The Self Transcendence Marathon 8/08

The Self-Transcendence Marathon report;a.k.a- The seaweed marathon, cause they serve little dixie cups of seaweed on the course. (Funny that you remembered that John).This was my second year running this Marathon, Its in Rockland County NY where I grew up. A 3 mile loop around a beautiful lake that you have to run 9 times. A 7am friday morning start. The temp started very nice, probably 70 degrees. I met David from the blog near the starting line, a real nice guy from Brooklyn NY, we spoke briefly and I introduced him to a friend that was running the race w/ me and Marybeth who was there for support and to man the cooler. She ended up not being a great person to be in charge of the cooler because she just wanted to run herself. She ended up doing 3 loops (9 miles) and I ended up stopping and flling my bottles my self at an unmanned cooler. lol, I actually thought it was great, I would rather her be running than handing me off drinks. She wasnt even at the finish line at the end cause she was still running. lolWhen I ran this Marathon last year and I really struggled finishing in 4:29, my slowest time from all the Marathons I've run. This makes 6, not including 2 Ultras dating back to last April.I've been in a bad habit of going out too strong ( Just like Spurgeon mentions) so this Marathon I wanted to be very calculated because I really wanted redemption from last years time. I started at an 8:30 pace and really felt like I would be able to maintain this for the whole race. It would be a PR for me if I did. I was knocking off the miles like clockwork, checking my Garmin every few minutes to make sure I was staying on pace. For the first 19 miles I was right on it, every mile was right on the money. At mile 20, I was starting to feel the heat from the Sun beaming down on me, the temp had jumped up and it was much hotter then at the start. I clocked this mile at about 8:50 and here is how the last 6 miles looked;21- 9:1322- 9:3023- 9:3824- 10:1625- 9:5026- 9:54I keep my Garmin on a one mile lap count so I can see each miles pace.I ended up finishing in 3:55..... so much for pacing myself. lolI fueled myself pretty good in this race, I ate 4 GU packs the last one being the new Roctane GU which seemed like it helped if you look at the difference from mile 24 to the last 2 miles. I have to say, I feel really good about this race. I improved over a half hour from last years time and as Dean mentions in his book, When you give it your all in a race, I mean 100% pusing through agony, no matter what the time at the end, You feel great knowing that you left it all on the course. I cheered my wife running back from her 9 mile run, and we walked over to the finish line and cheered my buddy and David come in also. The heat was deffinitely getting alot of people, August in NY is always tough.The results just came up this morning, I place 87th out of 398 people.Great race, great day.