I never thought I would participate in a marathon without a whole lot of planning, but that's exactly what I did when I ran Lake Geneva on May 13. My plan was to run in the Big Lake Half Marathon in New Hampshire. However, when my friend got mono and could not run, I decided not to fly out and run a race close to home instead. I had heard all of the stories about the hills and the tough race conditions at Lake Geneva, but I still thought I would enjoy it.
Here's a
link to the course map. It might come in handy as you read the report.
The weather was cool (about 50 degrees) and a bit rainy as the race started. If the weather stayed like this, it would be a pretty comfortable race. I decided to "run comfortable" for the first several miles of the race, turning in splits between 9 and 10 minutes for the first ten miles. Highlights of the first half of the race:
Mile 1: There were a couple of hills, but nothing too serious. The course flattened out as we moved further south (and away from the lake).
Mile 3: I ran alongside a gentleman named Paul, who was participating in the half marathon. He informed me that his wife, who was five months pregnant, was also in the half marathon, and she was advised by her doctor to run two miles, walk one mile, and repeat. Congrats to both of them: He finished in 2:02:25, and she finished in 2:39:44. Impressive.
Mile 5: After relying on my Garmin Forerunner 201 for the first five miles, I noticed that mile splits were painted on the ground. Spoiled by the Milwaukee, Seattle, and Houston marathons, I was expecting larger "sign"-style markers. Silly me. Once I realized that the miles were marked on the road, I was fine.
Mile 8: At this point, the marathoners head south toward Zenda, and the half marathoners continue west. Since only 100 runners participated in the full marathon, miles 8 through 12 are pretty lonely. However, I kept up on moving and tried to enjoy the isolation.
Mile 13: This was one of my favorite parts of the race. We rejoined the half marathoners near the start of mile 13. As you can tell from the course map, the half marathoners got a bit of a "shortcut". So, while full marathoners had run twelve miles, the half marathons had only run about ten. Why is this neat? The main reason is that the half marathoners I encountered were running at a slightly
slower pace. So, not only did I finally meet up with more people -- I was passing all of them! "Come on, half runners!" was my cheer.
Shortly after the thrill of rejoining the half marathoners wore off, the rain picked up. After being fairly content for most of the race, I was starting to get a bit drenched. Luckily, my wife and parents were watching at several points along the course, and they gave me back my warm-up / rain jacket. I wore it for the rest of the race.
The Second Half: As I passed Fontana and headed back around the northern coast of the lake, the hills returned with a vengeance. I had been expecting and anticipating this for a while. I did okay through mile 18, keeping my mile splits under 10 minutes. Fatigue became an issue after that. Noticing that I was nowhere near a personal-best pace (9:09/mile), I decided to take it easy for the rest of the race, taking frequent walking breaks and relaxing on the hills. My splits went way up for the rest of the race, but I still finished in less than four and a half hours. Highlights of the second half:
Mile 19: It's hard to tell from the map, but the course heads east on Geneva Street, then bends south around a loop by an observatory, heads back north, and then continues east on Geneva Street. Near the end of the loop, about 300 feet away from making the turn back onto Geneva Street, I noticed another runner heading east on the Geneva Street, apparently SKIPPING the loop. Did I just see someone cheat? Hmmmm -- I didn't think much more of it, as we were all well past BQ times.
Mile 22: Starting with this mile, the course went along a trail next to the lake. I was basically running through the backyards of various houses. The trail changed quickly from gravel to brick to mud to who knows what -- it kept changing based on how much effort the owners of the houses put into landscaping. Thanks to some volunteers, I stayed on the correct path through to the finish.
The Finish: Because I took things fairly easily for most of the last six miles, I had a finishing kick. The cheers of the crowd energized me as I crossed the line in 4:27:30.
Recovery: I have recovered from this race more quickly than any of my other marathons. I ran three miles on Tuesday, four miles on Wednesday, and five miles on Thursday. I sure am glad didn't push too hard at the end.
Here's some fun facts from the race:
| Miles 1-5 | 9:50 | 9:12 | 9:08 | 9:30 | 9:00 |
| Miles 6-10 | 9:26 | 9:41 | 9:25 | 9:41 | 9:53 |
| Miles 11-15 | 9:25 | 9:35 | 9:44 | 9:25 | 9:49 |
| Miles 16-20 | 9:33 | 9:43 | 9:44 | 10:35 | 10:27 |
| Miles 21-25 | 10:53 | 12:11 | 11:30 | 12:21 | 13:20 |
| Miles 26-End | 12:31 | 1:58 |
- Average Pace: 10:12/mile
- First half: 2:04:32 Second half: 2:22:58
- Fastest Mile: #5 (9:00) Slowest Mile: #25 (13:20)
- Race Results
- Ben's Photos
- Brightroom Photos
- Here's a graph of my four marathons so far, showing the number of miles ahead or behind 10-minute pace. The purple line is Lake Geneva. You can see that I started out around 9:30 pace and eased up at the end.
On Saturday, March 11, I participated in the Blarney Run. It was the first officially-timed 5K that I've been in since the Roma 5K in 2004. While I didn't set a new personal best, it was a lot of fun to be in a race that I knew would be over in 25 minutes or less. :)
