4:00.29

That's right- my official time for the Marine Corps Marathon: 4 hours, 29 seconds. I realize that overall it's a pretty good time, but darn it, I really wanted to break the 4 hour mark! So close, and yet so far. Actually, according to my GPS the race was closer to 26.6 mi (as opposed to the official 26.2), so it told me I finished the marathon in 3:57. That'll put a check in the moral victory column. When there was a distance discrepancy in the Lower Potomac Marathon Relay (supposed to be 14.1, GPS said 14.6), I figured they just marked it out wrong. But this race had a ton of curves, so I guess over the course of 26 miles being on the outside vs. the inside of turns could add up to a half-mile discrepancy. Oh well. I'll take 4:00.29.

There's a couple of fun sites to check the results. My "unofficial" chip times can be found here. Notice that this page gives me 4:00.33, whereas my "official" printout said 29 seconds. It's a small discrepancy, but it makes a big difference if you're rounding to the nearest minute! The RunPix site has a bunch of fun stats and graphs, like where I finished percentage-wise (I beat 74% of the men, and 88% of the women).

My biggest fear (crowded start) went unrealized, because I started at the very front of the second wave. So I was in a full run within the first quarter mile, and pretty soon I caught up to the slow people from the first wave. They put runners in order by what you claim is your expected finish time, and a lot of people are liars. There were plenty of people who didn't have a chance at finishing in that first wave. As such, I was passing people the entire race. It's not that big a deal (and actually kind of motivating) but it's kind of drag when you have to speed up, slow down and dart around to get by people. What was really annoying is when I would plan to run between a few people, and right as I approach they dart closer together, forcing me to basically halt, start again and go around. Sometimes people were just running 6 across, and there was nothing you could do but wait for the road to get wider.

Speaking of roads, this marathon was all over the place! Much of it was on the highway, which was nice. Some of it was right around the national mall, and in places it was only about 5 feet wide. I was looking forward to seeing all the DC sights in one day, but the only one I got a good look at was the Washington Monument. I mostly saw backs, spectators, and pavement. To their credit, the spectators were great- most were just cheering and shouting general encouragement ("This is what you trained for!" and "Pain is temporary- Pride is forever!" were popular ones) but some had their own boom boxes or instruments. One guy was blaring the Rocky theme, and everyone (me included) ran with their fists head mightily in the air as we passed. There were several little drum circles that added some atmosphere, and lots of high school bands, both of which thrilled me. If you put your name on your shirt people would yell out proper noun encouragement, so I might try that in the future.

Now I know what people mean when they say "hitting the wall" during running. I was clipping along fine, what with all the other runners and crowd energy. Around the 10 mile mark I even had a short discussion with some guys about how it felt like we just started. But somewhere between miles 18 and 19 it was like "Whoa- I'm done." Everyone said going into it that miles 20-24 are the hardest, and they were totally right- I think it's because you're dead tired, but the end isn't in sight yet. I would try to run, but the legs just wouldn't. The weird thing was that it kind of hurt to walk, because my legs were all crampy and sore. So there I was- too tired to run but it hurt to walk. I alternated for a while, watching the virtual partner catch up to me and thinking "So this is what failure feels like." Actually, I was about a mile ahead of the virtual partner at one point, but he pulled within a quarter mile there at the end. Once I entered mile 24, I got that finishing wind and ran it out- but I couldn't keep my 9 min/mi pace. About a 10 min/mi was the best I could muster. I ran all the way to the finish line, which was at the end of a brutal uphill stretch. All I was thinking was "I can stop after this." Maybe also "I wonder how much my treadmill is worth on eBay, because I'm never running again."

I passed the finish line, and made it about 10 yards before I had to sit down in the grass. The guy behind me crossed the line, and literally tumbled to his hands and knees immediately. The medics ran over to him and carried him off on a stretcher with an oxygen mask. Seriously. I sat for a few minutes while the volunteers repeatedly asked me if I was okay, then gathered up enough strength to walk over and get my finisher's medal. Then I sat down in the grass again, where friendly Marines and volunteers continued to ask if I was okay, so I must have looked fantastic. After I recuperated a little more with my space blanket and powerade, I went on to the worst part of the day- the exit.

Leaving the marathon was an absolute disaster. The entire field of competitors became one stagnant crowd creeping toward the exit. You were supposed to meet your party in the "link up" area, which was a bunch of flags with letters on them. In previous years I understand that this area was set up back in the park, but this year they combined it with the only exit. So, all the flags were staged on the (closed to traffic) highway overpass, which was maybe 30 yards long and 4 lanes wide, and also contained the stage with the 80's cover band. That's right- 34,000 runners and their non-running parties trying to meet up and exit on a stretch of concrete that was about a quarter of a football field. It took me over an hour of shuffling shoulder to shoulder to get within 20 feet of the "A-B" flag, and then all flow stopped. After not moving for the next 20 minutes, I borrowed a nice lady's cell phone to call Kate, who apparently was a little closer to the flag than I was. We met up outside the crowd, then tried again together. It's hard to state how bad the bottleneck was there- people were actually jumping the fence, running across the 6 lane (not closed to traffic) highway, and jumping the fence on the other side to speed up the process.

The metro was thoroughly clogged with runners as well, but not as badly as it was on the way to the race. Someone actually had to hit the emergency stop button on the escalator because the platform was full and people were still piling on- we ended up running up the down escalator to avert disaster! Did I mention that I hate crowds? By the time we got back to the hotel I was definitely getting less and less polite to people in my way.

This is a good time to give shout out to Kate- she was a great help to me this weekend. She did very well as my Sherpa (carrying my stuff while I was running). Let me tell you, if you ever want some free cheap shirts, pants, hats and gloves, just follow behind a marathon. People were tossing stuff left and right for the first several miles. One of the vendors there was even selling disposable pants and shirts- for 7$ each! You can go to Old Navy and get something cheaper than that! But, lots of people were wearing them. Anyway, Kate led me by the sleeve through the crowds after the race when I was too exhausted to walk and make decisions at the same time, and drove me home while I sat as still as possible in the car. Thanks again! Unfortunately that cell phone race tracker thing didn't work at all so she didn't get to take any action shots of me running, but given how I looked that's probably just as well!

All in all, I'll say that the marathon was an "experience." I'm leaning toward saying that it was real, it was fun, but it wasn't real fun. I trained a lot for this run, and it was hard. Even with all the preparation, running 26.2 miles is no picnic! I'll probably do another one in the future, once I have time to forget all the crappy parts and only remember the fun stuff, sort of like childbirth.
I have to believe that it's more fun if all you care about is finishing- then you could rest if you need to, walk a little more, and it wouldn't be nearly as stressful. Interesting note- there were 34,000 runners at the start, and only 20,934 finished. So like they say, just finishing is an achievement. Knowing that, I was in the top 21% of finishers, but the top 13% if you count everyone that started.

I'm going to lay off running for a few days. Yesterday I was generally sore all over, and this morning I was moaning trying to put on my socks and thinking "Who the hell's idea was it to run a marathon?" All that's really wrong right now is my one knee that's killing me- if it's not better by this weekend I'll have the medical types in Lansing take a look at it. I'll restate that I think anyone can run a marathon- the only thing you need is time. If you follow the running plan, you build up distance gradually, and every run is only slightly harder than the one before. Thanks again to everyone for the encouragement!

BTW: Sorry this took so long! My wonderful MetroCast internet has been in and out the last several weeks. I'll be putting up some pictures when it stops being crappy. In addition their tech support number gives you the "Doo-Doo-DOO! We're sorry, this number is no longer in service." I hate Southern Maryland.