2019 Wineglass Marathon Recap

Thanks so much for everyone following along  this race season! Last weekend I was lucky enough to race the 2019 Wineglass Marathon.  Overall I had a great day, and came in with a time of 4:11. I was really happy with that, even though for most of the race I was on pace for a slightly faster time, I hit a pretty big wall at Mile 20, and before the race I had promised myself that I would be smart, since I’m also race the Savannah Marathon in 3 weeks.  I had to keep reminding myself that no matter what I didn’t want to do anything silly and put that race jeopardy (afterall if I something happens and I can’t race, John will never let me hear the end of it).

We got to Corning on Saturday, hit up the expo, which was nice and small.  Having done Chicago last year, I quickly realized these large, big city races are not for me.  Too many people and too much chaos. After the expo we headed for Wegmans for lunch, and some food to bring back to the hotel for dinner.  Also you can’t be that close to Wegmans and not go. Then we went back to the hotel, and I laid low the rest of Saturday, relaxed, watched some college football, and a Yankee win.  Before bed I made sure to pack up the hotel room, only left out the clothes I needed for the race, and food for the morning. Then I mixed my UCANN drink for the morning, and my Maurten for during the race and went to bed.

Sunday Morning the schedule was nice and relaxed, due to my normal wake up early schedule, I didn’t even need up any earlier than a normal day for me.  I got up at 5, followed my normal pre run meal, coffee, a skratch bar and one Munk’s oatmeal squeeze pouch. Then came the fun, I usually like to drink one UCANN Super Starch drink before a long run, and I had premade that days drink the night before and put it in the hotel fridge.  When I went to get it on the way out the door it was frozen solid…lesson here, always check the temp of your hotel fridge. Lucky I ran the bottle under hot water, and defrosted it, and headed out for the race.

Parking near the finish line was really easy, and well organized by tons of volunteers, then we got on buses to the start area, which was a seamless and organized process.  At the start we got to relax for a bit in a nice large tent, and then line up for the start.

I decided to test out the new Garmin PacePro feature in my Fenix 6x Pro, and based on that was going to start out around a 9:15 pace and get faster, based on that I lined up near the 4:10 pace group. I felt good at the start, but felt crowded near the pace group, so I tried to get a bit ahead of them, and then tuck in behind the 4:00 pace group.  That group was huge, and I quickly got bothered by the packs and commotion as we got into water stops, so I got just ahead of them. Looking back that was a mistake, I was going slightly faster than I wanted, but felt good…until I didn’t. As we hit mile 18 I felt a little dehydrated and wanted extra water so I grabbed a third cup of water (I was taking 1-2 per stop before), at the 20 mile water stop I tried to do the same, but as I went to get moving again I just couldn’t seem to get back up to speed.  We then had a small downhill into a park, and that seemed to make me tighten up more than I expected. At that point I decided to stick with whatever pace felt good, and “enjoy” the rest of the run to the finish.  

After the finish they had some great food to grab and I hung out for a bit to see friends finish and then got in the car for the trip home.  We made a few stops to walk around and keep the legs from getting too tight. By Tuesday, I felt good, and got a quick 3 miles in, and got 4.5 in on Friday to start the push towards Savannah. I’m not committing to this yet, but I think my plan for that will be to pace 100% on feel and not use my watch at all.  I think I may rely too much on that, and it gets into my head, so I’m leaning towards that. I also think the bottle I carry I will take just water, no Maurten, and rely on other fuel sources, but I think I need more easy access to pure water.

That’s all for me, hopefully this helps others figure out their race day plans, and if you are considering a race for next year and Wineglass is in the running, I highly recommend it.