The weather was perfect… Temps at 7am were in the low 40’s with light winds and no rain in sight. I knew that upon toeing the line that it would be a great race day. Even with perfect weather, I had a plan that I needed to stick to. I was going to run the smartest race ever. I had planned on keeping a reasonable pace for the first 13 miles, then evaluating how I felt and then I would make a decision. So that is what I did, mostly. I wanted to me somewhere around 7:55 pace for the first half, which turned into 7:49 pace. I wasn’t bothered by it though, because this is still a comfortable, conversational pace for me. I ran the first half with Dave Schroeder, who up until 5 weeks ago, was planning on running a 4 hour marathon. After training together, he had re-adjusted his goals to between 3:30 and 3:45. We had planned on running together for the first half of the race, which is what we did, hitting the 13.1 mark at 1:41:41.
Then just after the mid point, I knew what I had to do. This was my shot, my one opportunity to give it everything that I had. Not knowing if I would ever run a marathon again (being dramatic at this point in the race helped), I knew that I needed to pick it up. So from mile 13 to 19, that is what I did. I brought the pace down to 7:20 and it felt good to open it up. The only problem was that with the increased pace and acid build up, I began to have stomach problems. All in all, I lost about 4 minutes to bathroom stops between 15-19. At one point I had passed the 3:30 pace group 3 times before apologize that I had to keep stopping in the woods.
I had plenty of support along the course, seeing along the way. Never quite knowing when I would see them, I tried to stay strong the entire time, not showing any fatigue; never showing any trace of weakness.
Somewhere in these miles while running with the 3:30 pace group, I told another runner (that we run with frequently on Mondays, Wednesday and Saturdays) that I was going to shoot for the worlds largest marathon negative split. As I pulled away from the group, I heard him talking to the other runners, saying that if there was anyone who could pull this off, it was me. This is what I needed to hear…
After I had settled my stomach down at mile 19, I began to do the math in my head, trying to figure out where I would finish it. It was pretty clear that with an average finish, I could hit my 3:30 goal. I could settle for that, take it home and it would be a good day. I would build off of that this summer and try to run a better race in Chicago in October.
But on a perfect race day, I wasn’t about to settle for good enough. So what did I do? I picked up the pace to 7:00 minute miles and began picking off runners one at a time. Slowly I made my way around other runners who were now fatigued from going out too fast. I literally got stronger as the miles went on. In the last 6 miles, I passed over 100 runners (counting them as I passed them by). As the final miles went by I started to believe that I could hit 3:25, and maybe even better. I passed a few of the faster runners that I train with, which made me move even faster. Then in the final mile I could see the 3:20 pace group. They were just entering Lambeau field. That was my new goal; to pass them up. Running inside of Lambeau field I was leaning into the corners just like a sprinter coming into the home stretch. I finished strong and turned in a sub 6 paced final 1.2 miles sprinting to the finish in a remarkable 3:18:58.
I had done it; I had beat my 3:30 goal; I had beat my best projected goal of 3:20. I had run the smart race that I knew that I was capable of doing, turning in an 8 minute negative split in the second half of the race, while others were just barely hanging on in the final miles. I managed a 42 minute final 10k, which is good enough for a qualifying position at the Bellin Run. In the end, I finished 128th of 1300+ runners, 19th in my age group and in the top 30 runners from Northeastern Wisconsin.
In the last 2 miles I really was running on pure adrenaline. I didn’t see anyone, I couldn’t hear the crowd; yet I knew that they were there. I pumped my fist coming down Armed Forces drive, recognizing that I had run the perfect race. What a great feeling.
So moments after finishing and seeing my family and friends, what was I thinking? How I can get fast enough to shave off 8 minutes in Chicago this fall to qualify for Boston in 2007, or how I felt like I could have run a 50k…