I just finished up the Ocean Drive Marathon yesterday, a point to point course from the tip of Cape May up the shoreline to Sea Isle City, about 20 miles away. It mostly goes up Ocean Drive, which is just to the right of the Garden State Parkway, along the boardwalks and promenades in the sleepy ocean towns there. There was also a companion 10-mile race that went part of way up the course, from Cape May to North Wildwood, which we would be running with until then.
I had some pretty high expectations for this marathon, considering the issues I've had with my last few marathons. Even though my PR stood at 4:28, I knew I had a sub-4:00 marathon in me and I was all in for it today. It led to me having a lot of nerves just before this race started, more than I can remember having pre-race in quite a while. Even though I knew I could hit 4:00, it would take everything going my way, and even then I knew just how hard I would have to push to get there. I tried to just tell myself to trust my training and visualized how happy I was going to be to finally achieve what I worked so hard for, taking all those winter runs in sub-zero, snowy conditions. I reminded myself that this was more the fruits of my labor than the labor itself.
I got to the course around 8:00, an hour before the gun, and got a nice, free parking spot next to the Congress House, just a couple hundred feet from the starting line. I could see already that this was going to be a small race, which is definitely my preference. I don't need cheering crowds everywhere, as much as I need to get through the first few miles of the race without tripping over runners all around me. The weather was as perfect as you could ask for in Cape May in March: chilly but sunny, temperature of 30 degrees with "only" a 10 mph headwind. (Why they don't run this race from Sea Isle City to Cape May instead, so that annual headwind becomes a tailwind, I don't know.) I wore my base top to block the wind with a hoodie, running pants with leg compressors underneath, hat, gloves and sunglasses, with Saucony Kinvara 5's as my racing shoes. I felt chilled pre-race, but comfortable once I got going.
All the race organizers and volunteers were as friendly and helpful as could be, as were the other runners - there really was a tight-knit community feel to the race that I liked. I spent the hour before the race Being Nervous: some light jogs to warm up, stretching, pacing around here to there, two trips to the porta potty, going back and forth to my car to get this thing or the other. Like I was telling another runner there, I was used to getting out the door to my house in the morning and just running, not standing outside and waiting an hour to do it! Come on!! I was chomping at the bit to go!
But there's nothing quite like a nice ocean view to calm the nerves.
Finally the gun sounded (at 9:00 SHARP, which I appreciated from my experience with other races!) and I was off. We headed down Ocean Drive, running by these gorgeous Victorian houses on the shore. According to Wikipedia, Cape May has one of the largest collections of late 19th century frame buildings left in the United States, and we saw a huge chunk of nice ones there. They're aren't the *nicest* ones - we'd have to go through the Historic District for those - but they're still not too shabby for all the beach tourists that come here. Even though I didn't take pictures myself on this run (I wasn't going to stop for *anything*, much less pictures!), I'll throw in a picture from another website so you can see what I mean.
I knew that to hit sub-4:00, I would need to run at a pace of 9:10 per mile. So my plan was to start off slow, around 10:00 for the first mile to warm up, then down to 9:30 for the next two miles or so, and finally ease into a 9:00 - 9:10 pace. But I was still having a hard time keeping my nerves in check (plus the fact that I had kind of warmed up already with my pre-race jogging), and my first mile actually came in too fast, at 9:19. But I slowly reined myself in after that, putting on a spoken-word podcast instead of music on my phone (a little trick that works great for me), and clocked 9:26 for mile 2 and finally down to 9:50 for Mile 3. I knew saving myself in the early stages was going to be a huge key for me to finish strong.
By this point, we were leaving Cape May and taking the causeway up to Wildwood. It was around here that we took a fairly steep bridge out of Cape May to the parkway (which I was expecting, having driven this bridge to get here), but then not long after we went off to Ocean Drive, we hit an even steeper bridge somewhere in the marshlands there. Not sure what the name of the bridge was, but I was cautious and took it slow. It felt ok even though I hadn't done any hill work prior to the race. There wasn't much to look at the next few miles, just marshes and open space. So I focused on my podcast and hitting my times, which I did really well - 9:17, 9:32 (where the steeper bridge was), 9:10. This was about the point where I finally started to feel decently strong and think that I could really pull this off.
We got to the Wildwood boardwalk at this point, which is a really cool old boardwalk, even if most of the shops were still closed for the cold season. I'd really love to take the family there sometime this summer. I'm going to appropriate another photo here. Imagine this with most of the stores closed and *way* fewer people, and that's what I saw.
There's something about running on the boardwalk boards that my legs didn't like, so I stayed on the narrow strips of concrete on the sides of the boardwalk that you see there during this stretch. It was one of those little things that vaguely feels like cheating even though it totally isn't. My times were looking good, and I was already starting to shave some seconds off from my "warmup" at mile 3 - 9:05, 9:03, 8:56, 8:59. Since I am a huge geek, of course I'm doing math in my head, calculating how many seconds off goal pace I was at ever mile in my head *constantly* and getting excited as I was getting closer. It's just how I roll.
