I competed and finished my first marathon this past weekend, April 3, 2011. It took place in Athens, OH on a really flat & “fast” course (the serious runners use this race to try and qualify for Boston). Race day was great, bright and sunny for most of it with the air temp in the low-40′s to start then warming up to the low-50s by the time I finished. I ran the whole race in long sleeves with a vest (go Old Navy!). I probably could have gotten away with shorts for the bottoms, thought it would have been a bit cold in the beginning. I packed way too many of the energy chews into the vest pockets and wound up only eating about 1/3 of them. I also ate a bit too much oatmeal in the morning, my enthusiasm for the pre-race last minute carb loading had me making twice the normal amount of instant Quaker Oatmeal than normal. The night before, I had mac and cheese, mashed potatoes (took it easy on the gravy due to salt), and a fried egg at the local diner in Athens, OH. The next morning, the cheering duo made their way to the same diner for what I hear was an amazing meal of pancakes the size of a large plate. The race was well stocked with drink stations every 1-1.5 miles or so, the Gatorade was surprisingly strong (straight from the bottle without dilution) and I actually got somewhat more thirsty drinking it. I drank half water, half Gatorade during the race. The first half occurred easy, almost too easily I realized as I started the second half. The last 6 miles of the race were the longest miles I’d ever run. In the future, I think I would make that “long run” in the training schedule closer to 24 miles instead of 20. At any rate, I struggled through the last quarter of the mile with a lot of help from fellow racers. The daughter & mom team – mom paid for the half marathon & met her daughter at the marathon halfway mark to run the second half with her together for moral support. I “paced” myself with these two for a good portion of the second half. Also, there was “J”, a local, who was running his 30th anniversary marathon in the same race as his first. He was all about the slow and steady. There was also two guys I met near the end, “Finish Strong” and “Glad I’m not driving back home”, thanks for the pacing & encouragement!
At any rate, the past 4 months of interviewing, training, and talking about running this marathon have all come to a nice close. It’s strange to think that I decided to run a marathon back in early November, picked out this one and started on the Hal Higdon training schedule. It took me closer to 22 weeks to train for this, I purposefully built in a two week “break” around when I would be home in MN for winter vacation – the thought of running outdoors in sub-zero temps & wind chill just did not interest me at all. I’m really glad that I did this race and all the training for it, though I definitely didn’t train as hard as I should have and probably would have finished faster with some minor modifications to the training schedule (i.e. slightly longer “long run” & more mid-week run consistency). Either way, I’m really happy and proud for having set this goal and achieved it. I’m also really glad I got that post-race steak & smashed potatoes at J. Alexander’s!
The day after the race, walking down stairs was a feat unto itself. I had a lot of help from the railings. Going to work that night, it really didn’t occur to me how big a feat training for the past 4 months had been until I thought back on when I started this training schedule and all the long runs I did along the way on the interview trail. There was Seattle after which I got a bad cold, Phoenix with the creepy canal path, NYC & two loops around Central Park plus buying a hotdog/Gatorade combo, San Diego with the ocean & warm weather, and the 1-2-1 treadmill on the second floor (this thing weathered the 15, 18, & 20 mile training runs). I’ll also remember how I couldn’t sleep the night before Match Day and wound up running my 20 mile training run at 5:30AM, Match Day/St. Patrick’s Day at 1-2-1 having dragged a dear friend out of bed who was training for her 5k. I went to Match Day, really energized :0)
It’s been a really interesting year for me, between the away rotations, applying for residency, & interviewing all with this marathon training rolled into it.
