Charleston Marathon

I finally had some time this evening to look at my official results and the whole surreality of this weekend is setting in...

I just ran a marathon as a training run, a day after a hard 15.4 mile run. I never felt tired. Nothing hurt. I had to restrain myself from running too fast. I ran my second fastest time ever, just 3:08 off my PR. I got on a plane less than 6 hours after the race, came home, and went to work this morning like any other day. Now that I've had a chance to reflect, it all seems so surreal. Did I dream this? No, I have a medal and photos and internet results. It really happened!

Backtracking, LOTS of interesting stuff happened in the two days I was in Charleston.

Thursday, my Garmin quit working properly. I was suppose to do a 13 mile pace run. I was excited to be running in shorts and a T-shirt. My Garmin showed a green satellite but would not track any distance or pace. I tried restarting it three times then gave up and decided to use it as a stopwatch. Plan was to run 65 minutes out and then run back. This way I'd be guaranteed to have run at least 13 miles.

I stayed with my niece in North Charleston. I told her I just needed a road that I could run on that would go on for at least 6.5 miles. I was told to turn left out of her driveway, left at the end of her road at the duck pond, then take the next right and right and I would be on one of the main roads in town that would take me into downtown Charleston. I ran as instructed and ran all the way downtown. Once I got downtown though, it got more treacherous as there were more people on the sidewalks and cars pulling out of narrow alleyways. I had to keep stopping and finally said "screw it" at 63 minutes and turned around.

The run back was harder. It got up to almost 60 degrees and I ran into a headwind. I got back to the duck pond, hung a left, then hung a right into the road that T-d into the pond. Where was her house? I stopped my Garmin at 2:16 and started walking. I was at the pond. Obviously I just turned down the wrong street. Her house had to be close.

NOTE TO SELF: When leaving on a run from someone else's house in an unfamiliar city note the address of where you started.

I hadn't done this. I had no idea of her street address or the name of the street she lived on. Of course I didn't have a phone with me either because I don't run with a phone. Don't panic. Don't panic. Her house has to be on one of these other streets by the duck pond.

It was while I was walking that a young man on a bicycle rode past me. He then turned around and came back to me, got off the bike, and started walking with me making conversation. Basically the whole encounter started with, "Do you work at a Chinese restaurant?" "No, I don't." Some other small talk, then he asks me out on a date. Ummm... I don't think so. "No, I'm married." Plus I'm fairly certain I'm old enough to be his mother. After that statement he got on his bike and rode off.

Now where the heck is my niece's house?!! Then I realized the pond is an oval. Her road T-d into the short side of the oval rather than the long side. I had to hang another left and then a right to get back to her house. I did this and there it was. Phew!

After she came home we drove the route I had run. Ended up it was actually 7.7 miles to my turnaround point. So 15.4 miles total for the day. A bit longer than 13 but then again, I don't think I ran 8:45 pace for all those miles either. I ran a good effort though.

Later that evening I also had a chance to meet up with Melani, one of my online Sole Sisters. It was great to be able to finally meet her in person. We decided to grab some food at a restaurant near her hotel downtown.

Easier said than done! There were lots of restaurants...  seafood, steaks, burgers, pub food... Mediterranean food... Lebanese food we didn't recognize... all things that would be great post-marathon but not before. We walked and walked and walked until we were all the way down by the waterfront. We finally asked a hostess if she knew of anywhere that served pasta. Joe Pasta was the answer. Joe Pasta is located about 3 short blocks from Melani's hotel. Somehow we missed the only place downtown that served pasta. By now we were both starving, our feet were tired from walking, we were miles from her hotel (or at least it felt that way!) and both of us had a marathon to run in the morning.

We hailed a bicycle powered rickshaw taxi and got a ride back to Joe Pasta. Food at last!

Melani and me

Saturday morning my niece, her friend Patti, and I all got dropped off at the starting line where we ran into Melani and her friend Tracey... and my stupid Garmin would not work again! It did the same thing as the day before. It showed the time but no distance. I decided though that this was not a big deal because all I had to do was finish 26.2 miles at a nice easy pace. This was my easy long run for the week and, especially after running longer than intended the day before, I did not want to do anything to my legs.

Plan was to run with the 4:30 pace group. That's a 10:18 pace. I'd been running closer to a 10:30 pace on my long runs recently but I thought 10:15 was doable, especially since this would be a supported run with aid stations. There was an aid station every 2 miles. I planned to eat a GU every 4 miles up to mile 20 and drink Gatorade at the aid stations in between to practice my fueling.

At the starting line all of us realized this was a little race. There were less than a 1000 marathoners and a little over 2500 half-marathoners. We started at the same time. No corrals. We just lined up in the street by whatever pace runner you thought was appropriate.

Melani, Tracey and I started together right by the 4:30 pace runner. Beth was running the half and Patti was running slower so they started somewhere behind me. The first couple miles were congested as usual. I ran a nice easy pace and I kept looking for the 4:30 pacer who had been right next to me but then I thought got a little behind me. At the 2 mile mark my watch read 22 minutes. Hmmm... I wanted to run easy but this was a little too slow. I picked it up a little. I got separated from Melani and Tracey at this point.

Somewhere between miles 4 and 5 I saw someone ahead of me with a blue pace sign. Maybe that was the 4:30 pacer? I caught up with them and realized it was the 4:15 pacer. Then I heard from the runners around me that all of them felt the mile markers were off. Everyone was reading the course to be anywhere from 0.3 to 0.5 miles long - so probably why I thought I was slow at the 2 mile mark. This was throwing the pacers off too. They said they were trying to run 9:43 pace but several miles later I heard that they were up to 30 seconds off at times.

OK, new plan. Stay with these guys for as long as I feel good but absolutely DO NOT run faster then them! I felt great but I knew that I was not going to get a BQ today so this was NOT the day to push it and try to PR and blow out my legs 6 weeks before my goal marathon. DON'T DO IT!!!

I fueled exactly as planned. I felt like I was constantly squeezing a gel in my mouth and the miles went by pretty quickly. I was surprised by how good I still felt. At mile 22 the two pacers looked at me and another guy and said "Well, I guess you two are it." We were the only ones left in the pace group. They said if we felt good we should go on ahead. I then had to tell them this was just a training run and I had to stay with them so I wouldn't do anything stupid.

At mile 24 the pacers said we were actually a minute ahead of pace. At mile 25 one of the pacers decided he had to hit the port-a-potty. Now what? Rather than stand there and wait, I proceeded on. Run easy. Don't do anything stupid. No kick. No nothing. Just run across the finish line with a smile.

4:13:37. Seconded fastest time ever, the day after running over 15 miles, and it felt easy. I know I could have PR'd yesterday if I had pushed it but this was not the time to push things. I am SO glad I came to Charleston! The course was perfect. The weather was perfect. This was just the confidence booster I needed. Plus, if I still have this Boston bug next year then this would be the course for a BQ attempt because it's flat and FAST!

Beth (my niece) and me