Race Report: Wisconsin Marathon, 2019

 The Numbers:

4:08:49, a 9:30/mile pace

    155 of 339 overall

    107 of 204 men

    1 of 8 men 65-69

The Story:

My focus all winter in training was the Boston Marathon on April 15.   But I had the Wisconsin Marathon on May 4 in pencil all along, wanting to get in a second marathon if I could, given all the training I had done.   On the Tuesday before race day, I checked the weather for Kenosha and it looked to be perfect, so I signed up.

I’ve run this race 4 times before, so I knew the drill.  I drove up after work on Friday and picked up my packet pre-race.   The weather was indeed perfect...about 40F at the start, maybe 50F at the end, hardly any wind, sunny.   The course is flat and beautiful along Lake Michigan and through lovely neighborhoods of lake homes.

I decided to run the race on a perfect day with a hope to go sub 4 hours again, which is my race pace target (9:08/mile).   I went out fine and was holding myself back all along. I hit the half marathon mark in 1:57:52 and felt very good. My splits were very consistent.   How long could it hold, though??

The answer began to take shape soon.  By mile 16, I knew I was working harder to hold on.   I started taking one mile at a time. I hung on through mile 19, with a 9:22 pace but it was slipping, with miles 22 and 23 were 10:57 and 11:03 respectively, the slowest two miles of the day.  That was pretty much it, having used up any time I had “banked” earlier.

I re-calibrated my thinking, doing enough mental math to realize if I kept working, I could still beat 4:10.   So I did my best, with mile 25 in 9:41, mile 26 in 9:50 and the last bit to the finish line at a 9:03 pace. I slipped in just under 4:09.   

It took me a while to come to grips with missing my sub 4 hour target with weather and course in my favor.  But, on reflection, my training had targeted a race three weeks previous, I had run Boston, and a sub four-hour marathon is just a tough target for me.   I enjoyed the race, knew I had given my best and I needed to leave it as that.   Winning the AG with more than two others in the AG was a nice consolation prize.   

A nice day and that’s the way it was. 

Persevere...with or without cheese.