Salmon Marathon Report

This week I decided at the last minute to sign up for the Salmon Marathon in Salmon, Idaho. I think my upcoming 50 miler is in 3 weeks so it seemed like it would be a good training run. In the few weeks preceding the marathon I'd done a 28 mile trail run (last Saturday), a 21 mile trail run (that preceding Monday) a 23-25 mile mega-hike and a bunch of other hikes this summer. My neighbor and I run 5 miles in the morning a couple times per week.

the view from our hotel room on the Salmon River

The main reason to go to Salmon was that a bunch of my running buddies were going.  I figured it would be fun to go spend the weekend with some girls and get some running in.  I went into the race with no taper, dehydration (don't ask) and little road running training.  My last long road run was the 10 miles raced at the Solider Field race in Chicago on Memorial Day weekend.  I knew that, clearly, I should set an agressive goal under these circumstances.

Iris, Danni, Mary Beth (aka Flatlander), Mary Ann, Ruth, Deb and Callie

I had it in my mind that now that I'm in a new age group I should be able to qualify for the Boston Marathon with little effort.  This is pretty dumb since I'm slow by nature and though my PR is 3:37 the vast majority of my marathons have been over 4 hours.  Anyhow, I've run Boston twice and think it's a ton of fun.  When I accidentally called my friend Ed the other day instead of Ted, Ed, who lives in Boston, informed me that he would complete his PhD soon and if I wanted a free place to stay I'd better hurry up and run Boston again soon.  So, I decided my goal for Salmon would be a 3:45, my new BQ time.  I think this comes out to roughly a 8:35 average pace.  I guess since I haven't run a marathon in years I forgot that it's actually hard for me to run a fast marathon and requires specific training and good pre-race preparation.  My splits looked like this:

1 -- 8:27
2 -- 8:27
3 -- 8:24
4 -- 8:20
5 -- 8:31
6 -- 8:13
7 -- 8:40
8 -- 9:02 (uphill)
9 -- 7:30 (downhill)
10 -- 8:13
11 -- 8:16
12 -- 9:02
13 -- 8:07
14 -- 9:27  (these next few miles involved the uphill slog of death in some manner)
15 -- 9:39
16 -- 9:14
17 -- 8:14
18 -- 8:12
19 -- 8:39
20 -- 8:41
21 -- 8:41
22 -- 9:01
23 -- 9:14
24 -- 14:14 (gave up)
25 -- 10:38
26 -- 9:09
.2 -- 2:04

At mile 23ish I did some number crunching and decided I wasn't going to make it so I stopped.  Relatedly, around mile 23 I developed a muscle cramp in my hamstring and calf and it started seizing up and hurting.  I probably could have pushed through if this were a matter of life and death, or I cared that much, but I sort of didn't and threw in the towel.  My finish time was something like 3:54.   I can see where I could have easily shaved off about 4 minutes. . . but a 3:45 wasn't really in the cards.

Nonetheless, I had fun.  Road running brings out the OCD side of me and reminds me why I sort of switched to trails and ultras.  Now that I arbitrarily set this marathon goal and failed completely I'm back to wanting to run a sub-3:30.  It all makes sense, yes? 

The Salmon Marathon is AWESOME.  Beautiful, logistically easy, fairly fast (though at nearly 5,000 feet to start with what seemed like significant hills to the flatlander and one 1.5 mile slog uphill that about killed me) and super mellow.  There was beer at the finish and the people of Salmon pretty much rock.  I highly recommend this race to anyone wanting a low-key gorgeous race.  Definitely PR material depending on sensitivity to elevation and hills.

The cool part was that I won 3rd in my age group.  And yes there were more than 3 people in my age group :p  I think there were 22 or so :-)  So that made me happy.  My highest marathon placement :-)