Inaugural Illinois Marathon - Race Report

Champaign/Urbana, Illinois
April 11, 2009

As I stood patiently, coldly (in shorts and a t-shirt on this 36-degree morning), listening to a beautiful rendition of the Star Spangled Banner sung by The Other Guys choral group, one thought dominated my mind. Now that I’m finally first in line for the porta-potty, do I go in and pee during our national anthem? Or do I wait and risk a late start to the race? Though I was leaning toward the latter anyway, my dilemma was thankfully resolved by my predecessor who took enough time that the song was finished before I had the chance to go in.

Ah, but I was not yet out of the woods! Seconds later I’m inside, half panicked that the race is about to start without me (which really doesn’t help the process, by the way), all ready to take care of business, and I hear through those thick blue-plastic walls around me, “Now please bow your heads as Father MacReynolds leads us in the benediction prayer.” Oh, no!!! It seemed to me that the potential desecration of the first act was exceeded only by the blasphemy of the second!

But I was alone in that potty. No one would know except me. And maybe God. The race was just seconds away. I’m sorry, dear Reader, but I must admit it. I peed through the benediction.

I finally stepped out and back into the cold, relieved to find that the Inaugural Illinois Marathon had not yet started. I wiggled my way onto the street and spied the 3:40 pace sign, and then glanced skyward nervously, waiting for the bolt of lightning to strike me down. To my right were the University of Illinois’ generically-named basketball and football stadiums, Assembly Hall and Memorial Stadium. Ahead, spanning First Street in a huge arc, were the ladders from 2 fire trucks: one fire truck from Urbana on the east side of the street and one from Champaign on the west side of the street. In the middle where the ladders met was a huge American flag. Very cool start line!

My plan for the race was to start easy for the first mile or so and then find the 3:40 (8:23 per mile) pace group and try to hang with them for as long as possible, and if I was still with them and had something left with 5 miles to go, I’d pick it up then. This would be my 4th marathon, with my best previous time coming in last fall’s Wineglass Marathon (3:53:48). I knew that running a 3:40 was perhaps overly optimistic.

The first mile followed First Street north to Green Street and what’s considered Campustown at U of I. Just prior to reaching Green we passed by my niece, Tessa’s, apartment. My oldest brother, Gary, and his family had also come down for the weekend, and the whole group – Andrea and the kids plus Gary’s family – were outside to cheer me on at the Mile 1 mark. After high-fiving several of them I was gone and heading through Campustown.

Early on, though my forearms and fingers were going numb, the running was easy. I checked my pace after about a mile and a half, and I was cruising at around 8:10. Cool. I was sure the 3:40 group was probably behind me, so I eased up just a bit. I figured I’d take it easy until they caught me. Mile 2 brought us back through the heart of my alma mater’s campus. On the right: aged Altgeld Hall, home to the Math Department and a bell tower that I can still remember playing the theme to the Flintstones on Fridays when I was an undergrad. On the left, the major engineering buildings: huge brick and stone structures home to so many of the classes that I probably should have attended with better regularity. Then the Illini Union on the right; that’s where our team of five freshmen from my dorm won the all-campus bowling intramurals by blowing out the boisterously cocky frat champs. Ah, THOSE were my glory days! Mile 1- 8:11. Mile 2- 8:13.

But I digress. There’s a race to run! The course starts out flat for the first few miles and levels out after that. By about Mile 5 or so I’ve finally eased up long enough that the pace group catches up to me, and I merge with them. It’s neat to run with a pacer for a couple of reasons. First, I think it’s always fun to run in a large group of people. There’s plenty of conversation to provide distraction. The other benefit is that with the pacer carrying a “3:40 Pace” sign, the fans tend to really start cheering when a pace group goes by. “Yeah for the 3:40 pacers!!!” Always nice to hear some cheering! Mile 3- 8:17. Mile 4- 8:14. Mile 5- 8:31.

Miles 4 through 9 were through residential neighborhoods in Urbana, and the fan support here was sensational! Lots of people and lots of noise – much more than I would have expected from a marathon of this size.

During the 6th mile we ran through Meadowbrook Park, which was basically a prairie with some trees along the borders. As came around one bend in the path, however, I saw something that quite shocked me and had me wondering briefly if the hallucinations of the later stages of the race were already kicking in. For rising out of the grassland ahead of me was a young, attractive woman without a stitch of clothing! Never mind that her skin was green, this chick was nekkid! Talk about instantaneous inspiration! Well, she froze up and we all just continued on our merry way along the path, passing right by her backside (which was quite nice I might add). This sculpture by artist Peter Fagan was no classic Madonna with excessive plumpness, she was actually quite lithe – could have been a runner!

