Wednesday, October 21, 2009

PEI marathon report

I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe I'll just start at the start and see where this goes. I arrived at the Brackley beach area about 1/2 hour before the start and only had a few minutes before I ran into Trevor and his lovely wife who also ran the marathon today. After determining that Trevor was going to be totally at my mercy today with no watch or other aids, I hustled him over to the starting area so he could be introduced to the various pace bunnies, all of which we hoped to never see again and did not.
As Trevor so nicely describes in his blog (which has a wonderful blow by blow of the day's run) the course is simply picture postcard perfect if you have time to look around and enjoy the scenery. Here we are a few kilometers in, along the beach where we had to deal with a slight headwind of 10-15mph. Did I mention getting passed by a baby stroller? #$%& relay runners!

Here's Trevor and I at the 12k mark about to unload our sweaty gear on my wife and daughter who took this great picture. We had a great day and for the most part it felt like a nice long run as we just cruised along at a very easy pace. Or at least that's how it felt like to me but I think Trevor might beg to differ on this opinion later on in the race.
You might wonder how the heck we got this picture (about 18k) but a girl we had just passed kindly offered to take the camera off my hands and snapped this decent image of the two of us. Still feeling good from the looks of it. It really did feel easy for the two of us and I was constantly reminding my buddy to slow down or dial it back because I wasn't planning on letting go the reins until the 30k mark.
Woo hoo! Still having fun in PEI, somewhere between 20-30k on the trails.
But I think Trevor was having a harder time as we worked our way through course. Besides keeping his pace under control I kept on him about using different muscles and changing his stride once in awhile. The different terrain and gentle ups and downs of this marathon course make it nice for allowing you to do this but it's still a marathon and it gets to be a long way after awhile.
Thank goodness for the jokes and riddles at each kilometer when you don't have Andrew along for company. Even Trevor had to admit that many of the jokes were Andrew worthy (meaning really corny or bad but still made you chuckle). From 35k to the finish things got a little tougher for me and a lot tougher for Trevor but he never complained except to say that his stomach was bothering him. We worked together to tackle each section of the road and the stupid hills and more of those &%$#@@ relay runners that I kept wanting to trip or at least challenge them to a short sprint and just kept plugging away. I knew the key for getting us in under 4 hours was just to keep moving and not allow any walking and that's how it went.
We crossed the line exactly together but I forgot to check which foot our chips were on and so we got a 1 second differential in our times despite being in step. You beat me Trevor! Just wait till next time!!

It was a great day for a marathon and now 3 days later I'm feeling pretty well back to normal and may put in a few short runs to loosen up the legs a bit. I've been biking back and forth to work (which is only 2k) and the hills aren't bothering me any more. I'm also pretty much topped up on the post-marthon beer and ice-cream and so 'life is good'.

Take it easy on the roads and have a nice week!

14 comments:

RICK'S RUNNING said...

thanks for sharing your marathon with us all,you kind of make running a marathon sound like a walk in the park but hell 26.2 miles is an awesome long way!
Keep on keeping on!

Ms. V. said...

...an amazing accomplishment!!

Thomas said...

An excellent report, Mike. Pacing a friend to a marathon must be a great experience.

Trevor said...

Great stuff Mike. You even managed to sneak in a picture of a relay runner trying to keep his hands warm, just behind me in the first photo.

Cal said...

Great report! and a great time too!

Grellan said...

Great report and photos Mike. Well done on keeping Trevor on the right track.

Ewen said...

So, when is a door not a door?!

Good report and photos Mike. I like the idea of having some trail running later on in a marathon.

I see you've got Big Sur penciled in as your next marathon - should get equally spectacular views on that one! And revenge on those nasty baby strollers ;)

Michael said...

congratulations, well done.

Love2Run said...

Ewen,
"When it's ajar!" Nyuk, nyuk! Can you hear Andrew laughing?

Big Sur site says "no animals, pacers, skates, skateboards, bikes, baby joggers or children/infants in backpacks allowed on the course. No bandits. No exceptions" ...but they do have relay runners, damn!

Bonus is the special division awards:
- Mozartic (trained in an area that has an annual snowfall of 24 inches or more).

MB said...

WTG pace bunny! I love the photos reminding us of our visit up there.

Ewen said...

HA! I laughed Mike so perhaps I have an American sense of humour. Must be from watching all those US sit-coms.

Who laughs at an American's Jokes?
A Canuck. Nyuk, nuyk! :)

DawnB said...

Great report Mike, looks like a great course, congratulations again.

DawnB said...

Great report Mike, looks like a great course, congratulations again.

Andrew said...

He never laughs at the jokes... It's generally a groan and occasionally he throws a punch. One time he even asked if "that was supposed to be a joke?"