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.

Friday Endurance

Today I did a 30 minute endurance exercise going back and forth between 15 reps of pushups (slow) and 4 reps of pullups. I alternated between each doing a set every minute, on the minute, for the half hour. My chest is feeling it the most! I then did the same routine but with shoulders and abs. I mixed up the actual exercises for each muscle group, so as not to get bored, and my abs are feelin' it too. I cut it off having done 12 sets of each of these, because I wanted to get back to the office in good time.

My legs are destroyed (sore) from yesterdays squats and running so I made sure NOT to run today ;)

Wednesday and Thursday Fun

Wednesday I went to the gym around four and did one set of 20 pullups, followed by some ab-work. I then got on the treadmill and spun it for 5 miles at an incline of one.. Oh yes, and I was on it ;) I finished that in 32:20 which is a 6:28 per mile pace.

Today, Thursday, I did 3 sets of 10 squats using the smith machine. Only had one 45 on each side but ouch! That was still enough to hurt my glutius maximus in a major way! I then did a couple one-arm come-downs for the one arm chinning training, followed by 3 sets of +35 pound pullups (5 reps each). Did one last exercise before running; 3 sets of that pulley machine "pull-to" exercise for your back. Got on the treadmill and did an easy run of 3 miles at a 7:30 per mile pace. The slope was set to 2. I was hurting on the run because the squats took a lot of juice out of me.

I've been getting donation commitments on paper from a lot of people. I'm pretty psyched about the marathon fast approaching! There's a lot of money on the line for Helping Hands if I finish in my target time of 3:18:00.

I just found out yesterday that I will be able to go on a work related trip to Alaska on Saturday, March 10th and returning Friday, March 16th. I probably won't be able to make any posts from out there, but I'll definitely do some maintenance runnin'!

Friday Lift and Monday Milage

Friday was another full-body workout day. Did a lot of legs and everything upper body but my back. I was almost moving between exercises fast enough to make the workout cardiovascular, but I think a few of my rests gave my heart rate time to settle. .

I had been planning on running for 3 hours on Sunday but ran instead into a serious need for sleep. Woke up around 2 PM and then HAD to watch my Duke Blue Devils play Carolina in B-ball (we lost :( ). The evening was already nailed down to plans.. My Mom flew into town Thursday night and my Fiance Robyn, my roommate Justin, and I are playing host! We've all been having great, awesome conversations til the wee hours of the morning. My Mom is visiting until Wednesday morning so I chose to take Monday off to spend time with her (She was in a full day course Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).

We ate an awesome lunch Monday at the place we chose for the wedding rehearsal dinner and then I started my 3 hour run when we got back (my last long run in prep for the marathon!). I drove out to Gravelly Point and started my run at 3:40 PM. I ran all the way to the southern outskirts of Olde Town Alexandria by way of the Mnt Vernon Trail. I had a tail wind the whole way which I didn't have a full appreciation for until I turned around! When I got back to my car at Gravelly point, I had likely done 9 miles (didn't have my GPS with me). I got some water out of the car and ate half a banana and trekked on North. I downed a 2x caffeine mocha-flavored goo just before crossing the Key Bridge into Bethesda. I then hooked along the canal tow path for a couple miles West. The wind was biting and very hard to run into -- I got really sore in my calves during that whole North and West leg. It was really neat to see a rather large beaver get into the canal ahead of me and swim off to the other bank with what looked like motivation.

I turned around just before Fletcher's Boathouse and finally had the wind at my back. Wouldn't you know it, but I'd swear that the wind actually died down significantly by that time (~6 PM) so I felt cheated out of the nice tail wind I thought I'd "worked" for. I got close to the beaver again and it did the same thing. He was swimming "with me" (same direction) so I got a good look at him. He looked comfortable. Not like me!

I really got to hurting when I got back over to Roslyn via the Key Bridge. Mostly, my calves and my over-all energy were flagging. I took a walking break between Memorial and 14th street bridge that lasted about 2 minutes. Plowed on to the last mile-marker before Gravelly Point and then warm-down walked the rest. I got to my car at 6:50 and not a moment too soon -- it was COLD.

I was ready to fall asleep in my car seat! Exhausted! I'd really like to run in better conditions down in VA Beach. March 18th and South of here should be a little better ;)

I'm going to do maintenance runs from here on out to marathon day. I'll probably also do one more day of speed work to keep nimble!

Thursday's Six

Did six miles today outside. Twas a little bit windy and overcast and the temperature was probably in the 50's. I took the canal tow path for about a mile leg (3 miles into the run) and chose to get back off it as soon as I could once I was sure that the whole thing was still covered with mud, ice, and slush. My pace would have been sub 7-minute miles which (what I was shooting for) but that mile in the muck slowed my pace down to 7:02 per mile for the run. On the bright side, it was a good workout for my ankles and calves to run through that shtuff and I had fun getting all messy.

Whippin' Wednesday

I stayed home sick yesterday with a nasty cough and sore throat that kinda snuck up on me. I slept a whole lot and felt a lot better in the evening. Today I went to the gym at 1:30 p.m. and started with one arm-chinning exercises. Did comedowns, pulley-assisted one-arms, and weighted two arm pull-ups. I then got on the treadmill, which is finally FIXED, and ran 30 minutes. I did a hill workout in which I averaged 7:30 minute-miles at an average slope of 4.5 . I ran a total of 4 miles and burned 700 calories. Felt a little beat at the end, but it was good to get my legs moving.

Friday Lift and Sunday Maintenance

Friday was a great full body workout. Did bi's, tri's, shoulders, abs, chest, and back. I did not run, as I was still sore from the lifting (and running) I did for my legs the day before.

Sunday evening I did almost 2:40 on the elliptical (weather was too bad for running -- very heavy snow and slick roads). According to the machine I burned 4300 calories and my distance was "8000" which I think is supposed to be in meters. If that's what it's supposed to be, I did an equivalent of 20 miles. I hit a wall only an hour in but recovered after drinking one of those carb-loaded goo's, which also had caffeine, kicked it in for the long haul. Was happy to see "The Departed" get best picture on the Oscars!

Next weekend, Saturday 3rd and 4th, is my last long run before the marathon. I will run for about 3 hours and then take the two weeks before the marathon relatively easy.