San Antonio Marathon 3:44:53 (Pace goal 3:45:00)

The most difficult part of pacing, is when you have no one left but you still have to run that agonizingly uncomfortable pace till the end on your own.  (My opinion)

This weekend I was fortunate enough to be an official pacer for the San Antonio marathon.  My assigned time goal was 3 hours 45 minutes, which is an average pace of 8min 35seconds per mile.  Lately my relaxed "long run" pace has fluctuated between a 7:50 and an 8:15 (depending on weather and distance), so 8:35 was slower than anything I comfortably run, meaning this should be a cake walk.

What is pacing? Simply put, we pacers volunteer to run a certain pace to help runners achieve their goal time.  We put our time on our shirts, and we carry a time flag so people can choose to run along and know that this person will run an even paced run all the way to the end.
I opted to wear two watches (one for backup in case i inadvertently stopped the other one, etc.) and a pace band with overall times for every mile to ensure we were where we needed to be.

(Photo by Todd J. Husband to Kristal who is waving hello and was running the half. Half marathoners would split away at mile 11.)

I probably had about 25-30 hopefuls running the pace with/around me.  I did my best to entertain the group, encouraged the spectators to cheer my runners on, had a multitude of jokes and stories to keep their minds entertained.  Some people had music on from the start, and some hung back enough or a little ahead of me, and just used me to stay steady.  Everyone had their own plan, except me.  Mine was simple: run as close to an 8:35mins per mile regardless of terrain, all the way to the finish, and don't deviate from that plan no matter what.

While it sounds quite simple, it's actually quite difficult to be "on" for an entire marathon.  Typically, if one has a time goal, you may pick up the pace on a downhill mile, or slow down on an uphill to then make the time up on the downhill you know is coming.  Maybe you want to walk through and aid station to get extra fluids.  Maybe you feel like crap for a few miles.  Maybe you feel great.   But most of all, on race day, you run for yourself, your pace varies, and well, if you fail, you've got no one to blame but yourself.  I, on the other hand, had a multitiude of runners relying on me to stay steady and on pace.

It was great fun, but what I thought would be a simple long run, with an additoin of encouraging runners, turned out to be a challenging grind, mostly because of hot and humid weather conditions.  It got hot in a hurry.  New reports I've read say it got as hot as 79 F, but that's in the shade.  This course had no shade, and the asphalt just made things even worse as the sun just beat down on your head. 
As you can see from the photo below, i carried a water bottle, and i drank like a fish and took my own salts.  I even drank cups from most water stations even if my bottle still had water.  Destruction was everywhere, people were in trouble quite early.  We passed many runners that had been reduced to a slow walk, were stretching out their cramps, etc. I can't begin to tell you how many times I told my runners to take both Cytomax (electrolyte drink) and water to stay on top of the humid and hot conditions.  Heck, I was drinking like crazy, had my own salt tabs, and come mile 16, even my legs started to get a little tingly. (Personally, I doubled my salt intake from then on, and it thank fully kept any disastrous cramping at bay)
Most miles were within 5 seconds of goal time, and based on people's attitudes I really thought i would have some contenders late in the game. Unfortunately, even after 2 long miles full of encouragement, motivational quotes and stories, my last runner dropped off the pace a little after mile 21, so I was then on my own, and that's where this hot and humid party became a tough grind to the finish.  My job was to run 8:35s no matter what.  There could be someone in front of me or someone shadowing me, and I was their reference point, so there was no option to speed up to something more enjoyable, or pick up the pace to get the run over with.  So there I was, passing fading runners, runners that were walking, runners that were limping, or stretching their legs.  I had gone from a pacer that began the day with a goal of helping make people's dreams come true, to a runner who was now crushing dreams of runners as I caught and passed them, holding the dreaded 3:45 sign they so did not want to see.  "oh no", "fuck", "ugh", "dude, you're running too fast, you're not allowed to catch me yet" were just a few of the things I heard people say as I was forced to be the bearer of bad news.

But I had a job to do, and that was to run my eight thirty fives and get in as close as possible to 3:45:00.   The problem was, I was ready to be done, my legs were hurting from an abnormal pace, and it was hot, and i was tired, and I wasn't allowed to run any pace I really wanted.  I HAD to stay on pace. And so I did.  And it got tough.  Those mile markers took forever to appear.  And it was hot out.  And no shade. And a pace that just plain sucked to run on my own.  Just one runner.  Just one is all I wanted.  It would have made things completely different. The pace would have been great, had I had just that one runner!  Funny how the brain works.

Some runners ahead would see me catch them and I'd encourage them to "hop on" and I'd lead them in.  I so wanted to help people, but their minds had won, and they could only hang on for a few minutes until the invisible rubberband holding us together would snap and they'd yet again, be reduced to a death march.

I can't tell you how happy I was to see the Alamodome to my right, which meant less than a mile to go and I would be done.  I continued to encourage runners I passed and motioned with my arms to the crowds crowds to cheer on the runners all the way to the finish (which for some reason works really well when you carry an official pace flag).  I took the hard right, dipped down under an overpass, then the final hill about 300 yards from the finish (which i took a little too fast), and the final straight away to the finish line. 

I decided to take the sign with my left hand, and proudly bring in the 3:45 pace group across the line.
Even if the pace group had long ago become a party of one.

My final time was 3 hours 44 minutes and 53 seconds. 

(7 seconds off of perfection, but I had no interest in slowing down in the final 40, 30, 20, 10 yards to artificially get a closer time, so that was an honest, even paced, run to finish.)

(some official race photos. Clockwise, Early on around mile 3 or 4.  Finish line photo.  Two close to the finish.)

A while after the run was over, two of the people that had tried to run the time, found me (walking around with my pace flag).  Eventhough they fell apart and finished at 4:03 and 4:09, they thanked me for what I did, and said there was no way they could have stayed on pace as long as they did without me. That was the best thing I could have heard all day, and all I needed to hear, to know that the hot, sunny, miserable grind, was worth every second.  Can't wait till next year!