26.2 miles through scenic Charm City
Oct. 13th, 2008 06:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaHi, this is LONG. For those of you who just want the summary: 3:54:36, which hit my goal right on the nose - a personal best by 12 minutes and it qualifies me to run the Boston Marathon (for either 2009 or 2010, and if I do it, it will be 2010). Edited to reflect updated race statistics: 8/94 F45-49, 169/1126 women, 773/3112 finishers. Third marathon, first time running Baltimore. The weather was sunny and became quite warm, 54 at the start and 72 at the end, with dewpoints pleasantly in the upper 40s.
I was nervous as we lined up next to the Camden Yards stadium. I'd been fighting pain in my right calf and shin for the past two weeks; I hadn't run since Monday, hoping that the rest would heal whatever the problem was, but I could feel the twinges during the walk from one gate to another on Thursday as I changed planes on my flight in, and again as I walked from my hotel to the race start.
Another reason I was nervous was that Baltimore was much bigger than any of the races I'd run before. The Durango Marathon draws about 200 marathoners and 300 half runners; here there were more than 4000 marathoners and relay runners, and we'd be joined by 13,500 half runners, starting 1:45 after our start, 3 miles into their run at our mile 16. (This turned out to be precisely calculated to inconvenience runners at my exact pace. I would not recommend Baltimore for ~4 hour marathoners trying to PR.)
My goals for this race were fairly narrow: I was aiming at 3:55 (about 9 minute miles), I would be happy with sub-4:00, and if everything came together and I ran a perfect race with a tailwind and magic pixie dust I thought I might push close to 3:50. I suppose if I had only beat my PR of 4:07 I would have been not too grumpy. I lined up between the 3:50 and 4:00 pace groups. I created a pace band with rough splits - just to the nearest 5 seconds - based on 8:50 pace, with faster downhills and slower uphills, just to give me a lower bound on pace and keep myself from running too fast. (9 min miles I can figure splits in my head easily enough.) I ran with Garmin (and HRM), keeping track of laps manually, which was a good thing because I lost signal a few times among the downtown skyscrapers, and a few splits were ridiculously off by Garmin calculations due to precision error. This meant, though, that the "lap pace" on my wrist didn't necessarily match the pace I was actually running, so I had to be careful not to follow it too slavishly and run by feel as much as by the numbers. (At one point it told me I was running a 6:50 lap pace, which was clearly wrong. Sure enough, that "mile" turned out to be 1.3 miles long by the Garmin, and my real split was just fine.)
And we're off! Very, very slowly, as the huge mass of runners squeezed through the start line. I went through about 1:10 after the gun. There was no possible way I could pass the solid wall of humanity in front of me. Fortunately, my Garmin said we were moving at 9:07, acceptable for the warm-up mile...except either I really blew the tangents or the Garmin was seriously off, and my actual first-mile split was 9:38. I did not think this was a good sign. But I told myself to just stay cool, run my pace, make up the seconds during the downhills - and that's what I did. The first two miles were uphill, and then it was downhill to the 7 mile mark, by which time I was 30 seconds ahead of my pace band time.
1: 9:38
2: 8:53
3: 8:27
4: 8:36
5: 8:23
6: 8:38
7: 8:33
We crossed the head of the Inner Harbor, lots of people cheering - this would be where the half started in another 45 minutes. Then we turned through the neighborhoods toward Fort McHenry. This is where I saw my first set of women dressed up in campy stereotypical Baltimore outfits (think "Hairspray") - towering beehive hairdos, cat glasses, and polyester pantsuits, holding big signs saying, WELCOME TO BAWLMER, HON!
