New Orleans Marathon 2012 race report.
So there I was, sitting alone on a bench at 6:30am in downtown New Orleans, listening to Lady Gaga and crying.
Well.. maybe I should back up a little..
BEFORE
I wasn't supposed to be alone. Matt was supposed to be with me. But Matt had been suffering from a hip injury for a few weeks. We'd hoped that laying off running completely for a week and a half would enable him to at least run the half marathon, but when we did our shake-out run the day before the race (ran from our hotel to the convention center for packet pick up), just that short and easy run was enough to irritate his hip so much, he was limping when just walking. So no race for Matt. Which meant that suddenly and unexpectedly, I was navigating this race start alone.
I've gone to races on my own before, but never a marathon, and never a race of this size. It's a lot lonelier on your own. Fortunately our hotel was half a mile from the start line, so I consulted my map and wandered off down the road in the dark to find me a race. I will admit I was stupidly proud of getting everything done and not getting lost and holding it together all on my own.
I overestimated how long it would take me to get there, and how many people would be there, so when I showed up, there was barely anyone around, and shockingly no line for the portapotties. Portapotty stop #1. I had 1.5 hours to kill and nothing to do, so I wandered down into the little athlete village and dropped off my dry clothes bag at the trucks. Wandered some more. Found another bank of portapotties that nobody knew about which had even LESS of a line. Stop #2. Because why not. Wandered more. Eventually wandered back over to the start corrals, figuring I'd line up. Even though there was an hour before the race started. But it was so early that there was nobody in the corrals yet.
I figured I'd probably be better off sitting down, rather than wearing my legs out wandering, so I sat on a bench in front of my corral, and just took it all in. I felt good. I felt prepared. I felt like this was going to be my day. My training had gone well. I'd comfortably hit paces that I'd struggled with in the past. I'd run an amazing half marathon in a time I hadn't even thought vaguely achievable. And miraculously, the weather was perfect. New Orleans in early March can really go either way, but usually warm and humid is a safe bet. I don't run well in warm and humid. Which makes you wonder why I would sign up for a race where that's likely. I honestly don't know the answer to that. But it was in the mid40s and dry and lovely. In fact, I was freezing as I sat there. Happily freezing.
This was going to be my day. The stars had aligned. I smiled and breathed and centered myself. And then Lady Gaga's Bad Romance came on over the loudspeaker, and for some reason I started crying. Good crying. But it was ridiculous, and I couldn't stop laughing at myself as I tried not to let anyone see that I was crying to Bad Romance. I was just so pleased with how things had gone so far. Even though we were still half an hour away from race start. I decided I should go pee again. #3 and final.
When I got back from the portapotty, they'd opened the corrals and people were starting to line up. I got in corral 3, then looked around at other peoples' numbers and realized I was supposed to be in corral 4. Moved back. The sun had come up at this point, and I realized I'd forgotten my sunglasses. A complete rookie mistake. I tried not to let myself panic about it. If that's the worst thing that happened to me during the marathon, I'd consider myself lucky. But it was dismaying, because my bad eye means that I'm miserable in the sun without sunglasses, and the day was threatening to be very sunny. Ahwell.
Since lining up, I'd been keeping an eye out for the 3:40 pace group, but couldn't find them. Then I overheard someone say something about how there were no pace groups. Well, there goes my race plan.
GOALS
My initial goal was just to have fun and remember why I love running marathons. But anyone who knows me knows that I couldn't just stick to that goal. I had developed time goals as my training went on, as well. Very familiar time goals, since they've been my goals for the past 3 marathons.
1) PR, which would be sub-3:47
2) Sub-3:45
3) Sub-3:40, aka Boston Qualification
I felt like (1) was definitely doable on a good day. I felt like (2) was doable on a really good day. And I actually finally felt like (3) was just this side of achievable if the stars aligned. And did I mention that I felt like the stars were awfully aligned this day?
Originally my coach-given plan was to start with the 3:45 pace group, fall back them in the first few miles as I warmed up at my own pace, catch up to them by mile 5, stick with them, and eventually pull ahead and finish sub-3:45. Except then I read the website and there was no 3:45 pace group. Change of plans.
Discussed it with Coach Jamie again the night before when he called to see how I was doing, and I said my new plan was to start with the 3:40 pace group, fall back, then try desperately to catch up to them again before the end of the race. He said that sounded good.
Except, despite what the website said, there appeared to be no 3:40 pace group. Or any pace groups, I later learned. So I was on my own. Could be a good thing, could be a really bad thing. I historically don't do very well at pacing myself, and I really didn't want to be a slave to my Garmin and constantly be watching my pace.
So.. no sunglasses. No pace group. And when I finally took off my warm shirt right before the race started, I found one of the safety pins holding my number on had gone missing. ONLY THREE SAFETY PINS?! WHY DO YOU MOCK ME, CRUEL WORLD?!
Okayokay, so things weren't going quite as perfectly as they'd started out, back in crying-Gaga times, but I still felt confident and calm. I was going to enjoy my race. I was going to run as fast as I comfortably could. And I was going to kick some ass.
They let corral 1 go at 7am, and we started moving forward. They let corral 2 go. We moved forward. They let corral 3 go and we started walking up to the start line. Then we got to the start line. Then everyone started running. Evidently corral 4 didn't feel like they should have to wait for an official start, so with no pomp or circumstance, I was suddenly running a marathon!
(I really hadn't done much planning for this race until maybe a week before the race. That's when I finally looked at the course map. I found that the race was basically a series of out and backs through significant parts of New Orleans, so I decided to mentally break the race up into landmark chunks rather than distance chunks. I'll divide my race report the same way.)
