The 2013 New York Marathon

Finally.

I think I first thought about running the New York Marathon shortly after I finished the Boston Marathon in 2009. It was a long path from then until now:

• I was injured as a result of my 2009 Boston Marathon, and was off running for nearly 6 months
• I spent 2010 rebuilding, making an attempt to qualify for New York in the Fall by running the San Jose Half. I missed by over two minutes.
• I qualified for 2012 with a February 2011 Kaiser Half.
• I ran the 2011 Seattle Marathon to clear off any marathon rust
• As I trained for the 2012 New York Marathon, I developed minor stress fractures at two different times and cancelled my entry (and the race was cancelled by Tropical Storm Sandy anyway)
• I ran the 2013 Avenue of the Giants marathon as a make-good for 2012

Then, as I was preparing for the 2013 New York Marathon, I had more injuries, ones that shut me down for four of the five critical weeks of my training program. I did a hasty return to form, which went quite well, and I decided to run the marathon despite the reduced training. I used a few test-pace runs to establish what I might be capable of, and settled on a goal of 3:10 (which would require me to run 7:15 per mile).

The Trip

As I did for Boston, I flew three days before the race. That allowed me to try to adjust to the time change on Thursday night when I arrived, go to the Expo on Friday, sleep the good sleep on Friday Night/Saturday morning (do nothing all day long), and be properly rested for race day on Sunday. I also got to spend some time with old friends Damijan, Monique and Ivan, visit MoMA, and generally become reacquainted with Manhattan.

Race Morning

I won't dwell on the specifics. Let's just say that I had some advice designed to minimize the time I would spend outside in the cold waiting for the start of the race. Unfortunately, enormous crowds delayed every part of the process, and instead of it taking 45 minutes from South Ferry to the starting area, it took me just under two hours. I missed the cutoff for getting into my assigned wave, meaning that I would be running with people who were certainly slower than I am. I also missed out on making one last visit to a port-a-potty, as I had reached the front of the corral and didn't understand how much time I now had to wait.

Dejected for a bit, I tried to just resolve to run my race.

The starting line

Miss New York sang America the Beautiful and some fellow who is obviously a professional announcer of sorts announced the start of my section of my wave. You see, this race is so big that they start each wave along three separate paths which join together after 8 miles. My section was Blue. A Howitzer Canon went off and my race started, 25 minutes behind the first wave.

The Start

We began at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, effectively starting in Staten Island but running through none of it. In my opinion, running across a bridge sucks. All bridges I've run on bow upwards towards the center, meaning there's a hill, the wind is generally awful, and you can't really see any grand vistas. This bridge was much the same. 1 mile uphill to start, which I had planned to run about 10 seconds faster than my split showed.

Mlle 1: 7:40

It was at this point that I discovered that the different paths (labelled by color, Orange, Blue and Green), did not immediately line up in terms of distance, since I passed by a mile marker that was labelled Blue and then ten or more yards later, another on the other side of the highway of the bridge labelled Orange. Mysteriously, a few runners were taking the opportunity to join the Orange path by running through the rare break in the divider between the sides of the bridge -- and I could not understand that, as it was clear to me they had just chosen to make their race longer. In fact, I tried to bend my mind such that it would make sense for someone to cut over, but I just couldn't. It's like solving a logic problem and then rethinking it a lot. A lot. But simply: if you've already run a mile, and then you go to the side that hasn't yet reached the first mile marker, you've just added some distance to your race.

The downward direction of the Verrazano-Narrows was, well, downhill, and I had planned to pick up the pace a little. At this point, the other runners I was with were largely moving pretty fast, so the pacing was my own and maybe they dragged me along with them. 20 seconds fast!

Mile 2: 6:41

Now, the plan was to settle in and run 7:13s pretty much for the next 20 miles, with a couple of exceptions. As we exited the bridge and turned up Fourth Ave in Brooklyn, the crowd was lining the street… thickly. And they were pretty loud. I started to scan the crowd a bit, but mostly I put my head down and tried to lock in a pace.

Mile 3: 7:16

Not a bad first mile for the pace I was shooting for. I kept going, trying to settle in a slightly faster pace, feeling fine but not especially gliding through the streets of Brooklyn. I started to try to look for Damijan and Monique, but I couldn't remember precisely where on Fourth Ave they said they would be, nor could I know what side of the road they'd be on, and the crowd was just too thick and noisy with occasional music for me to see or hear anyone cheering. Well, unless you were a particularly loud person.

The was a cold headwind, and I didn't feel quite warm enough to start shedding my Tyvek Jacket, but I ripped the sleeves off nonetheless. (Actually, I fought a bit with the sleeves, as my perforations were insufficient for a simple yank to remove them as I had at CIM… still, they came off, leaving me with a Tyvek vest).

Mile 4: 7:15

At this point, I was now weaving my way through some runners. I was a bit confused: I started near the front of this wave, and only the people who ran faster than me from the start would be in front of me, so where were these people coming from? In retrospect, they must have been from the very back of the first wave, but I didn't know how long the start of the first wave would take, and I could only assume that I had already caught people who started 20 minutes before me. It didn't make sense, but it meant that I was now diverting some of my effort to navigate and find lines between runners.

Mile 5: 7:14

I was supposed to take my first GU at the five mile mark, but my stomach was feeling a bit full. I had had a larger than usual breakfast since it was three hours before the race, but not getting another chance for the bathroom before the race left me feeling it. And so I waited. I did, however, pull the Tyvek vest open and work it off my arms. Weaving my way through runners, I clocked a pretty solid split.

