Ben’s Race Page

M 30-34 Place: 71 Overall Place: 451
1st Half Rank: 97 1st Half Time: 2:01:15 1st Half Pace: 9:15
2nd Half Rank:28 2nd Half Time: 1:41:45 2nd Half Pace: 8:04
Chip Time: 3:46:56 Gun Time: 3:49:05 Overall Pace: 8:40

It was a great day and a great race. The temperature was about perfect and there wasn’t a lot of wind. The course goes up Mission Peninsula and the views on the run were beautiful. I started out running with my friend Brian as it was his first marathon. We started a couple minutes back and saw our wives and families right near the start of the race. We kept a steady pace just over 9 minute miles and everything felt comfortable. We knew our wives and families would be waiting at mile 6, so we looked for them again. Brian spotted Carrie first and I was able to cut across the 1/2 marathon traffic to give her a kiss. We say Brian’s wife and family up a little way. Then we turned for the rest of the run up the peninsula.

Everything felt great. We kept a steady pace and had some good conversation. Brian’s IT bands had been tight and I asked him about it and he said they were fine, but he could feel them a bit. A very nice woman offered him some Aspirin, so he took them and we kept on running. There weren’t a lot of spectators, but the views were nice and the spectators that were out helped.

I knew Brian was meeting a friend at around the 15 mile mark and I was hoping to go under 4 hours, so at the halfway point, we parted ways. I pushed ahead and tried to keep a slightly faster pace. I saw Brian’s brother and friend at mile 15 and let them know Brian was a couple of minutes back.

I kept up a pretty good pace, but wasn’t keeping track of how fast I was running. I was passing people and not being passed by anyone. I passed one group of people who commented that they didn’t think I had run the whole marathon due to my pace. We laughed and I kept on going. I was looking forward to seeing Carrie at mile 20, but didn’t see her. She wasn’t able to get back via the shuttle bus and was worried that if she did, she would miss me at the finish. I kept going.

After about mile 20, I found that my quads hurt with every step I took, so I did what I could to keep my mind off of them. I kept a steady pace, watched other runners, and encouraged some as I ran by. At around mile 24, a group of guys was handing out beer, so I grabbed one and took a couple of sips and then tossed it. It was actually pretty good.

I heard one lady discussing how long she had to get to a 3:50. I asked her how long she had to hit 3:50. She said, “I can’t.” I told her there is no can’t and kept on.

I was really looking forward to a gatorade at the last aid station, but the jerk (not the word I used in my head at the time) in front of me, grabbed all the fluids. There were 2 people handing out water and gatorade and he grabbed all four cups so that they were reloading as I went through. I said, “can I get one?!” and one worker frantically handed me a water, but I was ticked off. I didn’t say anything to the jerk who took all the fluids, but I wish I would have. This whole incident just made me mad and I pushed on faster, or at least what seemed like a faster pace.

I finally made the turn back into the college and I knew the finish was coming up. I was really hurting at this point and just wanted to finish the race. I kept thinking the finish had to be soon, but it seemed to be a long way away. Finally, I saw Carrie, Heather, and Steve. Unfortunately, I was behind some other runners, so I wasn’t in the best position for them, but I waved as best I could while keeping concentration. Their cheers really helped. Carrie even recruited another woman to cheer for me! I turned the corner and was on the track for the final 200 meters. I was moving pretty quick at this point and heard a lot of comments on how good I looked from the crowd. The final 200 meters felt like they were taking forever, but I finally saw the finish and had enough to make a final kick. I was hurting, but glad to be done. Since I hadn’t been keeping track, I thought my time was closer to 3:50.

I knew Brian would be behind me, so I grabbed a water, collected my medal and headed to the refreshments. I saw people with Coldstone ice cream, so I knew I needed some of that. I got a gatorade, banana, and some orange slices, then stood in line for the coldstone. I chatted with a couple of other people in line. One was a first timer who got a 3:45, great job for him! The other guy qualified for Boston.

I finally got my ice cream and headed back to where I saw everyone in hopes of catching Brian. He hadn’t passed yet, so I waited and saw him. He looked great! We all cheered him on and then waited for him to come back. He finished in an awesome time of 4 hours and was already talking about running a second marathon.

I’m still feeling a little sore, but I think I ran a pretty good race. I feel like my training went very well, but I still wasn’t really prepared on race day. I’m not sure exactly what caused this. I may need more strength training or I may have done too much biking leading up to the race. Lack of sleep could have also caused this feeling.

Anyway, I had a great time and the race was a good one. The scenery was great and I had no complaints about the aid stations. Post race food was great. The expo was just okay and although they had a lot of port-o-lets, they probably could have used a few more. The course was flat with a couple of gentlr hills. I would definitely recommend this race to other runners.

I’ve got a couple of half marathons coming up, so look for race reports on those.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 8:49 pm and is filed under Races. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.