1L Ran There: Akron Marathon Pacing and Such

Well another good mileage week has gone by again as the training for NYC continues. Besides running almost 21 miles yesterday while pacing Mike at Akron (more below), I had a decent week. Slightly lower mileage (only 46+), but some good quality miles including a solid speed session on Tuesday and hills on Thursday. This week brings another solid track workout followed by an 8.5 hard effort run on Thursday and a 16 miler on Saturday with 12 at pace. Not really sure what my marathon pace should be, but I know that NYC is a crowded race, so I'm going to try and go for the 3:45 to 3:50 again. I think I'm in pretty good shape and similar to when I last ran NYC in 2011, but I was 3 yrs younger then and I was doing more mileage in a given week. I was not; however, doing any of the core work. We will see in a month as to what works best for me. I feel strong, but you never know.

As for yesterday, what a strange experience. I planned to meet Mike around mile 8 of the Akron course. Mike is a bald, tattoo covered guy from the Bronx that shouldn't be hard to miss. I also told him where I'd be, what I was wearing, and he said he would be in the 4:25-4:30 area hopefully with my friend, Brett, the 4:25 pacer. So after the runners start, I warm up and run about 2 miles over to the water stop that is about the 8 mile mark near the 3rd relay exchange to wait for him. I see all the front runners pass and cheer many friends, and I'm waiting and waiting and no Mike. I'm a bit worried, but sure I missed him. Finally the 4:45 pace group goes by, and I decide that I must have missed him. I addition, the 55F weather is also turning to 65F weather, so I decide to leave and hope to catch him. I take off on the course and cover roughly 10.5 miles (at an 8:40 pace) and there on the hill is Mike - yeah! So I catch him and abruptly slow to his pace which is now about 10:40 per mile. The sun has come out and the 2nd half of the course has a pretty brutal set of hills. Mike is running with a girl, Megan, that he trained with and she is looking to pick it up some - so I tell her that I'm staying with Mike as promised and I do. We then cover the last 8+ hilly miles of the course together and finish in 4:30 (his official time) accomplishing my 20+ miler and his 4th marathon for which he raised awareness for the Cleveland Rape Crisis center. I was pretty spent when done and the woman giving out the medals was shocked that I didn't want to take one (I did pay for the race, no bandit here - so I took the socks & jacket they gave to the registrants as well as the beer!). It was very warm at the finish (in the 70s) and I was tired - happy though when I made myself go to this morning's run to find out that nothing hurt or was out of place and my Achilles was fine as I ran an easy 6.2 miles.

The Akron Marathon is really well done and unlike Cleveland, Akron loves their marathon. The whole city come out to cheer on the runners (there is a half and marathon relay as well) and in spite of the challenging hills in the 2nd half, runners love the race. There is good swag, it is well attended (over 15,000 total runners as the races were sold out) and it is well managed. The Cleveland marathon might be older, but it sure could take a few lessons from Akron and Clevelanders could sure take a lesson or two from the Akron spectator community. There were spectators pretty much the entire length of the course including along the towpath section to where it is hard to get. It makes a tougher course (there are no hills on the Cleveland course) feel relatively easy with all the enthusiasm in the air.

Great news regarding the scum bag here in Cleveland as he was confirmed to be the perpetrator on both attacks. Glad that he is off the streets sorry that it had to happen. Yesterday during my pacing duty at Akron with Mike, who gave the inspirational talk at the #TakeBackTheRun event, a relay runner came up behind us going up one of the hills. He slowed to ask Mike if he was the speaker at the event and after saying "yes", the guy thanked him as it turns out he is the boyfriend of one of the victims. Weirdly small world. Well, here we are at mile 21 and they are swapping emails so that Mike can get the victim the resources she might/will need to come to full closure and get on with her life. I'm just a witness to all of this, but very proud that I'm helping Mike get his goal and kind of a peripheral part to this cool encounter.