Route 66 Marathon race recap

Nearly a week late, this race recap is one of the hardest that I have written.  Everyday this week I have thought about sitting down to actually get something down, but have found better things to do.  Why has it been such a hard recap to write? Well there are a few reasons.

1 - Immediately after finishing the race and refueling at the food tent, we all headed back to the hotel to shower, pack up, grab some lunch and get on the road. The trip was long, and we didn't get home until 12:30AM.

2 - Upon arriving home, we were greeted by our wonderful friends, Ben & Debbie, as well as their adorable son, Sammy. They stayed with us while visiting from Alaska until Tuesday.

3 - Because we are just not that smart sometimes, we invited 4 of our friends and their kids over for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday night - for which I prepped the house and food most of the afternoon.

4 - Wednesday - Thanksgiving Eve, you can bet that I spent all day prepping for our Thanksgiving Dinner so I wouldn't have to do much on Thursday.  Okay, I didn't actually spend all day prepping, I did manage to sneak out of the house for a one hour massage to relive my achy muscles and to get a much needed hair cut. But I did stay up until the wee hours of the morning prepping food (and catching up on the Biggest Loser - don't make fun, it is my one lame show I love to watch.)

5 - Thanksgiving Day, duh! I had to pick my brother up from the airport and then do some last minute lounging until Mom and Roger got in from MN.

6 - This is not the race recap I was hoping to write.  Keep reading.

2010 Williams Route 66 Marathon - Tulsa, OK - November 21

Let's start from the very beginning, a very good place to start...  I have been training for this race since late July. I dove in head first and decided to use Hal Hidgon's Advanced marathon training schedule. A big bite if you ask me, considering this was only my 2nd marathon. However, I stuck with it and missed only handful of my workouts.  I walked up to the starting line prepared. Physically, there was nothing else I could have done to prepare myself for this race.

Mentally...that is a different story.  I set lofty goals for this race.  Lofty, yes. Achievable, well yes - they were, but a few factors got in the way of meeting my goals for this race. The whole week prior to the race I was 99% sure I would qualify for Boston one day, and the next day questioned my training. I knew I could at least break 4 hours - that should be simple, but something kept nagging me and made me question myself. Kier - you can't do those things, you have been so confident in yourself and your abilities, you have shared your goals with tons of other people who are cheering you on and supporting you, but guess what - you are not going to meet those goals and everyone will know how disappointed you will be.  I quickly brushed these negative thoughts away and visualized myself crossing the finish line in 3 hours 39 minutes and got goosebumps just thinking how awesome it would feel to qualify for Boston.  

Nic and I hit the road for Tulsa on Friday afternoon.  After a long detour in Kansas City looking for what promised to be an amazing restaurant (ingredient if you want to know), which we never found - we arrived in Tulsa around 11:30PM.  Ike had checked in earlier that evening and after catching up for a bit we hit the hay.

Saturday morning we took a nice stroll through a very dead downtown Tulsa, and grabbed a bite at the Dilly Deli - a funky cafe.

On our way to the race expo - we stopped at the Center of the Universe.  The race was offering a detour to the Center of the Universe on the marathon course, but that was an added .6 miles and no way was I going to ruin my chances at qualifying for Boston by taking this detour. But, I figured if it was on the race, we should see it.  Quite lame.  Actually, it was cool - if you stand in the center of a circle and talk, you can hear your own echo. However, the place was graffiti'd all over and looked a little sketchy.

The race expo was small and nothing too special.  I spent the best $26 of my life and picked up a spibelt so I wouldn't have to wear by huge fuel belt during the race.

The rest of the day was spent bar hopping (I drank only water of course) and finding out that Tulsa is really not a happening city.  We went to a few different areas and were always greeted by very few people. The most people we saw was while we were waiting in line to get tickets to a movie.

This picture makes me happy.

We did manage to get in a good pre-race lunch at a great restaurant. Nic and Ike left the decision up to me, but secretly, Ike already had the bill paid while I was taking a look at the menu...cute waitresses apparently trump good food.  Fortunately, the menu was stellar.  

After a relaxing day discovering boring Tulsa, we headed to bed at a decent hour and got some quality shut eye before the race.

