Miami Marathon Recap
So I kind of put off writing this because I was disappointed. I felt like I let myself down and everyone that was pulling for me. But now that I am two weeks out, I am feeling better about it and happy that I was able to BQ. 8 months prior to the race I was still on crutches, so I would say that is a win! Anyway, below you can some insights on how I felt leading up to the race, throughout and the end! I also used this picture at mile 25 because it ain’t pretty, but its real. Woof!
I felt like I was the pillar of health in January. After my excursion out west for the Rose Bowl I gave up all alcohol. I was sleeping 8-9 hours a night at least and drinking fluids like it was my job. I was taking my vitamins and eating healthy. The only thing that worried me was getting the flu. As a result I stayed home a lot of the month. I was well rested. Mentally I was ready. My runs felt easy and I was running negative splits for the long runs, finishing with my last mile the strongest. I was visualizing the race. I wrote my desired splits down.
The week of the race I was frantically checking the weather leading up to the race, multiple times a day and multiple times a day it changed. The temps of the race in the 70s didn’t bother me. I ran in Atlanta! In the summer! I love the heat! My coach gave me and another runner some tips the Wednesday before – if the forecast held, it was going to be tough to run what we wanted. He felt we were in better condition than our goals, but doing it in the heat would be challenging. I was un-phased. The day before the race I landed around the time my friend Brian, who was pacing me did. He said this heat is not good – I don’t think the times you want to run will happen. I still protested, but I like the heat! I guess I should have took it a little more seriously leading into the race, but honestly, it probably kept me from freaking out about it and I was relaxed, so maybe that was a good thing! What I didn’t think through was that its not currently summer in Atlanta. If I had gone down there after running in the summer temps here, I would have been better acclimated.
After a fabulous dinner at Vero Italian – I highly recommend anyone in Brickell to check it out – I was in bed by 9. 430 the alarm was to go off, but I was already up. I ate my breakfast, drank 40 ounces or so of water and SOS and took another water bottle to go for the ride over.
Brian was going to pace me and with that he was going to look at the watch, not me. He wanted me to go off feel, so that’s what I did. I ignored all the beeps each mile and when there were clocks at the checkpoints, he told me to look away. I can honestly say I didn’t know what I was running until it was around mile 22ish. Because of the heat and humidity, I was drinking water and gatorade at each stop. I was taking goo’s probably every four miles or so. The miles were ticking by and we were cruising.
At the halfway point I wasn’t even jealous of people turning up to finish, I was feeling strong and ready to rock. It was about this time the cloud cover was starting to part and some sun was coming out. After mile 16 or so, I was still thirsty after my beverages and I had a quick thought of oh no, you are already dehydrated… I let that pass and kept going. Around mile 19 or so, my body started to slow. It was hard to keep the pace. I hadn’t felt like that on a run all training cycle. The miles passed slower, by mile 25, I don’t really remember much. I had a friend and my boyfriend at mile 25ish basically in the middle of the street with no one around screaming for me… I don’t remember seeing them.
By this time I was looking at my watch and realized my goal was gone, but I would still BQ handily. Then my watch passed the 26.2 mile mark – I was thinking the finish must be close! Oh I was wrong… since I wasn’t looking at my miles, I didn’t realize my garmin was basically .7 off. Coming down the home stretch stuff started getting blurry, by the last turn I was stumbling and walking with people walking next to me keeping their distance. I think the last 20 feet was more than 20 seconds of stumbling.
My time ended up being better than I thought – 3:26:26ish – I had my time start with Corral A, which I was originally scheduled to go with, but was in B so Brian and I could start together. There are three minutes of dead time added on to my results, with 0 pace. I was wondering how my time didn’t match up to Brian’s and we ran the whole race together. I will say, if anyone wants he pacer, he is your man! He has run in the 230s and completed 36 marathons so he knows whats up. He let me tuck in behind him to block the terrible wind for me and grabbed all my waters and gatorade. He told me when to take goo’s knowing when we were approaching aid stations to wash them down. I can safely say I wouldn’t have been able to do the race without him!
Since my garmin was a bit off, these splits are faster than reality, but here are some of the times I was throughout the race. Mile 20 was the first mile above 8 at 8:15. The first 10k was in 45:30ish and I went through the half just under 1:36. That was all right where I wanted to be! I even had a sub 7 minute at mile 14, I don’t know what that burst was. 18 was my last good mile split at 7:30. Mile 25 was a doozy in just under 9.
I learned a lot from this race – first and foremost you cannot control the conditions! You only can control what you can control. I don’t know if going out any slower would have yielded a different result – maybe the same time and I would have felt great. I stopped letting myself go through those what-ifs. Also, I am not making excuses for the time not being what I wanted, but trying to explain the conditions and how I probably should have re-evaluated my race prior to the start. I realized it’s ok to change up goals if external factors are against you. It also has me motivated to go out and run more. I will be doing a lot of halves and shorter races this spring and summer and coming back strong in the early fall for a marathon.