A few weeks ago, on the anniversary of my first marathon postmortem, I ran my second marathon. This is my experience and analysis.

Training

After my last marathon, I didn’t run much at all for the rest of the Winter. The race itself was exhausting, and it took a lot of effort to face the cold. I probably averaged once or twice a week. I always tried to go out at least once when it was snowing. That’s the most fun and magical even if it’s not great for training.

I naturally ran a little more over the Summer, more because the weather was nice than anything else. That was around the time I was quitting my job and moving around a lot, so I had nothing like a consistent schedule.

After I got settled in Seattle, I started running much more, up to around 4 days a week. I always feel so much more motivated to run after moving to a new place. It’s nice to go out and explore. The Seattle Marathon was on my radar at this point, although I was wary of signing up because training was so time-consuming last year. I wanted to focus on other things.

Still I kept a consistent schedule of 3 weekday 4-mile runs, and a Saturday 8-12 mile run. I wanted to be prepared to start training if I decided to sign up. In October, I even did a 15K trail race which I was leading the whole way until I made a wrong turn near the end.

Ultimately, about a month before race day, I decided that since I was so on-the-fence about the Marathon, I should just split the difference and run the half, so I went to the site, and the next thing I knew I found myself signing up for the full. I just couldn’t pass up the deal. Twice the miles for only a few dollars more.

Based on the training plan I had used the previous year, a month before the race, I was already supposed to be tapering. Since I hadn’t been training nearly as much, I knew I could handle a much shorter 1-2 week taper. Instead I just crammed a Marathon blog and did a few quicker runs to practice good cadence.

The Goal

I knew I wasn’t as fit as I was last year, so it would have been foolish to try to break 3:00. On the other hand, I did have to walk last year, and my average pace ended up being around 7:50. I was also confident that I could beat that with a smarted race plan. In the end, I decided that I would run around 7:30 pace (~3:15 time). If I could stick to this much easier pace, and maybe even speed up towards the end, that would give me a lot of confidence to break 3 in the future with more training.

The Race

Oddly, the Seattle Marathon is around the same size as the Madison Marathon. Maybe there are just more marathons going on in the area or more people do the half (as we’ll see), but I was even closer to the starting line than I was in Madison (maybe 10 or so people from the front. There were pacing groups at 5-minute increments. I tried to stay with the 3:10 group, but they were running right behind the 3:05 group for the first 5 or so miles, and that felt like a maintainable pace, so I stayed with the 3:05 group (about 7-8 people). I had a nice little chat with a guy who had run ultras but never a marathon.

I stayed with that group up to 18 miles, at which point we ran into a horde of half marathoners (who started an hour after us) trying to make a hairpin turn on the toll bridge. That really changed the game from trying to maintain a pace to trying to politely wriggle my way through the crowd as fast as I could without losing sight of the pacers.

Between miles 19 and 20, the Marathon route was off the bridge and took a detour away from the half. Around this time, my legs started to feel very silly. I tried to stay with the pacers, but the dropped me. I was on my own for a while until I turned onto the Burke-Gilman Trail, and reconnected with apparently the same horde of half runners from before going in both directions along an altogether too narrow path. This time it was more welcome. Even if I was going slower overall, it was motivating to pass people, and negotiating the madness took my mind off my legs.

The final stretch of the race was running up a quad on the UW campus, around a big fountain, and back down the hill, and into the stadium. I knew it was the last hill, so I was really giving it my all. Except, oh wait, what’s this? The Marathon route randomly takes another turn onto the Burke-Gilman to run another mile in the other direction. Finally I ran around the stadium, past my friend with her sign, and the let me stop running, after a full 3 hours and 9 minutes.

The Postmortem

Overall, I am pretty pleased with my performance. The time alone was a huge improvement over last year, and it puts Boston well within reach. I didn’t need to walk at all (aside from this one ludicrously steep hill), even when I bobbled a gel.

I attribute my performance to three factors. First, I simply ran at a much more comfortable pace. Even though it was faster than I intended, and I did slow down a little in the last few miles, my pacing was much better.

I tried to run with even effort rather than even pace. This is a tip I got from fellrnr and the reason I walked up that hill. When I looked back at Madison, one of my fatal errors was charging up a big hill at mile 8 (and losing my pacing group in the process). Even though I always lost some ground on my pacers on uphills, I was always easily able to make it back on the downhills.

Finally, I think I ate better during the race this year. I’m a little unsure how much this contributes. Last year I ate one gel around mile 20, when I was already walking. This year, I had one about every 5 miles starting from mile 2. It’s hard to tell how much of an effect this had, but I didn’t die, so I would probably try to stick with this in the future.

What’s Next?

This race went so well that it makes me want to do double the marathons in 2023. A friend wants to run one together, probably in the Fall/Winter, hopefully in Hawaii. I might try to run one on my own in the Spring or Summer to qualify for Boston in 2024. No plans are set now, but there are many in the area.

I also do want to try a triathlon whenever the season for them starts back up. I think I would really enjoy them.