Beautiful day to run! Perfect racing weather - cool in the morning and never really getting to warm through the day. It may have reached 60. This years Baltimore Marathon had a thousand extra runners (I heard) and it was definitely a crowded course. The merging of the half-marathon runners with the full marathon runners would create some congestion later in the race as well.With a crowd this large one might think there would all sorts of technical issues and crowd trouble and other problems - very little actually. Corrigan Sports is a top notch organization and the volunteers - from the police to the water stops were all outstanding. Thanks guys!
I ran according to plan - easy start and picked it up at the end. I hadn't really planned on "racing" it but I was eager to see what I could do by running as loose and easy as possible, feel good throughout and then maybe kick it in for the finish. And that's what I did. I began with a pretty easy 9:15 to 9:20 - every once in awhile a little slower and kept it there through mile 16 when I began to add just a little speed. By mile 22 I figured it was time to kick it in and dropped to 8:20 with an 8:40 or so on the hills. My last mile was a 7:50 and I was happy with that. The one major issue I had was/is a cold. I think my nose ran faster then I did. Other than that...oh...and the bottlenecking (part of the race) it was an issue free race. I went through four (vegan) gels and 2 banana halves (or one banana some may say) and alternated water with Gatorade - which I dislike but wanted the calories. There was no wall in sight today. I should be good for 10 on the trails tomorrow.
A special mention to Daniel Kessler who ran a few miles with me who set a PR by 91 minutes and Moca who also PRd by 5 minutes after having no more then a 6 mile long run for the last two months due to a calf strain. Very impressive!
I'll be back next year - if you're in the area come on out and run!
Oh, I ran a 4:03. If I had paid more attention to detail and less on my runny nose I would have kicked it in at 20 to slip past 4. Next year.
Stone Mill 50 is next!
Peace,
Eric
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