Same Time, Same Channel

Recovery run.

9:00 am, 63-70° , 35% humidity, wind 2 W, sunny.

I slept in this morning, then got up and checked the Bolder Boulder results, did some reading, and then finally headed out the door. I just tried to keep it easy today and plodded along at a slow pace. I managed to go through a couple of sprinklers when I was in the neighborhood near the end, but they didn't do much for me.

I'm going to try to finally finish the caulking on the tub today. I've been procrastinating. But we're all getting tired of taking showers in the kids' bathroom.

AP: 9:58. Splits: 10:10, 9:56, 10:04, 10:03, 9:58, 9:40, 9:52.

Dress Rehearsal - 7 miles w/ 2 miles at marathon race pace.

6:17 am, 58° F, 43% humidity, wind 12 S.

This is the only weekday this week that my training plan doesn't specify recovery pace, so I took the opportunity to run a little faster. I was trying to hit 8:00 on the MP miles. I came close, but the effort was more than it should have been, particularly on the 2nd of those two miles, which was mostly uphill. I hope that that pace feels easier on a flat course at sea level on Saturday. The 6th mile fell under my designation of 8:30 for fast miles, but I called it a slow mile anyway because I really did ease up on the pace for that mile, but it was mostly a gradual downhill, so it came out a little faster than the effort would warrant.

I'm wondering about getting on pace for the marathon on Saturday. In my training runs, I always do my first mile or two slowly. And in shorter races, I always run at least 2 miles at a really slow pace before the race starts. But 26 miles is plenty long enough and I don't want to make it 28. I'm wondering if I can manage to go out at a decent enough pace that I don't lose a lot of time on those first couple of miles. Maybe adrenaline will do it and I'll just have to be careful not to go out too fast. Anyone have a suggestion of what pace I should try to hit on the first couple of miles?

AP: 8:39. Splits: 9:24, 8:56, 8:52, 8:03, 8:01, 8:23, 8:52.

Recovery run.

6:23 am, 55° F, 71% humidity, wind 16 S.

I felt pretty good on this run. I just tried to keep it slow and easy.

Before my run this morning I checked the weather here in Denver and in Newport, Oregon. It looks like it's raining in Newport today. I hope it doesn't rain on Saturday.

I'm debating which shoes to wear in the marathon. I've been alternating between my Brooks Green Silence, which are my cool Ronald McDonald racing flats, and the Brooks Adrenaline 10s. I always wear the Adrenalines on longer runs, but I really like the Green Silence. I've just never worn them for more than about half marathon distance. I'd like to wear them in the marathon, but I don't know if I dare.

AP: 10:00. Splits: 10:34, 9:58, 9:46, 9:50, 9:51.

Recovery + Speed - 5 mi w/ 6 x 100 m strides.

5:45 am, 60° F, 43% humidity, wind 9 SSE.

I needed to get an earlier than usual start this morning because I've got a busy day including a full day of work. So I rejoined the sub-6 club for just one day.

I did the strides on the high school track, as is my habit recently. There was a woman jogging on the track. She was going pretty slowly. I did one easy lap before I started the strides and I passed her during that lap and then passed her again during my 5th stride.

I underestimated the distance of the route I decided to take home from the track and so I was still about 1/4 of a mile or so from home when I hit 5 miles. But I'm supposed to be taking it easy, so I stopped and walked the rest of the way home.

I just checked the weather forecast for Newport for Saturday. It's being saying 40% chance of rain all week, and now it says partly cloudy with a 10% chance of rain. That's good news for me. I think Snoqualmie would prefer mostly cloudy, even if it means a higher chance of rain.

AP: 9:55. Splits: 10:36, 10:03, 10:10, 8:53 (the strides were in this mile), 9:56.

I don't think I'm going to make it out for any kind of run today. But I just thought I'd log on and tell you that I made it to Newport. It was a long day of travel. I'm off to meet Snoqualmie in a few minutes!

P.S. The weather is great.

Finished. Hard. Race. Too. Much. Sun. More Later.

OK. I guess it's later and I'll try to write a proper report.

First of all, I met Snoqualmie and her great family last night. We spent some time on the beach and then went to dinner with Snoqualmie Ridge Runner and some other runners from the Snoqualmie running group. It was a lot of fun. I had salmon since I had salmon the night before the Ogden marathon last year, and that worked out pretty well.

One of the really nice things about this Newport marathon is that you don't have to be bussed to the start. In fact, the start was walking distance from both my and Snoqualmie's hotels. So this morning I got up and spent some quality time in the hotel, and then walked to Sno's hotel and met her there. We headed out walking to the start and even did a wee bit of jogging, but then she realized she had forgotten her Garmin and so we jogged a little back and got it. On our second approach to the start, we met up with Snoqualmie Ridge Runner and his friend. We got to the start about 20 minutes before the race started. None of this waiting at the start line for two hours up in the mountains like you do in Utah. It was cool, but actually quite pleasant at that point. I was comfortable enough in a singlet and shorts, which didn't bode well for later on.

