Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

Time 4:38:20  --  div 30/63
Rain, showers, and sun, 40s-50s F, humid, breezy at times.
4 Accel gels + Gatorade on the course

HOW NOT TO RUN A MARATHON
Splits (1) 9:52  --  (2) 9:04  --  (3) 9:47  --  (4) 9:28  --  (5) 9:40  --  (6) 9:29   --  (7) 9:20  --  (8) 9:27  --  (9) 10:02  -- (10)  9:41  --  (11) 9:58   --  (12) 9:37  --  (13) 10:01  --  (14) 9:47  --  (15) 9:55  --  (16) 10:29  --  (17) 11:07  --  (18) 10:55  --  (19) 14:08 (bathroom stop)  --  (20) 11:36  --  (21) 11:48 --  (22) 12:25  --  (23) 13:35  --  (24) 12:02  --  (25) 11:43  --  (26) 11:31
Chip mat splits:  5K=29:39, 10K=59:08,  Half=2:06:19,  30K=3:08:26,  40K=4:21:22

What a disappointment.  The agony of it came as it was happening. The sorrow came in the shower afterward. (I was wet anyway...) Now, it is time to think, analyze, and try to understand what happened.  If I had to explain it in a couple of words: leg cramps. But why? and how? still hang in the air.

I felt good on race day. I think my training went pretty well (I always wish I did more).  I ate well and tapered as usual leading up to the race.  The odds seemed to be in my favor and I expected good things to come.

Before I looked at my splits, and even as early in the race as mile 12, I would have said that I pushed my pace too early.  But the splits don’t seem to support that. I was planning to run my first mile  at around 10:00, and the pace is pretty close to that. The effort level must have been harder (there was a hill there).  Mile 2 is definitely too fast.  I had a plan to get pretty close to 9:10-9:20 by mile 2 or 3.  The splits don’t show that, and yet I remember the pace feeling kind of vigorous.  (I am very glad I wore my usual shoes --some of you know I considered another --or I might have blamed all this on a stupid shoe choice.)

I am inclined to say I don’t believe in “just having a bad day.”  But I guess what I mean is that I don’t think “having a bad day” swoops down invisibly on people who feel great and have trained fairly well.  It happens when you wake up feeling “off,” or are not feeling well --- but then there is Making a Mistake.  I may have made a mistake.  I wish I had structured my race plan closer to the way I ran CIM in December, with several easy miles at the start.  I let myself believe I could do it differently and succeed. The splits don’t show speed, but in my mind I was pushing and feeling some tension.  Why it does not show in the splits I cannot really say, except maybe that maneuvering through the crowd took more energy than I knew at the time. Of course, I could be wrong, but it’s the only explanation that makes sense for what came later.  Or maybe I was just completely delusional about my goal pace.  I’ll never know for sure.

Pre-race:  It was so great meeting Bonnie!! We hung out with her and Dean and had dinner together on Friday night.  The expo was fun, and I enjoyed the speakers: some local Eugene coaches, Brad Hudson, Dathan Ritzenhein, Mary Decker Slaney, and Kathy Twomy Bellamy.   The pasta feed was so-so (aren’t they all?). The expo was small but adequate; packet pickup was very organized and easy.  Favorite quote from one of the expo speakers: “Don’t be braver than you are smart.”

Race: The start area was well organized, with 2 corrals, for under and over 10:00 pace, and pacers with balloons within each corral. It was raining at the start (tapering to lighter rain soon after, then showers) but not too hard.  I wore a singlet, topped by a throw-away sweatshirt from a thrift store, and a garbage bag for the rain. I left the garbage bag at the side of my corral. The sweatshirt came off at mile 2 - I could not wait to dump it once we started running. The humidity seemed very high and I was grateful for the light rain.

In the first miles, and occasionally later in the race, the road surface was truly awful. In the first hundred yards or so, when we were packed tightly (couldn’t easily watch the ground), my right foot landed on the edge of a pothole and my ankle started to roll. I caught myself, and hopped over another pothole right after that, but if I had landed even a centimeter further over, I would have probably hurt my foot badly, fallen, and possibly taken other runners down with me in that crowd.  Even on the bike path, there was quite a bit of uneven ground and some kind of cobblestone-like speed bumps, very uncomfortable to cross over.  The second half of the race was “flat,” meaning no real hills but still plenty of little ups and downs.

The course was BEAUTIFUL!  Everything was so green and most of the course ran along the river.   I think the only course I’ve run that was more beautiful than this was Big Sur, with Yakima River Canyon & Deadwood tying for third. Maybe it’s just my love for the color green.  

The course runs mostly on streets in the first half and mostly on a paved bike path in the second half.  The hills came as expected in the first half: at about 0.5, 4.5 and 8.5.  The “scream zone” at around mile eight was a brief, unexpected rush of sound. We had to funnel through a kind of narrow, winding path, where there were suddenly crowds of people on either side. Since I had my name on my bib, I got the full force of their “encouragement.”  That was a trip, as the old Eugene hippies would say.  Since it was brief, I rather enjoyed it.

The steepest, longest hill comes at around 8.5, a hill which I went up fairly easily. But shortly after that hill, I began to feel less energetic.  I tried to ignore it, but a little later I started thinking that the pace felt too hard.  I started looking at my Garmin and sure enough I was slowing down.  But I pressed on, thinking “there are good miles and bad miles,”  a truth with which I am familiar.

I soon began to pass the 4:15 pace group at ~ mile 10. There were about 20 runners and two pacers, who were talking almost continuously.  I decided to run with them for a little while to try to get my energy back (not knowing that doom was about to strike).  This was a very interesting part of the run, and I wish I could have stayed with them.  The main pacer was a feisty, petite woman with a booming voice who talked about a number of interesting things (such as why your Garmin will always show a higher number of miles than 26.2).  I liked the way she was breaking down the race into mental sections and giving advice for each part.

