On April 29, I ran the Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon in Louisville, KY. This marathon takes place one week before the Kentucky Derby. It’s part of the Kentucky Derby Festival, which includes several other events during the buildup to the Kentucky Derby.
I’ve done this race three
times before, and I’ve always had good results here. The two other times I ran it, I qualified for
the Boston Marathon. When I race-walked
it, I had my fastest time for walking a marathon.
They’ve changed the
course significantly since I last ran it.
The new course still starts and finishes in downtown Louisville and
still goes through Churchill Downs. They
eliminated the hilly loop through Iroquois Park, and they added a long
out-and-back segment on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. I’ve always liked races that go through more
than one state, so I was excited about the new course.
I flew to Louisville Friday afternoon. The expo was at the Kentucky Exposition
Center, which is close to the airport, so I stopped there before going to my
hotel. Pre-race emails told us which
gate to enter and which parking lots to use.
They also included a QR code for the parking.
I stayed at the Hampton Inn in
downtown Louisville. I had to pay for
parking, but it was just two blocks from where the race starts. After checking in, I walked to Old National
Bank to view the memorial to victims of a mass shooting that took place earlier
this month.
The starting line for the race
used to be near the corner of Main and Preston, which happens to be right where
this bank is located. Earlier in the
week, the race organizers announced a last-minute change to the course to move
the starting line to the corner of Main and Brooks, so the start corrals wouldn’t
be right in front of this memorial. They
also made a small adjustment to the course near Churchill Downs, so the total
distance would still be correct.
I had dinner at Bearno’s Under
the Bridge, which has what they call Louisville-style pizza. I’m not sure what distinguishes Louisville-style
pizza from other pizza. I had their Mama
Bearno’s Special, which was loaded with toppings.
I got to sleep early enough,
but woke up frequently during the night.
At times, it seemed like I was waking up every 10-15 minutes.
When I got up Saturday morning,
I still felt full from dinner the night before.
I had a cup of tea and tried to eat some sweet potato chips, but I could
only eat a few of them.
The hotel had a free breakfast,
which started at 6:00. After getting
dressed, I went downstairs to get a pastry and a cup of orange juice. Even that seemed like too much food, but I needed
to eat something to wake up my digestive system, so I could empty out before
the race.
When I left for the race, it
was 48 degrees, but the temperature was still dropping. I expected the temperature to drop another
degree or two before it started to warm up.
Once the sun came up, I expected it to warm up quickly. By the time I finished the race, it would get
into the low 60s. I nevertheless wore
tights. I’m always more concerned with
keeping my legs warm enough in the early miles.
I was willing to take my chances on feeling hot in the late miles.
The race started at 7:00
AM. The starting line was close enough
that I didn’t need any warm-up clothes, but the finish line was more than a
mile away. I could’ve checked a gear bag
with warm clothes to wear after the race, but instead I tied a jacket around my
waist, so I could put on my jacket after the race.
Being so close to the start
meant I could use the bathroom in my hotel room instead of waiting in line to
use a port-o-potty. I left the hotel 20
minutes before the race to give myself enough time to get through the crowds
and find the right place to line up in the start corral.
After running the Boston Marathon
in 4:02:21, I wanted to see if I could go a little faster in this race. It would’ve been tempted at aim for four hours,
but I didn’t want to be too greedy. I
ran negative splits in my last two races, and I wanted to see if I could do
that again. Accordingly, my plan was to
run the first half of this race at a 9:15 pace, which was the same pace I ran
at Boston. If I wanted to go faster, I
needed to do that in the second half.
This race is large enough to
have pace groups. I lined up behind the
4:00 group. I wasn’t planning to stay
with the group for the whole race.
Instead, my plan was to stay behind them in the early miles. That was my way of ensuring I wouldn’t start
too fast.
Most large races have some form
of real-time tracking. It’s usually based
on the race’s own timing system and lets friends and family members know when
you crossed one of the chip mats, which are usually spaced every five
kilometers.
This race uses an app called
RaceJoy. If you want other people to be
able to track your location during the race, you need to install the app on your
phone, carry your phone with you, and press a button on the app when you crossed
the starting line.
