Birmingham Mercedes Marathon, Post 2

This is a grown-up marathon, with most of the trimmings of a large one. Nice expo, well-designed race route with lots and lots of traffic control, wonderful volunteers, and some spectators. We’re glad we ran it. The weather was almost perfect with the temperature climbing from 38 at the 7:00 am start to 55 at my finish near noon. The route is moderately hilly ("challenging"), but that was no problem for me because I walked much of this marathon anyway so I just walked up most of the hills. The half and the full marathon used exactly the same route, with the full marathoners simply traveling it twice. I don’t mind the double loop, especially in this case where the route was rather picturesque. I appreciate knowing what’s ahead, in fact, on the second loop when I’m tired.

I did get confused by one of the mile markers. According to my watch, my split time between mile 12 and mile 13.1 was 7:48, which is WAY faster than I was running. I can’t explain it, unless perhaps one of the mile markers was out of position. I did stop at a porta-john between miles 11 and 12, which confounds the times a little too. My total time at the 13.1 mile marker was about 2:15:00, which actually does make sense. No explanation for the 7:48 split time.

The race’s on-line results were slow - my only real beef. My sweeties finished their half marathon well before I finished the full, and we left immediately after I finished, starting the trek back home, expecting to be able to find our times later Sunday evening when we reached our motel in Paducah, KY. No such luck. Nothing Monday morning, either. And no indication on the race web site when or whether the results would be forthcoming. Results apparently did show up later on Monday, while we were driving. Other marathons do much better with race results, many posting partial results while the race is still in progress. Almost all have the results on line by the evening of the race. Years ago people waited for the newspaper to publish results, or for their time to come on a card in the mail, but not any more; expectations are much higher. This race was ChampionChip timed, so Birmingham could have put results on OnlineRaceResults.com in real time, just as the big marathons do.

I started with no knee warmers but with two shirts, short-sleeved cotton over a long-sleeved technical shirt. The cotton shirt was discarded about midway through the second loop, and toward the end the long sleeves were plenty warm. My favorite Brooks Burn shoes served well, except perhaps for the pain in the left foot, which is something new. But no blisters or joint pains.

One mishap: Wonderful volunteers handed out GU gels at several stations along the route. Early in the race I grabbed one, knowing I’d need it later, and stuffed it upside-down in my shorts pocket. Soon I discovered that the volunteer had already torn off the top of that gel, opening it for my convenience, and it was draining its sticky contents into my shorts. Sounds funny now, but I was really pissed then! It might have been nice if the volunteer had warned that it was open, I suppose, but it was really my fault and it’s a mistake that I will certainly never make again! Yuk. I had two other gels in that pocket, totally gummed up by then, and probably should have just left them there, but I ate them as the race went along and ran with sticky hands, shorts, and more.

Splits: 10:58, 10:41, 9:45, 10:27, 10:36, 9:45, 11:35, 19:02 (2 mi), 10:13, 10:03, 13:45 (potty stop), 7:48, (mile 13.1 ?!?), 10:38, 9:50, 10:30, 11:15, 9:28, 11:03, 11:36, 11:32, 10:01, 11:03, 12:02, 25:46 (2 mi), 2:10 (0.2 mi), total 4:41:27, pace 10:44.

Ice Storm:

Sometimes we fly to a marathon, but this time we drove. It’s about a day and a half at interstate speeds. We were very impressed by the damage that the recent ice storm did in the region around Paducah, Kentucky. For almost 100 miles we saw trees broken and fallen, thousands upon thousands of trees, counting only those within view of the interstate. Though the storm hit in late January, nearly three weeks before our trip, we saw crews still restoring power to farms and remote homes as we drove by. Bucket trucks were everywhere. What an incredible mess.

Wednesday, Feb 18:

The pains that I felt in the race: quads, hip flexors, and left foot, all went away by Tuesday. On Wednesday we went to the club, where I intended to run three easy miles just to keep loose. During the second mile, though, my left knee started to hurt, on the outside, right in the joint it seemed. So I stopped. It’s a new pain, possibly ITB but it felt more like a bone issue. I’m not worried about it - I’ll run again soon and deal with it if necessary. Splits for that run: 9:41, 9:31.