I didn’t make a large post the night of the race, but here is the update! I did complete the marathon, at just over 3:55, missed my PR of 3:54 from May. The thing that upsets me is that I only missed it by less than a minute, but its easy for me to sit here now and say I could’ve beat it, because it was brutal .. regardless, its in the history book. The thing that destroyed me the most was the heat, which I kept up with until about mile 15 or so, and I also took the first 7 miles of hills way too fast, which ended up hurting me later on in the race. Somehow I just didn’t take the advice and thought I could do it, well, lesson learned, because it hurt my time….

Here are my splits:

Mile 1 – 8:10
Mile 2 – 8:20
Mile 3 – 8:14
Mile 4 – 7:52
Mile 5 – 8:07
Mile 6 – 8:10
Mile 7 – 8:27
Mile 8 – 8:12
Mile 9 – 8:27
Mile 10 – 8:16
Mile 11 – 8:25
Mile 12 – 8:30
Mile 13 – 8:39
Mile 14 – 8:30
Mile 15 – 8:34
Mile 16 – 8:47
Mile 17 – 8:54
Mile 18 – 9:20
Mile 19 – 9:20
Mile 20 – 9:45
Mile 21 – 10:01
Mile 22 – 9:38
Mile 23 – 10:30
Mile 24 – 10:55
Mile 25 – 10:23
Mile 26 – 10:53
Mile .2 – 1:22

This was a unique marathon for me, lots of stuff happened during it … actually, it may have just been that I was more aware of things, but mainly here are some of the things I noted.

For the first time, right after the start, I saw someone fall in the crowd of runners, and I don’t know if she was alright or not since we continued to move forward, but it was scary because all I thought was that they were getting trampled! So after that, a few miles later, I noticed a guy that appeared to have pee’d himself .. yep, you heard it. He had on black tights and from behind, he was soaked between his legs, and it was foamy … there was NO WAY that he sweated that much, in just that area … YUCK!

So some more stuff I noticed that I thought was weird was I saw 2 people trip over the orange cones along the course .. nobody fell or got hurt, and they chuckled about it as well, but I’d never seen that before (just not paying attention I guess)…. One of the two women that tripped was wearing one of those running skirts that seemed to be a little small for her since her entire ass was hanging out (she had quite a wedge going) … that was something I didn’t mind running behind (thats another observation!)

One thing of major note was that my old friend ‘stud boy’ from the local races was there, pulling his crap again … you know, the guy who goes to the front of the starting line and then can’t keep the pace? Well, it happened again, and i’m curious to see if he finished or not because he must’ve kept a fast pace for about 14 miles or so when I passed him as he was PUKING on the side of the course … thats generally not a good thing. He just really needs to learn to NOT run above his ability, hes really trying to be something that he’s not, and I feel bad for him that he just can’t get that through his head, oh well.

So overall the race was rough and regardless of how much water I took in, I dehydrated pretty bad based on my times .. I just could not cool myself down, and that in combination with the quad pain, just did me in. I lost my shirt at mile 16 due to my nipples bleeding (plus the overheating) … It got so bad towards the end that my back even started to heard because I think my body was just saying enough already. I’m happy I finished as I did because I did beat my last year Steamtown time by over 20 minutes, which I think is great, but I really paid the price.

I did talk to people along the way, met some nice people at the start who were going to be my informal pace group … although I never saw them again during the race except for the asian woman who passed me in mile 23 … saying ‘keep up the pace John’ as she flew by me … I also had the pleasure of talking with a guy from England for a little bit until he pulled ahead of me…

I really am proud of myself that I stuck in like I did, and I said, its easy for me to stand back and say I could’ve ran a little faster at the end or skipped a few seconds of walking to break my PR, but I couldn’t, I know I couldn’t. I’m suffering today with the leg pain and all so I know I couldn’t have done it …. well, harrisburg is only a few weeks away, I hope to make a better time, we’ll have to see….