Mile 6: 7:10

I continued that pace for the next mile, starting to try to see if I could see Damijan and Monique in the crowd. Was it fourth street? That was coming up. But as the numbered streets passed, I put my head back down and continued on. I took my first GU, though my stomach was feeling a bit tight.

Mile 7: 7:10

The last of Fourth Ave was much like the rest. Streets lined with people, cheering loudly, and some sparse runners to pick through. Not very scenic, until we made a left turn to angle up Atlantic Avenue, and I could see the Citibank and Chrysler buildings in Manhattan in the distance. Cool. But we weren't to cross into Manhattan for a while…? 

Mile 8: 7:23

I saw my split for this mile and felt concerned, as I didn't know why it was slower. Had I lost focus? Now the separate paths of the marathon all converged, and as we turned onto Lafayette, the path was narrower, too. I was now having to be more active in my attempt to run faster than most everyone, weaving my way through the crowd of runners and pushing the pace. And during this, I opened my foil packet to unwrap an S-Cap that I would take to try to forestall the

cramps that plagued each marathon since Boston.

Mile 9: 7:09

Now, I was cooking. I was getting the pace right and making my way through the crowds. We turned onto Bedford Ave as I kept the pace. My legs were feeling fine, I just wished my stomach was empty.

Mile 10: 7:08

I continued on Bedford Ave. At a bend in the road, I heard someone on a loudspeaker encouraging a runner ahead of me, who was carrying a sizable American flag, to hold that flag up high… "You're in Williamsburg now… that's how we do." Curving through Williamsburg, I lost track of that pace and notched a slower than target mile.

Mile 11: 7:18

The road has a slight downhill here, and as I weaved through more runners, sometimes taking an elbow, I went a bit faster. My stomach was still feeling tight and I put off taking my second GU.

Mile 12: 7:02

Zigzagging from Manhattan Ave to Greenpoint Ave to McGuiness Blvd., I continued working my way, passing runners, bumping into the same one twice as I passed her at a corner.  I thought about having another GU… now would be a good time, but my stomach still felt tight.

Mile 13: 7:16

I reached the halfway mark and realized that my water bottle was still more than a third full -- normally I drink more water than this. But I also looked at my overall split for the first half and noted that I was maybe 30 seconds behind my plan for the first half, but solidly ahead of my goal pace overall. (I knew I had allowed for some extra time for the hilly finish.) I continued zigzagging through Queens, feeling reasonably good overall. However, as we went over the Pulaski bridge, I misunderstood where we were and thought for a second that we were on Roosevelt Island for some reason.

Mile 14: 7:18

I came around to Queens Blvd, a bit worried about the last two splits, but not thinking that a few seconds per mile was going to make much of a difference. 

Mile 15: 7:37

Next came the Queensborough bridge, with the anticipation of reaching Manhattan on the other side. Everything fell quiet, and I fought to pick my way through a thick crowd of runners, trying to give solid effort uphill.

My left contact was starting to feel like it was loose in my eye. I had had this happen on long runs before, and it had always been somewhat of an illusion. But it felt watery and like it wasn't fully in my eye.

I worked to run fast on the downhill section and listened for the crowd… reaching the mile marker

Mile 16: 7:16

…then tuned up 1st Ave. Oh my, the crowd was thick and loud! Fortunately, 1st Ave is wider here and it was easier to run through the slower runners.

I started to think about seeing Ivan or Damijan, and realized it was just impossible. So many faces in the crowd, so many runners! Chaos, really. Noisy, so many people… just felt like chaos. Nonetheless, I tried to stay closer to the left side and look for Ivan in his Angels jacket. There was lots of red.

Mile 17: 7:18

I was near the middle of the road when a woman on my right (whom I was passing) suddenly veered directly left like she had seen someone on the sidelines, then yelled at me because we half-collided. Uh, yeah. Run a straight line and get blamed when someone acts erratically!

Generally, though, I was feeling pretty solid and cruised down the avenue. I began to watch the street signs...  71, 72, 73… 85, 86, 87…

Mile 18: 6:58

It was about this point that I began to give up hope of seeing or being seen by anyone. I tried to put my head down and run (I had just notched a fast split), and I was pleased that while my pacing was a tiny bit slow per mile (except the last one), I was pretty pleased with how my legs felt and how I felt like I had some energy.

Mile 19: 7:13

Up through Harlem and to the Willis Ave. Bridge -- uphill, slow going. I mean, like a total momentum-killer. It was a short bridge, thankfully.

A breeze came up as we came off the bridge into the Bronx, and my contact lens from left my eye simply floated away on a breeze. I saw its shape as it left my eye -- I could see the thing floating away! Gone. I could still see enough from my right eye's contact, but just not perfect. Gads.

There was a big video screen overhead, and man, it was just this huge mass of runners!

Mile 20: 7:37

A discouraging split. I had not taken the bridge well. 

The course through the Bronx was a zigzag of turns, and that's not a fast way to go, either. I tried to push the pace some, and after crossing back into Manhattan, I was beginning to have a taste for the race being over. I couldn't see particularly well and got a little disoriented at one point when we started to buttonhook around Marcus Garvey Park, and then I realized that I had missed the 21 mile marker, and I didn't even read my watch correctly, thinking that I had run the two miles about 30 seconds faster than my watch told me.

