I missed my goal by about 10 minutes, here is a detailed report. I made a few mistakes along the way during the race, but I think the big problem was not training hard enough, which I can easily enough remedy for next time.
While we waited at the start, me and my slightly sub 8:00 brethern (Nathan, Greg, Erik, William, Scott, Spencer, Jack, David & Philip), I realized I had to pee. We were sitting around waiting at the gate that segregates the Green starters 4,000 and lower between those with higher numbers. On the other side of the gate the sub 4,000 numbered guys were going over to the fence and peeing, but on our side of the gate there was a bunch of audio & video gear set up, manned by a crew of technicians. Somehow I don't think they would have appreciated it if I went over there and did my business. So I planned on waiting until they let down the gate and I would head over and do my business.
Unfortunately we had thousands of people pushing us from behind when the gate went down, so I had to choose between peeing and keeping with the group. I knew I had to pee at some point and better to do it before the race started, so off to the trees on the median between the access road and the highway I went. By the time I finished there were hundreds of people between me and the rest of my pace group, and no way for me to maneuver up to their position.
So I wound up having to decide whether or not to hang back and just run the 7:30 or 7:40 pace I planned on doing in the beginning or trying to catch my pace group. I decided it would be better to be with them, as we had helped each other stay on target at Westchester, so I had to race to catch up with them. My 2nd mile was run at a 6:40 pace, which is really not what you want to be doing. Running fast burns lactic acid more quickly than when you run slow, so I was already starting to do damage that I would pay for later.
After that I slowed down to about a 7:15 pace and was in a pretty good groove. I then caught up with William, Coach Pete and Scott. I then had another decision to make since I was actually going a bit faster than they were. To slow down and run with them, or just keep going at the current speed. I decided to stick with them, and we stuck together for a while. William and I then went ahead, since we both had a 3:15 goal in mind, while Pete & Scott did not (they are both under 30 and would need a 3:05 or 3:10 to qualify for Boston, which was a bit beyond our current abilities, so they weren't even going to attempt it, which was smart on their part).
Somewhere around mile 5 or 6 my friend from college Mike Shanahan passed us. He told me I needed to speed up to qualify for Boston, so at that point I could have left and followed him. But I told him that we planned on speeding up at the end and were in ok shape. He took off and I stuck with William (Mike wound up qualifying with a 3:14:28).
I lost William at one of the water stops, as I tend to take my time there, especially when there is also Gatorade involved as there was at this one. I ultimately wound up catching not only him, but Nathan, Erik and David as well. The 5 of us ran together all the way from mile 7 in Brooklyn into Queens, and over the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan.
We told David, who was running his first marathon, to take off his earphones and stop listening to his Ipod, so he could hear the crowds when we got to Manhattan. As always that was an amazing thrill. I saw my friends Jeanne, Suzanne & others as we got off the bridge and that was a huge lift to all of us. At that point David kind of took off, or dropped off, not sure which, and it was Erik, Nathan and I running up First Avenue.
At the Mile 16 marker I was 2 minutes off the pace (4 minutes by the clock but it took me 2 minutes to get to the start). So I knew I needed to speed up and make up that time. Erik suggested we keep it under control. We ran mile 17 at a 7:20 pace and he said "too fast" but I actually needed to make up time (that would have bought me 9 seconds), so I was kind of wondering what to do. To keep doing the 7:30's and hope to make up the 2 minutes in the park? Or speed up now and lose these guys. There was a humorous stretch while this debate was raging in my head where I would run behind Erik and Nathan, because they are big and good to draft off of, then decide I needed to run ahead of them and move to go around them, then decide to stick with them and run along side of them, and then say to myself, well if I am going to stay with them, I might as well draft them, so I would move back behind them. This happened a few times during mile 17, it must have looked quite peculiar.
If you have never run a marathon before, you lose the ability to think clearly in the latter stages. It is tough to do math, and even harder to make decisions based on math. So this is what I was going through at this point, and I don't think I made the wrong choice, as I don't think I could have made my goal based on how I felt at the end.
At mile 20, just as we got onto the Willis Avenue Bridge, Nathan turned to Erik and I and said, "Let's race this bitch!" He and Erik sped up and I began to lag behind, since I was not feeling as strong as they were (plus it was uphill and I am not as good as Erik is on the hills - Nathan's speed I attribute to him simply being in better condition than either of us). I wasn't too far behind them throughout the Bronx until we got to the next bridge back into Manhattan. That also involved a hill, and I struggled going up it and lost some more ground to them.
As we made our way through Harlem, I could still see them, but they were slowly but surely pulling away. And then it just became surely as they were gone and I was on my own.
At mile 23 I got a boost as I saw my teammate Diana, who actually had to drop out of the race and off the team due to an injury back in the summer (see previous post "All Shook Up" for details of that incident). And then a guy who was on the team last year, Luke, pulled up alongside of me and ran with me for a bit, trying to inspire me to speed up. I told him I couldn't make my goal anymore and had kind of gave up on 3:15, so he said, "So what, go for 3:20!" So this was a big help, as I resolved not to quit and put up the best number I could. Thanks, Luke!
I started having pain and soreness in my lower back and hips, and I attribute this to the one big shortcoming of my training, which was my failure to keep up with the core training exercises. Coach Adam has always stressed the importance of training your abdominal & hip muscles, as they will keep you going in the late stages when everything else starts breaking down. Yesterday I found out first hand what that was like. My legs are really not that sore today, but I was having trouble keeping myself going, and I think if I had a stronger core I would have been able to sustain my pace better.
So I walked through 2 of the water stops, not even the entire water station, just for 5 or 10 seconds each one, then got moving again, albeit slowly (there was some shuffling involved).
More later about the finish and Kerry, the girl I ran the race in memory of at the marathon...
