Mississippi Blues Marathon
by Robert James Reese » Saturday, January 7th, 2012 » 12 Comments
This morning's marathon went as well as I could have hoped for. I managed to run a 2:59:37 and ended up 12th place out of 756 overall. I wasn't sure what kind of shape I was in going into this thing as I haven't been doing any quality training lately, and was pleasantly surprised by how things turned out. In my mind, the race neatly fit into a few neat little chapters:
0 - 3.1, Starting with the Halfers - The race was giving out $30,000 in prize money, so there were some super fast East Africans lined up in the front of the corral. Next to them, guys like me and Antonio; the field wasn't very deep other than those few elites. After the national anthem and a prayer from the reverend (this is the Bible Belt, after all), we were off. Quite a few people started out at 6:50/mile pace with me because the half and marathon ran together for the first three miles. I wasn't feeling great, but the energy of the race start was fun.
3.1 - 12.5, All Alone - I passed one marathoner at about 3.3 miles in and didn't pass or get passed after that until after mile 12. The field got spread out really quickly. I saw a couple runners up ahead, but made sure to focus on my watch and hitting the appropriate splits instead of trying to reel them in. The heavy fog began to lift, but temperatures were still cool, and I enjoyed touring through some of the nice, quiet neighborhoods. Folks were out on their lawns and would cheer just for me as I'd run past. Volunteers kept saying, "Thank you for running." Why?
12.5 - 15, Top of the World - I started speeding up a little and the runners in front of me started slowing down. I passed four or five of them within a couple miles, which was very exciting after being alone for so long. One of the volunteers bicycling alongside the second place woman (who I passed during this point) told me I was in 10th place overall. "No shit!?" It turned out later he was wrong, but still it was nice to imagine that I was in the top ten. (As a side note, I'm clearly failing on my new year's resolution to swear less.) I hit the half at 1:29:00 exactly and felt like a million bucks. I worried about the fact that it was getting warmer, but even so figured that I'd easily be able to run a negative split.
15 - 20.5, Getting Lost and Angry - As a whole, this marathon was one of the best organized races I've ever run and they did an fantastic job making it an enjoyable event, not just another run (think concert at the expo, harmonica and blues CD in our race bags, bands along the route, etc.) But, the course had a ton of turns and they were not always very clearly marked. I got to an unmanned intersection somewhere around mile 15 and the cones led straight so I went straight. Two guys I had just passed followed me too. Soon (luckily) we realized that we had dead-ended in a parking lot and had to flip around and run back to the road. I apologized to the guy behind me for getting us off course and he said, "No, I looked like 10 times too and it looked like we were going the right way." Nothing is more demoralizing than realizing that you've run extra miles in the middle of a race. It wasn't very far, but it was still super tough to get out of my head. And then, somewhere in the 20th mile, I was running along and a volunteer waved his stop sign paddle out to the right, indicating that I should turn. I turned. He started yelling, "No! Straight, straight!" But, I was 20 miles into a marathon, not exactly clear headed, and there was a delay before I realized they were yelling at me. I turned around to see that a runner had passed me while I was detouring – the only time I got passed all day after mile 3. I immediately felt bad about this, but in the heat of the moment, I yelled at the volunteer, "Why'd you wave at me to turn?" He apologized, but I should have just been more aware of my surroundings. And, I shouldn't have yelled at him when he was nice enough to wake up early and help direct traffic for us.
20.5 - 26.2, Embrace the Pain - We merged back with the half-marathoners around mile 20 and from then on out, there were plenty of people around so I knew I wouldn't get lost any more. That was a relief, and I was actually happy to be dodging the 3-hour-half folks for a change (it helped that almost all of them were super friendly and made an effort to move out of my way so I could run the shortest tangents). From about mile 17 on, I had really started to struggle. I ran out of energy early, had to take my PowerBar Gel before I planned to, and then grabbed another Gu from an aid station. I was drinking Gatorade every mile, but the sun was shining full force and I was sweating a lot. Plus, the twenty-plus miles of rolling hills had taken their toll on my legs. I saw my pace slipping again and again, but I told myself to embrace the pain, just like Marshall Ulrich did in the book that I'm currently reading. It sounds cheesy, but it really worked. I thought of how upset at myself I'd be if I didn't hit sub-3 and knew that anything I was suffering through would be better than the long term disappointment of not hitting a goal. So, I pushed harder. At mile 25, I did the math and realized that I had it. Big smile.
Finish - When I crossed the line, they said, "Robert Reese from E-mouse, Pennsylvania, a Runner's World guy." "How'd they know I work for Runner's World," I wondered. I still haven't figured it out.
