Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon Recap: I got it done

Let's just say that Saturday didn't go as planned.  The race was a struggle for me almost the whole way.  Mentally and physically I just wasn't where I wanted to be.  I'll go into detail here in a bit, but I want to make something clear first.

No, the race didn't go as planned.  But sometimes plans don't work out.  And that's ok.  I'm not upset, sad, or angry.  I'm not wallowing in sorrow because I didn't make my planned time goal.   Because my 4:23 finish time still puts me in the top 30% of finishers for my division and gender, and top 40% overall.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed, but I only let myself be disappointed for a minute.  Because when it comes down to it, my "rough" marathon was still a marathon.  I completed my fifth 26.2 miles, and that's something I'm proud of, regardless of my finish time.  I don't know a whole lot of people who can proudly say they've run a marathon, let alone five.

I've heard a lot of stories from runners that have completed multiple marathons, and every one of them says that some races are good and some just aren't.  There's no predicting, no preventing, and no avoiding when that rough race will come.  I figure it's about time I paid my dues with a crappy race.  Now it's out of the way.

Despite Saturday's challenges, I'm still here and I'm still smiling and I feel the fight growing all the stronger in me for the next one.

Post race smiles happen whether or not you make your time goal.

Now on to the recap:

Some days you wake up and you just don't feel right.  Something feels off.  Not quite what it should be.

Saturday morning felt like that.  My alarm went off at 4:30, and as I reached over to turn it off, my brain was thinking it was time to go to work--and it took a minute before I registered that it was marathon day.  On a "normal" marathon day, I'd be jumping out of bed, brain focused and body full of nerves.  As I got dressed and prepped my race supplies, I had to keep telling myself it was marathon day.  It felt like I was getting prepped for a typical long run.  Not a marathon.

When I got to the race start, I was surrounded by nervous, excited teammates.  I tried as hard as I could to absorb their excitement and soak in their nerves, but my race day giddiness just wouldn't seem to kick in.

An amazing group of purple, excited marathoners ready to take on the day.  These people collectively
raised $180,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for this race.

Perhaps this picture more accurately depicts my fuzzy, not-quite-with-it pre-race feeling:

The body looks there and ready, the face and mind
not so much.

I went through the motions of our typical pre-race routines.  Starting with lots of group pictures.

Coach Erica and running buddy James.

Me and my co-worker ladies that I somehow convinced to join the crazy
marathon world with me.

Nothing but sparkle from Mr. Sparklepants.

I checked my bag and headed into my corral, hoping that being lined up and ready to go would jumpstart the nerves.

Me and the boys of corral 10.

But the nerves didn't come.  I learned early on in the competitive swimming days of my elementary and middle school years that if I wasn't nervous before a race, I wasn't going to do well.  Nerves are what get me  excited and get me pumped.  They're what push me to do and be the best.  I always had my best races when there was a lot of pressure on me, resulting in a lot of nerves.  So the fact that I was standing in my corral, minutes before the start and lacking anything but a tiny inkling of nervousness had me a little worried.

When we finally crossed the start line, I took off and tried not to psych myself out too much.  I focused on keeping my feet moving and trying to maintain the slow easy pace we wanted for our start.  And in fact, the pacing was pretty good for those first miles.  I kept up with my reminders to keep it slow and before I knew it, we were at the marathon/half marathon split around mile 6.  As the half marathoners turned left on Lake Washington and we turned right, we waved goodbye to a couple of the people that were in our starting group.

With 3 of us still together, James, Curt and I headed south down the stretch of Lake Washington toward Seward Park.  And it was at this point that I started to get a little worried again.  I was feeling a blister on my foot that I knew would be pretty terrible in a couple of miles.  And I was tired already, which I shouldn't have been.  On top of that, my stomach wasn't feeling top notch.  I could feel every GU I took in and stopped taking my mid-GU sport beans because things just seemed to be sitting there.

By the time we swung around back out of Seward Park and I saw the 90 bridge off in the distance, my thoughts were already turning negative.  I tried my best to remind myself of John Bingham's advice from our Inspiration Dinner for TNT the night before: "Define yourself."  But I was apparently defining myself as a Negative Nancy for the day.  I tried to dig deep and unearth that positive fighting voice I've come to know so well in my past races, but it just wasn't there.

Me, James, and Curt.  I'm smiling, but only on the outside.

By the time we hit the 90 bridge and climbed the steep little hill up to the express lanes at mile 15, I was already beginning to count down the miles.  Usually I can get to miles 18-20 before starting the ending countdown, but this race already seemed to be dragging for me.

Last week, the weather in Seattle was cloudy, in the 60s, and rainy.  And since Saturday, the weather has been about the same.  But on Saturday, the sun was shining and temperatures were supposed to peak around 80 degrees.  I had been sweating from the first mile, worried about hydration and salt intake, and the sun was out in full force.  

