First, I would like to thank all of my friends and family that have supported me during my training. I thank you for everything that you have helped me with from motivation to advice. I apologize ahead of time if this post seems a bit negative. I will try my best to tell is how it is but I have been having some mixed feelings about my performance. This post should help illustrate why.

 

As I woke on the morning of the race, I had a very small breakfast because I was worried about my stomach for the event. I geared up for the rain as I walked to the shuttle that would take us to Dodger Stadium from Santa Monica. At that time there was a light drizzle, but nothing too bad as it cleared up for the next couple of hours before the race. When I picked up my race number on Friday, I had a special surprise wristband from the USO. Instead of having to wait in the cold, they had a suite available for veterans at Dodger Stadium. Although, I should have taken more advantage of the foods that they had there, it was nice to sit and chat with other running veterans and current service members. It was definitely a wonderful way to begin my first full marathon.

I decided to dress in what I would normally wear for a race in cold weather, plus a ball cap. I did not want my jacket to trap the body heat in the event that the rain picked up, was not quite sure I wanted to ditch it on the course and thought that it would be nice to have at the end of the race if it did rain. The ball cap was more to keep the rain from hitting my face and to allow me to see. The start line was a sea of people which initially helped with the cold air due to body heat. While at the start line, it began drizzling once again.

As the race began, I found myself navigating the crowd as I tried to hit my goal pace. It was the most dense race crowd that I remember being in. It was quite challenging weaving in and out of traffic and it was probably the longest that I have ever had to. At about mile one, I realized that the crowd size was a bit of a blessing because I would not open up and run quick on the initial downhills like I have done in the past. The first few miles were pretty solid and I felt pretty good about reaching my goal pace, but it was early on. During that beginning stretch, I felt an annoyance in my shoe. It was a small rock. While I tried to not think about it, it was getting really annoying when it appeared to have moved to the side of my foot.

At miles four through six there were some pretty tough hills. Thank goodness for the half marathon that I just did and previous hill training. While tackling those hills, I thought of three things: 1)I kept telling myself to “claw the hill”, 2) I recalled how challenging the training runs at South Mountain Park in Phoenix are and 3) Be like Terri. Terri is a friend of mine that destroys hills. Really, it’s something to see. I was happy to see that I was able to take the hills at a sub 8 minute pace and hang on for another four miles. At mile 10, I finally gave in to the rock in my shoe and decided to take a bio break while I was at it, killing my pace for that split. I was able to bounce back and get my time down to where I was at 1:38:52 for my 20k time which seemed manageable.

It was about mile 16 where things began to go south for me. It was here that the nutrition, or lack thereof, began to be a problem. In addition to the fact that mile 20 was just difficult to begin with, it had another windy hill that curved up in front of you and the streets were nearly flooded. It was not until then that my shoes became completely submerged in water. While I was able to navigate around puddles before, we actually ended up in some mud as well.  For those four miles, I was absolutely starving. I devoured all of the nutrition that I had at mile 21 as we were leaving the VA hospital area and sucked down oranges and bananas from the course. I walked for a bit and then I turned it up again.

I have always said that I have never thought that I have felt a runner’s high. If you know when you get it without a doubt, then I officially experienced my first runner’s high in my first full marathon. At mile 22 it hit me. I realized that I was going to finish, perhaps not with the time that I had in mind, but I was going to make it. I began to get emotional when I picked the pace back up. While it seemed that I was getting faster, I think that I hit my official wall in the final mile of my first marathon. I have heard stories about the wall being a little earlier but I felt pretty defeated at the final mile. Glaring at the finish line, I was frustrated that I could not muster up enough energy to make my legs move any faster. I think that my little spurt of energy may have contributed to my slower finish.

Although I know that there is much more room for improvement, I am very pleased with my results. I know that I can do a better job of managing my energy, my pace, my nutrition and my mental game. I know that hitting the wall so late in a race is kind of a good thing. With a little practice, that same wall will be moved to mile 30 and I won’t have to worry about it. My initial goal time for the full marathon was 3:30. While I know that I did not make the time, I am pleased with this result because I finished, I finished below four hours, there were adverse conditions and there were so many opportunities for improvement during this race.