Mile 21/22: 7:30 per mile

Now, it was time for the long hill up Fifth Avenue.

I knew I  had only a few miles left, and here the crowd of runners was just as thick. Despite trying to weave through them, I couldn't run fast enough.

Mile 23: 7:35

I pushed some, but again, it was now a lot harder to navigate through the pack of runners.

I headed Into the park, knowing the end was coming, but still a couple miles away.

Mile 24: 8:07

And….  I sort of gave up. 

I saw the 8 minute split.

I just didn't see any point in pushing so hard when I knew I wasn't going to be under 3:10 and probably no where really close, either. 

I was tired of forcing my way through the crowd, and I just wanted the race over with.

Mile 25: 8:02

Yep. I was more or less coasting along side the slow runners, and I was grateful to see the 25 mile marker.

I could sense the turn onto Central Park South coming, knowing that once I got there, it would soon be over.

I saw a sign saying 400m left. 

I saw the 26 mile marker. 

Mile 26: 7:54

I saw a sign showing 100m left. Raised my arm up for the cameras as I crossed the finish, hit stop on my watch and didn't even look at the time.

Walked forward, glad to be done.

----

From about 67th street inside the park, i had to walk all the way up to 77th Street for "early exit". I tried to drink the Gatorade Protein Drink (the taste was nasty), ate the Power Bar, glad to see "20g of Protein" boldly enough on the packaging that I could read it with my blurry vision.

Finally, out of the park and walking down CPW, finally given the promised poncho. Now walking the 15 blocks to get to the Reunion area to meet Damijan, and looking ahead before the dip in CPW. The sight was the most amazing I had seen: an abandoned street with buildings looming to the right, nothing on the street but hooded people wearing identical, bright orange cloaks, staggering forward slowly. It was like a scene out of some post-apocolyptic movie. 

I met with Damijan and his friend Bob (and Bob's family), and starting unloading my stuff, glad to be shedding things and getting into my warm clothes.

Lots of walking later that day. Turned out that I walked about 7 or 8 miles in addition to running the 26.2. A shade under 48,000 steps on the day.

---

On to the graphs, shall we?

First, how consistently did I run the first 20 miles?

Very. Except that bump at mile 15, I was hitting in a pretty tight range around my desired pace of 7:13 or so, just a few seconds higher in most miles.

How did that compare to my plan?

Kind of all over the place, and in particular, even though I allocated more time for the last miles, I was far slower than planned. To be fair, my plan wasn't based on a particularly precise understanding of the course, but you could still see how I was flopping around my targets a fair bit.

So, how was I doing towards meeting my goal, per my plan?

Not so bad, in that I was still on target to meet my goal after 19 miles. I drifted increasingly and consistently away from my goal from that point on, however. 

Now, on to Heart Rate!

This chart starts out pretty similar to the typical pattern: high at first, then settling in and consistent towards the middle. However, it starts to drop in the final miles (when I "gave up"), and it doesn't show that I was physically tired or maxing myself out. No, this pretty much says that I was mentally tired, or my legs were tired. 

However, my legs have felt pretty good since the race. It is hard for me to wrap my head around what this chart is telling me.

Especially when I compare to prior races:

See, I started lower and stayed lower than every race (except Seattle), and I was a bit worried after Seattle that I hadn't pushed hard enough at the end. Here, I have the added concern that I was pushing harder the entire way just this past spring at the Avenue of the Giants. 

So, what was the deal?

I prefer to believe that the four weeks I missed were the main factor, and the running through slower runners was the secondary factor. 

The four weeks I dealt with injury (plus a fifth building back slowly) amounted to 243 fewer miles of training in tail end of the training plan. I ran less than half of the miles that I had planned to run.

And one cannot underestimate the extra strain it places on a runner to be constantly trying to thread his way through other runners. 

So I feel quite mixed: was my effort poor, was my conditioning poor, or was the missing-my-wave a tragedy?

I prefer to look at it from a greater distance. 3:13:30, my official time, is not that much off from the 3:10 I thought I could run, and it also isn't horribly off from the 3:05 I ran in the Spring. Given the injury and the time off, I can be proud to have delivered a solid marathon, and I'll be back out on the road for #9 some time in 2014.

The 2013 Avenue of the Giants Marathon

The New York Marathon continues to wait. I was on tap to run it in 2012, but two things happened. One was Hurricane Sandy. The other was a series of little stress fractures in my left lower leg.

(I should note that shortly after my Seattle Marathon, in February 2012, I blew away my PR at the Kaiser Half-Marathon, running 1:27:14. I ran the same Half-Marathon earlier this year, my first race back from the stress fractures, in a less impressive 1:28:57.)

I decided, once I recovered from the stress fractures, that I would run a marathon before the 2013 New York Marathon I'll run in November. I debated between two spring marathons, choosing the relative convenience of the somewhat local Avenue of the Giants Marathon. (Located in Humbolt State Park, a few hours drive North of San Francisco.)

Training went quite well. I didn't miss a single run over the course of training -- and it has been a long time since I did that. Well, actually, I did miss a single run. Five days before the race, stepping out of the shower, I bashed my fourth and fifth toes on my left foot. 