As we ran across the bridge, I could feel the sun, but there was a light breeze that kept the temperature pretty low.  By the time we started nearing the turn around point on the bridge at mile 18, I needed to take a port-a-potty pee break--which I saw as a good sign of proper hydration.  However, with the way I happened to time things, I had to run about 2 more miles before finally being able to stop.  We ran into Coach Jeff right at the turn around point, and I think he could tell right away that I was struggling.  He reminded me to re-set the brain, that it was just an 8 mile run from here.  I could do this.  And for a while, that worked.  Eight miles just 2 short weeks ago felt like nothing to me.  I could run 8 miles.

We finally hit a port-a-potty and Curt took off, concerned that he wouldn't be able to keep going if he stopped.  James stuck with me and waited for me to run the rest of the bridge together.

But by the time I hit mile 20, the heat on the bridge had gone way up, and my upper stomach had turned into a complete knot.  I could feel every ounce of liquid I took in and every little glob of GU I ate with each bouncing step.  I started to feel myself hunching over, straining my back, trying to overcompensate for the discomfort in my tummy.  I was tense, running with tight fists, and starting to get angrier and more upset with every step.  James reminded me that the 4-hour pacer was still behind us, which perked me up a little but I was losing hope that I'd be able to maintain pace.

By the time we hit the water stop at 20.5 and walked through to get water, I couldn't get myself running again right away.  I was feeling dizzy and trying my best to hold back tears.  I felt all the fight in me drain away in an instant.  As I watched the 4 hour pacer pass us by, I all but gave up right then and there.  I told James pretty adamantly to go on without me, but he walked with me until I could get going again.  We stuck together until about mile 21 when my pace slowed even more and James kept going.

Then it was a battle between me and my mind.  I hit the 90 tunnel off the bridge and started walking.  Then I kept walking.  And I walked the entire tunnel, trying my best to talk myself into running again.  I decided that once I felt able to get myself going again, I'd run 3 minute intervals with a minute rest in between.  I had done intervals like this while pushing through speed work at Tuesday practices, so I knew I could do it.  I told myself I could do it.  I started chanting it as a mantra in my brain, trying to stay focused on that one thing: "3 minutes running 1 minute rest 3 minutes running 1 minute rest."

I ran into a teammate, Liana, who was helping to sweep the half marathon as I approached the end of the tunnel.  When she asked how I was doing, and I replied that I felt like crap, she told me "Yeah, you don't really look so good."  But I told her my plan, and saying it out loud helped.  I got to the end of the tunnel, hit the sunshine again, and kicked my feet into gear.  I stuck to the 3:1 intervals, cursing how slowly time seemed to be passing in the running intervals and how quickly it seemed to be passing in the walking ones.  I bounced back and forth for a while with a 4:10 pacer, keeping up hope that maybe I'd still PR, but at the same time acknowledging that today was not my day.

Walking here, you can pretty clearly see how I'm
feeling.  Looking at my posture, I know why my back
and shoulders are more sore than my legs now.

I made it back into the city and it was right around mile 24 that I saw Erica running towards me.  I felt a huge rush of relief.  I knew she'd push me to the end and that I didn't have to fight by myself anymore.  She'd already been warned by a couple others that I wasn't doing so hot, so she was ready for my grumpiness.  She helped set mini goals for me, many of which I blatantly said no to, but it helped.  I kept running further than I probably would have on my own.  

Another shot of the pain face and Erica trying to
stay positive and keep me going.

In the last 2 miles I ran as much as I could and walked when I couldn't run.  I was trying to fight, but I didn't have a lot of fight in me.  My heart wasn't in it.  Erica helped get me through it though, right up until the last .2 miles.  I entered the finish chute, saw some familiar team faces and some friends who came down to cheer me on at the finish (thanks Cristin, Frani, and Joel--you guys are the best), and finally crossed the finish line 5 minutes slower than my current PR.  

I wasn't upset anymore, I wasn't angry anymore.  I wasn't even disappointed anymore.  Because I finished.  As I was cursing myself at mile 23, internally claiming that I'd never run another marathon again and only do triathlons from here on out, I had gotten all of it out.  At the end, I was happy to have finished.

Because I ran a marathon, and how could I in any way be disappointed with that?  I wouldn't allow it.  So I smiled as I got my medal.  I smiled as I walked the finisher's zone.  I smiled as I saw my all my friends back at the TNT tent.  I smiled as I talked about how hard of a race it was.  

Mentally, this race was 100x harder for me than Goofy was.  It was harder than any of my previous marathons, because I felt like I didn't have the fight in me.  But I gave all the fight that I had that day, especially given the stomach issues and massive blister I had developed in the early miles.

Gross.  I know.  But I never get blisters, so I had to
document this one.

I fought through this race in the best way I knew how.  Yes, I ended up running almost 25 minutes slower than I wanted to.  Yes, I forgot to actually enjoy the race (this may have been the biggest problem I had actually).  But I did the best that I could with the circumstances I faced.

I tried to give all I had for these guys.

And I couldn't be happier for that.