Deb likes to track me during
races, so I downloaded the app. I was
intending to have my phone with me, but I forgot to pack my fanny pack. I had a Spibelt that I could use to hold my
hotel key card, but it’s not big enough to hold a phone.
In the first mile, I found it
difficult to stay close to the pace group.
I often had to move around slower runners who were probable lined up too
far forward. That was only a problem in
the first mile.
I saw the first mile marker
when my watch was only reading nine tenths of a mile. I expected that. One of the pacers had told us that the first
several mile markers would be off. I assume
they placed the mile markers at the same locations as last year, even though
the starting line was in a different location.
I expected them to be more reliable after we reached Churchill Downs.
When my watch recorded a time
for the first mile it was 9:04. The 4:00
pace group had a target pace of 9:09, so we were a little fast, but that’s not
too surprising. It’s hard to start at
exactly the right pace.
We were just past a mile when
we reached an aid station. I decided to
skip that one, so I could focus on settling into a nice consistent rhythm. There would be plenty of other aid stations
along the course.
As expected, the next several
mile markers all seemed to be misplaced by about the same amount. The leaders of the pace group ignored them
and paced themselves according to their GPS watches. That would come back to haunt us later in the
race.
The second and third miles were
also too fast. In fact, they were faster
than the first mile. After three miles,
we were about 29 seconds ahead of a four-hour pace. I wasn’t too worried. My plan was to run with the group for a few
miles and then drop back on my own.
When we reached the next aid
station, I saw water, but no sport drinks.
I generally prefer to drink whatever sport drink is available, so I can
get some sugar. I kept going past the
water tables until I reached the last one.
No seeing any sport drinks, I drank a cup of water. As I kept running, I saw that they also had
Powerade, but it was in the next block.
I made a mental note to wait for the Powerade tables at subsequent aid
stations.
By the end of three miles, I
was already getting hot and sweaty. I
knew I would probably feel overdressed in the second half of the race, but I
wasn’t expecting to feel hot this early.
It couldn’t have been any warmer than 50 degrees.
I had been talking to one of
the pacers, but when we made the sharp right turn onto 3rd Street, I inadvertently
got ahead of him. In the fourth mile, I
made a point of easing up, so I would come back to the group. The pacers also eased up in that mile, to
compensate for taking the first three miles a little too fast. In that mile, I slowed to 9:20. Overall, however, my pace was still a little
too fast.
The pacers also went a little
slow in mile five. By the end of that
mile, they were pretty close to their target time. I was actually a little ahead of mine. I was expecting to drop back by now, but
miles four and five felt nice and easy.
My stride was nice and relaxed.
I knew at some point the group
would need to speed up again. When they
did, I had to make a decision. Instead
of dropping back, I decided to stay with them for a few more miles. I was originally planning to pace for 4:02
and then see if I felt up to going faster in the second half. Now I was toying with the idea of staying
with the group for the whole race and pacing for four hours. My stride was still relaxed, but I could tell
I was working harder than I did in the first half of my last two races.
When we reached the third aid
station, I ran past all the water tables.
I expected to see Powerade, but there wasn’t any. I ended up skipping that aid station
entirely. I told myself I couldn’t
afford to do that again. One of the pace
leaders said they might only have Powerade at every other aid station. In fact, they had it at most of the aid
stations, but not all of them.
In the ninth mile, we turned
onto Central Avenue. In the past, we ran
about half a block and then turned left to enter Churchill Downs. This year, we went past the entrance to Churchill
Downs and then did a short out-and-back on Central Avenue. Then we turned right to enter Churchill Downs. The purpose of the out-and-back was to make
up the distance from moving the starting line.
I assumed that the rest of the mile markers would be in the right spot.
We went through a tunnel and
emerged between the grandstands and the track.
After a couple turns, I saw some horses on practice runs. That’s something I always look for at this
point in the race.
The course I ran in past years
continued south toward Iroquois Park after leaving Churchill Downs. Where the marathon and half marathon used to
split, we now go the same way. The first
12.5 miles of the marathon route is now the same as the half marathon.
