Second marathon in six weeks is a fun one; Vermont City Marathon is a fantastic event in a great city!

Coming into the finish. Check out the slideshow at the bottom of the post for more pictures.

So here’s the upshot on the running-another-marathon-just-six-weeks-after-Boston experiment: I had more fun running Vermont City Marathon than I’ve ever had running 26.2 miles before. The others were very high on the “satisfaction” meter: pushing yourself all out, leaving everything on the course, finishing in a white haze of exhaustion and pain, achieving a PR or a first BQ or some milestone like that. And don’t get me wrong, I ran this pretty hard (finished 3:13:06, a 7:22 pace, 137^th overall, 21 of 243 in my age group), and these things always get beastly at the end, but my primary memory of this race is not going to be the pain or the finish time, but the glorious fun of this great city and the fantastic people.

The two-weeks each of recovery, back-to-peak mileage, then taper for this marathon finished rough (you can read about that here). I was still wrapping my abs with ace bandages to help deal with a bad strain on race day. In some ways I felt worn out; in others I felt pretty good. When people asked “how do you feel?” or “are you ready?” my honest answer was, “I have no idea.  This could go really well, or it could be a disaster!  But it’ll be fun to find out.”

Kris’ mom came out to stay at the house with the kids, and Kris and I had a romantic and nostalgic drive up to Burlington Saturday morning (I am a native Vermonter, and Kris and I lived in Barre for a year when David and Sofia were little). The road is beautiful as it winds up I89 through New Hampshire’s Lakes Region and then on up into the hills and mountains of Vermont; which were a vibrant spring green.  When we got to Burlington, we checked in to our hotel and headed out to the Magic Hat Brewing Company for some samples and a bit of the factory tour.

From there we headed over to the expo, which is amazingly well put-together with lots of great vendors (and bargains) for a race of this size.  This sets the pattern for all of the VCM experience: it’s run with the amenities and panache of a major big city event class marathon, without some of the hassles that come with bigger events or bigger cities.  I simply cannot recommend this race and this city highly enough.

We had two groups of folks to catch up with at the expo: our NH Athletic Alliance/Stonyfield friends (through my friend Dan from NHAA, who works at Stonyfield, a couple of other NHAA runners and I were running for Stonyfield Yogurt in Oikos singlets as part of their Burlington marketing effort, which I was proud to be a part of – plug: the Oikos Greek yogurt is fabulous for building muscle, high protein, no fat, and the smoothies are killer for post race recovery), and the group from DailyMile, the running social network Kristen and I both log our training runs on. As always, it was a treat to meet in person people you’ve been sharing training tips and encouragement with online.  Later we met our NHAA/Stonyfield group for dinner and a few beers on Church Street.  (You know it’s a “B” race in the season when Cap’n John allows himself beer the night before! Not sure what it means that he crushed his half of the marathon relay – PR!; beer must be good pre-run carboloading fuel!)  We had a drink (and got carded!) at Red Square (very cool bar, I enjoyed the locally brewed Switchback Roasted Red Ale), listening to a singer knock out old Tom Waits tunes, then a late dinner and much great conversation at RiRa Irish Pub.  Back to the room by 10:30 or so.

After the race.

Wide awake at 4:30 a.m., feeling for the first time in six weeks like I might actually be physically ready to run a marathon. Strained muscles felt somehow less strained, and I felt loose and good and happy. At 6:50 a.m. we all met in the parking lot, caravanned downtown and found a parking spot about a mile from the start. Those of us running the full marathon and the first leg of the relay jogged a warmup mile to the start. I finished that with some strides by the waterfront park, brought it up a bit beyond race pace and felt good.

