My first marathon

I ran my first marathon yesterday, finishing in a time of 4:43:18. That's approximately 10:48/mile, or 6:43/kilometer. It was in Philadelphia, and the weather was lovely.

The race began well enough, even though I ended up in the wrong corral (a designated wave of runners, arranged according to their predicted finishing time, so as to prevent traffic jams), and I cruised through the early miles slightly behind the 3:40 pace group. The first half of the race progressed easy enough, and later calculation revealed an 8:20/mile average for that 13.1 mile stretch. Considering that the longest sustained run I had managed in the previous three month involved an easy 5-miler with Dan and Dante, I considered this a positive development.

Things continued to progress well, until suddenly they didn't. This occurred just after mile 14, when I felt the need to walk for a bit. I managed to run a bit a few minutes later, but could only manage 10 minutes before needing to walk again. So I decided to try walking for 5 minutes and running for 10. This quickly became "walking for 10 minutes and running for 5." By mile 17, it became "run for 30 seconds whenever possible." By mile 19, I began counting steps up to 60, then starting over. By mile 20, I continued the exercise, only counting every other step. When mile 22 rolled around, I was down to counting every 4th step up to 30, rather than 60. At mile 23, I counted every 4th step up to 20.

At this point, I managed to jog through the mile-markers, and for a short interval after them before returning to a trudge. At mile 25, I jogged through the mile as usual, but instead of slowing to a walk, I just kept on running. From there I began to accelerate, a fact which surprised me as much as it seemed to surprise the hordes of people I managed to pass in that last 1.2 miles. Even a gradual incline near the finish didn't seem to slow me down; the pace, if anything, seemed to quicken. In the space of a few minutes, things had gone from a hopeless march to a spirited finish. The final stretch felt like the finishing kick of a PR cross-country race, or the end of a well-fought 10K. To the sound of a cheering crowd and Bart Yasso's commentary, I crossed the line with a smile on my face, happy to have survived my first marathon.