Race day arrives, the gun goes off and i blast off. I take the lead 100 yards into the race and go solo for the win. Sounds great, doesn't it? It wasn't that easy. I went out at what felt comfortable, building a sizable lead. At 20 miles i was at 1:47 flat with an 8 minute lead. Along the way, my friend Roland Davide, who has the course record and still has the fastest marathon run in Maine at 2:15, was with me on the bike warning that i was running too fast. I should have taken the advice of someone of his running stature, but i felt good. I was thinking from the splits that i was looking at 2:18-19 range...SWEET! Two hours in, well past 22 miles and i am having a sense of impending doom. The legs are starting to go, so i am thinking it is only 3 to go, how bad can it be. Bad. With 2 to go i had to walk, there was nothing left in the tank. All in all, i walked 5 times in the last 2 miles. I finished the race at 2:28., a minute in front of second. It took 19 minutes to go the last 2 miles. It is still a win, just not how i planned to do it. I did get the best trophy ever, a hand made lobster trap table. It still sits in my parents living room in Narragansett
In the twenty five years since this race, i have run 5 marathons. It is not what you would call my favorite distance. I don't like training for them, i really never respected the distance. I would like to do one more though so i could try to get into the 5 Decade Club which is running sub 3 hours in 5 different decades. I have 4 down now from the seventies on with nothing slower than 2:47. I have ten years to do it, we will see what happens.
Check out this link for a cool website on Maine running history:
mainerunninghistory.org
11 comments:
Awesome photos and post! I think you should go for another sub-3 and then take up trail running and do some slow ultras like me.
Pretty cool Scott. I don't know how you guys remember details from 25 years ago. I couldn't tell you what shirt I'm wearing if I couldn't look down. I had a Van Halen hat just like that in the early 80's and wore it backwards all the time. Boy was that gay. You looked taller then, what happened? :-)
Cool post and good pix.
Looking forward to hearing about the journey to sub 3 for the 5th decade.
Hey Steve, i wasn't taller, just much thinner!
Scott, that's awesome! I think you should go for it. Bring back that 'stache and anything is possible!
great running story Scott; thanks for sharing it.. right about that time, I was getting offers to come to the usa to run, looking at a map and trying to decide which college was closest to Ireland ie cheapest for flights. We very often mark our life's major milestones through running history.
Trish, looks like you made the right decision.
Ryan, two words....No 'stache
GZ, Too bad you won't be here for MW, i will have my homebrewed IPA for post race replenishment.
Nice Scott,
I could tell when you went by me on the downhills of that snowshoe race last year that you had a champion's running stride.
Are those Nike Air Mariah's on your feet or something else you got concocted up?
Jim
Jim, they aren't Mariahs. They might be the Air Edge. It does not say on the shoe itself, how do i know? They are still in the closet. I used to wear test for Nike back then and ended up with some weird stuff, but these were over the counter even though i probably got them for free.
My father ran that race 4 times in the late 70's early 80's. As a kid I had no idea the sacrifice and physical effort it took train for and run a marathon. The MCM was just something my dad did once a year.
Scott, that's a great story. I'm glad you shared it with us. Boston 2011!!!
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