We get to where we’re going, pick up our chips (which weren’t given out a packet pickup), use the facilities, and arrange a meeting place for after the race, should it be needed. We beat it into Jeff’s head. He assures us he understands. Jeff’s nickname, when it comes to races, is LostOne. He’s, more than once, not been where he’s supposed to be at the end of races. “Jeff, we’ll meet at the beer truck. The last beer truck.” comes to mind. Then we head over to the actual start area.
It’s not a bad walk and there are lots of porta-potties. And no lines. We all avail ourselves of the facilities.
Then it’s time to walk up the block a bit to the start line. Renate’s half marathon starts 15 minutes after our full, so she walks all the way to the front with me. I’m not sure why. I know I’m not very good company. (I gave her a card a couple of weeks after the marathon, after MAMFAY, with the words “You’re all that I want and more than I deserve.”) Finally, a kiss, I remove my throwaways, and then I go gather with the gathering herd. MAMFAY number 12 is going to get started soon.
City streets for the first 9.5 miles of the race, give or take . . .
There’s a bit of delay as the clockworks folks try to get the clock working – “we’re trying to get the timing system working,” said the guy with the bullhorn. Yeah, a working timing system comes in handy during a race. Finally, things are set and the horn honks and we set out. I didn’t really think about this being the last of the twelve, I just started running.
Straight up a hill. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that before.
We’re heading up Andrews Street. Literally. I knew from the course profile, well, as much as one can tell anything from a 26.2 mile profile squeezed down to a few inches, that the initial part went up and then started a steady down. It looked like the highest part of the course was a half mile in and the lowest point was at the five mile marker. Guess I should get 4.5 pretty quick miles once I get up this hill.
A right onto Franklin Street for a short bit then a little hitch onto East Avenue. According to my Google Maps, we’re in the Central Business District. Which means tall buildings. Well, tall for Rochester, anyway. There’s a bit of turbulence from the wind currents and it seems to be some head wind.
I know, again from my pre-race study of the course map, that we’re on this pretty much straight stretch, heading basically southeast, until we reach the canal trail just past the nine mile marker. The tall buildings of the Central Business District have given way to regular sized businesses and homes. The head wind has gone, replaced by the annoyance of the rising sun in my eyes. Guess that’s what happens, while the sun is coming up, when you run east on East Avenue.
Which is a wide road, as befits an avenue, and there’s no problem finding any space to run. Aid stations pop up at the appropriate spots and I’m doing fine keeping hydrated. (I wonder, not for the first time, how Ray is doing.) There are smatterings of cheering cheerers and Rochester’s finest are doing a great job of traffic control. I’m feeling pretty good for my 12th marathon in 12 months. It’s been another three week gap between races and I can still feel Mesa Falls in my legs, but, at least so far, the legs are working well.
I didn’t have any real goal for the race. In the back of my mind, I was hoping to go out with a bang. Maybe a sub-2:50. Realistically, with, as I just said, only three weeks since Mesa Falls, sub-3:00 was the better goal. That pretty much meant 6:50’s for my miles and then stagger towards the finish.
So, I was fairly surprised to crank out a set of 6:28, 6:30, 6:29, 6:34, and 6:25 for the first five miles. For simple math purposes I used 32:30 as my five mile split. So, I was right around 6:30 pace through five miles. I had to remind myself that it was mostly downhill. Party pooper, I said to my reminder. Fine, said the reminder, just don’t beat yourself up too much when the course ventures back up hill.
And it did, and I didn’t. Though the 6:39 followed by a 6:37 knocked my enthusiasm down a notch. To help with motivation, I decided I’d “run a mile” for all the people who were at the pre-race spaghetti dinner last night.
Which was quite the setup and I have to thank Dave and Valerie for hosting and all. But, mostly Dave since he did all the cooking. By my count, we had 17 people gathered around tables shoveling food into mouths. And, for the most part, being civil towards each other. So, some more early math, 26 minus 17 meant that at mile 9 I should start down the list so I’d be finished by the time I got to Phoenix. Or Frontier Field where the finish line was.
Mile 8 was a happy 6:31 and was followed by an uphill 6:42. Sorry, Josephine. That’s the best I could do. (I don’t remember who had which mile, so I won’t bother naming them from this point forward.)
I could see more uphill and I knew the canal path started about 9.5 miles into the day. Hmmm, I thought, I guess I’m below canal level, below water level. Not sure what that little bit of info did for me. I continued to trudge uphill.
