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Washington D.C. SunTrust Marathon

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Location:

Provo,UT,USA

Member Since:

Oct 04, 2008

Gender:

Female

Goal Type:

Boston Qualifier

Running Accomplishments:

8 Marathons completed; PR of 3:29.  Hoping to run Boston in next few years if I can ever register before the dang thing fills (have missed the last 2 years because of this).

Short-Term Running Goals:

Hoping to re-qualify for Boston sometime in 2011.  Hoping to hit marathon #10 in 2011.

Long-Term Running Goals:

Run 100 marathons in my lifetime and live to tell the tale.

Personal:

Married.  2 daughters.  Have a love/hate relationship with running.  Hate the first 3 miles of EVERY run without fail and grumble the whole time.  Feel okay during 3-6.  Love 6+ and LOVE how I feel when I am done (like I can take on the world and then some!). 

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Miles:This week: 0.00 Month: 0.00 Year: 0.00
Total Distance
114.20
Total Distance
8.00

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Total Distance
5.00

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Total Distance
5.00

Pace run at 8:15s.  Felt very strong; ran last mile in around 7:30.

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Total Distance
20.00

AP 9:20s.  Done and done.  The longest mileage I have done since running Park City last August.  Started at 9:00 p.m.  Finished just after midnight.  Scott is on-call all weekend so there was no other way to get it done and I am SO glad to not have it hanging over my head all weekend.  We went out to dinner and did a pizza thing and didn't get done eating until about 7:30 so I was a little nervous about running on a full stomach, but I took an Aleve and an Immodium right before starting and loaded up on the Gatorade throughout.  Miles 1-10 went really well, averaging 9:13s.  By mile 10 I was feeling warmed up and really strong; then around Mile 11 GI issues hit and my stomach started cramping.  Slowed down to 10 minute miles and struggled from 11-15.  Around 15 started to feel better and by 17/18 felt really strong again and finished the last 2 miles very strong with mile 19 around an 8:15 I think.  Got to watch Pirates 1 and part of Pirates 2, which helped with the run.  Overall was very pleased with how not bad it was.  I struggled for those few miles and had to slow the pace, but overall things felt good and it wasn't half as bad as I thought it was going to be given that I haven't done 20+ in 9 months, I was doing it late at night on a full stomach, and its just really high mileage for me.  I kept telling myself before "Its just 20.  Its just 20."--trying to adjust my mindset.  At this point in my running career, mentally for me 12 and under is great; 12-16 or so is okay; but 17+ still gets me a little nervous about how my stomach is going to deal and if I will be able to go strong throughout.  I need to get over that, and hopefully will sometime in my running career but tonight was a good small step because it wasn't that bad--not sure how else to say it.  Hope everyone else's big mile runs go well tomorrow!  As for me, I have earned a cross-training day that I am going to relish tomorrow...Almost 1 a.m. now and time for bed.  Sipping my chocolate milk--nectar from the running gods--SMOOTH I will never be able to thank you enough for introducing me to it post-run--and will be off to bed!

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Total Distance
2.00

Cross-training day.  30 minutes of walking with increase of .5 incline each minute up to 12.0 incline.  Got to bed last night at about 1:00 then laid in bed feeling the runners gut until about 1:30.  Felt just a titch sore today and have some blistering and definite chafing in the sports bra area--going to have permanent v-neck scars right below my collarbone that show every time I wear a lower cut shirt (you know that I mean--not risque lower obviously, just not high neck :)) but proud of 'em.

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Total Distance
5.00

AP 8:15s. Last mile was a 7:15 (starting at an 8.0 and going up .1 grade each minute).  Felt strong and good after spending the morning recovering from a sleeping pill the night before. Always forget how hung over they make me feel in the morning.  Luckily by noon (when I finally got around to running) I felt a lot better and once I got on the treadmill the running most have forced it right out of my system.

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Total Distance
4.00

AP 8:10s.  Last mile was a 7:30.  Still feeling strong.

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Total Distance
5.00

AP 8:15s; last mile sub 7:30.  Dragged all morning but finally got on the treadmill and felt really strong.

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Total Distance
6.00

APs 7:50s (did it in 47 minutes starting at a 7.0 to 7.5 by 5 minutes, then up .1 every 10 minutes).  Last mile was 8.0+ .1 every minute finishing strong; maybe a 7:15?

