Overall, I am pretty happy with how I ran yesterday. I finished with a time of 3:16:08, placed 84th out of 2090 finishers, and 13th in the 35-39 age group. A major goal of mine was to complete the race without cramping and run the whole race. Goal accomplished!! I even beat Superman and didn't get passed by any of the pace teams! The bummer of that time is that I missed qualifying for the Boston Marathon by nine seconds. Weather was perfect with a starting temp of 44 degrees and 55 at the finish. The wind did kick up on the way back up Bayshore from mile 22 on which didn't help. The race started staring at an awesome full moon centered directly in front of us over the road. The first six miles went through Davis Islands. I was impressed that there was actually some people that setup chairs in their driveways to cheer runners considering it was still dark. Miles 6-11 wound through downtown. The half-marathoners split at mile 7 and we joined back up with them at mile 11. This is where my major complaint to the race organizers is. Joining up with the half-marathoners for a second time meant that I was running into the thousands of mid-pack slower runners. I ended up having to weave in and out of all these people which wastes energy. For three or four miles, it was almost impossible to get to water stations. At one station, the volunteers were overwhelmed and I tried to get a cup of water off the table but the cup was empty. The half-marathoners finally turned around to their finish about mile 14 while I continued out and back Bayshore Blvd. I kept the pace pretty good until mile 22 where the wind started to pickup and my legs were fatiguing. After some mental math to figure out the pace I needed to run to stay under 3:16, I picked up the pace but didn't quite execute right. My last desperate push came at mile 25 where I ran a 7:26 mile and picked up to almost 7 minute pace to finish, but it wasn't good enough.
Jenny and Tommy had their own adventures trying to keep up with me. It was great seeing them early in the race at miles 6 and 11. Unfortunately, our plan for them to hop on the buses that shuttle people down to two spots on Bayshore ended up a disaster and we never saw each other again until almost an hour after I finished. I really could have used some shouts to get my butt moving in the latter miles.
Another beef we have is with Metro PCS who provided race updates via text and email services. The only update anybody received via text was my finishing time. Metro PCS sucks!!
All in all, it was a good experience and I learned a lot about myself and some things to do and not do at future marathons. I will be posting some more observations of the race and post training techniques and other tips that have worked for me and hopefully may work for you.
I will be doing nothing but short recovery runs this week as my ham strings are a bit tight. Overall, I have very little soreness and came out feeling good. Then I will be picking up training for the Kentucky Derby Marathon April 24th. Next race on the schedule is the Zephyrhills Founders Day 5K next Saturday.
Here's some pictures all taken by Jenny.
[caption id="attachment_283" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Tampa Convention Center over the Garrison Channel."]
[caption id="attachment_284" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Start of the Gasparila full and half-marathon."]
[caption id="attachment_285" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Nice shot of runners crossing over the bridge from Davis Island"]
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[caption id="attachment_288" align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="Running easy and on pace at mile 6."]
[caption id="attachment_290" align="aligncenter" width="332" caption="Relaxing after the race using The Stick to massage my tired muscles."]
[caption id="attachment_291" align="aligncenter" width="332" caption="A great looking and well earned marathon medal."]
[caption id="attachment_292" align="aligncenter" width="333" caption="A happy marathon finisher!"]
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