The Eugene Diaries: Race Day
2:47:10
I’ll never forget seeing Hayward Field as it seemingly came out of nowhere, towering over everything. With under a mile to go, under three quarters of a mile to go, a half mile to go; I just wanted to see it.
And suddenly, there it was.
The 2024 Eugene Marathon got off to an inauspicious start. After spending so much time planning the exact time my wife Riss and I would arrive at the dropoff point, which would then lead to a decently early dropoff at Hayward Field, everything was thrown out of whack.
The busses were taking longer than anticipated. The second, ahem, Code Brown1 of the morning was about to show up. Not only would I need to drop my bag of post-race clothes and nutrition off, I’d also need to take care of that business too. As I chatted with a fellow marathoner on the way over, I couldn’t stop taking a peek at my watch. At some point I realized, “I am going to miss my start.”
In a way, this forced me to calm down (or try to, at least) and do a check on everything as I made my way to the start line. How were my shoes feeling? Did I need to move any of my nutrition around? Do I want my sunglasses on at the start of the race? But seriously, how were my shoes feeling? I jogged2 from the field area on the west side of the stadium, so I really tried to focus on how my shoes felt.
I finally hopped into the corral and made my way towards the start line. At this point, I still had time to make any adjustments. My left shoe, I had noticed, was just a little less tight than my right shoe. As thousands of runners made their way to the start, I dipped off to the right, leaned down, and tied the shoe just a little bit tighter. As I stood up, I reminded myself the start wasn’t going to go as planned. I’d be running a slower pace than I wanted. I needed to (a) make up ground but (b) make sure I didn’t overexert myself. A delicate balance, but I had a similar start in Chicago in 2022, though for different reasons3.
The start line was getting closer, the pace was picking up. It was time.
I clicked my watch as I crossed the start line. Time to run 26.2 miles.
This week in podcasting:
It was so incredibly fun welcoming John Ritland onto Chasing Three Hours! John is very well known within the Omaha running community and it’s easy to see why. Great personality, fun sense of humor, and a genuine love of running.
We went back to the beginning of his running journey decades ago and discussed everything since. Multiple injuries and surgeries had him questioning if he’d ever run again. What’s it like to come back from that and run in the Boston Marathon? Plus, his recent experience in Tokyo, picking up his sixth star, and where he sees things going next.
Chasing Three Hours is brought to you by Fleet Feet Omaha! The shoes that I just set a PR in? I picked those up at Fleet Feet and couldn’t be happier about the experience. Looking for a race day shoe for a summer marathon? Thinking about those long weekend miles you’ll have in July ahead of a fall race? Whatever you need, Fleet Feet can help you out. Stop by and mention the pod for $15 off your first pair of running shoes at regular price!
I had a different gameplan for this race vs. other races. In the past, I had written pace goals on a notecard4 or done the raw mental math of the race. This time around, I turned off notifications on my watch for every time I hit a mile. Rather, I’d be marking them myself on “lap” mode. Instead of hitting one mile on my watch only to physcially cross the marker at 1.02, I’d mark every mile by pressing the lap button, giving me my actual time for that mile5.
That said, I had bigger issues to worry about early on. It wasn’t just that I started at 7:01 am — only a minute later than planned — or that I was going with runners with different goals; The big issue was there were just so many of us. At times out there, I felt like I was boxed in. Wanting to make a move to my left or right, only to realize there wasn’t enough room to do so. I found myself tucking in with everyone, doing my best to remain calm, before looking at my watch and seeing a pace of 8:0x or 7:4x and worrying myself all over again.
I did my best to get out of the mass of people as much as possible and when I crossed mile one at 6:32 — 15 seconds off my goal of 6:17-per mile — I decided I had done all I could and that it was time to settle down.
I wish my heart rate could have followed along.