Dragged again this morning.  I don't know why I have such a hard time in the early mornings.  Not that I get up that early--usually 7:00ish but it takes me until 9 until I feel like I am really awake, then I catch my magical morning wind and feel great.  The problem is it takes me 2 hours to get there.  Can't figure out if my 7-8 hours of sleep isn't enough, if I need more iron, or if I am just tired from running and training or life in general right now (which is somewhat stressful given the last year's events and the pending move).  Getting very excited about D.C. though.  Booking hotels today and starting to plan our family trip.  Haven't been there since we moved from there when I was probably 9, which would make it about 20 years. Crazy.  Think we are going to try and make time to drive by all my old houses and my old elementary school.  Excited for my kids to experience it.  Luz sent me an email wondering if I wanted to race D.C. rather than just hanging out for it.  Can't make up my mind.  Looked up Boston times and saw that they weren't half as bad as I was expecting (the new times).  This year they are the same (for 2012) but the faster you do it, the sooner you can register, so I would guess most will need to run 10 minutes faster than qualifying to get a seat; in 2013 my time drops to 3:35 but it seems feasible since my PR is 3:29.  Then I watched Biggest Loser last night and one of the girls ran a 7.5 for 3 minutes and she is still like 80 pounds over weight.  Every time I see stuff like that on the show I think, "How much harder could I push myself if I really pushed?"  So today I tried to run fast despite headache lingering from last night on right side of brain.  Was proud of my 7:50s.  Wanted to save racing for Utah Valley in June but am now toying with the idea of trying to run a marathon like Sasha recommends--hard for 20, then racing the last 6.  I always start as fast as I possibly can (like sub 7s for 6 or 7 miles) then start to slow, then slow, then slower and never have a negative split (even on my PR of 3:29 I think my first half was a 1:30, then my last half was almost 2 hours).  Wondering if I should try running what would hopefully be comfortable 8:30s at D.C. for the first 20, then ramping it up for the last 6, but maybe I am overestimating my abilities and the only way I could really do that is to run comfortable 9:30s or 10s for the first 20...Anyway, things I am mulling over today.

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Total Distance
12.00

9 minute AP.

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Total Distance
3.00

Jogging miles with sister in Atlanta.

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Total Distance
4.00

8:15 AP.  Last mile: 7:15.

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Total Distance
5.00

AP 8:15.

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Total Distance
4.00

AP 8:20.  Left bottom half of leg muscle on outer side that runs from foot to knee (between shin and calf) has been tingling for a week or so. Today when done with run it definitely hurt.  Has been hurting all day like a strained muscle.  Took aleve this morning and this afternoon.  Not very happy about this.  Can't remember if you are supposed to heat or ice?  Getting bugged/slightly stressed because I am only 10 days out from marathon time and have been training so well and injury free.  Taking tomorrow off.  Lots of massage.  Ice I think?  Advice on that injury area would be helpful.  Can't figure out how to stretch it except for rolling my foot and still doesn't seem to get to that muscle.  Sure Luz has a great stretch for it.  Smooth has experienced it at some point.  And RAD is simultaneously dealing with it.  Right?  BTW, thanks for all the running advice on the race, ladies.  It was just what I needed to hear, especially Smooth's comment about "dont worry if you are starting to feel worn out."  I do.  This whole week I have been dragging.  Spent last weekend in Atlanta with sister.  Had mother in law in town for 3 days and Madeline's birthday yesterday.  St. Patricks day tomorrow and birthday party this weekend, then move in 3 weeks.  Yes.  Definitely feeling worn down and am not sure if its running or life in general, but am hoping that magical second wind previous to the race is about to hit...Signing off for now to go turn my fridge full of food green.  Cath

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Race: Washington D.C. SunTrust Marathon (26.2 Miles) 04:40:00
Total Distance
26.20

