Pacing my wife at the Illinois marathon -- ninja style

This year my wife wanted to run the Illinois marathon, which runs through the towns of Champaign and Urbana.  Since we currently live in Champaign, this would be a logistical breeze.   Since she wasn't sure she'd get the training in by May 1 (the day of the race), I decided to add some motivation and offer to run it with her.  This would be the first race we'd ever run together since our paces are about 4 to 5 min/mi different.

As we sipped our coffee before heading to the start, the temperature was already pretty warm (60s) with humidity (80s). Naturally the temps rose; the humidity dropped a little.  I guess it really got so some people.  As we got into the late stages of the run we started seeing the carnage along the sides of the road -- people dropping out left and right.  After the race I heard about a lot of friends who missed their goals, they felt because of the heat.  I can honestly say that the heat never really bothered me, but I was running 4 to 5 min/mile slower than my usual marathon pace.

Our goal was sub-5 hours.  We headed out at a steady 11:10/mile pace and pretty much maintained that the whole race, with a short stop at mile 10, a short walk at mile 23, and a few very short walks through aid stations.  My wife is a human metronome.  I wish I could hold a steady pace like that.  Starting early I made sure Jenn kept her electrolytes in balance and stayed hydrated.  I made her take salt tabs every hour at first until she started drinking Gatorade, when we eased the tab intake a little.

So I got my first real look at a back-of-the-pack perspective.  I have to say, it wasn't really all that different: people soldiering through the miles, putting one foot in front of the other, aiming for the finish line.  That's the same.  The difference: it took us longer to get to the finish.

The "ninja style" part:

My first road marathon in Vibrams, and the farthest I've run on roads in them.  My feet were as sore as they should have been after 26.2 miles of pavement, which is not too sore to run 15 miles of trails the following day in a pair of KSO Treks.