Running with Eric

On Monday I ran the Rochester Marathon for the fourth straight year. I finished the course in 5:21 which isn’t that fast, but given my lack of preparation was actually far better than I expected.

Coming into the marathon under prepared, my plan was to take things slow and just survive the course, to walk the uphills even when they came in the early miles. My dad was running the half, so we stuck together through the start of the race and passed the 5k mark at 31:36, which actually would have lead to a great time if we kept it up through the miles (and hills) to come.

We got separated at a water stop near mile four, and I walked my first hill just short of mile five, and my second just short of mile six. The next next three miles were a bit boring over a slow incline, before dropping through the river valley again and heading to the turn around point. I reached the half way point in 2:22. I kept this pace through mile 17, walking the steeper hills and taking gatorade at each stop, but otherwise jogging at a steady and consistent pace. For the next few miles I pushed on with a run/walk approach where I would stretch out the runs for any section that included a bit of downhill. Also as it got later in the day the temperature began to rise.

After passing the turn around point at mile 24 I knew I was in the home stretch and dropped into the final (and steepest) downhill of the race. I over extended my right leg a bit and felt a twinge in my leg. Thankfully I was already close to the end. I walked the large hill coming out of middle falls, but given my current pace this didn’t really set me back too much. At this point I was close enough to the end to want to push to the finish, but my leg would occasionally seize up and hold me back. With half a mile to go I decided to just go for it anyhow and run through the pain to the finish line, and ended up with a time that was actually quicker than where I though I was going to finish.

Despite not feeling that quick, my time was faster than last year, and only two minutes behind my pace from 2015. It was far from the disaster that it could have been while still being almost an hour slower than the Buffalo marathon earlier in the year.

My next race is the Can Lake 50k ultra-marathon in early October. Thanks to an upcoming vacation in California, I am not going to be all that well prepared for that on either.

On Sunday I ran the Rochester Marathon for the third straight year. After being a bit disappointed in my performance in this race last year, I decided to change my strategy a bit by carrying my own water and by starting with a slower pace group. Unfortunately this didn’t really help, and my time of 5:34 was actually a bit slower than last time.

I started out with the 4:20 pace group, which is a slow start for me, but after the second hill at mile six I started to fall behind. I finished the first half in 2:17 which is the slowest opening 13.1 that I have ever run. The second half of the race was mostly just dragging myself to the finish line. Hopefully I can get things back on track for the Canandaigua Lake 50k in October.

On Sunday I ran the Rochester Marathon, and finished with a disappointingly slow time. I was off my planned pace by mile 11, and occasionally walking by mile 16, so I knew fairly early on that it was not going to be a good finish.

My final time of 5:19 is actually not the slowest I have ever done, but this was my first marathon where I didn’t PR, so I was disappointed to have lost so much time since my race in Buffalo.

I ran the first half of the race in 2:04, which while slightly slower than I hoped for is a respectable time. The second half of the race was a disastrous 3:15 which was inexplicably even slower than my run in the half-ironman. While I would love to blame this course’s many hills (and they were partly at fault), the real problem was that I didn’t get in the long training runs that I needed to prepare for the race. I now have three weeks to get ready for my 50k, so hopefully I can get prepared by then.