Much, much better than I could have hoped for

Final: 2:52:24; 6:34 pace. A 13-minute PR from my last marathon in 1998.

Mile splits
1 7:36
2 6:59
3 6:55
4 6:32
5 6:26
6 6:50
7 6:40
8 6:34
9 6:26
10 6:28
11 6:22
12 6:29
13 6:30
14 6:27
15 6:35
16 6:30
17 6:29
18 6:32
19 6:33
20 6:31
21 6:33
22 6:26
23 6:18
24 6:23
25 6:31
26 6:31
0.2 1:18

5K: 22:12
10K: 20:30
15K: 20:19
20K: 20:06
Half: 1:27:30
25K: 20:07
30K: 20:13
35K: 20:23
40K: 19:49
Last 2.2K: 8:45
2nd half: 1:24:54

The start
Actually, there was more drama before the start than the race itself. I got to Grant Park around 6:30, downloaded for the second time in the morning (I had two huge spaghetti meals yesterday), and got in the Open Corral before 7. I felt it was crucial to start right at the front of the Open Corral if I was going to have a good shot at a sub-3. At 7:10, there still weren’t many people in the corral, so I decided to go out and try to meet fellow forumites at the New Balance tent #2. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find them. Actually, I couldn’t’ find the tent. So I headed to the toilet for one last time. This is where the drama began.

Around 7:20, I got in a line behind 8-9 people, but I definitely picked the wrong one because all of them took a good while in there. As I’m waiting, I see the Open Corral starting to fill up quickly. And I’m still feeling all that spaghetti from Saturday sitting in my bowels, so a little bit of panic sets in. If I take too much time in the toilet, it could be game over even before the gun goes off. But it wasn’t a must download, so I just peed and hurried over to the back entrance of the corral; I was still worried that it could lead to a lengthy stop during the race, but I decided that a possible problem later was better than an immediate problem now.

It was about 7:40 when I started inching my way up to the front of the corral, and following the lead of two ladies who were clearing the way using their cuteness, I was able to get up pretty close. I was in place by 7:50 and breathed a huge sigh of relief after a quite stressful 30 minutes. If I ever do this again, I definitely need a better pre-start plan. I think it’d be worth it to pay for race just to get a qualifying time for one of the preferred corrals.

The race
I don’t have anything really enlightening to say about the race other than this: apparently, you can run a good race even without really knowing what you’re doing. I say that because I had really no idea what to expect in race conditions. I’d done 6:40 MP runs and 6:00-6:30 LT runs in training, but could I hold a pace like that for the whole race? I’d just need to hold 6:52 pace for a sub-3, so would it be foolish to go out at 6:40 pace (which was my plan) and possibly implode towards the end and jeopardize the sub-3 attempt?

I had decided on 6:40 on the possibility that I might be able to do it and because I knew that I probably won’t have another chance to train for a marathon for a long time when I go back to work in Bangladesh. So I didn’t want to waste this year’s training on anything less than a leave-nothing-on-the-course effort—even if it meant possibly not going sub-3.

Of course, after the first 3 miles in which the dense pack of runners made it very difficult to get into the rhythm I wanted, I wasn’t anywhere near 6:40 pace. But I was able to steadily get the pace down and hold an average pace of 6:31 for miles 4 through 22. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to hit a certain pace; I was just doing what felt comfortable, and hearing the crowds and having runners to chase down really energized me. I was expecting my body to protest after about mile 20, so when I didn’t hear it at mile 22, I decided that if I had more in the tank, I should try to use it all up. So I pushed the pace. My mile splits reflect that: 6:18, 6:23, 6:31, 6:31 for miles 23-26; the last three miles were into a very stiff wind—the stiffest on the course—so the times don’t quite reflect the effort. It felt great to finish strong, including sprinting down the final straightaway, with a 2min36sec negative split (due in part to the slow first 5K).

p.s. I never had to stop for any sort of bathroom breaks, even though I drank Gatorade at every station, so that was a huge blessing. I had an idea about this today: maybe they can have chip sensors inside the port-o-potties so that they can subtract the time you spend in there. :)