It has been so nice being in Arizona the last few days, within hours of being here I honestly felt like a whole new person. And shedding that skin was the perfect way to prepare for the race.
Although I felt a little at odds with my decision to do the half, I do think in the end it was the right decision. No matter what distance I do, I truly believe I try to push myself to the limit in order to see what I can prove.
The morning started off with a 4am wake up call from S, which I had gotten used to. The combination of the two of us reminds me of so many other relationships I have held, which scares me a bit. I am all about playing with fire, but her likeness frightens me. Thankfully the ever-accepting A was there to balance out the mood.
Since the marathoners started about an hour earlier than the halfers, I had some time to clear my head & focus once everyone left for the race. Although my mind kept returning to the same thought, it made me realize that I needed to develop a better sense of control if I was going to continue living this way.
I got to the marathon just as the race was starting, I will never quite get over the feeling of watching the pros leap ahead of the pack in such a dominating fashion. After I watched a few hundred runners pass, I made my way to the half start, which was much, much larger. The race was brought together with interviews from the likeness of John McCain to Deena Kaster to the oh so beautiful Ryan Hall.
So on to the race. We all know that we have good & bad days. And mostly I have good ones. This one being no exception. I started out the race with about a 7:05-7:10 pace, feeling like I could go much faster but pushing myself to take it easy. At mile 3, I was in the 21 minute range, much quicker than I had anticipated but not way off my goal. At mile 5, I had already slowed down a bit over the 1:35 goal pace I was going for...but not something I couldn't make up. From mile 5-10, I ran a pretty consistent 7:20 pace, which I couldn't increase for the life of me. From miles 10-11, I dealt with some rolling hills but I kept a steady pace. From 10 on, I was running more of a 7:30-7:40 pace, which wasn't ideal but I truly felt like I was pushing it as hard as my body would allow. The last mile took forever, I really thought I had a chance of running a 1:36 or 1:37...but it just wasn't in the cards today.
There are a few lessons I learned though:
- The whole fueling part of the race is a bit of disaster for me. My body seems to shut my stomach down almost immediately, making any fuel intake almost impossible. I noticed during this run that it was far more beneficial to take a gu/energy drink & take it easy for a few minutes while running than try to push it. Doing this inevitably slowed down my time but it allowed me not to go through the nausea that I usually deal with.
- For me, becoming a drastically faster runner is going to have to take a lot more effort. I have been running since I was a pre-teen & have been consistently the same type of runner. No matter what degree of training I have done this far really impacts my racing. If you take this race for instance, I faithfully followed an aggressive 9-week program. But when it came to race day, I was 10 seconds slower than my pr. I don't see how I will ever pr in minutes, my running might be all about seconds.
Seeing the success of S/JP today & the heartbreak of A made me realize that my love of running has much more to do with the people I surround myself with than the times I pursue.
Distance: 13.1 miles at 1:38:36
State of Mind: A little more silent...
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