So, first, here are the numbers after getting the 9th one in the books:
- Three quarters of the way through the #Sub3ForPtR campaign and only about $400 to reach a total of $6000 for the year! There was an anonymous donation of $500 that has put the fundraiser so close to the finish line. Thanks for all your support!
- One person guessed my time of 2:59:09 exactly. Ten people guessed within 20 seconds. So I'm donating $150, $50 for the exact guess and $10 for each guess within 20 seconds.
- 9 marathons complete, cumulative time of 26:43:44, average time of 2:58:12. That keeps the average finish time at #Sub3ForPtR and 6 out of 9 have been under 3 hours.
The rain was on everyone's mind for this one. It was pouring rain in Pittsburgh and pretty much everywhere else south of Erie. But fortunately Erie remained dry and the conditions pretty ideal for the race: cloudy, low 50s and NO RAIN!
Working the pacer table at the expo it was interesting to get more people coming up to meet the three hour pacer than the four hour pacer. I've paced three hours three other times this year and have had pretty small groups. Ten or less when you exclude half marathoners. I had twice that many talk to me during the two hours I was at the pacer booth alone!
As you can see from the picture the group with me this time was at least two dozen but probably closer to 30. And this race only has a marathon. From the get go things felt comfortable and smooth and the fist few splits were pretty much spot on. Occasionally the wind would come in fairly strong but it was only briefly and never had much impact on the pace.
With the flat as a pancake course profile (minus the "hill" on the backside that climbs about 8ft) even pacing was the name of the game. The first half split was 1:29:39, just a hair over 20s faster than dead on pace for 3 hours. At this point the group was still pretty much intact and running well.
As we got roughly halfway through the second loop a few people started to fade but several started to pull away, too. There was a large group of guys from a NY area college running in the group that started talking about picking up the pace around 20. One of the guys did just that but within 5 minutes came back to the group complaining of cramps. Fortunate I had extra salt pills to give him. They did the trick and while he didn't pick the pace up again he remained in contact with my pace group and finished strong.
Ultimately about half the group, maybe even a little more, finished with or ahead of me. A few more finished just a minute or so behind me securing a solid Boston qualifying finish time. Overall the race had ~44% of the field qualify for Boston!
It was great to pace so many people and have such a high percentage of them finish with me, ultimately getting them PRs and/or BQs! The following note passed along to me by Jim Crist (owner of MarathonPacing.com) is a prime example of why I thoroughly enjoy pacing:
"I wanted to express my gratitude to your pacer Elijah. I ran with him on Sunday at the Erie Marathon. He was amazing, very consistent, steady and delightful."
So, a successful race all around for #Sub3forPtR, a large portion of my pace group, and a number of good running friends! It's hard to believe that there are only 3 marathons left! Chicago's next in just a couple weeks!
Comments