Executive Summary: Finished debut marathon in 4:50:35 (a 39:43 positive split).

Training:  I’ve been running for about 2 ½ years, and have completed 4 HMs, but decided that it was time to make the leap to a full.  I followed Hansons’ Advanced fairly faithfully.  I spent weeks 3 through 11 of my training plan in Costa Rica, where I had to move some things around to accommodate a HM (and recovery) and some non-negotiable responsibilities.  But, I tried to stay faithful to the spirit of the training plan and the purpose of the workouts throughout.  For the most part, if I missed any miles, they were easy miles, and I substituted (unlogged) walking miles that were equal or sometimes even double the distance of the running miles I missed.

I trained using the Hansons’ training paces for a 4-hour goal race, and was able to hit those pace targets consistently when the temperature was under 80 degrees, and sometimes even when it was hotter.  But there was an exception- my easy pace.  I found that the pace I held when maintaining easy effort got slower and slower as the weeks went on.  That was my main indication that I was maybe pushing myself a little beyond what I was able to handle.  But then I would turn in a great quality workout and my confidence would soar again.

I stayed pretty healthy throughout my training.  I had been dealing with plantar fasciitis (I think) through the winter and spring, but didn’t have any issue with it at all during my training.  My hips started to feel tighter and tighter as the weeks went on, though, and I also had one very painful spot on the top of my right hip that showed up in early August and hung around through taper.  For the most part, I ran injury and pain-free, but felt pretty stiff and gimpy during the day at work as time went on.

Because of the heavy-legged feeling I had developed during training, and after talking to a few local runners who had used Hansons successfully, I decided to do a much more significant taper than what was called for in the plan.  The 16-mile long run 3 weeks out was my last real quality workout, although I did run my strength interval pace at the “Beat the Blerch” 10K the following week.  The final week, I threw in a few race-pace strides during my easy runs, just to make sure I still knew how.

During the last month, I thought a lot about my training and what would be realistic, and decided that while 4 hours (9:10 pace) was probably possible for me on a great day, I felt like it would also require a degree of focus and confidence that I didn’t think I had as a newbie.  On the other hand, the one time I had tried to target 9:20 pace on a MP run, it had felt very comfortable and I had needed to hold myself back.  Most of my MP runs seemed to fall at about 9:14 (in the heat).  So I decided that the realistic thing to do was to aim for 4:05 (9:20 pace), and to go out conservatively enough that I would close the door on 4:00 being even a possibility pretty early.

Race weekend: I live about 90 minutes away from Portland, and had to work the Saturday morning before the (Sunday) race.  I could have taken it off, but my DD also had her first SAT prep course that day that we didn’t want her to miss.  But I didn’t want to be running around all morning, and then spend the rest of the day at the expo.  Instead, I drove up Friday evening to pick up my packet, drove back home, and then the whole family headed back up Saturday afternoon.  From there, I mostly hung out at the hotel while DH and DD went out and enjoyed Portland.  At the expo, I picked up a 4:05 pace band that had splits adjusted for the course.  There wasn’t a 4:05 pacer, but there were pacers for 4:00 and 4:10, so I would try my best to stay nicely between those two groups, with the possibility of closing ground in the final 10K if 4:05 did turn out to be conservative.

My pace band:

We got a really nice room that was just a few blocks from the starting line.  The plan was to make race day morning as easy as possible.

Race day:  Race morning dawned clear and warm, just as forecast.  Summer weather had come back to the area a few days earlier, and the high for the day was 85 degrees.  It was a lot cooler in the morning, probably about 58 degrees at the gun (7 AM), and it didn’t get all the way into the 70s until about 11.  Warm, but not terrible, really.  I was comfortable in my racing gear without any extra layers at all before the start, which I realized was probably not a good sign.

