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Overall time
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Months ago I registered for the Wichita Prairie Fire Marathon with hopes of a PR. I started with a good training plan, 50 mile per week base and great training partners to keep me on track. I ran all summer in the 100 F temperatures hoping to get stronger. When race day finally arrived, I was feeling great. I tapered, got plenty of sleep and ate well; I even avoided wine and spicy food. So what happened, where did I go wrong? Sometimes things just don't go as planned. Sometimes you fall short of your expectations, by a lot.
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Great company for a road trip
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Back in late June my plan was simple, I started speed work on Tuesdays, tempo runs on Thursdays and long runs on Saturdays with short easy runs on the other days. I also cross trained several days a week. I was diligent about keeping up with the Tuesday and Thursday runs and was getting faster. But, as I look back at my training logs, I can now see I fell short on a few of the long runs. I managed three runs at over 20 miles, but only two of them were within six weeks of the race. I also skipped the last 20 mile run to race in the Redman 70.3 triathlon. This is problem # 1, don't skip long runs.
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Training partner Justin
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Problem # 2 is one of those hand to the forehead moments, douhhh. At the start of the race I took a five hour energy. I have taken these at races before and not had any problems, but on this day, it was a mistake. Unfortunately at mile seven, I started having gastrointestinal issues..... and all runners know that is not a good sign so early in a marathon. I started to drop back and walked through the next water station. At mile nine, I spotted a few porta potties, but they were occupied. GRRRR. At mile 11, I finally found an empty one and was back in business. I started happily running along, feeling much better.
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| Ouch, Ouch, Ouch |
While my body was feeling better, my foot wasn't doing as well. I recently bought new shoes that gave me problems during Redman. I switched back to my old shoes a few weeks before the race, but this may have contributed to my foot pain. Problem # 3, take care of your feet. By mile 21, I was walking. My foot hurt so bad that I couldn't start back at even a trot. At one point I was hopping along on the good foot. Toward the end, the crowds were cheering for me to run the last few miles, but I couldn't. It was so frustrating to have my body feel good, but my foot hurt. I did manage to trot the last 10-20 steps across the finish line. Two things I could not let happen were a DNF and walking across the finish line.
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| BEST GROUP EVER |
At the start line walking was far from my mind. My training partners and I decided to run with the 3:45 pace group a few days before. The pace group leader planned on starting out slow and progressively get faster. I stuck with a pace group even though I did not feel comfortable going out so slow. My normal strategy is to go out slightly faster than the goal time to compensate for feeling tired the last few miles. Every time I've done that, I've PR'ed. Once I fell behind the pace group and realized how far off I was, I gave up too easily. I think having a specific goal time and focusing so hard on reaching it was a bad idea. I need to be more flexible so I don't get discouraged and slow down. So, lets add problem # 4 to the list, pace groups aren't a good idea.
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| Jen and Lisa! |
Finally, I could be suffering from burnout, I've done a lot of races the last few months, problem # 5. This was my 14th race (5K, 10K, Tri, ect.) in four months and 28th is year. By this time, I wanted a break. The last five miles were pretty depressing, I even updated my facebook status to distract me from the reality of walking. I've never felt so disappointed during a race. Even when races aren't going as planned, I usually love the atmosphere and being part of the event. All the problems started rushing around in my head. How could this be going so bad.....walking five miles takes a really long time, I've never actually walked five miles before. I had plenty of time to reflect and think about what was going wrong. I guess there is a first time for everything.
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| Hobbling to the end |
When the finish was in sight, I saw my friends cheering for me! This reminded me why I run, the friends I have made along the way are great! I had a fabulous time in Wichita despite my poor performance. I run for the love of it, I run for the friendships, I don't run to win. Sometimes I forget to relax and have fun. If this isn't fun, I shouldn't be out there. The weekend was a blast, I spend time getting to know other runners and enjoyed a great post run meal at the brewhouse. I also finished my 9th marathon and eight of those nine marathons were in the last 12 months. That's an accomplishment on it's own. Sometimes things don't go as planned and you learn something unexpected, sometimes you need to have things put in perspective. Each race teaches you something and hopefully I can use what I've learned. One bad race won't discourage me from racing again or keep me from getting back to training hard.
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Bling
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I'm so excited
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Post race reloading
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