Notes
Marathon day arrived!
I picked up new socks and new racing flats at the expo on Saturday, and decided to commit to wearing them. They felt good, and while I was afraid they would give me blisters or make me cramp up, my other flats had a track record of vicious blisters, while at least with the new ones I had a 50/50 chance.
From the start line I felt smooth. Laurel, a woman I would get to know over the next 3 hours, ran up beside me almost instantly. Both Laurel and I were in our second marathons, and her PR of 2:58 and goal of running around 2:50 was similar to mine. I didn't know that was my goal until she said it, but once it was out there -- I decided to go after it.
I had talked to Yarrow and I decided to go out in 6:40. This would be a 10 second drop from my pace in 2015.
Well, I came through the first mile in 6:16. Oops. We tried to reign in the pace a bit, and settled into 6:27s for the first 5k. I felt smooth, but was REALLY worried about how fast we were going out. I told Laurel several times that the end was going to hit us hard, but she was so positive and so persistent!
Around 12 miles I let Laurel go ahead a bit with the goal of finding her at the hill (20mi). She wanted me to come with, but we had continued to knock down the pace by a few seconds, and I was terrified of hitting a wall and not being able to maintain. I kept her in sight, but definitely felt myself working a lot harder a lot earlier than I would have liked. As I hit the hill, I was glad to find that while my legs were feeling SHOT they were also maintaining pace better than I expected. I rolled up on Laurel fairly quickly and got her to come with for a few minutes, but she had burned up too much in the middle miles.
Soon...I found out I had too. The last four miles were dark. My pace surged up and down and I had some cramping in my lower back and hamstrings that I could have done without. I am entirely in debt to the wonderful friends and strangers that cheered me along those miles. A few runners helped pick me up -- encouraging me to fall into pace with them as we met each other at water stops or working up the hills that just seem to get steeper.
The last 200 meters of the race...I thought I might walk off the course. My legs were toast. My brain wasn't engaged any more. I had run too hard too early to feel the elation of the finish line. Yet...it was exactly what I wanted. I left everything out there. Laurel ended up finishing just a minute behind me and we celebrated with an exhausted hug.
I am so grateful to have had Laurel pull me along the first 10 miles. I know I could have felt better and perhaps could have even run a bit faster overall had I gone out more conservatively, but her positivity and confidence pushed me to a race that I'm incredibly grateful for. I confronted some limits and some fears and some pain too. I know it was an all out effort and that's how I want to race. The cherry on top was seeing all the Luther PRs that accompanied me -- Gonzo in 5th, Heidi breaking 3 hours, Anna setting a new PR and the 10 mile crew throwing down some Luther heat as well. Overall, an incredible day. Much love to the Luther crew and MSP.