andy reagan only the interesting stuff

Richmond Marathon

The culmination of four months of training  took place on this past Saturday (Nov 12) and I am really happy with the result. Reducing the incredible experiences during training to a single number, my finishing time, would be selling short the real fun in marathoning: training with others. I thought before the race about who I could dedicate my run to, and my best answer was to the people who helped me get to the finish line through their support and awesome times running together. I started to make a list, but it included pretty much everyone I know, and almost certainly everyone reading this now! So this one was for you! Without further adieu, here is snapshot of the results, my pace, and the course:

Full Results Link

Downloadable google earth data available upon request. It's pretty cool, you can make it do a run through of the course.

Race Day Morning

Awoken at 4:45AM by my alarm, I snapped up and heated up the yummy kroger brand, low sugar, brown sugar maple instant oatmeal that I readied the night before. The goal was to get my heavier pre-race fuel in 3 hours before the start, which is a general rule of thumb to allow my body to metabolize it during the race.

I rode with Bradner from our hotel to get there earlier rather than later, and we were in Richmond by 6:15AM, with the race starting at 8AM. Temperatures were in the mid to low 30's, so I wore sweatpants and jacket to the starting area. With 5,000 marathoners, 8,000 half'ers, and 5,000 8k-ers with maybe as many spectators, it's always crazy near the start. But we still managed to find everyone from the team. I gave my sweatpants and jacket to Erika at 7:15 when she was checked her bag for her 7:30 half marathon. Needless to say that was way too early, with temps in the 30's and me just wearing short shorts and a singlet (thin tank top).

Staving off the frostbite by shivering, and making use of an alley (the port-o-john lines were outrageous), Chrissy, Carly, Stephan, Scott, Kevin, Greg, Aaron, Hannah and myself were all together in corral 1 in time for our start, and had made our way to the 3:30 pace guy.

First Half

Off the line, which is only took less than a minute for us to cross, it was a slow-ish start. Chrissy and I and our pack navigated the crowd, but it wasn't bad at all having to get around people. The first few miles flew by, logging some cold, but comfortable 7:55's.

I started to warm up after about 4 miles, but kept the gloves and arm warmers up for a long time (until like 16). Chrissy and Carly and I and Scott and Stephan were all just having fun, and trying to keep eachother from taking off because we felt so good. At the halfway point, I could just barely feel that my legs had exerted much effort, but could definitely feel how hard the pavement was in comparison to the trails we'd trained on.

Miles 16-23

Chrissy's stomach was acting up real bad, and she hadn't eaten yet at all. She found an open port-o-john a little earlier, and had caught back, but at 16 when she stopped again we never saw her. She said she almost caught us by mile 20, but by then her stomach had knotted completely and she couldn't run. After 16 when Chrissy stopped, Carly had stayed with the pace group and Stephan and I had more or less taken off from the group. We kept holding the high 7:40 pace, and got down into the low 7:40's. At about 18, I was talking out loud to Stephan about whether we should continue this pace and finally concluded (censored) "[screw] it, let's go for it" and meant that let's just gamble and see if we can hold this. We passed Greg and Aaron pretty quickly at mile 20, and I felt really great (not hurting at all) until mile 23. Then:

Miles 23-26.2

Not much more I can say about these than ouch. My legs suddenly didn't want to move anymore, but I mind-over-matter kept them rolling. Slowing to a 9:30 pace for the 24th mile made the pain in my legs tolerable, but I knew that I had about 28 minutes to complete the final 5k, and 9:30 wasn't going to cut it. Stephan didn't hit the wall as hard, and continued on.

I pushed harder, and suffered through a very arduous 25th mile at 9:10 pace. With only little more than a mile remaining, and seeing that I had only 9 minutes remaining, I tried for all I was worth to hit the gas. Carly came flying by, and not too long after her the faster of 3:30 pace guys came by me. The last mile was downhill, which made it hurt even worse, but I dug as deep as I could and found a final 8:18 somewhere. The last .4 (my Garmin actually had me at 26.4 because I didn't follow the best course, being in the crowd you can't) I was giving it everything, with absolutely nothing left in the tank, and I think that I remember seeing a sub-7 last .4, seeing as I was going with everything.

Here I am at probably one of the most painful times I've experienced (cross the line):

After Finishing

They put a huge medal around my neck as I finished, and all I wanted to do was get off my legs. I found a pleasant enough section of pavement next to the barrier (still in the finishing shoot) and sat down. I tried drinking some water, and stretching but I couldn't move my legs much or they'd instantly cramp. I was pretty much a physical, and emotional, wreck.  I hadn't seen Chrissy come through after a few minutes, and was almost sobbing when 3:35 passed and she hadn't made it. When she hadn't come through after half an hour, her parents and the rest of us were worrying, and it turned out that after her stomach knotted she just couldn't run anymore, and walked the last 6. She's pretty torn up about it as well, but she's in killer shape so she's pull together an awesome race soon.

As I laid there staring into space, Greg and Aaron finished and found me laying curled up on the pavement trying to drink some water. After 20 minutes or so Alex came and pulled me up (I literally didn't help), and I stumbled over and ate some pizza and drank some more water.

Conclusions

In my first marathon after running seriously for only about four months, I hit my goal time of 3:30 and couldn't be happier with that. If I hadn't blown up, I would've finished with Stephan two minutes earlier, but that's only two minutes. I might also have been able to walk better that night, but in only two days I've mostly recovered (just finished a nice 15 mile bike ride) and after swearing off marathoning during the race, can at least entertain the idea of another attempt (faster, of course).