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| The weather forecast for Pensacola did not look very good the night before the race (Sunday: Periods of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 3pm. Some storms could be severe, with large hail and damaging winds. High near 70. Windy, with a south wind between 15 and 25 mph, with gusts as high as 35 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%). I thought I would receive a lot of rain on my shoulders before I could finish the 26.2 miles. Fortunately, the stormy weather held, and the rain just came after the race was over. I arrived in town on Saturday afternoon with my family, picked my bib, chip and goodies package at the expo, and stayed in a hotel in downtown. To my surprise, I found a Colombian restaurant located right there next to the hotel. Great! I could eat some pasta with the distinct Colombian flavor before the race. You may wonder what the big deal is about finding a restaurant from your country. Well.... the closest Colombian restaurants to Hattiesburg are located in Houston, TX and Atlanta, GA!!! So one in Pensacola sounds good to me. By the way, Colombian cuisine has almost nothing in common with Mexican cuisine, which maybe a surprise for some of you! Anyway, let's get back to the race..... The Pensacola Marathon was very well-organized and provided an interesting tour of Pensacola. At 6:30 a.m. the temperature was in the high 60’s with overcast skies and a strong wind. The temperature stayed in the 60’s through the morning hours, and it was a great day for a race. The combined fields of the marathon and half marathon totaled about 660 runners. The course was very scenic in the first half of the race. The second part was good but not as pretty as the first 8 miles. After the gun went off, we went uphill for two miles along scenic Escambia Bay, kept going through rolling hills along Scenic Highway for 6-7 more miles and then back into downtown. After mile 17, runners turned to the left into a loop that took us near the air station. There were a couple of hard bridge overpasses at miles 16, 19 and 23. The traffic control was excellent. The course was covered by young marines at every intersection and neighborhood entrance. Police officers covered every major turn or intersection. There were aid stations every 2 miles, and they were very well staffed. After running the Marine Corps and Gulf Coast Marathons and succumbing to the effects of fatigue and lack of energy, I came with a different approach to run the marathon this time. The '4 hours time' was really bugging me. I was in the right pace until mile 22-24 in both events, and I just struggled real bad and died in the last miles. What did I do different this time? First, during training, I did not do any of those boring and annoying long runs over 16 miles (I can't stand them!). Second, I closely followed Kily's advice on nutrition during the race (frequency of eating those sticky glus and drinking water!). Third, I did not start so fast and just tried to keep a steady pace similar to the one I do when running during the weekends (close to 9 min/m) and four, I just quitted looking at the time in my watch after mile 5. Well... it seems the plan worked fine. I passed the half point in 1:56:32 and managed to cross the finish line in 3:58:35. I placed 77 of 263 finishers, eighth in my age group.Guess what I did after the race? Of COURSE!! You got it! I went again to the Colombian restaurant with my family and celebrated the new PR with a delicious typical Colombian plate..... Mmmmm... yummy, yummy!! After lunch, we drove back to Hattiesburg crossing through a 'nice' windy supercell thunderstorm in Alabama. See you guys next week in New Orleans! © Pijume Diwesi Overall results can be consulted in the following link --> http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?pubID=3&rsID=59536 | |||
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