A couple weeks ago in the INEOS159 "race" we found that with perfect conditions a person could indeed run a marathon under two hours. The question at PBT then became "what's your breaking 2:00?"
Since I broke 5:30 and have had some great training (and a few decent races) this year it seemed like breaking 5:00 was possible. It is now my breaking 2:00. After my last long run I went public with it on my little triathlon FB group in a video. Lots of friends and family were tracking me for the Marine Corps Marathon yesterday. I was going into the race fairly confident and with strong expectations of breaking 5:00 or at least a HUGE PR.
The weekend started out to plan. Friday went nearly to plan and Saturday was perfectly to plan. I even figured out that indeed I wasn't going to be able to use the local bus to get to a Metro station to get to the race Sunday morning and sucked it up and scheduled a Lyft even though I am not a fan. Before I went to bed on Saturday a driver had accepted the ride.
Sunday morning I woke up, made breakfast and coffee, got dressed. I checked the weather and acknowledged that indeed it was going to be a wet and windy marathon. And that I would indeed not need a base layer or arm warmers as it was already 65 degrees. I headed out in the rain to wait for my Lyft. It was scheduled for 5:50 and just before 6:00 AM I got a call from the driver that I was too far out and they shouldn't be sending her because 7 miles was too far and she wasn't going to get paid for that. I was angry. I also knew I needed to get to the race. I woke up my host and he quickly got dressed (he had to work and so it was the world's fastest change into dress clothes and grabbing all the needed things) and drove me to the runner drop off. Meanwhile Lyft dispatched another driver that would have been like 30 min after what I scheduled. Screw that. They charged me a no show fee. I think they are a$$holes but they did apologize when I Twitter shamed them. But stand by their dumba$$ fee.
I got there in plenty of time, went through security, dropped my bag, used the porta potty, and drank my water. And used the potty again. I should have gone for a round three, but I didn't. It was raining the whole time. I went to the corrals and lined up confidently at the front of the 5:00-5:29 corral. I met the 5:05 pacers. We waited for the race to start and we were off. I was manually splitting miles and running by heart rate. The climb came earlier than I had thought based on the elevation chart and was a bit slower than I thought it would be. I didn't over run the downhill after because running downhill fast aggravates a high hamstring niggle that I've had since RAIN. But everything was feeling slow. And the miles were barely at goal pace if a bit slow. And my HR was climbing higher than I wanted that early. It didn't feel comfortable/easy like the first 15 miles should. At mile 11 the 5:05 pace group caught me. I knew that 5:00 wasn't going to happen and switched to "how big of a PR can we hang on to" goal.
BTW it was intermittently pouring rain with gusty wind. When it wasn't raining it felt hot. When it was raining it sorta felt ok. But it was hard to think of it as being hot enough to be taking extra water and summer levels of salt. I was probably taking half summer level - about right for winter. Except it was between 65 and 70 degrees. Which is hot for a marathon. And with the rain I couldn't tell if I was sweating enough.
By mile 12 I knew something wasn't right. The wear blue mile was one of trying to figure out if I was going to wait for a bathroom without a line or not, and how to try to regroup the run. I went to run/walk to see if I could get anything back. But I couldn't even maintain a run for 3 minutes at a time. I felt so sluggish. At this point we had a monsoon going on and there were whitecaps on the Potomac. Which is not ok. Slightly after half marathon I was straight up walking and not even race walking. I had gotten so slow and I couldn't go any faster. By mile 15, approaching the gauntlet, I seriously weighed whether or not I could do another 9 miles. By medical at 15.5 the answer was no. I didn't know what was wrong, but I didn't feel good at all.
At medical I discovered that they can't use a pulse oximeter when you are wearing nail stickers and that my blood pressure was 90/64. So they decided I needed water and electrolytes. When I had 40 oz of water and the electrolytes and 20 or so minutes had passed they checked again and it was my normal 110/85. So I had been dehydrated. Which was frustrating because I HAD been drinking and taking salt, just NOT ENOUGH.
So I was out. And then began the super long cold wait for the bus. Because while it was warm to be running, it was not warm to be in a wet singlet and shorts. The rain stopped and the sun came out...but it was a long wait. And then when it came the air conditioning was freezing. The bus ride took forever even with a police escort. We didn't even really know where they dropped us and I took the longest route ever to baggage claim. Finally I was back to my phone, dry clothes, money, and transit pass. I changed and got some food and tea. Then headed back. While I was waiting for the bus (one hour headway and I had *just* missed one) I made my calls and social media posts. I was disappointed but also knew that it had been a rough day. I am not processing this as I am not a good marathoner, but that tough conditions created some variables that I wasn't sure how to control. But not having a Marine in dress uniform put a medal on me (and it is a cool medal) and not feeling like I can wear the cool shirt sucks.
I will be back. I will break 5:00 some day. But for now I am trying to focus on choosing joy and gratitude. Joy that I get to do something I love in some pretty cool places and test what I can do that I never though possible. Gratitude that I can run, that I have wonderful people who support me no matter what, and that I will race again soon. And then I will take some time "off" to recharge physically and mentally for 2020.
So other than that, how was the race? I am not sure this is my favorite race or even on the short list. A lot of the military stuff doesn't have the same meaning for me that it has for others. The start isn't particularly festive. I was impressed with the spectators in some areas, especially given the crappy weather. The aid stations were long but not necessarily managed as well as I would expect for a military race. Some with the medical tent. Lots of room for improvement, especially with the guy who came in after me and was in bad shape and needed an ambulance ride. Communication about transportation back to the finish area was pretty bad. The finish area seemed cool if you got to finish the race. It was a LONG haul from the finish to the baggage trucks. Everything was a muddy mess from the rain. Will I run this one again? I'm not sure. This feels different than the other ones where I felt I needed "redemption" - not sure if I have outgrown that need or not. Maybe it is just too soon. Maybe I'll run it with a friend in 2021 or 2022. But for now...moving on.
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