I thought I might have broken a toe, it hurt so much. It hurt to walk. Limping in the days before a marathon seems a bad thing! I saw a doctor, got x-rays and breathed an incredible sigh of relief that nothing was broken. Ice, elevation, Arnica and rest. Buddy-taping. A careful run on the Friday before (where I didn't feel the toes much), and I decided to still run the race. In fact, I decided to still shoot for 3:05, thinking I might even go faster than that.

The Avenue of the Giants is a nice, small race. Fewer than 500 people finished the marathon in 2012, and if I ran well, I could place in the top ten (against last year's field). The race took place just three weeks after the insane bombing of the Boston Marathon, and so I decided to wear a remembrance I designed to pay tribute to the victims of that terrible event.

On the morning of the race, my wife drove me to the race site, I picked up my bib, and ten minutes before the start, I walked over to the crowd near the starting line and did some plank exercises. Five minutes before the start, I had shed by sweats (handed them to my wife), loaded my shorts with GU, kissed my wife and worked my way to the front of the starting area. In fact, there weren't very many people crowding to be at the front of the line!

Race Start

After the National Anthem, the starter encouraged us to move forward towards the actual starting line, and then, we were off.

The pace was fast at first. I started to count how many people went ahead of me in the first half mile and settled at around 20 or so, consciously trying to slow it down a bit, as I realized the people ahead of me were going out much faster than I would run. I took note of a couple of guys I marked to be over 40 (and, essentially, my competition). I noted a 6:53 split for the first mile, solidly 20 seconds faster than I planned for that mile, and I doubled my resolve to not be concerned about the speed the other runners were going. I was glad to note that my toes were feeling fine, and I only had a little sensitivity around the pad of my left foot. 

I tried to settle in to the pace that I was hoping to run for the first quarter. The course is essentially two, 6.55 mile out-and-backs (each being 1/2 of a marathon), and I had understood that the first half was a gradual uphill climb to the first turnaround. So when I marked my split for mile 2, hoping to be at 7:10, I was disturbed to see 7:38 instead. I didn't think I had slowed down that much!

I pressed on, perhaps speeding up a bit, pretty much holding position and trying to keep a fellow I thought was over 40 in sight, though sometimes he'd vanish in the curves of the road ahead of me. Fortunately, the enormous redwood trees were not only beautiful, they provided shade. I marked 7:08 for my third mile, pretty close to what I wanted, but I realized that my watch now told me that I had gone about 3.2 miles (not 3), so I knew that the calibration of my footpod was off (telling me I had run longer than I actually had would mean that the watch would tell me I was going faster than I actually was, so I tried to estimate that whatever my watch said was 10 seconds faster than my actual pace). I tried to hold this pace over the next mile.

Then it got weird. My mile 4 split was 6:36, and I couldn't believe it. Sure, the hills were rolling, but not so much that I would record such a fast mile. I thought for a second that the mile marker was off. I just tried to maintain pace, checking my watch, making the mental calculation of adding ten seconds, trying to keep pace.

And then I saw my mile 5 split at 7:33. Again, no way I was going that slow, and it stood to reason that the fast mile had been "short" while the next (slow) mile had been "long". Ugh. Neither my watch was calibrated well, nor were the mile markers in the right place. Distracting! I took my first GU and pressed on, perhaps pushing a little to finish the uphill section as I would get closer to the first turnaround. 

Mile six split showed at 6:34 -- gads! Another bad mile marker! I started to take note of the leaders of the marathon coming back the other way. The first two guys were coming back really fast, but not as soon as I thought they would be. I blew past a water stop (I carry my own water bottle) and headed for the turnaround, trying to note how far behind the guy in the red shirt I was. Not close, but not too far. 

Now, the hill profile would be an advantage, and the plan was to run a bit faster on the way back to the starting area than the way out. I crossed the mile 7 marker with a 7:00 split, pretty close to my target, and was satisfied with the pacing. I would start clicking off the miles here, with the mile 8 split at 6:51 (a tad fast), mile 9 at 6:56 (closer to target) and mile 10 at 6:44 (definitely downhill, but a bit too fast). I took an S-Cap at the first hour (between miles 8 and 9), and my second GU at mile 10. The S-Caps are an attempt to forestall cramping, something I've had in my right calf the prior three marathons I've run. 

I started to pick off a few runners at this point, slowly dragging in a woman whose form was a bit tight. I passed her on a bit of a curve, telling her that she was looking strong (and she called back that I was too). And then I quickly caught another runner.

The mile 12 split came in at a reasonable 7:08, along with someone announcing the overall time -- I noted being more than a minute faster than my goal at this point. I soon made it back to the starting area for the completion of the first half, I notched a split of 6:34 (gads, another mile marker out of place?)

I passed back under the overpass through a somewhat tight corner lined with screaming race fans. At this point, so close to the finish and start, the vast majority of people watching the race are all crowded into one place. Around that corner and uphill over a small bridge -- and there's my wife, screaming and cheering for me and running ten steps or so with me, spurring me on.

This next half was reported to me as mostly flat, with a bit of an uptick at the far point and this bridge being the only hilly parts. Also, this half was going to have a lot more runners on the path: they started a half-marathon an hour after our marathon start, and they also started a 10K at some point.

I took note of the decidedly downhill section as I came off the bridge, noting a 6:57 split for mile 14. I was cruising a bit here, and I came upon another runner who liked my pace. We exchanged names and goals (both targeting 3:05), but I told him we were a solid minute or more ahead of that pace. He dropped behind me quickly. My water bottle was nearly empty, so I cruised in to the next water stop with the cap off of my bottle, picked up a pitcher cleanly and refilled. Back I went. I notched a 6:57 split for mile 15, then took my third GU. 

