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The Night Before

As usual, I was nervous the week before the race.  I took it easy when running, remembering the fatigue I felt leading up to New York.  All told, I wasn't sleeping enough, but I did manage to get lots of sleep the night before the race. 

I left work around 1 the day before, and took the Mulkiteo-Clinton ferry over to Whidbey.  There wasn't a lot to the marathon expo.  Picking up a packet and browsing around took all of ten minutes.  I spent a while hanging out in a local bookstore before dinner.  Dining options were minimal in Oak Harbor, but I was lucky enough to find a restaurant that prepared a very nice pasta and vegetable plate with olive oil.  I drifted to sleep as I watched the Mariner offense sleep against lousy Ranger pitching. 

Race Day

I awoke to the alarm on race morning, well-rested but foggy.  I'd aided sleep the night before with 2mg of Melatonin and a cup of valarion root tea.  I'd like to get away from doing this, but my sleep patterns are unreliable and I'm not willing to take the chance on not sleeping properly.  I pulled on my clothes, downed a bagel, and headed over to the hotel office to check out and catch the bus.  I was carrying gel packs and two 24 oz bottles of Accelerade on my belt, and a 20 oz bottle in my hand.  I ascertained that support on the course was to be more minimal than I required, so carrying my own was essential.

The Early Miles

The bus dropped us off in Coronet Bay Park.  Oddly, we needed to walk down the road about 1/3 mile to find the start.  We hung out trying to stay warm while waiting for the starting horn.  I'd scampered over to the side of the road to stretch when the horn went off, with nary a countdown apparent.  That was no big deal, as it took all of 10 seconds to reach the official start from where I'd been stretching.

Information on the course was scant before the race.  As a result, I remain sketchy about landmarks and locations afterwards.  I just know that things were great until someplace between mile 6 and 7 when we hit the first major hill.  We'd climbed quitea bit in the first three miles, but it was fairly gradual.  I spent the first few miles in close proximity to a guy with headphones belting out Christian tunes.  While he sang, I prayed for some distance between us, as he was beginning to rattle me a bit.  He, and a few others were following the Galloway walk-break strategy.  They would be quite a bit in front of me, and then I'd catch them on a walk break.  It was interesting knowing that I wouldn't take breaks myself this time around (as I had on all of my previous marathons).

Very early in the race, I kept my heart rate under 150.  The hills made this hard to sustain.  My splits were reasonably consistent, ranging from 8:52 to 9:07 for the first six miles.  After that the hills became a factor, directly affecting my pace, and slowly eroding my physical reserves.  I saw this later in the heart rate vs. altitude plot of the course.

The Middle Miles

We leveled off around mile 8, and other than a quick 100 foot climb, were level or descending until mile 13.  I hit the 13 mile mark at 1:58 and change, and felt encouraged about breaking four hours.  Through this second set of climbs, I managed to maintain both my pace (other than slowing to 9:26 between mile 13 and 14), and my average heart rate (in the low-to-mid 150s).

It was shortly after mile 16 that things started to get pretty tough.  I was definitely feeling fatigued by then.  My quads and hips were tiring, and I was beginning to feel the climbing in my calves.  When we began the third big climb along Scenic Heights in Oak Harbor, I was definitely feeling it, and hoping that we were going to finish with a reasonably level ten miles.  Of course that was not to be.

Two miles and 240 feet of ascent later, we began a nice downhill stretch.  Despite my fatigue, I still felt pretty focused and ready to pick up the pace if I needed to.  We continued downhill to around mile twenty. 

The Last 10K

Early in the race, I'd been telling myself that this marathon was really a twenty mile warmup run and then a fast 10K.  By mile twenty, I had long since stopped believing that.  By then I was just trying to keep a good pace so that I had a shot at breaking four hours.  It remained a possibility until very late in the race, so my average heart rate for the last 10K was around 165.  I had to keep pushing in order to keep the four hour goal in sight.

We kept up a steady up and down pattern throughout, as we hugged the shoreline heading for the finish in Coupeville.  By mile 23, keeping my head in the race was a struggle.  I definitely felt the pain of not knowing the course, and not holding some more back.  I knew that I could do the distance, but couldn't help feeling as though the hill factor weighed more heavily than it had in training.  I'm not sure whether this was because I'd not been focused on a time goal during my late miles in training, or whether these miles were just harder than my training had been.  In any case, every time I'd round a bend and see another hill, my heart would sink a little.  Next time around I will need to work on seeing through this with more positive thinking.  My whole attitude shifted towards the tired and somewhat surly.  Later, a woman I'd passed around mile 23 told me that I'd kind of grunted a response to her cheerful greeting - an obvious indicator of creeping negativity.

Breaking four hours remained a (receding) possibility until about halfway up the last major hill after mile 25.  I did some quick math, and realized that I'd need to maintain about 8:15 over the last 1.2 miles.  As I was heading uphill, and had done none of my splits that fast, I decided to save my calves from cramping, and walk up the hill.  I regret this a bit, but not because I think it made the difference between meeting my goal and not meeting it (my last full mile split was about 9:45).  I regret doing this because it means that I conceded without pushing myself hard for another ten minutes.  I probably lost only 30 seconds maximum by walking.  More significantly I lost the right to say that I didn't concede my goal.  Oh well.

The final 0.2 miles were also uphill, but they were more of a blur.  I watched 3:59 click over to 4:00 as I finished, and cursed to myself as I crossed the line at 4:01:13.  By then I was pretty consumed by negativity.  After walking it off a bit, getting a hip massage, and changing into dry clothes, I felt better about things.

Small Victories and Some Lessons

I did not feel as though I'd run as smart a race as I could have.  I probably should have worked harder to get a course profile, so that I had some sense of what lay in store.  I also think that I'd picked a poor race to ditch my walk breaks.  This was a course that required holding something back for the end.  I should have had more to drink on the course.  Most significantly, I allowed myself to get eaten up by late-mile naysaying.

On the positive side, I'm really not sure I could have run for a significantly better time.  I should have broken four hours, but probably not by much.  I also finished fourth of thirteen in my age bracket, my best finish in any race I'd run.  Although there was a fairly small field, I still feel good about that.  After the ferry ride and drive home, I enjoyed relaxing with my family again, and accepted my daughters' interest in my finisher's medal.  Twenty minutes after arriving at home, I'd thrown my stuff in the laundry, and filed my race number away with all of the other ones.  Soon after, the medal went into the file too.

Now it's time to look ahead to a nice vacation in Hawaii, and then on to Grandma's in June!