Number 19 - Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C.
My neighbor, Chuck and I have been planning this race for about a year, and it lived up to our expectations. It had great fan support, awesome sights to see and we each hit our goal, plus Chuck qualified for Boston!!
Jan and I arrived Friday night and stayed with my daughter-in-law’s parents. We had a nice visit and a great breakfast before leaving to survey the course, checkout the expo and check into our downtown hotel. It took a little while to get acquainted with the city and the trains. Jan had a new challenge, navigating our rendezvous points via the train, not an easy task to meet me four times on the course. Saturday night we had a pasta dinner with our neighbor and his son and family at their home in Alexandria, along with their daughter and all their grandchildren.
Sunday morning my alarm went off an hour later than planned. It seems the alarm time was correct but the time of day was an hour earlier. It was a fast dash around the hotel Sunday morning and fortunately we no incidents finding or catching the train. I was suppose to meet my neighbor at the start line but never found him; of course, there were only 26,000 other runners there.
The course was hilly for the first 8 miles then relatively flat until the last 1.2 miles. The last .2 was up a severe hill in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial. The hill was a challenge but inspirational. There were many marines working the course from the start to the end. They were great and we runners were very appreciative for this and obviously the more important commitment they make on our behalf.
I took my time during the first 8 miles, as I don’t do hills very well. It paid off later as I was able to sustain a pretty good pace in the second half. Overall, the second half was just 36 seconds slower than the first half. I am sure the practice marathon I did about a month ago also helped.
I finished in 3:57:04 which was 83rd of 638 in my age group. This was better than usual for me, as I usually finish in the top third and this was in the top 15%. My left hamstring and right quad reminded me for days after what I demanded of myself in the race. Other than that, I am in pretty good shape.
It has been a good year, completing four marathons. I am off for a while, next year my main target will be Alaska, plus a couple others, tbd.