We came back into downtown on 4th
Street. When my watch recorded a split
for the ninth mile, the sign for nine miles was at least a block away. It’s not unusual for a GPS watch to read a little
high, but the discrepancy was more than I expected. I didn’t worry about it too much. Maybe I should have.
I started to fall behind the
pace group. I wondered if it was time to
let them go and start running at my own pace. I had already stayed with them much longer
than I planned. Then we went under some
railroad tracks. Before the underpass,
we were going slightly downhill, and I caught up to the pace leaders without
even trying. After that, I decided to
put in the extra effort to stay with them.
Somewhere along 4th Street, I missed
another aid station. As I ran past the
water tables, I saw a table in the distance with Powerade bottles. When I got there, nobody was filling any cups
with Powerade. I looked over to the
other side of the street and saw volunteers handing out cups of Powerade over
there. By the time I noticed that, it
was too late to get over there. After
that, I committed to drinking at every aid station, even if it meant drinking
water first and looking for Powerade later.
When we reached the sign for 10
miles, one of the pacers mentioned that his watch was already reading
10.25. Everyone was assuming that the sign
was placed in the wrong spot. It’s not
that unusual for one sign to be badly misplaced.
When we got to the 11-mile
sign, one of the pacers asked, “Where is it?”
I told him I could see the sign in the distance. Our watches read 11.25 by the time we got
there. I think the pace leaders were assuming
this sign was also in the wrong spot, but I wasn’t so sure. I started to wonder if the signs were
actually correct, and it was our watches that were wrong. It’s fairly common for GPS watches to read a
little high.
If the mile markers were correct,
then we were well behind the pace we needed for a four-hour finish. In the next mile, I allowed myself to start
getting ahead of the group.
There was another runner who
was also getting ahead of the group. She
asked me what time I usually run. I didn’t
know how to answer that, since my recent times have been fairly erratic. I finally told her I was hoping for four
hours. By now, I had mentally committed to
that, even though it wasn’t my original plan.
At first, she said she was also hoping for four hours. Then she said she wanted to at least break 4:05. That’s the time she needed to get her first
Boston qualifier. For the next few
miles, we ran together, staying a little ahead of the pace group.
When we reached the 12-mile
sign, my watch read 12.22 miles. More
and more, I was trusting the mile markers and distrusting my watch. Perhaps because of that, I subconsciously
picked up the pace in the next mile.
When my watch recorded a split
for mile 13, it was 8:48, which was my fastest mile so far. I never got the name of the woman I was
running with, but I told her we took that mile a little fast. She wondered if we should slow down and wait for
the group. We were almost to Big Four Bridge,
which is where we would cross the Ohio River.
I knew we would have a big climb up to the bridge, so I suggested we
could give back the time by going kind of easy on the climb.
When we reached the sign for 13
miles, my watch already read 13.17. I was
hoping they would have a sign or a chip mat at the halfway mark, so I could
find out my time for the first half.
They didn’t, so I had to make an estimate. Extrapolating from my time at 13 miles, I’m guessing my time for the first half was
about 2:01:14. My originally plan was to
run the first half on pace for 4:02. As
it turns out, I did, but I didn’t do it the way I planned.
The climb up to the bridge was
a spiral ramp. It was tiring, but I didn’t
try to push the pace. I was willing to
give some time back, rather than wear myself out. The bridge itself was fairly flat. I was almost to the other end when my watch
recorded a mile 14 split of 9:38. That
was my slowest mile of the race, but I limited the damage.
Coming off the bridge, I was
able to speed up. The next mile was
8:47, so the two miles together were only slightly slower than the pace we ran
in the first half of the race.
Now we were on a long
out-and-back on the Indiana side of the river.
We were never far from the river, and there was a nice breeze off the
river. Even though the temperature was
climbing, I actually felt more comfortable in the second half. The breeze kept me from overheating.
Now that I was in the second
half of the race, I started to pick up my effort. I felt a little bad about dropping the woman I
had run with for the previous four miles, but her goal was 4:05 and mine was
breaking four hours. The first half wasn’t
as fast as I thought it was, so I had to pick up my pace. I knew the 4:00 group wasn’t too far behind
us, and she could always run with them if they caught up to her.
