Bob Mann: 2018 George Washington's Birthday Marathon

Sun Feb 18, 2018

On Sunday February 18 2018, I ran the George Washington's Birthday Marathon in Greenbelt Maryland. This was my 41st state. I am starting on the home stretch now towards that goal of running in all 50 states. Scheduling a marathon in Maryland in February is a somewhat risky idea. The weather could be just about anything. In 2017 it was 70 degrees on race day, but in 2015 the race was cancelled because of a snowstorm. A couple months before the race I decided to take the risk and I signed up. I figured that I could get to Maryland (about 20 miles outside of D.C.) by driving, and thus not have to worry about cancelling a plane ticket. And, well, it's about the only marathon I could find in the Winter in a state I haven't done yet.

Since this was President's Day weekend, we decided to make a short family vacation out of it. Schools were closed on Monday, the day after the race, so we could do this trip without Jillian missing anything. I took the days off work on Friday and Monday, and the three of us drove down as soon as school got out on Friday afternoon.

We arrived late on Friday evening and just turned in at our hotel. Saturday we took the Metro in to Washington D.C. and spent the day doing touristy things. While we were in the city, there was a brief, fast-moving winter storm that rolled across the east coast. If the marathon had been on Saturday instead of Sunday, there would have been some interesting running conditions late in the race. But thankfully the storm moved though quickly and was gone by midnight. The temperatures warmed up a little, and the roads were perfectly fine by morning.

The race began at 10:00am, which might be latest start time I've ever had at a marathon. I assume the rationale for this is that a later start time in the northeast would help warm things up a bit on a nasty cold winter day. That wasn't a big issue this year. The weather was fine on Sunday morning. Sure, it was still a little chilly, with temps in the mid 30s, which rivals the coldest temperatures I've faced at the start of a marathon. But that's really not too bad. I was perfectly comfortable in shorts and a long-sleeve running shirt. While the roads were perfectly clear, there was a noticeable amount of snow off to the sides. I think it's the first time I've run a marathon with snow around. But this was no problem, since I've done plenty of training runs in snow and cold before.

This was not a large race. There were just under 200 marathoners, and there was no half marathon. So it was a small crowd. But it was a small town and a small course, so everything was scaled just right. The course began near a small park in Greenbelt, then wound for the first two miles thru a residential area and then out into what was, more or less, the middle of nowhere. After Mile 2, we began a loop that we would run three times before heading back the way we came to the finish line, which was just a short distance from the start line. The loop ran around, umm, not much of anything. There was some farmland and a couple of nondescript buildings, and a lot of trees. For the most part, it was a pleasant, quiet, boring country jaunt. One section of the loop was less pleasant than the rest, as the 3-mile-or-so stretch on this road was more of a major thoroughfare with much heavier traffic. The runners were never in any danger from the traffic. But I'm not a fan of running along anything like a highway.

There were some rolling hills to this course. It wasn't nearly as hilly as San Francisco, which shouldn't be surprising. But it wasn't nearly as flat as most of the other recent marathons I have done. The first section heading from the start to the loop had a decent net downhill, which led to a couple of fast miles for me. I ran the first mile in 9:16 and the second in 8:49. Once upon a time, I was able to run an entire marathon averaging something like 8:49 per mile. But now I can't remember the last time I logged a single mile that fast in a marathon. Anyway, I was starting off well.

My times for the ensuing miles varied greatly, depending on whether the inclines in that mile were primarily uphill or downhill. For the first loop, I was as fast as 9:19 (Mile 7) and as slow as 9:52 (Mile 10). Second time around, I was as fast as 9:35 (Mile 14) and as slow as 10:32 (Mile 17). I took my first walk break soon before the halfway point during one of the uphill sections. I had actually planned on walking sooner than that, but I didn't because I was feeling quite strong. I passed the halfway point in about 2:07, which in more-or-less on par with all my other marathons over the last few years.

Perhaps the most interesting sight along the loop was at a point where there was a slight bend in the road right at the bottom of a small downhill section. There was a small bridge going over a creek right at this point. There was a car that had apparently not made the turn properly, and ended up nose-first in the creek. I assume that it happened some time on Saturday during the snowy, icy storm when the roads must have been very slick. There weren't any people around the car, so apparently the driver abandoned the vehicle and left it there. I can only assume that sooner or later someone would come back and take care of it.

Anyway, by the time I started the third loop around Mile 17, I was doing more and more walking, which is typical for me at this point in a marathon nowadays. But on the other hand, I was actually feeling stronger than I had been in recent ones. I think my training leading up to this race was better than it had been in a long time. I had logged a little over 140 training miles in January. This was the first time I'd reached even 120 miles in two years, and my highest single-month total since August 2015. My body had been feeling good through this training cycle, and this above-average mileage didn't seem to be taking any sort of toll. I had been privately hoping that this would lead to a faster and more-pleasant marathon this time around, but I wasn't taking anything for granted. But once I reached this third loop and was still feeling okay, I think it was paying off.

Of course, I still wasn't speedy and I still wasn't approaching what I could do 8 or 10 years ago when I was younger and regularly logged more training mileage. But I was definitely able to maintain a (slow) run for longer stretches. I even almost broke a ten minute mile (10:02) in Mile 20, and wasn't too far off (10:15 and 10:21) in Miles 22 and 23. Around Mile 24 we completed the third loop and headed back towards the start. This meant going back up the long and steady hill that we came down in the first two miles. This led to a bunch of walking and a rather slow 26th mile (12:36). But that's okay. I still felt fine as I made my way to the finish line.

Since this was a small race, Maggie and Jillian were waiting for me right at the finish line. This is certainly one of the main bonuses of running a small race. My final time was 4:26:00, which strangely enough, is the exact same time that I ran in Georgia last March. Thus I am quite pleased with the time. I'm a year older, and this course was hillier than that Georgia one was. So I'd say that the extra bit of training did pay off. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get back to the level of training that I used to do, and/or if that could ever get me back under 4 hours. At this point, I'm just happy to still be completing marathons without any major physical issues.

Well, we had a nice family weekend. Saturday was our day for playing tourist in D.C., and Sunday was spent relaxing and recovering after the race. On the way home Monday we stopped at the Baltimore Inner Harbor for a while. A good time was had by all.

My assessment of the George Washington's Birthday Marathon? It was a very nice, no-frills event. The race was put on by the DC Road Runners club, and they know what they're doing. There was practically nothing in the way of crowd support, but that's to be expected for a race this small. All in all, I'd say that it was a nice way to check Maryland off my list.

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.