This is unusual for me as I usually incorporate a review of the race in a race report. I felt the race report was getting too long, so I cut the CIM review portion out. New York City Marathon has over 50, runners. Chicago Marathon has 45, runners. Even the LA Marathon has about twice the number of runners with over 20, marathoners. CIM is known for being a fast course because of its net downhill decline. Runners, particularly those who live in the West or looking for a late race, wanting to qualify for the Olympic Trials or for Boston go to CIM, specifically for it.
Approximately a quarter of the field qualifies for Boston. Everything about CIM is about qualifying for Boston. The pace groups offered at CIM are unusual times. Instead of the usual , , , etc groups, they offer , , , , etc. Have you figured out the reason why? This is not unusual and in fact, many marathons do this. What is different about CIM is that they are there to help you, not only BQ but to get you to Boston with a time that is sufficiently under the BQ cut-off time.
For , you needed to be 3 minutes and 28 seconds under. CIM responded by moving their pace groups to be 3 minutes under with the idea that the pacers will cross the finish line approximately 30 seconds under their listed group time. Each pace group is led by two pacers who run together basically insurance that if one has a bad day, the other is there to salvage the group.
Not a PR bell. A BQ bell. Got a PR, but not a BQ? The line, by the way, for the bell was ridiculously long. The expo was held at the Sacramento Convention Center. I liked the size of the expo. The bib pick-up was quick. I even got a photo and a video of me breaking the finish line tape. I love it when they have these setups. It was rather helpful because they discussed in detail what the course was like, particularly warning about the incline at Mile 22 when crossing a bridge.
Based on that info, Freshman kindly offered to drive me the last 6 miles of the course so I would know what to expect when I hit the final 10K of CIM. Having a little bit of familiarity meant a lot to me and it made racing mentally less taxing.
