Clarence Demar Marathon Recap

I changed the title of my blog since it's not really any longer about my running the Disney Marathon as a way to motivate myself to become healthier... now it's just a general running diary.

Pre-Dawn check in at DeMar Marathon

My goal for the race was 3:40 and I ended up running 3:41:35. In retrospect, a 3:40 time was pretty ambitious for this course. It represents a 12 minute PR over my Disney time on a harder course. The DeMar Course is not strictly speaking "tough." But it's not an easy course, either. It is net downhill and there aren't really any killer hills, but there are a lot of rolling hills that, I discovered, are very taxing over the marathon distance. And there is a long uphill in mile 12, a couple of short steep hills in mile 23 (the famous cemetery section) and some other non-trivial climbs scattered throughout the course. It all adds up to the fact that you don't really ever get a good chance to settle in to a long, extended flat cruise.

Rather than another mile-by-mile recap, I'll just give my splits with some notes with what I can remember of the race:

1. 8:06        8:06 all downhill
2. 8:18      16:24 down with short uphill 
3. 8:09      24:33 downhill
4. 8:08      32:41 downhill
5. 8:07      40:48 downhill
6. 8:17      49:05 rolling 
7. 8:21      57:26 rolling
8. 8:24   1:05:50 rolling
9. 8:22   1:14:12 rolling
10. 8:21 1:22:33
11. 8:37 1:31:10  Hill up to dam then flat
12. 8:29 1:39:39
13. 8:28 1:48:07 long uphill
14. 

half split 1:49:07 - about where I wanted to be, 1 min ahead of a 3:40 marathon.

15.  8:27    2:05:02 missed mile 14 split, so this is average pace for miles 14,15
16   8:19    2:13:21 flat
17   8:30    2:21:51
18   8:32    2:30:23
19   8:31    2:38:53
20   8:42    2:47:35 Need 52 minute 10K for 3:40 goal. Don't push for it.
21   8:26    2:56:21
22   8:23    3:04:22 Flat
23   8:47    3:13:23 Cemetery hills, steepest on course. They hurt.
24   8:34    3:21:47 Flat. Recovered a bit and picked up pace a little
25   8:48    3:30:36 “Why am I doing this?”. Pain but no crash
26   9:05    3:39:41 “God just make it end”. Pain but no crash

 

Finish 3:41:35  “Can’t believe I have something left. Little sprint to end.”

At the 2:47:35 split at mile 20, I knew I had to run a 52 minute 10k to get a sub 3:40 finish (marathons are a 10k with a 20 mile warmup, right?)  That's about an 8:22 pace. Which meant I was just about bang on my 8:23 overall race pace. But I knew 3:40 was a tall order given the cemetery hills in mile 23 and the typical end of marathon slowdown, hills notwithstanding. So I forgot about race time and just attempted to hold my form together. The last 5k my legs really hurt, not just the quads but everything: Glutes, hamstrings and calfs were all screaming. I was really hoping to avoid the hard crash I experienced at Disney, and fortunately that never happened. I never got any numb muscles, or felt sick, or the emptiness I felt at Disney. In fact, despite the pain I was able to put on a mild sprint in the last tenth of a mile.

Some amusing stories from the race:

- It was a good thing Tricia and toured the course a few weeks ago. The bus from the finish to the start took a wrong turn (which I recognized) and I had to guide the driver to the right destination.

- I passed a guy puking on the side of the road at mile 25. He sprinted by me just before the finish and beat me by 2 secs. I congratulated him.

My overall impression of the DeMar Marathon is that it is a great small marathon (300 runners), well-organized with very enthusiastic volunteers. The morning check-in at the finish is at a very nice college fitness center with bathrooms, you wait for the start in a heated gymnasium in an elementary school (low 40's temperature at the start), and the first half of the course is absolutely stunning in the early morning light. The second half of the course is not so scenic but I don't really care since at that point I'm all about racing. The whole event has a friendly, small-town New England feel to it that is charming. I might do it again sometime, but next Fall I'd be more interested in a flat race I could go again for a sub 3:40 time.

