It’s day 15 of the Running
Ragged 20in20 Series. Today, we went
back to Bend in the River Regional Park for the third and final time. This course is probably the flattest of any
in the series.
Before the race, members of the
50 States Marathon Club took a group picture.
Some runners wore their club shirts and hats. The rest of us wore something red, white and
blue. I have a 50 states finisher
singlet that I wear at reunion races, but I didn’t think to pack it for this
trip.
The temperature at the start
was about the same as yesterday, but it felt much cooler. It was overcast, and we had a cool
breeze. About the time we started
running, I started to notice a few drops of drizzle.
Justin was here again today,
and he led from the start. In my first
lap, I stopped to take pictures at the scenic overlooks. Two weeks ago, everything along the river was
green. Now there’s more color.
There was also more color along
the trail.
The out-and-back laps we were
running today were the same length as the laps we ran the last two days. To finish a marathon, we had to run 14
laps. After the first lap, I settled
into my familiar pacing routine of starting each lap with a walking break to keep
my overall pace from getting too fast.
My target time for each lap was 20 minutes.
Because of the cool conditions,
I was initially reluctant to take walking breaks. I was worried my legs might get too
cold. The first lap was a little slow,
so my first walking break was only a minute and a half. By the time I finished my second lap, I was
getting warmed up.
Justin wasn’t the only runner
who was faster than me. Gwen, who ran
the half marathon last Saturday, returned to run the marathon today. Her pace was just a little faster than I
wanted to run. Knowing Justin would win
the race, I saw no need to compete with Gwen.
I just ran my own race.
I was in my 4th lap when Justin
lapped me for the first time. He said he’d
do four more on his own and then run with me for the rest of the race.
Because of the cooler
conditions, I felt really comfortable today.
The first half of the race felt remarkably easy.
Justin began to slow down. It took longer than either of us thought for
him to lap me again. I was already on my
9th lap when he started running with me.
My first lap with Justin was faster than I had been running on my
own. I could manage the pace only
because I knew we would have a longer walking break to start the next lap.
My first walking break with
Justin was more than five minutes. After
that, our walking breaks grew to six and a half minutes. It was ridiculous how much ground we were
covering before we started running again.
For the second straight week,
there was a wedding in the park while we were running. I put my camera back in my drop bag after my
first lap, so I didn’t get to take any photos of the wedding party.
While Justin was running with
me, it started to rain. It was only a
light sprinkling, but I worried that my legs would get cold if we kept taking
such long walking breaks. When I
finished my 11th lap, Justin was already finishing his 13th. I asked him if he’d be OK with skipping the
walking break that lap. We walked for
about 30 seconds. Then we resumed
running.
After that lap, Justin was
finished, but I still had two laps to go.
For two more laps, I skipped my walking breaks and just kept running.
For most of this week, I’ve
been waking up with a stiff neck. I
assumed it was from how I was sleeping.
Last night, my neck got painful in the evening. I couldn’t figure out what I did to aggravate
it. As I was running by myself, near the
end of the race, my shoulders started to feel heavy. I think running marathons every day is
causing the muscles in my shoulders and upper back to get tired and tighten
up. That may be contributing to my neck
discomfort.
Until my last lap, I never felt
warm, and it didn’t seem like I was sweating at all. I drank Gatorade every lap, but not very much. At times, I questioned if I needed to drink
at all. It wasn’t until the second half
of my last lap that I started to feel sweat on my forehead. That was after skipping my last three walking
breaks.
Even before those last three
laps, I was on pace to run my second fastest race of the series. I knew skipping those walking breaks would shave
several minutes off my time. Still, I
was shocked when I approached the aid station and saw I was going to break 4:25. I finished in 4:24:29. It was my fastest race of the series. I ran negative splits by nine minutes.
Despite my surge at the end,
Gwen easily maintained her lead on me for second place. She seemed to be accelerating in the last
three or four laps. I was still in the
finish area when Tim finished. It was
his second fastest time of the series.
Cool conditions definitely contributed to some faster times.
Before each race, I usually
fill two 20-ounce bottles with Gatorade.
Depending on the weather, that’s sometimes enough to get me through the
race. Today, my second bottle was still
two-thirds full when I finished. It was
all I could do to finish drinking it after the race.
Charity was running her 100th
marathon today. To celebrate the
occasion, she brought these cookies.
It’ll be interesting to see how
my legs feel tomorrow morning. I have
five races left in this series. Five in
a row is something I’ve done before. I’m
not starting with fresh legs, but I feel like I’m on familiar turf now. If I feel as good tomorrow as I did today, I
may give myself the green light to run a little bit faster.
Race Statistics
Distance: 26.2 miles
Time: 4:24:29
Average Pace: 10:05
Lifetime Marathons/Ultras:
420
Minnesota Marathons/Ultras:
73
Series Statistics
Races Completed: 15
Under Five Hours: 15
Average Time: 4:40:48
Wins: 9
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