Marathon #35: Louisiana Marathon, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I just completed my 35th marathon, the 2025 Louisiana Marathon in the beautiful city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana!

• C Goal: Finish
• B Goal: sub 3:15:00
• A Goal: sub 3:10:00
• Stretch Goal: sub 3:05:00

Despite the abnormally cold weather and relentless, frigid wind, I was able to power through with an official time of 3:09:13, hitting my A Goal of a sub 3:10:00 race.

This is a relatively smaller race, with only about 3500 participants in total, about 1200 of which ran the full marathon. I was able to book a hotel about 3 blocks from the start line, so I was able to sleep in a little bit extra, get prepped, and roll out to the start line as late as 6:40am. Officially starting off at 7am, I had a little time to warm up and stretch, before shedding my layers and getting ready to run.

As the civic center of the state and city, naturally the downtown area of Baton Rouge is a ghost town on a normal Sunday morning, but on a race morning where many of the streets were closed, it truly felt as though the runners owned the streets. The first 4 or 5 miles were spend leaving the downtown area and heading towards the surrounding suburbs, the LSU campus, Mid City, Jefferson Court, and back again.

It was a bit chilly in the start, but around mile 5 or 6 the wind really kicked in and never stopped. It was a strong, cold wind, and somehow breaking the laws of physics, I seemed to constantly be running into it as a headwind. The wind proved to be a real challenge to keep motivation and speed up as I faced a 13mph average with even stronger gusts. It was definitely as an unexpected competitor on this course. I was able to commiserate with other runners along the course, and we all agreed that given the relatively flat elevation, the wind was the real challenge of the day.

I was particularly proud of myself for not stopping to walk at any point until mile 20, breaking a pattern I have seen in my past few races of needing to rest much earlier in the race. I think that the wind actually stopped me from pushing too hard, something I am prone to do early on in the race due to nerves, and lack of discipline. While not going out too hard, I was able to keep myself focused at a relatively consistent pace of about 7:00/mi over the first 20 miles.

Even though I afforded myself a little walking rest in the final 10k, miles 20-26 were no "walk in the park." Nothing was cramping up, I was well-hydrated, well-fueled, but the wind was at my face for the last 6 miles, and it was really difficult to keep pushing hard. It was like running through a 6-mile "wall", where I wanted to give up every step. Despite this motivational challenge slowing me down, I knew I would eventually finish, and stopped checking the pace on my wrist.

While it felt like I was going much slower than I actually was, My slowest split on those last 6 miles was 8:35/mi, so I didn't lose a ton of time in the end. Heading back into downtown and turning the corner on to N. 4th Street towards the Capitol Building, I dug deep and found some reserved speed, pushing strong through the finish line, towards sweet relief from the wind.

After the race, it was so chilly out that I skipped the free food and drinks and trekked back to the hotel to recover, rehydrate, and refuel. Later on, after a good rest, I set out to find a local tattoo shop and got my tally incremented by Alex at Black Torch Tattoo, a fellow runner who had to sit this marathon out due to injury.

Up next is marathon #36 in January, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma!