2018 Erie Marathon - Take That Bambi ..!.
I got into Erie around 2pm, hit packet pickup on Presque Isle and checked into the hotel. During the weekend I think there were more Boston jackets per capita there than anywhere else in the world outside of *maybe* Boston and most of them were from 2018. I was at a Microtel and had specifically booked a room at the end of the hall because I thought it would be quiet. What I didn't realize was that I booked a smoking room. I didn't even think to look. I can't remember the last time I saw a hotel room with ash trays in it. The room smelled bad, but it could have been worse. The hallway was much worse. Oh well, the window opens to the outside so I turned off the wall unit and opened the window. I stopped by a Wegmans to buy snack food for the morning of the race and wound up with 3 packages of sushi for dinner. Back to the hotel to relax for the evening where my sinuses started bothering me and it sounded like the guy in the next room was working on a construction project.
My alarm went off at 4am, just like it does every day. I got ready and hit the road. The race is on a big sandbar/island out in Lake Erie. The course has changed so now you can no longer park at the start but instead park at a business 0.7 miles away and take a shuttle bus. There were about 20-30 cars in the parking lot when I got there. It was just cold enough that I thought about hanging out in the car until closer to race time but I just couldn't sit there and watch other people go, so I joined them and wound up in the first seat of the first bus.
Once we were dropped off at the pavilion, I went straight over to the picnic tables that had a roof over them. If rain did come down I wanted to have someplace covered to sit. I was wearing my running gear plus a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. I was cold so I pulled out a trash bag and put it on. Now I am feeling toasty. I made small talk with the people around me, including retelling the deer story a couple of times and lots of chit chat about Boston. The small talk was a way to distract myself. I kept having horrible lower back pain. This is becoming a recurring theme. It is some sort of stress reaction and it only happens before races. When the pain came I tried to focus on why I was there. I didn't want the deer to win! :-) Of course I had thoughts about trying to requalify for Boston, but first and foremost I wanted to enjoy myself and celebrate the fact that I'd healed enough to even get out and run for 26.2 miles at any pace.
I needed to average ~7:35 pace to be in the neighborhood of BQ-5 minutes so the plan was to run the first 13.1 at 7:30 pace or faster and then focus on HR for the second half with the idea of keeping it in the 160-165 bpm range. I figured my abbreviated training combined together with a summer of triathlon training would leave me in a position to be aerobically capable of a BQ-5 but I didn't think I'd have enough resilience in my legs to pull it off.
New this year the Erie Marathon had some signs for 6 minute pace, 7 minute pace, etc. and some pacers with signs like 3:05, 3:15, 3:25, etc. mixed in. I planted myself halfway between the 3:15 and 3:25 pacers and waited for the start. The gun went off and I was still walking to the start line with most of the other people. My back pain was gone by this point and I just kept reminding myself that I'm here to enjoy myself and finish the distance. Whenever I got anxious I just kept reminding myself to be in the moment and enjoy the day. I jogged across the start and started looking for a path through the crowd. I did some bobbing and weaving to get some elbow room and run the pace I wanted and in the process I started to creep up on the 3:15 pacer. The pack around the 3:15 guy was pretty thick and I'm glad it was. The rolling roadblock gave me time to think about what I was doing. I wanted to run 7:30 or better. He was running 7:25. Easy peasy, I'm now not allowed to pass him for the first half of the race. This took a lot of the pressure off and I could just relax and enjoy the day.
The weather was great. It was in the mid 50's with a pretty good wind and dark overcast sky. The sky was dark enough that it was almost hard to see while wearing sunglasses at times. The wind was gusting pretty good at times, but it was never an impediment. It felt good when it was blowing. It felt fine when it didn't. I never felt cold, or hot during the race. Score!
We were about 4-5 miles into it when it was time for disgusting triathlete move #1. I had hit the portapotty about 30 minutes before the start, but as soon as I got past the start line I started getting the urge to pee. I held onto it and figured once I got sweating and calmed down the urge might go away but it didn't. I spent a good part of the beginning few miles wondering what I should do about it. Finally I decided I didn't want to lose contact with the pace group so I waited for an opportunity when there wasn't anyone right next to me and then I jogged in the grass for a little bit and let go. It was a lot easier to keep up with the group after I did :-)
I was hitting salt pretty heavy and eating gu whenever I felt like it. The first 13.1 went great. The pace felt comfortable the entire time but I could tell by the end of the first lap that my legs were starting to enjoy the pounding less and less. I figured if I could stay with the 3:15 pace group until mile 16 or so then I should be in pretty good shape. I've got an app on my Garmin that recalculates the pace needed from current position to the finish line to meet my goal of 3:20 for 26.4 miles. It was fun watching the required pace climb higher and higher. It started off at 7:34 and then was in the 7:40's. It caught my eye when it was 7:53 and I had to laugh about "couch" pace, a.k.a recovery run pace. I looked forward to seeing it climb above 8 minutes a mile.
