Marathon 2.0

I'm so tired of thinking about long runs and marathon stuff, so it's hard to get up the energy to write this update. The short version is that we did it! Woohoo! All three of us completed it without any hitches. It was really hard and we were all very tired and very sore for a few days, but I think that aside from a few very minor twinges here or there, we're all recovered now.

The marathon started at 7am, and it was actually still dark when we started running. It quickly got lighter, but it was a gray day, which turned out to be awesome. Since it was cloudy, the temperature at the start of the race was about 63 degrees instead of the forecasted 46 degrees I was expecting from the forecast 1 week prior to the race. The temperature after the race--68 degrees. It really doesn't get much better than that for almost 5 hours of running.

We started off holding ourselves back a lot, trying to make sure that our pace stayed in the mid to upper 10's, which is what we were hoping for as an overall pace at the end. If you recall, my mistake in Marathon 1.0 was to start off way too fast, which caused me to hit the wall around mile 16. We were trying to avoid that. In addition to the perfect weather, the course was beautiful. We ran past rolling green hills of vineyards and oak trees. Race conditions were really just ideal. I opted not to run with my water bottle, but I put on my Armpocket loaded with 6 Fig Newtons and I planned to drink at every aid station and eat whatever was available whenever I felt like it. I think this ended up working pretty well, but I did get a bit thirsty between some of the aid stations.

The first 15 or so miles were pretty uneventful, aside from the turnaround point at 13.1. We had taken it nice and easy and came in the halfway point at 2:22, which meant if we kept the same pace on the way back, we would come in at 4:44. Marathon 1.0 was 4:49 and some change, although my halfway point in that race was just under 2:19. I figured we'd slow down in the second half, but I was still hopeful that we would beat my time. (I definitely didn't expect it to happen though.) At about mile 16, we saw our gaggle of husbands and kids--3 husbands and 9 kids combined into 2 minivans. The kids ran with us and the husbands took pictures. It was great to see them and really fun to have them run next to us. We continued to run and then they drove past us (right on the road we were running the race on!) and waited for us at another point up ahead. We continued to play this leapfrogging game for about 4 miles.













In those 4 miles, Buddy Amy and I tooke a potty stop and Buddy Cami continued on (which we were expecting to happen at some point because Buddy Cami is capable of much better running than Buddy Amy and me). Right around mile 20, maybe a bit before, I hit the wall. It wasn't horrible, and not as bad as in Marathon 1.0, but my ability to be optimistic and hold my head up high and enjoy myself was gone. (At that point we actually sent the families to the finish line so we could stop trying to look happy to see them and just grit our teeth and finish the race.) Only 10K left to tough it out! So short yet so far! I'm not sure about Buddy Amy--I know her legs were sore like mine and she was very tired...but, when we had 3 miles left, Buddy Amy started leaving me in her dust and I could NOT keep up! Rather, I couldn't find the willpower inside myself to make my legs go fast enough to keep up with her. She had some hidden energy reserve inside that I either didn't have or was finding it impossible to tap into. Actually, I did manage to go fast enough to tag behind her by about 100 feet, and twice I caught back up to her (um...really, she allowed me to catch back up to her after I exerted enough effort to make it obvious that I was attempting not to get left in the dust). Those last 3 miles were SO HARD. Really. Really hard! But thanks to my Garmin, I could just see the remaining distance ticking down and I kept saying to myself, "Just chip it away. Chip it away."

When we had 0.2 miles left, there was a bend ahead that you knew turned into the finish straightaway, and I saw Buddy Amy was a little closer to me than before, so I turned on my long stride to catch her so we could run in together. Thankfully, she was slowing down for me instead of sprinting in to the end. If she had decided to sprint before I caught her, there was no way I was going to be able to turn on a full sprint. But, like I said, she was giving me a chance to catch her, so we ran in together, and I made sure to let her finish before me because she was so nice and let me catch her. In the end, we finished in 4:56:07, which is about 15 seconds per mile slower than Marathon 1.0. But that doesn't really bother me because this race course was rolling hills the entire way and Marathon 1.0 was almost all flat, so this course was a slower course.

All in all, it was really hard, but still worth it! As usual, I couldn't keep my tears from popping out at the end. Dangit. I'm really not one for public tears (for myself--I totally don't mind when other people do it!). And ooooohhhhhhh man did my legs hurt! (But I got to ease the pain a bit with a jacuzzi afterward, which was AWESOME.)



So, yeah. Marathon 2.0. We did it!