Tobacco Road Marathon: The Aftermath

I will always cherish the feeling of conquering a marathon, and I'm still riding the post-race high!  I also continue to be amazed at how God directed me towards this race that I would not have typically chosen, but turned out to be exactly what I needed to finish off a season that I am beyond thankful for.

I believe that my race would have yielded a PR on a "perfect" course, and I'd be lying if I said that PRs don't matter to me, but running the way I did on this gravel course with over 700 feet of gain gave me more confidence to attack my PR head on in the fall.  It's uncertain what the 2024 OTQ standard will be, or when the window will open, but I hope to chase it or at the least get that darn 2:44:59 I've been pursuing for so long!

I showed up on the Philly Track Club
page, & I love this caption!

Before I left for the race, I told Jon that I thought I was going to run 2:48; his response was "That's too ambitious for dirt", so the first text I sent him after the race was a picture of my Garmin and "I ran 2:48 mostly because you said I couldn't".  I also told Christian 2:48, so she can vouch for me, but I need to start publishing this stuff beforehand so my claim is really solidified!  Though not as precise as when I predicted my marathon time within 2 seconds, I was pretty proud of how well I know where I'm at even though I wasn't quite sure how to account for the gravel and elevation in the equation.  I will never know exactly how much the dirt slowed me down, but Lauren has the premium Strava so I borrowed her grade-adjusted pace data... Miles 23-24 were when I put most of the 13 seconds on her.

After the finish and viewing the initial official results, we celebrated my 2nd place and Lauren's 3rd place finish.  However, an hour or so later, another woman was listed as 3rd overall female, in 2:48:58.  A little research showed that she'd started in a non-elite wave, and run a time smack dab between my time and Lauren's time.  As I mentioned earlier, the race started elites together so we would know who we were racing, and the rest of the field started gradually and time-trialed for the sake of social distancing.  I don't know how the 3rd place female didn't choose to start with the elites, but it was hard for me to stomach because I think Lauren should have been 3rd.  Things play out differently when you're racing head-to-head, and I hate that Lauren got edged by and lost prize money to someone who she wasn't racing directly; if my place had changed in this situation I'd have been sick over it.  I imagine things would have gone differently for all 3 of us had we all started at the same time, and I'm confident that I could have dug deeper if I'd needed to for placing, so I'm sure Lauren could have too and it left a bad taste in my mouth.  Overall the race did a really, really amazing job putting on the event under countless COVID restrictions, but I wish they would have made the regulation that those competing for podium positions must start in the elite wave.  The only reason I can think of why she didn't was in order to start with a man who she wanted to run with.

Christian ran the half marathon on Sunday (one of the COVID changes was two separate races days to reduce the number of people around), and several others women I've become acquainted with over the past couple of years through OTQ-chasing also ran in the half elite field.  Christian finished 8th from the elite start but was later bumped to 10th, and my friend Ann finished in 2nd from the elite start but was later bumped to 3rd.  I also don't know why the woman who was 2nd in 1:19 didn't sign up for the elite start.  I loved watching the half runners compete and I was out of my mind excited despite getting only 3 hours of sleep with my traditional post-marathon insomnia!

Oh, and the only place I chaffed during the race was from a gel package that was in my shorts for who knows how many miles.  I took gels at 6, 11, 16, and 21, and kept stuffing the trash into my shorts then throwing it away at the next trash can, but one package didn't make it out until after the race.  There's a first time for everything I guess!

Race vacation summary is here...