Quick Summary ... 3:41 and BQ, 7/74 AG, 37/516 Gender, 336/2012 OA

I gave birth to DD last Dec and signed up for the Air Force marathon back in January as a motivator to get back to my pre-pregnancy speed and weight.  My original goal was just to finish and maybe break 4 hours.  As the months of training passed my speed came back quicker than I thought or could have even imagined and my predictors starting saying sub 3:20 for a marathon.

The week of the marathon I'd been sick with a head/sinus cold and cough and was starting to look at back up options.  I went to the expo on Fri and talked with the folks at the pacer teams and was debating whether to go out with the 3:30 or 3:20 pace group.  The 3:20 lead (Roger) wasn't there but I did talk with the 3:30 pace team leader and talked over my situation with him and he thought that 3:20 would be doable.  So I took the 3:20 pace band and thought I'd see what the morning would bring.

I was still coughing in the morning (and did for the first 3 mi) but for the most part didn't think it would affect my run too much.  I warmed up and did all of the usual pre-race stuff and then went to find the 3:20 pace group.  I introduced myself to him and said that I'd be running with him and when I asked him who else was running with him he really didn't know, maybe that should have been my first warning sign. 

I've never run with a pace group before and won't ever again.  I don't need a pacer to keep even pacing, I'm really good at that, what I needed was a pacer to keep me from going out too fast and so that I wouldn't need to concetrate on my watch/splits, I could just focus on running.   I'd used a pacer/friend on my 1.5 mi military physical fitness test once and it was great and was the only reason I was using a pacer for this race.

So, the times I'm going to list are hindsight from my garmin because I was truly relying on the pacer to go out in even splits which was also new to me, I've always had success with negative splits, not even and not positive splits based on what the other pace teams were telling me and what was written on the marathon website.

Ok, so the ugly ... it won't take someone with much more than novice running experience to see the errors. 

Mile 1 7:36

        2 7:29 (huge hill)

        3 7:01

        4 7:20

        5 7:21

        6 7:24

        7 7:27

..... Roger took us out at 3:13 pace .... not only did he not take it easy the first few miles he didn't even hit our target split (7:38) one time!  I think I started to feel it over the next mile or two and started looking at my pace band and the clock (the race course had a clock at every mile) and saw that we were almost 3 minutes ahead of pace.  He took us out at what would normally be close to my half marathon pace!  Again, all of this is hindsight as I didn't know what pace we were running just that I thought we might me going a little fast.  I made it through the half after letting the pace group go in 1:38:27 (Roger went through it in 1:37:12).    Knowing now that we went out way too fast for marathon pace it's a no wonder and makes sense why I felt the wall at 12 miles.  I pushed on through mile 13 and then knew that the rest of the race was going to be a death march.  The miles went oh so slowly as I ran for 1/2/3/4/5 minutes when I could and walked for 30 sec/1 min and repeated for the rest of the race.

I knew the last two miles of the course and knew where the downhill portion was so I ran to the bottom and then walked and then a friend of mine caught up with me.  I looked at him and just knew as bad as I was feeling he was feeling worse.  Because if I was that far off my goal pace he was that much further because he was targeting a sub 3:10.  We ran/walked the rest of the way as we chatted when we were walking, both in a lot of pain.  I had one HUGH bright spot that I could focus on ... DH and I arranged to have 9 month old DD waiting for me to take with me through the finish line.  I came around the last corner and spotted them right away and I picked up DD from him and jogged the last 1-2 minutes to the finish line with her in my arms ... kissing her head and thankful it was over and to be holding her, with tears welling up in my eyes.

I was soooo proud of myself for not quitting, it would have been warranted and everyone would have understood and I doubt anyone would blame me given the fast start and being sick.  But, I really showed myself what I'm made of and that I'm not a quitter ... sizu!!

While I didn't make my goal time of 3:20, I'm still extremely proud of my effort given the circumstances. 

I know ... long report ... hopefully others can take heed of my lesson ... pace groups are ok, just be ready, willing and mindful that they are human and only you have your best interest at heart since you know yourself the best.  (Oh and Roger finished in 3:21:48, so he ran the second half 7 minutes slower than the first half ... I'm guessing he was hurting too).

Thanks for reading

Amie

... DH and I arranged to have 9 month old DD waiting for me to take with me through the finish line.  I came around the last corner and spotted them right away and I picked up DD from him and jogged the last 1-2 minutes to the finish line with her in my arms ... kissing her head and thankful it was over and to be holding her, with tears welling up in my eyes.

 

Just reading this had tears welling up in my eyes..What a courageous effort, Amie,  not just given the bad start but the week before sick as well.  You have every reason to be proud - AMAZING job of toughing it out!  And you still got a BQ, fast lady!  I can hardly wait to see what you can do on a day when it all comes together!

Think maybe you might want to try Columbus, you know, just while you're in marathon shape and all?

Amie, I'm so glad to have met you at the Crim. That gave me an idea of what a smart and tough runner you are, so nothing in your report really surprises me. You also confirmed my concern about using a pace group, as I too have trouble running full-pace at the start and prefer to start off a bit slower than my goal pace -- not faster as your pacer did.

Anyway, finishing at all and with a BQ to boot is quite an accomplishment and more than many (most?) of us in this forum will ever do. I'm even more anxious to see what you do in the near future or when you hit your next major AG break.

Congratulations to you (and to DD also "finishing" her first marathon)!

Amie, what an amazing accomplishment.     

Karin caught my series of responses through this oerfectly (thanks Karin!  my cold is back & my head is in hiding).  I'll join in the requests for a copy of the finish photo!   What an incredibly moving moment.

Thank you for your report..  it's not too long!   I really appreciate it...       hope you're recovering well and are feeling better!

Thanks everyone for the congratulations, it's really nice to hear after an effort like this one.

No pics yet, but the photog at the end of the race gave me the thumbs up that he got the pic so we'll have to wait until they are up, I'll definitely post one when we get them, I'll update the title when it's posted.

As for the pacer, previously I'd only heard good things albeit not a lot about pacers.  I will email the RD just so they are aware of it.  Like I mentioned before, I'll know better (and should have anyways) not to blindly follow someone in the future.

Not sure about Boston, I say no now but that's what I said about my first BQ and then I ended up running it as a fun run.

Hmmm, Columbus??  If all the stars were to align (I'm healthy, physically recovered, cool wx forecast), maybe.

Thanks again everyone, we are heading to GA for a week so I'll be offline for most of the week, I'll catch back up with everyone then.

Amie

Congratulations Amie on your BQ!!   I have run with some pace groups before and they never seem to be on target for some reason.   Like Doug said, you have accomplished something (BQ) that many of us will not.   At least not until I'm 80 or something like that ......

Excellent job!