{"id":18207,"date":"2017-10-08T12:17:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-08T16:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=18207"},"modified":"2017-10-08T18:53:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-08T22:53:33","slug":"october-8-2017-the-zagreb-marathon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=18207","title":{"rendered":"October 8, 2017 – The Zagreb Marathon"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I had assumed the “26” in the Zagreb Marathon logo referred to 26 miles\u2026 which really when I think about it is a very foolish assumption.\u00a0 First, it should be “26.2” for the miles representing a marathon distance.\u00a0 Second, Croatia is on the metric system so it would have to be “42.195” if they were doing it in kilometers.\u00a0 In reality, this is the 26th<\/sup> running of the Zagreb Marathon.<\/p>\n

Also in retrospect, the hour I gave myself to be onsite was ridiculously too much time.\u00a0 I could\u2019ve gotten there at 9:45 or even 9:55 and been fine getting into the corrals and heading out onto the course.\u00a0 But I might have been in the back of the corral and honestly I prefer being closer to the front.\u00a0 Even then there\u2019s a fairly wide spread of pace times and enough pinball\/Millennium Falcon-ing through the crowd to find a slot to run in.<\/p>\n

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I have no idea what the pre-race announcements said while I was standing around.\u00a0 Occasionally there\u2019d be a brief English summary but even that I tuned out. I was in the throng of people and figured I\u2019d go with the crowd and figure it out as I went.<\/p>\n

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What became readily apparent once the firing gun fired and we took to the streets of Zagreb was that this would be a two loop course.\u00a0 The first sign I passed was for 22 KM \u2013 a dead giveaway.\u00a0 Basically we ran out 8 KM, turned around and ran back past the start and out another 2.5 K and then came back to start a second loop.\u00a0 It was an unequal, flat figure eight.\u00a0 So I didn\u2019t see 26.2 miles of the city\u2026 but it also meant we avoided any hills and had a pretty flat run.\u00a0 The one hiccup was in the city center people would only look one way before deciding they could cross\u2026 not taking into account that we were looping back and forth and, well, there were more than three close-calls for me as I narrowly avoided plowing into an oblivious family\u2026 or three.<\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know if Zagreb, Croatia, is a Boston Qualifying race.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got an email into BAA to ask.\u00a0 I was well on my way to a near PR\u2026 only to see the wheels come off pace-wise in the second loop.\u00a0 Each mile took progressively longer.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that the distance had changed; I was just slowly slowing down.\u00a0 With a loop course it\u2019s always a bit of a math problem \u2013 how fast to get to that turnaround?\u00a0 What do I need to run to get down to that marker to then be on pace for a BQ or a PR?\u00a0 But the wheels, man.\u00a0 When they come off, it gets to be a lot of higher math equations.\u00a0 If this, then that.\u00a0 If not A, then what about B?\u00a0 If I run the tangent here can I shave off a few seconds and try and make up some time?\u00a0 What\u2019s the hypotenuse of this corner?\u00a0 If I run that isn\u2019t that the shortest distance I can muster?\u00a0 What the hell was calculus really about?\u00a0 Areas under the curve?\u00a0 What does that even mean?<\/p>\n

There were a lot less people, both running and spectating, on the second loop.<\/p>\n

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There was however the same amount of confetti.<\/p>\n

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In the end, I ran a 3:11:18.\u00a0 That\u2019s a BQ time for this 40-something guy.\u00a0 It might even be enough to get me in for 2019 but I wouldn\u2019t hold my breath.\u00a0 I would make it if the standard deviation holds.\u00a0 For 2018, according to the BAA, \u201cqualifiers who were 3 minutes, 23 seconds (3:23) or faster than the qualifying time for their age group and gender were accepted\u201d into the next Boston Marathon.\u00a0 Still, it\u2019s nice to have a BQ time this early in the qualifying period, if only to know that it\u2019s still possible for my old bones to pull it off.\u00a0 We\u2019ll see what the Boston Athletic Association says about Zagreb\u2019s eligibility for reporting times.<\/p>\n

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As a lot of the half marathoners and 5Kers had already finished, there was quite a long line to get my goulash.\u00a0 But at least they gave me a beer to pass the wait time.<\/p>\n

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And there was a second beer by the time I got to the front of the line.<\/p>\n

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The goulash might best be described as a heartier version of tomato soup… and the bread dipped into it was delightfully filling.\u00a0 I was just glad I got some… when in Croatia, eat as the Croatians do!<\/p>\n

N.B.: Croatian cuisine is heavily influenced by a variety of regions — it’s a melting pot of tastes and seasonings and ingredients.\u00a0 Lots of pasta, lots of bread, lots of sauces, lots of stew and fish and, well, hell… there’s just a bit of everything.\u00a0 So when eating in Croatia, you can eat just about anything.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last night I did eat at that Michelin rated Boban.\u00a0 It was good, but maybe my palette isn’t that discerning.\u00a0 Tonight I think I may just have a slice of pizza and some more gelato.\u00a0 Did I mention this was my celebratory 6 HKR gelato?\u00a0 That’s about 94 cents American!<\/em><\/p>\n

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I had assumed the “26” in the Zagreb Marathon logo referred to 26 miles\u2026 which really when I think about it is a very foolish assumption.\u00a0 First, it should be “26.2” for the miles representing a marathon distance.\u00a0 Second, Croatia is on the metric system so it would have to be “42.195” if they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}