2011 Eugene Marathon Race Report

As I was walking around the grocery store this morning, using my shopping cart as a walker, I couldn’t help but reflect upon yesterday’s race. I was really sore yesterday afternoon and had some major headaches going on (which probably meant that I gave it my all out there) so I tried my best to let myself relax and sleep it off. It didn’t really work (thank you 4 and 6 year olds) but I tried nevertheless. I wanted to write as well, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around sitting down to type out a race report.

This morning, the headache is gone. I’m still pretty sore, but not as bad as I thought I would be. The kids are at school and the house is stocked for the week. So now it’s time to think about how the day went.

Pre-race plans and travel

More time went in to the planning for this race than for any other race in my history. I really wanted to wash the miserable taste of Vegas out of my mouth with this race. If there’s one thing that Vegas taught me it was that “Failing to Plan REALLY is Planning to Fail.” I first started buying into that phrase (I’m not sure who coined it) after the Shamrock 15K. But after this race, I may just tattoo is on my arm! (speaking of Tattoo, one of the spectators at the race yesterday was chanting “Da Plane, boss! Da Plane!” I have no idea why)

I spent the majority of race week shoving all negative thoughts about racing, running, and the weaknesses of my body out of my head. I replaced them with positive thoughts, inspirational songs and videos that many of you guys provided, and visualizations of me accomplishing all of my goals for the race.

The night before I had my race bag packed, my chip tied on my shoe, my emergency ipod playlist synched (I didn’t need it!), my garmin all charged up, and my breakfast ready to go. All I did in the morning was roll out of bed after a very restless night of sleep, eat a piece of peanut butter toast, brush my teeth and head out the door to the carpool meetup.

The Nitty Gritty

We arrived in Eugene around 6:00 and parked less than 1/4 mile away from the starting line. It was a pretty cold morning so we spent some time trying to stay warm by visiting the usual pre-race sites (porta-potties, gear check, more porta-potties). We spent about 15 minutes waiting in our starting corrals for the race to actually start. Then, after a loud and screechy National Anthem sung by a gutsy 9-year-old girl, we were off!

The Early Miles

Just like I had planned well for all the pre-race stuff, I spent a lot of time during the training cycle thinking about my race strategy. During those 15 weeks, I waffled between going for the best possible time I could get and running a conservative race. But some time during the final month, I opted for the latter. Yesterday, I was really at peace with this decision and I never once thought about pushing the pace until mile 19. In fact, I repeatedly reeled myself in during those first 15 miles. I’m proud of my body for actually listening to my mind.

You can see from the results graphic that I really did start off slowly. My first 10K was the slowest of the day and if you do some math, you’ll see that I actually ran the second half marathon seven seconds faster than the first half marathon. I’m still not a very experienced marathoner, but I’m pretty sure that negative splits (even very small ones) don’t happen very often.

My first 10K actually really scared me. I was worried that I started off TOO conservatively and that I wouldn’t be able to make my goal of 3:40.

The Middle Miles

Even though I was worried, I didn’t let the pace of my first 10K freak me out too much; there was a lot of race left. So I didn’t panic and just started to pick up the pace gradually over the next 20K. As I ran, I watched the average pace on my Garmin slowly head down towards the magical number of 8:18.

The middle miles this year were actually much more enjoyable than last year. There were some course changes made this year that I was a huge fan of. We spent more time on the bike paths on the banks of the Willamette and less time running through the town of Springfield this year. It definitely helped the miles tick off during a time period when many marathoners are starting to feel the effects of the long day. The only negative thing about this section were the quarter mile markers embedded in the asphalt of the bike paths—those things really make a mile feel longer than it is. I felt very strong here and every time I checked my watch, I was running right on pace.

The Late Miles

The conservative start really paid off for me as my final 10K was faster than my first 10K (by 38 seconds). That means I really did have some gas left in the tank for the final push. My pace for the last 6 miles varied quite a bit (7:32, 8:01, 8:22, 8:24, 8:17, 7:37) as I would force myself to push the pace and then my mind would lapse and I’d slow down for a while. But every time my mind came back to the moment and asked my body to go for it, my body responded. In fact, my three fastest miles of the day were during that final 10K, I was very pleased with that.

Final Thoughts

I ended up crossing the finish line in 3:37:17 which was a PR by just under 10 minutes for me. It was a great day all around. I trained well, avoided injuries, made a race plan, stuck to it, and finished right under the goal that I set for myself. All of these things have given me confidence to go for it a little bit harder during my next marathon (no date set yet).

Could I have ran faster on yesterday? The easy (or hard) answer is yes. But I don’t know for sure. It’s possible that I could have run that first 10K a little bit faster and still have been able to run well at the end. But I’ll never know. The point of yesterday’s race was to prove to myself that I could have a good race at that distance again. There was to be no squeaking out a few seconds here and there throughout the day risking a blow up later on. I’m happy with the way I ran yesterday—it’s proven to myself once again that I am capable of making a plan, executing it, and seeing positive results.

After the race, I was telling Pam how happy I was and how I knew I had it in me. She told me that she didn’t doubt me for a second. SHE TOLD ME THAT SHE KNEW I WAS GOING TO DO IT BECAUSE SHE SAW THE LOOK ON MY FACE! That’s quite the endorsement coming from the most mentally tough, competitive person I’ve ever met and it makes me even more proud of myself for doing what I set out to do.