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!