National Capital Marathon (NCM) 2007

Turns out all that training I did paid off this year. This year I followed Hal Higdon's Intermediate I marathon training program and with a few exceptions, (trip to Mexico, recovering from Norwalk) I followed it very closely. In addition, I trained pretty strictly using my heart rate monitor and I think that made a huge difference. My goal for the race this year was once again 3:45:00, just like last year, but this time I think it was more realistic. In the end my time was 3:46:43.4 (chip time) - which is DAMN close to my goal (and an improvement of over 17 minutes from last year), but still over it. I've got a tiny bit of disappointment over that fact, but not in the way I ran the race so...

Once again this year I didn't have anyone to run the marathon with - nobody who had the same goal in mind. Because of this, I was constantly searching for another runner with my goal time in mind. I know, I know, I could have simply followed the 3:45 pace bunny, but he had a different strategy than I did, namely a walk/run plan - I planned to run the entire race and only walk a few steps at each water station (which I managed to do and am very happy about that fact - no walking at all for me this year). Anyways, I talked to a few people, asked them what their goals were and nearly all of them would answer, "Oh anything under 4 hours would be good." Damn you people - that doesn't help me! At one point I was running by a guy wearing a "Burtts Corners, NB" shirt and I had a little chat with him. When I asked him what his goal time was, he answered 3:40. I thought to myself as I left him behind, "well finally I found someone with a similar goal time, but there is no way this guy is making that time!" I kept it in the back of my mind that at least the 3:45 pace bunny hadn't passed me - this was a good thing.

Sometime between km 34 and 35 it happened...the 3:45 pace bunny passed me. I chatted briefly with him while I tried to hang on. Soon after he passed me, he slowed down to one of his scheduled walking breaks and I ended up passing him back. Before we hit km 36 he was passing me again, and once again I chatted briefly with him. He told me to just hang on - there was less than 40 minutes to go. I tried, I really did, but he slowly pulled away. Luckily, right around that time, I caught sight of the Lawsons who had come out to cheer me on (thank you sooo much guys - it means a lot to me that you came out to cheer for me in the rain!) That was a huge pick-me-up and the time for my next km was back down to 5:10 - a savings of 13 seconds over my previous km. At this point I was still on pace for my 3:45 goal. Sadly it wasn't enough - my lap times started to fall off for the last 5 kms and you know the end result.

Once again I spotted my cheering section with about 400 or 500 metres left in the race. More specifically I spotted Amy and Liam and I had to do evasive manuvers to get from the middle of the road over to the side where they were. Turns out Jody and Steve were also with Amy and Liam and Jody snapped a bunch of photos - one of which can be seen near the top of this post - thanks Jody! No sprint for me this year - I just stayed the course and finished it off.

Keeping in mind my lessons learned from last year's marathon, I didn't change anything in my running on race day and I think that paid off. No salt pills this year. I also remembered to bring my iPod this year and I'm glad I did. I didn't have it turned up very loud which meant when I got to a section of the race where people were cheering (like the end of the race), I could hear them without having to adjust anything. I was also able to chat with other racers without any difficulty. My only mishap on the race this year happened around km 7...I had brought energy gel with me (last year I only saw one station with gel and it was around km 32) and my plan was to take a shot of gel about every 45 minutes or so. I strapped the gel flask into one of the loops on my belt and figured it was secure enough - it had worked for a couple of training runs so... Anyways, turns out it wasn't secure enough and around km 7 it fell out. I knew it had fallen out but I wasn't about to go back for it - I just hoped to find some of these elusive gel stations along the course. Turns out the first one I found was around km 14 or 15 I think - not ideal, but not as bad as I had feared.

As most people know, the race organizers changed things this year. Not only did they change the layout of the course (I really liked the new course layout) but they also opted to start the half marathon much earlier this year - at 0830 instead of 1000. I believe the intent was to avoid the heat from the late morning / early afternoon that had happened in the past. Funny thing was - it wasn't hot this year, in fact the conditions were almost perfect...overcast and cool, with rain starting later in the morning. At any rate, the changes to the course and start times meant that you got a lot of marathoners and half marathoners finishing around the same time. It was just past km 37 where the two races merged. This WAS NOT a good thing - the area where the merge occurred was a narrower section of the course which meant there was a bit of a traffic jam. Right around this time in the race (at least for me) is definitely not the time when I want to be dodging people who are running slower than me - especially around water stations. Due to the timing, it was people on pace for a 3:45 marathon merging with people on pace for a 2:15 half marathon - that's a huge number of people and sadly they aren't even running at similar paces! Anyways...I managed to get through the crowd and to the finish line. Due to the large number of people finishing at the same time - it took me over 20 minutes to get out of the recovery area - and I didn't waste any time heading for the exit. Again - not ideal. Oh well. Getting back to the race (to meet up with Amy) was another difficulty - I kept trying to get back down to the course but was repeatedly told that I couldn't go a certain way because it was for VIPs only. WTF?!

Anyways, all in all I'm very pleased with my race this year. As I may have mentioned already, this is likely my last marathon for a while. That being said, I am planning on doing the HBC Run for Canada (10K) again this year, and planning is in the preliminary stages for next year's 1/2 marathon which I'm hoping to run with my brother Sean.

Photos: Bonnie got a bunch of photos (and even a video) of me during the later stages of the race - they are here. As I mentioned above - Jody also got some great shots - her photos can be found here.

Before I go - I should give a shout out to the other racers I know who participated in race weekend. Grant - who did the 10K; Steve, Dave, Adam, Terri, and a friend who I recently found again on Facebook - Tanya - who all did the 1/2 marathon. I've got to specifically mention Steve's time of 1:28:56 because it's just so damn impressive. This guy continues to inspire me year after year with his running accomplishments. You can read Steve's account of his race here if you're interested. Oh and I should also send out a huge Thank You to Steve and Jody for once again hosting a post race BBQ - it was the highlight of my race weekend once again!

For those who are still with me, and may be interested, here is a bit more details on my results and my split times for each km of my race:

Place: 1120 / 3115
Category (M30-34) Place: 142 / 265
Gender Place: 908 / 1970

KM Time
01 5:18.3
02 4:57.3
03 5:03.9
04 5:15.3
05 5:22.2
06 5:05.0
07 5:14.9
08 5:12.1
09 5:13.0
10 5:21.2
11 5:13.7 * (hit the lap button late)
12 5:13.8 * (averaged out these two)
13 5:14.9
14 5:16.0
15 5:13.0
16 5:20.2
17 5:20.0
18 5:08.5
19 5:10.1
20 5:19.1
21 5:17.4
22 5:24.7
23 5:16.0
24 5:21.5
25 5:15.3 * (forgot to hit the lap button)
26 5:20.0 * (total for 2 km was 10:35)
27 5:26.8
28 5:16.2
29 5:39.9
30 5:23.3
31 5:36.7
32 5:15.3
33 5:44.9
34 5:34.8
35 5:24.2
36 5:23.7
37 5:10.4
38 5:41.8
39 5:43.6
40 5:56.3
41 6:01.3
42 6:57.7 (note that this is for 1.2 kms)