Easiest marathon ever!! I found my new niche. I am a much better coach / pacer than I am a racer. Rather than running away at the start at a ridiculous rate, on this date I actually started out intelligently and under control. Lo and behold, three hours later, I was not regretting a foolhardy early effort, but was feeling (reasonably) good still!
Keith has been streaking for 280+ days (that is running without skipping a day, not running without clothes). He’s put in some serious long runs, some faster pace runs, and everything in between, as well as some crazy bike across Iowa cross-training. Kid’s lost like 27 pounds and counting, and even cut back on his beer intake. His gut is not gone, but it’s nowhere near its former girth. In other words, little bro was ready to roll in Columbus.
I had promised that I could pace him to a 3:20 marathon, which would have been a big improvement on his personal best (3:35). My simple plan was to carry him through at 8 miles per hour (7:30 per mile) for three hours (24 miles), and let him hang on for the last 2.2 in under 20 minutes. Simple enough. Keith assured me that his training had him comfortable enough at a 7:30 pace that he wouldn’t be sucking wind at the start or redlining too early.
At the expo on Saturday, a couple of minor tweaks to the plan occurred. First, I saw that the official pacers (those guys carrying signs with their times on them, whereas I only carried Keith’s hopes), would be running 3:15 and 3:25. This meant that we belonged behind the first guy, but ahead of the second guy. This also meant that I had some official benchmarks to use during the run, rather than trusting my own often inane pacing, as aforementioned. The second differentiator was a table of women offering to help “psyche up” runners. Seeing as one of the “psychologists” was a cute blonde, I felt it only prudent to persuade them to service the little bro (I’m married and was only pacing, so I would never be interested in the services of these young women for myself). The first girl asked if it was Keith’s first race (no – it would be his 6th), and then offered that he would be six marathons ahead of her (what the hell did she know, if she’d never run one before?). They asked if he’d been training (he obviously had), if he was happy with his training (he was), and some other similar queries. Keith said that he thought he was ready to run his best race, when I (the Jedi Master that I am), Yoda’ed in with something about knowing he was ready, not thinking it (you know, like do or do not, there is no try) [author’s post-script – It was Morpheus from The Matrix who said “Don’t think you are, know you are” or something like that. Sorry for the bad nerd reference]. One of the psycho chicks agreed, so Keith and I moved on to more free samples, knowing that he was ready both physically and now mentally. My work was half done already! Everyone knows that 90% of marathoning is half mental (RIP Yogi).
Sunday morning, we awoke around 5:30 a.m., Keith from the comforts of his own bed, myself from the discomforts of his cheap couch (really wish I and the other siblings had splurged on a nicer couch for him last Christmas). He directed me to a neighborhood street roughly a mile from the start, and we “warmed up” in the chilly morning air. It was around 35 degrees in the pre-dawn hours, and we were geared in shorts, long sleeve tees, gloves and baseball caps. No trash bags, sweats, throw-away clothes, or baggage checks for us, just icicles from our testicles and icy resolve in our veins (beautiful imagery, I know). Near the starting area we found a scary line to a scarce assortment of portapots, which was a terrible beginning. I thought we’d spend the forty five minutes to race time anxiously awaiting our turns. Keith remembered that they also promised portapots in each starting corral, so we made our way yonder, where there were no lines!! Score one for our efficient #2s.
We stretched and waited, with nothing much else to do, other than hope for a little sunlight to warm us a bit. The race started promptly at 7:30 with a big display of fireworks, and we were off amidst a storm of ~19,000 others (approximately 12,000 of whom only slated to go half the distance). There was a pacer for a 1:40 half marathon running, so we had another guide option besides bouncing between Mr. 3:15 and Mr. 3:25, though we started out closer to the latter guy anyway. It took us 55 seconds to cross the starting line, and the first mile was forced slow by the people around us, effectively containing my usual vigor to adrenalize a frantic front-running effort.