ST CHARLES
Finally running! And I know some folks in the later corrals complained about corral jumping and ending up behind walkers who started too far up, but up in corral 4, things were pretty perfect. Some congestion just due to the number of people, but everyone moving roughly the same speed. This is my second experience with Rock'n'Roll races and their corrals, and I'm still a big fan.
I was shiveringly cold after I took off my long-sleeved shirt (and was down to just a sleeveless shirt), and continued to be cold when I started running, which concerned me a bit, but then we turned left, and evidently turned out of the wind, and I felt great.
Yay, running! Yay, marathons! Yay.. horribly bad roads.
I'd actually ridden my bike down St Charles before and should have remembered how bad the roads were, but I had blocked that out. I was looking forward to running down St Charles and seeing all the big houses in the Garden District and the trees and all that, but honestly, though the first 7 or 8 miles were through this section, I'm not sure I saw a single house. I was so busy watching where I put my feet and weaving back and forth through potholes and cracks and loose gravel, trying to avoid thousands of other runners doing the exact same thing.
I guess the GOOD news is, it made this part go relatively quickly. Sort of like the concentration required for trail running.
Mile 1 clocked in at 8:58, just about perfect. I was to run mile 1 about 30 seconds slower than goal pace, mile 2 faster, mile 3 faster, then settle into my goal pace by mile 4, which was 8:23s. I'm not sure how I decided a firm 8:23. That's the pace for a 3:40, and it was what my brain told me my pace should be, so evidently my brain decided from the beginning that 3:45 was stupid, and we'd be running a 3:40.
Mile 2 was an 8:41. Still right on plan. Mile 2 was also where I heard the first spectator say we were almost there. What.. the fuck, sir? Unless you're running a 5k, mile 2 is NEVER "almost there".
Passed a girl who was complaining to her friends that she heard someone talking about chocolate milk and ugh, hearing about chocolate milk while running made her want to vomit. I told her that hearing about chocolate milk and vomit while running didn't do great things for me, either.
Passed my favorite band of the entire course, which was a group of youngish guys with a little jazz ensemble, trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums, who were fantastic and really into their music.
And then as I neared the turnaround between miles 4 and 5, I passed Elizabeth! She was in town visiting her grandmother, who lives basically on the course, so she came out to cheer, and knowing she was going to be out there was a huge boost, and seeing her even more so. She knew my concerns about the weather and cheered that I had gotten so lucky with my cool day.
Now I was half done with my first out and back, headed back toward downtown. I ate a gu. I ditched my little handheld water bottle that had allowed me to skip the first few aid stations. I had finally gotten down to my goal pace and was holding strong either right above or right below it. I hadn't tripped or faceplanted on the bad roads. Things were going well.
I have strong suspicions this picture is from near the end of the race, but since there were basically no cameras at the beginning, let's just pretend this happened early
Back into downtown without incident and a bit of crazy zigzagging through the relay handoff point (who knew there was a relay?) and into the French Quarter.
FRENCH QUARTER
Okay, I admit, I don't really remember much of this section, other than it was the most New Orleans-looking section of the race. I think we went down Magazine St, but all I remember is it looking and smelling very much like Bourbon St. And the roads were still bad. And I chatted briefly with a guy wearing a 2010 San Antonio Marathon shirt, which I (now I realize) mistakenly thought was that horribly miserable year (turns out, that was 2009). Now that I realize I had the year wrong, he probably really wondered what I was going on about.
At least I find mySELF amusing
I thought maybe by this time, Matt might be up and about, and might come to this area since it was relatively close to the hotel, but I didn't see him. Since his decision not to do the race was so late, we'd never discussed plans or where he might be, and so I was sort of watching for him in the back of my mind the whole race.
Down some more streets I really don't remember (apparently miles 8-10 are completely lost in my world), and turned onto Esplanade.
ESPLANADE
Esplanade is really pretty. I only know this because I've been on it in the past. Again, torn up roads mean lots of foot-watching, which means no scenery-appreciating. But at least Esplanade was blissfully shaded for the most part.
Also at least I didn't spend all of Esplanade desperately engaging my core and hunting frantically for a portapotty, like I did last time I ran down that road.
This was the home stretch for the half marathoners. I know this because everyone out cheering, and there were a ton of people out cheering on Esplanade, was yelling, "You're almost there! One mile to go! You can do it!" Evidently they didn't get the memo that there was also a marathon going on, and that we had much more than 1 mile to go. We weren't even halfway there yet. It was really tough mentally.
Meanwhile the half marathoners are picking up the pace, finishing strong. I'd spent so long mostly running alongside people, all going roughly the same pace. Suddenly people were passing me left and right, and it was really hard to keep my speed in check and continue running my own race.
And then the split. Marathoners stay left, half marathoners finish off to the right. It was pretty obvious as the marathoners started moving to the left side of the road that.. most people were running the half marathon.
MARCONI
In looking at the map beforehand, I had just penned miles 10-16 as "Esplanade", out to Lake Shore. Turns out, you turn off Esplanade onto Marconi.
Somewhere on Marconi things started to get tough. I was still on pace. But I felt like I was having to push a lot harder to keep the same pace. I was no longer just running comfortably hard and hitting my goal pace spot on. Now I was starting to breathe harder to stay at the same pace. My legs just started feeling heavy. Not sore or hurt in any way, just sluggish.
As I passed the 13.1 mile marker, I decided to look at my watch and see what my half split was. If I ran perfectly even splits, I'd need a 1:50 to hit exactly 3:40. My watch said 1:51:something. If I could run the second half FASTER, a 3:40 was possible. But I was slowing down.
I split at the mile 14 marker and saw 8:36. Okay, so off pace, but I still have time to recover. Except mile 15 was also 8:36. That was after I tried to pick it up to get back on pace. I was breathing hard and slowing down.
