tonymccray.com

I am officially a marathoner. I ran the Portland Marathon today in a time of 3:24:22. I have to admit, I was a little bit unsure of what to expect out of today. My training was solid, the weather was perfect (in the 50s with rain – only the second time in 25 years it has rained on the Portland Marathon). But I had been dealing with an interesting problem all week – occasional muscle spasms in my left leg, combined with a sensation of weakness, particularly when I walked up stairs. It just seemed like my left leg muscles weren’t quite contracting like they should. I’m not sure what caused it – I think a combination of stress and more changes to my diet. I didn’t mention this to anyone, my wife or my coach. I think I was worried that if I talked about it, I might be more likely to use it as an excuse to slow or start walking when the marathon got tough, so I kept quiet. It is probably not good to keep issues like this private, but that is what I did.

Heading towards the start, after the race officially started.

Overall I’d say it didn’t really impact me. Although it concerned me throughout the race, and I felt a bit of weakness pretty regularly, I was able to able to execute the race as I had planned. Like the Timberline Half Marathon, I started slow, and constanly ramped up the intensity throughout. My goal was to run between 3:15 and 3:20, so I started between the 3:30 and 3:45 pace group to help with a conservative start. It turned out that even these groups started out faster than I wanted, so I let them go on by, and was regularly getting passed by a lot of people. I should have started further back! While getting passed by a lot of people can be a bit frustrating, ultimately I knew I had to run my own race, not theirs, and was able to keep my intensity in check.

At about the 3.5 mile point the course turns downhill for the first time. This was the first point in the race where my pace came down to my planned marathon pace (PMP). While I took advantage of the downhill, I didn’t push too hard, since with roughly 22 miles left to go any extra fatigue at this point would undoubtedly cost me later on. It was at this point, however, than I began focusing on my pace, and trying to keep it within the desired range. I also started passing a lot of the people that started a bit faster than I did. I still felt quite good at this point, and running at this pace still felt pretty effortless.

These good feelings continued for quite some time. At mile 6 I took in some elctrolytes and gel, and I took water every chance I got. At mile 11 I made a quick porto-stop. At mile 12 I forgot to take gel and elctrolytes (my plan had been to do so roughly every 6 miles), so I took more at mile 13. Then I was past the halfway point, still feeling pretty darn good. The toughest part of the course was only a few miles ahead: the climb up to, and over, the St. Johns Bridge. After a little bit of rolling on the approach, we hit the hill, steepest at the beginning apparently, where we gained about 200′ of elevation over about 1.1 miles. From there it was “all downhill” although there were still a few short and sweet climbs that got between me and the finish line.

The top of the bridge also marks mile 17 of the race. The miles were continuing to fly by pretty rapidly, at least it seemed that way to me. One thing that helped was setting a ‘workout’ up in my heart rate monitor (HRM) to take splits at each mile and alert me when my pace dropped. Everytime I looked at my HRM it said I had less than a mile to go! As I approached mile 20 I really started to feel the fatigue of having run so far already. The biggest problem was that my calves seemed to want to cramp up! Although I took gel/endurolytes at mile 18 (it might have been 19) I knew my wife/fan club/official photographer was waiting for me at mile 21. So I took a couple of additional electrolyte capsules, chewing one up to hopefully speed its delivery into my system. That seemed to work, as my calves definitely started to feel better. I passed my wife at mile 21, hopefully still looking good, though definitely not feeling too sharp!

Hi hon! What? 5 more miles?

At this point in the race a lot of people were slowing down, and a lot were walking. Several were speeding up, although the most noticeable increases in pace was at mile 20. Slowing down or walking was definitely very tempting. Although I was still on pace, it was a huge struggle to maintain even the slower end of my PMP range. Ultimately I just kept reminding myself to keep frigging running. I had run this far, my training prepared me for running with fatigue in my legs, and there was no way I was going to stop until I crossed the line. There was one touch-and-go moment when, while climbing up what at the time seemed like a massive hill (there was about 30′ of elevation gain over about a quarter mile), my left calf muscles started twitching a bit. This was mainly what concerned me about the spasms/weakness I described earlier – that I would end up using some muscles a bit differently today compared to normal running and really fatigue or injure them. Fortunately toward the top of the hill it subsided. I slowed at the next rest area, mile 24, and walked while drinking some water. I found I needed to walk while drinking, as I am completely unskilled at drinking water from a cup without sucking in a bunch of air. I’ll have to practice this, or start carrying a small straw with me. I took some more electrolytes at this point, and carried on with the last 2.2 miles.

Shortly after this there was one more short climb to get up to the Broadway Bridge, which would lead us back over the Willamette River and pretty close to the finish. I maintained a pretty good pace going up this hill and once at the top getting over the bridge itself is pretty easy. I was starting to get confused at this point though. Although my HRM was lapping every mile, it was no longer synchronized with the official course markings. I was trying to figure out how much farther I had to go, and I was pretty sure the sign on the bridge said mile 25. When I heard the timer call out that about 3:08 had elapsed since the start of the race, I figured I was within my goal time if I could knock out the last 1.2 miles within my goal pace. I increased the tempo a bit, taking advantage of the downhill over about the next quarter mile. After the bridge there was another aid station, and as I ran through I heard someone say there were still two miles left. I wasn’t sure if that was correct, but I slowed to grab some whater just in case. It turned out he was correct! This isn’t all bad, since I may not have sped up quite as much so soon if I had had the mileage right. I was starting to feel good once again too. Don’t get me wrong, I was still struggling to maintain the pace, but now I knew I was going to make it, I wasn’t going to have to stop and walk, and that gave me a bit of energy. As I ran, the final turn came into view, and pretty soon I was there. As the actual finish line came within sight I saw that the time read 3:24, and realized that a strong finish I could get in in a little under 3:25. Although this was slightly above my goal, I’m very happy with the time. It is a great result for my first marathon, only slightly above goal, and in all honesty about the fastest time I could have run today. I definitely didn’t have anything left after crossing the line – I could barely walk! Apparently I looked so bad that one of the medical volunteers asked me if I was ok. I said yeah, and she said “do you know where you are?” “Yes” I said, “at the finish line of the Portland Marathon.” And she let me move on, which was probably a good thing, as I heard later there was a lot of vomiting going on in the medical tent.

I ran into Ernie Conway and Doug Shanks and a few others after the race. Ernie had a great day, running a 3:12, a PR I believe. Doug ran a 3:14. I made it through the post-race festivities: getting my finisher medal, getting water, a rose, my finisher shirt, and a finish photo. Then I walked, very slowly, towards the reunion area. Surprisingly, I got a bit emotional at this point. Joanne and my mom hadn’t made it to the reunion area yet, so I found a bus shelter to keep me out of the rain. Another couple also came into the shelter, and they let me use their cell phone to call Joanne and let her know that I was done. When they got to me and started giving me congratulations, I got all emotional again. I was a bit surprised at all of this, but ultimately, this is probably the single hardest physical thing I have done. I’ve pushed myself hard in bike races and duathlons in the past, but this was definitely another level above all of that, and I consider it to be a pretty huge accomplishment.

A tough but rewarding day is done

The whole day was really interesting. What I am most left with is how hard it really was. I felt a lot of respect towards marathoners before, but that has definitely gone up. Some people are faster, some or slower, some walk, but everyone goes the same distance and, I believe, goes through the same highs and lows. As tough as I thought today would be, it was a whole lot harder than I had imagined.

And now, I get a few weeks of rest before I start training for the next challenge.