Coming up, just about a half marathon’s worth of the Erie Canal Heritage Trail . . .
I make a little left off of Fairport Road (also known as New York 31F) and do a little hitch in Perinton Park, getting on O'Connor Road which, when the pavement runs out, turns into the Erie Canal Heritage Trail. I know from scoping out the course map that I’m on this for a good long while. Or the rest of my life, depending. Either way, I’ll get a ten mile split and see what’s shaking.
Oh, Ray lives in Fairport. I wonder, again, how he’s doing. Two of his kids, Hannah and Matt, came over to join in on the festivities yesterday. They were sleeping in the great room with their cousins. Wall to wall with kids in there as all of them – Stephanie and Nicole (Valerie and Dave), Hannah and Matt (Ray and Laurie), and Rachel and Ryan (Morgan and Lori) – were in their sleeping bags oblivious to the goings on of last night. I’m sure Hannah and Matt knew the situation by now, as did all the kids. Anyway, Matt had on a t-shirt yesterday asking if anybody knew who Mr. Perinton was. Well, I thought about running around this park looking for a statue of some dude on a horse, but I decided to follow the course and just skirt the western edge of Fairport.
Probably a little more than half a mile along the water I get to the 10 mile marker. It’s a 6:53 mile and I’m just under 1:06:00 for the race. I know I’m still well under three hour pace, but I’ve lost that loving feeling. At least as far as the sub-2:50 goes. I know I need to be running, basically, 6:30s which would have been a 1:05:00 ten mile split. So it goes. I’m bummed, but not overly so. Sixteen miles to go.
I’m pretty early on the trail and my mind begins to wander. Well, continues to wander. And wonder. I wonder how many miles are in a MAMFAY. Let’s see, 26.2 times 10 is 262 plus another 52.4 gives me 314.4 miles in a MAMFAY. Hmmm, more wondering. I wonder when I’ll hit 300 miles. Let’s see, 314.4 minus 300 leaves 14.4 miles. After a bit of mental stumbling, I come up with 11.8 miles into the Rochester Marathon and I’ll have run 300 miles of MAMFAY. So, to make everything easy, when (if?) I reach the 12 mile marker, I’ll hit a milestone of sorts. Bells and whistles and all kinds of hoopla, I imagine. I can hardly wait.
There are some nice places across the canal. Those seem to be a bit more private. At least they don’t have a public trail through their backyard. Most seem to have a dock. Some even have folks sitting on the dock. I can’t quite hear if they’re singing “Sitting on the dock of the canal watching the idiots in our locale . . .”
I’m not entirely sure how to describe the running surface of the canal path. I know there’s probably a term for it. It’s not loose gravel. The footing is actually pretty good, though it feels a little slow. Every now and then there are some bigger rocks poking through the surface. Also every now and then, pretty much at the access points where the trail goes under a road, the surface is asphalt. I keep wondering if this is the end of the indescribable stuff. I keep getting disappointed when the asphalt runs out.
I’m just ticking off the miles, getting more and more out of sorts as they continue to be on the slow side. Eleven through thirteen go by in 6:53, 6:55, 6:54. There’s no halfway mat, but there’s a marker for halfway. I think. I’m just over 1:27:00. I’m thinking that, absent a total implosion, I should still break three hours.
Oh, back to mile 12. There are no significant occurrences that occur as I top 300 miles of MAMFAY. Probably just as well. I don’t really want to take the time to celebrate with a cup of beer right here.
I’ve noticed a fair bit of headwind out here on the path. The first couple of miles, through about mile 12, as we’re heading south, it’s not too bad. Then the path bends towards the west, and slightly north, and the wind gets to be pretty annoying. Might help explain why miles 14 and 15 are 7:02 and 7:00. I wonder which of the 17 individuals I had to blame for those. Probably Rachel and Nicole.
I’m at about 1:41:00 through 15 and I’m trying to do some math. I come to the conclusion that, if I can hold on to 7:00 pace, then I can break three hours. I’m not overly optimistic. I know I have seven or so more miles on the canal path. I’m not real happy with the surface. Even though it’s along the canal and basically flat, the wind is making it slow. I can see a couple of runners up ahead. I randomly pass the early starting walker. Or are they halfers? I’m not entirely sure. I forget where their course joins ours. Or ours joins theirs, however you want to look at it.
