St Marathon yesterday! It's been so long since I have blogged but I wanted to blog this one... Here is my report.. Went into this race knowing if I had a really great race I could probably run a 2:48, but my main goal was to just pr and run under 2:50. I wasn't sure how my endurance would hold though because the longest run I ran was one 18 miler with several 16 milers this cycle... Woke up and got to the busses about 5 am.. Waited in line for 40 minutes before I could even get on... (They were filing the busses one at a time. Very strange) anyway, got to the top with only 25 minutes to spare so I got in the bathroom line and when I got out there was only 5 minutes until race time so I threw all my clothes in the bag and got to the front..) They ended up starting the race about 10 minutes late due to a couple busses that arrived late. I was definitely very antsy and ready by the time gun went off. Goal was to try for top 5.. (Went in ranked as 6th) Gun went off and we were off. I was shocked at how many girls took off like a rocket (a group of 4 girls from st george took off all together 2 were Amber green and Marcie Jacobsen) Anyway, I was probably only 20th place after a mile or 2 and I was 10th at the 5k. I told myself I wouldn't worry about it and catch them later. I wanted to run my own race. Focused on starting slow and easy and relaxed.. (A marathon is a long way... And my goal was to negative split this course by 4 minutes) Splits for miles 1-7 were 6:28, 6;42, 6:18, 6:11, 6:19, 6:05... (Loved the little bit of tail wind in this section) The next section is the hill section.. (Miles 8-12) For this section my goal was to take it very easy..no pushing up the hill. Me and Elvis kept leap frogging this section. (Literally a guy dressed in full Elvis attire with wig and glasses and the whole getup) I wondered how he could run so fast in that!! Anyway, I was feeling comfortable at this point and tried running by feel trying to not worry about splits as they were really slow! Going into veyo hill I was 5th girl with Arianne brown right with me for several miles.. Splits were 7:16, 6:57, 6:56, 7:21, 6:51.. Hit my half in 1:26:44. About 5-10 seconds slower than I wanted. At this point in the race I was a little tired due to the hills but not bad.. I knew my favorite part of the course was coming up... Miles 13-18 are some serious downhill miles... This is where my plan was to make ground on the girls ahead of me and use the downhill to my advantage... No holding back now!! Splits were 6:27, 6:29, 5:53, 5:46, 6:01, 6:05.. Right before the hill at mile 19 I past Jessica b. which put me in 3rd place. Mile 19 was 6:40 pace. Miles 20-26 are still very downhill and I was feeling amazing... I kept wondering if I was ever going to hit a wall and I never did... I passed Marcie Jacobsen around mile 22.. (She is such a good little runner!) At this point I just started giving it everything I had for the last 10k.. Splits were 6:17, 5:58, 6:24, 6:08, 6:05, 6:17, 6:24 and 5:40 pace for the last .2. When I turned the corner I could see it was going to be close if I wanted under 2:48 so I kicked it as hard as I could to finish in 2:47:49. Very happy with the outcome of this race... Felt stronger than any marathon I have done regardless of my longest run only being 18 miles.. Congrats to all the other St George marathon finishers! Next up boston!!! What I learned this training cycle: 1 I can't force the pace... Once I feel forced-it stresses me out and mentally I fall apart when I can't hit splits... (Best sometimes for me to run by feel/effort) 2. Ride through the ups and downs of training... The whole first half of this cycle was absolutely terrible-so bad I didn't even want to race.. Last 3 weeks before the race were extremely solid and I was still able to hit my pr.. 3. Listen to my body.. Even if it means slowing down even more on easy days.. Was terribly tired and found out I was low on iron... Supplements really helped over the past couple weeks! 4. Above all, trust in The Lord above. | 