Well this has been a long time coming.
Here's a race report from the Chicago Marathon which was over a
month ago, on October 12. It was my first marathon that I actually
trained for with a specific time goal in mind – sub-3:35 – so
about five months of training and pain was about to pay off or be
completely wasted, depending on the result.
I was never so nervous before a race
in my life. My friend Liz walked with me as far as she could before
splitting off to line up with her own wave, and after we hugged
goodbye I wanted to cry (although you wouldn't know it from the
psycho energy in our pre-race pics). But I made it through bag
check, a frantic final pit stop which was terrifying but at least
kept my mind busy, and a quick dash to the start corral which I
reached with less than 2 minutes to spare.
The wait in the corral was pretty
nerve-wracking but by then I was more or less resigned to whatever
was about to happen. But that didn't last long and after we left the
park to go over the first bridge I thought I might cry again. Thanks
to avoiding a fair number of potholes though I was able to distract
myself and worked on dialing back my pace from 8:20, which I knew I
couldn't sustain. Then I remembered I was going to see my family at
mile 3 so I thought about that instead.
I tried to pull back the pace even
more as mile 3 approached because I knew seeing my parents would give
me a kick. Sure enough, after I saw them standing with my cousin Jon
and threw some quick hugs all around, I dashed off again at sub-8:00
and had to come back down. Right about then the Florence & the
Machine song “Breaking Down” started which helped pull me in a
bit, and I decided to keep myself around 8:20-8:30,
which would put me in the yellow zone
that was my goal for the first stretch.
So miles 3-10 mostly involved slowing
myself down, and my Florence playlist was pretty helpful. “Leave
My Body,” for instance, has lyrics which are perfect for a painful
endurance event but the beat is a little low-key. And after came
“Dog Days are Over” which was appropriate as my family was at
mile 12 again so when I got there it was time to run fast for my
mother, run fast for my father, etc. (I'm never not cheesy but
running exacerbates it like nothing else.)
From mile 6 at the northernmost
turnaround through mile 21, the race was pretty smooth and the time
went surprisingly fast. There was definitely some sub-8:00 pace
happening, so I had to slow down again to reach the 8:00-8:12 pace
goal for the second 10 miles. I tried to think back on pointers from
this Runner's World article
and run the tangents, keep my form, and even work strides in here and
there to keep my legs from getting bored on the flat terrain. Saw
the fam one last time at mile 17, which was scary because I knew I
wasn't going to see them at all during the hardest part.
At
mile 20 I braced myself for significant pain and suffering (I wonder
what damages would be for lifetime post-marathon-type soreness in a
personal injury case? But instead runners actually pay to inflict
that on themselves. Weird.) so I couldn't believe it when the mile
21 sign showed up a few minutes later. For the last 6 miles I
decided on a sub-8:00 pace, and then I would push it on the last 2.2.
Which was also scary since those are the hardest miles anyway, and
obviously all the more so if you want to run them fast. But by then
I'm just running to get the horrible race over with anyway so I
figured I might as well incorporate that into my strategy.
Sure
enough, 22-26 were dreadful. I kept vacillating between trying to
pull back from a 7:39 pace and telling myself to maintain it through
the end. Probably should have used more restraint, though, as I did
end up walking through one of the two-block-long water stops. I
don't know where my mantra of “TOUGHBITCH” went at that point,
but as for my usual theory of running – go as slowly as you want as
long as you're still running – I just thought “screw it.” But
it was only a water stop, so... eh.
As
you approach the second-to-last corner there's a giant screen, which
from far away looks like a finish line. Even though you know it
isn't, it's tempting to tell your marathon brain that it's just
misremembering the course map and, no, that's totally the finish,
really. But in reality there's still that nasty pseudo-hill and 800
more yards to go afterward.
I
remember mentally prepping for the little hill, and telling myself it
would be cake compared to Prospect Park, but I don't remember going
over it. Then the real finish line was just around the corner and it
must have been getting closer though it didn't feel that way, and
then I was done.
After
I finished I was too tired to speak, so I waved at a volunteer (how
did waving take less energy than talking?) who stood with me while I
thought I'd be sick, then took me to the med tent, where I decided I
was fine. Then I set off to find my people, miraculously remaining
on my feet for over another hour until I collected them. Liz and I
got our medals engraved with our finish times, and mine says 3:34:10
– a 2-minute PR and 50-second Boston qualifier!!
So
it was just a faaaan-tastic day. So good I decided to do another
marathon, which is tomorrow. Which means another race report in,
like, eight more weeks.
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