Bob Mann: 2010 Sunburst Marathon

Sat Jun 5, 2010

I ran my 15th marathon on Saturday June 5, 2010 in South Bend, IN. I had only registered for this race about three weeks earlier, making it the shortest notice of any marathon I've signed up for. I chose this one because it fit my schedule, and of course becuase I hadn't run a marathon in Indiana before.

I had run in Eugene five weeks earlier and hadn't maintained the greatest level of fitness in between. Two weeks before the race, I had somehow tweaked my back and didn't run for about four days. During that time, I managed to put on five pounds, which I never took off before heading to Indiana. So I felt like I was already at a disadvantage by being a little bit over my normal weight.

I flew into Chicago on Friday June 4, rented a car and drove to South Bend. It was about a two hour drive. Since there was plenty of time, I actually stopped by Grant Park in Chicago on the way and got in a very short and slow warm-up run around the Park. This was the location of my first marathon back in 2005, and I thought it would be fun and nostalgic to run around that spot again.

I made it South Bend early Friday afternoon, and had lots of time to kill. Nobody else I knew was running the race, so I would be spending most of the weekend by myself. For no particular reason, after I reached South Bend, I drove about 5 miles out of my way and headed north into Michigan, and I had lunch at a Subway sandwich shop. I think very few people would go out of their way like that (even a short distance such as that) just to cross a state line, but this is the kind of thing I get a kick out of, for whatever reason.

Anyway, after lunch I headed back into South Bend and went to the Race Expo, which was at the College Football Hall of Fame. I picked up my stuff, and as a huge college football fan, decided to spend some time visiting the museum. I was practically the only person in the museum that afternoon. But I still thoroughly enjoyed the journey though college football history.

Afterward, I finally went to check into my hotel, and then headed out for dinner. Instead of finding an Italian restaurant, or any place else where I could get the standard pre-race pasta dinner, I found a sports bar called the Linebacker Lounge very close to the Notre Dame football stadium. I figured a place like that would give me a taste of the local Notre Dame University atmosphere. Well, in retrospect it was probably a bad choice because the bar was filled with cigarette smoke. I guess I've been spoiled by living in the northeast where all the bars are now smoke-free. I still decided to stay for a meal, but before long I was dying to get out of there. I ordered and quickly wolfed down a turkey wrap, and then headed out. But all that smoke was probably not the best thing for me the night before a marathon. Neither was the beer I drank, but I certainly can't blame that on anyone else!

I went to bed nice and early and was up at 4:00am to have something to eat well before the 6:00am start to the race. The weather on race day ended up being better than it could have been. It was warm, but not hot (low-to-mid 70s). And it was very overcast, which kept the sun away. There were also predictions of thunderstorms, but the rain was not present in the morning. The only problem was the humidity. It was thick enough to cut with a knife. But hey, when you run a marathon in June, you probably won't have the most ideal conditions. Overall, I can't complain since it could have been so much worse.

This race had a fairly small field, at least for the marathon (744 people finished). There was also a Half Marathon, a 10k and a 5k, but those races started later. So those of us hearty souls who were attempting the marathon lined up in front of the College Football Hall of Fame, and we started at 6:00am sharp.

My goal for this race was to simply break four hours. I knew that I wasn't in shape to approach a new PR, and the humidity would certainly take away any grandiose dreams I had of pushing for it. I decided I would start out running 9:00 miles and hold that pace for as long as I could. And then if I hit the wall and slowed down late in the race, hopefully I would have banked enough time to sneak in under four hours. This strategy worked well in Eugene, and I was hoping to do it again here.

However, it wasn't long before that strategy went out the window. I ran the first mile in 8:44 and the second mile in 8:43. In other words, I went out much faster than intended. This is perhaps because the small field caused less crowding than I am used to. I told myself that I should slow down and conserve some energy, but Mile 3 was even faster at 8:40. This would be my fastest mile of the race.

Despite the fact that I got off to a fast start, I got the feeling very early that this wasn't going to be my day. By Mile 2, I was sweating pretty hard. That certainly shouldn't have happened that soon. I don't know exactly what it was, but I just felt off.

After Mile 3, I started getting gradually slower and slower. After 6 miles, my average pace was 8:45 and I was starting to run the numbers in my head. I needed to keep the average pace better than 9:06 in order to break four hours. I was well ahead of that at this point, but my pace was slipping and I could tell that it was just going to get worse. It was about this point when I figured out that I wasn't going to break four hours today.

