Cowboy Hazel

I ran my fifth marathon today and ended up with my second worst time ever, a 3:07:14. Obviously, this is nowhere near my goal time of 2:55:00 but I'm not nearly as upset by it as you would think. I made some big mistakes today, but I learned a lot of good lessons and discovered some important things about me as a distance runner. Plus, our weekend up in Albany as a whole was so good that even a disastrous race wouldn't have been able to bring my spirits down.

So, what went wrong out there on the course?

• I went out too fast. My first miles ranged from 6:16 to 6:30, much faster than the planned 6:40s. I wasn't sure how much the wind (which was then at my back) was pushing me, so I didn't slow myself down as much as I should have. Also, I may have gotten cocky and thought I was capable of more than I actually was. Either way, I hit the wall hard at mile 8. (Advice: Bonking at mile 8 in a marathon sucks. Don't do it. Ever.) My pace immediately started to spiral downwards and I was struggling just to put one foot in front of the other the whole last half of the race.


• Wind. I don't want to make excuses, but the wind was brutal. I completely underestimated how much harder it would make running, even though we were on a loop. I missed a couple good opportunities to draft too early on because I was worried about hitting exact paces. Looking back, slowing a bit there and avoiding the wind would have made a huge difference.


• Not enough calories. Because I was scared of digestive issues, I only had a Powerbar and a single gel for breakfast. I had two more gels during the race, plus a few tiny glasses of Gatorade, but it wasn't nearly enough, especially with the late morning start.

I came closer to DNF'ing today than I ever have before in a marathon. It was a five loop course and I came incredibly close to throwing in the towel at mile 20. Frankly, I was worried that if I headed out for the final loop, I might not make it back. I was hurting that bad. There was a moment when I had to decide which would be least damaging to both my mind and body: finishing with a shitty time or not finishing at all. I chose the first and am so glad I did. Knowing that I could fight through and run 18 miles of complete agony was actually a real big mental boost after it was over. Anyone can finish when it's going good, but it almost takes more to finish up the lousy ones.

Another big thing I learned today was that I'm not going to be happy running so many marathons half-assed. I think that I need to scale back the calendar a bit and focus on fewer, but higher quality, races. If I'm going to be running slow, I might as well just do the run as training on my own. No sense in going out and spending a small fortune on race registrations and travel. There are still five more marathons on my calendar this year that I'm planning on running (almost) for sure because registration/travel plans have already been made, but some of the others are probably going to get cut. More on this later.

And now for the silver lining: Even though I blew up, I still finished 9th overall (gotta love those super small races) and ran a Boston qualifying time. Helen finished 14th overall and 3rd female with an amazing 3:19:37, even though she didn't train seriously and was planning on just running a slow long run to keep busy while I was racing.

And, the actual race itself was almost perfect. Huge praise goes to Hudson Mohawk Road Runners Club for putting on such a great event. Registration was only $20 but we got great sweatshirts and tons of food at the start and finish. There was Gatorade and gels out on the course and the volunteers were very well organized. The five loop course annoyed some, but I loved getting into a routine and knowing exactly what was coming up. This is definitely a marathon I'd consider running again in future years.


Here's a photo of Helen and Me (white jacket, blue striped hat) at the starting line courtesy of The Happy Runner.