I made an executive decision. Knowing that I was slowing down was just making me want to give up completely. Every single marathon I run, I feel great for 13-15 miles, then I fall apart. This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. So I decided to stop looking at my watch. I kept splitting at the mile markers, but I stopped looking.
That isn't to say I gave up. I kept running as hard as I possibly could, bearing in mind how many miles I had left. I did pretty much give up hope of a 3:40. But I knew I was on pace to still PR and go sub-3:45 if I could just hold it together. But seeing the slower splits was killing me, so I stopped looking.
Oh, Marconi. It was just us marathoners now, and we were on an out and back on a closed road. That means no cars could get out there. That means no spectators. Nobody cheering. No SHADE. Just miles of empty nothing. A somewhat pretty park-like empty nothing, but nothing nonetheless.
Around mile 15 I marveled at how many miles I still had to run when I already felt like crap, and re-affirmed that Marathons Are Dumb. I felt SO good at 3M. Why don't I just stick to half marathons? No, I've felt great at marathons, too.. at the end of an Ironman. It's just standalone marathons that're dumb. Dumb dumb dumb.
Soooo, yeah. Not a high point.
Though at some point the frontrunners started coming back the other way. At least that gave me someone to cheer for. (And man, the guy in the front had nobody behind him for.. many, many minutes. Clear lead.)
Eventually I saw the mile 23 marker on the other side of the road, on the way back. So I knew once I got to that point, I had 5k to go. Even though I had many miles to even GET to that marker, somehow that knowledge helped a little.
LAKE SHORE DR
I remember looking at the map and thinking it would be neat to run on Lake Shore Dr. Turns out, nothing was really neat at this point in the race. Yeah, I could see the water, if I could muster up the energy to look up. But it was sunny. And I had no sunglasses. And the wind had picked up, and there was nothing to block the wind out there. And this section was two out and backs before coming back to accursed Marconi, forming a T. And everyone looked like they were in a death march.
So.. yaaaaaay, Lake Shore Dr! Ugh.
I knew the first out and back was the shorter of the two, but even that one seemed interminable. And my body really wanted to run next to the center stripe on the road. As did EVERYBODY ELSE. I'm not sure what kind of instinct kicked in, but everyone wanted to run on that line, and if someone had to move away from the line to get around someone, they'd immediately make a beeline back to that comforting stripe of paint. And the people on the way back in were doing it, too, so everyone was just clustered all together in the middle of the road.
And y'know how there were no spectators on Marconi, because the road was closed? Well evidently there's no way to get out to Lake Shore other than Marconi, because there were even less spectators out there. Except a group of seagulls were screaming encouragement at me on the way out. But they evidently had other appointments, and were gone by the time I got back.
Between the wind and the sun and the dry, I started feeling incredibly dehydrated. I had been taking water from every aid station, and now I started taking two, drinking 1.5 and dumping the rest over my head. And still I felt parched.
Adding insult to injury, this section was full of photographers. Well, 2, in oddly rapid succession. Which was more than we'd seen in many miles. I tried to smile. Have I mentioned I hate pictures of myself when it's sunny and I don't have sunglasses? Hello, ugly squinting.
I really hate this picture, but I figured I'd demonstrate my attempts to smile
Turned around at the first out and back, ran back, made it to mile 18, kept running past Marconi and onto the other out and back. I knew this one was longer, but somehow it took at least 20 miles to go from the 18 mile marker to the 30k marker. I spent at least 2 minutes figuring out that 30k was 18.6 miles, and how in the world had it taken me so long to go not even one full mile? Marathons are dumb.
... What? I'm NEVER too tired to bust out some jazz hands
Now, I had looked up the elevation profile for this race, and it was flat. Flat flat flat. There's a thing just before mile 9 that looks somewhat threatening, but then you look at the scale of the map and realize that that's probably a particularly menacing curb. The rest looks pancake flat.
Except it's not. That second out and back contained 2 or 3 or 87 hills. And by hills I probably mean things which are barely like overpasses. But they looked like mountains. However, I figured, hey, at least it's gonna be using muscles I really haven't used this entire race! It probably won't feel bad, since those muscles are fresh! Yeah.. no. It hurt. And each hill we blissfully went down.. we had to go back up on the way back. That out and back took forever. With the hills and the sun and the 20 miles I'd run.. it was just hard.
(I should note, though, that some of the BEST cheerleaders on the course were on that second out and back. I saw a bus, so I suspect they bused some folks in either some back way or before the race started, but these girls were one super bright point in an otherwise bleak and barren part of the race.)
(One particularly UNpleasant part of this section was that there was a band covering Keep Your Hands To Yourself, which is mostly notable because this was the SECOND band I heard covering this song, both poorly, and it's not a song I love in the first place. Seriously, twice within the same race? That's bad luck on my part.)
And then I could see the turn back onto Marconi up ahead. Marconi? I LOVE Marconi! Best road ever! ... Now.
MARCONI AGAIN
Right at the turn was the mile 22 marker. Okay, 4 miles. Only 4 miles. I can do anything for 4 miles. Except everything was just Hard. So stupidly hard.
My right shoe had felt loose for many miles. But glancing down at it, it wasn't. My laces looked tight and fine. And I didn't want to stop and retie it, because I'm stubborn and didn't want to stop. If I could SEE it was loose, maybe I'd stop. But it looked fine. And I wasn't going to stop for my stupid shoelaces. So instead for miles it felt like my shoe was too loose and my ankle was moving around too much and it didn't feel good. But.. yeah. Hey. At least I didn't stop. (Racebrain is weird.)
