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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Race recap

I am not going to lie: I went to Traverse City with high expectations. My training was flawless, my morale was high and my body was 100% healthy. I had never trained better for a marathon and I knew I had a serious shot at Boston! Serious runners always dream about going to Boston and I always dreamed about it too. But running a BQ time is not easy, it requires a lot of hard work, discipline and mental toughness. Some people are naturally gifted and run a BQ time in their first attempt, others never qualify. I am not naturally gifted, but I know how to work hard in order to accomplish my goals.

The hard work paid off in Traverse City: I qualified for Boston in my first serious attempt. I shattered my personal best for more than 13 minutes!!! I am now enjoying some free days after the effort and will resume my workouts as soon as my body is ready to go back to training. If am healthy, I am going for a sub-3:10 in Chicago.

The marathon in Traverse City wasn’t easy. Heat and humidity are, perhaps, the worst enemies of marathon runners. Well, I found those enemies in North Michigan. The temperature at 7 am was 55 degrees with 80% humidity. It quickly rose into the high 60’s (75% humidity) by mid-race and am almost sure that it was in the 70’s when I finished Knowing that I tend to struggle with humidity, I decided to run a very conservative first half. I consistently ran 7:20-7:25 miles. I picked the pace up a little bit for 7-8 miles. My strategy was to feel as relaxed as possible until mile 20 and then put the hammer down in the last six miles. But I couldn’t run fast in miles 22-25. My heart rate was great but my muscles were already feeling the effects of the heat and the rolling hills course. So I used my survival instincts to the best of my ability. I did the math and figured that I needed to run the next 5 miles in 7:40 avg. Despite the relatively slow pace, I passed several runners that were also slowing down. In mile 25, I knew I had done enough to qualify for Boston and just enjoyed the last 1.2 miles. My official time was 3 hrs. 15 mins and 13 seconds, just enough to enter the field of 25,000 in Boston.

I am very happy with the result. I know I can run faster than that if the conditions are right and the course is flat. So I look forward to running in Chicago. My mentality is completely different now. I am becoming an experienced marathon runner who knows how to listen to his body and who adjusts to different race conditions. I really like this feeling!

My partials in Traverse City were: 7:22, 26, 25, 21, 26, 30, 29, 20, 21, 21, 22, 24, 16, 13, 20, 19, 17, 30, 23, 14, 19, 23, 47, 45, 52, 47. Very consistent!!!