California International Marathon - 08 Dec 2024. Sacramento, California.
I ran 3:09:36, I have been chasing sub 3:10 for a while and this was my 5th attempt at it. I struggled a lot at CIM last year (I ran 3:48 and walked a lot), so I also saw this years race as a redemption race. My last race, was the Sydney Marathon (in mid-September), where I ran 3:11:27.
On the weekend, I shared an Airbnb with a few others from my running club (West Valley Track Club) near downtown Sacramento. A few days prior to the race, one of them - Lukas asked me about my race plans, and asked if I wanted a pacer (he ran Berlin recently, and wasn’t up for running CIM as an “A” race). I told him it would be nice to have one, and said my plan was a 1:35 half way split and to see how I felt. My race plan ended up being “stick to the 3:10 pace group till 30km, and take it from there”.
Race morning, we were up at 3am, in order to depart our Airbnb at 3:40am. CIM is a point to point course, we were staying in Sacramento (near the finish line), so it’s common to catch a bus out to the start of the race (similar to Boston marathon). We managed to get to the bus stop at about 4am, and got on a bus at about 4:15am (I napped the entire way). Our bus arrived at the start about 5am (2h before the start !!!), we were allowed to stay on the bus, so we took advantage of that. The heating on the bus was good, maybe a bit too much. We finally decided to get off the bus at 6:30am, as the race started at 7am.
After doing some easy stretches, to shake off the fact that we’d been sitting for the past hour and a half, Lukas and I made our way to the start corral at about 6:45am. We started a group behind the 3:15 pace group, which I felt was a good choice, given the downhill start of CIM. Immediately after the start we saw the 3:10 and 3:15 pace groups blaze out in front, and I’m glad that we ran our own pace and didn’t try to stick to them at this stage (which would have been too fast)
0-5 km (22:14)
After the start, we let the first few kilometers roll by, and started to approach the 3:10 pace group at about 3-4 km mark. Lukas and I were casually chatting about our plans for Miwok 100km next year, which we both signed up for. I took it as a good sign that I still felt comfortable chatting.
5-10 km (22:20)
We reached the 3:10 pace group, and the pace was feeling comfortable. We were sitting at the back of the pace group, and I felt the urge to be out in front, but I reminded myself that we still had a long way to go, so I told Lukas that I wanted to just ride the flow of the pace group for the next 10-15km.
10-15 km (22:35)
This was where the ever so slight amount of “uncomfortable ness” started to settle in, and when Lukas asked how I was feeling, all I replied was good. But I did feel very locked onto the pace group, I just kept my own eyes looking at the feet of the two pacers (they were wearing bright green shoes, which helped), the rolling nature of the first half of the course, meant that I didn’t dare look up and see what lay in front of us. It was also because I would be reminded of how much I struggled on these hills last year.
This meant that I naturally started to think “it would be nice to have a downhill soon…“ , and before I knew it - we were on a downhill. There was some foggy sections here making the visibility low, and it was still feeling very cold.
15-20km (22:35)
From here the pain was so slight that it was probably a touch more than I would have liked (I remember how good I felt in the Sydney marathon at this stage, where I still recall it feeling like jogging). By pain; I am referring to how the muscles in my legs where feeling, and how hard I was working.
20-25km (22:35)
We passed half way in 1:34:30, which was a confidence booster, I was still feeling good, and still in control, then compared to the previous section. It was still pretty cold, and now I was really starting to get onto the heels of the pacers. I really felt the urge to go in front of the pace group to get some space, I told myself to stay patient till 30km.
It was here, when the thoughts started to appear, “maybe this is it for me today, maybe I throw in the towel now, and I go sub 3:10 next time. Because I’ll always run another marathon again”. Not giving into this feeling was probably harder than pushing at around the 35-37km mark. I had to push away every craving I had, to not give in at this moment. I just said to myself, just keeping looking at the feet of pacers, nothing else “just one more km”.
25-30km (22:25)
I could feel that rolling nature of the first half of the course was starting to take a toll on my legs, but I just took it 1 km at a time, and stayed locked onto the heels of the pacers.
30-35 km (22:04)
At the 30km drink station, we lost contact with pace group (I surged slightly to be able to get to the drinks), but also felt that it was also time that we broke off from the group. Lukas and I had gone in front of the group, it felt that there so much more space to run and it was very freeing. It was also liberating, as after passing the the 30km mark, I knew that the hardest part of the race had been done, and that there weren’t many hills remaining.
We slowly started pick it up a bit, and kilometers 32 and 33 were 4:20 min/km, we might have been a bit too fast. So we did slow down a bit over the next few kilometers, about 4:25min/km. Seeing that we were able to pick it up a bit, I started to have some thoughts that a 3:08 might be possible.
35-40 km (22:58)
We were still averaging under 4:30 min/ km, so I knew that I would be doing sub 3:10 today, as long as I held onto a reasonable pace (under 5min/km) until the finish line. I knew all I had to do was hang on, but the fatigue was really starting to settle in, with about 5km to go. After we got off the last bridge, the course is very flat and I was also starting to look out in front and “tried” to enjoy the presence of the other runners in front.
There was times when Lukas tried to encourage me: “sara you can do it”, and all I did was shake my head “no, no i can't” in response.
40km - finish
With about 500m to go, the 3:10 pacers had overtaken us. My only regret I had during the race, was not chasing after them at this point. I also did try to stick with them, but couldn’t.
I got to the finish line, and I was just so happy. My knees immediately fell to ground, and I just wanted to soak in what I had done, I wanted to scream so loud “I DID IT”. I didn’t look at the time on my watch, but I was 100% certain that I had achieved my goal. I couldn’t believe that I had finally been able to over come this 3 hr 10 minute barrier, that I had been wanting for so long. I gave Lukas a hug, and also went to thank the pacers.
