Well the Marathon went about as good as Richard and I had expected. Regardless of my recent 10 km road race performance I was still coming into this marathon with minimal training behind me( 6 weeks total) so our expectations were not that ambitious. The plan was to run through half way in about 1:10, then try to even split or come back a bit quicker.
As it turned out I had some company through half way with this American who I was told had a 2:18 pr. So I got comfortable and just sat in. The 4 Kenyans went out hard and I had no intentions of chasing. I knew some would come back but there was enough talent up there that I also knew one our two would be able to hold on.
Just before the first half the American and I caught up with one of the Kenyans who I thought was dying already after going out too hard but when we came up to him he stuck right in and ended up running alot more of the race with me. As I started to head back to the finish I knew time wise I was slow and couldn’t make up enough time to get near my original goal of 2:19-2:20, so I just sat in and decided to race; and pick up any stragglers that may come back after a hrad first half.
Shortly after half way I picked up the pace a bit because I knew we were not running very quick and I had no problems picking it up a bit, as soon as I did this the American dropped off and it was just me and the Kenyan in Red. We ran together for quite a while, He picking up the pace and me dropping back a bit, then he falling back and me able to make some ground. Somewhere around 30 km we ran past the first victim of the quick pace of the leaders, this guy looked bad and was attended to by the medical staff right away.
Well one down, one running with me and two more up ahead. I was actually starting to enjoy this a bit, having people to chase down and not falling way back my self. Somewhere around 35 km I started to pull away from the Red Kenyan and quickly put time in between us, I think he hit the wall because I wasn’t feeling that great but I still put 30 seconds on him within the next kilometer and just increased that distance with each kilometer. Up ahead I could be another guy, the Kenyan in white, he was coming back to me quick, then just before the 4 km to go he stopped and started to walk and I ran right past him. Now in second place I was starting to hurt. First place was to far ahead to reel in so now I just wanted to protect second place.
3 km to go I really started to struggle and felt like I was jogging, but I kept moving, counting down the kilometers and looking back to see if anyone was coming back on me, but I couldn’t see any one. With a mile to go I took that split with my watch so I could see just how slow I was running at this point. I was able to hold it together to the finish coming in at 2:22:42, running the last mile in 5:50.
The winner came in at 2:19:26 which meant my record was safe for another year. I kept thinking during the second half of the race how in the hell was I able to run 2:16 on this course in cold rainy conditions, what did I do in training to have a day like that.
Post Race I am feeling fine and got out for 6 miles the next day and another 6 miles on Tuesday. I will ease back into longer runs today and do a workout on Saturday. Now I have the Houston marathon to look forward to and to figure out what we need to do to replicate another day like the one I had October 2006.