In mile 15, I ran just as fast
as I did in the previous mile, even though that mile was downhill and this one
wasn’t. I didn’t really know what to
expect after that. The first half of the
race was fairly flat, but I had never run this part of the course. If you look at the elevation profile, it
looks like there are several sharp ups and downs. I knew there weren’t any big hills, but as we
moved onto a paved trail, I wondered if some of these small hills would be
abrupt enough to take me out of my rhythm.
Some of the hills were slightly
tiring, but none of them were steep or abrupt.
Most of the time, I was able to keep up a reasonably consistent pace.
I had been reading the splits
from my watch, but I wasn’t paying attention to my cumulative time. At 16 miles, I finally looked at my watch and
computed my average pace. By now, I was trusting
the mile markers, which is something I should’ve started doing earlier. Through 16 miles, my average pace was
9:13. That was fast enough to beat 4:02,
but it wasn’t fast enough to beat four hours.
My last two miles were both nine
minutes or faster. If I could keep that
up for the rest of the race, I would probably break four hours. One mile at a time, I focused on that goal.
In most miles, I was able to
keep my times in 8:40s or 8:50s. Then in
mile 19, I ran 9:10. That scared me, so
I picked up my effort.
Just past 19 miles, I reached
the turnaround, which was a small circle.
They had an aid station there, but they only had bottles. I couldn’t drink a whole bottle of water, and
I didn’t want to carry one with me.
Rather than take a few sips of water and then waste the rest, I chose to
skip that aid station. That was the last
one I skipped. All the remaining aid
stations were ones I had already seen on my way out. I knew they all had cups.
As I started coming back, I saw
the four-hour pace group. They were
closer to me than I thought. At some
point, they also realized they had to trust the mile markers, and they had to
speed up to get back on a four-hour pace.
Somewhere in the 21st mile, one
of the four-hour pace leaders passed me.
I couldn’t believe how fast he was going. I ran that mile in 8:43, yet he passed me
like I was standing still. It would’ve
been tempting to go with him the rest of the way, but I couldn’t. It was pretty obvious that his pace was too
fast for me.
The next mile included a small
hill that tired me out. I felt like I
slowed down on that hill, and I wondered if that whole mile would be slow. It wasn’t.
I ran another 8:43. In spite of
my fast pace, I had already lost sight of that 4:00 pacer.
When I reached the 22 sign, I
computer my average pace again. It had
improved to 9:10. Overall, I still wasn’t
on pace to break four hours, but I knew I could get there if I kept running
nine-minute miles. I was reasonably
confident I could do that if the rest of the course was flat, but I still had
to cross the Big Four Bridge again.
At 24 miles, the other 4:00
pace leader caught up to me. He was
cautiously optimistic that he could break four hours, but he was trying to put
a little time in the bank in anticipation of losing time on the bridge. Personally, I was hoping that whatever time I
lost on the uphill side of the bridge, I could make up on the downhill side.
The climb up to the bridge didn’t
seem as bad in this direction. I kept up
a consistent effort. I knew I’d slow
down a little, but I didn’t want to run out of gas. The bridge itself is fairly flat. Once I got onto the bridge, I really picked
up my effort. My watch recorded a split
of 9:03. That wasn’t bad at all.
I did the best I could to pick
up the pace coming off the bridge, but it’s a spiral ramp, and my legs were
getting fatigued. I wouldn’t know how
well I ran it until my watch recorded a split for mile 26. Most of that mile was flat, but I did my best
to keep up a fast pace. I ran that mile
in 8:33.
The finish was next to the Lynn
Family Stadium. I saw it from the
bridge, but it was still pretty far away.
As I came back into the downtown area, I saw a stadium and got
excited. Then I realized it was the
Louisville Slugger Stadium. I still had
a fair distance to go to get to the Lynn Family Stadium.
When my watch read 26 miles, I
had somewhere between five and six minutes left to finish within four
hours. That should’ve been plenty, but I
knew I was still well short of 26 miles.