I finished the next four miles at 6:16, 6:20, 6:22, and 6:16. After losing 15 seconds on the first mile, I lost another three seconds on those four. I wasn’t running as fast as I hoped to, yet my HR was showing otherwise. I was not just above 170, but well above 170, with the second and third miles clipping off at 175 and 176 on average. Things remained above 170 for the fourth and fifth before I finally felt like the marathon was where I wanted (and needed) it to be.
I had 21 miles left. I was 18 seconds off my pace. I finally settled in.
One thing I never expected in using the lap mode on my watch was crossing the mile markers short at .98 or .97. That happened for the first time as I finished mile six, a 52-foot net-downhill that was my fastest mile of the entire day, clocking in at 6:06.
By this point, I felt absolutely spectacular out there. My HR was no longer jacked up. Instead, it was hanging out in the mid-160s, which is exactly where I hoped it would be entering the day. I’d do period checks of how everything was feeling, sometimes talking to myself out loud, other times thinking through the process.
“How are your legs?”
“What’s going on with your HR?”
“Do you need to speed up?”
“Take this in.”
“Take this in” had a particularly special meaning for me during mile nine, as I would spot Riss for the one and only time until the end of the race6. I spotted her to my left, exactly where she said she’d be. Such a jolt of energy for the next few miles before I reached the halfway point.
After gaining eleven seconds at mile six, I gave back seven second at mile seven, my watch showing 1.03 for the split. At that point, I was hoping the rest of the race wouldn’t be a Yo-Yo of over and under mileage for every split7, but it was going to be something to keep an eye on as I kept rolling. After two more miles where I gained seven seconds and then gave back two — at this point I was nine seconds over goal — I began a six-mile stretch where I was at or under my Goal Marathon Pace for the morning.
Mile 10: 6:16 (-8 seconds off my overall goal pace)
Mile 11: 6:16 (-7 seconds)
Mile 12: 6:15 (-5 seconds)
Mile 13: 6:09 (+1 second ahead of my overall goal pace)
I didn’t mark my watch at 13.1 miles8, but I did some quick math and figured out that I had gained back all 15 seconds I lost during mile one. All the stress of the early part of the race was gone. My legs were still responding well to the pace. Everything was going as I needed it to.
I used this moment in time — 13.1 miles, halfway home — to do a couple things. I ran through the checklist for everything within the race, being sure to talk it out to myself and make sure all was well. It was essentially a call and response.
“How are your legs doing?”
“Good!”
“How does the pace feel? Could you go faster?”
“Ask me again at mile 20.”
“How’s the nutrition doing?”
“No issues.”
I was running with Oreos and I wasn’t having a single issue.
I first mentioned this in a newsletter back in mid-February, when I hit 80+ miles in a week for the first time. I didn’t really talk about it a whole lot with people, but I kept on doing it. Long Runs? Oreos. Workouts? Oreos. Long Runs with Marathon Pace miles? Baby, you know it: Oreos.
It wasn’t until late in the training cycle, when I got out with some friends from the Aksarben Athletic Club, that some of my buddies saw this in action. “OREOS?!” I became an evangelist for the stuff. Shoutout to former guest of the pod Alex Burks, who I heard mention it on a podcast with Cris Gutierrez in January9. I reached out to Alex when I heard this interview and asked him for more info. He has heard about it from professional ultra runners. That was good enough for me!
By the time I got to Eugene, I was well past the point of planning; I was absolutely going to use them as fuel. The question I kept asking myself was how did I think it would perform inside of a race at that pace? One thing to do a Long Run, another to do a workout. 26.2 miles would be a different beast entirely.
And yet, there’s a reason I stuck with it all cycle and will probably do it again in Chicago this fall. I loved how it made my body feel and getting some food down that, ya know, tastes and feels like food was a big help.
The check in at the halfway point told me it was all systems go. I kept pushing.
Miles 14 and 15 were more of the same. I finished at 6:11 and 6:17 respectively, gaining another six seconds. My legs were showing those first real signs of “oh yeah, this is a marathon,” but with just over ten miles left, I was getting closer to the territory where I knew it would be about digging deep.
