2009 Erie Marathon

The week leading up to Sunday's Erie Marathon at Presque Isle was fairly interesting. As far as running goes anyway. With the 20 mile Blue Line run on Saturday completed, it was time for a one week taper leading into the marathon. I still wasn't sure how hard I wanted to run the race, which made me unsure just how much to cut back on training. During Tuesday's speed work session I cut back on the number of 800 repeats but I didn't skimp on the pace. Starting at 3:15, I sped up till my last repeat saw a time of 2:45. That's pretty darn fast for me.

My mini-taper saw me skip a few days as I was trying to get things done around the house. (I won't even get into having to replace the hot water tank on Thursday). I was able to get out for an easy three miles Saturday morning after an unexpected rain shower went through. I didn't feel great and was really worried about maintaining 7:30 miles on Sunday. So I put off making the decision a little while longer.

We stopped at Ferrante Winery for lunch on the way to Erie. The wine was great and so was the food. After that it was just a short drive across the PA border and into Erie. We made our way to the park and picked up our race packets. After that it was time to check in at our hotel and make dinner plans. We ended up at The Brewerie in downtown Erie. It was located in the old Union Station train station. The food was good but we've had much better beer. Unfortunately, beer is what makes a brewery, not the food, and I wouldn't return for a second visit.

I had a hard time sleeping so I found myself watching the entire USC/OSU game. I thought we were going to win that one... After about three hours of sleep I was up and getting ready to run, still not knowing what I was going to do: run comfortable and enjoy myself, or run hard and attempt to qualify for Boston. As it turns out, I wasn't going to make that decision until a couple miles into the run!

The marathon and half marathon started together promptly at 7:00, nice and early. Although temperatures were around 60 degrees, there was enough humidity in the air to make it feel warmer. And warm is exactly what things began to get once the sun was up. As for the start, I don't think that I'm starting too far back, but there sure do seem to be an awful lot of people I have to pass in the first mile or two. Once I was free to run my race without having to make awkward passes around people, I noticed that my pace was just shy of my goal race pace. That's when I decided I would go for it. Everything was prepared for an attempt: gels, fluids, and finally me, mentally.

The course was two loops around the Presque Isle State Park which is a peninsula which sticks out into Lake Erie. We ran on the parkway which was mostly tree lined and shaded. But that also meant not much of a breeze. We had sun on the south side but managed to pick up a little of the lake breeze along sections on the north side. Regardless, I was sweating. A lot! Fluids would be important today. The sports drink of choice for the race was HEED, which I'm not a big fan of, so I planned ahead by mixing 8 bottles of Gatorade Endurance for my Fuelbelt. As a multiple loop course, I would be able to swap out empty bottles for full when I passed Mrs. and Jr. P.

Here I am at the half-way point preparing to trade three empties for three fulls.

I felt pretty good through the first 21 miles, maintaining a pace about 30 seconds behind my goal time. I alternated between Gatorade and water with gel at the aid stations, which were awesome to have every mile. I needed the Gatorade because of the extra sodium and the gels for the concentrated calories and caffeine. While I made if farther than at Rite Aid before experiencing problems, the problems, they did arise. The cramping began in my toes, moved to my calves, and then eventually on to my interior quads. I slowed with each wave of cramping and was able to run my way through them. With four miles left I accepted the fact that I wasn't going to qualify for Boston that day, but if I maintained my pace without getting any worse, I would certainly set a new PR. To hit 3:15 I would need to run four 7:15 miles while I was cramping and that just wasn't going to happen. What I was able to do was piece together four just over 8:30 miles and finish with a 2:00 PR, 3:20:39!

My race splits were: 8:05 / 7:30 / 7:32 / 7:32 / 7:37 / 7:13 / 7:12 / 7:24 / 7:22 / 7:23 / 7:20 / 7:22 / 7:19 / 7:21 / 7:28 / 7:28 / 7:39 / 7:20 / 7:44 / 7:28 / 7:49 / 8:02 / 7:55 / 8:25 / 8:43 / 8:49 / and 1:26 for the final .2 miles. Like I said, I was trailing goal pace by a very consistent 30 seconds at every mile. At one point, mile 19 I think, I was right on goal pace to the second! There was enough slop built into my pacing schedule to get me to the line with some time to spare. But alas, it wasn't to be.

Oh well, this wasn't supposed to be the qualifying race anyway. That has always been planned for Columbus. I just needed to come through without injuring myself and maybe learn some things for the future. Well, I didn't injure myself and I learned that I'm going to have to figure out how to prevent the cramping. How? I don't know yet.

Almost to the finish!

As far as stats go, I finished 6th of 22 in my age group and 42nd of 484 total finishers. Not too bad! That's all for now, but stay tuned for a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT in the very near future. Bigger things are in the works for next year!