Now, I began to see slow 10K runners, and I also began to feel like I was heading uphill. Fortunately, some of the 10K runners would call out to the others "marathoner!" and "get to the right, marathoner coming through!", so I could run down the center without much trouble. I tried to keep the pace, but it was harder to gauge pace when passing so many runners. Plus, there were now lots of slower half-marathoners and somewhat fast 10K runners coming back the other way. Then I reached the point where the 10K runners turned around, and it was just half-marathoners to contend with. I missed the 16 mile split, so when I finally caught sense of my pace at mile 17, it looked like I had averaged 7:24 for the past two miles! I chalked it up to the uphill, but wasn't too happy about it anyway. I took my second S-Cap.

I approached the final turnaround, passing more half-marathoners, no idea now which runners were in my race, and which were in the half. I noted 6:40 for my mile 18 split and began to doubt the mile markers again here. 

The final ascent to the turnaround was on me, and my foot was starting to feel a bit off. Not the toes, but the foot in a more general sense, near the pad and outside of it. I hit the mile 19 marker at 7:41 and was just convinced that it was nonsense. I pressed on, made the turnaround, and headed back down.

Still passing half-marathoners. The next split I saw was 6:37 at mile 20. Huh? Well, 6.2 to go. I took my last GU. This pain in my foot is something, but I felt okay. I felt a flash of a small cramp in my right calf. 

Mile 21 at 7:18. Hm. I'm heading back downhill. That's disconcerting.

Mile 22 at 7:17. I thought I had tried to pick it up. The foot is hurting a bit more. I get a full cramp in my left calf and have to slow to walk for a step, but I'm back to running pretty quickly, just feeling a bit wobbly about that calf. 

Mile 23 at 7:14. My plan was to be at least 10 seconds faster. I tried to push a bit more, and it felt like I was going at a reasonable pace, just slower.

Mile 24 posts at 7:19 and now I know I'm not doing well. My foot certainly hurts and I just want this race to be over. I feel another small cramp go through my right calf. There are runners around me, but I don't know which race. I'm just trying to get done. My left foot hurts and I'm feeling wary of the cramping my my right calf.

Mile 25 comes in at 7:22 and now I know I've lost any chance of a better race than my plan. I am just aching for the finish. My foot hurts with every stride and I'm not feeling like I can go any faster. Where oh where is the finish line? I come back to that bridge and try to drive across it.

I see the Mile 26 marker and note a 7:29 split, but just try to drive to the finish. I come around a bend and see the finish, the half-marathon clock momentarily fooling me into thinking that I somehow come in at 3:03, but then seeing the full-marathon clock and realizing I'm done in 3:05. I'm so beat that I don't even raise an arm in triumph as I cross, just glad to have crossed the finish line.

I walk, with pain in my foot, but not limping. I collect my medal and a patch. (The patch is unusual: of my prior six marathons, the only one that included something other than the standard medal/shirt was Portland.) 

I get some water.

My wife meets me. I'm so done. I wander amongst the mass of finishers. I take a banana, and I try to keep walking so I don't stiffen up. After about ten minutes, I finally sit in the area where they have ice and get a bag of ice and water to plunge my foot into (I took off my shoe and sock first).

Nice. It's warm now, outside of the shade of the trees. I don't even need to change my shirt. I've never finished a race and not felt cold inside of five minutes, but here I'm feeling fine. 

We hang out for an hour, with me wandering over to the results table.  13th. Fourth in the over 40 set, and second in 40-44. My wife brings me a blanket, my stretching gear, and my black foam roller (that others looked upon with envy). I lay on the blanket, stretching, and then it is almost too warm in the sun. They start to announce awards.

I wait long enough to collect my age-group award.

So… Graphs! Oh, I love graphs.

First, let me say that all the noise during the race about mile markers being off? Well, yes, they most certainly were. While my watch was not calibrated that well, at least it should be consistent, so when I re-scaled my watch readings to match 26.2 miles, and then re-scaled my splits, I saw a different, smoother pattern. The red line shows what my pacing was actually like. Much smoother, much less of a swing from mile to mile. The blue line is what my watch was showing me. The green line, which matches the blue line pretty well, is how far off from 1.0 each mile marker was (secondary axis for that).

Variance from plan. (From here on out, I use the effective splits I calculated after the fact.) I had established a nominal plan to finish a bit above 3:05, so this just shows what it felt like: I was largely on track or ahead of pace until mile 16, where I slowed down. The only exception was Mile 25, where I ran an effective split of 7:14 even though my watch said 7:22.

Heart Rate:

I have always looked to this to tell me something about my race that isn't as clear from time-splits. What's different here is that there isn't as much of a profound dip after that initial peak than what I usually see. Seems that in my prior races, I would settle in between miles 8 and 10 and then slowly increase towards the finish. My average heart rate here, however, stays above 172 for most of the middle of the race.

I decided to compare this to my prior three marathons. You can see how that pattern is there in all the races, except this one, my peak wasn't as high and my dip wasn't as low. The most profound difference is between this one and the last one (Seattle).

I suppose this could mean that I wasn't able to maintain that higher-level of heart rate the whole way while running that kind of pace. I'm just not sure, given the different middle-section and the generally higher heart rate.

