OBX Marathon Recap 11.09.08

The OBX Marathon '08 is now history and I have another marathon under my belt.

Heading into the race, I realistically had set three goals for myself. I wanted to run under 2:40. I wanted to win the Open Masters Competition and I wanted to win the USA T&F NC Masters Marathon Championship.

I was able to accomplish to 2 of the 3 goals, but I missed the goal that I wanted most. I didn't get the sub 2:40 that I wanted. My finish time ended up being 2:42:45. It was disappointing but not the end of the world. I will recover in the coming weeks and I am already planning go for a sub 2:40 in spring.

For the better part of the race I was on pace to run sub 2:40 through 23 miles, but I hit the wall. Or in this case, I hit the bridge. The OBX marathon has a 35' bridge rise at 23 miles. It took me 6:58 seconds to crest the bridge and the damage had been done. From then on, my legs were not the same. I ran the next 2 miles in 6:57 and 6:56. My final 10k was 42 minutes.

Coming off the bridge, I tried picking up the pace, but my hamstrings were really starting to balk. Rather than continuing to push, I tried to just survive to the finish. I didn't want to push to the point where my hamstring locked up all together. Maybe it is a personal thing, but I never even considered quiting. I would have gotten to the finish even if it meant crawling. That is just me and the determination that I have to push my self.

In those last 2 miles 2 runners would passed me by. I wanted to go with them and not being able to hurt mentally. In retrospect, they ran the smarter race. They saved their big push to the end and they caught me.

As for the race and the course, I thought they were great. I loved seeing the people dressed as Pirates and playing music along the course.

I found the course for 1st 13 miles to be tougher than the 2nd half. Because it was tougher, it took more out of me than I thought. Definitely, I will keep this in mind for next year.

The trail section was not really as bad as I thought. The road was pretty compacted and the short rolling hills actually felt good to my legs. My pace really didn't fall off that much. Maybe 10 seconds per mile. Now on the 800 meters section where it was wood chips, I lost about 30 seconds - running a 6:30 mile. The toughest part of this section was the first little hill which is maybe 30 to 50 yards long.

During the 2nd half there were a few neighborhoods where there were medians. I took the wrong side on one of them which added some time to my finish efforts.

Then over the last 10 miles, there were a lot of 1/2 marathoners on the course. Most if not all were walking on the inside of the road. I went to the outside which was a mistake on my part. By running the outside of the long gradual turns, I was adding a ton of extra distance. When I reached the 24 mile by the Garmin, I was nearly 200 to 250 yards from the 24 mile mark on the road. In contrast during the 1st half of the race, my Garmin was almost exactly on the mile marks. Later at the finish, my Garmin said that I had run 26.45 miles.

In hindsight, I should have run the inside even if it meant getting into the grass. It would have been better to run a little in the grass than add that extra distance.

To the race, I don't think they could have done it any better. Everything seem to go like clock work. The start was on time and well organized. There were people at every turn and plenty arrows directing the runners.

There was an ample supply of porta pottys at the start and they were providing food and water to the runner even before the race.

The marathon finisher medal also something that I want to specifically point out. The medals had a great design on them. I am reminded the Disney Pins and Medals which is a high bar to match.

As for my body, I am still a little sore from the race. My left hamstring is the most sore. I can hardly run the "Stick" over it. I got 2 blisters - one on the inside of my right foot at the ball of the foot - the other is on the left foot on the middle toe just at the toe nail. That is the worst of my physical woes.

I ran the race in the Nike Lunar racers. This was on the 2nd race that I have run in them. I believe it was the right shoe for me. I am going to put them up for my next marathon.

Other news and notes, we stayed in a beach house with some other runners. I have never spent so much time with other runners and talked so much running. And it was great meeting runners from different areas of the country.

And my compliments to Ben H. for the pictures that he took of me during the race. Ben was leap frogging over the race course to watch Megan run. As you get tired, it is kind of nice to see a familiar face and get some encouragement. My thanks goes out to Ben. Also I need to give a shout out to Janna - Cody's wife - who was at the 22 mile point.

Moving forward, I hope to run to OBX next year. I would like nothing better than running the course under 2:40.

That is about all that I have for now.

I am taking some down time and sticking to the nice soft trails for the next couple of weeks. And I am not doing any hard running for at least the next month. :)