It may have contributed to a mistake I made as I crossed mile 10. It was the finish line for the 10-milers as well as my 10 mile mark, and since I wasn't paying attention (computing my pace in my head instead), I accidentally ran over the 10-milers finish line instead of staying in the marathon lane! People were cheering for me when I didn't earn it, and I had to wave off a 10-mile medal someone tried to put around my neck. "I have no time for your pithy trinkets - there's still running to be done!", I didn't really say. I then had to cut through a crowd after the finish line to get back with the marathoners. I had these sudden visions of race officials pulling me off the course and telling me I was disqualified, but they didn't seem to care all that much. So, hooray for apathetic race officials, I guess!
We went over Beach Creek Bridge and onto Nummy Island here (yes, that's really the island's name), with more marshlands. Not the most exciting scenery, but I was just focusing on time and hydration at this point. I kept the hydration strategy simple, making sure to hit every water stop along the way, with only half a bottle of water on my belt to take energy gels with. I had brought a straw from McDonalds that I cut in half with some scissors, and used the two straw halves to drink water as I kept moving, where I could get every last drop out of the cup rather than splashing half of it on the ground as I tried to throw it in my mouth. I had more than one race volunteer remark on it as I sped by, impressed with the trick. (What a grizzled, weathered running veteran I am!) But I was more impressed with the volunteer staff, who always had water ready, was super friendly, and clearly had experience doing this. (I'd go so far as to call *them* the grizzled, weathered ones, but I'm not sure if they'd take it as a complement.)
Times were still looking great so far: 9:04, 9:02, 9:02, 9:07, and 9:12 up to mile 15. (Are you bored with all these numbers yet? I'm not! Did I mention I'm a huge math geek?) Also worth noting is that I hit my HM split at 2:00:45, which would be a PR if I were running a half marathon. I'm not sure whether that technically counts as a HM personal record, but I'm going to count it since I'm awesome.
This is when I got to Stone Harbor, with a little horseshoe in the course where there was a rest area with bananas and oranges. I gratefully shoved a banana in my mouth and an orange slice in my pocket and moved on. This was definitely the worse part of the course - we were running through this sorta boring residential area where streets were numbered starting with 110th Street, working all the way down to 1st street. I can't adequately explain to non-runners how deflating this sort of thing is. You're subliminally thinking things like "Yay! One block down, only...ONE HUNDRED AND NINE to go??" Between this effect and the weather climbing up a few degrees, I was starting to feel some fatigue setting in. Even though my times were holding steady - 9:19, 8:59, 9:02, 9:03, and 9:10 through mile 20 - it was definitely taking more perceived effort to hold it there. This was around the time I switched the podcasts off and the music back on. I went with Radiohead, and it definitely gave me a boost. I ate an energy gel and tried to let the tempo guide me home.
I liked where I was through mile 20 - still only 30 seconds or so off of goal pace. But that confidence from mile 6 and 7 was gone. I was reaching that decision point that every runner who's trying for a certain goal knows about: do I have enough in me to make it to the end, or not? I've had runs where I've answered "yes" and crushed to the finish, and times where I've answered "no" and the wheels start to fall off once the psychological edge was gone. (And in other marathons, miles 21 and 22 have always been where the wall starts to come into play for me.) But today, I honestly didn't know. I told myself there was only 10K left, to take it one mile at a time, and hold on and keep my chances alive.
And that's exactly what I did - 9:05 in mile 21, 9:12 in mile 22, 9:08 in mile 23. I wasn't making up a lot of ground, but I wasn't losing any either. I finally passed 1st Street (thank God!) and got over TI bridge okay into Sea Isle City (it was a little like Cape May, with lost of Victorian houses, but definitely a sleepier town with more muted colors.) I was passed my usual marathon breaking point, still only 20 seconds off goal pace (which I could achieve with a good kick at the end), and even though I was almost out of gas, I was getting more and more optimistic. But then, disaster hit -- 94th Street!? More numbered streets until the end!? AAAUGGHHH - just kidding, I didn't care about the streets. I was barely paying attention to the scenery at this point, just absorbed into myself, trying to will myself to this goal.
But then, at the mile 24 marker, I feel a sudden, really sharp cramp in my upper left leg. It was so shocking that I involuntarily stopped (which was the absolute LAST thing I wanted to do at that point!) I had to spend about a full minute stretching out and making sure I was ok - it was tender, but I was good to go ahead. However, I knew when I stopped that my sub-4:00 dream was over. :( I would try to finish strong though, and maybe get somewhere between a 4:00 and 4:01 time, but my cramp just wouldn't allow it. This was the part of the race I planned to run at 9:00 or faster, and I just couldn't push myself above 9:30 at that point. Times were 9:33 for mile 24 (my cramp hit at the very end), 10:40 for mile 25 (this is where my stretching break killed me!) and 9:33 for mile 26, all along the long, empty Sea Isle City promenade. It was so straight and flat that I could see the finish line from a mile away, which was a huge mental boost at that point. I managed to put together a kick at the end at an 8:29 pace, which gave me a finish time of 4:02:53.
I have to admit, it hurt being *so* close to my goal and not quite getting there, because of something I couldn't control. But my happiness at shattering my PR by OVER 25 MINUTES far outweighs that! *Finally*, I felt like I mostly put things together in this race, and the results speak to that. There's minor things I could have improved, and maybe any one of those things might have been the difference between 4:03 and 4:00, but this race gives me a ton of confidence as a runner. Overall, it was easily the best race I've ever had. Even aside from my personal victory, I would definitely recommend this course for people who like small races and don't mind a little weather, like you'd see here most years. If I can come back and have my revenge on 4:00 in another year, I will.
