State #11: Buffalo Marathon (NY) May 28, 2017

I think this is the first race to work out for me where I went looking for races that had posted on their website they were looking for pacers. Most races I contacted never even responded back to my emails, but this was one where I got a quick response. So...by late October of last year I knew this one would be on my schedule. Back in 2006 I had passed through Buffalo on my way to Niagara Falls, so I was excited to go back and actually see the city.

When race weekend arrived I decided to forego my usual last chance pacing practice run in favor of getting an earlier start on the road. I didn't have as far to go as Savannah or Myrtle Beach, but I wanted to do a little sightseeing and they wanted us to spend some time working in the pacer booth at the expo. Also, the pasta dinner was running from 4-6 and Jeff Galloway was 

going to be the featured speaker.

As I approached the NY state line coming out of PA I decided to take the more scenic route right along Lake Erie instead of paying a toll to go up I 90. It was a beautiful day!

Coming into Buffalo, the first place I wanted to go was the Buffalo Main Light. I had not gotten to visit this lighthouse on my previous trip, and it was only a short drive from there to the expo at the covention center. 

When I finally found the proper hall that the expo was being held in, the pacer booth was the first thing I saw. It was good getting to meet some of the other pacers and get their insight on the course/race since most of them had run it before. One thing that felt a little odd about this race is that because the half and full stayed together until mile 13 only a few of the pacers were running the entire full marathon. Most were running either the first half or the second half because it was easy to have an exchange point. This meant that for my time slot there was not a dedicated half marathon pacer; I was covering the 2:25 half AND the 4:50 full. The expo itself was decent sized and even had speakers throughout the day. I missed getting to hear Bart Yasso who had been there earlier.

The pasta dinner continued to be a good chance to interact with other pacers since we had a couple of reserved tables that would also allow other runners to meet us and decide if they wanted to join a pace group in the morning. Along with the meal, we got our first taste of the Mile 27 beer by the Flying Bison brewery that was to be featured at the post race party. I thought it was quite good! After a short address by the race director, we got to hear Jeff Galloway. He was on the US olympic team in 1972 and these days is known for his run/walk/run method often used by beginners and older runners, but also successfully used by faster runners struggling to meet benchmark times (such as a sub 3 hour marathon) using a constant running strategy. I'm seriously thinking about trying this in the future to try to get a Boston Qualifying time.

On race morning I arrived early and ran into a fellow Beast pacer who was there to support his girlfriend who was trying to get a marathon PR. It was nice to see a familiar face cheering me on along the course, too! Before the race we were treated to a small fireworks display. The national anthem was performed, but it was either a really short version or we were a good way into it before the sound started working. 😃 

When we started I had a pretty good group around me since it was made up of both half and full marathoners. We headed north towards Delaware park for the first 5k then turned around to head back through downtown out to the lakefront. For some reason I had a really hard time nailing the pace at the beginning. I was running about 20 seconds/mile fast for the first 3 miles, so I made mile 4 kind of a "correction" mile to get my average pace closer to what it should have been. The lakefront was beautiful with great views of the lighthouse and the very cool fireboat that had its water cannons running continuously. They had several live bands along the course and I remember some of the better ones being in this area as well. 

As we were on our way back into the downtown area I started encouraging the half marathoners to push on ahead to the finish. Once the full broke off, things felt much more serious. It was getting warmer and we knew we were in for the long haul. The remaining group got pretty quiet and I could tell they needed a mental distraction so I shared my weight loss/running story with them. This got people inspired and motivated again for another mile or so, but the warm weather and fatigue were taking their toll. The group began to dwindle as we ran through Delaware Park (again) and there were only a few left as we neared the 20 mile mark. Jeremy, a first time marathoner who had been sticking pretty close to me for most of the race, was getting to the point where he knew he could no longer keep up. I gave him some advice on using a regimented run/walk strategy to finish the race and was thrilled to discover later that he had finished in 5 hours and 1 second. Somewhere between miles 21 and 22 the last of my group fell back. I'm finding that the success of my groups relates directly to race day temperatures: the hotter the day the earlier in the race I'm running on my own. On a nice, cool day I could have runners finish with me or even go on to finish ahead of me. Once I find myself in this situation I usually just want to get finished, because I very rarely find anyone along the way to repopulate my group.

In the second half of the race they had aid stations every mile. Mile 24 was in a residential area and directly across from the aid station was a big party that was spilling out into the street. I was at the point where I needed a little bit of fun, so instead of heading into the water station I went towards the party and asked if anybody had some beer. One of the guys closest to me ran about 100 yards with me and I took a few sips from his PBR.

From this point downtown and the finish line were getting ever closer. I continued to monitor my pace and make adjustments as needed. The course seemed to be running a bit long, so the quick miles I ran early in the race actually got me in the neighborhood of where I needed to be to meet my goal time. I was mostly passing other runners, but occasionally the presence of a pacer would inspire someone to dig deep and push on even though they were hot and exhausted. Eventually I made it as far south as I needed to go and got to turn back north for the final few blocks to the finish line. My finish time was 4:49:13. Most of the time I would be happy making it in within a minute of my goal time, but we were having a pacer contest and I didn't think it would be close enough to win. Final distance on my Garmin was 26.5, the longest I've had for any marathon I've run.

After collecting my medal and bottle opener I headed up to the post race party. I was not too proud to take the escalator back up to the second floor of the convention center. Upon my arrival I ran into a woman who had been in my pace group at the Biltmore last year! After a nice little catch up, I headed for the far side of the room where the beer and pizza could be found. They made us work for the good stuff! 😉 Everything including the beer was self-serve, so you could get as much as you could carry. I refueled as much as I could handle before hitting the road, as there was another marathon to run the next day and it was about a 6 hour drive.

