My first trip to Italy was for a conference in Pisa in the late spring of 2010. I had run my first race (at least in modern history) in November of 2009, a half marathon, and would soon begin running more in preparation for my first marathon in the fall of 2010. Four and a half years later, I returned to Pisa for my eighth marathon and first race as a masters runner.
We arrived in Pisa on Thursday afternoon, three days before the race on Sunday, December 21. My wife and son started coming down with cold symptoms that same day, and I began showing symptoms as well by Friday evening. Still we spent much of Friday exploring Pisa and Saturday walking around the nearby town of Lucca. The evening before the race I was feverish, and in the middle of the night I woke up with such a sore throat that I initially mistook it for strep. But somehow I willed these symptoms away during the second half of the night and woke up on the morning of the race feeling suddenly and surprisingly ok. Once I rejected all thoughts of not running the race, I completely forgot about being sick until another runner coughed next to me mid-race. Aside from that brief moment, it didn't even occur to me during the race to use sickness as an excuse not to push myself as hard as I could.
The plan was to start the race with the 3:00 pace group but to push ahead before halfway if I found a group to run with at a slightly faster but reasonable pace, to go through halfway no faster than 1:29, and either to run a negative split if I continued feeling good later in the race or just to hang on for a sub-3:00 finish otherwise.
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| Me (106) running with the 3:00 pace group at 2km. |
I had no trouble finding the 3:00 pace group at the start. Although there were just under 3,000 runners in the race, the streets were narrow and a large number of runners were tagging along either with the 3:00 marathon pace group or the 1:30 half-marathon group, which were right next to each other since the two races started together. The first water station at 5km was a bit of a mess for those of us running in this mob, so I moved ahead a bit earlier than planned, finally managing to get in front of the group just after 8km (5mi) and before the second water station.
Ahead of the 3:00 group, the road was much more open but there were plenty of other runners around, even after the half-marathon course diverged from the marathon course between 10 and 15km. I didn't latch onto any group but just ran comfortably in the mid-to-upper 6:40s (per mile pace) through 16km (10 mi). Feeling very good, I then decided to close a small gap that had formed ahead of me and to find a group to run with, increasing my pace slightly into the low-to-mid 6:40s. I closed the gap and finally settled in with a small, constantly changing group at almost 20km (12mi). We went through halfway in 1:27:52, which is 4:09/km or 6:42/mi pace.
Almost from the start of the race I noticed that the km markers kept coming earlier than my Garmin thought they should. Either the course was short or my Garmin was measuring it long. I couldn't tell which it was until I saw that split at halfway: obviously the course was short, because there's no way I was running that fast. I'd guess that my real halfway split was more like 1:28:30, a little faster than planned but not more than a minute faster. After the race someone told me that in Italy race courses are measured from the middle of the road (or the lane if the entire road isn't open), which means that you actually cover less than the official distance if you run the tangents on turns (as everyone does). His watch agreed with mine that the course was short: my Garmin showed 25.92 miles at the finish.
So I was probably averaging around 6:45 pace by halfway. But still feeling good, and realizing that the course was slightly short, I started fixing my sights on finishing in 2:55. Shortly before halfway the course left the foggy farmland in which we had been running and arrived at the coastline. We ran one direction along the coast on one side of a wide road, then turned around and ran the other direction on the other side of the road for a couple km past where we had initially arrived at the coast. Before the turnaround we saw the race leader and then everyone else ahead of us running in the opposite direction, and after the turnaround I saw all the runners I had recently passed and then the 3:00 pace group and everyone behind it. Mentally I shifted into a different mode after halfway, having to concentrate on staying relaxed and beginning to break the rest of the race into small chunks. But physically I still felt good, although maintaining my pace was not as effortless as it had been before. Still I felt smooth and was confident that I had enough in the tank for the second half.
After 29km (18mi), the course turned away from the coastline, back toward Pisa, and into a strong headwind. I hadn't noticed a tailwind earlier, but that's how tailwinds are, and winds tend to be strong near the coast. The course remained completely flat, but the headwind immediately slowed me down about 20 second per mile and I now had to work much harder to maintain even that pace. Gradually the headwind diminished over the next few km as we got further away from the coast, but the first km into the headwind (30km) shook me up. I briefly entertained the idea of backing off, which would have meant slowing down to something like the 7:20s as I did in each of my previous (failed) attempts to break 3:00 around this point in the race. But I pulled myself together and continued pushing hard, although that now meant running just over 7:00 pace.
By 33km (20.5mi) I started noticing tightness on the outsides of both thighs, which quickly increased. My muscles were paying the price for the increased effort since I turned into the headwind. Soon the tightness grew worse on my right leg and I struggled to keep my stride even. I slowed to 7:15 pace in km 34 (mi 21) as all of my attention focused on that right outer thigh. Because of the misalignment between the course markings and my Garmin, I'm not sure how fast I ran the next km, but surely I slowed down further before finally stopping right in front of the 35km mark (21.75mi). I don't remember deciding to stop but suddenly just found myself standing there instead of running as I had been a moment before. At first I tried to stretch and then to start running again, but my muscles were impossibly tight, especially that right outer thigh. After walking slowly for several minutes I briefly wondered whether I could manage to jog the remaining 4 miles, but then I dismissed the thought. I've done that before and wasn't going to have any jogging this time. Certainly it wasn't worth risking a serious injury to my leg. Since I couldn't run hard anymore, my race was over and I walked to the finish line.
According to my Garmin, I averaged 4:13/km or 6:47/mi pace through 34km (21mi), stopping just short of another km beyond that, which is high 2:57 pace. On that short course it probably would have registered as a 2:56 if I held that pace to the end. Now, of course, marathons are 42.195km (26.2mi) and I stopped 7km (4.5mi) early. So it would be difficult to view my race as a success. But I still think this race was promising in several ways. With two solid months of training, I ran much faster over almost 22 miles than I've done before. With another solid block of training, building on the base I've already established, I should be able to close that gap to the finish line. It is also possible that my cold affected me during the race and that walking around in the days beforehand contributed to the tightness in my outer thigh muscles, which I never experienced during training.
In any case, I did not fail to enjoy the experience. I highly recommend the Pisa Marathon to anyone considering a race in the area. The course is beautiful, totally flat, well supported, and never lonely. You won't find a better place for your pre- and post-race meals.