The pain in my right calf had been slowly ramping up. It hurt, but since it hurt whether I ran fast or slowly, I concentrated on keeping a steady pace and dialing in my 9 minute miles now that the course was flat. I had deliberately kept my speed on the high end of my calculated range to leave things open in case I wanted to go for 3:50, but calf pain + building heat = slow it down. I started thinking I ought to eat a gel - I had a few in my belt, along with a water bottle that had proven a timesaver as the first few aid stations were quite crowded. I saw an aid station ahead and thought I'd grab some water there - and they had banana pieces! I told myself, "aren't calf cramps often due to lack of potassium? Bananas have lots of potassium! This will cure your calf!" Anyway, the banana was tastier than a gel, and I convinced myself that my calf hurt less. I took banana pieces at the next two aid stations, and by mile 13 my calf had mostly stopped hurting - I don't know if it was the potassium or the psych-out, but I don't care, it worked.
This part of the course was an out-and-back with a loop at the end, which meant that I got to see the lead runners go by in the other direction and cheer them loudly. (I also thanked every intersection cop and aid station volunteer I saw, at least until near the end when I ran out of energy to do anything other than run.) On the way back I got to see the middle-back of the pack, which included two girls in crab costumes and a man jumping rope as he ran. At mile 13 we went back across the head of the harbor, just as one of the waves of the half marathon was getting started right next to us. They went straight, and we turned right; the courses rejoined at mile 16.
8: 9:01
9: 9:03
10: 8:50
11: 8:57
12: 9:07
13: 8:53 (half split: 1:56:01)
14: 8:50
15: 9:11
16: 9:02
The half runners came in just as we started up the first of the "hills." I put this in quotes because the only reason I knew we were going up a hill was because the runners next to me were complaining about it. Our standards for hills in Colorado are a bit more vertical. But they must have had some effect, because my splits for the uphill stretch to mile 22 were slower. Then again, it could have been the exasperating weaving back and forth trying to get around the bajillon turtle-speed half runners who seemed to all be running six abreast. Or it could have been the heat, because by now it had gotten above 70 and the sun was high and relentless. Forget running the tangents - I was running the shade, milking every tiny bit I could find. Astonishingly, lots of runners were wearing long sleeves, and lots were wearing black. One woman I passed wore a long sleeved black shirt(!)
I wore my HRM and my HR really started to climb here. I still felt pretty good, though. It was nifty to run through the neighborhoods, so many people cheering, playing music, waving signs ("your feet hurt because you're KICKING SO MUCH A**!") and ringing cowbells. And I had started to pass wilting marathoners, some with 3:50 and even 3:40 pace group bibs; maybe this makes me a bad person, but it always gives me a boost to reel people in.
17+18: 17:59 (missed mile mark)
19: 9:19
20: 9:12
21: 9:10
22: 9:17
Finally the course leveled off, and more importantly entered a neighborhood with huge trees - oh, blessed shade! I was grabbing two water cups at every aid station, drinking one and dumping the other on my head. I'd eaten nothing but bananas, several handfuls of Gummi Bears (apparently the racing food of choice in Baltimore) and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. I felt exhausted, but nothing actually hurt. I told myself that I was right on pace - at 22 miles, I was 49 seconds under my 9-minute pace goal - and all I needed to do was keep on keeping on. Four miles and a bit, mostly downhill. I could do that.
I pumped my arms. I slalomed around slower runners. People held out bowls full of Gummi Bears and I ate some more. I dumped more water on my head. I dodged the ambulance backing into the aid station; some pale and passed out guy was hooked up to an IV drip and they loaded him in. I focused on propelling my body down the road. People screamed, "Almost there! Looking good!" and I forgave them. Three miles. Two miles. Back into town, I could see the BROMO SELTZER clock tower, and the stadium where we started, and the street was packed with cheering people, and then down through the gate and the alley and the chute and FINISHED.
23: 8:45
24: 8:48
25: 9:30
26: 8:33
.2: 1:42 (8:30 pace)
Wow, did you really read to the end? Congratulations.
I was nervous as we lined up next to the Camden Yards stadium. I'd been fighting pain in my right calf and shin for the past two weeks; I hadn't run since Monday, hoping that the rest would heal whatever the problem was, but I could feel the twinges during the walk from one gate to another on Thursday as I changed planes on my flight in, and again as I walked from my hotel to the race start.