I won’t give a turn by turn description of the course or my race through it (who’d read such a thing?), but broadly, the course is laid out like a knot that ties the center of the city.  You start by looping out three hilly city miles then come back through the center again, then out the beltway, then back through the center, then into South Burlington, then back through the center to climb the six-block hill up Battery Street at mile 16, then north again to loop back and finish along the bike path into the waterfront park.  The hills, except for Battery Street, are short, and with swooping downhills and tons of corners and sharp turns, sections of the race felt like a roller coaster!  And though the coaster wanted to suck me into a fast pace (6:55-7:05) I kept the regulator on and stayed at 7:15-7:20.  By the time I hit mile five or six out on the beltway, I knew two things: I felt great, better than I ever would have imaged I would this close to the last marathon, but also that I wasn’t going to be running a 3:10 marathon.  I’d written the major splits for that time on my arm in the car, still half thinking I might go for it, but I never really looked at them. It wasn’t the day for that milestone. I wanted to enjoy this one and that 5-7 seconds a mile difference in the pace I would have needed to push would have tipped it over the edge.  (I have to say, it’s interesting to have a sense of this so early in the race, but I do think as I run more marathons that it’s entirely possible to tell how each early mile, in conjunction with how you feel during them, is going to impact the late miles.)

One of the best parts of the knot-course was that it was easy for Kristen and our other friends to see us pass not once, but three or four times.  It was always such a great surprise to come around a corner or crest a hill and see her waving from the crowd.  And speaking of the crowd – awesome.  Burlington knows how to turn out for a race, and with the exception of a few stretches, the crowds are there cheering through the whole thing.

When I ran Boston, I was running at the far edge of my abilities and I didn’t allow myself a lot of crowd distraction; I noted the crowds but didn’t interact. I felt badly that I never hi-fived any of the kids who lined the route with their hands out (I know how much our own kids love to hi-five runners, but also how distracting that can be if somebody’s trying to focus).  I made up for that during this race.  I hi-fived kids all along the route.  Took enthusiastically offered orange slices and freezie pops.  Gave thumbs up and shouted thanks to cheers. Congratulated the 8-or-9-year-old with the bugle in one of the back neighborhoods around mile 18 on his musicianship. Cheered the many bands and drummers along the route (loved the drums, and the school band playing “Let It Snow” somewhere around mile 21, just before the bike path!). Waved to friends. Did all the things I avoiding doing in Boston because I didn’t want to use up extra energy.  Somehow it seemed to bring some extra energy each time, though.  You give and you get, I suppose.

I never hit the wall to pass into the hideous and grueling post-wall despair.  But I did get pretty darn tired. The last five miles down the bike path along the lake felt very long (especially the first couple, with their slight uphill grade).  I found my pace sagging back to 7:45 or so, and I couldn’t seem to pick it up again. I needed to shake something loose but it just wasn’t happening. The path was too straight and flat.  Heaven help me, I missed the hills and corners, which helped change the muscles being used and boost my pace!  I slowed to walk quickly through two water stops late race, drink carefully, and change my pace, recalibrate my muscles. This paid off – I was able to kick the 7:45 back to a 7:05 for another half a mile or so, averaging out back to my normal pace.

The crowds coming into the park were massive, loud and inspiring! I had a little kick to pick it up and ran into the park fairly fast, then negotiated the maze of twists and turns that wind through the crowd to the finish and despite getting outkicked ten feet from the finish line by another of NHAA runner (he’d started farther back in the pack, and was really more than a minute ahead of me in terms of net time, running a powerful race), I was happy with my time, and incredibly happy that I’d been able to balance a hard, if not all out, effort with some sightseeing and really enjoying the race, the city and the people.  For some of our local folks, the race went tough (some do) and one of our fastest friends  fell victim to awful muscle cramps after mile 16, but got up and gritted it out to the end anyway. Another ran a smoking time in the half marathon relay. And one NHAA guy, Jason Porter, won the masters division in the marathon. And for me, anyway, this race  seemed like the perfect result for a “B” race, and the pleasure of it, the weekend and the course were all “A”!  I will certainly be back to run Burlington again.

Tags: Boston Marathon, marathon, marathon training, vermont city marathon

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