Omaha Marathon Results
The Omaha Marathon - September 25, 2011
3:09:51 @ 7:15
19/602 Overall
8/47 Age Group
My flight from DFW to OMA landed at 6pm Friday night and my parents were nice enough to take me to a new pub on the way back to their house. After a Spaten Optimator we made the trip to a micro brewery (The Upstream,) where I proceeded to load up on carbohydrates.
I went to sleep at 10pm and woke up at 10am — probably the first time since training began that I’ve slept so much. Saturday was filled with pasta, fruit, a birthday party, and Nebraska football. The packet pickup for Omaha’s race was really bad. The Holiday Inn convention space couldn’t have been more than 5000 square feet and the line for the pasta dinner at a local restaurant was out the door and not moving at all. I’m not sure what they were thinking trying to squeeze an entire race worth of people into a place like that but it didn’t work at all.
On race day I woke up at 3am to get some last minute oatmeal and a banana in my system, drink some coffee and walk around. I met my running partner at an Interstate gas station before heading downtown, parking, and body-gliding-up for the start. The crowd was easy to deal with and I had no problems hooking up with the 3:00 pace team minutes before the start.
My pace goals for this race were 3:00, 3:05, and 3:15, which were probably off given the terrain I’d be running on. McMillain’s Running Calculator projected a 3:06 finish, but there were extenuating circumstances both for and against me. First of all, the temperature was perfect and 30 degrees cooler than anything I had trained in. On the other hand my long runs peaked with a single 20 miler 6 weeks ago and the terrain was very hilly.
Omaha never claimed to be a flat course so I knew what to expect coming in. At the end I had ascended about 1250 feet, the majority of which was in the first half. I ran the first 10 miles with two other guys who were aiming between 3:00 and 3:15 and their aggressiveness on the hills from 7.5 to 10 caused them to lose me once I started to speed up on the decline.
There’s one important note to make regarding the hills that isn’t obvious from elevation profiles. The 3% incline from 7.5 to 9 isn’t actually the killer here - it sucks, but it was expected. The real killer is the 10% dip followed by a 10% climb immediately following that hill (9.5 on the above map.) Once I turned the corner from Frederick street onto 10th I felt like the race officials were just fucking around with me.
The first half of the run went well and when I passed the half marathon turnoff at mile 13 my watch had an average pace of 6:50, I had eaten 2 granola bars, and I felt like there was plenty of energy left in my reserves. Once those runners split away from me my mood started to dim and things became very bleak for the rest of the race.
Omaha doesn’t draw very big crowds and those that do come to the race stick to the first half. The “cheering sections” and aid stations from miles 13 to 23 consisted of just a few people, the closest runners in front of and behind me were 400 meters apart, and the asphalt on the roads was rough and broken at places and believe me I felt every rock I hit. To top it all off there were two out-and-back turnarounds that killed any sense of exploring or scenic views. This was an ugly and repetitive course, I was out here alone, and I was beginning to run out of energy. Scratch that, I had run out of energy.
At mile 19 I was slowing down but I had just passed 2 people and an observer hollered at me that I was in 9th place. I was shocked actually, because last year a 3:00 would have been #17. Then mile 21 hit and my legs felt like jello. It was painful to land a full stride by mile 23 and I was only barely managing an 8 minute pace. The 50 foot hill at mile 24 had me questioning whether it was even worth it to keep running, but by this point I convinced myself that dealing with 20 minutes of pain would be worth the sense of accomplishment for the next few years. So I pushed on, being overtaken by 10 people in the last 10K, and wrapped up the last mile in 7:52 passing the finishing clock at 3:09:59. Success.
I laid in the shade for a full 30 minutes after the race, contemplating life on the verge of tears, and unable to stand. It was a strange combination of the best feeling in my life barely overcoming the worst pain of my life. I spent a long time questioning whether I’d ever be willing to push myself that hard again, and whether it would even be worth it. A day later I’m still not sure, but my drive to run a sub-3:00 will probably take over.
I feel petty complaining about it but the post-race party at this event was completely lame. There was no beer tent and I’ve seen better sponsors and post-race goodies at the local 5Ks and 10Ks I run every month in Dallas. It was a miserable ghost town and the only thing I liked about it was the finisher’s medal. I had read the criticisms of this race prior to signing up so I’m not shocked, but here’s looking forward to a better one next time.