Another reason I was nervous was that Baltimore was much bigger than any of the races I'd run before. The Durango Marathon draws about 200 marathoners and 300 half runners; here there were more than 4000 marathoners and relay runners, and we'd be joined by 13,500 half runners, starting 1:45 after our start, 3 miles into their run at our mile 16. (This turned out to be precisely calculated to inconvenience runners at my exact pace. I would not recommend Baltimore for ~4 hour marathoners trying to PR.)
My goals for this race were fairly narrow: I was aiming at 3:55 (about 9 minute miles), I would be happy with sub-4:00, and if everything came together and I ran a perfect race with a tailwind and magic pixie dust I thought I might push close to 3:50. I suppose if I had only beat my PR of 4:07 I would have been not too grumpy. I lined up between the 3:50 and 4:00 pace groups. I created a pace band with rough splits - just to the nearest 5 seconds - based on 8:50 pace, with faster downhills and slower uphills, just to give me a lower bound on pace and keep myself from running too fast. (9 min miles I can figure splits in my head easily enough.) I ran with Garmin (and HRM), keeping track of laps manually, which was a good thing because I lost signal a few times among the downtown skyscrapers, and a few splits were ridiculously off by Garmin calculations due to precision error. This meant, though, that the "lap pace" on my wrist didn't necessarily match the pace I was actually running, so I had to be careful not to follow it too slavishly and run by feel as much as by the numbers. (At one point it told me I was running a 6:50 lap pace, which was clearly wrong. Sure enough, that "mile" turned out to be 1.3 miles long by the Garmin, and my real split was just fine.)
And we're off! Very, very slowly, as the huge mass of runners squeezed through the start line. I went through about 1:10 after the gun. There was no possible way I could pass the solid wall of humanity in front of me. Fortunately, my Garmin said we were moving at 9:07, acceptable for the warm-up mile...except either I really blew the tangents or the Garmin was seriously off, and my actual first-mile split was 9:38. I did not think this was a good sign. But I told myself to just stay cool, run my pace, make up the seconds during the downhills - and that's what I did. The first two miles were uphill, and then it was downhill to the 7 mile mark, by which time I was 30 seconds ahead of my pace band time.
1: 9:38
2: 8:53
3: 8:27
4: 8:36
5: 8:23
6: 8:38
7: 8:33
We crossed the head of the Inner Harbor, lots of people cheering - this would be where the half started in another 45 minutes. Then we turned through the neighborhoods toward Fort McHenry. This is where I saw my first set of women dressed up in campy stereotypical Baltimore outfits (think "Hairspray") - towering beehive hairdos, cat glasses, and polyester pantsuits, holding big signs saying, WELCOME TO BAWLMER, HON!
The pain in my right calf had been slowly ramping up. It hurt, but since it hurt whether I ran fast or slowly, I concentrated on keeping a steady pace and dialing in my 9 minute miles now that the course was flat. I had deliberately kept my speed on the high end of my calculated range to leave things open in case I wanted to go for 3:50, but calf pain + building heat = slow it down. I started thinking I ought to eat a gel - I had a few in my belt, along with a water bottle that had proven a timesaver as the first few aid stations were quite crowded. I saw an aid station ahead and thought I'd grab some water there - and they had banana pieces! I told myself, "aren't calf cramps often due to lack of potassium? Bananas have lots of potassium! This will cure your calf!" Anyway, the banana was tastier than a gel, and I convinced myself that my calf hurt less. I took banana pieces at the next two aid stations, and by mile 13 my calf had mostly stopped hurting - I don't know if it was the potassium or the psych-out, but I don't care, it worked.
This part of the course was an out-and-back with a loop at the end, which meant that I got to see the lead runners go by in the other direction and cheer them loudly. (I also thanked every intersection cop and aid station volunteer I saw, at least until near the end when I ran out of energy to do anything other than run.) On the way back I got to see the middle-back of the pack, which included two girls in crab costumes and a man jumping rope as he ran. At mile 13 we went back across the head of the harbor, just as one of the waves of the half marathon was getting started right next to us. They went straight, and we turned right; the courses rejoined at mile 16.