And my feet in general hurt. Not like blisters, or the bottoms, but the bones in my feet. In several different places.
And my right armpit was chafing.
And all that water I poured over my head had caused the hotel shampoo residue in my hair to wash into my mouth, and it tasted like coconut, and I hate coconut.
And there was still no shade.
And no bands.
And no spectators.
And HOW IN THE HELL HAVE I BEEN RUNNING FOR AT LEAST 15 MILES SINCE THE MILE 22 MARKER AND I HAVEN'T SEEN 23 YET?!?!
But then I got to 23. And I remembered 23 from the way out. And I can do anything for 5k.
The thing that seriously got me through this part? Turnover. Coach Jamie had me do a lot of runs where I practiced high turnover. And my legs felt heavy and tired and wanted to slow down, so instead of trying to go FASTER, which I couldn't seem to do, I just made my legs turnover quicker. Which seemed doable.
In the last few miles, the spectators started appearing again and the cheering resumed, which helped enormously. Though one couple decided to cross the road right in front of me and another guy, and they were just moseying slowly across, and.. there was really nothing we could do to avoid them. I mean, under normal circumstances we could dodge them or go around them or even stop to avoid them, but at mile 24, you can't do those things anymore. All you can do is push your body to move forward in a straight line. Fortunately right at the last minute, they looked up and saw us (good job, folks crossing an active marathon course) and hustled out of our way just in time. And apologized. So there's that.
I was running on pure heart and guts at this point. My legs had pretty much just checked out, and I was pushing myself forward with the thought that the finish line would mean I could STOP running. Which sounded really lovely.
We turned back off Marconi and into the park, and there was mile 25. And there was Claire.
Now.. I read a lot of blogs. A LOT of blogs. Some of the people who write them, I know. About 95% of them, though, are strangers. They're people who run marathons or do Ironman or have lost amazing amounts of weight or are in the process of doing so or are generally in some other way amazing. I get my inspiration from these people. I read what they do and it encourages me to want to do amazing things. But, as I said.. most of them are strangers.
At mile 25ish, I passed one of those strangers on the side of the road cheering. I would have recognized her just from pictures on her blog, but it helped that she was wearing a shirt and carrying a sign that said "DO EPIC SHIT". Which is fabulous. And she cheered for me like I was the person she specifically came out to cheer for. And it was exactly what I needed right at that moment. So I cleverly yelled out to this complete stranger, "I read your tumblr!" Mile 25 doesn't allow for a lot of witty repartee. And she yelled out in response something about how I made her day.
Still high off that encounter, I rounded a corner and crossed a bridge, and there was MATT! He was right where I needed him most, and he screamed encouragement at me and told me to push.
Taken by Matt
I pushed. At least as much as I could at that point. There were crowds of people lining the roads again, and I used their cheering to dig deeper and push harder. We rejoined up with the half marathoners again on a divided road, and somehow it really surprised me that that event was still even going on. I felt like I'd been running for days.
We split off from the half marathoners again and each went around a building on a different side. Right at the split, Matt was there again with the camera. He told me to give all I had left, because the finish line was right there. I dug even deeper.
Passed the mile 26 marker, and somehow autopilot took over and I hit the split button on my watch, then gave everything I had left for that last 0.2 to the finish line.
Finishline joy
As I approached, I glanced at the race clock finally. 3:44:something. I'd known for hours I wasn't going to hit sub-3:40, but I was so happy to both PR and come in sub-3:45.
AFTER
I finished with really mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm thrilled with an almost 5 minute PR and an official time of 3:42:16.
On the other hand, this is marathon #3 where I tried to qualify for Boston and failed.
And the extra frustrating part is, if I'd run this race a year ago, I WOULD have qualified for Boston. But as of this year, the qualifying times are 5 minutes faster, and so I was short by 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
But on the OTHER, nonexistent hand.. I ran a 3:42:16. That blows my mind. My marathon progression has gone something like 5:35, 4:36, 4:13, 3:47, 3:58, 3:48, 3:42. That's some progress over the years, for sure.
But I think that what really caused the mixed emotions is how I felt during the second half of the race. If I'd run a 3:42:16 and felt strong and confident the whole time, I think I'd be thrilled with my race. But I struggled so much during the second half.. I didn't achieve my goal of having fun and feeling good. Jamie theorizes that it was a lot of mental stuff.. Matt's hip situation, the barrenness of the last 13.1 miles, maybe somewhat the sun and wind.. but who knows.
What makes me feel a little bit better is that I didn't fall apart nearly as much as I thought I did at the end of the race. I was convinced that after those two 8:36s in a row, I just got slower every mile until the end. In reality, my splits looked like this:
8:57
8:41
8:28
8:24
8:22
8:21
8:21
16:54 (missed a marker)
8:20
8:25
8:11
8:23
8:24
8:36
8:36
8:26
8:20
8:05 (this must have been a short mile followed by a long mile)
8:49
8:28
8:23
8:48
8:43
8:37
8:20
1:48 (8:06)
After those 8:36s, I actually picked it back up again. In the last few miles, I definitely slowed down, but then my last mile was even faster than my MGP. So while I did fall apart, this is by far the LEAST I've fallen apart at the end of a marathon! That gives me hope.
Another mixed emotional bag.. this is my fastest marathon ever, and I felt like I pushed myself as hard as I could... but this is the least sore I've ever been after a marathon, and even after most half marathons. We walked 4 miles the next day, and even after 2 plane flights, I walked down some stairs with no ill effects. I was afraid that meant I was destined for massive DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) on Tuesday, but by Tuesday I wasn't even walking funny and was running down the stairs with no handrail. So.. yay? Except it makes me feel like maybe I could have pushed HARDER. I need the physical pain to help with the emotional pain. :)
So that's marathon #7.