I had an emotional moment in the hotel right before I left.  A runner had died at the Blerch race a couple of weeks ago, and that made me think about how you never really know what can happen when you choose to step out the door.  Yes, it’s unlikely, but it’s still a risk.  I almost woke up my daughter to apologize for being too much of a perfectionist and too hard on her.  Then I reminded myself that I would almost certainly be able to tell her later, and that I needed to calm down.

It was about a 5-minute jog from my hotel room to the starting line, which was perfect.  I had a moment in the corral where I realized that although I had never been to a marathon or any race with this kind of starting system, I almost felt like I had been there before because of all the race reports I had read.  It was like I was bringing everybody I knew from the forums, and their experiences, with me to the starting line.  And I felt really thankful for that!

Here I am pretending to be calm and excited in the corral.  Only look at how stiff I am!

My bib put me in corral C based on my 3:59:59 prediction when I registered, but I hopped back to corral D, where the 4-hour and 4:10 groups were.  I made it through the potty line just in time to line up, pretty much right in the middle of the pack, and then we were off!

Start: The pace signs and corral system worked really smoothly, because even though we were really crowded and my Garmin was no use when we were surrounded by the tall downtown buildings, just going with the flow seemed to put me at the right pace.  We started slow, but picked it up through the first mile.  There was also a ton of music and crowd support at this part, of course.  I heard my first Def Leppard of the day, because some girl on a crane was doing a cover of “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” and wondered what the connection is between running and cheesy 80’s rock.

I realized almost right away that I was going to need to make a potty stop.  I was pretty sure this was going to be the case, since the way I avoid that in shorter races is to run a good warmup.  Since that didn’t make sense for a marathon, I figured that if I needed to stop, I’d just add the minutes lost to my goal time without trying to make up the time.  The first potties were at about mile 1.3, and I was lucky enough to spot an open one as I went by.  I had my watch set to show lap distance, current pace, and elapsed time, so I was able to come out and get right back to pace.  Then, at the next mile marker, I checked, and I was 2 minutes behind 4:05 based on total elapsed time.  So my new goal was 4:07, and I’d get there by running the paces shown on my band, and could keep track of how that went at the mile markers.

The next section was a gradual uphill.  I had pulled even with the 4:10 pacers who must have passed when I was stopped, but they went charging up the hill as if they were on flat ground.  I decided to focus on even effort and let them go.  We crested the hill and I could tell by my pace band that we had two gentle downhills coming up- hooray!  I crossed the 5K mat at 30:48 (average pace 9:54).

Garmin splits, miles 1-3: 9:38, 11:22, 9:58

The two downhill miles let out into a nice straight flat section, and I was feeling pretty good.  I had to remind myself to ease up, and on the flats was feeling pretty comfortable at a pace that seemed just a couple of seconds off of my target.  But the inventory of systems kept coming back good.  Feet, breathing, hips, all great.  My legs felt loose and comfortable.  Maybe it’s taking more concentration than it should to run at this pace, but maybe that’s just hindsight from my perspective now that I know how the story ends.  Again, since I’d never run or trained for a marathon, it was only guesswork as to how my training and race paces “should” feel.  The sun is fully out by now, and this part doesn’t have a lot of shade, but I hadn’t even thought about the temperature yet.

Instead, I was paying attention to the crowd.  DH had said that they might look for a spot along Naito parkway, where we were, but I didn’t see him.  Instead, I saw several people with Costa Rican flags.  I gave a shout-out to them as I went by.  Clearly they were there to support me since I had done half of my training down there, right?  We also passed some pirates.  I remember somebody from running club telling me about her friend who had been tripped by the pirates’ flag one year and skinned her knee, so I decided that they were enemies and not to be trusted.  Since I had my name on my bib, every now and then somebody cheered for me by name.  It took me a while to get used to the idea that they weren’t saying my name because they knew me (I am used to running local races, I guess).  We crossed a lot of train tracks, and every time I thought about my luck that I had gotten over another set of tracks without having to stop for a train.

