Tallahassee Marathon - 02-02-2020

He spots the finish line, and the clock above says 3:59:40. He begins his final sprint to the finish, but the problem is that he is already sprinting; it feels like he has been for the past six miles. Will he make it?

Let's back this up a few hours. He's out of bed at 2:40 and on the road by 3:29. Good thing he noticed - at the last minute - that there's a time-zone change between Panama City Beach and Tallahassee. A bit over two hours later, the GPS states, "You have reached your destination." Except that he hasn't. There's no one around. After circling around some, he finally figures out that it's 301 South Madison, not 301 North Madison. There's still time to park and check in.

It's cold - 41F. That's actually perfect for running, but his concern is the wind and what it might do to a certain not-quite-so-protected area. Pinning the bib on the front of the shorts may help a little, but he also - for good measure - stuffs a rag from the car down the front of his shorts.

It appears that the half-marathon is pretty big, but the full seems pretty small. Most of the full bibs have pretty low numbers; our protagonist is number 19. Right off the bat, there are hills galore. They're not huge, but they're enough to slow a person down at times. But the sun has begun to shine, and the air temperature does indeed feel about perfect. Our protagonist's countermeasures appear to be working.

He's doing most of his miles in the nine to nine-fifteen minute range. This is actually right according to plan to bring him in just under four hours. By the way, here's fodder for a future post: how did sub-four hours become a goal? The problem is that the second bathroom break takes a while. He hits half-way in around two hours and three minutes, give or take.

Now he has to pick it up some to still get under four hours. The good news is, the course has flattened out, and is mostly now all-purpose trails through various parks. The better news is that he's feeling pretty good at this point. Maybe negative splits will be possible this day.

Funny that it feels the same as it did when three hours was the goal. Of course, it does. Hey, what's another hour anyway? He passes mile 20 in 3:04. He's been picking it up, but he needs to do so even more now.

Miles 20-25 are the fastest yet, but he knows that it's still going to be close. The final 1.23 miles are fastest of all, but then he sees that clock. This is now as fast as he can go; as fast as humanly possible. He looks at the clock as he crosses the line, and it says 3:59:59. He made it!

Except that he didn't. He sees the results a little while later, and they say 4:00:01. The good news is that it also says that he won his ancient age group. And it also says that his chip time is about thirty seconds faster.

It's rare that a plan comes together this close to what was anticipated. But it happens. It was a nice race; a keeper. Maybe he will do it again next year. Maybe the goal will be different. Or maybe not.