It was an interesting part of the race. In the early going I had run with and spoken to:
A runner from Lincoln, Nebraska that was doing the half (had never met before).
A Reddit buddy of mine that will be a future podcast guest (had met the day before).
Someone from Oregon via Hawaii where we stumbled into chatting for a mile or so (had never met before).
By the time I got past mile 15 though, the conversation pretty much stopped for me. Lots of listening to shoes, lots of listening to cheers, and lots of focus.
Somehow though, this focus didn’t allow me to see the mile marker at 16. I started panicking a bit as my lap showed 1.03, 1.04, 1.05… I hadn’t been that far off on any mile and to do so this late would have been awful. “Did I miss the mile marker?” I asked no one in particular, not receiving an answer back myself. Once I hit 1.10 on my watch, I stopped looking. I had obviously missed it. At this point it was about mitigating any damages that might have popped up by mile 16 (or 17) being too slow. When I finally hit the 17 mile mark, the lap was at 2.03 and my time was 12:38. Only two seconds off per mile, which meant I had only given back four seconds overall.
I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest.
Mile 18 was my fastest of the day, finishing in 5:58. I let out an audible, “OOPS” when the number popped up. It would also match mile 21 as the shortest lap of the day, coming in at just .96 miles. So while I was running a bit too hot, I certainly didn’t feel it, gaining another 19 seconds in the process. That said, there’s a part of me that wonders in hindsight if it didn’t cause me to slow down just a bit. I finished the next two miles in 6:27 and 6:35 — 28 seconds combined off my goal pace — and for the first time the entire race, my check ins were leaving me a little discouraged.
My legs were starting to feel the pounding. The nutrition was sitting well but getting it down felt like a chore. Mentally I was still in it; still focused. My fitness still was where I hoped it would be, with my HR remaining in check. But those legs were feeling it.
That 6:35 I mentioned above was mile 20. At this point I was only six seconds over my goal pace, with a caveat. Running 6:17 exactly for 26.2 miles would actually have me finishing in 2:44:44. So while I was six seconds off that pace, I was still under my 2:45 goal.
6.2 miles left. A 10k. My goal was there for the taking. I finished mile 21 in 6:07, gaining another ten seconds. I was four seconds ahead of pace with just over five miles left. If I was going to dig deep, I was going to do it now.
Did you know that I’ll be running this year’s Chicago Marathon? It’ll be my third time back in the Windy City for the race and I’m hoping it’s my best yet! Not only will I be aiming for a PR on the course, I’ll be aiming for one in fundraising as well. Once again, I’m running for St. Jude. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live.
In 2022, I raised just over $5000. Let’s see if we can’t bump that closer to $6000 this time around! I am currently oh-so-close to 25% of my goal. I hope you follow along later this summer and fall when I put together The Chicago Diaries and document my journey to the start (and finish) line!
Thank you so much for your support!
I learn something new about the marathon every time I run a marathon. Either that or the experiences I have out there allows me to apply some sort of gained knowledge about the race and distance. Let me explain.
My feelings about the first half of the race remain unchanged. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe out there, the first 13.1 miles are always the same: Full of energy and full of excitement. No matter where I run a marathon, the first half never changes. The crowd support is there, the race hasn’t gotten hard yet, and all the goals are still in front of you.
Some will say the race truly begins at 20 miles in. I wouldn’t disagree in some ways, while I would in others. What I would say is that those two or three miles after 20 are always… interesting. The end is so close. As I said above, when I hit 20 I thought to myself, “it’s a 10k.” At mile 21, I’m reminding myself I run five miles every single day. The finish is getting closer but it’s the hardest part of the entire race. I had no doubt in my mind I’d have some sort of kick at the very end, but what would I have before then?
