Race Day - Napa Valley Marathon March 7th, 2010

I had my alarm set for 4:30am, so that I could arise, and prepare my coffee and oatmeal in time to eat by 5:00am, exactly 2 hours before the start of the race. I woke up early and often. I saw 1:25am, 3:00am, and then at 4:10am I decided it wasn't worth laying in bed any more and got up. I started the coffee maker - no grounds, I needed the not water for my instant oatmeal and I had some of that new instant Starbucks coffee. I had the coffee first, then at about 4:55am I made the oatmeal.

I did some light stretching then decided I had plenty of time for a shower. It would both relax me and finish waking me up. It did both nicely. At 6:00am I started to dress. On with the shorts, shirt, socks and shoes. I had put the timing chip on my shoe Saturday night, so I didn't have to deal with it race morning. I used to not put my shoes on until right before the start of a race because my feet sweat a lot, but I also have issues with my laces. I have very high arches and the laces have to be quite loose or I end up with numbness or pain across the top of my foot. I wanted to have them on for a while to make sure there were no issues.

I did some more stretching and by now the rest of the family was up. Staying in Calistoga turned out to be an excellent idea. Rather than heading for the buses at 5:15am, here it was 6:30 and I took one more opportunity to use the bathroom in our hotel room and then we walked to the start. I had planned to do no warmup other than the 1/2 mile walk to the start. It was great to be able to talk and joke with Diane and the girls. I also had the opportunity to decide what gear I was going to start running in. The temperature was about 40F, a little too cool for just shorts and a t-shirt, but it would be warm enough by the end to not want any more than that by the finish.

I easily decided I didn't need the wind pants. Those were the first to go. Then the jacket. After a bit, I decided I wouldn't need the ear band. And then the long sleeve overshirt was the last to go. I lined up wearing shorts, t-shirt, arm sleeves and gloves.

Deciding where to line up was a bit of a struggle. At the Denver Half Marathon, there had been official pacers, so if you wanted to run a 3:30 marathon (or 1:45 half), you knew roughly where to start. Here there were no pacers. I picked a spot that looked to me to be about the same distance from the start as at Denver and waited there. I don't really remember what I thought about while waiting the final minutes for the start, but I was definitely ready to go. Feeling the pre-race nerves - the gentle anxiousness of a body and mind ready to test the training that lead to this place in time.

When the start signal was given (disappointingly, there was no gun), I quickly discovered I had lined up too far from the start. It took me about a minute to get to the start and I was barely able to jog when I crossed the start line. I spent the first 1/2 mile dodging in and out of much slower runners. I suppose the up-side was that there was no danger of me going out too fast, but I was in a mild panic as I watched the time and pace on my watch. Over a 9 minute mile at about a 1/2 mile. I kept weaving and dodging and by the 1 mile mark my time was 8:22, about 12 seconds slower than where I wanted to be. My Boston qualifying pace was 8:13 per mile, but I wanted to be running closer to 8:10 for the first 20, then decide about speeding up from there.

By this point, the crowds had thinned out and the dodging around slower runners pretty much done so that I could begin to focus on settling in to my pace and running the tangents. This was a very curvy course and I knew that running the tangents would save me quite a bit of extra running. Mile 2 was almost perfect in terms of pace at 8:07. As I arrived at the water station, I almost ran down a fellow runner who abruptly stopped before taking a water cup. I made a mental note not to do the same, grabbed a cup and kept running. In spite of my practice, I choked a bit trying to drink the water, but felt like I got enough of it.

I was enjoying the beauty surrounding the course and thrilled to at last be pursuing the goal I had been so focused on for the past 16 weeks. Mile three had what may have been the steepest hill on the course, so I let my pace slacken just slightly. Mile 3 - 8:13, again right on target given the hill.

As I started in to mile 4 I began to think about my first energy gel. I planned to remove it from the rear pocket in my shorts a bit after crossing mile 5, then eat it before mile 6. I wanted to be sure to eat it before getting to the water station after mile 6. At the mile 4 water station, I grabbed a cup then jogged off to the side and stopped. I wanted to be sure to get the full amount of water and make sure to be out of the way of other runners. Mission accomplished, I set back out. I hit the lap button at mile five and was feeling pretty good.

I reached around for gels in my shorts, there were 2 in the rear pocket - a pouch really intended for an iPod. I fumbled a bit as it came out and dropped it. No worries. I stopped, turned around and picked it up, and got back on my way. Mile 4 had been a bit fast at 7:53, but there were some downhills and the pace felt great. I noticed that after a while my pace hadn't changed at all from 7:53 which I though a bit odd. A couple of minutes later it still hadn't changed. That's when I realized that at mile 5 I had not hit the lap button after all, but the stop button. I restarted my watch and after a brief panic, I realized that I would just have to monitor my per mile pace and not worry about my overall time. There was no way to know what it was.

In some ways that was freeing. Mile five turned out to be 8:05, which I was only to learn after finishing the race. During the race I had no idea. Mile 6 had more up hills and I let my pace drop a bit again, registering 8:15. I still felt good about that, but I was less sure now that I could not see my overall time. Mile 7 came in at 8:07, and again I was enjoying the beauty that surrounded me. As I was focussing on running the tangents I found my path crossing the same runner: a woman older than my self, wearing a knit cap, long sleeved shirt and tights. She seemed to know the course pretty well as she was anticipating the tangents. We traded places over the course of the next couple of miles, she running in front for a time, then I would pass and run in front, only to be passed by her.

Along came a bicycler who gave her a sports drink and asked how she was doing. I learned from the bicycler that she was attempting to set an age group record of 3:29 and was currently pretty close to pace. That set my mind at ease concerning my own cumulative time. He was talking to other runners about her and described her as "a metronome". At this time I was running in front and I wondered if I should stick with her and her bicycle entourage (of one). It would be great to have a pacer of sorts - particularly a metronome who's out for a slightly faster time than I am. But then I became concerned that if she was having an off day, I could get pulled down in to it and might not realize it since I didn't know my cumulative time.

