Before the race, I had a good time talking to Steve Anderson, Paul Peterson, and a bunch of others.
I was a bit worried about my calf. I have a pulled Soleus muscle, down close to the achilles. Before the race, I taped it up and and was still optomistic. I was hoping things would go well--maybe even look for a PR.
At the start of the race, i felt really good.
Mile 1 - 6:14. - Felt great - running a little flat footed not to push off my toes for my calf.
Mile 2 - 6:28 - Still felt good. Slowed down because I felt I started a little too fast. Thought, "Wow, I feel great. This will be an easy PR"
Mile 3 - 6:43 - My calf started feeling a little tight.
Mile 4 - 6:58 - Calf felt a little sore.
Mile 5 - 6:46 - Still a little sore.
Mile 6 - 6:49 - More sore, but still moving at an o.k. pace.
Mile 7 - 6:47 - Started feeling like there was a knot im my calf, but decided to keep an ok pace.
Mile 8 - 7:00 - Started to feel a little more pressure in my calf. It wasn't moving that great. Started to slow down.
Mile 9 - 7:02 - Started to feel some pain.
Mile 10 - 7:18 - Started to be painful. Really had to run flat footed and keep from pushing off on my left foot. This brought my stride down to really short steps.
Mile 11 - 7:40 - Calf started really hurting. Slowed way down.
Mile 12 - 8:00 - Calf was really not doing well - lots of pain. I may have been foolish to keep going. Started telling people to run faster as they passed me, and "beat the guys ahead of me". Cardio felt good, heart rate was only about 115-120 - I didn't feel like I was pushing it physically at all. The small hill put a little more pressure on the calf.
Mile 13 - 7:35 - Ran a little faster though the pain, but not motivated at all.
Mile 13.18 - 7:46 pace.
Afterwards I was pretty bummed out about the run. I ran the Smithfield "Not yo mamma's half at a faster average pace per mile on my Garmin (even considering it was short). I even ran the first half of my last 5 marathons at a faster pace.
After thinking about it, considering the cirumstances I now feel o.k. about it. I wanted a PR, but it was still good to be able to jog it (even through the pain). There was a lot of great PR's and a lot of people did an awesome job. | 