2012 NJ Marathon WOOOT!

I love running.  Despite this I built up tons of dread during the week leading up to the NJ Marathon.  While I was looking forward to the start and finish, I dreaded the pain I expected would come after 3 hours of running.  I knew I would be ecstatic to finish but I wasn't looking forward to the "marathon shuffle" and the accompanying muscle aches in my legs for a few days after the race.

The dread still persisted on Sunday as I got up at 4:45AM to eat breakfast and drink coffee.  After eating I dozed for an hour before getting up and making final race preparations.  Alek and I walked about a mile from our hotel to the race start.  There, we met with my parents and Emmy to wait for the start of the race.

At 8:00 we were off!  The first 10 miles of the race wound through neighborhoods.  People were out cheering in some areas while others had almost no race fans.  I met with Alek around the 9 mile mark.  He gave me a banana and asked how I was doing.  He ran half a mile with me while I ate it and told him that I was doing fine - but I hadn't yet reached the hard part!

It Starts!

My parents and Emmy were cheering at the 13 mile mark.  By now all that remained was an out and back loop.   I knew that the hardest part of the race was yet to come.  My muscles had started to ache and I feared it would only get worse.

Running an out and back course is fun.  It is motivating to see the fastletes coming in as I'm just setting out.  When I start to loop back, it's also encouraging to see that I'm far from last.

The 18th mile of the race put the runners on a boardwalk.  The change of turf felt great on the legs and the view of the ocean and beach was beautiful.  We left the boardwalk at mile 20 and moved back to streets. Even by the 20th mile I still wasn't feeling the pain that I had been dreading.  In fact, I never experienced that level of pain during the race!

At mile 25, Alek met me on the course and began to run with me for the last mile.  While my muscles were sore I gathered the strength to push hard through the finish.  Alek jumped off the course just before the finish line and I mustered the power to sprint across for a finish time of 4:36:18 for a 10:33 pace.  I beat my Philadelphia Marathon time by 25 minutes!  Full race results are here.

26.2 miles? Challenge (nearly) completed!

Crossing the finish line.

Finished and feeling good!

The NJ Marathon was a great race.  The course was flat and beautiful!  There were many port-o-johns on the course meaning a bathroom stop wouldn't cost too much time.  There were also bananas, a great alternative to gels during a marathon.  It was well organized and the finish line had cheering crowds who really helped me maintain high energy during the final stretch.  I would definitely recommend this marathon to anyone!