Marathon result

Conditions for my Kansas City Marathon were just about perfect.
- A challenging training regimen successfully completed.
- No training injuries
- The best possible weather conditions
- An experienced support crew made up of Kay and Justin.

Finishing the KC Marathon. Photo by Bill McClave.

The result: A very acceptable 4:04:31 that possibly could have been better if I hadn't been quite so greedy for the middle 17 miles of the race.
I started with the 4-hour pace group, and their help kept my pace to an average of 9:19. Two of those miles were actually in the 9:45 range. All I really needed to do was exercise some patience and run 9 min. miles pretty much the rest of the way.
What I did was run 14 of the next 17 miles well below 9 min. pace. Most of those miles were in the 8:40 range. Only three of the 17 were around the 9 min. pace (9:01, 9:02, 9:05). It all felt very good and natural.
That accounts for 21 miles and a projected finish comfortably below 4 hours. Unfortunately, this is where things started to get uncomfortable. See, there was this long climb and, well, I spend all my reserves doing it. The remaining miles were a grind. The 4-hour pace group caught me right about mile 23, and the 4:05 group about mile 25 (although I finished just ahead of it). I was cramping frequently during the last 3.2 miles, and especially in the last mile.
I have to conclude that if I'd just eased off on those middle miles I might not have flamed out in mile 22. I probably should have driven the course to get a better idea of that last big hill in the Hyde Park area. Even that hill wouldn't have been quite so significant if I'd just stuck closer to the 4 hour pace group.

Race team. Justin, Kay, Rob. Photo by Bill McClave.

A running buddy who's a few years older and has run 16 or 17 marathons also suggests that once you get over 60 those late-race challenges get much harder to conquer and recover from. That might be true.
I ended up 8th in my age division out of 26 runners. the first 6 finishers in my division beat 4 hours and the guy ahead of me beat my time by 2 min. I was 536th out of 1,462 marathoners, and the average finishing time for the whole field was just under 4:25.
I'm happy with the race, though, but at the same time glad it's over. I'm not particularly motivated to run another one right now - shorter races are certainly much easier. But who knows how I'll feel once I'm all healed up in a few weeks. There could there be an 11th some day.