6 November - 34-ish miles (370 minutes), counting being lost at Fire on the Mountain; we went over this
7 November - 2 miles, in my button-down shirt, khakis, and Steve Madden dress shoes; 1 to lunch in 6:17, 1 back in 5:53
8 November - 3 miles easy at lunch (30 minutes), 7 miles at TNT, including 2x800m (3:04, 2:51), 2x400m (79, 79), and 4x200m (37, 35, 34, 34), 2 miles warmup, 3 miles warmdown (45 minutes)
9 November - 3 miles easy at lunch (30 minutes)
10 November - 10 miles fast-ish at lunch (65 minutes)
11 November - 2 miles easy, around Patterson Park (20 minutes)
12 November - Starting at 2:15 a.m., Reverse Richmond Marathon in 4:40, followed by Regular Richmond Marathon in 3:46; 52.4 miles
Total Time: 1075 minutes
Total Distance: 113 miles
And now, somewhat belatedly, but before this coming weekend's adventures push last weekend's too far into the back of my mind to write this, the Double-Richmond (what does this mean?) Marathon Report . . .
To say that I was a little bit nervous about attempting this would be an understatement. Richmond just sort of "happened" for me, in that I was contacted to pace the 3:10 marathon group, as a result of my prior pacing exploits, and Dave Snipes has a tradition of running the Richmond Marathon from finish to start, starting at around 2 a.m. on marathon day, then changing clothes and running the official marathon. Glue those two together, and you get a challenging, vaguely risky endeavor . . . right up my alley.
Theoretically, it seemed doable - Sniper was planning on running around 4:30 for the "reverse" marathon, so it would be a total of 7:40 for 52.4 miles, which is more or less in the ballpark of my 50-mile PR set this past spring at Bull Run. But there was also the drastic difference in pace (non-stop 10-ish minute miles down to non-stop 7-ish minute miles), the early start time (and associated minimal sleep), the weather (a little below freezing overnight), and the general unfamiliarity of all of this to consider.
All of that aside, I set out for this ridiculousness at around 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, and by the time the traffic (which made the drive closer to 4 hours, as opposed to the 3 hours it was supposed to be), the expo (pleasantly low-key), dinner (pizza at a local place with Sniper), and parking near the finish (on a street fittingly "just south of Grace (Street)") were behind me, it was nearly 11 p.m., leaving me with less than 3 hours to sleep. Sniper woke me with a phone call at 1:30 a.m., and not long after, I found myself stumbling onto the streets, dressed in multiple layers, top and bottom, clutching my water bottle for dear life.
I met Sniper and another friend and we walked to the finish line, chattering away pleasantly, as if it were totally normal to be out like this on the nearly-deserted, starkly-lit city streets. As we unceremoniously began our run, we passed a crowd of sloppy drunks, who, it briefly occurred to me, might have more sense in them than we did at this point.
But my reluctance gradually faded as we settled into a comfortable pace, and Sniper settled into "tour mode," telling us all about details of the course that, in the dark, were sometimes barely visible. The most amusing of these was the Dollar Tree, which Sniper pointed out as we got closer, only to have our other friend point out that somebody had apparently crashed a car into it, breaking down the center panel in front of the store, and, judging from the debris on the ground, had made off with a ton of iPhone cases.
Aside from the cold and the dark, both of which became more managable following a port-a-pot break around 4 miles in (thankfully, these were all over the course), trotting along through the streets at an odd hour of the night was peaceful, even pleasant. Thanks to the cold, I didn't have to drink as much as I usually would, and I was perfectly comfortable subsisting on Gu Chomps which I kept in my pants pocket in a reasonably successful attempt to keep them warm and edible.
At around 10 miles in, another friend jumped in to run the last 16 miles with us, and at this point, the course (which I hadn't seen up to this point) got significantly more scenic. About a mile later, we crossed a bridge with a view like this:
Richmond apparently has a skyline; see above.
Eventually, this gave way to neighborhoods, and then a dark, rolling section near the water, before we headed back into downtown again. As we came closer to the start, and past 6 a.m., nearing 7 a.m., the sky became lighter and somehow, it seemed as if we hadn't spend the past 4+ hours running at all. We passed the Dollar Tree again, and, now camera-equipped, we got a shot of it in its now half-repaired state:
The Dollar Tree, in some sort of glory.
