Race Report: Carlsbad Marathon

Some of you read my race reports and wonder why I get disappointed with 3:13s, 3:18s and 3:21s. It’s because I know I’m capable of more, as I did today. I’ve been working for a while to shake some rust off, and for the first time in about nine months, I’m happy with the direction I’m going.

I headed into Carlsbad today feeling pretty fresh after running a 3:13:56 last Sunday in the Arizona Rock ‘N Roll Marathon. At the time, I was pretty happy with how I ran, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with my fitness. I really want to run consistently better than 3:10, and the reason is twofold. First, I feel like I’m capable of that. Also, I have a lot of you supportive of what I’m doing because it’s difficult, so I feel like I have a responsibility to bring y’all good times.

This was the fourth time I’ve run this course and it’s never been easy. The first time was when I was just getting going with running. It was just my fifth marathon and I ran a 3:54. The next two times I went 3:16 and 3:19, although I ran the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon the day before those two. Today, it had been an entire week since I had run a marathon, so I was fresh (relatively speaking). My legs felt great, although I didn’t know how heavy they’d be once I got going.

I got rolling and felt fairly good early on. I run by heart rate and do my best to get as much as I can out of my body. As has been the case in all of my marathons this year, I started out running in the very low 7:00s, but I wondered how long it would be until I faded.

Carlsbad is a series of rolling hills with one big uphill at about mile 9, and a screaming-fast downhill on the way back at about 11. I’m a little weak on the uphills right now, and rather than break the bank, I keep it conservative. I’m getting quite a bit out of downhills, though. I ran my own race and tried to take care of myself as well as I could. I really hoped I had 3:10 in me today, and I stayed ahead of the 3:10 group until the big uphill at 9.

They passed me up and gained about a minute on me, but on the way back down, I passed them back up and for the first time this year, I really felt like I had some of the speed and power back in my stride that I’ve been missing. I felt good and I felt fast. I kept cruising and at about 14, a woman named Julie Brekke pulled up alongside me and told me she liked my pace and wanted me to pace her.

I told her we were cruising along at about a 3:07 pace, but I thought I might fade later so she was at her own risk. She laughed and told me she wasn’t worried and we kept rolling. We chatted for a little while and she was super nice. She was also CRUISING. She entered the race with a PR of only 3:17, but she was knocking off miles at right around 7:00 like nothing.

I never felt the fade that I’ve been feeling lately. I think part of that had to do with a switch-up in my race morning fueling, which included UltraFuel at the suggestion of a running friend of mine, John Hill. He’s a sub-2:40 guy, so I figured I ought to give it a shot at least once. I never felt like I was going to fade and I never felt much more pain than the typical fatigue I get during a marathon. Safe to say, it’ll be UltraFuel again next week in Miami.

As I got up towards around 20, I knew I was in store for a good day. I was moving well, feeling great and in a zone. I don’t have all the speed I did, but I can tell I have a lot of it back. I guess 26.2 miles at marathon pace every Sunday will get you in shape?

 

Anyways, Julie stayed strong the whole way and I started telling her that she was going to crush her PR. It was a no-brainer. She was moving way too well and she said she was feeling pretty well. I could tell she was money because she was killing me on the uphills. I can start narrowing down what my time is going to be when we get into the 20s and I knew we were looking at about a 3:07-3:08, maybe a 3:06 if we really turned and burned at the end.

I told her I wanted to try to push at 24, but I had nothing. I was able to keep rolling, but I couldn’t step it up. I tried again at 25, and I still had nothing. I was able to find a tiny little something at about 25.5 and finished hard. My final time was 3:07:21, my fastest of Operation Jack so far by 6:35, good for 27th overall. Julie went 3:07:28, good for 6th woman overall and 2nd in her age group. Oh, and a 10-minute PR!

I saw a great friend of mine right there at the finish. He had a great day, too, lowering his 1/2 marathon PR from 1:39 to 1:34. He was fired up that I finally put it together this year and ran a good race and gave me a big hug. I continued the hug-fest and gave Julie a hug. She really nailed her race, as did I, and we spent about half of the race together. Things like that warrant a hug!

All-in-all, I’d call it a great day. I’ll savor it for about four days and then start thinking about Miami!