There are only random spectators. I’ve never been one to need and/or want lots of crowd interaction, so it’s not really a bother. There are quite a few race volunteer folks riding up and down the path on bikes. “C’mon, close the gap. You can reel that guy in,” one shouts as she rides by. Coachspeak if I ever did hear it. Heck, I’ve probably even said it to my kids. Let me tell you, it’s a whole lot easier to shout it than it is to do it. But I’m not going to tell my kids that.
I’ve been running under a fair number of streets. These places are generally where any spectators hang out. They’re also convenient places for aid stations since the stuff can get there pretty easily. Conditions are mostly good, but, being aware of the wind, I’m trying to make sure I get enough fluid in me. I don’t want to end up curled in a ball on the trail suffering from severe dehydration. See, Ray, I’m still thinking about you.
Mile 14.5 (about) to mile 15.5 (about) is through the Village of Pittsford. I vaguely remember (I don’t think I put this disclaimer in earlier, but I’m writing this report two months after the fact and, let’s face it, some of my remembrances are going to be on the vague side) running through some artsy section with shops and tables and people and a fair amount of cheering and carrying on. Things aren’t going well, but the enthusiasm is nice. I try to smile and wave and otherwise acknowledge the noise. Well, other than the kid who crosses in front of me. Soon enough all that is behind me and I’m back on the trail. By the way, none of that shows up clearly on Google Earth, so maybe my memories of the Rochester Marathon are merging with other memories.
Mile 16 is a tolerable 6:52. Seventeen (7:08), eighteen (7:05), and nineteen (7:10) foreshadow the impending implosion. I’m aware of what’s going on. I know I need to run faster. I’m trying. The wind is a definite negative factor. There was the random flag, flying at half staff (for Ted Kennedy, I guess), standing straight out towards me. The surface shouldn’t have been a negative, it wasn’t all that bad, but I’m letting it be one. I begin to think that, at mile 20, it’ll just be a 10k left in MAMFAY. That brought a tear to my eye. Well, it was either the sentimentality or the stubbing of my toe on one of those out-poking rocks. Onward.
Oh, let me backtrack a little. According to Google Earth, somewhere in mile 16, after crossing under (does one cross under?) Main Street, I’m no longer running on the Erie Canal Heritage Trail, but I’m on the Railroad Loop Trail of the Pittsford Trail System. Hot diggity dog. Same old indescribable surface, though. Towards the end of this mile, number 16, there’s a little hitch as I venture just a tad away from the water around some commercial venture. I’m not entirely sure what it is and there are gates keeping me out, just in case my curiosity was to get the better of me.
During mile 17, towards the end, actually, because of construction or some such, the course ventures up a hill (some guy running down says it’s the worst hill on the course and the rest is flat . . . easy to say while running down the hill) which is a bit of a pain in the legs. There’s a volunteer there, pointing me down the road, Clover Street, telling me to run to the next volunteer and he’ll give me further instruction. Ok, guess I’ll be running from volunteer to volunteer until told otherwise. The second volunteer tells me to make a left and I’ll eventually reach the trail. Ok. Sounds good to me.
Eighteen and nineteen are just basic trail. Not much to report. So, I’ll jump from my backtrack.
Oh, I forgot. There was a corresponding marathon relay going on at the same time. The relay exchange points were always entertaining, with lots of folks and an aid station. A fair amount of commotion. There was no way to tell a relayer from a fuller from the rear (or a halfer for that matter, but looking at the course map, the halfers hadn’t joined in with me, yet). That didn’t much matter because, at this point in the day, I wasn’t racing anybody anyway.
Right before the 20 mile marker was the third and final relay exchange point. There was still a boatload of future runners with numbers pinned to their chests. Guess I was doing well in the relay category. I did ask if there were any volunteers to take over for me. No one jumped out, so I was on my own for the last 6.2 miles. Well, it would be the final 6.2 miles as soon as I reached the 20 mile marker.
A stellar 6:59 giving me a time just under 2:16:00 for twenty miles. Did I have a 44 minute 10k left in me? Did I care? I had two plus miles of Erie Canal (or whatever) Trail left to cover. I did manage to pass some guy, but I had no idea what position I was in.
Half marathoners joined in at about the 20.5 mile marker. I don’t recall much of a problem with them. I’m getting tired of writing about the trail, just as I was getting tired (or beyond getting) of running on it.
