Hamilton Marathon

Yesterday I closed out my long distance season with the Hamilton Marathon.

Hamilton is a fast downhill course where I have my current PB of 3:40:28.

An early start in the morning, as this is a point to point course and we need to shuttle to the start area. I was there early enough to park near the finish area, pick up my race kit and shuttle to the start area with more than an hour to spare.

We were able to wait inside a high school gym, with the start line just outside the exit doors.

Several of my running group were there, so we chatted and talked of goals, mine was to break 3:40, etc., before the start.

Several members of RunningFree showed up as well and setup right next to the group, so I was able to kill time with quite a few friends.

As I prepped my gear I realized I was missing some of my gels, fortunately I knew they were handing some out on the course and with what I had, I had enough.

Last porta-potty stop and headed to the start line.

It was cool to start, 33F with wc of 28F, so I went with compression shorts, tech t, throw away gloves and sleeves.

I lined up with one of the girls from the group who was running with the same goal time as me.

I don’t normally pace off someone, but 3 weeks ago, during a very wet trail race, my garmin died and last week during another trail race I broke my backup heart rate monitor watch. And this race does not do split times anywhere on the course.

So naturally I ran how my legs felt and lost my running partner within the first k.

The first part of the course is out on country roads, with not a lot of crowd support.

Although where it was, it was quite enthusiastic. Also several of our group who showed up for support drove to several points to cheer us on.

Around 11k we do an out and back for 6k on some rolling hills. Nothing too bad, but a great place to cheer on the front runners and see who’s in front or behind.

At 22k we hit the main feature of this course a major roadway, they close down, which is all downhill for 6k. I picked up the pace on this section, however the road is banked, so not as much as I would have liked.

About a kilometre further along, I round the corner of one road, to see a train crossing the road and a number of runners backed up (apparently, some runners were stopped for 3 or 4 minutes). I can see a buddy ahead, so I kept running. But before I can catch up the train finishes crossing and everyone started running again. So fortunately the train had no effect on me.

I finally caught my buddy at 33k, but he couldn’t stay with me. At 35k, I catch up to another of my running group and leave him behind. Both these guys had been rabbits for me to chase down, from when I had seen them ahead of me on the out and back section, as I knew they normally run around my goal time.

The next 6k is along a waterfront pathway, where from past experience I have had trouble keeping my focus. The path is marked every 200 meters and I tend to focus on that. I then start to wonder why it’s taking me so long to run 200 meters, and I end up slowing. This time I ignored the markings and just kept picking out rabbits to chase down.

Just before 41k, we have to run by the finish area, and we go into a small rolling section before we loop back to the finish. I did lose my focus here briefly as we went past the turnaround from last year and continued further down the trail (Due to some construction, they had changed around a little at the start of the course, which they told us about. They also added a little at the end, which we weren’t told about). Across a short gravel path, up a hill to loop back, two turns (not exactly the nicest finish to a race) and into the finish with a sprint.

Finish time 3:37:07. Beat my goal.  A new PB for my current running life. 355/1118

The girl I was going to run with finished just over a minute behind me, making her goal. (So maybe I should have stuck with her after all). I missed seeing her finish though, as I had headed immediately to the baggage check to get my jacket. The temps had warmed up by this time to a lovely 44F, but there was still a cool breeze.

Grabbed some pizza and soup and headed back to congratulate those from the group and from RunningFree who had finished and cheer in other runners.

After all the group was done, some of us headed out for burgers and beer. Lots of PB’s set by the group, a couple of disappointments, but overall a good day.

One lesson learned though. My previous marathon, when asked my goal, I said around 4 and came in at 4:03. This time I said, break 3:40 and got 3:37. Next time I’m asked my goal, I’m going to say something like 3:30 or 3 and see what happens.

Now, my long distance season is over, time to recover, rebuild (and a few short races to keep things interesting) and plan how to top this season, next year.