Grandma's Marathon 2019. I had a good day. I had no reason to expect the result that I had, but I am very pleased with how I did and how things went.
I am 6 months - post-stent implant in the LAD (aka - "the widow maker" artery that supplies blood to the left ventrical) due to a 90% blockage. Today I ran faster in the marathon than I have in 6 years.
I had low expectations coming into this race even though I had a decent training period leading up to the race. In the last 4 weeks I was traveling for vacation internationally, and then traveling for business both internationally and domestically - and though I was getting daily runs in, I was not really training or running very far.
When I originally signed up for this race - I had two goals: 1. Finish (as a statement that I fully recovered from the heart issue in the Fall) and 2. Run a Boston Qualifier (3:25 for me at age 52) in order to run in 2020 where my middle daughter is in school.
But I had pretty much tossed Goal #2 out of the realm of possibilities - because I just was not feeling as though I was fit enough to expect it. My longest long run was just 17 miles and I did not have too many lengthy runs either. Plus I was anxious about my health - although I had run a couple of 5k races and a 10k, this was going to be signficantly longer, and I wondered if I would I have a problem with such a long race.
So my race plan today was go with whatever my body would give me and to be conservative. I was pleasantly surprised that the first mile which felt relatively easy was 7:39, and then I ran 7:20 and then 7:10 and thought to myself - ok, don't get greedy or too excited. Run the mile you are in, and keep your HR at a manageable high tempo level. If the pace slows, so be it. Well, it really stayed consistent after that. I ran between 7:10 and 7:20 per mile all the way until mile 17. I slowed slightly from there on in, but still kept things between 7:20 and 7:30 and finished the last .2 miles at 7:15 pace.
The weather was a huge bonus too. They had predicted rain earlier in the week, and this morning the forecast called for 95% cloud cover and temps in the mid 50's. Well, as it turned out, we got bright sunshine, temps in the mid to high 50's and blue skies with a nifty tailwind for most of the race. Could not have asked for better weather - which brought out way more spectators than last year's event.
So - in summary - I had a good day and I didn't die.
| 