Time relative to Plan:

Yep. Ahead of plan the whole way, and after 15 miles, I started to slow down.

Projected base upon pace:

This graph shows how I was flirting with a PR but would have had to stay on pace after mile 16. And, it shows that I was ahead of my pace band from miles 13 to 23.  A pretty solid march back to plan after I slowed down.

Marathon Record:

On the one hand, I've now put in three consecutive marathons faster than my 2008 Portland race. On the other hand, while my first five marathons all marched downward on that graph, the next two races have each been slower than the prior ones.

Again, I'm thinking big for New York. November 3, 2013!

•••

Mixed.

I'd really like to understand if it was all just the foot that caused me to slow down. I had in my head that I would do better, and during the race, I knew I was ahead of pace. So to slow down so much in the second half leaves me less than satisfied. There are just so many factors to consider:

• the mental-chaos of the mile markers being off
• the possibility that it was, say, 65 degrees or warmer and I didn't notice
• the possibility I had simply started too fast (first half of the race)
• the cramps
• the pain in my foot

That said, it was a nice course, and despite the pain, a generally enjoyable experience. I liked it, and would consider running it again one day.

The 2011 Seattle Marathon

Two years, seven months and seven days.

That's how long ago I ran the Boston Marathon, how long it had been since my previous marathon.

I had no idea when I started to prepare for the Seattle Marathon, which I ran Sunday, how the time between marathons would leave me.

I started with injury: six months without running due to a strained anterior tibula suffered at Boston. I finally got back to running, running smaller races, a couple of half marathons… Dealt with IT band, quad, and Achilles problems.

There's nothing quite like the marathon. I felt well prepared, though.

I originally decided to try to break 3:10 again, but as training progressed, I felt like I could do 3:08. If I used late-training benchmarks, I might even project myself to run 3:06, but I put together a pace-band a strategy for 3:08.

Seattle

As I did for Portland in 2008, I flew to the city of the race the day before, went from airport to the Expo, then to the hotel. My lovely wife came with me this time, though! Pre-race dinner with Dina, my "neighbor" from college days, and then a quiet night in the hotel room. Some sleep. Checked the weather: 50 degrees and rain. Decided not to wear gloves, but wore my hand-perforated garbage bag to keep me warm. Left for the race.

A couple of blocks from the hotel I had chosen I found the sweats-check. It was raining a little, and I had allowed plenty of time, so I just stood under an overhang for five minutes before moving on towards the starting area. I walked along the periphery and took a spot under an overhang and briefly chatted with a runner. I was troubled by the notion that I might have to back-track a couple of blocks to enter the starting area, as they had portable barriers up. Still, prompted by an announcer encouraging people to get into the starting area, I left the relative comfort of the overhang and made my way up a block, then hopped the barrier as I had seen others, making my way back to the front section of the start. The rain was uncomfortable, so I stuck to a side where there was a little tree-coverage. I had my pre-race GU and started to shiver. You never know exactly what it will be like, so the thought of having been in the hotel another 15 minutes where it was warmer was momentary but compelling.

At long last, the race was ready to start. There was plenty of space up front, and I stood midway between the 3 hour and 3:10 pace leaders.

The Start of the Race

Off we go! The course starts at City Center and takes Fifth Avenue south through the City to the Mercer Island Bridge. That meant we started with a bit of a an uphill, and I had allocated a little extra time to allow for a slow start. I tried to hold myself back and take it very easy, but the uphill was shorter than I anticipated and we were heading downhill already, The smattering of fans cheering towards the start were now gone, and we were running on mostly empty city streets.

Split for Mile 1: 7:03

Fast! Felt too easy to be going that speed. We passed under the Monorail tracks and I saw a monorail car passing overhead. We passed by the Westin (where the Expo had been). I could see the 3 hour group ahead of me.

It seemed the downhills were more significant than the uphills, and coming down a hill I felt some wind make my garbage-bag layer flap, so despite my mental desire to retain it for a few miles, I tore it from my body and felt the cool air on my singlet.

I was surprised that traffic control was letting cars cross the course at this point, but there just weren't that many runners around me. I felt a sensation in my left ankle, the Achilles, but it was soon gone.

Split for Mile 2: 6:48

Way fast! I had anticipated some downhill here, but not thought I would run that fast down it. Again, this felt easy and I wondered if I could be a bit more conservative.

We entered the I-90 Express Lane entrance at this point, heading towards the Floating Bridge. I was surprised that we reached this highway so soon: in my head, the entrance was closer to the water. Signs directed us to the left and half-marathoners to the right (half marathoners started 45 minutes ahead, but I still saw some, meaning it took them close to an hour to go about two miles??). I heard a vehicle behind us and suddenly realized that an ambulance was coming, so we moved over and let it pass -- a problem on the course already? Oh, the half-marathon, perhaps.

Split for Mile 3: 6:55

Still fast! I began to wonder what feedback my watch/foot-pod was providing. It seemed to be telling me I was going 7:20 but in reality faster than 7? That was supposed to be a slower mile (all uphill), but it breezed by easily.

Now, we were heading downhill a bit and approaching a tunnel. At least for a bit, there would be some shelter from the rain.

