2007 Columbus Marathon

Well, it's not the most exciting race to recap, but I'll give the overview.

My Mom came down for the race, which was much appreciated. Meredith's parents picked us up a little over an hour before the start, and we all headed downtown together. While last year in Chicago, we were shivering and wearing gloves, long sleeves, and trash bags to keep in the heat, this year a long sleeve pullover was plenty to stay warm before the race. After we met up with our friends downtown, we all walked over to the start line together. In our short sleeves and shorts. Not feeling cold at all. While that's nice for any normal day, it's not a good start to a marathon.

My plan was to run with the four hour pace group for the entire race, and try to break that mark at the end. I fell a little behind during mile 1, just due to the general mayhem with different paces at the start of the race. Also, while there were about 3300 people running the marathon, another 6000+ were there running the half marathon, which ran the same roads for the majority of its course, and started at the same time.

I picked up the pace (maybe a little too much, around an 8:40 mile) during mile 2, and caught the pace group. For the next 3 miles or so, I ran with them pretty comfortably. After that, though, I knew something wasn't right. My stomach began to feel...not so good, and my legs felt numb, like I had already run 20 miles. Seven miles into a marathon, that's not a good feeling to have. I was able to still hang with the pace leader, but it felt like I was expending far too much energy to do it.

Mile 10 took us back through downtown, and past our moms' cheering section, which was a nice pick-up. After that, we did about a three mile loop down through German Village, which has some nice crowd support, and then began the long climb up High Street. I crossed the halfway point at 2:00:52, almost exactly on pace, but extremely tired and feeling dehydrated. While we climbed up High Street for the next four miles, I would look up, and each time, the pace group was gaining on me more and more. That was the most discouraging part of the race, and the part where I seriously considered just turning around and walking back.

But, I decided that I'd rather have a slow time than waste all my training just to quit, so I kept going. By mile 16, my body was already exhausted, and I had to start walking some significant stretches. That would become a theme, as I never ran another complete mile. I started getting cramps in my stomach, and at one point in my hamstring that forced me off the side of the road. Thank goodness it never completely balled up, but it felt like it was about to do so. The second half of the race is also almost completely in the sun, and I certainly wasn't the only one suffering - at some points, there were more people in my view walking than running.

Rather than beat myself up about it, I tried to just enjoy the rest of the race as much as I could. On this day, I realized that it wasn't about not training hard enough, or not preparing well. I hydrated well, other than missing one early water stop due to crowds. I took my gel packs at the appropriate times. I think my body just didn't react well to the heat, and that there's not much I could have done about it.

I ended up with a 4:39, which was disappointing given the amount of training I did, but is still my second best time. Judgment on when/whether another marathon will happen is reserved until my body recovers from this one.