Life, Running, and Everything: California International Marathon -- 3:04:22

Summary

I had a solid race! It got challenging towards the end but I held it together and had a strong finish. My time was 3:04:22 which I'm happy about and which will easily qualify me for the Boston Marathon in 2023, which I intend to run. It was great seeing so many friends.

This was my 8th time running this race and was my 33rd road marathon. (I’ve run about an equal number of ultramarathons.)

Details

I signed up for CIM because it’s always a well-organized not-too-large fast convenient marathon. Plus I had a bunch of friends doing it. Plus it would be nice to have a Boston Marathon qualifier for 2023. This was ambitious though, because this race was was exactly 4 weeks after Rio Del Lago 100 Miles, and so that gave me just two weeks to recover and perhaps get in one long run and then it would be time to taper for two weeks! Happily, it worked out!

Here's how my training went:

11/5 - 11/6 — 103 miles at Rio Del Lago
11/13 — first run after race. 7.5 miles.
11/14 — 8.9 miles. Felt good.
11/20 — 15.2 mile fast run with Lauren and Ross. Two weeks until race day. Time to taper!
11/27 — 13 mile fast run with Lauren and Ross.
In the last week before CIM, I ran four times — 6.9, 7.1, 8, and 6.8 miles.

I wasn’t sure what time goal to aim for. The 3:09 I ran in Boston seemed to be right at my limits. But CIM was a slightly faster course and the weather would probably be a little bit better. I finally settled on aiming for 3:07 as a minimum but I told friends 3:05. I decided to try following (roughly) the Marco plan again, but to treat this as a minimum pace plan.

The plan was as follows, for my per-mile pace:

7:17 x2 miles
7:12 x7 miles
7:08 x8 miles
7:03 for remainder

This is how the race went for each mile. (I pressed the lap button on my watch as I passed each mile marker.)

7:22
7:19
7:04
7:05
7:14
7:09
7:05
7:10
7:09
6:59
7:07
7:06
7:00
7:11
7:04
6:57
6:57
6:54
6:51
6:58
6:58 (averaged with the previous mile; I missed a mile marker)
6:49
6:57
6:54
6:49
6:42
6:11 per mile pace for the last 0.2 miles.

I arrived to Sacramento on the afternoon before the race, to pick up my bib. I ran into a few friends, too.

Left to right: Kenny's wife, Kenny, Kevin, Mor, Justin, myself, Suki

I was able to stay with my friend Elise who lives near downtown Sacramento. Thank you, Elise! For race day morning, my plan was:

3:45am wake up. Eat breakfast (2 bagels w/ peanut butter, 20oz water, canned mocha), get dressed, skin care.
4:30am. Leave Elise’s.
4:40am. Try for street parking at P Street, between 13th and 10th.
4:45am to 5am: meet buses on Nth St, between 13th and 10th. Buses begin loading at 5am.
Carry throw-away warm clothes for the start. (For the first time since I’ve done this race, the race didn’t offer drop bags that would be transported from the start to the finish.)
7am race start.

That worked out just fine. I found parking easily and had enough time to digest my food.

On the bus ride to the start, I sat next to a guy from Minnesota who said “the ratio of biffies to runners was really good at CIM”. “Biffy?” Oh, the portable restrooms. I told him that we usually call these “porta-potties” in the Bay Area. Funny!

I borrowed a pen from the bus driver to write my pace chart on my arm.

I didn’t drink any water since breakfast, because I wanted to minimize the risk of needing to use a porta-potty during the race. That strategy worked well and I was comfortable bathroom-wise for the whole race. However, I was getting thirsty and I wanted some water or sports drink 15 minutes prior to the race start, to drink with my energy gel. In spite of the many many porta-potties at the start, it was still a long wait (15-20 minutes) to go one more time before the race start, so I only had a few minutes to find water. The announcer and signage said there was a water station but when I got there, the attendant asked me, “Do you have an appointment?”. What?!? It looked as if the water station was owned or sponsored by a hotel, so maybe it was a VIP thing. So, no water for me. No one was even in this water station and there were plenty of cups and coolers. Oh well.

I lined up behind the 3:15 pace group, as it was crowded and I couldn’t easily get closer. That’s fine; I was planning on starting slower anyways. And soon, we were off!

I tried to stay calm and feel at ease, but not too slow. There’s a bit of a hill in the first mile, so I was fine with my 7 minutes 22 seconds for my first mile. I felt good! Exciting!

I saw a blind runner up ahead and I thought I recognized his guide. As I passed them, I glanced over. Yes, it was Scott Jurek, a famous ultrarunner, leading a blind runner. Cool!

I started speeding up a bit after mile 2, according to plan. I crossed the 5K (3.1 mile) mark in 22 minutes 29 seconds (7:14 / mile pace).

I passed the 3:15 pace group around mile 8. This was a pretty big group.

At around the half-way point, I was looking for the relay runner hand-off area, but I didn’t quite see it. I was looking for my friend Ross who was running the 2nd leg of the 2-person relay.

I crossed the half-way point at 1 hour 33 minutes 35 seconds, according to the race results. 13.1 miles down, 13.1 miles to go. Average pace: 7:03 per mile. I did a mental review of how things were going. I was feeling the effort, but I was doing OK.

I passed a runner at about the 16 mile mark with the loudest breathing I think I’ve ever heard; it was like he was grunting and shouting at the same time. We had a long ways to go, so it was weird to me that he was pushing so hard at this point. He was wearing ear buds, so maybe he couldn’t hear how loud he was.

The cups at the aid stations were on the small side and sometimes there would be congestion or a runner would be walking in front of the volunteers who were handing out cups. So I wasn’t drinking as much as I would like. At around mile 18, a spectator was offering small bottles of Gatorade. I grabbed one. Score! I had all I wanted to drink and I skipped the next three (?) aid stations.

I was starting to get desperate as the last few miles remained. I was more and more focused on finishing while also trying to continue speeding up. I was passing lots of runners. For the last 1.2 miles, I averaged 6:36 per mile, according to the race results. By my watch, I ran the last 0.2 miles at a 6:11 pace. Whew! That was a good strong finish!

I quickly became very sore as my muscles stiffened and cooled down. I slowly walked to my car and decided to walk back to the race finish area to see if I could find some friends.

It was fun hanging out in the beer garden for a bit. I had so many friends and acquaintances who ran this race!