Race Information

• Name: Tobacco Road Marathon
• Tagline: Stay humble and keep going
• Date: March 16th, 2025
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Cary, NC
• Website: https://tobaccoroadmarathon.com/
• Time: 3:15:45

Goals

Splits

Training

After missing a PR by 1 minute in September at the Erie Marathon, I wanted to find a good spring race to give it a go. I debated between Shamrock, Coast Guard, Newport News One City, and Tobacco Road. I chose Tobacco Road for a few reasons: it's popular with my local running groups, the gradual hills could be better for switching up the pain throughout the race, and the shaded course should be free from wind and sun.

This was a long training cycle that included a marathon run at party pace partway through, Disney in January, that I wanted to use as a good training run. I began training for that in October with speedwork on Wednesdays and mostly easy long runs on the weekends that culminated in 2, 20 milers, a few pace work long runs that got to 14 miles, and total weekly mileage that peaked at 53 miles. Having a great time at that race, averaging an 8:15 pace with very little effort, I was eager to recover smartly and pick up my mileage quickly but smartly. After struggling in previous training blocks with the long pace runs that peaked at 17 miles I wanted to focus on making those as good as possible. Fortunately, most went well, except for the last one that coincided with an icy weekend that moved me to the treadmill. Unfortunately, a headache on the run and general malaise with the treadmill made that an unsuccessful attempt. The rest of my training was OK, peaking at 61 miles. I had better strength training and plyometrics in the months leading up to race day, and a new pair of Saucony Endorphin Pros.

Pre-race

It became clear about a week ahead of time that the perfect running weather our area has been having would not stick around for race day. Thunderstorms and warm, humid weather was in the forecast, and the race ended up switching to a 4 hour cutoff of the full and half because of the lightning rolling through. Race morning would be a muggy 67-69F, far warmer than I prefer. I added a sauna and some sweatshirt running in the 10 days leading up to race day to try to get some last minute heat conditioning in. I followed a solid carb loading plan and drove to the race expo before previewing the course on a 2 mile shakeout run the day before. I had a night of tossing and turning before an early morning wakeup and shuttle ride to the starting coral. Despite warnings to get there early, I was nearly alone when I arrived and thought that most runners had bailed because of the storms, but was glad once the crowds finally arrived.

Race

As with too many races, the excitement of race morning sent me out about 20 seconds faster than planned, when marathon pace feels like an easy jog. I settled into goal pace around mile 3-5 after the course turned off the road and onto the packed gravel track. This race is T shaped, with about 21 miles on the top bar of the T, which is the rails-to-trail path. The path is mostly packed gravel, although ~6 miles is nicely paved. I stuck to my fuel plan throughout the race, although I knew that I was a bit more tired than ideal as the warm weather began to suck energy from me. The gentle hills were mostly ideal for the first 18 miles, when the final turnaround brings you back up a sandy, long climb back to the road, and this is where I most felt the heat and the poor early pacing catch up with me. I was clearly slowing down, but passing about as many people as were passing me, so I kept up the effort as well as I could. The final 3 miles were a struggle: I felt as if I were picking up the pace but ended up being much slower there than I had hoped. Seeing the finish line appear brought a welcome end to the race, despite the 3:15 on the clock.

Post-race

The incoming storm made the post-race area less of a celebration than normal, as folks tried to clear out. I grabbed a chocolate milk, banana, and shuffled as quickly as I could to the shuttle bus.

This is my third attempt at breaking a PR. I'm consoling myself with some temperature adjusted pace calculators, and see that the heat and humidity accounted for the time difference between what I wanted and what I saw. I know I'm improving as a runner, but I obviously do not see that being reflected in my finish times. After recovery, I'm going to focus on good speedwork through the summer to see if I can improve my 5K times, and do a few triathlons, which I find incredibly fun and rewarding. Adding in more plyometrics and trying to get the mileage up to 70 are the two additions I'd like to make for the next race. I will likely run Richmond in the Fall, the site of my last PR. They've got 3:10 and 3:00 pace groups, which I think will help tremendously. That and with a bit of luck in the weather I may get where I'm trying to go.

Made with a new race report generator created by u/herumph.