east on Delmar with some rolling hills and past Big Shark Bicycle before re-entering the park. At that point I reached mile 20 and the tough part of the race had begun.

Incidentally I ran 7 miles in 1 hour exactly, then 14 miles in 2 hours exactly. By the three hour mark I had slipped down to around 20 miles not the 21 miles I would have completed if I had maintained that 8:49 pace. After mile 20 my legs started to show the strain of the race thus far--it was harder to maintain a good pace and I dipped over 10 minutes per mile and sometimes eleven or even twelve minute miles up hills. I started trying to countdown the miles one at a time at that point just trying to run them under 10 minutes each since I knew breaking the 4 hour barrier was going to be a close call.

Unfortunately, the last few miles had some hills leaving Forest Park, on the Parkway ramp and on Market before Jefferson each of which slowed me down. By this point other runners were passing me and I expected Mary to come running by whenever I heard footsteps behind me. With 1.2 miles to go and just under 10 minutes to reach the finish before the 4 hour mark I tried to push the pace but my legs were just fried--nothing much was left in the tank.

I finished in 401:36 and not surprisingly, Mary finished two runners and only fifteen seconds behind me! Whew! that was a close call and I had no idea how close she was to me until I arrived home and checked the website for results.

After I went through the chute, I picked up my medal, walked through some very muddy terrain to get some water, banana, and pretzels and walked to my car. It was still raining and though I had some friends still out on the course, I opted to go home to try and recover rather than stay and deal with the rain to cheer them on. My legs were extremely sore and actually navigating my body into my car seat was painful, though of course I had experienced that type of soreness in previous marathons. Once I arrived at home I took a cold bath for a few minutes in an attempt to reduce swelling of my muscles and speed my recovery. I then took a long nap and woke up feeling slightly better but still moving slowly--think of the elderly Benjamin Button and you get the idea.

Overall, I am quite pleased with my finishing time; it was exactly 16 minutes faster than I ran in Honolulu which was only four months ago. Again, it is confirmation my self coaching on the run and bike portions of the triathlon are working for me so far. In terms of marathon--the only one I have signed up for is actually part of a full ironman I have planned to complete in Florida at the end of the season. However, I have been toying with the idea of signing up for the Chicago marathon since it is almost 100% flat and I should be able to set a new personal record there absent unusual circumstances. I really want to nab a sub four hour marathon now since I was so close this time. Also, my sister will be starting a job near Chicago late this summer so I could obviously spend some time with her. However, that race is only two weeks before my ironman. I will probably decide whether to run Chicago in the next few weeks.