Then it happened.  Somewhere between mile 12 and mile 14 my right quadriceps started to cramp up. I’m trying to remember if I have ever had a leg cramp while running. I don’t think so, though I could be wrong. It began slowly, but by mile 14 or 15 I felt crippled and the 4:15 pace group was gone.

I did a little walking while massaging the leg. Running again, my form became ragged.  At mile 18, I met up with the second pacer from the 4:15 group, who had turned back to help out with the 4:30 group, and he ran with me for a while.  I had electrolyte tablets, and he encouraged me to take one, which I did at the next aid station.  I also had to take a bathroom break, reflected in the mile 19 split.

The rest of the race was made of walk/run, a lot of leg pain, and a lot of tough emotions. My form when running was stiff and slow. Instead of being the strong one, like I was at CIM 08, I was the “road kill” being passed by other (smarter?) runners.  

Sometimes I think that the beginning of a marathon brings out the worst in some people, like the woman who elbowed me in the arm at mile 2, possibly by accident but I don’t think so, when I called out and gestured that I was coming to pass between her and another runner. But the final miles bring out the best in people. Everyone was so supportive.  At around mile 22, there was a man running past me, looking pretty strong, and I murmured  “good job.”  He did not turn his head at all, but began a stream of encouragement to me that was very touching.  Another woman who had been run/walking and leap-frogging with me came up behind me about .5 from the finish and said, “come on, let’s go, we’re almost there.”   I guess these comments seem somewhat unremarkable in cold print, but the way they were spoken, with so much sincerity, was very moving at the time.

Highlights: 1) Meeting Bonnie and Dean and spending some time with them.  Bonnie, you are such fun!!  You are funny, smart, generous, and kind. It was great to meet you. 2) The beauty of the Eugene marathon course. I definitely want to run this one again.  3) I enjoyed the Expo speakers very much.

In conclusion, this experience shook my confidence so much as to nearly overshadow all of my recent accomplishments.  I will spend some time in the next few days looking at my training log and my race reports from December - March. I need to feel the reality of those runs in order to internalize that this was an abnormal, one-time experience.  To put it in perspective, I want to list my marathon times to date, with that 3rd race of 2006 being my first attempt at training for a time goal (everything before that was “to finish”):
2004: 4:59, 4:37,
2005: 4:58, 4:47, 4:55, 5:09, 4:47, 4:57, 4:50
2006: 5:15, 4:55, 4:27
2007: 4:28, 4:17
2008: 4:29, 4:18
2009: 4:38 (this marathon being my worst time in three years)

I took a forty minute walk this morning, now that I am not hobbling quite so badly. The difference in how my legs felt by the end of the walk was quite noticeable.  When I can go down stairs without bending over like a granny and clutching the rail I will start some easy jogging.  (But hey! I'm already going down forwards - that's progress.)  If this recovery goes like all the others, that should be by Friday. 

When I look back at the qualities I loved in the Eugene Marathon, I have a clearer vision of what kind of marathon I want to run in the fall.  I suddenly found myself not wanting to run Billings and had to tell The Support Crew we were not going to Yellowstone in September. Bless their hearts, they took it well. I don't know what I did to deserve such a supportive family. 

Now I'm considering Cowtown (Sacramento), Baltimore (I could visit my brother nearby), and Silicon Valley (I could visit my sisters), in that order.  If any of you have run these, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Marathon Guide seems to be mostly favorable on all of them.

I forgot that it is possible to "jog" slower than you can walk.  It's great humor value. 

Let me tell you about May in the Pacific Northwest.  The first time I ever saw Washington State was in May 1980. The incredible verdure made a huge impression on me (even more than Mt. St. Helens, which was erupting at the time), and it still does every year  to this day.  Washington is called the "Evergreen State," and Seattle is the "Emerald City," so of course this part of the world is pretty lush.  But May and early June are simply unbelievable. Here at last is the payoff for our wet winter! :)

5:45 AM 42F, cloudy with showers. Recovery. Only the right quad is still a little painful, but the legs are super weak.  20 min core & upper body, stretching

Another shuffling little joglet.  There were an amazing number of unfamiliar runners out this morning.  The good Sno welcomes them warmly; the evil Sno asks in her mind, "Where were you when it was dark and cold and icy?"  Bad Sno!

Whine Department.  1) The roadwork that has shut down the express lanes on I-90 makes it necessary that my DH leave 10 minutes earlier on his non-carpool days.  For now, it doesn't make much difference, but in the next two months or so it means getting up even (groan) earlier.   2) My daughter has the flu.  I've spent the past 36 hours trying to keep her hydrated and comfortable.  Poor thing. 

Here is a little tidbit about marathons.  The full distance of 26.2 is certified, but the individual miles are not. That means there could be slightly short or long miles. Also, always cut the tangent when it is safe and legal to do so. Don't go outside traffic cones or swerve into people, but whenever there is a bend or turn, take the shortest path; over such a long distance as 26.2 you will really save a lot of steps.

7:45 AM: low 40s, mostly sunny.  Recovery run.

I usually do not run Saturdays, but last night it occured to me that Saturdays are a rest day, and I don't have anything to rest up from.  No reason not to go out and enjoy the good weather. 

The legs are only slightly stronger today.  Every step is still really slow, like 14:00 slow! It is nice to have no pressure right now, regarding time, distance or pace.  I did notice a mental pang when I passed other pedestrians and runners; the part of me that wants to justify everything wanted to call out, "I'm recovering from a marathon!"