Split for Mile 4: 6:44

Some fans had taken post there, and the echos from the tunnel made it loud! There was a water stop and medical tent there, too, and the whole scene was a bizarre, apocalyptic scene of a sheltered space seemingly taken over for makeshift purposes. Through the tunnel and on to the bridge.

What is this fascination with running on bridges? There is no view to speak of, since the barriers that prevent cars are too high and you ought to be watching where you are going. It is very loud, since they never can get the whole bridge closed to traffic. It is completely exposed. There are no fans.

This bridge was no different. In fact, we were bordered by cars on either side since we were on the Express Lanes in between. Loud. Feh. I realized I missed the 5-mile marker, then took my first GU.

I reached the other side of the bridge and entered, uphill a bit, another loud tunnel with a water stop inside.

Splits for Miles 5 & 6: 6:50 apiece

Inside the tunnel, there was an inelegant, 180-degree turn around some cones (and I was surprised that there was no timing mat there to enforce it). Downhill back to the bridge road, I felt like I was clicking off fast miles.

Split for Mile 7: 6:59

I quickly compared my overall time to my goal to that point and realized I was already two minutes ahead of my goal! I felt like I should relax and not work so hard. I reached the other side of the bridge, uphill a bit.

Split for Mile 8: 7:29

"That's okay," I thought. I had built such a lead on my goal that one slow mile was not going to be an issue.

The course now turned off the bridge and onto a path down. I was confused to see people walking on this pathway, and it wasn't terribly clear that I was going the right way, but quickly the path dumped me downhill onto Lake Washington Blvd. which was actually a calm, tree-lined road. Very peaceful.

Of course, that didn't mean that I slowed down.

Split for Mile 9: 6:47

Here, I just started clicking off miles, realizing, the further down Lake Washington Blvd. I got, that I wouldn't see my wife and Dina before I came back this way.

Split for Mile 10: 7:01

I checked my overall time at the Mile 10 split and realized that I was under 7 minutes per mile to that point, and that meant I was ahead of my PR pace. I decided to file that thought away.

Towards the end of this mile, I realized that my water bottle was nearly empty. I drank the rest, dumped the detritus, unwrapped the second half of a Nuun tablet I had wrapped in foil, dropped in in the bottle and closed it back up. The tablet rattled around, but I was ready for the next water stop.

Split for Mile 11: 7:17

The road changed a little as we approached Seward Park, and then we were beginning the loop. I briefly chatted with a guy who was trying to understand the pace, and then the water stop came up. I veered behind the line of volunteers and a guy at the table saw me coming with my bottle open. He picked up a pitcher of water and poured it rapidly into my bottle, filling it in seconds, and I was back on the road with the fastest pit-stop I've ever done in a marathon. I caught back up to the guy I had chatted with and we continued along the Seward Park Trail loop.

Split for Mile 12: 7:01

There were a few people walking on the road, nothing to do with the marathon. Mildly distracting.

Photographer. I tried to smile.

Splits for Miles 12 & 13: 7:01

Reached the half-way mark and noted my off-set from the official clock (about six seconds). I also noted that I was still ahead of my PR pace, and I recalled what my Chiro-Med doctor proposed a few months ago: some people come back from injury stronger than before and PR. I never had really thought I'd get that close, but since I knew the road through mile 18 was flat, I figured I'd see if I could sustain a 7:00/mile pace through there and see where I was then.

Exiting Seward Park…

Spilt for Mile 14: 6:58

Now it was time to work the way back up Lake Washington Blvd., and by now, there were lots of runners coming the other way (behind me, essentially). I got to see the 3:30 pace group, the 3:45 pace group, the 4 hour pace group, the 4:15 pace group.

Footwork got a little complicated in that I had to avoid some puddles. Yes, it was still raining.

Split for Mile 15: 6:57

I was beginning to think "if I can hold on to 7s until Mile 20 or 22, I can gut out the final miles and maybe even pick up the pace." I was definitely thinking that I could possibly PR.

Split for Mile 16: 7:01

Cruising along, cookin'.

A slight uphill, and there I see my wife and Dina. They see me and start yelling, cheering loudly. As I pass them, I shouted "I'm killin' it!" but they were cheering too loud and I don't think they heard me. I heard them cheering long after I passed them. It felt great.

Split for Mile 17: 7:03

I passed under the expressway and was no longer facing other marathoners still heading south.

Split for Mile 18: 6:47

I noted that I had only 8.2 to go.

I started to see some people on the right side of the road, and one guy holding a sign that read "You Are All Kenyans!". As I passed them, I called out "that's a great sign!"

A short bit after, I saw about 20 to 30 people on the side of the road holding full-size American Flags and cheering. It was was a slightly odd sight, since it was almost like it was some sort of procession, but it was still pretty cool.

Split for Mile 19: 6:59

I suddenly recalled a theory that Galen had offered, that my lack of marathoning over the past two years had me faster than before, but possibly at the cost of the end of the marathon. He reasoned that I'd be solid through 18 or 20, but then might tail off.

The course took a brief uphill and started to wind a bit. The uphill cost me.

Split for Mile 20: 7:15

I figured that I was still pretty far ahead of my goal, so that mile wouldn't hurt me. However, after a brief downhill, the course took a 90 degree left turn and started up a long, merciless hill into the rain.

I had been warned by the 3:10 pace-leader when I talked to him before the race that the hill was worse than Heartbreak Hill in Boston. Turns out he was right. It is steeper and longer. Short steps, fighting. Passing people, though.

