Cleveland Rocks!

Better go grab a latte and a bag of chips. This report is long...

The Cleveland Marathon was my “revenge” marathon. It was my third marathon. I ran LBCM in 2005 and finished in 4:56:xx then ran The Flying Pig (hometown marathon) in 2006 with a finish time of 5:09:xx. As my fitness deteriorated over the summer of 2006, I approached the fall with a firm resolve to tackle my nemesis: THE MARATHON. I hired a trainer and laid down the law. “I don’t need a shrink. I just want to beat my fastest marathon time.” My trainer is not a runner, so in his naiveté answered, “No problem, you will absolutely beat your time.” My trainer believed in me and I believed in my trainer. Together we created a success story that led to Cleveland. If you’ve kept up with my blog since November, you’re already familiar with the training regime which included strength and core training twice a week in addition to marathon training. If not, you can still catch up, but I’m going to fast forward here the MARATHON.

We arrived in Cleveland on Friday afternoon. Our weekend included tickets to Jacobs Field to watch the Indians play the Reds. Our seats were amazing! Three rows behind the Reds dugout, which I took to be a good omen even though the Reds were trounced by the Tribe 9-4. Never mind, Cincinnati got ‘em back on Saturday 10-4. (We won’t talk about Sunday). Saturday, we headed to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame Museum and fought our way through the weekend crowds. As we were watching the highlights movie from HOF inductions, I started getting nervous for the marathon as I realized that many of the songs and artists in the movie were on my “Long Running Songs” playlist on my ipod.

Oh, yes, I should talk about the Cleveland Marathon itself. This year was the 30th anniversary for the Cleveland Marathon. You would never know it. There is virtually no excitement in the city for the marathon. The maps of the course were completely ineffective, both for nonlocal runners hoping to drive the course and especially for spectators planning on scouting out strategic viewing locations. The expo was pretty good – lots of free stuff – but official merchandise was icky and the marathon shirts, though tech shirts, were only in men’s sizes, so I am practically swallowed up by my size small shirt.

The Cleveland Marathon, now in its 30th year, is very small. There are three races, a marathon, half-marathon, and a 10k. There is some prize money, with the majority of the prize purse going to the 10k, so that is where the Cleveland Plain Dealer placed its prerace emphasis. Unfortunately, the 10k was subject to a major snafu. If you’re interested, you can read about it here. Supposedly, there were 9000 total runners, but I believe there were only about 2000 marathoners. In fact, after the half and the full split, I was running virtually alone the remainder of the race.

The race began at 7:00 AM. My stated goal for this marathon was 4:40, but after some discussion in my blog about “secret” goals, a secret goal of 4:30 was revealed, and thinking I could actually run a 4:30 marathon, I lined up with the 4:30 pacer. It didn’t matter where I lined up though, because as soon as the horn sounded, the 4:30 pacer was out like a bat out of hell and I never saw him again. To run a 4:30 marathon, you have to keep a steady 10:18 pace, which in a field this small, was entirely doable. My splits for the first 4 miles are all under that pace and I NEVER saw the pacer.

The race course is very scenic. It is not flat, however, and I felt sorry for those runners who entered believing it to be flat. I did my training on hills, so it didn’t bother me a bit, but I heard several groans as we covered the rolling hills of the course. The race starts right in downtown Cleveland and the first quarter and the last quarter are right on the lakefront. It is definitely a windy course, and the wind is relentless from miles 19-23. The wind didn’t bother me though. I’d rather have the scenery of Lake Erie with the wind, then running endless miles on a desolate highway. There was very little of that.

So, how did it go? The weather was perfect. I was happy with my pacing. I felt like I was running with energy for most of the race. Although the race field was small, I had steeled my mind for boredom in training and I didn’t feel like I needed any crowd encouragement (though it would have been nice. C’mon Cleveland! Show some enthusiasm for your marathon!) At the halfway point, I went ahead and turned on my ipod. For a marathon with the slogan “Cleveland Rocks and Runs” I must say that the entertainment along the course was pathetic to nonexistent. There were maybe two bands and every once in a while there would be a tent on the side of the road with a boom box connected to a big speaker. Period. I didn’t need it though.

My finish time was seriously effected by the FIVE bathroom stops I took. Thank goodness Cleveland has large, old trees bordering the highway. Thank goodness for running skirts! I don’t know what to do about this issue. Kegels? I took two detrol before the race, but obviously they didn’t work.

Running to the finish with Jim

My bathroom stop at mile 12 is really the one that put me behind, but I felt like I could make up that time if I just took it easy until Mile 20. I was feeling fine and running strong until about exactly Mile 20. Then the course took us along a long airfield next to the Lake and the wind, the monotony, and 20 miles of running strong took its toll and I began to slow down. I kept telling myself that I was having more fun than I had at the Rock museum, but it wasn’t working. I told myself I had trained to run on tired legs. That didn't work either. Just after running around Cleveland Browns Stadium and passing a roller blader (yes, I am not kidding and the idiot nearly wiped out and took some runners out with him), I was passed by a girl with a 4:45 bib on her back. Even though I knew she was running faster that 4:45, it bummed me out a little because I definitely wanted to beat 4:45. Around Mile 24, our friend Chris ran by me and I tried to keep up with her for the rest of the race. We passed "4:45 girl" and then Chris ran ahead (she was really smoking!) but I kept pushing it to the finish line. As I rounded the final corner to mile 26, I saw my husband and daughter wearing their “Team Wolf” shirts and Scott’s cousin Jim, who’d already finished, sprinted with me to the finish. Because of the small field of runners, I had the whole road to myself and I heard the announcer say “Make way for the lady in pink. She could use some more room!” I spread my arms wide and would have stopped to take a bow, but I was determinedto beat the clock to 4:40 and I did easily with a finish time PR of 4:39:10. The medal is totally cool. The finish line food was definitely unique. Aside from the usual apples and bananas, there were popsicles, cheetos, fritos, pretzles, potato chips, fruit cups, twinkies, cupcakes, chocolate and strawberry milk, an assortment of fruit punches. And beer. You had to pay for the beer. There was also a really cool 70s disco band. There were NO MYLAR BLANKETS.

Do I have 4:30 in me? Definitely if I can get my bathroom breaks under control, I think I can go for 4:20.

If you can stand reading anymore, here are the splits:

Mile 1 9:44

Mile 2 10:14

Mile 3 9:50

Mile 4 10:02

Mile 5 10:58 (big tree pit stop)

Mile 6 10:12

Mile 7 10:04

Mile 8 10:17
Mile 9 10:41 (into the woods)
Mile 10 10:11
Mile 11 10:53
Mile 12 12:27 (uh, oh… needed a porta john)
Mile 13 10:04
Mile 14 10:05
Mile 15 10:09
Mile 16 10:49 (pit stop)
Mile 17 10:21
Mile 18 10:36
Mile 19 10:39
Mile 20 10:37
Mile 21 11:35 (pit stop)
Mile 22 10:49
Mile 23 11:35
Mile 24 12:57Mile 25 10:56
Mile 26 9:51
Mile 26.24 2:22