Race #119
Marathon #9
SC Marathon #2
2017 Race #3
2017 Marathon #1
Hilton Head Island Marathon #1 (7th consecutive time running, 6 previous were the half)
I’m pretty sure that I have never been more relaxed heading into a marathon before. (It is a bit surreal though that when I run Chicago in the fall, I will enter the double digits club for marathons run.)
A big thing that helped was the lack of personal goals. I had plenty of goals for mom.
We would have preferred to arrive soon enough last night to pick up the packets. I got permission to leave school right at dismissal – instead of having to wait until half an hour later when bus holding finished. Mom drove me to school and then picked me up so that we could leave right from there. If traffic had cooperated, we would have arrived in time. However, we all forgot about rush hour traffic in Columbia.
That left race morning for picking up the packets.
We settled into the hotel room, unpacked some stuff, laid some stuff out and got to bed fairly early. Race morning went smoothly. We arrived with plenty of time to pick up the bibs and for Ellis to run back to the car to get some body glide. I was going to try it out for the first time. I was wearing my sleeveless Oiselle singlet and it had been a long time since I wore my OrangeMud quiver with a sleeveless shirt. (The chafing potential is immense.)
It was nice and chilly at the start. I wish it had stayed that way. I wore my jacket until a few minutes before the start. I was just slightly chilly in the singlet but I am so glad that I made the decision to wear it. Temperatures got above 65 degrees by the end of the race which is way too warm for February in my opinion.
Mom’s considering whether or not to acknowledge me as her child
The answer is yes…for now
Precisely at 8am we were off, rather abruptly since the race director skipped any sort of countdown.
Although the some of the distances are different than previous years that I have run this race, everyone still starts together and stays together on the nearly 1 mile out and back portion. I continue to not be a fan of this situation.
We set off at a fairly conservative pace or at least what felt like a conservative pace at the time.
Mile 1: 9:07
Mile 2: 9:08
Mile 3: 9:15
Mile 4: 9:12
Nothing really stands out about the first few miles of the race. These were familiar miles, the only miles of the course that we shared with the half marathoners. The next 5 miles include the first time out and back over the bridge as well as the “lovely” detour through a park parking lot and a brief trail section that I still don’t like and had even more roots to watch out for thanks to hurricane damage. (The town has significantly recovered since October but it’s slow going.)
The slower miles below were the miles where we walked briefly to refuel. One of those also includes a pit stop for me. Even though I drank nothing the morning of (I have a tiny bladder), the urgency was real. Mom saw a porto-potty that turned out to be right on the course…a few miles later when we doubled back…and asked if I wanted to stop. I said no at first but then she pulled a “Jen” and told me to go. I thanked her profusely when we got back on the course.
Mile 5: 9:47
Mile 6: 9:25
Mile 7: 9:51
Mile 8: 9:00
Mile 9: 9:24
Somewhere around mile 8 when we were running through the parking lot, the 4:15 pacer and the one runner who stuck with her entered my view. That served as a wake up call. I wanted to bring Mom in under her Boston Qualifying time. She may not be as interested as I am but I thought that would be a really cool thing for her to achieve on only her second marathon. I realized that the pace felt easy because it was, too easy.
I made a new goal to get back in front of the 4:15 pacer and try to put as much distance between her and us and hopefully get back under that 4:10 goal. We had a little bit of back and forth over the next couple miles when we stopped to fuel and get some Gatorade at the water stop but soon we passed her and started to put some distance in between us.
I felt really good, the best I felt out of the entire race through the next four miles. We entered the Spanish Wells Plantation area, a new section of the island for me. (I would hazard a guess that there are far more residents than renters there and residents of a fairly wealthy variety in this section of the island.) This also was a really fun section because Ellis found us on the course (he brought his bike) and started taking pictures and cheering us on as we ran. He stuck with us for pretty much the rest of the race, riding ahead, waiting for us to catch up and repeating the process.
Also early on in the section Mom needed to make a pit stop so we stopped for what might just be the quickest pit stop ever and made a goal of catching up to and passing the 4:15 pacer who had passed us back.
Mile 10: 9:12
Mile 11: 9:34
Mile 12: 9:29
Mile 13: 9:07
I started to struggle a little right at the halfway point but I’m fairly certain that that was just mental. Once that tricky mile was done I entered the section where I felt the second best of the race. Mom started feel it, though, towards the end of this section so our pace slowed and continue to slow. I wanted to bring her in under 4:10 so I tried to be as encouraging as I could while motivating her to pick up the pace.
(Yes, I was sticking out my tongue.)
Mile 14: 9:12
Mile 15: 9:42
Mile 16: 9:34
Mile 17: 9:19
Mile 18: 9:34
The next section included the bridge again, the third out of four times that we would cross it. While it still felt considerably easier due to our hill training, it still was not easy on tired legs near 20 miles. It was also the long slow incline side which I like least. That definitely slowed our pace. Mom definitely hit the proverbial 20 mile wall but kept going.
I knew the final miles would be tough but had no idea that I would hit my wall only 4 miles later. That wall taught me a lot about this training cycle but this post will be long enough so I will come back to that later.
Mile 19:
Mile 20:
Mile 21:
Mile 22:
Just before the mile 24 marker my legs felt like they were going to fall off. Okay, that’s rather dramatic. (It was mile 24 of a marathon. I think I’m allowed to be dramatic.) That was just after we crossed the bridge the last time. We walked one time around that point just because for a moment it felt like I couldn’t run any more. I made myself start running again though and knew that stopping again would not be in the cards, not if I wanted to finish in good time.
The 4:15 pacer also made another appearance when she passed us again just after the 24 mile marker. That confirmed to me the idea that we had been dramatically slowed down. This action inspired both us. (I found out later that it inspired Mom as well.) I did not have much left in the tank though.
My mantra became “one more step, one more step.” Those two miles felt so long.
About a half mile from the finish the music finished. I knew then that I had failed to bring Mom in under her Boston qualifying time. (The playlist I created was exactly 4 hours 10 minutes long.) We were close enough though to finish without figuring out how to get the music started again.
It was such a relief to get off the highway and get back into Jarvis Creek Park. Only a brief jaunt around the side of the lake and a final turn. Even though I had little left in the tank, I wanted to finish on a high note. I urged Mom to dig deep and put it all out there. We both found a little bit more and “sprinted” to the finish, ahead of the 4:15 pacer.
Mile 23: 9:53
Mile 24: 9:51
Mile 25: 9:22
Mile 26: 9:27
final .31 2:37 (8:51 pace)
Final time 4:13:44
Although it’s my slowest marathon since 2012 I learned a lot through this cycle that will inform Chicago’s training. I am also super pumped that Mom did so well! She won overall grand masters female! This year that included an extra medal since the race served as South Carolina championship race for the year.
This might be one of my favorite pictures of us.
So…this recap is pretty long as it is. I will save the race review for another day.