The Marine Corps Marathon

Holy smokes, that was one crazy but fun marathon! The race had excellent course support and it was a very scenic route. I'd definitely run this again in the future preferably without a sore Achilles. It would be fun to run this race hard instead of just trying to survive.

Travel/Expo/The Last Dinner
When I was buying my plane ticket for this race, I knew I had very little wiggle room. I was stressed out the whole day hoping that there was no flight delays. I even hopped on an earlier flight at my layover in DFW. But when we arrived at the Reagan National Airport around 3:25pm, it was foggy and rainy. We circled the airport several times but the pilot was unable to land eventually running low on fuel. He flew us down to Richmond to fuel up. We waited in Richmond until the weather cleared up in DCA. By the time we flew back up to DCA and landed, it was already 6pm. I needed to get to the expo by 7pm! I took the Metro yellow line straight to the Convention Center. I got there around 6:30pm and walked as fast as I could to expo. My Achilles was already very sore at this point which was a really bad sign. I was able to pick up my bib on time. But when I went to go pick up my goodie bag, all I got was an empty bag. Then when I went to pick up my long sleeve shirt, it was one size fits all... all they had left were XL shirts. I went up and down as many of the rows as fast as I could. Many of the booths were already being torn down. I said hi to Dane. I bought a nice MCM singlet and then headed over across the street to check into my hotel. As soon as I checked in, I got a bucket of ice and iced my ankle and Achilles. Then I walked over to eat at the Kanlaya Thai Restaurant in Chinatown. They have pretty good spicy duck curry with basil. I'm salivating just from typing that. Too bad I was flying solo, but I'll have to remember that this place is a good date place. I stopped by a convenient store to buy water and orange juice.

Pre race
I couldn't really fall asleep but eventually I got in a few hours. I awoke before all of my alarms and got ready. I ate my Powerbar and drank my orange juice. Then waited until it was time to head to the starting line. I took the Metro over to the Pentagon and walked about a mile to the baggage drop area. After hitting the line for the pottapotties, I jogged over to the starting line. There was a lot of people out there! I tried to make my way into the 4 hour area, but somehow I ended up in the 3:30 area. But it was so packed, no one was going to be able to run 8 min miles from the start. I kept reminding myself not to chase anybody because my Achilles would probably snap... and that's no joke! My strategy was to finish the first half in around 2 hours and see what I have left from there.

First Half
The first 3 miles were mostly uphill and I sort of just ran with the flow. Then the next 3 were downhill. Then we had the last major climb of the race starting at mile 6 ending at mile 8. During this climb, my right Achilles was very sore so I had to really slow down. I knew at that point I was not going to make it to the half under 2 hours. The whole time I was repeating in my head, "New York City", to get my mind off of the pain as well as to remind myself to keep the pace slow so that I could run New York the following week. When I got to the halfway mark at a little over 2:08, I knew I would have to begin taking my walking breaks for the 2nd half.
1: 9:20
2: 9:02
3: 8:31
4: 8:22
5: 8:47
6: 9:19
7-8: 19:39
9: 10:07
10: 10:45
11: 10:11
12: 10:33
13: 11:41
13.1: 2:08:07

Second Half
I would walk for about 2 minutes and run to the next mile marker. After about 3 miles this proved to be even too much for my sore Achilles, so I increased it to about 4 minutes of walking. I just wanted to keeps things under the pain threshold. I don't remember much of the 2nd half even though we ran by several of the major monuments. I just remember lots of people out there cheering. I was happy when I got to the bridge cutoff at mile 20. From the beginning I just kept telling myself to get to mile 20 and it'll all be over. I got in line for the portapotties at mile 22. It was a steady climb to the finish line from here on out. I veered off the course at mile 24 to use the potties again. My legs were starting to cramp so I had to keep drinking Nuun to get the electrolytes back in my body. I thought I was going to snap my Achilles at the last hill for the final .2 miles. I walked it a little and all I kept hearing from the crowds was, "you're almost there!" So I had to appease the crowd and ran it in.
14: 12:01
15: 12:04
16: 12:29
17-18: 28:04
19: 14:16
20: 15:36
21: 14:37
22: 17:03
23: 13:21
24: 15:14
25: 14:37
26.2: 17:44

For those that prefer measurements in 5k increments:
5k: 27:19
10k: 55:18
15k: 1:26:13
20k: 1:59:32
25k: 2:37:00
30k: 3:20:22
35k: 4:06:15
40k: 4:54:05
Finish: 5:13:34

Post race
Then they herded all of the cattle to pick up their finisher's medal and food. I picked up my finisher's coin while walking over towards the Rosslyn Metro Station. When I saw how packed it was, I turned around and walked towards the Arlington Station. A handful of people had the same idea. There was no wait at Arlington and you got to see and cheer on those that were still heading towards the finish line. Once I got back to my hotel room, I cleaned up and got a foot long Subway sandwich. Then I just relaxed, took a nap, and woke up to watch the Yankees/Angels game.

The next day I tried to sleep in, but couldn't. I'm too much of a morning person. I checked out of the hotel around 10am and went on a tour of DC. My Achilles was still very sore... so I got to sit on a lot of benches during my tour. I saw the White House, the Washington Monument, the WWII memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the US Capitol Building. It actually felt okay to walk around. I was glad that I ran the race semi-injured because I got to tour DC for just the second time since high school.