Overall, this was a good medium size race. The marathon had the same basic shortcomings that most marathons struggle with--the second half of the course was not quite as interesting and didn't have nearly as many spectators. On course entertainment and aid was very good. The race director claimed they had trained medical staff at almost every aid station. After race food and drink were excellent, and they even had a live feed of the finish line on a big screen in the room. The biggest variable in this race is the weather. It got a bit warm this year, but last year was worse. From what I hear they took good care of the runners, but I definitely wouldn't target this race to be a fast one since the chance of heat on Memorial Day weekend is too high.

State # 7: Morgantown Marathon (WV) September 18, 2016

Morgantown was a late addition to my fall schedule for 2016. I already had WV on my schedule for November (Marshall University Marathon), but in early August I got an email that they were looking for pacers. I thought about it for a couple of days. Even though WV isn't that far, it was going to be about a 5 hour drive to Morgantown. I kept checking out their website and FB page to learn about the hilly course but their medal won me over and I decided to go for it. (overall elevation gain of almost 1800 feet, with 200 feet in in the final mile) I would be the 5 hour pacer, which would make things a little interesting for the races I already had in place. I was already pacing a 10 mile race on the day before, and 6 days later I had another 5 hour marathon to pace in IN.

The 10 miler went perfectly, so after grabbing some food and changing clothes I jumped in the car to head to Morgantown. On the way I picked up another pacer in Huntington, so it was nice to have some company for the rest of the trip. Once we arrived in Morgantown we went straight to the expo to pick up our race packets. We weren't completely last minute, but most of the vendors/exhibitors had already packed up so there wasn't a lot to see. After checking into our room, we decided to go back out and drive some of the course. I especially wanted to check out the biggest hill (in the middle of the course) and the final hill (about 200 feet of climb in the last mile). I also finally got a late dinner and then we headed back to the room. There was no parking at the race venue, but we stayed close enough to walk rather than deal with shuttling from the minor league baseball park.

We were up early the next morning for the pacer meeting and picture. When it came time to line up for the start we realized just how small of a race this was: there were only 319 finishers for the half and 185 for the full. Because of the hilly course I decided to use an effort-based strategy for this race rather than trying to run even splits. I got a pace band from findmymarathon.com which gave varied splits per mile based on the severity of the hills and asking for a little bit quicker pace on the downhills.

I felt like I never had a cohesive pace group from the beginning of this race, maybe just because the race field was small and the course was hilly. It was also a very warm day, already 70 at the start. The course for the half was almost a literal out and back, so we had half marathoners running back toward us for a few miles (for those of us at the back of the pack). Things really thinned out as we left the half behind and shortly there after came upon the biggest climb of the course. When I was nearly at the top a minivan came by to cheer on a man that I was catching up to. It turned out that it was a local man who was running his first full marathon and his wife and kids would show up every so often to cheer him on. We ran together for a bit, mostly through the considerable downhill section that took us through the heart of the WVU campus. On the next major uphill where I slowed down a bit as indicated by the pace band I was using he pulled ahead. I ran behind him for a long time, but did eventually catch up to him again. He was running very strong, never once falling behind me, and eventually he pulled away and finished well ahead of me.

I really ended up running most of this race alone, occasionally catching up to someone and chatting a bit before moving on. Most of the race I was a bit ahead of pace since my strategy involved what was essentially banking some time for the big final hill. About half way through my energy took a big dip and I think that one of my issues was that I hadn't really fueled properly after my 10-mile race the day before. This was when I learned that fuel gels really do make a difference.  I decided that I needed to take a gel at the next water station and it just so happened that they provided one at that stop. I started to feel the effect of it, so at the next water station I used one of the gels that I was carrying with me. This little fuel up actually helped me to have more energy at mile 20 than I did at mile 14.

Right around mile 20/21 my stomach started to tell me I really needed a pit stop. I passed up one portapotty thinking I was on a short out and back and would be coming back by it very soon. This wasn't the case! I had to go all the way around a park and found one when I was about to head back out to the main road. When I pulled up my bib belt to get it out of the way I was so sweaty that the bib stuck to me and tore out one of the holes that I was using to attach it to the belt. I had to use the bottom hole to reattach the bib, so that's why it looks all crinkled and weird in some of the pictures.

Shortly after finishing that section of the race was a nice downhill. This led to a flat path right along the river. It was a nice park-like area with some live music. During this part of the race came one of the best aid station treats ever, popsicles! I had read about this in a race review from the previous year and was delighted to find them on the course again this year. Not only did they hit the spot, but gave a huge mental boost as well. All of this was the calm before the storm. After hitting mile 25 and exiting the path back out to the main road, the huge final climb began. I had been shaving time off of the flatter and downhill miles for the entire race for this moment! I definitely burned some of the extra time, but the hill had worried me enough that I still wasn't really willing to let it all go. I made it to mile 26 at the top of the hill and had essentially only to go across the big WVU colliseum parking lot to reach the finish. There wasn't enough race left to slow down properly with spectators all around, it would just look like unnecessary walking. Official finish time was 4:58:48, just 12 seconds faster than my 1 minute guideline.

Even with a 5 hour finish, this race still had plenty to offer. The live band was still going strong, there was plenty of pizza, Panera baked goods, and beer. The local Mothman Black IPA was excellent! The medal was huge and had a spinner! 

This was a hot day on a tough course, but they tried to make it all worth it with a better than average after party and an awesome medal. This year's medal was gaudy while last year's was classy, but both were worthy bling!