It was frustrating not knowing how far it was to the finish.
In the distance, about a
quarter mile away, I saw something that was the same color as a mile
marker. As I got closer, I saw it was
graffiti. I still couldn’t see the mile marker. When I finally saw it, I couldn’t believe how
far away it was. When I finally got
there, my watch read 3:58:03. I had
enough time, but it was going to be closer to four hours than I thought. I reached the 13 sign for the half marathon with
a time of 3:58:38. One of those signs
had to be misplaced. There’s no way I
ran a tenth of a mile in 35 seconds.
As I came within sight of the
finish line, I saw the pacer who had raced past me five miles earlier. Now he was coasting.
I finished in 3:59:21. I broke four hours, and I ran negative splits
by about three minutes. It was my first
sub four finish of the year, and it was the third straight race that I ran with
negative splits. It didn’t always go according
to plan, but I’m very happy with the result.
In the past, I usually paced
myself by checking my watch at the mile markers. I couldn’t do that in this race, because I
knew the first eight mile markers would be off.
For half the race, I relied on a pace group, and they were pacing according
to GPS. How far off was my watch? It read 26.61 miles when I finished. I always tell people their watches can be off
by as much as half a mile.
After crossing the line, I greeted
both 4:00 pacers as they finished. Then
I waited for the runner I met earlier. I
wanted to know if she would get her Boston qualifier. When she crossed the line, I asked her what
her time was. If I remember right, it
was 4:01:36. That’s a BQ-3:24.
I continued through the finish
area and got my finisher medal. The
artwork features the logo of the Kentucky Derby Festival.
I didn’t really drink enough during the race, so I made up for it in the finish area. First, I had some Powerade. Then I had a carton of chocolate milk. My race bib had a coupon for a free beer, so after making a bathroom stop, I went to the beer garden to get my beer. They also had food in the finish area, but after having three beverages, I didn’t feel like eating anything.
I saw other runners with heat
shields, but I didn’t see where they got them.
Fortunately, I had my jacket, which had been tied around my waist for
the entire race. I also had a pair of
gloves that had been tucked inside my waistband since I took them off about a
mile into the race.
As soon as I finished my beer,
I started walking back to the hotel. I
had to walk more than a mile. About half
of that was backtracking along the end of the marathon route. I was surprised to see that there were still
lots of people finishing the half marathon as well. Apparently, they had at least hour-and-a-half
hours to finish.
When I got back to Hampton Inn,
the employee at the front desk asked me how I was feeling and asked if I wanted
a grab-and-go snack bag. It included an
apple, a bagel with cream cheese, and a water bottle. That was plenty of food. I didn’t have any regrets about not getting
food in the finish area.
I spent the afternoon recovering
at the hotel. I didn’t go back out until
it was time for dinner. When I travel, I
always search for the most popular pizzerias.
The one that seemed to be most popular was Parlour Pizza, which was only
two blocks from my hotel.
After dinner, I was talking to
a bartender. He asked if there were
fewer runners this year, because he didn’t encounter as much traffic driving
into downtown. The race was as large as
it’s always been, but with the second half of the marathon on the other side of
the river, the city can open up the downtown streets as soon as the half
marathon is done.
Sunday morning at breakfast, I
was talking with others runners who were convinced the course was a half mile
long. I don’t think so. My watch was reading high, and others were
reading even higher, but the mile markers along the route all seemed to be
consistent with each other. Besides,
there’s no way I’m in good enough shape to break four hours on a course that’s
a half mile long. I’m improving, but that’s
a stretch.
I didn’t fly home until Sunday
afternoon. That gave me time to do a
workout in the hotel’s fitness room. It
also gave me an opportunity to have lunch before driving to the airport. Everyone knows my favorite food is pizza, but
I also have a fondness for Cincinnati-style chili. For my last meal before flying home, I went
to Skyline Chili.
Half of this race was in
Indiana, but the race started and finished in Kentucky, so it counts as a Kentucky
race. This was my fifth marathon in Kentucky,
which brings me one step closer to my goal of eventually running five marathons
or ultras in every state.