Well.. maybe I should back up a little..
BEFORE
I wasn't supposed to be alone. Matt was supposed to be with me. But Matt had been suffering from a hip injury for a few weeks. We'd hoped that laying off running completely for a week and a half would enable him to at least run the half marathon, but when we did our shake-out run the day before the race (ran from our hotel to the convention center for packet pick up), just that short and easy run was enough to irritate his hip so much, he was limping when just walking. So no race for Matt. Which meant that suddenly and unexpectedly, I was navigating this race start alone.
I've gone to races on my own before, but never a marathon, and never a race of this size. It's a lot lonelier on your own. Fortunately our hotel was half a mile from the start line, so I consulted my map and wandered off down the road in the dark to find me a race. I will admit I was stupidly proud of getting everything done and not getting lost and holding it together all on my own.
I overestimated how long it would take me to get there, and how many people would be there, so when I showed up, there was barely anyone around, and shockingly no line for the portapotties. Portapotty stop #1. I had 1.5 hours to kill and nothing to do, so I wandered down into the little athlete village and dropped off my dry clothes bag at the trucks. Wandered some more. Found another bank of portapotties that nobody knew about which had even LESS of a line. Stop #2. Because why not. Wandered more. Eventually wandered back over to the start corrals, figuring I'd line up. Even though there was an hour before the race started. But it was so early that there was nobody in the corrals yet.
I figured I'd probably be better off sitting down, rather than wearing my legs out wandering, so I sat on a bench in front of my corral, and just took it all in. I felt good. I felt prepared. I felt like this was going to be my day. My training had gone well. I'd comfortably hit paces that I'd struggled with in the past. I'd run an amazing half marathon in a time I hadn't even thought vaguely achievable. And miraculously, the weather was perfect. New Orleans in early March can really go either way, but usually warm and humid is a safe bet. I don't run well in warm and humid. Which makes you wonder why I would sign up for a race where that's likely. I honestly don't know the answer to that. But it was in the mid40s and dry and lovely. In fact, I was freezing as I sat there. Happily freezing.
This was going to be my day. The stars had aligned. I smiled and breathed and centered myself. And then Lady Gaga's Bad Romance came on over the loudspeaker, and for some reason I started crying. Good crying. But it was ridiculous, and I couldn't stop laughing at myself as I tried not to let anyone see that I was crying to Bad Romance. I was just so pleased with how things had gone so far. Even though we were still half an hour away from race start. I decided I should go pee again. #3 and final.
When I got back from the portapotty, they'd opened the corrals and people were starting to line up. I got in corral 3, then looked around at other peoples' numbers and realized I was supposed to be in corral 4. Moved back. The sun had come up at this point, and I realized I'd forgotten my sunglasses. A complete rookie mistake. I tried not to let myself panic about it. If that's the worst thing that happened to me during the marathon, I'd consider myself lucky. But it was dismaying, because my bad eye means that I'm miserable in the sun without sunglasses, and the day was threatening to be very sunny. Ahwell.
Since lining up, I'd been keeping an eye out for the 3:40 pace group, but couldn't find them. Then I overheard someone say something about how there were no pace groups. Well, there goes my race plan.
GOALS
My initial goal was just to have fun and remember why I love running marathons. But anyone who knows me knows that I couldn't just stick to that goal. I had developed time goals as my training went on, as well. Very familiar time goals, since they've been my goals for the past 3 marathons.
1) PR, which would be sub-3:47
2) Sub-3:45
3) Sub-3:40, aka Boston Qualification
I felt like (1) was definitely doable on a good day. I felt like (2) was doable on a really good day. And I actually finally felt like (3) was just this side of achievable if the stars aligned. And did I mention that I felt like the stars were awfully aligned this day?
Originally my coach-given plan was to start with the 3:45 pace group, fall back them in the first few miles as I warmed up at my own pace, catch up to them by mile 5, stick with them, and eventually pull ahead and finish sub-3:45. Except then I read the website and there was no 3:45 pace group. Change of plans.
Discussed it with Coach Jamie again the night before when he called to see how I was doing, and I said my new plan was to start with the 3:40 pace group, fall back, then try desperately to catch up to them again before the end of the race. He said that sounded good.
Except, despite what the website said, there appeared to be no 3:40 pace group. Or any pace groups, I later learned. So I was on my own. Could be a good thing, could be a really bad thing. I historically don't do very well at pacing myself, and I really didn't want to be a slave to my Garmin and constantly be watching my pace.
So.. no sunglasses. No pace group. And when I finally took off my warm shirt right before the race started, I found one of the safety pins holding my number on had gone missing. ONLY THREE SAFETY PINS?! WHY DO YOU MOCK ME, CRUEL WORLD?!
Okayokay, so things weren't going quite as perfectly as they'd started out, back in crying-Gaga times, but I still felt confident and calm. I was going to enjoy my race. I was going to run as fast as I comfortably could. And I was going to kick some ass.
They let corral 1 go at 7am, and we started moving forward. They let corral 2 go. We moved forward. They let corral 3 go and we started walking up to the start line. Then we got to the start line. Then everyone started running. Evidently corral 4 didn't feel like they should have to wait for an official start, so with no pomp or circumstance, I was suddenly running a marathon!
(I really hadn't done much planning for this race until maybe a week before the race. That's when I finally looked at the course map. I found that the race was basically a series of out and backs through significant parts of New Orleans, so I decided to mentally break the race up into landmark chunks rather than distance chunks. I'll divide my race report the same way.)
