Let me just warn you right off that this blog post is going to be less of a race report and more of a therapeutic exercise. As the day progressed, I thought of a few different titles for this one. 'How NOT to Run a Marathon' and 'Crash and Burn' amongst others. But I decided on 'Lessons Learned', because that's what I'm taking from this race. Mistakes were made, so many mistakes, from changes I made to my training, to the goal I set for myself, to overestimating myself, to underestimating the course, to races I did leading up to this one, to changing pre-race habits the week and day before to not allowing myself to have a reality check sooner in the race when I could have still salvaged it, to ultimately just giving up and throwing in the towel. And lessons were learned from each of these things, from more technical lessons about how to run a marathon to life lessons about persevering and being tenacious when it's much easier and tempting to give in.
One of the biggest mistakes I made was not being realistic about what goal I should set for myself. My timed 5k back in the fall projected a 3:20 finish. Wow, I thought when I found that out. And then, of course, I started daring to dream that maybe, just maybe, I could do that. So, I was given a training plan for 3:30 (my Boston qualifying time was 3:35, so that gave me a little wiggle room) and 3:20, based on the 5k. I followed the 3:20 plan for a couple of months, then came another....factor. I don't want to say mistake here, because switching from the marathon plan to training for my first trail 50k was not a mistake, just a consequence of the schedule of races. But whatever you want to call it, it got me off the road and on the trail (a good thing, typically, in my book) and away from that 3:20 training schedule. I missed a lot of track workouts and a few long runs. I was doing long runs, but on the trail and at a slower pace. Then there was tapering for that race and recovery from it. When I finally came back, I had 3 weeks of training to do before starting the taper for the marathon. I at least had a slight reality check at this time and decided that 3:20 was definitely too ambitious, but I was overconfident and thought 3:30 would be 'no problem', so I split the difference between the two plans and decided on 3:25. That was it. I had a piece of paper that said I could do it, and I was hitting the paces in the few training runs I had done, so I could do it, right?
I knew the course was hard. That is no secret. Austin is hilly. A lot of people don't want to run it because of that. But that actually makes me want to run it and run it well even more. I like a challenge. And besides, we run sections of the course every week in my running group, and I hit my training paces on segments of it, so it wouldn't be any different to do it on all the sections at once, right? There was only one section I had never run, but it was 4 of the last 6 miles, which are all downhill, so once I got there, it would be a piece of cake, right? And anyway, the one other marathon I did technically had more elevation gain than Austin, so I have to do better here. Not only is it 'easier' (turns out the distribution of that elevation is maybe more important than the actual total gain), but it was nearly a year ago, and I had been training a lot more, with track workouts and tempo runs and long runs and a half dozen long-distance trail races under my belt and an actual plan and a whole group of other people working for the same race (as opposed to me on my own making it up as I went last year), so I had to do much better. Not even a question.
I even felt pretty good going up to the start line. I was nervous, but not a freaking out sort of nervous - a good nervous. The weather was good. My legs felt good. I thought maybe just maybe I could do it. I kept the 3:25 pace group in sight until Caesar Chavez or so, but based on my watch, they weren't that far ahead, so I wasn't too terribly worried just yet. But on that Caesar Chavez stretch, I started psyching myself out for the roller coaster hills just ahead, then the 7 miles of gentle uphill after that. I started telling myself I couldn't do it, I was too tired already, and I allowed myself to believe it. I should have readjusted my goal right there, but I stubbornly kept fighting for those 7:49 splits.
On Exposition, things started deteriorating. My roommate and good friend tried telling me a funny story, and I told him to go away. I was focused. I didn't want distractions. He said, 'you don't have to talk, I'll just tell it to you'. I said 'no'. He backed off, and then got ahead, and I never saw him again till the finishing chute where he was waiting for me. That was another mistake right there. I should have listened to his stories. I shouldn't have been taking it so seriously. I should have had more fun with it.
By the halfway point, I was technically on pace for a 3:30. I would have been very happy with that. But I wasn't really going that pace. That was my average pace, continuously being pulled down mile after mile with slower and slower splits. Somewhere on Bull Creek, I think, the 3:35 group got ahead of me, and that's where I completely shut down. I literally started walking before the last one of that group was even completely by me. I didn't have the energy to try to speed up and stay with them due to going out at an unsustainable pace, and once I saw my dream go by, I gave up. There were a couple times I dug deep and mustered something up and attempted to pick it up, but another pace group would pass by and with each one I crumpled more and more until I almost just didn't care anymore. I got to the last couple of miles and looked at the time and realized that if I didn't pay attention, I wasn't even going to beat my time from May, so I at least found something inside me for those last miles, barreled up the San Jacinto hill on anger and desperation and crossed the finish line about 40 seconds faster than I did in May in North Carolina.
I had signed up for this race in June of last year, and I can't even begin to guess how many times I've envisioned myself crossing the finish line, sometimes I saw myself breaking down into tears as the realization that I had qualified set in. Well, I almost broke down in the finishing chute yesterday, but not for the reason I had hoped.
The only bright spot about running yesterday was the friends that were there along the course cheering for me. Last year, I did the half. I knew three other friends running, and I had two people who had come out to cheer for me, who I never saw during the race and who said they never saw me either. This year, I had numerous friends running and even more scattered all throughout the course. And honestly, without those of you out there, I may have completely given up and walked it in from 13. Some of you, I knew where you'd be, but there were so many more out there, and every time I heard a friendly voice shouting my name and cheering with such enthusiasm, it really did give me a boost, though, maybe not visible, I felt it on the inside. So whether or not I turned around or waved or not, I heard you. I heard all of you, and I thank every one of you for being there.
One of the two people to come out to cheer me on last year was my roommate that I had so rudely blown off at mile 10. When I saw him smiling in the finishing chute, I apologized for my behavior earlier, and he brushed it off and congratulated me, always supportive. More friends came into the chute around this time, and we all chatted, and though I left there without getting a picture taken with my medal, the weight of what had happened hadn't quite set in yet. As the day wore on it sunk in more and more, though, what I had done...what I had not done. The song 'Carry On' came on in the car, which is a song I associate with running, and the tears started flowing.
My friends and family have congratulated me and said supportive things over the last day-and-a-half in an attempt to cheer me up, and I know it's not the end of the world. I know there will be more races. And I know that I should be thankful that I can run at all, and I am. And I know that the occasional lesson in humility is good. And I know that my time was not bad, and if I had given it everything I had and left it all out there and gotten that time, then I would be happy with it. But I didn't. I gave up. And that is what is most disappointing. Today, I've allowed myself to be melodramatic, listening to 'Breathe' from the musical 'In the Heights' on repeat:
'Hey guys, it's me. The biggest disappointment you know.
The kid couldn't hack it. She's back, and she's walking real slow.'
A little heartbroken is how you could describe how I've felt today. But, I've been heartbroken before. And running is what got me through that. So, that's why when I got home today, I pulled my shoes out of my still packed gear bag and did one of the things I most love to do. I ran.
"May the past be the sound,
Of your feet upon the ground.
Carry on."
