Denouement

I decided to do this race because Josse was and my coach said the half or the full would be better than the 10k since I am trying to build my mileage at this early phase of training. So I came in mostly altitude adjusted (have been here since July 1^st) and a bit chubby and out of shape, as all my runs have attested (trying to hang on as the ladies chat, etc).  I wondered what it would feel like to be running a marathon knowing that it is my tenth marathon and virtually guaranteed to be my slowest (prior slowest was Ogden marathon 2008 at 3:02).  I hoped it would still be a positive experience and more “fun” even though I am undertrained, because I hoped to be able to run with Josse and Mack and Aubrey (the last ended up not being able to come) for much of the race. 

I rode up with Josse and her mom to Ericka’s house the night before (thanks Ericka again—nice pad!).  I took my ambien at 8:02pm and set my alarm for 3pm but we didn’t tuck in until 9:45pm or so, so my speech got slower and sentence construction got more and more difficult before bedtime :D  Woke up 5 til 3am, felt pretty chipper, but by the time we had got half way up the canyon in the bus I was feeling tired.  It felt so weird going into a marathon with little expectations and preparation (longest run was two 17.5 milers).  So I kept pinching myself.  No good success in the port a pots but I wasn’t worried.  It was just going to be a fast long run so no prob making pit stops along the way.  I saw and chatted with Allie who seemed excited and ready to go, and she helped lather me in glide (on my back only I should clarify, I could reach everything else). 

I have never run a marathon with a hr monitor or a hr plan, so here’s the plan.  My coach says that the ideal marathon racing level is about 85% hr for the middle of the race, with some creeping at the end.  Considering my condition and preparation, he advised 75% hr for first 5-6k then 80-82% for most of the race, with the option to creep up at the end.  Josse said she was on board to follow my watch and Mack said she would follow suit.  Mack’s brother also was with us and in a similar condition.  So we all started about 3-4 rows from the start of this very small marathon (500-600 people?)  Here’s how the race went:

 At the race food area someone asks if I was the third girl, and I said yes, and he said, “You are the gazelle!  You finished so strong!”  Wow, cool that the nickname I gave skinny hill-girl was applied to me.  Then when I picked up my bag, the guys there asked, “were you the third girl?  You are the gazelle!  You have some girls hatin’ you!  You passed them.”  That was cool. 

I am so happy with this race.  It is funny to have my worst performance in a race also be my best.  My overall time is the worst of all marathons, but I had no drop off in pace at all, so I ran it with the best effort distribution.  Over 24 hours later, I am also happy that I could feel pleased with a slower performance.  I may never be at my A game again, with Phd school starting in under two months, and I would still like to find joy and participate in races.  I am kind of a competitive person so I wasn’t sure if I could find pride in a slow time.  But I do, and that makes me happy :D  I feel like an old woman today but I feel like I have more roads to run, more races to run, more running buddies to make and to learn from.