Marathon #11: Shires of Vermont

TL;DR Another marathon in the books. New PR of 3:13:55.

Now for the longer version. As I mentioned before, training had been going fairly well in late spring. I've been consistently managing 90+ km weeks for a while now, with quite some distance at 4:30 min/km, so this sounded like a comfortable marathon pace. After a small setback a couple of weeks before (had to pull a few all-nighters for a paper deadline at work, meaning not doing the Providence marathon as a training race), I was feeling more or less ready for some fun in Vermont.

Shires of Vermont elevation profile.

This time, I managed to convince a few fellow enthusiasts to come with, so we did a nice camping trip around the whole race experience. Being the great planners that we are, we left Friday after work knowing we were headed roughly in the direction of Western Vermont, and ended up pulling up at a campsite at 11pm, pitching up tents in the dark, and surviving the rain that followed cuddled up in a tent. The day before the race included a hike in the Green mountains (not necessarily the best idea, race-wise) and my personal vow of beer abstinence (probably the best idea, beer-wise).

"No, I'm not taking more goofy finish-line pictures". Credit: +Rohit

Which brings me to the race. First, a huge shoutout to the race director and all the volunteers for a really well-organized event. No excessive spam, marketing and other types of drama (I'm looking at you, San Francisco and Austin). Just running through great scenery (apparently Vermont countryside in the spring is quite beautiful: trees blooming, fresh grass, and the occasional house/estate along the road). The course itself was full or rollers, with two or three major hills (the last one coming at 40 km, for an extra touch of sadism) -- just enough to keep one's training honest without being excessively hilly. In general, one of the best races I've run so far -- small, beautiful and focused on the running.

The start was rather relaxed with only 300 runners. Having the anthem played on a trumpet was an interesting idea, but I'd personally stick to the a cappella version that you normally hear. And then, off we went. As I mentioned, I had been doing a lot of mileage at 4:30 min/km at various distances and stages of fatigue, so the initial plan was to try and keep that pace for a finish of ~3:10 hours. After the first few kilometers, though, that felt like too much work that would bite me during the final stage, so I dialled back a notch.

During the first ~10 km, there was a kid (looking 18 or so) hanging on just behind me. I could hear his really heavy breathing for quite a while, and kept thinking if I should tell him that he's certain to bonk if he doesn't slow down. Especially after having been that kid myself too many times to keep track. But I decided this was probably not the most polite conversation opener and I should keep my opinions to myself. I stopped hearing the breathing at some point, but later saw that he made it to the finish despite bonking, so kudos, breathing kid.

For the majority of the race, I ran in an ad-hoc pace group of three -- along a serious-runner-type gal (I think she ended up making first or second female) and a guy in red shorts. We didn't exchange any words, but were running the same pretty consistent pace for about 20 km, so we just hung together, swapping who was in front every once in a while. I know this definitely helped me keep pace at one point while runner-gal was leading our small pack, and I hope I did the same for the others while in front. Somewhere around km 32 red-shorts slowed down and soon after that runner-gal took off, so our little party broke away, and I ran the last 10 km alone.

Friends don't let friends finish a marathon de-sugarated. Credit: cute stranger with +Sam's camera.

During these last 10 km, I slowed down a little -- for the first time since I started running my hips were getting really really tired. I ended up passing 4-5 people that had hit the wall really hard, but was more or less in survival mode myself. Managed to pull it together for the last kilometer and even showed off with a fast sprint in the last 500 m or so. I finished 14-th out of 300, with a time of 3:13:55 (4:36 min/km). Not the 3:10 I was shooting for, but still not too shabby (and still a PR). Right after I finished, my friends showed up with a huge box of donuts, which automatically makes them the bestest runner support team ever (and yes, bestest is a word). We hung around the finish line for a while until I picked up my age group award, and eventually took off back to Boston.

Recovery in the two weeks since has been much worse than usual. I should probably hit the gym for some hip strengthening, because those boys are still in a bad shape even a full two weeks later. I was thinking of running Grandma's in mid-June, since I'll likely be in Minnesota around the time for a conference, but that might be moot unless I'm recovered enough to put in some quality miles before. The goal race for the summer is definitely Eugene though. It's a flat course, so time to shoot for 3:00-3:05 after two months of solid training. There might be an opportunity for another race before the window for Boston 2015 closes, but all in good time...

Pace compared to my previous PR. I did slow down around km 32-33.