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Bellingham Bay (Half-)Marathon Race Report

Yesterday, I ran the half-marathon event in the inaugural Bellingham Bay Marathon. I was joined by my friend and pseudo-coworker (same office, different companies) Brian Rollo and Nate Glass. Brian and I trained together for most of the summer and had actually run portions of the race course a couple of times during our training.

I arrived at the start around 7:20 AM and jogged a bit to warm up; then I started looking for my running mates. I found found them on the way to the portable toilets, half of which were on their backs, probably the victims of local hooligans the night before. The wind was really blowing hard as we stood in line, a taste of what was yet to come.

As we waited for the 8:00 AM start, the three of us agreed that we were aiming for a pace between 10:45 min/mi and 11 min/mi. We also agreed to try to stick together for the first half, and then to run whatever was comfortable for each of us. We hung back toward the back of the pack, as we were definitely among the slower runners and we didn’t want to impede any of the faster, more competitive types.

We crossed the starting line a minute or so after the front of the pack and made the turn southeast. For the first 5 miles or so, we were running into a mild/moderate headwind with the occasional heavy gust strong enough to blow off a hat or two. I had been worried that things might be a bit congested on the boardwalk between Boulevard Park and Taylor Dock, but it turned out to be fairly smooth-going. The wind was the strongest and gustiest on the dock.

As we came into Fairhaven, we were greeted by a group of about 30 Harley-Davidson enthusiasts, which was cooler than it sounds. As we made the right and headed down toward the Ferry Terminal, we started to pass the first (back of the pack) walkers, who had started 30 minutes earlier. We made the left onto 4th street and headed up the biggest of the hills. As I had in an earlier training run, I employed my half-walk/half-run stride (which, I’m sure looks incredibly silly) with good success. I got to the top with a lot of energy left and without losing a step in pace.

As we ran along the ridge through Edgemoore, Nate and I were still feeling good at the five-mile mark and Brian was still going strong, but acknowledged he was starting to hurt a bit. We made the turn to head back toward the Bellwether between five and six miles. As we reached the top of the downhill coming out of Edgemoore, I was feeling great and just let myself pick up the pace a little, separating a from Nate and Brian. After sticking with the 11:00 - 11:30 min/mile through the first half and most of the hills, I had a fair bit of energy left and quickened to around 10:00 min/mile.

I was passing people pretty consistently now, having stepped up the pace quite a bit. As I came back through Fairhaven, and the Harley-Davidson group, I identified a couple of “rabbits” that were between .1 and .25 miles head and set my sights on catching and hopefully passing them. I slowly closed on them and passed all but one before coming across the bridge back into Downtown Bellingham. I was within about 50 yards of the last of them when I met up briefly with my own personal, roving aid station — Betsy, Sean, Caleb and my Mom, who were waiting with encouragement and another bottle of supplemental Gatorade about 3 miles from the finish. I got my drink and Sean ran with me for about 200 yards before he turned back. I again set my sights on the one remaining “rabbit”.

I passed her about the 11 mile mark and as I did, Nate came up on my right. Turns out he had kept pace with me but had been hanging about 50 yards or so back since Fairhaven Middle School. Brian wasn’t with him and, according to Nate, had separated around the 7 mile mark. Nate ran with me for the next mile or so before taking off ahead. I managed to keep him in sight for most of the rest of the race, but with about a quarter-mile left, realized I wasn’t going to catch him — I just didn’t have it in the tank.

Just before he left me in his dust, Nate and I had agreed that when we finished, we should head back and find Brian to finish with him. So, we did. We caught up with him a little more than a quarter-mile from the finish and jogged in the rest of the way with him.

I finished with an official time of 2:16:24 (see complete race results). All in all, it was a great day and a great race. My time was well below my target time of 2 hrs 24 min.

A few pics. More to come.