I think she was behind me for a while, but she was never in front of me again after that, and missed her goal, finishing at 3:36:52. That would have been too slow for my purposes and so going my own way turned out to be the wise choice. Mile 8 came in a bit fast at 7:56 but I was feeling great so I didn't make any concious adjustments. At mile 9 I got a little rattled. My gps showed my paced was essentially the same as mile 8 at 7:56, but the lap time was 8:28 (my gps showing I had run 1.07 miles). But what did that mean? Did they misplace the mile marker? Was I wandering on the course and adding distance? I didn't know, but I was concerned and so attempted to pick up the pace, even though there were some gentle up hills in mile 10. I stopped watching my pace and was just focused on what my split time said. My mile 10 split was 7:18. At this point I was virtually convinced that they had misplaced mile marker 9 but I had no sense of where I was. Turns out mile 10 was run needlessly fast at 7:52.

It was in mile 8 when I first saw Diane and the girls. It was so great to see there faces. I dropped off my arm bands and gloves and kept on going with my face smiling.

Mile 11 was uneventful at 7:59 and I ate my second gel late in the mile. Mile 12 was 8:06 and I was becoming interested to see how I would feel at mile 13. My pace was going to be pretty close to what I had done at the Denver Half, with another 13 miles to go. Mile 13 was a bit faster at 7:58, but I was feeling incredible. Enjoying the beautiful sunshine and lush vineyards along the Silverado Trail. Mile 14 was a bit slow at 8:16, but mile 15 was back on track at 8:06. At mile 16 I saw Diane and the girls for the second time. Diane was convince at this point that I was going to finish and qualify for Boston. She said I looked strong. I definitely felt strong, but mile 16 came in at 8:25, followed by 8:18 for mile 17.

It was time to increase my focus and get back on pace. I continued to allow myself to slacken slightly on uphills, but now it was time to focus on maintaining pace and make sure I was picking it up a bit on downhills. During mile 18 I consumed my 3rd gel and finished the mile in 7:54. I took stock of how I was feeling and noted that I didn't really have any leg aches or tightness, but my feet were beginning to feel a bit tired. I started now to set up mini-milestones to focus on. Two more miles and that would get me to 20 - that's where the marathon really begins and what I had trained so hard for. Two more after that would be 22, a distance which I ran once in training. Then mile 23 would be my last gel. Then mile 24 which was the longest training run I had done. Then just two more miles to finish.

I was pretty confident I was going to finish, but maybe not 100% sure I would be able to hold pace. Mile 19 was 7:59 and would turn out to be my last sub-8:00 minute mile. Mile 20 had another hill in it and my pace slipped to 8:18. But I ticked off the first milestone and was glad that the race had finally started. Mile 21 at 8:08 and mile 22 at 8:01 and I had hit the second milestone. I remembered how dead tired I was at the end of my 22 mile training run and was pleased that I felt much stronger today. Mile 23 was a disappointing 8:24, but I consume my last gel and focused on getting to the next milestone of Mile 24.

People were cheering and saying only 2 miles to go. I wasn't sure why. I didn't see the mile 24 marker. There was a water stop, but I couldn't remember if that was before or after mile 24. But I had the distinct feeling that I should stop for water. And yet, if I stopped, I was concerned that I would not be able to get started again. Also, I noticed that I had lost the ability to respond to the crowd. All along I had been waving and nodding and thanking people for their support. Now I was just focused on keeping my legs moving. And keeping an eye on my pace. I was a little lost without the mile 24 split. I was now passing quite a few people who were walking. My heart broke for them. They had been on pace for a very good time and something failed them. For some reason they gave up.

It was at this point that I realized to you need to have a very good reason to want to finish a marathon. If you don't, you very likely will end up walking. I started to go through all the reasons I had to finish. The 16 weeks of training I had put in had prepared me for this. I had spent 2 days driving my family out to California for this. I wanted to set a good example for my girls that you persevere and finish what you start even if it gets difficult. I thought about the people on the Facebook running page and how excited they would be when I finished and how disappointing it would be for me to have to report that I didn't finish. I thought of my wife and how 17 years earlier she had finished this same course.

All those reasons got me to mile 25 and an average time of 8:09 for the previous 2 miles. One more mile. How many times had I needed to run just one more mile and done it? How badly have I felt and had just one more mile to go and done it? These were additional positive messages that I fed on, and now I was almost sure that if I just kept going I would finish and qualify for Boston. There was also this small voice in the back of my mind suggesting that I could run a 10 minute mile and probably still qualify. Probably.

No thanks. I didn't come this far to probably qualify. I went back through all my reasons for finishing. Thanked my Lord for giving me the love of running and the opportunity to run this marathon. And kept my legs moving. Mile 26 - 8:13, slower than what I wanted but still on track. Keep the legs moving. Around a corner and I could see the finish. People were yelling. I could hear familiar voices yelling my name. I had decided back around 18 miles that under no circumstances would I sprint to the finish. I didn't want to risk an injury. If I qualified it would be from having run a good race overall.

When I heard my name from the announcer. I wanted to raise a hand and wave to the crowd but I don't think I could. And then I crossed the finish line. Exhausted. Exhilarated. I finished. I qualified for Boston. What an amazing run. Two people each grabbed an elbow and kept me moving forward. They asked if I was okay. I didn't know. We walked 20 paces or so as a trio, then they asked again. This time I said, yes, I am okay. And they let me go. Diane was on the other side of the fence saying "You did it! You qualified!"

And I smiled.