ST CHARLES
Finally running! And I know some folks in the later corrals complained about corral jumping and ending up behind walkers who started too far up, but up in corral 4, things were pretty perfect. Some congestion just due to the number of people, but everyone moving roughly the same speed. This is my second experience with Rock'n'Roll races and their corrals, and I'm still a big fan.
I was shiveringly cold after I took off my long-sleeved shirt (and was down to just a sleeveless shirt), and continued to be cold when I started running, which concerned me a bit, but then we turned left, and evidently turned out of the wind, and I felt great.
Yay, running! Yay, marathons! Yay.. horribly bad roads.
I'd actually ridden my bike down St Charles before and should have remembered how bad the roads were, but I had blocked that out. I was looking forward to running down St Charles and seeing all the big houses in the Garden District and the trees and all that, but honestly, though the first 7 or 8 miles were through this section, I'm not sure I saw a single house. I was so busy watching where I put my feet and weaving back and forth through potholes and cracks and loose gravel, trying to avoid thousands of other runners doing the exact same thing.
I guess the GOOD news is, it made this part go relatively quickly. Sort of like the concentration required for trail running.
Mile 1 clocked in at 8:58, just about perfect. I was to run mile 1 about 30 seconds slower than goal pace, mile 2 faster, mile 3 faster, then settle into my goal pace by mile 4, which was 8:23s. I'm not sure how I decided a firm 8:23. That's the pace for a 3:40, and it was what my brain told me my pace should be, so evidently my brain decided from the beginning that 3:45 was stupid, and we'd be running a 3:40.
Mile 2 was an 8:41. Still right on plan. Mile 2 was also where I heard the first spectator say we were almost there. What.. the fuck, sir? Unless you're running a 5k, mile 2 is NEVER "almost there".
Passed a girl who was complaining to her friends that she heard someone talking about chocolate milk and ugh, hearing about chocolate milk while running made her want to vomit. I told her that hearing about chocolate milk and vomit while running didn't do great things for me, either.
Passed my favorite band of the entire course, which was a group of youngish guys with a little jazz ensemble, trumpet, trombone, tuba, drums, who were fantastic and really into their music.
And then as I neared the turnaround between miles 4 and 5, I passed Elizabeth! She was in town visiting her grandmother, who lives basically on the course, so she came out to cheer, and knowing she was going to be out there was a huge boost, and seeing her even more so. She knew my concerns about the weather and cheered that I had gotten so lucky with my cool day.
Now I was half done with my first out and back, headed back toward downtown. I ate a gu. I ditched my little handheld water bottle that had allowed me to skip the first few aid stations. I had finally gotten down to my goal pace and was holding strong either right above or right below it. I hadn't tripped or faceplanted on the bad roads. Things were going well.
I have strong suspicions this picture is from near the end of the race, but since there were basically no cameras at the beginning, let's just pretend this happened early
Back into downtown without incident and a bit of crazy zigzagging through the relay handoff point (who knew there was a relay?) and into the French Quarter.
FRENCH QUARTER
Okay, I admit, I don't really remember much of this section, other than it was the most New Orleans-looking section of the race. I think we went down Magazine St, but all I remember is it looking and smelling very much like Bourbon St. And the roads were still bad. And I chatted briefly with a guy wearing a 2010 San Antonio Marathon shirt, which I (now I realize) mistakenly thought was that horribly miserable year (turns out, that was 2009). Now that I realize I had the year wrong, he probably really wondered what I was going on about.
At least I find mySELF amusing
I thought maybe by this time, Matt might be up and about, and might come to this area since it was relatively close to the hotel, but I didn't see him. Since his decision not to do the race was so late, we'd never discussed plans or where he might be, and so I was sort of watching for him in the back of my mind the whole race.
Down some more streets I really don't remember (apparently miles 8-10 are completely lost in my world), and turned onto Esplanade.
ESPLANADE
Esplanade is really pretty. I only know this because I've been on it in the past. Again, torn up roads mean lots of foot-watching, which means no scenery-appreciating. But at least Esplanade was blissfully shaded for the most part.
Also at least I didn't spend all of Esplanade desperately engaging my core and hunting frantically for a portapotty, like I did last time I ran down that road.
This was the home stretch for the half marathoners. I know this because everyone out cheering, and there were a ton of people out cheering on Esplanade, was yelling, "You're almost there! One mile to go! You can do it!" Evidently they didn't get the memo that there was also a marathon going on, and that we had much more than 1 mile to go. We weren't even halfway there yet. It was really tough mentally.
Meanwhile the half marathoners are picking up the pace, finishing strong. I'd spent so long mostly running alongside people, all going roughly the same pace. Suddenly people were passing me left and right, and it was really hard to keep my speed in check and continue running my own race.
And then the split. Marathoners stay left, half marathoners finish off to the right. It was pretty obvious as the marathoners started moving to the left side of the road that.. most people were running the half marathon.
MARCONI
In looking at the map beforehand, I had just penned miles 10-16 as "Esplanade", out to Lake Shore. Turns out, you turn off Esplanade onto Marconi.
Somewhere on Marconi things started to get tough. I was still on pace. But I felt like I was having to push a lot harder to keep the same pace. I was no longer just running comfortably hard and hitting my goal pace spot on. Now I was starting to breathe harder to stay at the same pace. My legs just started feeling heavy. Not sore or hurt in any way, just sluggish.
As I passed the 13.1 mile marker, I decided to look at my watch and see what my half split was. If I ran perfectly even splits, I'd need a 1:50 to hit exactly 3:40. My watch said 1:51:something. If I could run the second half FASTER, a 3:40 was possible. But I was slowing down.
I split at the mile 14 marker and saw 8:36. Okay, so off pace, but I still have time to recover. Except mile 15 was also 8:36. That was after I tried to pick it up to get back on pace. I was breathing hard and slowing down.
