MARATHON FINISHER!

My finish time, despite my best efforts, did not hit the mark of 3:18:00. I finished with a chip time of 3:21:09 and a gun time of 3:21:19. I am happy to report that I set a new personal record in less than ideal marathon conditions!

To check out my official time at the Shamrock Marathon website, use the url below.
http://www.lin-mark.com/shammarfin07.txt

My prior best was 3:26:49 chip time / 3:27:40 gun time in the 2006 Phoenix Rock 'n' Roll marathon. My improvement over the four marathons I've run remains unhindered:

first marathon: 3:56
second marathon: 3:36
third marathon: 3:27
Shamrock (4th): 3:21

Here's a fill-in of my last week's activities:
I got to run 3 times when I was in Alaska for work during the week preceding the marathon. I drove down to VA Beach yesterday and picked up my race packet, bought an IPod Shuffle, and ate a good pasta dinner at Macaroni Grill. I loaded songs into the IPod late into the night and finally crashed at around 1 a.m. I had my alarm set and a wake up call from downstairs for 6 a.m. I woke up before either of 'em and was feelin' pumped! Ate a very good oatmeal breakfast where I was staying (Holiday Inn) and was on my way by 6:40. Since daylight savings is now shifted it was dark until after 7 a.m. It was hovering around 33-35 deg F and the wind was sustained at 15 to 20 mph. Gusts got up to 30. On the bright side, it was a beautiful and sunny day!

I'm pretty sure that on the flight out to Alaska last week, the airline or TSA lost my garmin GPS trainer, or they failed to put it back in my bag after pawing through it.. I had done all my workouts with it and it is a very good way of tracking my pace so I was pretty bummed not to have that with me. I did have a stop watch which would be good enough to get my mile-by-mile splits with but when I set it to the stopwatch mode while waiting for the start of the race the thing went blank on me! Ran out of batteries just when I needed it most! Sooo.. I was left to my devices of pacing myself using only the time displayed at miscellaneous mile markers. I had written down on a piece of paper what time I needed to pass all the markers at the 5 mile increments; 5, 10, 15, etc., and the half marathon point to run a consistent 7:33 per mile pace. I was ahead of the pace by almost a minute at the 8 mile point so I backed off a little. I was 30 seconds ahead at the half marathon point and feeling strong. I was supposed to be at 1:39:00 and I passed 13.1 miles at 1:38:30. I had run into a strong headwind for about 3 miles by that point so I was ready for that to end..

Unfortunately, there were about 3.5 more miles of nasty wind, when heading north that did give us all a good lickin'. I was doing well, keeping on pace until I was surprised to see the 2:20:00 pace group nip at my heals at about 17 miles. (In marathons, the organizers provide a pacer for various target finish times. If you are shooting for 2:20:00 you can run with the pacer and you're pretty much set. If you can keep up with 'em ;) ) . I pushed ahead of them for about 3/4 a mile and was still feeling strong. Then I chose to relieve my bladder, which I had been debating doing since about mile five. The 2:20 pace group passed by as I was peeing so I took to overtake them again. I was about 60 yards behind them when we passed mile 18 but I never did quite catch them. I was beginning to hit more of a psychological wall than a physical one at that point.

Anyone who has run a marathon can pretty much attest that the last 6 miles are pretty much a mind game. I had a lot of motivation to meet my goal! I think probably close to a thousand dollars in *bonus* donations were at stake. Alas, even with all that incentive I slowed in pace on the back 10 k (6.2 miles). I knew I was in trouble at the 23 mile point and by the 25 mile marker, the clock showed 3:11:40 when I was supposed to be there at 3:08:45. I floored it for that last 1.2 miles (at least it felt like I floored it... in reality my pace averaged about 7:45 per mile.) already knowing that I had lost that bonus money. I crossed the finish line about ready to pass out -- really. The staff looked at me with concern and asked if I needed to go to the medical area. I said I would be okay when I got some food and beer! Believe it or not, I did feel much better after downing a bunch of the handout grub and three beers =)

I thank everyone who pledged! I will send out instructions for payments shortly. You all definitely got me running as hard as I possibly could with those *bonus* pledge offers. I will let you know what your bonus offer was in my notices. If you still feel inspired to give those bonus amounts even though I didn't make my goal, many of those ex patriot refugees of North Korea will have a benefactor to thank that they otherwise wouldn't have. You will also have my gratitude, as I feel responsible for the charity not getting the maximum amount it could have through my efforts.