Since this race doesn't use chip timing, I started up fairly near the front, probably about 4-5 rows back with the runners that we had dinner with last night, except for Snoqualmie, who started farther back. I didn't hit the start button on my watch right when the gun went off, but just a couple of seconds later, just before I went under the start banner, so my official time, when it's posted, will probably be just a couple of seconds longer than the time I got from my Garmin. My average pace is also slightly slower than what the Garmin says, because the Garmin measured a tenth of a mile long. I didn't start nearly as fast as the people around me. All kinds of people blew past me at the start, but I didn't want to start this thing as if it were a 5K.

The first 3 or so miles are a little loop in the town. This part was somewhat hilly. They weren't really big hills, but neither was it flat. Then the course goes down to the pay and goes on the road along the bay until a little past mile 15, and then turns around and goes back and ends about a mile or so away from the start. This part was mostly flat, except for a relatively steep up hill at mile 4 and then a gradual downhill for a couple of miles, which later is a gradual up hill for miles 25 and 26, and then a nice downhill for 0.2 to the finish.

There was not a cloud in the sky, but it was fairly shady for about the first half of the race, and then it was sunny and then entirely too warm for some of us who are not used to running in the heat at this point in the year.

I felt pretty good until about mile 16 and from that point on I really wanted to stop. I ran with a couple of guys for probably about miles 6-8. They were doing what was an easy pace to them because one of them is doing a 100 miler next Saturday, or something like that. I kept a pretty good pace while I was with them, but then I failed to keep up. Maybe those miles were a little too fast.

Later on, I ran for a little while with a woman from British Columbia who was originally for New Zealand. She was shooting for 3:40. It was a little strange because her Garmin was set to kilometers, with auto lap on, and so it kept beeping at different times. Her boyfriend or husband was riding a bike along side her supplying her with water and gel and the like. After a while, I failed to keep up with her, but then at about 24 miles, I saw her on the side of the road trying to get up. Her boyfriend/husband was with her, so I didn't stop to help.

I drank more at the aid stations than I usually do, I guess because I was feeling rather warm. But the result was that I took a somewhat longish, probably 2 minute, port-a-potty stop in mile 20.

I really struggled the last 8 or 9 miles and I just tried to run from one aid station to the next and I walked through the aid stations at that point, which I hadn't done earlier in the race. The last two full miles were particularly tough, with the gradual uphill. I wish I could have gone faster, but I was just trying to hang on and keep running. Mercifully, the last 0.2 is downhill and so I was able to pick up the pace and finish fairly strong. But I must have looked bad right after I finished because a couple of race people grabbed a hold of me and then Snoqualmie Ridge Runner, who had finished 12 minutes ahead of me, and seemed to be in really good shape already, escorted me to a chair in the shade and brought me food and water. My calves felt tight, but didn't cramp up like they did at Ogden last year. I stayed in the finish/line recovery area until Snoqualmie finished.

After we had both showered, my husband, my daughter, and I went to lunch with  Snoqualmie's family and then visited a lighthouse, where Sno and I both climbed (and descended!) a whole bunch of stairs. Aren't you impressed. Then we went back to Sno's hotel and our two daughters played together for a while in the pool.

So here are things I liked about this race:

• It was nice to walk to the start and get there so close to the start of the race rather than having to wait around forever for the race to start.
• It was nice and shady for the first part of the race.
• And the best thing of all - it was great to meet Snoqualmie and her family and Snoqualmie Ridge Runner and his friends!

Here's what I didn't like about this race:

• It got hot and sunny.
• I didn't run quite as fast as I had hoped to.

Regarding the second item there, I had stated publicly that I wanted to run 3:30, but I really didn't believe that I would. Maybe I could have if I had believed it more and wanted it more, but maybe not. However, I did think that I had a legitimate shot at getting under 3:40, and I did manage that. But I did get a BQ and a PR. So I'm happy, but not ecstatic about my time.

So if you're curious about how hot it was, I'll tell the truth. It was about 49 degrees at the start and about 60 degrees by midway through the race. Maybe 60 degrees isn't very hot to some of you, but the sun was bearing down and it felt very warm. It was about 80% humidity, and there was a slight (maybe 5 mph) wind of the bay, which seemed like a headwind both directions, but was probably more of a cross wind.

Here are my stats, based on the Garmin measurement of 26.3:

AP: 8:26 (official AP is more like 8:29). Splits: 8:42, 8:13, 8:12, 8:07, 8:11, 7:52, 7:55, 7:48, 8:07, 8:07, 8:09, 8:07, 8:14, 8:23, 8:25, 8:27, 8:19, 8:46, 8:30, 10:41 (this was the port-o-potty stop), 8:41, 8:37, 8:47, 8:38, 8:56, 8:50, 0.30 @ 7:37.

So that was definitely not a negative split. Using my arbitrary designation of anything under 8:30 being classified as fast, I had 16 fast miles, and then the last 0.2 (or 0.3) fast. The other 10 miles were slow. But they were hard.

Here are the official placement results:

Overall place (men and women): 133 out of 676
Gender place (all women): 26 out of 355
Division place (women 40-44): 6 out of 52