Definitely better to blog about a race the day of or after, but life has been so crazy that now a week later I am finally getting to it....Lets see, where to begin.  I was SO excited to run this marathon pretty much since we signed up last fall.  My life was kind of falling apart in more ways than one and knowing that I had a marathon to train for and to look forward to was kind of the thing that kept me tethered and sane for many, many days, so if nothing else I am grateful for that.  Then in February I started really hitting my stried, feeling strong and feeling fast.  Come March I am feeling even better.  Tiger in a cage, right Luz?  The 3-4 weeks before the marathon I am running 8:15 AP and doing 7:00-7:30s for my last mile.  I am thinking it is totally time to BQ for the summer.  And then, of course, the injury hits.  Twinging in my leg for a few days.  Turns into pain in my leg for a few days.  Turns into can barely walk for a few days.  Talk to the doctor at church (nice, I know--but I was leaving for the marathon 2 days later and have no doctor or physical therapist here in Knox).  He says likely stress fracture, go ahead and run, fix it later.  So I take 10 days off before the marathon and do nothing.  Then we are off to D.C.  At this point I don't care about the running fast part.  I am just happy to be on vacation with my family in my birthplace--a place I had not visited for almost 20 years.  I got to see my old house and my old school.  We had dinner with our dear, dear friends from Iran.  We went to all the cool museums and my daughter got to see Amelia Earhart's plane.  We swam in hotel pools and rode the metro.  And best of all, on Friday we got to see one my bestest friends and favorite people--none other than the famous LuzyLew!  So it was good and by Friday I just didn't care about the run, just happy to be here.  Then I remembered that we had come to run after all and that all those months of training had to somehow make up for my dang stress fracture, so Luz and I headed out early Saturday morning for the marathon, both of us feeling a little bit of trepidation about how the dang leg might hold up.  And then came the biggest rookie mistake of all time never to be repeated.  I have been taking Aleve morning and night hoping that this ritual will somehow not ruin my intenstines, liver, and other digestive organs and that it will magically heal the fracture through its anti-swelling properties.  The morning of the race I figure I should take 2 for good measure, and I remember hearing a few years back from PT Steve Oreck that it digests in a different part of your stomach, so no worries about stomach pain.  Yeah.  He was wrong.  At least for me.  Luz and I ran a glorious 3-4 miles towards the capitol feeling good and taking it slow and just reveling in the fact that we were in D.C. RUNNING A MARATHON!!!  Then it started to hit.  The bathroom urges.  The uncontrollable stomach pains, the cramps, the, "I want to sit on a toilet, pass out, and die" simultaneously.  To save you the stop-by-stop Porta Potty recap, lets just say it started at about mile 6 and continued until mile 12 stopping almost every mile at every Porta Potty and a Starbucks in between.  Luz kept saying I needed to decide by Mile 13 if I was going to do it or not.  I kept worrying that because of the dang 5 hour time limit that if I didn't speed up, which felt impossible to do given the churning of my stomach, that we were going to get swept off the course and for the first time ever I would be a non-finisher on my first dang marathon out of the state of Utah.  I hate to quit and would pretty much die rather than quit, but what do you do when they force you off?  I have to admit that the serious horribleness of my stomach and digestive feelings, however, just about did me in.  At around mile 9, while in the porta potty, I just leaned against the door and wanted to cry and die.  I felt so horrible--like I usually do AFTER a race when I lay on the floor for a few hours, and yet here I had 17 miles to go.  I had apparently lost my mental capacity at this point because I started to try and think of creative solutions like waiting it out for 8 hours in a local restuaraunt, then running the course by myself, or coming back the next day, or anything to get passed this horrible feeling but still finish what I had started.  And so I ended up doing what Cath does best when all else fails...I just kept plugging along and plugging along, stopping and stopping and stopping as needed.  I kept telling myself, "It has to pass.  It has to pass.  It WILL pass if I run long enough."  By Mile 12 I was feeling slightly better.  By Mile 13 I was telling Luz in my strongest words that there was NO WAY I was quitting.  By Mile 14 the stomach issues had mostly resolved, and though I was left feeling weak and dehydrated, at least I could run without feeling the need to pass out or lay down.  Miles 14-19 passed in a blur.  I asked Luz how far we were and couldn't believe when 14 had magically become 17.  I talked and talked about who knows what just to keep my mind off the mileage and to try and make up for months of being Luz-less.  Poor Luz had to listen to my half-crazy (blaming it on dehydration) rambling about everything under the sun.  Then suddenly, we were at 20.  (Memo to race directors: MILE MARKERS WOULD BE NICE--I will even pay $5.00 extra next year to pay for some dang balloons to mark the race).  At mile 20, as is the case always for me, I started to feel it and things were starting to hurt. At this point, I was actually starting to get blurry vision as well.  Not good, but couldn't remember why it wasn't good (Scott later told me this means serious dehydration--most likely caused by the expungement of all bodily fluids at the 5 porta potty stops).  Decided not to tell Luz.  She has a mother-hen instinct that I dearly love but I didn't want her to tell me to stop or slow down; we were so close.  Then we didn't have the choice to slow down or not because we were running through the hood--full on Anacostia and a gang funeral with police lining the streets.  Luz motioned for me to speed up; I was so close to delirious that I didn't realize it was to avoid serious bodily harm.  Run or be shot was pretty much our only choice at that point.  As we came to the last few Luz looked so good and so strong; I felt guilty for making it such a slow and messy race for us, but was slightly comforted by the thought that last year I got the 2 marathons where Luz felt like crap and I felt like running some more and doing those kind of marathons all day long, so maybe it was her turn to have a nice, easy marathon, if there ever was such a thing.  In the last mile I saw my husband and kids waiting.  Madeline ran out and ran the last 1/4 mile with me holding my hand.  I felt like a proud, cool mom and was happy to finish without getting kicked off. 

All in all, a messy, messy race and for reasons not expected.  The dang Aleve just about killed me but I was glad I made it through it.  I learned several lessons from this race.  1.  Don't experiment ever on a race day and definitely NEVER take meds on an empty stomach again.  2.  Even on your worst most horrible days, you can still finish.  3.  Mental strength and focus; I didn't have it this race--I literally think back and all I can remember is crazy crazy crazyness in my head, and though I would like to berate myself for the lack of focus while running a freakin' marathon, I am glad that even given the lack of any mental discipline, I finished anyway.  4.  Best friends are the best; they stick with you even in the dumps (literally in our case).  And finally 5.  Sometimes its good enough just to show up and finish.  Who cares how long it takes or how messy it is?  I didn't come for the race; I just came to finish what I had trained for.  And I did.

And now to cap off the longest post in the history of the blog no doubt (I would request that a record be posted in my name as I am unlikely to ever hold any other record on this blog) the aftermath...apparently small stress fracture then marathon equals big stress fracture.  The following Monday I could barely walk.  Wednesday I made official visit to aforementioned doctor.  I have now been officially BOOTED.  3 weeks minimum.  But, in the spirit of new lessons learned, "Frankly, I don't give a da**."  I will live to run another day, and so long as I know this boot is temporary, I will enjoy the prescribed time off by packing up my house and moving BACK across the country to the home I hope to never leave again--UTAH HERE WE COME!!!

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Total Distance
114.20
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