Grandmas Marathon Race Recap

It was nice to go back to Grandmas Marathon this year.  It’s hard not to look back to 2014 when I set a 25 minute PR on this course and qualified for the Boston Marathon.  I have not been able to reproduce that type of run, but I will continue to work towards that.

For me, the outcome of the marathon seems to always be related to the weather.  If it’s nice and cool, I run well.  If it’s warm, I struggle.

This year was no different.  But I tried to take a better attitude into this year’s marathon.  Although I would frequently look at the forecast, I wasn’t going to have it make or break the marathon.  I’m learning to not worry about the things that are not in my control.  Some of the good learnings I’ve been taken from reading Elizabeth Clor’s book, Boston Bound.  This is a MUST read for anyone reading this blog.  It’s available on Amazon.

I had a sharp training cycle since I had to recover some after the April 3^rd Paris Marathon and there were only 11 weeks between marathons.

The training cycle was very good.  I was hitting the paces I needed to hit and was able to get in one 22 mile long run.

With good weather, I was trained to get a sub 3:35 and qualify for Boston.  But that takes everything to align on marathon day from the weather to feeling good when you get up.

We flew out Thursday morning and arrived in Duluth just past 4 PM on Thursday.  We had a nice breakfast on Friday morning at the JJ Astor restaurant at the top of the Radisson, where we stayed.  Great views of Canal Park.

Friday we went to the expo for packet pickup and they also had a Grandmas Marathon Toyota with everyone’s name on the car:

Friday afternoon, there were conflicting reports for the weather.  While the Iphone’s app was showing upper 60’s at the start of the race and mid 70’s at the end, Accuweather was showing low to mid 60’s for the entire race.

I then took a look at the National Weather Service and they were more in line with Accuweather.  I was hoping they were correct.

We ate at Bellisio’s on both Thursday and Friday night.  We ate early on Friday, at 5:15 PM, so we were back in the room getting everything ready for race day.  My wife was running the half marathon, so she had to head to the bus by 4:40 AM and I could wait until closer to 5:30 AM.

As usual, I took two Benadryl to help ease me to sleep.  It took a bit longer than normal for me to get to sleep, but I felt decent when the alarm went off at 4:10 AM.  I took a look at the weather forecasts and now the National Weather Service was indicating upper 60’s to start and 74 degrees by 11 AM.

My wife left the room at 4:40 AM and I left about 20 minutes later.  I decided to take the train up to the start line.  It was a nice relaxing 1 hour ride to the start line, arriving around 6:50 AM with the race starting at 7:45 AM.

I waited my turn for the porta potty and then it was off to the corrals.  At 7:15 AM, they announced that it was 68 degrees.  It also was humid out.  So at that time, I decided I really need to slow down the pace, maybe 8:40-8:50 to start and see how I felt.  Although I wanted to run 3:35 and BQ, I know that I can’t do that in this weather and if I even attempted to start at that pace, it would be a long, miserable second half of the race.

So I ran the race that the weather delivered.  I started out with an 8:50 mile.  My right shin was feeling tight after about ½ mile.  This has happened on multiple marathons where there is no warmup and you go straight to race pace.  Although I was surprised to get the sore shin running the slower pace.  I slowed more on the second mile to 8:55, but after that the right shin soreness went away and I was feeling somewhat better.

There were small pockets where you would get a temporary breeze to help cool you down, but for the most part it was a calm day.

I found that people were trying to run on the left side of the highway where there was some occasional shade.  So I followed their lead.

I actually got into a nice rhythm in the 8:35-8:45 pace range during the first half of the race.  

I’ve never stopped for a rest room break during a marathon, but 5-6 miles into the race I felt like I needed to pee.  But I wasn’t going to wait in line at a porta potty stop.  But towards the mid-point, I was hitting the section where the half marathon started and there were tons of porta potties around with no line.  So I actually made a stop, pausing the Garmin.  But I was counting in my head so I knew how long I was taking.  I timed the stop at 40 seconds and then continued on.

It was amazing how much better I felt with a 40 second stop.  The next mile, #14, was 8:21, which was 24 seconds faster than the previous mile.  So I actually only lost about 15 seconds at that stop because of the renewed energy it gave me.

By now it was getting warmer and I could feel my pace start to slow some on the second half of the race.  At mile 17, I actually told myself that I can start working in a 1 minute per mile walk break at mile 20.  Just push on to get to mile 20.

But when I got to mile 20, I said don’t walk and keep running.  Maybe after 24 miles I could take walk breaks for the last two miles.  I had slowed to a 9:14 mile at mile 22 and worked to run a little faster so I don’t get into that give up feeling where you start to lose more and more time.

With 4 miles to go, I saw a bank sign read 75 degrees.  Wow, that’s definitely the warmest I’ve ever seen during a marathon. When I did reach mile 24, I told myself I did not need to walk.  I’ve trained hard and I know I can finish without walk breaks.  Just pretend I’m on the cooldown at the end of a long run. 

When I finished, the Garmin said 3:52:34.  I knew my official time would be over 3:53 since I had paused the Garmin for the porta potty break.  Official time came in at 3:53:15.

They gave a really nice medal and it was another 1+ mile walk back to the hotel.

I didn’t feel bad about my time at all.  I thought I gave a good effort for the conditions and didn’t let the warm weather spoil the enjoyment of running my 10^th marathon.

When I looked at the times, I realized that the second half of the marathon was faster than the second half of my previous 3 marathons – Paris, Disney, Berlin.  So I felt that was a good accomplishment on such a warm day in Duluth.  I felt I ran smart and ran the race that the conditions gave me without killing myself and making it a completely miserable day.  Had I went out fast to try to hit some low time, I would have paid the price on the second half and would have had a miserable finish with a lot higher time.