Sure enough, once we got to mile 16 I started struggling and a gap started growing with the 3:15 pace group. I set a goal to catch back up by mile 18. Around mile 17 I had caught them but then it just kept getting hard to stay in reach. The fade from here until mile 22 was pretty slow, but I was definitely fading. I went from running 7:20-7:25's to mile 18@7:34, mile 19@7:38, mile 20@7:40, mile 21@7:46, mile 22@7:56. Somewhere in the early 20's my watch was telling me that I was 3 minute 15 seconds ahead of my 3 hour 20 minute goal. Sweet! Mile 23 then came in @8:16. Warning, warning, warning! I would be fine running well into the 8's but I didn't want to keep sliding like this or I might be in trouble. It didn't help anything that I needed to pee again. So, not wanting to give up any more time I pulled another disgusting triathlete move and also kept focusing on keeping my cadence quick. Miles 23, 24 and 25 ticked away like (slow) clockwork with 8:16, 8:16 and 8:15. By mile 26 I was ready to start the push to the finish line and squeezed under 8 minutes with a 7:59 mile. Towards the end of the 26th mile I kept reminding myself that even in a marathons seconds matter. Who knows where the Boston cutoff will be this year but it may very well be near 5 minutes and I don't want to be that guy that misses my only a few seconds. I kept ratcheting up the pace when a younger guy in his 20's made a strong move to pass. Nope, not gonna happen. I match his pace and start pulling away from him. There is no way he is beating me to the finish line. The last 0.3 miles was 6:56 pace and somewhere in there I got to 5:22 pace. He didn't catch me :-)
The moment I finished I immediately started feeling light headed. The EMT asked if I was OK. I said I was light headed, but would be fine in a minute. He grabbed ahold of me just in case. He started asking the appropriate screening questions, "Do you have a history of heart issues, blah, blah, blah." His eyes got big when I said, "Yeah, AFib" I think I might have caused his heart to stop for a minute :-) I told him my rhythm was fine, I just needed a minute. After I caught my breath I shook his hand and went off to get a medal.
Medal and food in hand I started walking over to get my drop bag. I freaked out some people along the way. I started randomly crying. I knew it looked dumb, but I didn't care. Some people looked really worried when they saw me, but there was nothing to worry about. It was from a mixture of joy and relief. No sadness. After 3-4 bouts of dry tears and with my drop bag in hand I walked the 0.7 miles back to the car instead of waiting for a shuttle bus. It was really nice to get to the car, check the phone and see all of the Strava stalking going on :-) I couldn't wait to get the results uploaded.
My alarm went off at 4am, just like it does every day. I got ready and hit the road. The race is on a big sandbar/island out in Lake Erie. The course has changed so now you can no longer park at the start but instead park at a business 0.7 miles away and take a shuttle bus. There were about 20-30 cars in the parking lot when I got there. It was just cold enough that I thought about hanging out in the car until closer to race time but I just couldn't sit there and watch other people go, so I joined them and wound up in the first seat of the first bus.
Once we were dropped off at the pavilion, I went straight over to the picnic tables that had a roof over them. If rain did come down I wanted to have someplace covered to sit. I was wearing my running gear plus a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans. I was cold so I pulled out a trash bag and put it on. Now I am feeling toasty. I made small talk with the people around me, including retelling the deer story a couple of times and lots of chit chat about Boston. The small talk was a way to distract myself. I kept having horrible lower back pain. This is becoming a recurring theme. It is some sort of stress reaction and it only happens before races. When the pain came I tried to focus on why I was there. I didn't want the deer to win! :-) Of course I had thoughts about trying to requalify for Boston, but first and foremost I wanted to enjoy myself and celebrate the fact that I'd healed enough to even get out and run for 26.2 miles at any pace.
I needed to average ~7:35 pace to be in the neighborhood of BQ-5 minutes so the plan was to run the first 13.1 at 7:30 pace or faster and then focus on HR for the second half with the idea of keeping it in the 160-165 bpm range. I figured my abbreviated training combined together with a summer of triathlon training would leave me in a position to be aerobically capable of a BQ-5 but I didn't think I'd have enough resilience in my legs to pull it off.