I was carrying gels, but with the large amount of aid stations on the course, didn’t carry any water.  The trouble was getting the two to sync up, since I hadn’t memorized all of the aid station locations, and they seemed to appear out of nowhere very suddenly.  I had tried to memorize which areas had long stretches without water, though, so that I could make sure to not skip the station right before the “desert” sections.  The goal was to take a gel about every 40 minutes, like I had done in training, and to drink about every 2 miles or so.

I crossed the 10K mat at 59:53 and was like “how is that 10K already?”  The 4:10 pacers were still going nuts and continuing to pull away from me, but I could tell from my watch that they were too fast, so I didn’t sweat it.

Garmin splits, miles 4-6: 9:05, 9:22, 9:20.  

This section was an out-and-back, and in the course description, the aid station there was listed as being available in both directions.  So I had skipped the station on the way out, planning to hit it on my return.  That section was really crowded- both sides of the out and back were pretty full when I went through.

We hit the turnaround (and the handy-dandy mat to prevent course cutting) at 8.9 miles.  Official time has me at 1:23:22 for this stretch, right on pace.  I took my second gel right after the turnaround, planning to get water when we went back by the station.

Except, when we got there, I could see that it wasn’t on our side of the road at all.  To get water, I would have had to run all the way through everybody still heading out on the other side of the road in addition to the people on my side.  Not going to happen.  Never mind, the next station will probably come up soon, right?  The gel wasn’t bothering my stomach at all, even without water, so it was more annoying than anything.

There were two really annoying chatty girls.  They were just behind me, and I really hoped that they were running the HM, but didn’t want to be bothered with looking for their bibs.

Garmin splits, miles 7-10: 9:19, 9:28, 9:29, 9:25.

We came up to the spot where the HMers split off.  I don’t know if the chatty girls turned off or not, since I had finally pulled ahead, but I do know that I didn’t hear them again.  I had another déjà vu moment where I thought “here it is, finally this time I am taking the full marathon split and not turning for the half”.  Then I called my own BS when I realized that I had never run in an event that included a full marathon, except for the Blerch race which didn’t have the fork-in-the road layout anyway.

I did sort of have a freak out moment when I realized that I was now headed back away from the finish and the HM runners, and there were a lot of miles left to go.  I realize that everybody says that the second “half” of a full marathon starts at mile 20, but in my mind, I had been the most nervous about miles 13-20.  I figured I could bring it home after 20 one way or another, but didn’t know how I was going to get through the middle slog.

The course profile didn’t help me at all here.  We were on a long straightaway through an industrial area, heading up to the toughest part of the course, the big hill up onto the bridge, which crested at mile 17.  Far enough out to be uncomfortable, far enough from home to know that there was a long way to go.  What was I thinking?

I think my big mistake here was that I hadn’t really been paying enough attention to the people around me to have fallen in with a group.  Even though there weren’t any official pace groups at this spot, that doesn’t mean I couldn’t latch on to people going at a similar pace to mine so that I could take my brain offline for a bit, the way I do most of the time in training.  I spent most of the time paying attention to the sights and sounds of the musicians, dancers, and spectators on the sides, and honestly hadn’t focused much on the runners other than the chatty girls.  But that meant that I had way too much time to worry and fret about things through here instead of just relaxing and zoning out.  You can’t run a whole marathon by concentrating super hard on every single step you take, that’s going to take way too much out of you.

I wasn’t very good at paying attention to the crowd either, as it turns out.  Somewhere in here, I ran right by DH and DD without seeing them at all.  They later reported that my instincts were right, and that the 4:10 group was practically on top of the 4:00 group by that point.  I did notice the bagpiper who was playing one very long, very loud note.  Was he trying to get us to go faster to get away from him?

Here I was running by my family without noticing them.  I checked the finish time of Mr. Dingo (next to me) out of curiosity, and it turns out that he ran my perfect race.  Should have stuck with him!