Split for Mile 21: 7:42

Yikes, yes, that hill was bad! But I reached the top and the reward was to start downhill again. Here, I saw my wife and Dina again, and they were cheering for me. I flashed a peace sign as I cruised by.

The downhill continued as I took a 90 degree right turn into Interlaken park.

Split for Mile 22: 6:49

This park road was windy: back and forth, curves, corners. And at this point, I started to see lots of people walking -- I didn't bother to look behind me as I passed them to verify that these were slow half-marathoners -- and the walkers were, predictably, in small bunches. In other words, they were a distraction and required me to dodge them as I passed them. One spectator was in the road, talking to one of the walkers and jerked herself out of the way when she noticed me bearing down on them.

I felt a small flash in my right calf, bringing back the specter of the cramps I felt in Boston and Portland.

Split for Mile 23: 7:06

Just 3.2 to go, time to push harder!

Out of the park and

onto a regular street that becomes an overpass, crossing over highway 520, and blasted in the face by a strong headwind. I fight my way across the overpass, and turn left. The wind abates, but inside of two blocks I'm crossing over I-5 on another overpass with another harsh wind, and then, on the other side, I turn south right into the wind, being battered by wind as I run alongside the freeway and pass back under it. The wind pushed against me every step of the way.

Another turn onto a road that takes us again over I-5 and more headwind to face. Passing walkers left and right, some even have umbrellas! The wind whips the rain into my face like pellets.

Another incline, and I reach the mile marker.

Splits for Miles 24 and 25: 7:14 each

Just a mile and change to go. The chance to PR is probably lost, but have to push hard to the finish anyway. A bit of decline as I turn left down Republican Street and it is urban now. Thinking I should push a bit more and as I start to push off on my right foot I feel a cramp in my right calf.

"No." I say to myself, refusing the cramp as I feel it roll through my calf and I force my leg to bend and keep running, though I have an irregular gait. Three steps, four, five… And it goes away.

I keep passing people. Some walking, some running. Not caring who they are. Zig-zag up Dexter and West on Mercer… We're so close to the finish and…

…there's an underpass. I look downhill and see the resulting uphill and say "really?" I stride downhill and try to fight uphill and I know I should be digging for the finish.

I see the turn ahead, and I head down 4th Ave towards the entrance to the Stadium. I have to dodge walkers as I enter the tunnel but a green field opens up in front of me.

A sign directs me to stay to the left and I tear across the field to the finish line...

... throwing my fist into the air as I see the time on the clock: 3:04:42. My smile is wide as I know I have run a great race, exceeding my goal by several minutes and ahead of my best projection by over a minute.

I slow to a walk and a volunteer places a medal around my neck.

I take a few more steps and have to stop while another volunteer takes off my pacing chip (really, Seattle: get the D-Tags!).

I go forward and see my wife and Susan on the other side of a barrier, cheering me.

It's done.

Graphs, how I love thee? Seriously, though, these graphs help me reflect on the race as much as my recollections do.

Variance from plan (where plan was to finish under 3:08, the same goal I had for Boston in 2009): It sort of flops around a bit, which is primarily an indicator to me how I couldn't plan very well for a course based upon a sketchy elevation map, and secondarily how I was simply going to race much faster than plan most of the way. The big spikes are essentially uphills I didn't count on affecting me much (and perhaps a lapse during mile 8), plus the last few miles being far more challenging (or something...). The standard deviation of my splits was 13.9 seconds, which is wider than Boston, which was wider still than CIM and Portland.

It does show how often I was ahead of my plan. It is the exceptions that are interesting.

Heart Rate:

I think I find this graph the most instructive, now, given that the shape of it tells me about effort. In my prior five marathons, the shape is exactly like this: starts climbing for a few miles, and then descends until about mile 8, stays relatively low for the middle of the race, and then starts climbing as I push towards the finish.

Hm. Where's the climb here? I can see a peak when I fought uphill in Mile 21, but then it settles back down to 165 or so for the next three miles (22-25). Also note, the peak heart rate during those miles separates far more from the average than, say, the middle of the course. This tells me that the combination of uphills and headwind I faced in those final three miles really shut down my overall effort. Perhaps I could have ground out a more potent finish with less wind or fewer hills, but the combination was like getting punched back and forth.

Time relative to Plan:

This shows how quickly I abandoned my plan, and how some combination of running by feel and thinking about a new goal (even a PR) had me marching towards a result three minutes better than goal.

Projected based upon pace:

I did this for my Boston race and thought I'd repeat it, and here I threw in my PR pace as a reference. It reflects what I was tracking in my head in the middle of the race: I had a chance to PR if I could finish strong (and overcome the rough finishing miles). However, it also reflects how I was never running for my goal -- right from the start of the race, my projected finish would be under 3:05 and stay there.

Marathon Record:

Two and a half years between marathons didn't see me lose much! Really, that's what I am most happy about: when I started to train for this, I had no idea what I could realistically run given how long a break it had been, and I had started with just wanting to break 3:10 again (the old Boston standard, the post-40 New York standard -- it is a good reference point). Now I'm in a place where I've been under that 3:10 mark my last three times, and under 3:05 twice in a row. It sort of sets me up to think bigger for New York.

New York City Marathon, November 4, 2012.

• • •

Satisfied.

I feel good about this effort, and it sets me up well for the future, assuming my legs come back to me without serious injury. I am happy to report on this race!