Results: Cleveland Marathon
I've run six Boston qualifying marathons with a time range of 3:07 to 3:18 and I've never even registered for Boston, let alone run it. Every time I qualify, I tell my running buddies I'll think about signing up. As September draws near I get overwhelmed with the cost and the logistics and the truth that I don't even want to go to the city of Boston, let alone run my least favorite race distance there. Each year I watch the iconic event unfold on television and tentatively consider signing up some day. This year as I watched the pros and many friends finish the race, I felt slightly more favorable towards signing up. One catch, I still needed a qualifier. My Towpath Marathon time from 2020 had expired and I was in a completely different age group. I didn't even know what the qualifying time for my age group was! Good thing I was signed up for the Cleveland Marathon and training for a 3:15 with my training partner, Amanda Jamil.
We trained a solid base all winter together. She joined me for my Wednesday workouts and Sunday long runs. We usually ran the incredibly hilly "Silvercreek" route for our long runs and I reached a point where a 1000 feet of gain in a 15 mile long run was NBD. My mileage went from about 50 on average, to closer to 60. We didn't start our 20 milers until March, but we managed five of them, with the last one on the Towpath, three weeks before the race. She ran the HOF half marathon two weeks before the race and I ran the 10 mile drop. Based on these distances I thought I could run between 3:10 and 3:15 and she could run 3:05-3:07. With Cleveland, it all comes down to the weather though!
The week of the marathon was also the week of districts for my track team. I ran as little as possible on my daily runs but I still needed the stress relief of a run. I also have to run my dogs every day and I don't always count that mileage. The course looked strange on a map. Many twists and turns and the potential for some good hills. I wasn't worried about the hills or the turns. For me, the rough surface of the repaired city streets is what does my feet in. I wore my Saucony Endorphin Speed 3s to make sure my feet were as comfortable as possible. The weather looked perfect! Low 50s, clear and humid. My absolute perfect racing weather. This was a similar scenario as the 10 mile drop and I ran that at 6:34 pace.
Miles 1-14: 7:09 7:01 6:42 7:15 7:21 7:08 7:19 7:17 7:06 7:11 7:16 7:13 7:04 (halfway in 1:34:21)
These were my 3:10 pace group miles. I started out at an easy effort but with the weather so nice, I knew it was faster than it felt. I bumped into Lindsey and Meryl for a few strides, who planned on running about 3:20 for their BQs. After that, I found myself sneaking into the 3:10 pace group. After a few seconds of consideration, I decided to hop in with them and committed to 14 miles. I made a lot of game-time decisions in this marathon because it's been a long time since I've run one while trained. I'm a very different, better runner than I was in 2016. Athens marathon in 2017 was untrained and I was just trying to win and had to slow down in the last 10k, Towpath in 2020 was completely untrained and I ran with Teresa for the first 16 miles at a too fast pace.
The course was well-marked, there was good crowd support and I chatted with the pace group as the miles clicked by. The elevation changes and the fact that we had people running very conservatively in good weather, kept lowering the pace of the group. One of our group, a lady named Leah, ended up running 3:03 and Adam, a fellow Medina resident ran 3:06. Another game-time decision was made when the GU station came up. I grabbed one and sucked it down before I could taste it. It still tried to come back up but I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed it again. I had two fruit snack packs before this but I could feel that I needed more calories. GU and any other sort of slimy race nutrition has been my nemesis but I really, really wanted a good marathon. I ended up taking 4-5 GUs along with 4 packs of fruit snacks, water at every station except the last one and Nuun or sports drink at every aid station they offered it. At one late aid station, I stopped in my tracks and drank two full cups of water, gulping it down like I was parched in a desert.
Miles 15-19: 7:33 7:26 7:45 7:30 6:54
I was feeling tired and was weary of the fluctuating pace by about 14 miles. I tried to hang on in the 14th mile but I lost the 3:10 pace group going through an aid station and didn't try to surge to catch back up. I relaxed a bit in the 15th mile, did some positive talk after I saw my teammates in the 16th mile and even walked a few steps in the 17th mile (7:45). Then I hit an aid station in the 18th mile and stuffed in as much as I could handle. Fruit snacks, two cups of sports drink, two cups of water and a GU. I perked up almost immediately and realized that it wasn't the pace or distance that was getting me down, I just needed to eat! I found that if I didn't feel basically full of sugar, I couldn't maintain my pace, so I proceeded to stuff it down for the following eight miles. I felt ill, but it was worth it.
By mile 19 I was feeling GOOD and dropped a 6:54. I was going downhill onto the shoreway and the views were beautiful, the weather was beautiful and I was in my solitary phase of a marathon. I started passing men like they were standing still and I looked ahead and picked targets to catch to keep my mind busy. Even though I felt amazing, I didn't enjoy this marathon: 26.2 is far too long!
Miles 20-26.2: 7:30 7:39 7:37 7:14 7:12 7:50 7:20 6:44 for 0.2
I relaxed the effort in miles 20 and 21 to make sure I was conserving some energy. We still had seven miles to go! Every time I felt relief about how well the race was going, the intrusive thoughts of how far we had to go entered my mind. Maybe if I wasn't so cautious, I could have run a 3:10 but I'll save that for another marathon. This was my favorite section of the race. The shoreway had some nice rolling hills, the neighborhood was picturesque, the roads were in much better shape and there weren't as many turns. I kept catching men, especially when I upped the effort in miles 23 and 24 and came down into the lower 7s. Mile 25 was the formidable hill on the shoreway and I tiptoed up that, making sure I didn't tank myself by taking my heartrate too high.
I felt great again for the 26th mile and we finally hit the bridge that signaled less than a mile to go. I knew I was crushing it but I peeked at my watch to see what kind of time I was looking at. I knew if I kicked, I could make it a 3:11. An older guy went by me at a solid pace and I followed him. The bridge was nice because it gave us some solitude before we hit the crowds of the last 0.2. I saw Michaela and Becca one more time on the bridge and I was so happy that I got emotional. Finally, I took the left hand turn off the bridge and it was the home stretch. Unbelievably, I was still passing men through these final turns. I passed 20 men in total from 21.1 to the finish. I was emotional again as we kicked into the finish line, so happy and pumping my fist, I crossed the mats and it was over. I think the relief and joy of the finish is why we run marathons. The more intense the hostage situation, the more joy we have in being released, right?
I found Amanda and the teammates who were done, pretty quickly after the finish. Also got to see Dr. Leo who crushed the full! I got this picture of Amanda before she booked out of there. She ran an amazing time but was pretty sick for the second half of the race. Lindsey and Meryl beat their 3:20 goal time by a full three minutes and now have that BQ all wrapped up and are free to chase faster wave times in the fall. It's definitely a relief to have the Boston qualifier in the spring because you never know what can happen with marathon training or in the marathon itself. We go the awesome picture below of us all. Ashton won and Catherine got 5th! This was my seventh marathon and the strongest marathon I've ever run. My time range for marathons is still 3:07-3:18. I really should try to lower that PR!