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere in here, my throat also started to feel like it was closing off.  Was it just nerves?  Was I out of gas already?  Or was it something else?  I’m not sure.  On the way home, Dr. Google suggested it might have been vocal chord dysfunction, but I don’t know.  I’ve never had anything like it before.  In any case, what it felt like was that I couldn’t get a good breath of air through my throat.  It wasn’t my lungs, and it didn’t seem like I was breathing too rapidly.  It was like there wasn’t room in my throat- almost exactly the feeling you get when you’re about to cry, and you can’t quite get a breath in.  And that feeling stayed there- sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always a part of whatever was going on, for the rest of the race.

There also still hadn’t been any water in what now felt like forever.  The long, boring road we were on went by the edge of Forest Park, so sometimes there was shade on our side of the road, but sometimes not.  I wasn’t really feeling too hot, though.  That didn’t seem to be the issue just yet.

I passed the HM mat at 2:05:26.  Did some quick math and realized I was still on track for a 4:11, and was feeling pretty good about that.  I didn’t realize that I was at the beginning of the end, though.  I kind of told myself that I had a long way to go, wasn’t breathing well, but figured that I’d sort of take it easy until I got to the top of the bridge, then bring it home strong from that point.  We finally passed a water station, and I walked it.  I had gotten so thirsty on the long stretch without water that I knew the couple of gulps I’d be able to get down while running wouldn’t be enough.  I took a cup of Ultima at the start, and then a cup of water at the end, and enjoyed the luxury of being able to get a good drink.  Then I jogged slowly off, telling myself I could take it easy for a bit until I didn’t feel so waterlogged.

Maybe that’s the problem- never take your foot off the gas during a marathon, because you’ll never have the ability to start up again once you ease off.  In any case, I sort of jogged this part.  I stopped looking at my watch even.  It was a long, straight, super boring stretch.  I still really believed that I would get right back on track after a brief intermission.

I think the ramp up to the start of the St. John’s bridge is about a mile of uphill, starting at mile 16 and ending at the 17 mile marker in the middle of the bridge.  It’s the biggest hill on the course, and felt pretty intimidating by that point.  When I got there, I was happy to see that it was nice and shady through that part.  I would say that more than half of the people who were there at that point were walking.  I didn’t walk, but I certainly wasn’t running quickly.  I did pass a ton of people on the uphill, though.

From there, the course takes a right turn, and we were up on the bridge.  I have to say that it was breathtakingly beautiful.  Literally, in my case, since I still wasn’t breathing well.  But it was really beautiful to look down at the river with the sun reflecting off of the water.  I saw a mountain up ahead and realized from its shape that it was Mt. St. Helens.  The clear, sunny weather meant that we had a really good view of the mountain.  We passed the mile 17 sign at the apex of the bridge, and I raised my hands in celebration of having made it to the top.  The highest point on the course!  I heard a cheer from somebody just behind me, too.

Another guy was stopped on the side eating a banana.  I was trying to figure out how that was even possible considering that this part of the course was completely closed off to non-runners.  You pass “Checkpoint Charlie”, and there are National Guard troops ready to pull you off the course if you don’t have a bib.  And that was maybe a mile back.  So how long had this guy been running with that banana?  Since the start?  Had he planned to carry it to the top of the bridge and have a snack break?  Was he just happy to see us?

Over the top of the bridge:

There was a mat at the bottom of the bridge (17.5), and I went over it at 2:55:52.

Garmin splits, miles 11-18: 9:37, 10:09, 9:55, 10:08, 10:35, 11:04, 12:01, 12:09.  And only mile 17 was really a hill, oops!

Now I really couldn’t breathe, was feeling discouraged, and didn’t have any motivation at all to pick my pace back up, even though we were over the bridge.  I did have the confidence at that point to know that I was going to finish, though.  I was going to finish a marathon, and I was feeling good about that.  But I also realized that it was going to be a lot harder than I had ever imagined.  I wasn’t feeling badly about my blowup at that point.  I simply didn’t care.  Running a marathon was hard, damn hard, and I was doing it.  And that was all that mattered.