Four seconds in the black overall, I lost them all and then some as I finished mile 22. 6:32 overall, I was suddenly -11 on the day. The worst part was that I couldn’t answer back. It was the third mile in four where I lost time.
And my pace was climbing.
By the time I finished mile 23 in 6:40 (now -34 seconds off the pace), I had blown through the bargaining stage — “maybe I could finish the race in 2:45:xx” — and instead just focused on holding on.
6:51 at mile 24. 6:52 and mile 25. I was so close to finishing and I just wanted to have the juice to do so in a way that would leave me feeling happy. I was barely acknowledging the cheers of supporters as I ran by, lifting my hand meagerly as I waved at them. I felt like these people were staring into my soul; Learning about who I was and what I had left in me.
The juice had long left my legs as I worked my way towards 25.2 miles in. I wanted to deliver a rousing, “THIS IS WHAT YOU WOKE UP FOR” battlecry similar to the one Blake Ziegler had given me back in March when we ran a 10k together. I couldn’t even muster up the strength though, so I kept my head down and tried to power through. With a half mile left, we made one of our last turns and headed south. Suddenly, there it was.
Hayward Field.
In that moment, the emotions of the moment hit me like a ton of bricks.
This training cycle. The last four years. Everything.
I cannot begin to describe what running has meant to me and done for me10, but I felt all of that as I spotted Hayward Field. I finished mile 26 in 6:46, clicking the button and continuing on without paying attention to how fast or slow I would run next. It was going to be as full of a send as I could give it.
We turned into the stadium, the roar of the crowd bouncing around. My emotions subsided for just a moment.
I was looking for Riss.
We’d had a plan coming into the day: She’d be somewhere near the finish line. Yet, with so many spectators, I started looking for her early and often. What if she had struggled to find a seat? What if I was unable to see her? I was essentially looking up and down the rows in each section, all while running what I’d eventually find out was a 6:06 pace!
I turned onto the final straightaway, still not seeing her.
And there she was, at the finish line, like we’d planned.
I blew her a kiss and then took it all in.
2:47:10.
I finished the 2024 Eugene Marathon in 2:47:10, good for 100th place.
2:47:10.
Just over six months after breaking through a massive barrier and leaving no doubt, I left Eugene, Oregon with another PR of close to five minutes. I again broke through another barrier; this time taming the 2:50 beast that had been staring me in the face for the last year.
And while I didn’t reach my goal of 2:45, lessons were learned along the way that I will apply to races moving forward, starting at Chicago this October.
But Sunday April 28th, 2024 wasn’t about that. The week that followed wasn’t about that. It was about living in that moment and appreciating everything I was able to accomplish.
I’m a 2:47 marathoner.
Shoutout to Adam Hughes of the PreRacePodcast — my favorite running podcast out there — for introducing this to my lexicon.
Well, running might be a better way to describe this. I didn’t have my watch started, but my pace was a bit too quick for my taste.
In the case of Chicago, I was as close as possible given my previous marathon PR. I’d be aiming for a faster time than my corral showed. In the case of Eugene, the slow arrival put me a corral behind; It was all my own doing.
So nice not worrying about mental math. On the other hand, taking a piece of paper out of a pocket and putting it back in ~26 times wasn’t super fun.
By the time I was a couple miles in, I openly wondered why I had never done this before. Absolute game changer, even if I needed to still do a bit of mental math throughout the race. At the very least, I knew what my mile splits where.
We would have seen each other at the start but, well, you know. #CodeBrown
Thankfully it wasn’t.
Partly because there wasn’t a 13.1 marker, partly because I didn’t want a .11-mile lap on the docket.
He says, 3000+ words into a race recap.
Loved reading your race report. Wow…what a great race overall. Congrats on the new PR…and while I know you missed your goal time, it is just more motivation for Chicago. Thanks, as always, for sharing your story. It’s very motivating for me and I look forward to continuing to follow your journey to ChiTown. Cheers!