Questions? Comments?
Contact us:
srrunner@srrunners.org

SRRC Race Reports

Baltimore Marathon, Baltimore MD—Saturday, October 14, 2006
by Adam Borbidge

Time: 309:18
Half: 134:55
21 Mile: 2:32:03
Overall: 95
Div: 15/195

The morning of October 14, two SRRC members qualified for the Boston Marathon. One finished his first official USTA race. Another took 33% off his marathon time and had a great finish photo to boot.

This course was my first opportunity to "positive split". The challenge was in the second half, depsite eliminating hills from the course of yesteryear. Fortunately, I did made a negative split by some 30 seconds. It hurt like hell. To give some perspective, I ran Army Ten Miler in 72:58. I hit the 10 mile mark at Baltimore in 72:11. Granted, I got a late start at ATM. After that experience I am a fervent believer that every Heisman trophy candidate should try running up a 10 mile football field where the defense, offense, and the spectators are all "blockers" and all running the same way.

"It'll all work out at the end"

I left South Riding near 2 p.m. Friday, and that put me in the mix with every other bumper working the beltway circuit and I-95N. I was too late to meet up with Mr. Roberts, but Siva hung around and after I dragged my wife away from the vendors to "first, take care of business"—that's packet, chip, and shirt before free snickers and sales on sports bras—okay I like them too, but . . . anyway the expo was a good reprieve from megalopolitan traffic. I left the expo for my "homestay" with wife's family. Yahoo!Maps says 10 minutes. I say "$@#!" stupid roads, Yahoo, city, and me. I pulled up to the curb 90 minutes later. I feared dinner would not be on the table for another two hours, but praise that heavenly deity, I was eating an authentic Italian meal—shrimp and pasta—within 30 minutes. We watched game shows on TV before going to bed. I am a new fan of watching TV race-day eve. It seemed more worthwhile then worrying and fretting details. Leave that stuff to training. Yeah, that sounds like wisdom.

Race morning wasn't rushed. My wife and I took a cab to the start. It was cold. We met with Siva without too much difficulty, but I was a little worried about Matt. He was driving from outside the city. This was his first race—ever—and road closures will put a dent in anybody's "plan". I didn't get to see him off at the start, nor did I see him on the course.

I liked running at the front of this race—especially after ATM. I was close to the front and this was a small field, so it was easy to see my pace buddy, Coach Mandy, as she jumped into the 7-8 min start wave. We both converged on the 3:10 pacers - there was one for the first half, one for the second and maybe one for the full. Mandy was wearing a 3:10 pace bib too.

Last year at MCM I used pacers as reference points, but this race I used them as targets. This was certainly risky for me, since I'm used to running marathons for completion not for a specific time goal. I'll typically hold back then negative-split the course. Even if the clock doesn't show a huge difference, it's usually less effort then acceleration to a sprint finish. This one was different. I recall Mandy reading off a few (several?) ahead of pace miles before mile 10—she wanted to get back the 60 seconds we were off after the first two miles right away, the voice of experience in my head wanted to speak out, but recently there's been this teenager growing up in my brain and I can't get him to turn down that darn rock n' roll music. So on this particular Saturday my attitude was breezy, steady, firm, and then death grip. Typically, it goes more like "Hold it . . . hold it . . . hold it . . . Attack!" I distinctly remember trying to take a nap on my feet near mile 24 because I was just so mentally tired of attenuating the pain I put into my legs over the second half of the course.

Phil says "respect the distance" (or maybe the course). Well, I will say the first half of this course is the easy part—and that lured me into thinking that on this day the cummulative effects of distance running might cease to exist. For most of that time the 3:00 and 3:10 people hung together. One runner was promising us all Boston—that's my warning to anyone on the brink of qualifying. This is one of those exercises where you find the thing that doesn't belong.

So the second half of the course was a treat—uphill and downhill; uphill and downhill.(1) I caught various clips of marathon news like "the hills stop after mile N" where N could be one of three different numbers. All I know is that downhill hurts. Uphill burns. And if you run a half-marathon before that, there's no relief. I just clung to some intrinsic sense of running (death grip), and I have the less than beaming marathon photos to back it up.

It all worked out in the end. I qualified for Boston with 42 seconds to spare—technically 1:41 because they accept 3:10:59, but I couldn't afford that kind of wiggle room when I was pace calculating with every new time datum. It's a tangible achievement. And a gift, a byproduct of sweating JFK. I didn't have a serious time goal until six weeks before this race. Coach Mandy said she was shooting for 3:10. I ran about the same pace in her track sessions this summer. Out of curiosity, I checked the Boston web page, saw the qualifying times, and just like that, I turned a "training run" into an "A" race. So much for no pressure.

Post Script

I apologize to readers who got this far expecting a mile by mile critque of the course. I wrote this report too far removed from race day. All I have left is the philosophical and emotional and impressionistic (insert more adjectives) memories and lessons that I'll try to apply effectively to JFK.

Thanks very much to the SRRC and Loudoun Road Runners. Special thanks to Phil Holt, Matt Roberts, Siva Natarajan, and Mandy Pagon.

What about the post race?

The massage tent was just what I needed. I never ate regular UTZ potato chips so enthusiastically. The in/out of the runner area was annoying. The real finish line is being able to enjoy the free beer. I did find Matt afterwards and he looked really good for running his first marathon with what later sounded like an undiagnosed IT Band syndrome. I had no problems getting home from Baltimore.

(1) I had a great preview of the hilly miles in August. I actually enjoyed starting at mile 16 on that day. Uphill is a great warm-up.

October 2006

The SRRC would love to hear about your running, racing, or crewing experiences! If you would like to submit a race report, to be posted on the SRRC website, please email srrunner@srrunners.org.