Thanks for the kind words everyone. Report is below:
2014 Garry Bjorklund Race (and trip) Report
Pre-race
As I have learned a long time ago, traveling the day before a race always has a certain degree of risk, so I booked a Thursday afternoon flight that would get me into Minneapolis/St. Paul airport around 7. Then the plan was to eat dinner, drive my rental to Duluth and pretty much just relax on Friday (shake out run, pickup race stuff, be a lazy bum) and hang out with a friend who was going to be going for the trials qualifier on Saturday.
Unfortunately, a rainstorm in the midwest on Thursday wrecked havoc on all the flights into the area, and my flight ended up delayed about 2 hours so I got in late. I was actually lucky that I still made it to Duluth as my friend got stuck in O'Hare with his connection to Duluth cancelled and no Friday flights available so he was forced to head home before he could even get a chance to toe the line and punch his ticket to LA 2016.
I woke up earlier than planned on Saturday and forced myself to go back to sleep twice, but after getting maybe another hour or so of sleep I knew I was too awake, so I figured I might as well get all the things I had to do out of the way and then try to get to bed early. My routine 4-mile shakeout run was uneventful but felt decent. Then I hit the expo and grabbed my race packet as well as some free food in the hospitality room. The race takes care of the sub-elites extremely well and gave us credentials that let us into the spaghetti dinner, course tour, and the media luncheon. (in addition to financial assistance and free lodging for those that qualify). I was a little bored and had time to kill, so I went on the course tour and saw a movie in the theater next to the convention center before dinner. Then I pretty much just drove back to my room, got my stuff ready for the race, ate another light snack and went to sleep.
On race day, I woke up and went for my routine 1-mile shakeout run. Then I had a few sip of coffee and a banana before catching the bus to the starting line. Last year I got to the start way ahead of time and had nothing to do, so I took one of the last buses and screwed myself. The bus dropped us off at the back of the start area about 25-30 minutes before the race start and I had to basically walk/jog through the field of 8000+ runners. Luckily the initial crowd I encountered was due to the porta-potty lines and I was able to jog the last quarter mile or so to the start fairly unimpeded. I had another quick moment of panic when I didn't see a bag drop area for the elites like I was told there would be, but luckily the first volunteer I asked told me they would be about 100 yards past the start line. I finally dropped my bag off 10 minutes before the start of the race, jogged back to the starting line, got to use one of the porta-potties right in front of the start, stretch for 2-3 minutes and then line up.
The Race-
The gun goes off and I settle into what I felt was a pretty solid effort right away. I was a little worried initially because I was much closer to the leaders than last year, but my garmin said I was running 5:00-5:05 pace so I didn't back off too much. I hit the first mile 4-5 seconds slower than goal pace though and thought it might have been due to the lack of warming up, so I made a conscious effort to pick it up just a notch. When I ran another 5:10 for the 2nd mile I tried to stay positive and see if my body would ease into a faster pace. 3rd mile was 5:06 but I knew it was one of the downhill miles on the course, and I was also passed for the first time since the first minute of the race. When I hit 5K in 15:58-15:59 I knew sub-67 just wasn't going to happen and I was working way too hard with 10 more miles to go. Miles 1-3: 5:11, 5:10, 5:06
At this point, I saw a sign on the side of the road for the medical tent and drop outs. This brought back memories of last year when I dropped out of the USA Half champs at the same exact spot and I thought to myself "Last year you had 50 miles of training in the 8 weeks before the race and a terrible case of ITBS. What's your excuse this year?". With that, I put my head down and got back into the race, picking off one straggler at a time. My next 2 miles were back in the low 5:10s, and at 5 miles I caught the same runner that had passed me shortly before 5K. He told me his goal was to run 5:10s, and I figured that was a good compromise as it would still be a decent PR for me. Together we made the quick right and then left turn onto the road we would be running on for the next 7 miles. I knew mile 6 was going to be one of the fastest of the race as we had a nice long decline into town. My new friend asked me what we hit for the last mile and thought I was kidding when I said 5:01. I just uttered a quick "that was a big downhill mile, don't let up". Shortly after we passed 10K in 31:5x (which would be the first time I have ever broken 32) and I knew we were halfway home, and I might just make it out of here with a new PR. Miles 4-6: 5:13, 5:11, 5:00
I knew from my prerace scouting of elite / sub-elite runner's blogs that the next 4-5 miles would be the toughest section of the course and told myself that I just had to make it 5 more miles and it's downhill from there (literally and figuratively). Miles 7 and 8 were 5:11s, which was extremely encouraging. At the end of mile 9 we started climbing up the infamous Lemon Drop Hill, and I was so entrenched in the effort that I missed the mile split, but we cruised down the backside and hit 10 miles in 51:39. Miles 7-10: 5:11, 5:11, 10:26
At this point I am feeling pretty good as we can run 5:15s and easily go sub-68, and all that was really standing in the way was a short climb in the middle of mile 11. We ran up this climb and I just said "alright, that's the worst of it". Mile split - 5:10.
Mile 12 was a blur as we ran through downtown Duluth with a ton of people cheering. From mile 5 on, it seemed like the guy that I was running with and I took turns pushing the pace when the other one was going through a bad patch, but on one of the flattest section of the course when we were both feeling pretty good it seemed like we both fell asleep mentally. I missed the 12 mile mark and let my watch go to autosplit, and we ran this mile in around 5:17.
Shortly after we hit the 1.2 mile to go mark, the course turned downhill and my companion flew down the ramp. I initially let him go but slowly pulled alongside him again when we hit the flat section. I think we were both nice and fresh from our mile 12 nap because I looked down at my garmin and it read "4:50". We did lose some of the momentum after some of the turns in the last half mile, but I covered my last mile at around 5:05 pace. As I rounded the last turn and saw the 26.0 sign (intended for the full marathon) I also saw 1:06:40 on the clock. I didn't want to get screwed by one of those "longer than expected" homestretches so I just gave it whatever I got and ended up covering the last 0.22 in 64 seconds. (4:52 pace). Oops.
Miles 11-13: 5:10, 5:17, 5:05
Postrace-
I had mixed emotions after the race as I obviously didn't hit my "A" goal. But, 28 seconds is a solid PR, and being on the other side of 68 qualifies me for a few extra perks at certain races so I was happy about that. I was also surprised at how long I stuck in there despite having pretty heavy legs very early in the race. It was definitely a valuable experience in terms of finding out how much discomfort I can handle and how hard / when to push in such situations.
I also came away with a handful of things I think I can/need to tweak for the future in terms of pre-race preparations: Types of training I need to do, My taper, Pre-race routine/meals, etc...
I will be the first to admit that I probably should have tapered more in this circumstance, and I want to thank CMM268 and NP1112 for asking about my high mileage last week. Yes, I sort of had some doubts too, but it's that sort of discussion that gets you thinking about what you could have done differently and is one of the things that make this thread so valuable. I think just because I have done high mileage 7-14 days out from prior goal HMs before doesn't mean it was the right thing to do in this case as I felt like my legs were not as a fresh in the days leading up to the race. The ironic thing is this might have been due to the fact that I had such a consistent training cycle that I already had 5-6 weeks of high mileage heading into the "2 weeks to go" mark that I should have tapered earlier since my body was a bit more worn down than in prior cycles at this point. (if that makes sense)
Sorry for the extremely long post, but most of the regulars know by now that my race/trip reports are mini-novels.