Journeys Marathon

Oh, gee, did I forget to blog for six months? Silly me. I feel that overall grumpiness and crankiness can get to be too much even for a blog, so I haven't felt like doing this for a while. I will leave out all the things I really want to complain about and just blather on about my 5th marathon.

Training was pretty good for this one. My obligatory marathon training cycle injury was a quad strain that led to left knee pain. A good bit of stretching, foam rolling, Dr. A.R.T., a cut-back week of 3 mile runs, walk-running and setting my treadmill incline to 3 for all subsequent runs took care of it. It really was a dumb injury and totally my fault. I planned a 20 miler with a 10 mile race in the middle. Run to the race, run the race, run home. Easy, right? Well, running math is hard and I didn't add the additional mile around Lake Harriet to the start line of the race. Twenty mile run became 22 mile run. That wasn't the part that hurt me, however. Something about that run felt really good, so I ran the whole thing way too fast. Average pace for the entire run was 9:46 per mile (but an average of 9:26 for the 10 miles in the middle) and that includes the walking start of the race (11:17 for the 7th mile) and the last two miles where I had no gas in the tank (10:51 and 11:11). The rest of the day and the next week I felt like I'd already run a marathon.

I topped out with a 59 mile week (a total of four weeks were 50+). I had three 18 milers, one 22 miler, one 20 miler and one 21 miler. So either three or six decent marathon prep runs, depending on how you count. I also had 4 weeks of 2-a-day runs. Those days had more than 10 miles scheduled on a week day and that tends to be just too much to get done before work. Much as I dislike running after work, I broke my 11, 12, 13 and 14 mile runs into two and ran before and after work. 

This was the THIRD marathon that I've run in Wisconsin. I will not live long enough to run marathons in all 50 states, but this certainly isn't helping. (Wisconsin has a ton of marathons. Perhaps running all of them is something I should think about... no, never mind.) I had planned to run the Lake Woebegone Marathon just outside of St. Cloud, but I waited too long to register and it was full. A lot of scrambling and swearing ensued as I tried to find another marathon to fit my running schedule and requirements (smaller field, no air travel, not crazy hilly).

Well, two out of three ain't bad. One hundred and five people finished this marathon and it was a 4 1/2 hour drive away from home. The hills, however...

These were Wisconsin hills, not Minnesota hills. Minnesota hills are quite different, as I learned when I moved here in 1999. They are somewhat misleading. They just look like a gradual upward slope, not really like a hill at all. But they go on FOREVER (seriously, like miles). Wisconsin hills are more of the glacial variety: shorter and steeper. Hills you can see and conquer, not ones that wear you down and kill your spirit. That said, I'm not much of a hill climber. After the first couple of hills where I did my typical slow down to a crawl, I realized that these were short enough for me to see the top and actually run. Then came the fun part of running down them! While I was still running with people (I ran most of the race alone), everyone passed me on the way up the hills, but I passed them on the way down.

The elevation chart on the website intimated that the hills would level off after the halfway mark. I waited for that and kept telling myself that it would get  better. It got a little better, but really by the time I was around Mile 20, I didn't have much enthusiasm for running uphill anymore. The hill during Mile 21 finally slowed me past 10 minute miles, but my bad running math still had me thinking I could at least break 4 hours. I gave it a good try during Miles 22 and 23. But the last two miles just kind of hurt and I wanted to be done.

A note about the weather: it was 33 and snowing at the start of this race. The snow wasn't sticking, but still IT WAS SNOW. It never got above 35 degrees and the winds were pretty much sustained at 30 mph with gusts that were ickier than that. Most of the time the wind was hitting me in one side or another. A few times there was a nice tailwind. Then there were the times where the wind whipped around and smacked me full in the face. Nice times.

Splits:

Mile 1: 8:28
Mile 2: 8:11
Mile 3: 8:12
Mile 4: 8:51
Mile 5: 8:50
Mile 6: 9:20
Mile 7: 8:41
Mile 8: 8:33
Mile 9: 9:15
Mile 10: 8:30
Mile 11: 8:45
Mile 12: 9:13
Mile 13: 9:01
Mile 14: 9:06
Mile 15: 8:58
Mile 16: 9:23
Mile 17: 9:19
Mile 18: 9:56
Mile 19: 9:43
Mile 20: 9:54
Mile 21: 10:15
Mile 22: 9:34
Mile 23: 9:52
Mile 24: 10: 32
Mile 25: 10:25
Mile 26: 10: 20


Total: 4:03:46

If you're still reading this, there's some stuff that happened at the end , too. I wound up in the ambulance about 10 minutes after finishing. I'd never run this far or hard in 35 degree weather. The wheezing started first, then the coughing. Then it got worse. I managed to ask for the location of the medical tent, was told it was "around the corner," and walked up to the ambulance. I told the EMTs that I'd forgotten my (really Carrie's) inhaler and asked if they could help me out. By that time I really couldn't breathe and was kind of freaking out. They got the nebulizer set up and gave me albuterol & Flovent. My blood pressure was good, but my pulse was 100. Good times. Seriously, though, Jason & Gene were really nice guys and kept trying to make me take an ambulance blanket along because it was cold. Gene asked how I did and I told him "4:03." And then he asked if I was going to run Boston next. And I said, "No, I ran about eight minutes too slow." He was incredulous. It was sweet. They got me breathing again and I wrapped up in my space blanket and went to check the results for my official time.

I won my age group. The age group below me was much faster, but I beat the next 45-49er by ten minutes. Let's all hear it for 45-49! Woot!