Monday, October 28, 2002
Well, the Marine Corps Marathon is over. Here are the basic stats:
--number of runners starting the race: approximately 17,000
--number of runners who finished the race: 14,100
--place in which I finished: 12,500
--time in which I finished: 5:45:27
--number of places which hurt the morning after: 342
--number of times I will run a marathon again: ?
I actually started out doing and feeling pretty well (10K split: 1:11:27; Half Marathon split: 2:32:15; 18 mile split: 3:38:15) and was seemingly on course to finish in around five hours. This pace was somewhere in between my naively optimistic publicly stated goal of 4:45 (approximately 11-minute miles) and my secret-heart-of-hearts goal of 5:15 (approximately 12-minute miles). However, I hit the proverbial wall at around 16 miles and faded fast. By the end I, along with nearly everyone else who was still left on the course was walking nearly all the time. Many who ran were using a method promoted by Jeff Galloway. They ran in disciplined groups and alternated between running and walking according to a pre-determined ratio (e.g. run for eight miles and walk for one). By the time I reached the last leg of the marathon I was doing my own version of the Galloway method: walk for ten minutes, run for one. Still, it got me across the finish line, which was all I was aiming for.
--number of runners starting the race: approximately 17,000
--number of runners who finished the race: 14,100
--place in which I finished: 12,500
--time in which I finished: 5:45:27
--number of places which hurt the morning after: 342
--number of times I will run a marathon again: ?
I actually started out doing and feeling pretty well (10K split: 1:11:27; Half Marathon split: 2:32:15; 18 mile split: 3:38:15) and was seemingly on course to finish in around five hours. This pace was somewhere in between my naively optimistic publicly stated goal of 4:45 (approximately 11-minute miles) and my secret-heart-of-hearts goal of 5:15 (approximately 12-minute miles). However, I hit the proverbial wall at around 16 miles and faded fast. By the end I, along with nearly everyone else who was still left on the course was walking nearly all the time. Many who ran were using a method promoted by Jeff Galloway. They ran in disciplined groups and alternated between running and walking according to a pre-determined ratio (e.g. run for eight miles and walk for one). By the time I reached the last leg of the marathon I was doing my own version of the Galloway method: walk for ten minutes, run for one. Still, it got me across the finish line, which was all I was aiming for.