We jogged towards the finish, talking about nothing and playing chicken with the faster runners striding out before the start of the 8K. With as little ceremony as we had when we started, we crossed the start line (our finish line), and weaved our way into the crowd.
Now, at almost 7 a.m., I had about 15 minutes to use the port-a-pot, change clothes (and put on my multi-bibbed pacer shirt), and get to the hotel where the pacers were meeting. Wearing different shoes (Asics 2150s - the blue and white ones - for the reverse, my trusty blue-and-yellow Nike Run Avants for the official) and less clothing (long-sleeved undershirt layer, and gloves, but just shorts without pants on top, and a baseball cap in place of my skull cap), I jogged to the hotel, where, fortunately, I was on-time enough to spend some time making small talk with a friend of mine, who was pacing the 3:05 group. A little small talk actually made me feel a lot better about what I was going to do.
I picked up my 3:10 sign, used the port-a-pot one more time, and headed for the starting line. Of course, now that the Boston qualifier is 3:05, 3:10 isn't what it used to be, so a lot of people were asking me where the 3:00 and 3:05 groups were. But my loyal core of 3:10 runners and I headed out together, and, despite my worries, and the temporary panic that we had gone well under pace until somebody noted that the 1-mile sign that we saw was for the 8K, we passed the first mile in 7:09 - remarkably close to pace, and with little feeling of fatigue.
And so it went, splitting a little under 7:15, and not feeling the worse for wear, for the first 10 or 11 miles. I think the pace group coordinator, who saw me at around mile 7, was surprised that I looked so comfortable, considering that I had been up most of the night running in the cold. And the weather was getting warmer (almost a bad thing, given all of my layers - in retrospect, I could have worn less and been okay), and for a while, I thought I was going to pull it off.
Then, around the halfway point, things started getting more difficult. Maybe it was the rolling hills, or maybe just being up for so long, but for whatever reason, I was struggling to hold on to pace. I gave back nearly a minute of cushion between miles 11 and 13.1, splitting the half at right around 1:35. I bravely held on for as long as I could, but at around mile 16, when the 3:15 group passed me, I stepped off the course (and into a much-needed port-a-pot) at 1:56 and change into the race. Still technically on pace, but not feeling like I could continue.
And then my body decided to subject me to every version of difficulty that I've ever had in a race. About five minutes later, I was back on the course, walking through the aid station, feeling spent. I tried to run, but the pain in my legs was reminiscent of what I had felt at Fire on the Mountain the prior weekend (oh right, speaking of reasons to be nervous about this whole thing . . . ), and I did my best to slow down to make it manageable, but eventually, only a walk was manageable.
In about fifteen minutes, my body started to come around, but then I started feeling weak - the same feeling I had at the end of Holiday Lake, when I out-ran my nutrition and staggered through the last two miles. Knowing how bad this could have gotten, I made sure to eat plenty at the next aid station, and, gradually easing back into running, I managed to avert this crisis.
Now all that was left was the pain, and to struggle through this, I kept recalling scenes from "Surviving the Cut," when the drill sergeant is yelling at the recruits, telling them that they are weak, and to "stop feeling sorry for yourself!" and sometimes, "what are you doing? if this was for real, you would have gotten somebody killed!" Strangely, this seemed to work, and, as I approached the last 5K, I started picking it up again, running the last 3.2 miles in about 25 minutes - not blazing-fast, but much improved from walking not so long ago. I hauled down the last hills into the finish, and, 3 hours, 46 minutes, and 17 seconds later, I could breathe a sigh of relief. It was finished.
So, overall, about 36 minutes slower than I would have liked, which was disappointing, and a large part of why it took me this long to write about this. But, on the other hand, I was closer to the goal than it appears. In retrospect, my nutrition during the reverse run was good enough for that run, but not the run to come. I essentially ran out of gas for the pace that I was trying to run, and it might have helped to eat more at the aid stations during the official marathon, in spite of the water slosh in the stomach (gels maybe, and less water, because it wasn't particularly hot).
Still, I'd consider it progress, and a solid training run for Hellgate (which, if you haven't guessed, is the next big race for me), thanks to the timing, temperature, and distance involved. One more big weekend like this, and then it'll be back to focusing on the daily run until midnight on December 10th . . .