After the race, we headed down to Biloxi, where I jumped in the ocean very briefly (it was cold) and then drove over to Mobile, Alabama. My next marathon starts here tomorrow morning at 7:30. I had originally had dreams of running two sub-3's in two days, but there's no way… Today's run took a lot more out of me than I expected. I'll be happy with simply finishing tomorrow.
0 - 3.1, Starting with the Halfers - The race was giving out $30,000 in prize money, so there were some super fast East Africans lined up in the front of the corral. Next to them, guys like me and Antonio; the field wasn't very deep other than those few elites. After the national anthem and a prayer from the reverend (this is the Bible Belt, after all), we were off. Quite a few people started out at 6:50/mile pace with me because the half and marathon ran together for the first three miles. I wasn't feeling great, but the energy of the race start was fun.
3.1 - 12.5, All Alone - I passed one marathoner at about 3.3 miles in and didn't pass or get passed after that until after mile 12. The field got spread out really quickly. I saw a couple runners up ahead, but made sure to focus on my watch and hitting the appropriate splits instead of trying to reel them in. The heavy fog began to lift, but temperatures were still cool, and I enjoyed touring through some of the nice, quiet neighborhoods. Folks were out on their lawns and would cheer just for me as I'd run past. Volunteers kept saying, "Thank you for running." Why?
12.5 - 15, Top of the World - I started speeding up a little and the runners in front of me started slowing down. I passed four or five of them within a couple miles, which was very exciting after being alone for so long. One of the volunteers bicycling alongside the second place woman (who I passed during this point) told me I was in 10th place overall. "No shit!?" It turned out later he was wrong, but still it was nice to imagine that I was in the top ten. (As a side note, I'm clearly failing on my new year's resolution to swear less.) I hit the half at 1:29:00 exactly and felt like a million bucks. I worried about the fact that it was getting warmer, but even so figured that I'd easily be able to run a negative split.
15 - 20.5, Getting Lost and Angry - As a whole, this marathon was one of the best organized races I've ever run and they did an fantastic job making it an enjoyable event, not just another run (think concert at the expo, harmonica and blues CD in our race bags, bands along the route, etc.) But, the course had a ton of turns and they were not always very clearly marked. I got to an unmanned intersection somewhere around mile 15 and the cones led straight so I went straight. Two guys I had just passed followed me too. Soon (luckily) we realized that we had dead-ended in a parking lot and had to flip around and run back to the road. I apologized to the guy behind me for getting us off course and he said, "No, I looked like 10 times too and it looked like we were going the right way." Nothing is more demoralizing than realizing that you've run extra miles in the middle of a race. It wasn't very far, but it was still super tough to get out of my head. And then, somewhere in the 20th mile, I was running along and a volunteer waved his stop sign paddle out to the right, indicating that I should turn. I turned. He started yelling, "No! Straight, straight!" But, I was 20 miles into a marathon, not exactly clear headed, and there was a delay before I realized they were yelling at me. I turned around to see that a runner had passed me while I was detouring – the only time I got passed all day after mile 3. I immediately felt bad about this, but in the heat of the moment, I yelled at the volunteer, "Why'd you wave at me to turn?" He apologized, but I should have just been more aware of my surroundings. And, I shouldn't have yelled at him when he was nice enough to wake up early and help direct traffic for us.
20.5 - 26.2, Embrace the Pain - We merged back with the half-marathoners around mile 20 and from then on out, there were plenty of people around so I knew I wouldn't get lost any more. That was a relief, and I was actually happy to be dodging the 3-hour-half folks for a change (it helped that almost all of them were super friendly and made an effort to move out of my way so I could run the shortest tangents). From about mile 17 on, I had really started to struggle. I ran out of energy early, had to take my PowerBar Gel before I planned to, and then grabbed another Gu from an aid station. I was drinking Gatorade every mile, but the sun was shining full force and I was sweating a lot. Plus, the twenty-plus miles of rolling hills had taken their toll on my legs. I saw my pace slipping again and again, but I told myself to embrace the pain, just like Marshall Ulrich did in the book that I'm currently reading. It sounds cheesy, but it really worked. I thought of how upset at myself I'd be if I didn't hit sub-3 and knew that anything I was suffering through would be better than the long term disappointment of not hitting a goal. So, I pushed harder. At mile 25, I did the math and realized that I had it. Big smile.
Finish - When I crossed the line, they said, "Robert Reese from E-mouse, Pennsylvania, a Runner's World guy." "How'd they know I work for Runner's World," I wondered. I still haven't figured it out.
After the race, we headed down to Biloxi, where I jumped in the ocean very briefly (it was cold) and then drove over to Mobile, Alabama. My next marathon starts here tomorrow morning at 7:30. I had originally had dreams of running two sub-3's in two days, but there's no way… Today's run took a lot more out of me than I expected. I'll be happy with simply finishing tomorrow.
12 Comments
nancy
I like the e-mouse,PA
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