So I've concluded that I'm a terrible blogger. Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've had a lot of life events that have gotten in the way, and also some plain old laziness too. But on the bright side, I'm still running! And I just finished an awesome race a couple of days ago! So let's forget all the unpleasantness of my blogging laziness and talk about that instead!
We'll start by backing up to early this summer. We were able to move into a new house in June, a house I discovered on a long run one Saturday morning, when I happened to see a sign posted on the front lawn advertising it. I selected the route to run that morning on a total whim, and by sheer coincidence it took us to our new home! It was bigger than our old place, located just down the road from our church, and was in the school district that Jacob wanted. We moved in back in June, and it wouldn't have happened without my running habit! Yay, running!
Soon after we moved in, I knew it would be time to start some hard summer training to get ready for the Atlantic City marathon in October. My PR was 4:28:20 at the Disney Marathon in January, but I knew I had a sub-4:00 time in me, and I figured Atlantic City was the perfect place to go for it! The first few weeks of training went fine, but after that I just had problem after problem with training. A foot issue, a calf issue, *and* a quad issue all hampered my training this summer, as well as some insane hours with work projects that made me shut down runs or left me too tired to run after late nights. As a result, I put in maybe 50% of the mileage I planned to put in for training for AC - not good. I wasn't even sure I would run the race at all until last weekend, when I decided to run a 20-miler to make sure I had the endurance to make it. I made it (barely), so I decided I would set my expectations low and give it a try.
With my whopping one week taper time, I did almost no running at all - just a little 3 miler to keep myself loose. At the expo on Saturday, I found a sweet deal on some Brooks Adrenaline shoes that felt great, so I picked them up. They're a tiny bit snug in the shoe width, but much lighter than my Ghosts, so they might make for some nice racing shoes - I just need to break them in and see how they feel.
So on race day morning, I decided to set my expectations very low. My 20-mile run last week was at slightly over a 10:00 pace, which would translate to about a 4:40 run over 26.2. I didn't think I would have a chance to even PR, so I just decided to see how I feel when I start and play it by ear. I'm usually obsessive about planning my splits and calculating my pace, so this was a HUGE leap of faith on my part. But I felt like pushing myself beyond what I was trained up to was just asking for injury. This would just be a "fun run" for me (and yes, any definition of "fun" that includes a marathon is a very loose definition.)
The race was an 8:00 start, and I got there around 6:45. I found a decent parking space at Caesar's casino and took the skyway through the casino and meandered to the boardwalk. I get out and see a gorgeous sunrise coming up over the beach that I have to go and get a picture of - but as soon as I start walking out there, I felt a bird poop spray right on the front of my warmup jacket. There's two ways of looking at something like that:
(1) "This is a bad omen. My race is doomed to be a disaster. Get back in your car, drive back home, and crawl under your covers NOW."
(2) "Phew! Now that the unluckiest event of the day is out of the way, it's all downhill from there! I'm going to have an awesome race now!"
Since I had already paid $100 to run this race, I chose the latter point of view. I pushed onward to the beach and got my pretty pictures.
(You'll notice I left out pictures of the bird poop. You're welcome.)
After that, I did a little stretching to ease my nerves and milled around the boardwalk until race time. I also learned my lesson from before and avoided the energy shots, sticking to a caffeine-free energy gel a few minutes before the start. There appeared to be around 1,000 or so runners at the starting gate, roughly the same number I saw when I ran the race before in 2012, so a lot smaller than my last couple of races. It wasn't cordoned off into corrals, but it was still a very orderly and quick start after the gun went off. The first 5-6 miles went by in a blur, partly because that was the part of the race that went behind buildings and convention centers, (which is about as boring as it sounds), but mainly because I was making a concerted effort NOT to look at my pace. But when I finally looked at my Garmin after mile 6, much to my surprise, I saw that my easy pace was actually a 10:00 pace, faster than I was running even last week! I was feeling good and just decided to stick with it as long as it lasted.