But I felt like crap.  Ugh.  My throat was horrible at that point.  I started thinking about Damaris running with asthma and how tough it must be for her.  Somewhere around 18-19, a woman called out, “It’s going to be OK, Melanie.”  I realized that I must look as bad as I was feeling.  I wanted to cry, but then I really couldn’t breathe.  But I did start feeling super sorry for myself.

But then, mile 20 came around.  Even better, I spotted my husband and my daughter up ahead.  They were cheering and waving, and I was so happy to see them!  It was all smiles and cheer and waving as I went by.

My shoulders are so hunched it's a miracle I was able to run at all.

I didn’t run any faster, and I wasn’t breathing any better, but I felt better.  Plus, another family friend was supposedly meeting me at mile 21.5 with a bottle of water.  Just 1.5 miles until I would have the luxury of being able to take water with me.  Maybe a whole mile of gentle sips of water.  Wasn’t that going to be great?

This next part was a gentle downhill.  The bridge comes in pretty high over the river, and then this part of Portland slopes back downhill as you head towards the Rose Quarter.  I got into a rhythm of walking the water stations, and running (um, shuffling) everything else.  Even though I was falling apart, I never did walk any part of the course other than the aid stations.  So it meant that I was playing leapfrog with a lot of run-walkers.  There was a guy in a red singlet with a black lizard on it that kept stopping to stretch out a cramp or something, so we passed each other about a million times.

This part of the course was definitely full of carnage.  I had the feeling that a lot of the people who had planned to take it easy and not really race it were behind us.  The people who were out there kicking ass were ahead of us.  And where we were, it was just all roadkill.  There was lots and lots of walking, plus people over at the side of the road puking, resting, or stretching.  But most of us at least kept shuffling forwards as best we could.  We passed a spot where a band was setup, but not playing.  One girl hollered something about how we deserved music too, even if we were not fast.  I supposed bands also deserve set breaks, though.  It was hot for them too.

It had gotten pretty warm by that point, and some people had put sprinklers out by the course.  I avoided them, since the only thing I could think of that might be worse than how I was feeling at the moment was feeling just as bad, but with a blister from having wet shoes.

I got to the intersection where I was hoping to see the family friend and get that water bottle.  Except that she wasn’t there.  Probably because it was now 30 minutes later than when I had told her to expect me.  She probably gave up and figured that I had already gone by.

Oddly enough, that wasn’t too discouraging.  It had been a fun landmark to look forward to, but I didn’t need water, I was back in the land of water stations.  It was just time to suck it up and get this thing done.  I knew I could do it, slowly and uncomfortably maybe, since I was now running like a fish out of water, but I was going to get there.  Around this time, I tried to take another gel (#5 I think, I had been out there for a long time, crossing the 21.1 mat at 3:41:25).  My stomach had been feeling just fine until that point, but one swallow of gel and I knew that things were different now.  My stomach just wasn’t going to handle anything but water by that point.  I knew I was almost home, though, and having gotten 4.5 gels down, I wasn’t too worried about sugar, either.  Shufflehobble, shufflehobble, one foot in front of the other.  So, on the whole, miles 20-24 were actually a lot more pleasant than anything in the teens.  Not faster, of course, but almost sort of enjoyable again.  I was going to finish a marathon today.  I no longer had “what if I can’t do this?” hanging over me.

Garmin splits, miles 19-24: 12:21, 13:37, 12:31, 12:49, 12:21, 13:36.

It was only at that point that my watch seemed like it stopped moving altogether.  Those last two miles in the sun took an eternity.  I tried everything I could to psyche myself up.  I high-fived a whole line of people.  I even did the arm motions for “YMCA” when I went by somebody playing it.  That is probably the first and only time in my life I’ve done that.  I could at least act like I was having a good time, right? (even if my gait told the true story).  I thanked every single person that called my name, and sometimes even had the energy for a thumbs up.  I saw a guy down and kind of bloody.  He looked mostly OK, but maybe he had scraped something?  He had medical staff helping him already.  We were a sorry looking bunch, all of us.