I knew that all I had to do was crank out six seven minute miles, finish reasonably strong, and I’d break three hours. I just couldn’t put forth the energy. Having already broken three hours in the wrong direction helped me reconcile with the way things were going. My last two full miles on the Erie Canal Heritage Trail, miles 21 and 22 of the race, were 7:12 and 7:17. I’m pretty much acknowledging to myself that a sub-three is not going to happen. I’m not going to end MAMFAY with a bang. I am going to end it, however. A final half mile or so on the trail then . . .
Back to the mean old city streets of Rochester . . .
Well, sort of. I take a right hand bend and I’m no longer running alongside the Erie Canal, but I’m now running alongside the Genesee River. I’m on some bike path stuff in some park. As near as I can tell, it’s the Genesee Valley Park.
Under Elmwood Avenue and back into civilization of sorts. The University of Rochester is on my right, the Genesee River is on my left. Which kind of reminds me. Way back when, where East Avenue heads south and we continue eastish on Fairport Road, at about the six mile mark, we ran by St. John Fisher College. Roger, fourth in line to the Noone throne (Actually, he’s even further back than that as he’s behind Ray’s kids. Even the girls. Sorry, Roger.), is a proud alumnus of the fighting whatever they are. But that’s neither here nor there. Well, actually, it was there, but not here. Yes, I’ve lost my mind.
Further proof of the mind losing . . . I was just studying my Google map of the route when I noticed that I could have continued south on East Avenue, run a couple of miles, and then hooked up with the Erie Canal Heritage Trail just past the 15 mile marker. I wonder if anybody would have noticed. Probably. I’m not nearly as shifty as Rosie Ruiz.
Back to the task at foot. The 23 mile marker is just before the University of Rochester Interfaith Chapel. I didn’t know that at the time or I might have said a little prayer. I got a 7:18 for that split. Just over 5k to go. I’ve given up on any math. I’m just trudging forward.
And now I’m running along Joseph C Wilson Boulevard where, according to the race propaganda, I was supposed to notice the “grand view of downtown Rochester as you glance down the river to your left.” Needless to say, I didn’t notice. I was 23 miles into a marathon. I wasn’t into noticing much.
Not much to say about mile 24. Other than it took me 7:15 to cover it. I think I was still running for people, just not doing a very good job of it. Ah, what the heck. A couple of miles and a couple of tenths and I’d be done.
There was a little bobbing and weaving on the Ford Street Bridge as I more closely mingled with the halfers. There’s an aid station there, on Exchange Boulevard, just across the bridge. Lots of cheering and carrying on to go with the handouts of water. Hey, it’s a high school cross country team. And, what’s this?, they’re calling me out by name. These kids must really be up on the other coaches. Yeah, right. Apparently, Renate had passed this way just a bit earlier and told the kids to cheer real loud for this old dude who was approaching. I think she mentioned that I had gray hair and a moustache and that I was a high school cross country coach. Well, the kids did a good job of cheering, even if I wasn’t in a great mental place for it, what with about a mile and a half to go and, realistically, no shot at breaking three hours. Still I got a little boost, all the way to a 7:12 mile.
And I saw the big numbers on my watch which read 2:52:00. 6:30 pace for the last 1.2 miles. Well, that’s how I started off the day. How hard could it be? Yeah, like it was ever going to happen. Just past the 25 mile marker there was a semi-tough hill that extinguished any and all hope. In a way, trudging slowly up the hill, I was happy that I didn’t have to really push this hill to get a goal time. It kind of reminded me of the hill at the end of the Mayor’s Marathon in Anchorage. Except in that case, I was hammering as hard as I could up the hill and still I fell short of breaking three hours.
There’s a left turn onto Plymouth Avenue. We’re going over and under roads. Crossing intersections patrolled by patrolmen and women. I’m still trying to thank them. There are more and more spectators. I make it to the 26 mile marker, hit the split button on my watch (a lovely 7:14), and, at least, I broke three hours for 26 miles. I knew a while ago that today was going to be one of those days where I cursed out the King and Queen of England for adding on the extra distance.
There’s a little brass band playing brass band type of music. It’s the first band I recall seeing. We’ve been intertwined with halfers for awhile, but that doesn’t seem to be a major hassle. One more corner to turn and then a final straightaway left in MAMFAY. I’d like to say I’m getting choked up, but I really just want it to be over.
I can see the big clock at the finish line. I’m stunned when I see 2:59:XX. Medium XX. All kinds of thoughts are going through my addled brain. I’m wondering how my watch, which reads 3:00:XX, can be a minute off. But, if for some reason it is and the big clock is the official time, then I don’t want to miss a sub-three hour marathon. I haul ass.
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