Iheya-jima Moonlight Marathon, 2008

I had written a pre-marathon post for the blog but couldn’t find internet! Essentially I listed some thoughts and expectations, including a time between 3:40 and 3:45 and that the last 10k would be exceptionally difficult because my endurance probably suffered from the three-week America trip gap.

The marathon was Saturday afternoon at 3pm. There were two of us running the full marathon, six running the half, and two just spectating. One interesting note was my friend Vaughn, who was called Saturday morning at 9am and told that our friend Emily signed up but wouldn’t be running so there was an open slot. It had been months since Vaughn had run, but he hurried across the mainland to catch the last afternoon ferry and he finished the half marathon under Emily’s name.

The start was hot. Hot enough that I thought to start slow and reserve energy until it cooled down later. But I struggled a lot in the first 15k – not with pace but with feeling good. I’d drank some electrolyte drinks that were causing me to burp and my insides just weren’t settling nicely. My pace was decent and consistent: I finished 5k in 24:22, 10k in 48:47, and 15k in 1:13. Numbers-wise, things get a little fuzzy from there, but I do remember how beautiful the course was. It was a gradual undulation around the exterior of the island all the way to the finish.

I finished 20k just under 1:40 and was a little disappointed to not see a halfway marker (km markings were an issue on this course as they only showed up every 5k), but I guessed myself to be crossing it around 1:45. From there I gradually picked off runners in front of me, passing about six people en route to the finish. It started to get dark at 6pm when I crossed the 35km marker (almost 3 hours exactly). At 36km (35km-42.195km were marked at every km) the running started to become pretty difficult. This is ordinarily a challenging part of the race, but it was slightly compounded by two respectable inclines just before the end. The top of the first incline was lined for a couple hundred meters by clear Christmas lights, which was a neat touch. (The second incline was lined with cheering spectators, an even better touch.) At 38k I began the inevitable countdown to the finish, but it’s really, really hard to say something to yourself like “only 25 more minutes of this excruciating pain.” (The answer is, of course, “isn’t 3 hours and 10 minutes enough?”)

The finish line was in a stadium with many spectators. My friends Cliff and Emily ran alongside me for the last 100m, which was really nice. I recall saying something to Cliff to the effect of “life sucks right now.” After the finish (3:39.32) I was in rough shape. The junior high school volunteers are instructed to put a medal around the runner’s neck then direct them to the drink table and over to the timing-chip-turn-in/certificate-receiving table, but I was having none of that. I grabbed my medal and wandered around for a few minutes before following instructions.

Recovery was slow. Fortunately I have run enough marathons that now I plan better for my post-race condition and what I will need. This time I wisely brought a change of clothes to the finish line, which I changed into after discovering hot showers. I learned to stick to my own food as I nearly threw up from the free beef stew – fortunately I did bring food.

I have a mixed reaction to my performance at the race. While I came in almost exactly where I predicted, I was hoping to finish a few minutes faster. But considering everything working against a good time (missing the most important 3 weeks of my training plan, a hot first hour, and an evening start), I probably did just fine. It was really hard to believe, though, that (a) I ran a 3:21 at Okinawa City nine months ago and (b) that I want to beat that time in 3.5 months.

By the way, I finished 8th overall, which is pretty cool. There were 164 marathoners, of which about 130(?) were men (my ranking is exclusive of women).