I went over the steel bridge and back into downtown.  The 4:40 group passed me.  I briefly tried to hang with them, but I couldn’t breathe.  So that didn’t last long.  Back into downtown, and the land of more Def Leppard, this time “Brining on the Heartbreak”. Really?  Maybe they needed to play that back on the hill, but of course there were no spectators allowed in that spot.  Downtown was now full of light rail trains that were running, and I saw people ahead of me get stopped a couple of times, but I never did.

I passed DH and DD again, and they could tell that I didn’t look so good.  I waved and smiled, and they called out that I didn’t need to smile if I didn’t want to.  I told them I was smiling because I was almost done.

This is what a "smile" looks like at mile 25.  I am fooling no one.  Shoulders still hunched.  Also, how does the woman behind me still have her jacket with her?

There were people all along the sides with boxes of Voodoo donuts waiting for their family members (the pink box in the background above is one).  My family had gone to “Blue Star” donuts, so of course I felt morally superior to all the Voodoo donuts people.  Blue Start bills itself as “donuts for grownups”, meaning better than Voodoo.  So hah.  Actually, we had never tried them before, but I was looking forward to them being awesome.

A few people around me had pacers who had come to run them in.  One guy in a Boston shirt was in full pep talk mode with the woman he was running with.  Another guy already had his finishing medal and rose, but had come back to finish with his wife.  There was a guy with medical staff on the side of the road who must have cramped up.  He was on his back and they were stretching his leg, and he was screaming.  I mean screaming.  Then there were random downtown pedestrians who were out by this point and probably really confused about all of the sweaty zombies that kept shuffling past.

I had been thinking for a while about a nice kick to the finish.  Surely I would have the energy to kick a bit when I knew I was almost done, right?  But now I was feeling lightheaded.  I didn’t want to pass out, before OR after the finish line.  I realized that was a real possibility.

In the end, from mile 26 to 26.2 was an endless distance.  People kept calling out “8 more blocks”  “4 more blocks” and I almost couldn’t even believe them.  I couldn’t even conceptualize that distance.  I came around the corner and saw the finish, and still just kept up my death-shuffle.  But at least I was almost done, and then, somehow, I really was done.  I was too tired to be excited about that, though.

Garmin splits: 13:17, 13:41, and the final 0.2 was a 13:11 pace.

Chip time: 4:50:35

Finishing chute: The finishing area was laid out really well.  You get a ton of swag at the end of the race- medal, shirt, commemorative coin, pendant, rose, and tree seedling.  There were tables with fruit, bread, candy, water, and Ultima.  It was all set up to be really long and narrow so that you kept moving and didn’t really get lost.  There were photographers right by the medals as well as further on in front of a backdrop.  There were also two medical tents, and medical staff who were clearly out keeping an eye on you to see if maybe you needed some attention.

My job was to get past the medical people without looking alarming or making them worry about whether I was OK.

Trying to act normal and like I wasn’t about to keel over or anything.

I felt horrible, but I also thought that I might possibly be OK after a little bit.  I was really lightheaded and my vision was dimming a bit.  I figured I needed some sugar, but I was also really nauseous.  I sipped some water and even some Ultima, but even that I had to do really slowly.  I decided that I was probably fine if I was able to think about it that much.  In any case, I might as well keep moving forward unless it got to where I couldn’t.  So that’s what I did.  Forward through the finishers’ area, and forward onto the street downtown.  I checked the back of my bib where I had written our planned meeting area, but in the end my daughter ran up to me about a block before that, and then they took over thinking about where and when to walk, so I just had to follow and not trip over curbs and stuff.  I tried to tell them as much as I could about the race, but my voice was really hoarse.  I could barely talk at all, and my throat still didn’t feel very good.

