I was at Boston in 2013 and after a few instances of luck was thrown my way, I narrowly escaped unscathed physically but not emotionally. I have gone through a lot of guilt this past year along with my running injuries. Working at MIT and in Boston felt like countless reminder after countless reminder. I'd walk past Officer Collier's memorial on campus almost every day, and find myself up late at night in bed google searching "boston marathon bombing" for I don't know what reason. A year ago I was strapped in a walking boot with a stress fracture in the best shape of my life sitting on my bum in Carmel Valley unable to run Big Sur. I tried to take it in stride - my mottos were "it's bone, it will grow back" and "resilience: everyday is an opportunity". Yet, it took me a year to battle minor injury after minor injury coming back. This race was that one run for me that finally put everything back into perspective, and helped me reclaim my life. I'm finally ready to put this year behind me along with all the guilt, physical and emotional pain, and I'm now yearning to hit it hard again. I found my drive in Big Sur running along a quiet Highway 1 along with a bunch of other friendly runners encouraging everyone around them in the most pure running landscape one could imagine, 6 days after running the most epic, competitive, loud Boston marathon in history (love you, Meb!). Looking back on this year, in a weird way my personal hardship was all worth it to grow so immensely and have the most epic week of running anyone could ask for.
My race report: I wasn’t expecting to run this pace at Big Sur. I was hoping for a sub 4 hour, but told my family it would have to be a really good day to go sub 4 after running Boston on Monday. The conditions were absolutely perfect - no wind, overcast up until the last mile and cool temps. I just set out at a pace that felt comfortable and stopped thinking so much about it, didn’t look at my watch, just ran, enjoyed the scenery, and snapped some pictures. I figured I’d see how long I could run comfortably hard before my legs gave out, and I’d be fine with that when they did. Going up hurricane point was really, really tough and I figured my legs were trashed after that, but somehow they recovered on the downhills and then it felt good to change up my muscle groups on the uphills and downhills. My hamstrings and piriformis weren’t hurting nearly as bad as in Boston.
My legs did feel like jello at certain parts of the race, and I did feel like crap at some points. But then a honey stinger or a gentle downhill brought my energy back, and just focused on good form from what I learned in PT when my legs felt like they were going to give out. I raced the ENTIRE way, and I noticed after the fact I accidentally NEGATIVE SPLIT that race! My half split was 1:54:01 - 1:06 min cut down when the second half of the race had 13 "significant hills". I felt really, really, really good at the end - it was incredible. Now, I just feel sore similar to Boston just in different areas. I don’t feel injured at all, but I want to be very, very careful with getting back to running.
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