Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon 2009 Part II

Part II: OKLAHOMA (That's-Duh-Bull-You-Eye-Enn-Dee-Why)

I woke up race day morning eager for a good run. We met up with the Kansas City Runner's Edge group in the hotel lobby and climbed aboard our respective busses. And sure enough, just as it had been all day yesterday, it sure was windy! That was going to slow us down, but Coach David had talked with us about that and I, at least, figured I could handle it. ("Famous last words?" "Just you wait.") At the Memorial, I made my way to the starting corral but, due to a mixup on my part, found myself in the 5k corral entrance rather than the Marathon corral. I pushed myway to the front and entered the Marathon corral about half a block away from the starting line. What this meant was, I would be surrounded at the start by a lot of runners who were going to run a *lot* faster than I was. That was okay, though, as long as I kept my pace slow and didn't let myself get caught up by the crowd and excitement.

I noticed, however, that my Garmin still hadn't picked up a satellite by the time the race started, so I had no idea of my actual pace. I forced myself to stay slow and tried to make my way to the right to get out of the way of the faster runners. Unfortunately, there were so many of them that it took some doing to get out of their way!

My Garmin picked up a signal about 3/4 into the first mile. When I reached the marker for that first mile, I slowed to a quick walk, employing the run/walk strategy I had planned for and trained with. I was still somewhat discombobulated due to my Garmin issues, but worked hard to push that out of my mind and concentrate on the rest of the race. Coach David alway says that the first three miles of a marathon are the most important, and I didn't want to let a bad experience with the first one influence the next two.

I took about 5 miles to really hit my stride. Walking the first 0.1 of each mile meant that I needed to run the remaining 0.9 at about a 10-minute pace to stay on target. I was doing pretty well with this as the course wound its way north and west out of downtown. Even when the course turned due west for a half a mile and the heavy wind came at us from the side, I was able to stay on pace.

The rolling hills in mile 11 posed no real challenge, partly because the wind was at my back again but mostly because they had nothing on Parker. Towards the end of mile 12 I caught sight of a runner wearing a Kansas City Runner's Edge shirt to my left. As I pulled alongside her I called, "Hey, Runner's Edge!" and gave her a thumbs up. A second later I heard, "Hey, Denver!" to my right. I looked, and there was another KC RE member. A quick smile and some words of encouragement helped make that a memorable mile.

I was still feeling pretty strong at the halfway point. I had energy to spare and was still on pace to finish in about 4:30. Actually the mile markers were helpful for this: most of them had signs stating "You are on track to finish between X and Y time," and each one I saw showed a window of between 4:34 and 4:47. When the course turned south just before mile 14, to run along Lake Hefner, finally running directly into the wind, I got my first real taste of what the rest of the day was going to feel like. With no tall buildings to block it, the wind was free to slam into us with the force of a Mack truck. I gritted my teeth, lowered my head, and pushed through. I knew I could still hold my 10-minute pace for the run, and now my short walk breaks would be all the more appreciated.

After leaving Lake Hefner at mile 17, there was a quarter-mile downhill slope. Halfway down it I saw a Denver Runner's Edge shirt. It was Bret, who runs in the same pace group as I! I poured on the speed a bit to catch up to him. ("I couldn't for the life of me figure out when he'd passed me to begin with, because I know I started the race ahead of him." "Was he glad to see you?" "I'd like to think so. We swapped congratulations and I moved on.") It was about this time that I realized that I'd made it farther than any of my other marathons without crashing or having to stop. ("I had stopped once before that point to reapply my Body Glide, but I didn't count that because it was only for a second. And absolutely necessary." "Yes, yes, we all remember your graphic description of your Band Aid issues last year.") Not only that, but I'd even manged to pick up some time, as when I passed one of the mile markers the "on target" sign said "4:17 to 4:32"!

I was still holding myself beween 9:55 and 10:15 miles when I finished mile 20. Now, my original plan had been to maintain my walk breaks until I got to this point, and then just run out the rest of the course. But the wind was so fierce at this point (it may even have increased in intensity), and I still felt so strong, that I decided to stick with what was working. So I kept going, pushing against the wind as the course continued to move south. I kept on through the next 2 miles and my pace only slipped a little. Soon I noticed I was back on track for a 4:34 to 4:47 finish according to the signs. But at mile 22 I started to slow down. I slipped from a 10-minute pace to between 11 and 12:30 for most of the rest of the race.

When I had about a mile to go, though, I dug as deep as I could to find enough energy to run out the rest. I turned onto the home stretch, and the excitement of the moment took over. Seeing the finish line as I crested the last hill added to my depleted energy reserves. Seeing and hearing my RER friends at the 26 mile mark gave me that last extra push to get over the finish. The clock said 4:42:07. My official time would probably be faster by a minute or so; but even if it wasn't, I had just PR'd by almost 15 minutes!

CODA

After I'd finished and collected my medal and finisher's shirt and Carl's Jr cheeseburger, I joined my friends at mile 26. There we cheered for the runners coming in, including the remaining RER folks. We returned to the hotel, cleaned up, and packed up before hitting the road.

The bus ride back was lots of fun as we swapped stories and congratulations and drank celebratory drink after celebratory drink. ("After celebratory drink after celebratory drink after..." "Watch it! You're going to give the impression that all we do is drink and run." "Your point being?") We all had a lot to be very proud of: in very difficult race conditions everyone had performed remarkably well, including 4 full marathon PRs and 4 half marathon PRs!

Official Time: 4:40:36
Total Races: 8
YTD race miles: 79.2
YTD total miles: 436.75
"Best" post-race celebratory drink: "Mad Dog" 20/20 wine thanks to Steve