Yesterday morning I finished the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon close to my goal time and just under my personal record. It was my 5th marathon since 2006. While the distance is not getting any easier my strategy and fitness has improved dramatically since 2006.
The Lakefront Marathon is a point-to-point race that starts in Grafton and generally runs south to Veterans Park on the Milwaukee Lakefront. Since it is a school there is ample parking, indoor space for warming up, and I think plenty of bathrooms. My in-laws live just a few miles from the school so I have a leisurely morning without having to ride a shuttle bus.
For an 0800 start I woke up at 0600 to begin my pre-race rituals – large bowl of cereal, glass of low acid orange juice, 16 oz of tap water, english muffin with crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jam, and several trips to the bathroom. The night before the race I laid out my race clothing, warm-up clothing, and post-race clothing. We left the house at 0720 and arrived at the school at 0730. I had a bottle of gatorade to sip and a PowerBar harvest to nibble at until the start. I made one trip to the porta-potty. Incidentally I would like to commission a research study that measures the distance runners stand from a porta-potty. Having been to lots of races I am pretty sure there is a universal understood distance.
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I did just a few warm-up laps and a bit of stretching in the parking lot. I am quite inflexible and don’t figure a few minutes of stretching will make much difference at this point. A running weakness I need to work on. I united with the 3:30 pacer and group of runners. Pacers are wonderful. They guarantee to run a steady pace and finish within seconds of the pace time goal. Each pacer carries a placard on a stick so he can be seen. The 3:30 pacer, Josh, had a group of at least 20 runners around him. Since the 3:30 pace group was fairly close to the front we crossed the start line seconds after the gun went off.
The race started well for most in our group. Two runners near me both made full foot plants into a freshly killed squirrel (and its guts) that were spread across the road – just larger than an average adult running shoe. Both runners slid a little but managed to stay upright. Some runners around me were burning up energy on chatter. Once I get started I try to be pretty quiet.
For the race I carried three gel packs that I planned to eat before the official race gel packs at miles 19 and 23. I ate my first at mile 7.5, the second around the half marathon point, and the third around mile 17. The official race gel packs were Apple Cinnamon flavor – fail.
I made one pit stop during the race at the mile 4.5 water and porta-potty station. I was in and out in 50 seconds but the pacer keeps going. I decided to leg it out and catch the pacer which meant I ran a 7:10 mile to catch him, but it felt good to slow down after the catch was made.
The weather was generally ideal for running. Mid 50s, west northwest wind (that changed to southeast at the lake), and clouds. It was nice to not be running in the full sun. The roads were dry and so were the leaf piles on the road side.
The 3:30 pace group stayed together pretty well. I noticed it begin to thin around mile 17. I think other runners slowed in the water stations and then never reunited with the group. By mile 20 there were just 4 of us left with Josh. A few runners had gone ahead, but most had dropped back. At mile 23 the course descends from Lake Drive to Memorial Drive via Gun Club hill. I was cramping at the top of the hill and decided to walk the aid station and drink a full cup of gatorade. That was it for me and the pacer. On the hill descent I could not close the gap and at the bottom of the hill we were running into a steady wind off of the lake. My pace time for the last three miles was nearly 9 minutes per mile – full minute longer than the previous 23 miles – arghhh!
The highlight of the last 3 miles was my family was waiting at the turn into veterans park at mile 25.2. The kids were jumping up and down, clapping, and screaming for me. What a thrill. A mile later I was across the finish line with a new PR – by 4 seconds. My chip time was 3:33:10.
The Badgerland Strider organize and run a great race. The field is capped at under 3000 and I think it is a relatively fast field. The course is run on open roads which means cars are driving towards runners and passing runners from behind. Runners get about half a lane running towards oncoming traffic. The lane in most places is marked off with cones. For our group the lane was often not wide enough. I always wanted to be close to the pacer so I could benefit from an imaginary magnetic pull to stay near him. Getting to far back from the pacer could lead to a steadily increasing lead that I might not have been able to recapture. Many of the others must have felt this way because in our pack we were constantly dodging cones. For me, any future marathon racing, will be done on closed road courses or courses with wider running lanes.
Because of the course design water/gatorade is only available on one side of the road. Generally aid stations are the most congested and dangerous areas of a marathon. I would prefer aid on both sides of the road.
The finish area had a plenty large area for runners to eat, stretch, and add clothing layers that was closed to friends and family. A volunteer handed me my drop bag before I could even ask for it. She also undid the crazy knot I had applied at the start. My only complaint about the finish line was no chocolate milk. Instead there was some sort of chocolate cream endurance drink. My one and only sip of that was spit out as fast as I could open my mouth.
Finally, a big thank you to all of the spectators and volunteers that made it a great day for racing. I really appreciate the cow bells and encourage them to bring it next year with even more cow bell.
