A good night's sleep before a marathon - how often does that happen? That is good omen, as far as I am concerned.
I got up at 5 a.m. feeling rested and ready. I got some coffee for Gloria, stretched a bit and we left the motel at around 6. I still had plenty of time to get to the race site, park the car (the lot was across the street from the start line), stretch some more, and even run a warmup mile before the 7 a.m. start time. Only at small races can that be possible.
Though this race was indeed small, it was extremely well organized. Every mile was marked, every turn had signs and volunteers, and even several intersections that did not have turns had people there to keep runners on track. If you know my history, you know my biggest fear is a poorly marked course, because one wrong or missed turn can ruin months of training, so this was the greatest gift the organizers could give.
With my course notes in hand, I shot out with the frontrunners on Boardman-Canfield Road, but that was brief because it was clearly too fast. We turned onto the hiking/biking path near the golf course, and I hit the first mile marker at 6:41. It was imperative that I slow down immediately or risk the consequences of a fast burnout. So on this nice flat stretch of paved path, I brought it down to a 7:06 for the second mile. But I was feeling too good, I guess, because mile three was a 6:55.
I did not intend to go that fast, and I honestly thought I was slowing down. We crossed Shields Road to enter the beautiful park alongside Lake Newport and the gently rolling hills kept various muscles active while I startled myself with a 7:00 for the next mile, and if you probably can guess what I was thinking next:
I'm in PR territory here.
A 7:01 pace would net me an all-time best of 3:03(:xx), and I already had a 22-second cushion, which meant I could do 7:02s for the rest of the race and nail it.
I told all of this to the half-marathoner who was running next to me during the fifth (7:01) and sixth (7:10) miles and he wished me well. I kept pushing past him on the uphills and he kept catching up to me on the downhills. He was impressed with the way I tackled the hills and I told him it is all about hill training. I hate it, but it is effective. "This is where you leave me," he said, as we ascended a relatively big uphill in the seventh, and he had to turn around at his halfway mark soon anyway.
Brimming with confidence, I hit a 7:03, a 6:54 and a 6:57 in the next three miles as we ran over a little bridge and into another section of lovely park (this time alongside Lake Glacier), then out of the park and onto the streets of the Mahoning Commons section.
Mindful of how quickly things could go bad, I took it down to a 7:04, 7:11 and 7:16 for miles 10, 11 and 12. I still had a decent cushion and I figured it was probably a good time to start using it. With almost half the race behind me, and the largest hill of the race in the 12th mile, slowing down was no longer difficult, it was inevitable, as we made a loop through Downtown Youngstown and then another loop around Youngstown State University and its impressive Stambaugh Stadium.
The 13th mile took us back down the big hill as we headed to the bridge again to retrace our steps through Mahoning Commons and into the park around Lake Glacier. The downhill gave me one last sub-7 mile with a 6:59, but I could feel that my leg turnover required a little more effort into the 14th (7:12) and 15th (7:14) miles. These were still amazing splits that I would take any day, but that damn PR idea kept nagging at me.
I felt my pace dragging in the 16th mile (7:32), so it was time to make a big decision - do I supplement my fuel with the Gu packet I had been carrying, or do I stick to the Gatorade and water? Not taking it meant risking a continued fade in my energy and my split times; but taking it meant the possibility of the stomach problems that tend to plague me if I eat anything before or during a race.
I took half the Gu, hoping it would give me a needed energy spike but not be enough to cause any gastronomic issues.
Giving it a little more effort into miles 17 and 18, I was able to bring my splits down a bit with a 7:20 and 7:24, but I was about a minute and a half behind my PR time. The Gu must have kicked in, though, because the next three miles were 7:19, 7:22, and a surprising 7:14 as I danced through the aid station playing Taylor Swift in the 21st mile.
Things were clearly copacetic with my tummy, and even though a PR was out of reach now, I took the rest of the Gu, figuring I would cruise my way into a fourth-best ever marathon, with a time between 3:07 and 3:10. At this point, I only had a little over a half-hour left of running, so there should be no time for the Gu to have any adverse effect. This was going to turn out awesome.
But then, the Gu hit bottom and my belly started feeling weird.
A passing cyclist (who was probably a volunteer checking in on racers) slowed alongside me to chat, which was exactly what I did not want to do at that point. I told him I was doing OK, that I was gunning for a 3:07 and that I was enjoying the race. He asked where I was from, and upon getting the answer, he replied, almost startled, "You came from New Jersey, just for this race?" which is something I have heard several times in my travels to marathons across the country. So, of course, I had to tell him about my 50-state objective, despite wanting desperately for the conversation to be over.
Eventually, he went ahead to check on the other runners on the Lake Newport loop. I hit a 7:19 for Mile 22 and, incredibly, another 7:19 for Mile 23 as I began to pass runners that were on the first half of the loop (in Mile 19).
But this would be no cakewalk into a fourth-best anymore because my tum-tum was tightening up. Seriously, it felt like there was an imaginary fist inside my gut, gripping my stomach and squeezing it with all its might. The last three miles would be a struggle to outlast the pain and get into the finish before it got worse.
The 24th mile felt like forever as I tried to adjust to the discomfort, but somehow I managed a 7:22. As I rounded out the Newport loop through a short path that put me back on Newport Drive and across Shields Road to the hike/bike path on which we ran those early miles, things got dire. I was grunting and groaning in increasing agony as I passed a lot of folks that were walking the half-marathon.
Mile 25 - another eternity, yet still a surprising 7:48 (yes, an hour and a half after my last sub-7, I was amazed by a sub-8). But I would be lucky to hit at 3:10 at this point.
A short cut-through out of the park and led to the suburban streets for the last mile. Hunched over in my agony, right leg flailing (as it tends to do when I do not or can not concentrate on my gait) I looked at the lawns, garbage cans, mailboxes, squirrels...anything to give my mind something to do other than focus on the fact that now my stomach felt like it was being wrung like a wet towel.
Look at the signs...A left on Ronjoy Place...around the curve onto Ronlee Lane...a right onto Ronpark Place...hahaha...what's with all the Rons? Oh god, this hurts...
Mile 26 was 8:12. Dismal by the standards of the race I was running, but not as bad as races in which I hit the wall from muscle fatigue. Clearly, if this had gone on longer (or if I had taken the Gu even earlier), each subsequent mile would be 20 to 30 seconds slower than the last. But the finish line was now in sight on this final straightaway and I could see Gloria, my beautiful wife, waving and calling my name, with some total strangers that she had prepped to all cheer me on as I passed. That is Gloria - if I do not have a cheering section, she will make one.
With the clock in view, I saw 3:09 and thought I might get in under 3:10 but, alas, the remaining stretch was just a bit too long for that, and I came in with a respectable 3:10:34, my fifth best marathon, only slightly behind Myrtle Beach's 3:09:44 and very slightly ahead of Lower Potomac River's 3:10:45.
The Youngstown Marathon, only in its second year, is a fantastic race and a great addition to the big-time famous events elsewhere in the state. I recommend it to any traveler from east of Ohio that wants to take part in a small, but high quality and well-organized race where the people are friendly, the course is lovely and fairly easy to moderate, the vibe is excellent, and the drive is manageable. Just don't stay at that Rodeway Inn.
I beat my average marathon time, nailed my eighth Boston qualifying time (3:15:00 for men ages 40 to 44) and came away with a result of which I am truly proud, stomach problems and all. As I told my co-worker and fellow runner, "A 3:10 is a 3:10, no matter how you get there."
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