Mohawk Hudson River Marathon - 2003

Summary:

Good training can help make a race uneventful.

The Hudson Mohawk River Marathon was a beautiful course, on an excellent day for running. I was much better prepared to run a marathon this time, and most of the efforts I made during the race were minor adjustments in pacing, up and down from 7:30 per mile at the fastest to 8:00 per mile at the slowest, with a lot of my miles close to my 7:50 - 7:54 target.  Until mile 22: that's when the rough edges of my training, and a slight overconfidence in my early pacing, caused me to start slowing down from muscle fatigue.   My times stayed between 8 and 8:30 in the last 4 miles, and I used up only some of the cushion I had acquired earlier in the race, and I came across the finish line in 3:28:43: With that time, I am now qualified to enter the Boston Marathon, my goal when I started running more seriously 2 years ago.

Details:

Date: 19-Oct-2003

Place: Schenectady to Albany NY

Conditions: A great day for running. In the 40s and cloudy. An occasional light drizzle after we started. A slight wind, partly at our backs, but we were mostly in the trees.

Course: Mostly on bike paths near the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, with an overall drop of 400 feet. Started with a mile in Schenectady's central park, took 3 miles of winding city streets  to get to the bike paths after that, and then a couple of short (1-2 mile) sections of the bike paths - one at mile 12 to get under I-87, and another at mile 17-18 to get through the towns of Cohoes and Watervliet. There were a couple of short steep downhill sections, but it was mostly level with a couple of very small rolling hills.  The course was mostly in the trees. At one point we had beautiful Fall yellow leaves to our left and right and above us - an intense yellow glowing tunnel.

Runners: 450 runners in the marathon. A very friendly bunch, at least in the general pace-range I was in. A lot of local runners - the race is not widely advertised.

Organization:  The race is low-key but very well organized. They have been doing this for 21 years. For the last two years, they have also run a half-marathon on the same day as a fundraiser for the Marine's Toys for Tots program. The Marines helped with the logistics for the race, which help it be even more carefully organized than usual. None of the expensive peripheral stuff: no pre-race dinner, no space blankets at the end, no mail confirmation of entry, but enough good volunteers to make it all work. Visible but simple small plastic mile markers. One large timing board half way. Decent facilities at the start and the finish. And a beautiful course with maybe only a total of  5 miles on roads with cars - the rest in the woods.  My wife Dana was easily able to get right to the finish line to wait for me - there were not very many spectators.

Goal: To qualify for the Boston Marathon, which for a 46 year old man like me means running 3:30:59 or less for the 26.2 miles. I came in with 2:16 to spare - I probably had about a bit less than 4 minutes slack at the most, at around mile 20 or so.  

Mile by Mile: My watch stopped early on, and then I re-started it based on a conversation with a fellow runner who had a watch, and double-checked at the half-way clock. So I'm missing the first 6 miles, which were around 7:50 each, and the elapsed times are interpolated.

I had an easy run at first - a bit too easy at first: I went too fast for the first few miles, slowing down every so often but not quite enough. And for a mile or two I wasn't timing - my watch had stopped and I waited to be next to a runner with a watch.  With only 450 runners, things spread out to single file fairly quickly. I was easily able to choose to run near people or alone. A couple of times when I thought I was going too fast, I started conversations with runners. That worked well. In the last 5 miles, I ran alone, passing a handful of people, and having a smaller number pass me. Keeping a couple of the stronger runners that passed me in sight was my strategy near the end - I figured they would be coming in with 3-4 minutes to spare, and if I kept them in sight, I would have 2-3 minutes - and I was right. 

At the end, as my muscles tightened and got less responsive, I remembered my two earlier marathons where I slowed drastically, including walking, and had very slow miles at the end. I knew if I did that here, I would not make it in time. But because of the extra training and the good weather and the course, I felt here at mile 22 the way I did at Baystate at mile 17, and at Sugarloaf at mile 14. So I had good evidence that I would be able to hold it together, and was only occaisonally afraid that I would not make my goal.

Right after I saw the 3:28:xx flashing up ahead at the finish line, I saw Dana, waving her arms. Then I heard her calling my name, and I knew everything would be all right. I crossed the finish line a few seconds later, stumbled through the post-finish formalities, and started celebrating with Dana and letting it all sink in -- on to Boston!

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