The support and volunteers were fantastic for the race, just like they were in 2012. I had no problems with fueling up and hydrating as I ran, and they were super quick with filling my water bottle when I asked for it. I found myself looking at my Garmin more and more after mile 10 and focusing on holding the 10:00 pace I started with. I knew 10:00 per mile over 26.2 miles would be a 4:22 finish and a PR, but I tried not to get too excited. But soon, the wind would (literally) grab my attention. The gusts got up to 35 MPH and felt really severe, like there was a hand pushing me back by my chest as I tried to run. My bib threatened to come untethered from my shirt, and my cap did fly off maybe 3-4 times. It wasn't until after I told myself "The next time my cap flies off I'm sticking the damned thing in my pocket," that my cap stopped flying off my head. It was a pain from mile 10 until mile 15 or so, running south through Atlantic City and Ventnor City, but I knew when I ran the other direction after mile 20, it would feel good to have it at my back. When I wasn't chasing after my cap, though, I was enjoying the gorgeous fall morning on the boardwalk, where the scene was just beautiful. It always makes the race for me.
Miles 15 through 20 were mainly a loop through Margate City, a nondescript suburb. It didn't compare to the scenery of the boardwalk, but there were a LOT more people there cheering us on than there was 2 years ago. A lot of folks were leaving church as we ran by and were cheering us on in their Sunday clothes, which was kind of cool. I was doing a good job of holding my pace, but I felt a touch dehydrated, so I tried to drink more and hoped I wasn't too late to avoid a bad last few miles. After mile 20, I came around the hairpin turn, and a couple of miles later, I was back onto the boardwalk for the home stretch and the wind at my back! But this was where I started to feel my lack of training. What felt like the same effort I was putting in for a 10:00 pace was actually showing up as a 10:30 pace on my Garmin...then 11:00...then worse. I was mentally fighting myself, making all those mental bargains you make at the end of a long run: "Just stop and walk this next block and then I'll run the next five." I was holding on, but barely, as I came onto the boarwalk at mile 23.
It was right around then that I heard a small plop as I ran, and then almost immediately slipped on the boardwalk and fell forward. I managed to grab a pole on the side of the boardwalk before hurting myself, fortunately. A second bird poop incident! This one missed me by a few inches, but almost caused me to have an injury. I steadied myself, and before my body had a chance to enjoy not running too much, I started right back up again. I found some loud music to carry me through the last few miles - I wasn't going any faster than 11:00 anymore, but the only reason I was running at all was willpower. I knew I could still get a PR - I knew at the time it was 4:28:something, but I didn't know exactly what, just that it was going to be close.
I just kept putting one foot in front of the other until mile 25.5 or so, when I mustered what I could to pick up my pace. After mile 26, I looked down and saw 4:27 - I could really do it! I sprinted that last two tenths of a mile for all I could do (which turned out to be an 8:14 pace!) and flew across the finish. I darted over to the results table, barely stopping to stick an orange slice in my mouth, because I wanted to know if I pulled off a PR. I checked my phone and saw that the Disney PR was 4:28:20. My Garmin showed a finish of 4:28:23, but that was for an extra .07 miles, so...? Finally, after a few minutes, I saw that I had a chip time of 4:28:15 - I broke my PR by a whopping 5 seconds! Considering all the injuries and missed training, I couldn't have been happier. In fact, I think my brain was probably lacking some oxygen when I took this selfie:
Here's all the deets as recorded on my Garmin, if you're into that kind of thing. I was on a cloud the whole drive home (despite a scary and weird incident recovering the car I parked at Caesar's earlier, which maybe I'll talk about another time). Instead, I'll post another picture of my bling! It's big and gaudy, just the way I like 'em.
So, yeah. Great race, great course, great day! This is what I pay $100 for in the middle of summer. Next up is the Cape May marathon in March, and I'll be ready. I'm going to spend the next week planning that one out, and hopefully this time I won't forget to blog about it! Thanks for reading!
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