Sunday, February 15, 2009

Last Chance for Boston, Ladd's 2nd marathon

Did my final prep run Friday morning with Chuck, 4 miles in exactly 32 minutes. Took my final rest day Saturday and ran the LCFB marathon today. Marsha and I made a nice getaway weekend out of this and went down early Saturday and spent the night. The host hotel for the marathon was a bit expensive so we didn't plan on spending the night but a week before the marathon Marsha called a hotel nearby and found a nice room for over 50 bucks cheaper than the host hotel. We had a nice evening out and got a pretty good nights sleep that I wouldn't have got had we drove there really early this morning. The funny thing was we left the room about 15 minutes before the start of the marathon this morning and to make up the point two of the 26.2 they backed up the start line from the finishing mats and the start of the race was about 20 feet from where my truck was parked and maybe a 1/2 minute walk to our room. How convenient, Marsha parked her chair right by our hotel and had quick access to all our stuff. The plan for this run was I'd run the first half and Marsha would join me at some point near the middle but she was a little concerned about running my pace for half a marathon. I thought of a strategy or a few but just didn't know what to do, thought originally that I'd do 8 minute miles til Marsha joined me and then slow down to 8:15 to 8:45 and hope to break 3:50. So the race begins and I go out a little fast but felt so good, as the miles passed I thought boy am I gonna pay for this pace later but kept going. It was almost 30 degrees at the start so I wore my cw-x tights and my Under Armour cold gear shirt and at 5 miles was getting a little warm so I yelled to Marsha to please go grab a thin long sleeve tech shirt and I'd change at mile 6. I get to mile 6 and just stop to change but had to peel gloves, gps, hat, shirt, glasses and shirt that was stuck to my skin, after wasting almost a full minute I take back off and notice about a half mile later that the gps was off and changed to a custom set up screen and I had lost my pace screen, I handed it off to Marsha and she got it back but now I don't have my exact time or distance. In the marathon they were supposed to tell the runners after 1 hour what mile you were at as you crossed the mat as it was a 1 mile loop we had to run 26 times. Sure there were times that a lot of runners were crossing together but they never called my laps as I went thru, finally at mile 21 Marsha ran up to them and said what mile for bib 97 and they announced it that one and only time. My 5k split was just under 23 minutes, 10 k split was 47:07 and my first half was just under 1:40. I knew this was too fast for a full marathon but knew that I had built a pretty good cushion for my new PR. Marsha did some warm up laps without me and joined me a little here and there til she jumped in to run the last 6 miles with me. She says to me "don't let me slow you down" and I try to not laugh. I still felt good but was starting to slow a bit, with 4 miles to go I was starting to get some calf cramps and a little cramping inside the knees like I did in Akron, the last 3 were getting tough and with 2 to go I started getting shooting pain that caused a little more walking than I liked but I had no choice, would have walked more but was getting pushed (thank you, Marsha) to get back to jogging and hit 3:35 and that's exactly where I finished at 3:35:34, 17 minutes off my Akron time. I was 38th person across the mat of 137 runners (500 runners in all at the beginning with the 5k, 10k, and 1/2 marathon runners) and 13th in my 10 year age group of 31, I hate 10 year age groups, 95% of races are 5 year age groups. I had fun except for those last 3 painful miles.
Here are my mile splits:
1 -8:50
2- 7:19
3- 7:27
4- 7:35
5- 7:27
6- 8:31 shirt change
7- 7:32
8- 7:33
9- 8:15
10-7:23
11-7:11
12-7:56
13-7:54
14-7:51
15-8:06
16-8:01
17-8:03
18-8:30
19-8:23
20-8:39
21-8:50
22-9:12
23-9:17
24-9:37
25-10:39 ouch
26-9:46

2 comments:

Dan Horvath said...

Ladd,

Once again, Congrats on a fine race!

Hey, I have an idea. Run the last three miles FIRST - that way you won't be so shot at the end of the race.

Nice Goin'

Dan

Dan D. said...

Way to go Ladd! Nice showing. That's a great chunk of time to take off. Which do you prefer now, September or February? Are you going to be ready for 10 on Sunday? See you then.