Clarence DeMar Marathon Results

Half: 1:49.07
Full 3:41:35
I'm happy. Left it all out there

Clarence DeMar Marathon Results and Schedule

The Clarence DeMar Marathon does not post live results (I emailed the race director to find out). They will text my official time to my iPhone after the finish, however. I'm planning on posting the time to this blog as soon as I can after the race. That should be between 12:00 and 12:30.

The race day schedule planned is this:

3:00 AM - Wake up and get ready for the race. I might be awake already since I couldn't sleep the night before the Disney Marathon. Hoping that doesn't happen here.

3:30 AM - Leave for Keene, NH. It's a two hour drive and I'm not planning on staying there overnight before the race. Thus the early morning drive.

5:30 AM - Arrival at Keene. Get my race bib, prep everything (apply glide, pocket gu gels, etc.)

6:30 AM - Board the bus for the start line in Gilsum. You leave your car at the finish line at Keene State College, they bus you to the start in Gilsum, then you run back to Keene. Should get to Gilsum by 7:00 AM

8:00 AM - Marathon Start.

11:00 AM - Finish Clarence DeMar Marathon. (Just kidding. I won't be running a 3 hour marathon)

11:30-12:00 PM - Finish Marathon. My goal is a 3:40 so I should be done before 12:00

12:00-1:00 PM - Text result to my blog, take some pictures, drink water and eat, take a shower (Keene State College will be open for this), hang out a bit and enjoy the finish.

1:00 PM - Head back to Danvers.

3:00 PM - Arrive at Danvers. The most important part of Marathon planning is arranging the post-race feast.

After the DeMar marathon I plan on taking Monday off work. Tricia and I are going to head into Boston and I plan on eating my way through the North End. Can I put on 5 lbs in a week like I did after Disney? Just another PR to chase.

Louisa May Alcott 10k

Aaron and I ran a 10k in Concord today, a benefit for the Louisa May Alcott Orchard House (the historical home of the Alcott's). The idea here was to improve our 10k time to get a better corral at the Disney World Half Marathon in January. We both wore our "I'm training for the Disney..." tech shirts. A few other runners noticed them and mentioned that they were running Disney as well. No one else was running the Goofy Challenge but one was signed up for the Dopey. We also ran into Dean from the Danvers 5K, who I see every Wednesday at the weekly event and for the follow-on beers. Dean started pretty quickly and we didn't see him the rest of the race.

The race featured some organizers in period costume and a pair of Minutemen firing muskets to start the race. Also the start line is at an elementary school so there are indoor bathrooms rather than port-a-johns. A nice touch.  Pretty good free food pre-race as well. Tricia came and took pictures along the course. Here we are at the start line:

The course is relatively flat with a few rollers but no serious hills. It was in the 60's and a misty rain so it was pretty good running weather. Here we are midrace:

And crossing the finish line:

We ended up improving on the 57 min 10k from the North Andover 10k in July, but only by about a minute. It's all good, though, as a sub-hour 10k will give us a pretty decent Disney corral.

Next stop: Clarence DeMar Marathon on Sept. 27

Marathon and Predicted Results

I've already sort of settled in on 3:40 as my goal time for the Clarence DeMar Marathon. As a sanity check on the realism of this goal - and also because it was just fun - I decided to plug in my recent results into the estimated finish time calculator at Marathon Guide. What the calculator does is take your time from one distance and estimate your finish time at other distances. It does more than just a simple linear projection based on mile pace. Based on how runner pace typically varies between distances, it either discounts your pace estimating a longer distance or increases it for a shorter distance. My most recent result was the Seacoast 10k. Plugging in the 46:23 I ran at that race I got the following results:

Distance	Guide Estimate	PR	Delta (PR-Guide)	Delta %	PR date
5k	22:08	21:48	-00:20	-1.5	6/3/15
10k	--	46:23	--	--	8/22/15
10 mile	1:16:34	1:16:52	+00:18	+0.4	6/21/15
Half	1:42:51	1:44:15	+01:24	+1.3	5/3/15
Full	3:35:25	3:52:35	+17:10	+7.4	1/11/15

The second column is the estimate from Marathon Guide. Following that is my personal record (PR), the difference between my PR and the Guide estimate, that same difference as a percentage, and the date of my PR. It's impressive how close the estimates are on my 5k, 10 mile, and Half results - all within 1.5%. So the formula they are using seems pretty good.

