I can't believe it's been nearly 6 months since my last blog post, and I'm sorry if I left this as a semi-cliffhanger. Those of you who were following along probably know that my time at Marine Corps, although nothing to be ashamed of, was not what I wanted or needed in order to qualify for Boston. I was upset, but I also knew that I needed to shut the pity party down because a marathon time of 3:45 (and change) is something that many, many, many people would kill to have, and the "poor me" attitude would definitely get a STFU from a majority of marathoners. Sometimes, stuff just isn't meant to be. But that doesn't mean it's not meant to be at a point in the future...which brings me to today's post! Yes, there's good news to share!
After running MCM, I had a full, fun, and fabulous running schedule that included my first 50 miler in December, a half marathon / a 6 hour ultra / and pacing at a 100 mile race all in January, my second 50 miler in February, pacing TCM (for the second time) in March, and then the Big D marathon in April.
You know that I trained long & hard for MCM. It's not that I didn't like the training; I did. But dealing with an injury that prevented running from being 100% enjoyable wasn't exactly motivating me to dive right back into a 5 or 6 day per week training schedule. After going into December's 50 miler under-prepared and doing fairly well, I never really had a defined training plan for any of the upcoming races I planned to run, and that included the Big D. Although I told a few people that I was shooting for a BQ at that race, I wasn't training (hard) for it. If it happened, great! If it didn't happen, well, then I'd just need to find another race. But something told me this time would be different! A lot of things were lining up to be in my favor.
I had signed up for the Big D marathon a while ago simply because I was going to be in Dallas anyway for a conference, and the marathon was the day before the conference would begin. Timing-wise, it was just too perfect to pass up! I planned to wear my hydration vest (since that seemed to work well for me at the half marathon in January where I PR-ed) and figured the weather couldn't be much worse (hot & humid) than what I had been running in most mornings here in FL. As the race got closer, the weather looked to be semi-ok, but the wind would be pretty strong. Whatever! I had already paid, so it wasn't like I'd bail on doing the race. The best part, however, was that I'd have some amazing people there at the race! How often does that happen?! (Before getting too upset, I know there have been lots of races where amazing runner friends like Hans and Morgan have been there, but they're usually competing. Trust me, you'll see why this one is different.) Both RCJ and James were going to be running the full; Melanie, my happy runner friend from Key West, was going to be running the half. But best of all, Dan was going to be coming with me and cheering me on at different points! I have never had a race of any distance, let alone a marathon, where someone's been there strictly to see me & cheer me on at various spots. If you're reading this, you already know that Dan's super-duper special and is wonderfully supportive of my running! Having him there, I knew, would be huge!
My qualifying time for Boston needed to be 3:40 or less. To get 3:40, the average pace needs to be 8:24; to get 3:35, the average pace needs to be 8:12, and to get 3:30, the average pace needs to be 8:00. Based on some past training runs I had, I figured 3:40 was definitely obtainable, and, better yet, 3:35 was pretty do-able too! My tentative plan was to keep my pace around 8:10-ish and not too much faster so I could avoid the dreaded bonk! Well, check out my splits. You can see that really didn't happen!
Yes, you're reading that right, I had eight miles under an 8:00 pace, and another eight miles under an 8:10 pace! So much for my plan, huh?!
The race started, and I felt pretty good. In fact, when I saw that 7:42 pace for mile 4, I literally let out a "whoa!" It wasn't maintainable, but I knew that & wasn't going to try to keep that up.
The first time I'd be seeing Dan would be around mile 9. It's so nice to have something like that to look forward to, and I was feeling great when I saw him! He waved, jumped out onto the course, and briefly ran with me (as best he could in flip-flops and jeans). I knew I'd see him again after the turn around point, so that kept me going! I would start to see people who had already been to the turn around, and it was neat to be able to tell that there weren't too many female runners ahead of me. I'd try to wave, give a thumbs up, or say "good job" as those people passed me. Many, though, were so focused that I'm guessing they didn't see me. Hey, I get it - when you're running hard, you tend to focus on the 5-10 feet of road in front of you! No worries!
I don't know what it was, but something changed between mile 9 and mile 16. Maybe it was the direction of the course & having to run head-first into 15+ mph wind, or maybe it was realizing that I had finished 13.1 miles and still had another 13.1 to go. At some point during this section, I'm pretty sure I had a 2nd Surge gel. The caffeine would help, or so I thought! The one thing that kept me going was that I knew I'd see Dan again at mile 16. I was so happy to see him, but all I could muster was a wave and a semi-defeated "I'm starting to get very tired." I was feeling very much like I wouldn't get through the next 10 miles, but I didn't want Dan to know just how miserable I was. Of course, he responded with a very positive, and upbeat "You look great! You're on the back-end of this!" to keep me going.
If you look again at my splits, you'll see that the wheels started coming off around mile 20, but they damn near flew off at miles 22 and 23. That's when I allowed myself to walk...twice! WTF?! Even now, I'm still mad at myself for that, but at the time, it was the mental break that I needed. There was no reason to walk; in fact, I wasn't walking any of those uphill sections, so why did I do it? All I can say is that marathon running is as much mental as it is physical. Looking back, I should have kept running because even going slower would've been better than walking. The walk breaks were somewhat short, but they did add some seconds to my overall average pace. I knew I just needed to buckle down, and get 'r done!
The last few miles were pretty unscenic; you basically ran through a parking lot until you got back into the park & very near the finish line. The last 0.2 mile, I hammered down (as much as you can after running 26 windy, hard, not flat miles). Garmin has that small section's pace at 7:55. Not bad. I could see the finish line clock and knew I had done it; I finally got a time that qualified me for Boston!
Forgive the crappy text on the photo; apparently companies are smart and know if they don't watermark their pics, folks will screen shot 'em and not pay to buy 'em. That's me literally one second away from crossing the finish line! Melanie & Dan were both there to cheer me on and, quite frankly, keep me from falling over, falling down, or just being a spazz. It had just barely started to sink in that I would be headed to Boston in 2017!!!!
This may be the one & only time that I ever beat RCJ in a marathon. She was purposely keeping it easy because she's running Boston right now as I type this, a mere 8 days after running in Dallas.
After I had time to somewhat regain my composure (ie: being able to return to a semi-rational state of mind) and finished some stretching, I grabbed my phone & texted my parents (who may or may not have been tracking me on RunKeeper). I had to screen shot the text exchange because it was just too cute!
Yes, I told them I could still walk! :-)
It was so wonderful to be surrounded by people (near and far) who were happy for me! I shared the news via text and email, as well as on Twitter, Instagram, and the FS Fishing Forum!
So not only did I end up with a new PR (beating my previous one by 4 minutes and 35 seconds), I was the 8th female finisher and won my age group! Holy shit!!!!
It's now time to conclude this blog, but I hope you'll follow along on my adventure as I prepare for next year's Boston Marathon. All of the insanity will be located at http://KimsRoadToBoston.blogspot.com/. (What, did you expect me to not blog about this?!) Maybe you'll even make the trip & be there on April 17th as I run one of the most iconic marathons in the world!