I knew very little about this race coming into it, but from the reviews I read, the course was supposed to be rather boring. I actually enjoyed it. No, we weren't running past famous national landmarks, like in the marathons in New York or Philadelphia. Nor were we running past beautiful vistas of wide open scenery, like in South Dakota or Wyoming. The course went mostly thru residential neighborhoods and city parks. But that was just fine with me. Those are the types of areas that I do most of my training runs in, so I guess I felt fairly at home. It wasn't thrilling, but at least we weren't in ugly industrial neighborhoods or dilapidated slums. Those are the most depressing areas to run in, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, my pace continued to get gradually slower as I moved on. And I kept sweating. By Mile 10, I felt drenched. I started grabbing two cups of fluids at every aid station. I made sure that one cup was water, and I dumped it over my head. The other cup could be either water or Gatorade, and I would drink that one. By Mile 16, I was a sweaty, stinky, filthy mess. I began to wonder how the camera I had brought along as the BobCam would survive all this wetness.

It was about Mile 20 when my overall average pace finally dipped under 9:06. I faced a decision. I could bust my ass and try to speed up in attempt to still finish under 4:00. Or I could mail in the last 10k and just be satisfied to check another state off the list. Sadly, I chose the latter. I just felt like I didn't have the energy today, and any attempt to shave a few minutes off the time could lead to an unnecessary injury, or at least a lot of unnecessary discomfort. I slogged along for a few more miles, finally slowing to a walk around Mile 24. I caught my breath a bit, then continued on. At the aid station around Mile 25, I stopped again. This time I grabbed two cups of water to dump on my head, and a couple more cups of Gatorade to drink. I was feeling fairly miserable, but I was happy that the end was near.

I resumed a slow run, as we headed on to Notre Dame's campus. Crowd support was still fairly sparse, until we approached the football stadium. We ran around the stadium to the opposite side, and then in thru the players' entrance and down the tunnel to the field, and then halfway across the field to the finish line. I must say that it was pretty cool to finish a marathon on a very iconic field like that. I've never been a Notre Dame fan -- they are one of my least-favorite teams, actually -- but it was cool nonetheless.

My final time was 4:07:45. Not one of my more impressive efforts. It was announced later that this was the highest humidity they've ever had on race day. That certainly didn't help matters, but I don't think it was to blame for all of my blah feelings that day.

Soon after the finish, I saw Amy from KR in the stands. She and her husband are Indiana residents, and were in town for a while to watch the race. I got to hang out with them for a bit. And after getting myself cleaned up at my hotel, we met up again for burgers and beers for lunch. So it was nice to spend some time with a couple of friendly faces instead of spending the entire weekend alone by myself. While I have done that before (in Oklahoma and Wyoming) and don't necessarily mind it, it's certainly more enjoyable to spend time with friends.

They dropped me off back and the hotel, and then they went home. I spent the rest of the day feeling rather wiped out, and I didn't do much very interesting at all. I found another sports bar, and had dinner and watched the Belmont Stakes horse race. But that was about it. I returned back to the hotel for another early bedtime. I woke up early again on Sunday and took the drive back to Chicago for my flight back home.

So this was not a stellar run for me. As I said earlier, I knew all along that I wouldn't be pushing for a new PR, so missing it is certainly not a surprise. My current PR of 3:47:12 was set in Birmingham in my 7th marathon. That means I've now done more marathons since my PR than I did before it. It was at about the Mile 20 mark when I realized all this, and it really made me think. I suppose I've known this for a while, but it really hit me that I'm no longer running marathons to push myself. I am merely running them to check states off the map. Maybe that's not necessarily a bad thing since completing each marathon is a worthy feat in itself. But since I still have so many states left to do to complete the 50 state goal, I think I've decided that I want to have a more immediate marathon goal.

The next marathon that I am signed up for is the Twin Cities Marathon in October. That's four months away, and I certainly have enough time to squeeze in some other random state between now and then if I want. But I think instead I will take a brief time to relax and recharge my batteries a little, so to speak, and then I will begin a serious training effort for that race. My training for this Sunburst Marathon lasted basically one week. After Eugene, I did recovery runs for two weeks, then one week of serious training, then a two week taper. I want my next marathon to be a full effort, and God willing, finally a run at a new PR. There are 17 weeks until TCM, which should be enough time to give it a good attempt! Now let's just hope that life doesn't throw too many curveballs between now and then to throw me off track.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past myself to decide that I want to run a marathon in Montana in August, for example, or something similar to throw my "serious training" to the wayside. I guess time will tell...

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.