We bounced around the field a bit, bounding by with a light effort, and maintained the target pace with near precision. The official clock time at 8 miles was 59:56, so I was about a minute ahead of pace, but Keith was feeling good, so I didn’t mind. I’m all about banking time anyway. We clicked ten miles at 73:30, which was about a minute and a half up on 7:30 pace, and still Keith kept charging. He ingested his special Swedish fish every five miles, and they maintained his healthy energy. Around this time, we caught up to Mr. 3:15 pacer, and I apologized for being a little ahead of pace. Keith felt fine, but wanted to fall in with the large pace group for a bit, so we joined this busy group. In reality, little bro probably wanted to hear someone else’s bs stories for a while, as I’m sure he’d already heard most of mine many times over the years. Plus, there were some cuties in this group as well (or so I was told by Keith later – again, married guy, I’d never notice!).
The pacer was relaying some story about a 2:20 something marathoner, when I noticed Keith take off from the group! This was new; if Keith wanted to pick up the pace, who was I to argue? He later told me that he was annoyed by the pacer’s snobbish attitude about picking on a 2:20 half-marathoner for outkicking snobbish pacer’s wife in some other race. I totally missed the point of the story (not that I was distracted by the dames around us, mind you), and quickly chased after the little bro. A mile later, though I sprinted ahead to take a quick piss (Columbus had plenty of portabots along the course, another nice touch), I had to retake the snobbish pacer’s pack and race up to Keith shortly after he’d crossed the halfway mark around 1:36:20 (on pace to run a 3:13!!).
From there, Keith ingested more fish at fifteen miles. At a couple minutes after sixteen miles (16.2 miles in my estimation), I told Keith that 6:30 miles for the last ten would get him a Boston Qualifier (3:05 for his age). Keith did not take this bait. At eighteen miles, I told him we had less than an hour to go (which I thought was motivational; not sure if he was as excited about another hour of this effort). Around this time, he was starting to feel the strain of running near to his fastest half marathon pace already, yet little bro was like a new kid on the block (you know, hanging tough?). We hit twenty miles at around 2:26, which meant we chased a 1:13:30 first ten with a 1:12:30 second ten! Mental math told me that we just averaged 7:15 for the last ten! We were four minutes up on the target pace, and there was no way I was letting the 3:15 crowd catch up. More fish for Keith – he earned them!
The next 10K was a blast for me. We were steadily moving up through the field, I was feeling great, and Keith was not fighting me every time I yelled at him! I told Keith that if he trusted me to lead this charge to the finish, I’d get him under 3:10. I’d run along, feeling strong, look back and realize he’d fallen back a bit, turn around and start yelling for Keith to catch up, keep up, stay strong, he’d mumble something about how he was doing that (and probably cursing me under his breath, but I didn’t hear it, so it doesn’t count), and we’d continue in this fashion. With a few miles to go, there was a strong chick in front of us who was a prime target in pink. I told Keith that he owned her (in the racing sense only), and he kept her in his sights. He was not quite meeting my goal of total destruction of this part of the field, but was still picking off runners steadily, and chasing pink. With about a mile to go, Keith finally passed this girl, and I was resigned to take him through a strong finish somewhere around 3:11. But then he kicked!! I had no idea Keith had it in him still, but he saw another girl ahead in orange, and decided to add one more to his collection. I struggled to catch up, Keith passed Miss Orange, and then he deflated a bit before the finish line, allowing me to cross a half step in front. This was fortunate, because the last time Keith beat me in a marathon, it took me years of laziness and self-pity for me to regain my form. Official time: 3:10:07!! If only there had been another brightly colored lady ten seconds farther ahead of him, I would have had another Boston Qualifier myself! Instead, we settled for Keith knocking approximately 25 minutes off his personal best, and laying the very solid foundation for his own Boston Qualifier in his next outing.
I told him that we should find the cute blonde psycho chick so he could thank her, but apparently Columbus is a big city and she was nowhere to be found. Instead, we found ourselves in a German Brauhaus that afternoon, where we drank many a celebratory brew for a mission accomplished!!
Well done little brother!!
Traipse Reports - Trips and Races 