8: 9:01
9: 9:03
10: 8:50
11: 8:57
12: 9:07
13: 8:53 (half split: 1:56:01)
14: 8:50
15: 9:11
16: 9:02
The half runners came in just as we started up the first of the "hills." I put this in quotes because the only reason I knew we were going up a hill was because the runners next to me were complaining about it. Our standards for hills in Colorado are a bit more vertical. But they must have had some effect, because my splits for the uphill stretch to mile 22 were slower. Then again, it could have been the exasperating weaving back and forth trying to get around the bajillon turtle-speed half runners who seemed to all be running six abreast. Or it could have been the heat, because by now it had gotten above 70 and the sun was high and relentless. Forget running the tangents - I was running the shade, milking every tiny bit I could find. Astonishingly, lots of runners were wearing long sleeves, and lots were wearing black. One woman I passed wore a long sleeved black shirt(!)
I wore my HRM and my HR really started to climb here. I still felt pretty good, though. It was nifty to run through the neighborhoods, so many people cheering, playing music, waving signs ("your feet hurt because you're KICKING SO MUCH A**!") and ringing cowbells. And I had started to pass wilting marathoners, some with 3:50 and even 3:40 pace group bibs; maybe this makes me a bad person, but it always gives me a boost to reel people in.
17+18: 17:59 (missed mile mark)
19: 9:19
20: 9:12
21: 9:10
22: 9:17
Finally the course leveled off, and more importantly entered a neighborhood with huge trees - oh, blessed shade! I was grabbing two water cups at every aid station, drinking one and dumping the other on my head. I'd eaten nothing but bananas, several handfuls of Gummi Bears (apparently the racing food of choice in Baltimore) and a couple of Tootsie Rolls. I felt exhausted, but nothing actually hurt. I told myself that I was right on pace - at 22 miles, I was 49 seconds under my 9-minute pace goal - and all I needed to do was keep on keeping on. Four miles and a bit, mostly downhill. I could do that.
I pumped my arms. I slalomed around slower runners. People held out bowls full of Gummi Bears and I ate some more. I dumped more water on my head. I dodged the ambulance backing into the aid station; some pale and passed out guy was hooked up to an IV drip and they loaded him in. I focused on propelling my body down the road. People screamed, "Almost there! Looking good!" and I forgave them. Three miles. Two miles. Back into town, I could see the BROMO SELTZER clock tower, and the stadium where we started, and the street was packed with cheering people, and then down through the gate and the alley and the chute and FINISHED.
23: 8:45
24: 8:48
25: 9:30
26: 8:33
.2: 1:42 (8:30 pace)
Wow, did you really read to the end? Congratulations.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 12:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 12:42 pm (UTC)By 16, I knew I wasn't going to come close, so I just dropped back and enjoyed the race in a different way.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 12:51 pm (UTC)Great race story!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 01:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 01:07 pm (UTC)"your feet hurt because you're KICKING SO MUCH A**!"
That is an awesome sign.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 01:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:21 pm (UTC)Congratulations!
...makes your strong :-)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:29 pm (UTC)My sister runs marathons in Europe. I don't remember her times.
I'll have to return the favor when I run my next marathon.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:49 pm (UTC)(Hmm, I've heard that lack of magnesium causes muscle cramps? But maybe it's both.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 02:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 04:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 04:25 pm (UTC)Which Garmin model do you have? I'm thinking about getting one, and I'd love to hear what you think of yours.
And I laughed at your description of the "hills"--you should see the ones I complain about. You wouldn't even realize they're there.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 04:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 04:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 05:04 pm (UTC)Congratulations on reaching your goal. I hope there aren't too many aches and pains today.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 05:44 pm (UTC)And if it makes you a bad person to enjoy reeling people in at the end of a hard race, then every runner I know (and me!) is bad, too!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-13 05:56 pm (UTC)