I made an executive decision. Knowing that I was slowing down was just making me want to give up completely. Every single marathon I run, I feel great for 13-15 miles, then I fall apart. This is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. So I decided to stop looking at my watch. I kept splitting at the mile markers, but I stopped looking.
That isn't to say I gave up. I kept running as hard as I possibly could, bearing in mind how many miles I had left. I did pretty much give up hope of a 3:40. But I knew I was on pace to still PR and go sub-3:45 if I could just hold it together. But seeing the slower splits was killing me, so I stopped looking.
Oh, Marconi. It was just us marathoners now, and we were on an out and back on a closed road. That means no cars could get out there. That means no spectators. Nobody cheering. No SHADE. Just miles of empty nothing. A somewhat pretty park-like empty nothing, but nothing nonetheless.
Around mile 15 I marveled at how many miles I still had to run when I already felt like crap, and re-affirmed that Marathons Are Dumb. I felt SO good at 3M. Why don't I just stick to half marathons? No, I've felt great at marathons, too.. at the end of an Ironman. It's just standalone marathons that're dumb. Dumb dumb dumb.
Soooo, yeah. Not a high point.
Though at some point the frontrunners started coming back the other way. At least that gave me someone to cheer for. (And man, the guy in the front had nobody behind him for.. many, many minutes. Clear lead.)
Eventually I saw the mile 23 marker on the other side of the road, on the way back. So I knew once I got to that point, I had 5k to go. Even though I had many miles to even GET to that marker, somehow that knowledge helped a little.
LAKE SHORE DR
I remember looking at the map and thinking it would be neat to run on Lake Shore Dr. Turns out, nothing was really neat at this point in the race. Yeah, I could see the water, if I could muster up the energy to look up. But it was sunny. And I had no sunglasses. And the wind had picked up, and there was nothing to block the wind out there. And this section was two out and backs before coming back to accursed Marconi, forming a T. And everyone looked like they were in a death march.
So.. yaaaaaay, Lake Shore Dr! Ugh.
I knew the first out and back was the shorter of the two, but even that one seemed interminable. And my body really wanted to run next to the center stripe on the road. As did EVERYBODY ELSE. I'm not sure what kind of instinct kicked in, but everyone wanted to run on that line, and if someone had to move away from the line to get around someone, they'd immediately make a beeline back to that comforting stripe of paint. And the people on the way back in were doing it, too, so everyone was just clustered all together in the middle of the road.
And y'know how there were no spectators on Marconi, because the road was closed? Well evidently there's no way to get out to Lake Shore other than Marconi, because there were even less spectators out there. Except a group of seagulls were screaming encouragement at me on the way out. But they evidently had other appointments, and were gone by the time I got back.
Between the wind and the sun and the dry, I started feeling incredibly dehydrated. I had been taking water from every aid station, and now I started taking two, drinking 1.5 and dumping the rest over my head. And still I felt parched.
Adding insult to injury, this section was full of photographers. Well, 2, in oddly rapid succession. Which was more than we'd seen in many miles. I tried to smile. Have I mentioned I hate pictures of myself when it's sunny and I don't have sunglasses? Hello, ugly squinting.
I really hate this picture, but I figured I'd demonstrate my attempts to smile
Turned around at the first out and back, ran back, made it to mile 18, kept running past Marconi and onto the other out and back. I knew this one was longer, but somehow it took at least 20 miles to go from the 18 mile marker to the 30k marker. I spent at least 2 minutes figuring out that 30k was 18.6 miles, and how in the world had it taken me so long to go not even one full mile? Marathons are dumb.
... What? I'm NEVER too tired to bust out some jazz hands
Now, I had looked up the elevation profile for this race, and it was flat. Flat flat flat. There's a thing just before mile 9 that looks somewhat threatening, but then you look at the scale of the map and realize that that's probably a particularly menacing curb. The rest looks pancake flat.
Except it's not. That second out and back contained 2 or 3 or 87 hills. And by hills I probably mean things which are barely like overpasses. But they looked like mountains. However, I figured, hey, at least it's gonna be using muscles I really haven't used this entire race! It probably won't feel bad, since those muscles are fresh! Yeah.. no. It hurt. And each hill we blissfully went down.. we had to go back up on the way back. That out and back took forever. With the hills and the sun and the 20 miles I'd run.. it was just hard.
(I should note, though, that some of the BEST cheerleaders on the course were on that second out and back. I saw a bus, so I suspect they bused some folks in either some back way or before the race started, but these girls were one super bright point in an otherwise bleak and barren part of the race.)
(One particularly UNpleasant part of this section was that there was a band covering Keep Your Hands To Yourself, which is mostly notable because this was the SECOND band I heard covering this song, both poorly, and it's not a song I love in the first place. Seriously, twice within the same race? That's bad luck on my part.)
And then I could see the turn back onto Marconi up ahead. Marconi? I LOVE Marconi! Best road ever! ... Now.
MARCONI AGAIN
Right at the turn was the mile 22 marker. Okay, 4 miles. Only 4 miles. I can do anything for 4 miles. Except everything was just Hard. So stupidly hard.
My right shoe had felt loose for many miles. But glancing down at it, it wasn't. My laces looked tight and fine. And I didn't want to stop and retie it, because I'm stubborn and didn't want to stop. If I could SEE it was loose, maybe I'd stop. But it looked fine. And I wasn't going to stop for my stupid shoelaces. So instead for miles it felt like my shoe was too loose and my ankle was moving around too much and it didn't feel good. But.. yeah. Hey. At least I didn't stop. (Racebrain is weird.)
And my feet in general hurt. Not like blisters, or the bottoms, but the bones in my feet. In several different places.