They had water for me, but I couldn’t even drink any more right then.  We made it the couple more blocks back to the hotel and up to our room by maybe 40 minutes after I’d crossed the finish.  At that point, I was able to sit down, sip some water, and eat the tiniest nibble of a donut.  It was a very, very good donut, but just a nibble was all I could handle.  Then I needed to get showered and packed up, because we had to check out of the hotel by 1:00 to avoid a $120 late checkout charge.

I was happy to discover that I only had minor chafing in one spot, and no blisters.  All 10 toenails were intact too.  I was able to get showered and checked out with a reasonable level of competence, and even gradually nibbled some more on my donut.  DH wanted to go out to lunch, but all I could handle there was a small cup of lentil soup, and I couldn’t even finish it.  Then we took the 90 minute drive back home, while I asked Dr. Google about what had gone wrong with my throat.

This was a donut I had later.  That's powdered peanut butter on top, and a blueberry compote filling.  After the race, it was all I could do to nibble an old-fashioned donut.

A couple of days out, I really don’t feel all that sore.  I feel about the same as when I ran my last couple half marathons- some soreness in my quads, but not enough to keep me from going about my day.  My hips actually feel better than they have in months, and my feet and calves are fine.  My shoulders are really sore, though, which tells me that I really, really need to work on relaxing them when I run.  I will have to pay attention to see if that’s something I do normally or it it’s just a racing thing.

Reflection: In the end, I think that this is probably just another “went out too fast, melted down disastrously” story.  Yes, there are some things I could have done differently, even at the midrace point, and who knows what the throat thing was, but I suspect those are more like supporting details.  Maybe it wasn’t even that I went out too fast for my current fitness as much as I went out too fast for somebody with my lack of experience to be able to handle at this point and in those conditions.  But that’s just it.  I have to say that during the last few miles, I never thought “I am never running a marathon again.”  What I thought was “The next time I do this, I am going to have a much better handle on what my pace should be before I start.”  I had been thinking of running Newport in the spring, but now I think I need to get a clearer sense of where I am and what a reasonable goal would be.

The trouble is, I don’t have a single race in 2014 that I feel is indicative of my current ability.  Every single one has an asterisk of some kind.  But at some point, excuses are just that.  Put up or shut up.  Either I can race better than I have been racing this year, or I’ve gotten slower this year even through I’ve been training better.  Or maybe I am just killing myself in training, and have nothing left for race day.  DH points out that I don’t race all that often, and that’s because it does make me really nervous.  I run just to run, because I enjoy it.  But I need a goal to give me a purpose for every run.  Without a goal in mind, I don’t think I could get out and run consistently.  And a great race is a fantastic thing, when everything is going right.  Only I haven’t experienced that in close to a year now, which can be disheartening.

For now, I am just focused on recovering, and then clearly I will build back up and think about getting some shorter races on the calendar.  How short, I don’t know.  I honestly believe that I’m better suited to longer races, and I really don’t enjoy 5Ks.  Down the road, the marathon might even be my preferred distance, I still don’t know.  Or maybe I will stick with the HM.  But for calibrating how I’m doing and setting some realistic goals, maybe I do want to focus on 5Ks and 10Ks for a while.  At least then I wouldn’t have to worry so much about buildup, taper, and recovery.  All of that gets in the way of what I really like to do, which is running.

And maybe I just need more practice racing so that I don’t feel so nervous.  I noticed how terrible my form was in my photos.  Maybe I get nervous and tense up, and that’s why I have trouble when I race.

So that’s my story.  I apologize for the length, but hope that you enjoyed the read if you made it this far.  I don’t really need congratulations or sympathy as much as I would like to hear perspectives on what happened from those who have more experience.  Or ideas on where to go from here, or what is happening with my racing this year.  And for newer marathoners, I know I looked all over the place for little details about how this or that was “supposed” to feel as I was training.  So maybe my story can add just a bit to what I hope is a variety of sources that people draw from as they think about what they might expect for their own races.  But hopefully they will know how to pace themselves better. 

