Disney Deads: Stories - Back to Boston

As reported earlier, a month back I ran the Detroit Marathon with the goal of getting back to Boston. I'd succeeded in
qualifying for the '08 race when I'll bump up an AG, but missed my last chance to run as a 44 year old by about 4 minutes.
The plan had been for my training partner and I both to qualify and then have a guy's weekend away in the spring running
Boston. He qualified and I didn't so I was left to try again.

Fast forward to this past weekend. Friday morning I packed up the car and loaded up with my wife and her sister, both of
whom decided to join me and do the half, and made the 8 hour journey from Cincinnati to Memphis. Arrived late afternoon
and hit the small expo for our race numbers and then caught a trolley to Beale St to find some pre-race carbs (ie. beer). Had
a nice dinner, walked around Beale for a while but it was pretty dead as the first real chill of the season set in and kept the
crowds away. Got up Saturday morning to find a beautiful day for running. Clear and crisp with no wind and race temps
starting right about freezing with promises to go into the 40's by the time we finished. Just right for shorts, l/s underarmour,
singlet and gloves. The plan for the race was my typical one. Go out too fast, build up time in the bank and then make
withdrawls as I slow at the end. Not quite the way Runner's World says you should do it but it works for me. The finish
results gave us some interesting numbers so I'll throw those out here. The race started with a wave start where we were in
corrals and they would send off a corral and then wait one minute before sending off the next one. I was in corral one just
behind the elites and it seemed to work really well. The race started, the elites headed out and then we moved up until the
one minute mark and our gun went off. It really made the start of the race easy as we were already spaced out and not
jockeying for positions through the early downtown turns. (My wife said it worked even better where they were towards the
back with the walkers.) I felt pretty good early on and started banking time. There was a chip mat at 10k and they gave me
these stats: 45:15 for a 7:18 pace and 16/163 in my AG. The first half of the course was reasonably flat with some rolling
hills, ran through some pretty parts of town including a brief trip in the zoo and for the most part went well. The only
disappointment was the lack of music on the course. With us being in Memphis we expected a lot but only saw one guy
singing Elvis and one other blues band. At 12.5 miles the full and half split and suddenly the course got very quiet. Most of
the runners in the field were in for the Half Marathon and I now had a lot of the road to myself. Crossed the half mark in
1:36:07, a 7:21 pace and still 16th in my AG. (Incidentally, that was a full minute faster that I managed in the Disneyland Half
when my legs didn't cooperate at all with me.) So far the plan was working pretty well. Early on I got in front of the 3:15 pace
team and had in my mind that I wanted to stay in front of them through 20 miles and then see what happened. Well the
second half of the course got a little hillier and windier and started to wear on me. All of a sudden at mile 16 I heard a group
coming up from behind and knew it was the 3:15 guys. I hung with them through an uphill mile 17 but knew it was pointless
and let them go. After that I hit a bad patch where my miles jumped to around 8's and the mental fatigue set in (you know,
when it's time to start feeling sorry for yourself, wondering what the hell your doing this for again, etc., etc.). This matched
the longest uphill section of the race which went until mile 20. The chip mat at 20 miles gave me these stats: 2:30:05, a 7:31
pace and now 18th place. You can see me slowing down! I was sure the race was cooked, but then as often happens you
work through the bad patch and all of a sudden have new gas in your legs. From 20 on the race flattened out as we headed
back into downtown. I never really got the good speed from earlier back but started clicking off miles in the 7:45-7:50 range
and started to believe I could hang on. The finish of the race was a little tough. First there were almost no spectators out on
the course near the end (or through the entire 2nd half for that matter), and there was a lot of car traffic as they closed one
lane of most of the streets for us. Plenty of police at all the intersections but still a lot of traffic. (I did have one guy in an SUV
decide he wanted to use the race course and drove right towards me at about mile 25.) We also had a lot of turns to navigate
in the last two miles so it was hard to see how far you still needed to run. The finish was nice through as we ran into
AutoZone Park (the minor league baseball stadium). Entered in right field and ran the warning track around to the 3rd base
line where the finish was. Held on just enough to finish with a 3:19:26 time. A 7:37 pace, 19th in my AG, a 12 second PR
and a trip back to Boston in the spring! Very satisfying. The post race goodies were almost as satisfying as we were treated
to hot soup, pizza, Krispy Kream donuts and… beer!

Post race we headed back to the hotel, cleaned up and, having never been to Memphis before, immediately headed out to
Graceland to go see the King. It was the perfect tourist thing to do and we all loved it. Stopped for Mexican on the way back
and celebrated with a couple of pitchers of margaritas then called it a night so we could get and early start for the drive back
home. All in all a very nice weekend.

Ps. Thanks Dave and Mike for looking up my results and sending me a note. It's appreciated.

ORN: Too cold this morning to get motivated (it was about 10 degrees outside), but I'll get in a few recovery miles at
lunchtime. For me now until the Goofy it's mostly rest and easy runs.

Tom Laux
Cincinnati, OH