And my right armpit was chafing.
And all that water I poured over my head had caused the hotel shampoo residue in my hair to wash into my mouth, and it tasted like coconut, and I hate coconut.
And there was still no shade.
And no bands.
And no spectators.
And HOW IN THE HELL HAVE I BEEN RUNNING FOR AT LEAST 15 MILES SINCE THE MILE 22 MARKER AND I HAVEN'T SEEN 23 YET?!?!
But then I got to 23. And I remembered 23 from the way out. And I can do anything for 5k.
The thing that seriously got me through this part? Turnover. Coach Jamie had me do a lot of runs where I practiced high turnover. And my legs felt heavy and tired and wanted to slow down, so instead of trying to go FASTER, which I couldn't seem to do, I just made my legs turnover quicker. Which seemed doable.
In the last few miles, the spectators started appearing again and the cheering resumed, which helped enormously. Though one couple decided to cross the road right in front of me and another guy, and they were just moseying slowly across, and.. there was really nothing we could do to avoid them. I mean, under normal circumstances we could dodge them or go around them or even stop to avoid them, but at mile 24, you can't do those things anymore. All you can do is push your body to move forward in a straight line. Fortunately right at the last minute, they looked up and saw us (good job, folks crossing an active marathon course) and hustled out of our way just in time. And apologized. So there's that.
I was running on pure heart and guts at this point. My legs had pretty much just checked out, and I was pushing myself forward with the thought that the finish line would mean I could STOP running. Which sounded really lovely.
We turned back off Marconi and into the park, and there was mile 25. And there was Claire.
Now.. I read a lot of blogs. A LOT of blogs. Some of the people who write them, I know. About 95% of them, though, are strangers. They're people who run marathons or do Ironman or have lost amazing amounts of weight or are in the process of doing so or are generally in some other way amazing. I get my inspiration from these people. I read what they do and it encourages me to want to do amazing things. But, as I said.. most of them are strangers.
At mile 25ish, I passed one of those strangers on the side of the road cheering. I would have recognized her just from pictures on her blog, but it helped that she was wearing a shirt and carrying a sign that said "DO EPIC SHIT". Which is fabulous. And she cheered for me like I was the person she specifically came out to cheer for. And it was exactly what I needed right at that moment. So I cleverly yelled out to this complete stranger, "I read your tumblr!" Mile 25 doesn't allow for a lot of witty repartee. And she yelled out in response something about how I made her day.
Still high off that encounter, I rounded a corner and crossed a bridge, and there was MATT! He was right where I needed him most, and he screamed encouragement at me and told me to push.
Taken by Matt
I pushed. At least as much as I could at that point. There were crowds of people lining the roads again, and I used their cheering to dig deeper and push harder. We rejoined up with the half marathoners again on a divided road, and somehow it really surprised me that that event was still even going on. I felt like I'd been running for days.
We split off from the half marathoners again and each went around a building on a different side. Right at the split, Matt was there again with the camera. He told me to give all I had left, because the finish line was right there. I dug even deeper.
Passed the mile 26 marker, and somehow autopilot took over and I hit the split button on my watch, then gave everything I had left for that last 0.2 to the finish line.
Finishline joy
As I approached, I glanced at the race clock finally. 3:44:something. I'd known for hours I wasn't going to hit sub-3:40, but I was so happy to both PR and come in sub-3:45.
AFTER
I finished with really mixed emotions. On the one hand, I'm thrilled with an almost 5 minute PR and an official time of 3:42:16.
On the other hand, this is marathon #3 where I tried to qualify for Boston and failed.
And the extra frustrating part is, if I'd run this race a year ago, I WOULD have qualified for Boston. But as of this year, the qualifying times are 5 minutes faster, and so I was short by 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
But on the OTHER, nonexistent hand.. I ran a 3:42:16. That blows my mind. My marathon progression has gone something like 5:35, 4:36, 4:13, 3:47, 3:58, 3:48, 3:42. That's some progress over the years, for sure.
But I think that what really caused the mixed emotions is how I felt during the second half of the race. If I'd run a 3:42:16 and felt strong and confident the whole time, I think I'd be thrilled with my race. But I struggled so much during the second half.. I didn't achieve my goal of having fun and feeling good. Jamie theorizes that it was a lot of mental stuff.. Matt's hip situation, the barrenness of the last 13.1 miles, maybe somewhat the sun and wind.. but who knows.
What makes me feel a little bit better is that I didn't fall apart nearly as much as I thought I did at the end of the race. I was convinced that after those two 8:36s in a row, I just got slower every mile until the end. In reality, my splits looked like this:
8:57
8:41
8:28
8:24
8:22
8:21
8:21
16:54 (missed a marker)
8:20
8:25
8:11
8:23
8:24
8:36
8:36
8:26
8:20
8:05 (this must have been a short mile followed by a long mile)
8:49
8:28
8:23
8:48
8:43
8:37
8:20
1:48 (8:06)
After those 8:36s, I actually picked it back up again. In the last few miles, I definitely slowed down, but then my last mile was even faster than my MGP. So while I did fall apart, this is by far the LEAST I've fallen apart at the end of a marathon! That gives me hope.
Another mixed emotional bag.. this is my fastest marathon ever, and I felt like I pushed myself as hard as I could... but this is the least sore I've ever been after a marathon, and even after most half marathons. We walked 4 miles the next day, and even after 2 plane flights, I walked down some stairs with no ill effects. I was afraid that meant I was destined for massive DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) on Tuesday, but by Tuesday I wasn't even walking funny and was running down the stairs with no handrail. So.. yay? Except it makes me feel like maybe I could have pushed HARDER. I need the physical pain to help with the emotional pain. :)
So that's marathon #7.