Bob Mann: 2018 Kentucky Derby Marathon

Sat Apr 28, 2018

On Saturday April 28 2018, I ran the Kentucky Derby Marathon in Louisville KY. This was state #42 for me. I'm getting close.

On Friday I flew into Cincinnati. I had also flown into Cincinnati the last time I had flown for a marathon. Last November, I rented a car and drove southeast to West Virginia. This time, I rented a car and drove southwest to Louisville. The flight from Newark to Cincinnati was only about an hour an a half. The drive from the airport to Louisville was about an hour and half. Unfortunately, my wait in the rental car line at the airport was also about an hour and a half. Apparently some workers called in sick and there was a convention in town or something. Of those 90 minute time chunks, waiting in line was easily the least fun.

On my way into Louisville, I went to the convention center for packet pickup. Then I went to a park along the Ohio River to do my day-before-race warmup run. Of course I chose this spot because there was a pedestrian bridge that crossed the river into Indiana, since I like crossing state lines during these warmup runs. After a couple of slow easy miles, I went to check into my hotel. I had a pasta dinner and a local microbrew, then went back to my room to rest us and get to bed early.

I woke up Sunday morning, had something to eat, and then headed out to walk the few blocks from my hotel to the start line. There were about 1400 runners in the marathon, and another 8000 in the half marathon. All told, that made for a decent number of people who all started at the same time. So the start chute was rather crowded. They broke us into five corrals, and I was in Corral D. I was somewhat near the back, and it took me a while to get to the start line after the race started. Hey, that was fine, since like always I wasn't in too much of a hurry.

As has been the case a lot lately, I didn't really have a time goal. The goal was just to finish. My training hadn't been great since the marathon in Maryland in February. I had taken a little time off becuase I had tweaked a muscle in my left leg right after (or maybe during?) that marathon. I rested to let it heal. It took a while, but I was finally feeling back to normal. It did limit the amount of training miles I ran. My longest run between marathons was only 15 miles. That's not ideal, but it's not terrible. I was confident that I had maintained enough running shape to survive the distance. The weather was fine. In fact, it was a very nice day. Not too cold, not too hot, and lots of sun. Of course, I prefer running with less sun, but so be it. The course itself was mostly flat, except for one hilly stretch through a city park around the midpoint of the race. So factoring in all this -- the training, the weather, and the terrain -- I thought I'd be roughly in line with the 4:26 I ran in Maryland.

Since I was stuck rather far back in the pack, I was stuck in traffic and got off to a slow start. That didn't bother me since I wasn't in a hurry. My first mile was completed in 10:13, which is a rather slow first mile for me. But eventually the crowd thinned out and I was able to hit a more normal pcae. I was quite consistent between Miles 3 and 8 with a pace in the low 9:20s. The exception was Mile 7, where for some reason I sped up to 9:13. I'm not sure where that came from, but that was my fastest mile of the day.

The first couple miles of the race headed west down Main Street in downtown Louisville. We passed the Louisville Slugger museum, which had a 120-foot tall baseball bat in front. And we passed, for some reason, a 30-foot tall gold-colored replica of Michaelangelo's David statue. Eventually we turned south.

Around Mile 8, we arrived at Churchill Downs. This was the part of the race I was most looking forward to. I'm not a huge horse racing fan, but I do watch the Triple Crown races every year. And Churchill Downs is one of the more iconic sports locations in the country. So I was excited to enter and run inside. We ran in through the main gate, then down into a tunnel where we crossed under the track and came back up into the infield. We ran most of a loop around the infield and then back out through another tunnel. Well, we didn't really see very much while we were there. We saw some empty horse paddocks. We could see the famous Twin Spires of Churchill Downs beyond some small buildings. We could barely see the track. So it wasn't quite as exciting as I was hoping for. It would have been great to actually run on the track. Or at least somewhere that we could see it from. But oh well. At least I can say I ran inside Churchill Downs.

The Half Marathon split from the Full Marathon almost immediately after we got back outside. The Half Marathons headed back towards downtown while we Full Marathoners continued south. We ran to Iroqouis Park, which is where the only significant hills were. As I tend to do, I spent some time walking on the uphills. So I encountered my slowest miles so far within the park. I passed the halfway point of the race at about 2:07 on my watch, which is consistent with most of my recent marathons.

We made a full loop around the park. The loop was about 3.5 miles long. I really felt as though we ran uphill a lot more than we ran downhill, but I must be wrong about that since we exited at the same place that we entered. Back outside the park, we ran back north along the same road that we took south. We went back past the Churchill Downs and then past the University of Louisville. Naturally, I was getting slower and slower and the race wore on. The sun was strong, but I was surviving okay. An extra east-west out-and-back was added near the end to tack on the required distance, and eventually we returned downtown. Frequent walk breaks kept my pace slow, but I was feeling decent, and I kept the last few miles somewhat consistent. My slowest mile was Mile 23 at 11:58. I the ensuing miles were 11:20, 11:25 and 11:08. All this was enough to get me across the finish line in 4:27:07. So it was just about one minute slower than the last race in Maryland. I'm perfectly fine with that.

After the race, I returned to my hotel, took a nap, and then headed out for some food and drink. Since I was in Kentucky, I helped myself to a couple of shots of bourbon. Normally I just stick with beer, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I turned in early at night, and I got up early on Sunday morning for the drive back to Cincinnati.

I enjoyed the race. The course was nice, and stayed mostly in decent neighborhoods. The crowd support was very good. I saw tons of people holding signs; more than in most races. It probably helped that it was a beautiful day. So the race went fine, and I am pleased to be done with #42. Up next is Seattle WA in June. And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.