Columbus Marathon

This past Sunday was the 30th annual Columbus Marathon. This was my second marathon attempt this year, the first being in the spring in Cleveland. Having run the half marathon in Columbus last year, I knew what to expect and I wasn't disappointed. Cleveland has a lot to learn from other cities. From Columbus, they can learn how to put on a great event. Plenty of free swag, a great, safe course, plenty of fluid stations and most importantly, lots of people out cheering you on. Of course, Cleveland struggles here in that they run their event downtown and in the business districts where people don't live. Nobody wants to drive to actually cheer on strangers running...do they?

After losing 8 solid weeks and the majority of my long training runs due to an injury, I had no real expectations other than trying to make it to the finish line. (For example, in lieu of running 40-50 mile weeks, I was running 8 to 20 mile weeks. Lost lots of opportunities there to increase fitness levels). Sunday morning I woke up early feeling good, ready to tackle the days challenge. For me, that usually means trying to calm the nerves and get some food in me. This time around I had no problems. I think I finally got my thinking right in that all I was doing was going out for a long training run. Nothing less, nothing more. This took all the stress away from me for the day and I think that helped big time when I approached the start line that morning.

My plan for the day was to hook up with the 3:30 pace group which would equate to roughly an 8 minute/mile pace. I knew that this was probably a bit too ambitious but I didn't want to sell myself short as I knew that on any other day, I could probably comfortably keep that tempo. The miles went exactly as I remember them going last year, effortlessly. There was a point around mile 6 where I contemplated leaving the group and going ahead since I felt that great. Fortunately I was able to reason that there was still a lot of miles left so I was patient and decided to wait until later in the race to make moves like that if I still felt that good. That decision probably saved my day from disaster.

I was happy to hit the 1/2 marathon mark. Not only for the mental benefit of knowing I was half done, but to also lose 9,000 runners who wouldn't be going the rest of the distance. Running solo on training runs, I don't have to worry about adjusting my stride or pace for others. Running in a large group like this I was always having to make minor adjustments as people were trying to squeeze into the smallest of holes to move up. Seemed sort of funny to me to make such great efforts for such minor gains.

Approaching the water station around mile 15 I took a bit too long to get my water and get moving again. Although I run through the stations, the pacer leading the group does not slow down at all. Not sure how they do that but I learned it's better to get ahead of them before a stop rather than get behind them and try to catch back up. Mile 15 found me not being able to get back into the group. I wasn't worried as I was only 10 feet behind them and not losing any more ground to them. This pattern would hold up until mile 18 where things slowly started to get away from me. The data below shows that at each mile, I started adding on seconds per mile. I account this to two things, the lack of training runs at these distances and not enough nutrition during the race. I had a bowl of cereal in the morning and then I popped Cliff Blocks starting at mile 3 and continued every 3 miles until mile 12. I had taken the Gu they were handing out at mile 7 but that didn't settle well with my stomach. I missed the Gu stop at mile 15 and started popping the Cliff Blocks again after mile 18 once my stomach settled down. I also learned at Cleveland to avoid the Gatorade as the mix's are a bit heavy and tend to upset my stomach as well. Instead of an energy drink, I was running solely on water. I assume at this point that I had depleted my body of the glycogen it needed and that my body was burning fat for fuel. I'd be interested in some others observations on this so feel free to send me your comments.

The last 10k were rough in all honesty. I was tired but my body just plain hurt. I was happy that my hip injury wasn't causing me problems, but now my legs, bones and joints just hurt. That's to be expected though and all you can do is suck it up and carry on. At mile 20, I certainly wasn't going to quit and run, walk or crawl, I was making it to the finish line.

Finishing this race was awesome. I was a big boy and didn't cry but it was an emotional experience. Glad to have completed it, glad to have pushed myself to my limits and glad that I had fun. I can honestly say that I had fun on Sunday.

So what's next? As of now, that's too early to say but I'm considering tapering back to only 1 marathon a year. Most likely a fall marathon so I can do all my running/training outside in lieu of on a treadmill during the winter. I'm going to continue to run and look for 1/2 marathons and 10k's to keep my fitness level but I'm also looking forward to getting back on my bike and getting back out with my friends.

Here's a link to my Garmin Data.

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