Tobacco Road Marathon: The First Half

Since I planned to race strategically yet also go out conservatively, I keyed off the other women as the elite field eased down to pace.  One woman was out in front quickly, and I assumed she was Martha Akeno, who I expected to win the race in a time I couldn't match.  I settled in with two other women, giving us a little pack for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place.  We ran together for a couple of minutes before I decided to break the ice with a comment about how it would be awfully nice to work together because it was going to be quite lonely out there otherwise!  They both reciprocated and we introduced ourselves.  Lauren mentioned that her goal was to break 2:50, and I told her I suspected I'd be in the high-2:40s on this course although I planned to run by feel, and we were both happy to have company!  We eased away from the other woman after a very conservative 6:51 first mile.

Lauren and I chatted easily and the miles flew by as early marathon miles do.  After the first 2.5 miles on the road, we turned north onto the American Tobacco Trail.  I'd watched a course tour video and looked at photographs of the course before the race, but it was difficult to gauge what the gravel was like from those medium, so I'd been anxious to see it in person. The trail was well-maintained, but it was gravel with some loose sand on top.  Since most of the race was on the trail and spectators were discouraged at the start and finish, it was a pretty bare course, but there were some wonderful cheer-ers at road crossings and fabulous volunteers at aid stations.  I tried to smile at everyone along the route. 

Lauren and I ran side by side, relaxed and feeling good, and got to know each other a bit.  I took my first gel at mile 6 as planned.  The aid stations had only water bottles, which Lauren and I kind of took turns grabbing and then sharing (gasp, even in COVID times), but it was a hassle because you had to hold onto the bottle until the next trash can to get rid of it.  They had a trash can 5-10 m after each aid station, but it wasn't far enough to actually drink the water if you were running through, so I ended up sticking bottles into my shorts waistband after I drank them.  I also stuffed my gel packages into my shorts until the next trash can.  Maybe I'm glad there aren't race photos (also due to COVID), but I didn't litter on that beautiful trail!

Sometime before we hit our first 180* turn around at mile 8.5, the first man from the 6 a.m. start caught us.  We ended up leap-frogging with him for a bit before inviting him to run with us, which he did until dropping back around the half.  When we saw the leading female coming back towards us from the turn around, I marked the time on my watch, and she had over a 5 minute lead on us so we joked that our only hope was if she dropped out.  In turn, we had a pretty significant gap on the 4th place woman, so we felt that as long as no disasters happened we would podium - but one can never rule out disasters in a marathon!

I greatly enjoyed running with Lauren and I hoped to help her achieve her sub-2:50 goal.  I find that when I want the best for my competition, I also get the best out of myself.  Of course if I'd have been asked, I wanted to nab the 2nd place spot, but it wasn't something I ever thought of during the race.  We came through the half in 1:24:52, and I told her "all we have to do it that again!", but we both thought we would do it again faster [spoiler: we did!].

The story continues here...

Clearly this photo is not from the first
half, but I'm short on pics from this race!