Oh, well, we carried on. By Mile 10 we were returning to campus and I was feeling quite comfortable with our pace. Mile 6- 8:40. Mile 7- 8:17. Mile 8- 8:28. Mile 9- 8:24. Mile 10- 8:26.

We crossed back through campus and then moved on to the residential sections of Champaign. Again, the crowd support was really strong. The miles were beginning to take their toll on my legs and feet, but I carried on fine. Then for some inexplicable reason, the 3:40 group started picking up the pace! As far as I was concerned we had been going a little faster than we should have all along, and therefore we’d banked some time, so why on earth were we suddenly accelerating 13 miles into the race? I checked my GPS watch several times and each time we were at a sub-8 minute pace! I intentionally let myself drop to the back of the pack, figuring there was no need stay at the front at this pace. I was a bit worried even so. Mile 11- 8:17. Mile 12- 8:19. Mile 13-8:14. Mile 14- 8:03. Mile 15- 8:04.

And for good reason. The torrid pace continued, and I started fell back more. I knew I’d regret it if I kept going at that pace, and maybe I’d regret things as it was anyway. Miles 16-19 were still solid and on target, but by 20 I was steadily falling further behind the pace group. And that’s where things stood as I began the 2nd race. (Anyone who’s run a marathon knows there are 2 races in a marathon: the first one is to 20 miles, and then the second race starts.) Mile 16- 8:12. Mile 17- 8:28. Mile 18- 8:11. Mile 19- 8:22. Mile 20- 8:32.

Running more or less solo at this point, my legs were now carrying the weight of the previous 20 miles. Muscles at my hips groaned with every forward stride, and my knees ached as they absorbed the continuous pounding. Calves and quads grew tighter and protested the stridelength that I wanted to maintain. I become oblivious to much of what was around me; I ran past nice homes and peaceful parks with lots of people cheering, but I really couldn’t process any of it mentally. No details stuck. I was becoming a bipedal vegetable, and wasn’t so sure how long the bipedal part would apply! Miles 21 and 22 were tough, but I did have a couple of bright spots during this stretch, however. I saw an old cross country friend of mine from high school, Dan, on the side of the road cheering me on! Soon thereafter I came upon the rest of my mobile cheering section, including my nephew, Ethan, and son, Lincoln, who both ran onto the road and joined me for a few seconds. Somewhat reinvigorated, I plodded forward and tried to slow the rate of my velocity’s decay. Mile 21- 8:30. Mile 22-9:06. Mile 23-8:48.

The final few miles were back on campus, and this was actually the one time when I thought the crowd support was lacking. Being Easter weekend, much of the student population must have gone home. The steady pickup in the last miles that I had hoped for wasn’t going to happen. All I could do was hang on and keep moving toward Memorial Stadium, which finally loomed ahead in the distance. I finally started moving a little faster once again as I made the final turn and was about to enter the stadium. Down a painful dip, into the dark tunnel, and then suddenly the lights were back on as I ran out onto the stadium’s artificial turf in front of a huge crowd in the stands!

I’m very old school when it comes to arguments about grass vs. artificial turf, but I’ll tell you what, after 26 miles of punishing pavement that turf felt like I was running on pillows! I kicked it in, running first from one endzone to the other along a sideline, then turning into the other endzone and running toward the goalpost, and then finally sprinting back upfield to the 50-yard line and the finish! Getting to finish inside the stadium was awesome! Mile 24- 9:33. Mile 25- 9:54. Mile 26- 9:59

My official finish time was 3:46:22 (8:38 pace per mile), a personal best by over 7 minutes! I finished in 410th place overall out of 1619 finishers (top 26%); 351st among the 1106 men (top 32%), and 66th out of 173 men in the 40-44 age group (top 39%). My half marathon split time was exactly 1:50:00 (right on pace!), which itself is a personal best for me in the half. I checked my GPS and, as usual, there’s a bit of discrepancy in distance run thanks to the fact that we don’t run the shortest route possible the whole way. My GPS had me at 26.47 miles and an 8:33 overall pace. Whatever the distance, I was ready for a celebratory pizza!

PHOTO SLIDESHOW HERE: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v377/robisch/Running/Illinois%20Marathon%202009/?albumview=slideshow