Marathon Guide estimates me at a 3:35 marathon based on the 10k result. So that should give some confidence that I can get sub 3:40.  Assuming the "error bars" are the same on the marathon as they are on my other races, let's assume +/- 1.5% on the marathon time, which gives a range of times from 3:32:12 to 3:38:38.

Another way to do this is to plug the 3:40 marathon time into the estimator and see what it says I should be doing for other races:

Distance	Guide Estimate	PR	Delta (PR-Guide)	Delta %	PR date
5k	22:37	21:48	-00:49	-3.7	6/3/15
10k	47:22	46:23	-00:59	-2.1	8/22/15
10 mile	1:18:11	1:16:52	-01:19	-1.7	6/21/15
Half	1:45:02	1:44:15	-00:47	-0.8	5/3/15
Full	3:40:00	3:52:35	+12:35	+5.4	1/11/15

The interesting trend here is the way my percentage decrease on the estimated time gets higher the shorter the distance, -0.8 for the half all the way up to -3.7 for the 5k. This would seem to imply I have more speed vs endurance than the "formula runner" used in the calculation. A little surprising since I think of myself more as an endurance runner than a speed runner.

The advice the experts give for a marathon is to "let the race come to you", meaning don't start with an aggressive pace but rather one more comfortable, and if later in the race you are still feeling it, then the race has come to you and you can safely increase your pace. This is my preferred approach to racing in any case. I think I can safely start with a 3:40 goal time (about an 8:20 pace), and go with how I feel later in the race.

Last 20 Mile Run - Taper Ahead

I had my last 20 mile training run the DeMar marathon this morning. After this it's a gradual taper to race day. I ran my (now) usual Wenham course with its rolling terrain and hills. After touring the marathon course, it's clear that the Wenham course is good training for it. Similar to the DeMar course but slightly harder.

The 20 felt very good and I felt strong enough to pick up the pace a bit in the last 5 miles. My mile splits:

1 10:57
2 10:08
3 9:39
4 9:42
5 9:37
6 9:36
7 9:47
8 10:16
9 9:55
10 9:59
11 9:31
12 9:17
13 9:41
14 9:20
15 9:31
16 9:15
17 8:56
18 9:01
19 9:05
20 9:12

I thought about going further then thought better of it in favor of sticking to the program. When realized how sore I was when getting out of the car later, I'm glad I did!

Clarence DeMar Marathon Tour

We dropped off Ethan at UMass for the Fall Semester yesterday and decided to head up to Keene, NH to tour the Clarence Demar Marathon course. The race starts in the tiny town of Gilsum at the Gilsum Historical Society. We had a bit of difficulty finding the race start - it's easy to drive right by Gilsum - but after a couple of wrong turns we eventually found the start. Not long after the start the course crosses the Gilsum Stone Arch bridge:

It's a beautiful bridge that my pictures don't really do justice:

Here are some views looking off the bridge at the Ashuelot River. The course continues down the road at the right and follows the river:

And the other side:

The course winds its way along the river generally downhill (rivers don't flow uphill) through some very pretty, shaded country. It's not all downhill but rather rolling and the pavement isn't always good so I'll have to watch my step. We didn't stop and get any pictures along the river but here's one out of the car that gives a taste of the scenery:

 Around mile 9 you come to the Surry Mountain Dam and do an out and back along the dam. Some shots off the dam:

more of the dam:

more of the dam again:

The second half of the course flattens out and is not quite as scenic - you are no longer running along the river but it's still a nice course:

We drove through the famous cemeteries (famous if you follow the DeMar marathon) with their steep but short hills in the 23rd mile. Eventually you end up at Keene State College for the finish. The town of Keene already has banners out welcoming marathon runners:

One thing I didn't realize about the course was how twisty and turny it is. There aren't many long, straight stretches like you find at Disney World. There are also a number of loops and double backs where you will see other runners coming in the opposite direction. I kind of like that because it keeps things interesting to see other runners. It's a good thing I've been running hills up in Wenham because, while there aren't many big hills on the course, a lot of it is rolling.

The course is very scenic, about which my pictures don't do justice, and I can't wait to run it. Three weeks to go.