New this year the Erie Marathon had some signs for 6 minute pace, 7 minute pace, etc. and some pacers with signs like 3:05, 3:15, 3:25, etc. mixed in. I planted myself halfway between the 3:15 and 3:25 pacers and waited for the start. The gun went off and I was still walking to the start line with most of the other people. My back pain was gone by this point and I just kept reminding myself that I'm here to enjoy myself and finish the distance. Whenever I got anxious I just kept reminding myself to be in the moment and enjoy the day. I jogged across the start and started looking for a path through the crowd. I did some bobbing and weaving to get some elbow room and run the pace I wanted and in the process I started to creep up on the 3:15 pacer. The pack around the 3:15 guy was pretty thick and I'm glad it was. The rolling roadblock gave me time to think about what I was doing. I wanted to run 7:30 or better. He was running 7:25. Easy peasy, I'm now not allowed to pass him for the first half of the race. This took a lot of the pressure off and I could just relax and enjoy the day.
The weather was great. It was in the mid 50's with a pretty good wind and dark overcast sky. The sky was dark enough that it was almost hard to see while wearing sunglasses at times. The wind was gusting pretty good at times, but it was never an impediment. It felt good when it was blowing. It felt fine when it didn't. I never felt cold, or hot during the race. Score!
We were about 4-5 miles into it when it was time for disgusting triathlete move #1. I had hit the portapotty about 30 minutes before the start, but as soon as I got past the start line I started getting the urge to pee. I held onto it and figured once I got sweating and calmed down the urge might go away but it didn't. I spent a good part of the beginning few miles wondering what I should do about it. Finally I decided I didn't want to lose contact with the pace group so I waited for an opportunity when there wasn't anyone right next to me and then I jogged in the grass for a little bit and let go. It was a lot easier to keep up with the group after I did :-)
I was hitting salt pretty heavy and eating gu whenever I felt like it. The first 13.1 went great. The pace felt comfortable the entire time but I could tell by the end of the first lap that my legs were starting to enjoy the pounding less and less. I figured if I could stay with the 3:15 pace group until mile 16 or so then I should be in pretty good shape. I've got an app on my Garmin that recalculates the pace needed from current position to the finish line to meet my goal of 3:20 for 26.4 miles. It was fun watching the required pace climb higher and higher. It started off at 7:34 and then was in the 7:40's. It caught my eye when it was 7:53 and I had to laugh about "couch" pace, a.k.a recovery run pace. I looked forward to seeing it climb above 8 minutes a mile.
Sure enough, once we got to mile 16 I started struggling and a gap started growing with the 3:15 pace group. I set a goal to catch back up by mile 18. Around mile 17 I had caught them but then it just kept getting hard to stay in reach. The fade from here until mile 22 was pretty slow, but I was definitely fading. I went from running 7:20-7:25's to mile 18@7:34, mile 19@7:38, mile 20@7:40, mile 21@7:46, mile 22@7:56. Somewhere in the early 20's my watch was telling me that I was 3 minute 15 seconds ahead of my 3 hour 20 minute goal. Sweet! Mile 23 then came in @8:16. Warning, warning, warning! I would be fine running well into the 8's but I didn't want to keep sliding like this or I might be in trouble. It didn't help anything that I needed to pee again. So, not wanting to give up any more time I pulled another disgusting triathlete move and also kept focusing on keeping my cadence quick. Miles 23, 24 and 25 ticked away like (slow) clockwork with 8:16, 8:16 and 8:15. By mile 26 I was ready to start the push to the finish line and squeezed under 8 minutes with a 7:59 mile. Towards the end of the 26th mile I kept reminding myself that even in a marathons seconds matter. Who knows where the Boston cutoff will be this year but it may very well be near 5 minutes and I don't want to be that guy that misses my only a few seconds. I kept ratcheting up the pace when a younger guy in his 20's made a strong move to pass. Nope, not gonna happen. I match his pace and start pulling away from him. There is no way he is beating me to the finish line. The last 0.3 miles was 6:56 pace and somewhere in there I got to 5:22 pace. He didn't catch me :-)
The moment I finished I immediately started feeling light headed. The EMT asked if I was OK. I said I was light headed, but would be fine in a minute. He grabbed ahold of me just in case. He started asking the appropriate screening questions, "Do you have a history of heart issues, blah, blah, blah." His eyes got big when I said, "Yeah, AFib" I think I might have caused his heart to stop for a minute :-) I told him my rhythm was fine, I just needed a minute. After I caught my breath I shook his hand and went off to get a medal.
Medal and food in hand I started walking over to get my drop bag. I freaked out some people along the way. I started randomly crying. I knew it looked dumb, but I didn't care. Some people looked really worried when they saw me, but there was nothing to worry about. It was from a mixture of joy and relief. No sadness. After 3-4 bouts of dry tears and with my drop bag in hand I walked the 0.7 miles back to the car instead of waiting for a shuttle bus. It was really nice to get to the car, check the phone and see all of the Strava stalking going on :-) I couldn't wait to get the results uploaded.
The final official result has me at 3:19:08 for a BQ-5:52. Not bad for an 8 week marathon build that was interrupted for 2 weeks by the damn deer :-)