Wow, Z......I read that whole friggin' thing!!  Now you owe me a donut!!  

Actually, I don't know what might have caused your throat issue.  That's just weird.  I was thinking maybe an allergy thing to some element you ran past in the later miles but sounds like it was more fatigue related?

Anywho....I also have no advice for you on the marathon except aside from deciding pacing better earlier on, I think the consensus is that you'll want to have done a longer last long run (20 or so) before your next one.  Reason I have no advice is I plan to NEVARRR run a marathon in my life.  And since only fools use words like "never" maybe I'll be fool enough to try one some day but not any time soon.

BTW, congrats on your first marathon!!!  You did great!!!  

I know it wasn't the time you were looking for- but you just ran a marathon! Impressive regardless of anything else.

I can't offer anything but my admiration.  Your RR made me feel like it was my race, I was right there in it. (Except that will never, ever happen.)  I'm impressed that you kept your head in it, never wanted to stop, and were thinking about your next race in the last few miles.  Congratulations!

You have a great sense of humor from what I read on your RR, even if the story was sad.  First of all, congratulations.  You did it, you learned from it, and now you know what to expect.  Loved the RR, by the way!

I am not sure what to say about whether you went out too fast or not.  Sometimes we are in perfect shape, we have the chance to do our best, yet it never happens.  Marathons are like that, those tricky fuckers.  You just need to keep at it and it will get better (or at least you'll get better at them).

I think you should get the throat thing checked.  It could be VCD or asthma (your experience sounds so similar to most of my races), or nothing at all.  But if you have something that can reoccur, then knowing about it and working with it might be best.

And I will NEVER forget you for calling Def Leppard cheesy.  Da fuk?

I always thoroughly enjoy reading your race reports and this was no exception Felt like I was right there with you!

I obviously have no marathon-specific thoughts on what could have happened or advice, but I agree with D that you ought to get some sort of medical opinion on the possible VCD or asthma or whatever it may have been - better to figure out now if it's a problem that can be managed, or get confirmation that it was just a weird fluke/anxiety thing that's not likely to recur.

I feel you on the race anxiety, I think mine is manageable because of my years of horse shows and horse show nerves, lol. I'm capable of calming myself down and channeling the nervous energy in a positive way when I only have to worry about myself, not a fractious thousand-pound beast underneath me :P I think racing more, both with and without performance expectations, would definitely help you get used to managing those feelings.

"I was going to finish a marathon, and I was feeling good about that.  But I also realized that it was going to be a lot harder than I had ever imagined."

You pretty much summed it up right there.   And, that's why you're going to get a big congratulations from me, whether or not you "need" one.  Trying to race 26. 2 miles is extraordinarily difficult, and you didn't quit when the going got tough.   I've got nothing but admiration for you -- first, for really challenging yourself with a difficult training program, then having the courage to pick an aggressive finishing goal, and finally, for gutting it out when it all went to hell in a hand basket.

I wish I had more insight or words of wisdom as to what went wrong.  I do think you picked a pretty aggressive goal for your first marathon, but not one that was completely out of line given your training and previous race times.  But, it was probably aggressive enough that the hotter than expected weather, coupled with race day anxiety, were enough to derail it.   If there is a marathon #2 in your future, maybe take some of the pressure off yourself with a more conservative goal, and just shoot for a negative split/fast finish.

I also wonder if you might have been better off with a training program that had some longer training runs than Hansen offers.  Whether they were necessary for my race day fitness or not, I feel I learned a lot from my first 18 and 20 mile training runs.  They really helped sharpen my ability to listen to my body and understand how much I had left in the tank and what the early warning signs of impending doom felt like.

Your race report really was a fantastic read.  Thank you for taking the time to really share your entire experience with us.

Yeah, I know you were kidding. I remember that you just went to their concert!