I ran the Oakland Marathon this past Sunday and really enjoyed myself. I sporadically run half-marathons, most recently the Berkeley Half-Marathon with my good friend Mandi Spishak-Thomas, but this was the first full I had run in a while so I didn't really know how I would perform running at that distance.
The weather couldn't have been better, which helped a lot. I went off the start line just past 7:00 am leaving from Lake Merritt and the temperature hovered just above fifty degrees. About an hour into the race the sun broke through the clouds and the temperature climbed a few degrees, but still stayed cool enough where I felt comfortable during every leg of the race.
My loose game-plan was to try to run at about a 7:00 mile pace until I couldn't anymore, and that's pretty much what I was able to do.
Oakland Marathon - 26.22 miles through Oakland, CA.
I finished with a time of 3:16:44 and Strava clocked me at a total distance of 26.98 miles. Over the course of the race I gained 267 feet in elevation and and averaged a pace of 7:17. My individual mile splits were:
- Mile 1: 7:13
- Mile 2: 7:05
- Mile 3: 6:30
- Mile 4: 6:50
- Mile 5: 6:57
- Mile 6: 7:02
- Mile 7: 7:05
- Mile 8: 7:02
- Mile 9: 7:08
- Mile 10: 7:13
- Mile 11: 6:55
- Mile 12: 6:59
- Mile 13: 6:55
- Mile 14: 7:24
- Mile 15: 7:16
- Mile 16: 7:17
- Mile 17: 6:58
- Mile 18: 6:57
- Mile 19: 7:08
- Mile 20: 7:06
- Mile 21: 7:16
- Mile 22: 7:47
- Mile 23: 8:20
- Mile 24: 7:55
- Mile 25: 8:22
- Mile 26: 8:06
Melanie met me on the course at the halfway point to cheer me on, and again at the finish line. I drank a Drake's IPA at the finish and felt great.