Marine Corps Marathon 2008 After Action Report

I know I am a few days time late on this... had to fly to Mobile on Monday and I've been up to my eyeballs in work. If you've read Leah's entry from a few days ago you'll know that I ran the Marine Corps Marathon this past Sunday - my 5th time - and as times go, my best so far (3:44:45), although it wasn't pretty at the end...

The MCM is one of my favorite weekends of the year. Not only is the race itself run with the precision and attention to detail one associates with the Marine Corps, it's become an annual tradition for a bunch of our friends to come into town and we'll spend the weekend hanging out with them. I started running the MCM in 2003 with my friend Dallas (he had run the previous year, but I was deployed somewhere in the Med). Since then, we've signed up to run it every year, although an ankle injury sidelined me in 2006 and Dallas is battling a bum knee this time. Leah and Karl joined us a year later, and until she hurt her foot this would have been her fifth. Karl tends to make it every other year as he has been deployed or had his orders changed at the last second... And not just for runners - we've had just as many people come into town to watch and cheer for us every year. Dallas's wife Becky has become the ultimate MCM spectator, mastering all the best vantage points and ways to get between them.

For those unfamiliar with the MCM - it's one of the largest "open" marathons in the US, open meaning you don't have to have a qualifying time to register for it (eg the Boston Marathon). With two exceptions, the course is generally flat and it runs through some of the more scenic parts of DC. You have hundreds of volunteers and thousands of spectators cheering you on. For first time marathoners I highly recommend it.

Coming into town...

Now, most years we end up getting some hotel rooms in Arlington and walking to the start line (sleep is valuable on Marathon day). 30,000 people converging on Arlington at 7 am can make transportation challenging. However, this year since I was the only one running we decided to skip the hotel rooms... Anyway, on the way to the race I realized I had forgotten band-aids. I won't get into graphic detail on why they are necessary, but any guy who has run a long race will know exactly why you need them. In my desperate search for band aids I ended up stopping at no less than 3 gas stations on the way to the Navy Yard.. which isn't exactly the nicest part of town. As luck would have it, all 3 didn't have any. I ended up stopping at a 7-11 where the clerk tried to tell me they didn't have any either... but then this drunk wino who appeared to be passed out in the corner got up and pointed out they actually had some on the shelf (thanks dude!).

So I parked at the Navy Yard (free parking) and walked over to the Metro by 6:45... The race started at 8, but the L'Enfant Plaza was mobbed, and the station at the Pentagon was fully packed. Now... if you've never run a marathon before, you have to understand that most people hydrate, hydrate, and then hydrate some more. Unfortunately, this means that everyone is looking for a porta potty... but since they want to avoid having to go again while their running, they will wait to the last possible second. So as you get closer to the actual start time, the lines get longer and longer... Anyway, Brooks Sports had a promotion I had never seen before - they had this special, VIP porta potty, complete with individual stalls and scented air fresheners. The catch is you had to buy some Brooks paraphernalia or wear Brooks shoes. As I am an Asics kind of guy, I decided in the interest of not having to wait in line to go ahead and buy the Brooks MCM hat. Unfortunately I couldn't find the stupid thing on Sunday morning, so I can't give you an account of the special porta potty until next year...

The MCM has a free bag drop off run by UPS. They give you this big clear bag that you can dump your warm-ups in. You get provided this sticker with your bib number on it that you're supposed to affix to the bag and hand into the bag drop off. So, I spent at least 15 minutes on Saturday night looking for the stupid sticker, and eventually gave up on it. I get to the bag drop off ready to ask for a write on label - and the UPS guy asks if I looked at my bib... Whoops, the sticker was on the back of my bib, which of course was the first thing I put on my running singlet the night before. Lesson learned.

The Race

Sunday morning started out cold - low 40s - but with a projected high of 70 by the afternoon. After 2 days of rain, we a bright sunny day. The problem is I tend to always do the same thing when its cold - I go out waaaaaaaaaaaaay too fast. I was shooting for between an 8:00-8:15/mile pace... After breaking out of the bottleneck in the first 3 miles, I ended up running between 7:30-7:45 until just about the half. Knowing I would probably end up paying for it later, I did my best to throttle back, but still ended up running into a large brick wall at about mile 14. Unlike the last time I did this (start out way too fast, in 2004) I managed to keep a respectable pace (8:00, then 8:30, then finally 9 and bit slower) all the way to the end.

Recovery

Many of the top running experts swear that an ice bath as the best and fastest way to recover from a marathon. If you do it right after a marathon, the cold prevents inflammation of your muscles by constricting blood flow (the same reason behind icing and injury) and prevents swelling. I have always read about ice baths in the past, but the best I have been able to do is a cold shower. We generally stay in a hotel in Arlington, and the logistics of getting an ice bath setup in a hotel room would be tricky.

Seeing as I had to travel the day after the race and spend the week crawling around a ship (which means plenty of ladders and stairwells), I figured if there was ever a time to do it, now was it. So after we dropped our friends off at the airport, I got some ice (3 16 lb bags) - filled the tub up with water and dumped the ice in. Now, my online research indicated that I was supposed to stay in for 5-15 minutes... And I knew it would be cold, but this was beyond any kind of cold I had ever experienced. I had to break it up into smaller periods and the longest I think I was able to stay in was about almost 2 minutes. I have to say though, 3 days later, I have very little soreness and I am probably hit the treadmill today after work. And so the cycle begins again...

Cheers and jeers

Best new running fuel: Sports bean (w/caffeine!). No more goo for me!

Best sign: "Go ahead, ask her now" followed by "Say yes!"

Best costume: Sponge Bob Square Pants (didn't see Kermit the frog this year)

Best wish I had a camera moment: Between miles 10 and 11, running up the hill into Georgetown... it was foggy, and we were running into the sun, so all you could see is people running into the mist. Looked like something out of a horror movie.

Least favorite part of the course: 14th street bridge (as usual) or Crystal City

Least favorite runners: The people who line up in the 3:30-3:40 starting chute, and immediately start walking.

Least favorite change to the course: Running around the Georgetown Resevoir in the opposite direction as last year.