Sunday morning, alarms went off around 5:45 and after nearly burning the hotel down while making toast in our room (yup...brought a toaster from home!), we were out the door for a 1 mile warm-up jog to the start. Umm, yeah. That one mile warm up was a great idea and eye-opening. The race was going to be tough. Not that I didn't feel well, but it.was.windy!  15 mph winds with gusts up to 30 mph! We were in great spirits though and laughing the entire way there.  Nic biked to the start and I am quite certain he didn't have to pedal once it was so windy.

With 4 minutes to go before the start, we all parted ways (Ike and I were in different corrals) to take our mark. I got a little emotional as the gun went off - I had been training for this day for months and couldn't believe it was time.  

I spent the first half mile or so trying to catch up with my pace group.  My strategy was to run with the group until mile 20 or so and then, depending on how I felt, take off the last 6 miles to the finish line. I was confident I could do this.  The first few miles were fine and I really didn't notice the "rolling" hills and roaring wind.

But - you all knew the big "but" was coming - at mile 8ish I could feel the effect the hills were having on my legs. Sure they were rolling hills, but they were certainly taking a huge toll on my muscles.  This feeling was also taking a huge toll on my attitude and my thoughts quickly turned negative. I stopped to stretch on one of the hills thinking I could catch back up with my group. Yeah - didn't happen.  Whatever - we were running 10 second fast anyway, I will be fine.

They say marathons are 10% physical and 90% mental (or something like that).  The thing is, the first 13-20 miles shouldn't be too mentally challenging since I've run those distances before. I mean, 13 miles to me is like an easy day and here I was taking walking breaks before mile 13.  The race quickly turned negative for me and the hills and the wind got the best of me.  The route from mile 10 - 16 was in a lame part of town with very little crowd support - which made it a lot easier for me to sneak in a few walking breaks. So lame.

Miles 10 - 20ish were very pretty, a nice route along the Arkansas River with lots of crowd support. However, we were also running head first into those 30 mph wind gusts - and it was "gusting" all the damn time.  I took many walking breaks here and often tried to think of good excuses to just quit. There was no way I was going to qualify for Boston and my goal of finishing sub 4 was quickly slipping from grasp.  Thankfully, there was a path right along the route here and Nic was able to bike near me the entire time. He was so great that day - always noticing when I stopped to stretch, seeing if I needed anything.

At one water stop, we chatted right behind a volunteer.  I was feeling really negative at this point and Nic said, "If you finish - I will buy you a pair of new shoes!" The volunteer laughed and turned around - "What are you bribing her with?!"  At that point, new running shoes were the last thing I would want.

Finally at mile 21, we turned to head into the finish and got to run with the wind. It was glorious. With only 5 miles to go, my attitude took a slight turn for the positive, although I was still hating every step, and I started jamming to my music.  I was caught a couple of times dancing...hey, whatever kept me running, right?!

Crossing the finish was very anti-climatic. I was done. I didn't meet my goals. I wasn't happy. I wasn't sad. I was just done.  The volunteers at the end were stellar. Every time I hunched over to catch my breath, someone was at my side seeing if I was okay.  I hung out at the finish for just a few minutes to congratulate a lady with whom I leaped frogged with the entire race. Is it weird that I gave a complete stranger a hug? We became running buddies on the course - encouraging each other as we passed.

I found Ike (who was awesome and finished his half in 2 hours 2 minutes 59 seconds without training) and Nic, grabbed some food from the food tent (2 bananas and an orange - the other offering was Arby's and a sausage sandwich I think...really?? Where are my bagels and salted nut rolls dammit!)  We headed back to the hotel, showered, packed and headed out to lunch.

Lunch was at Leon's - another great choice. We devoured pizza and beer like it was our job. We also got to watch too many painful minutes of the Vikings game...so glad I am just a fair-weather fan.

We hit the road around 2:30 and were home by 12:30 (after another long detour in Kansas City - this time with correct directions to the restaurant, but by the time we got there it was closed. Next time...)

So the race...my finishing time was 4:16:26. A PR by about 38 minutes (EDIT - my PR was 30 minutes, not 38). This is huge - and for this I am happy.  But as you can tell from my tone in this post, this is not the recap I was hoping to write. I trained hard for this! I was confident in my abilities and ready to achieve my goals and surprise even myself.  Sure, I knew qualifying for Boston would be a stretch, but I was ready to do it.  Where did I go wrong? Well I can say with certainty that letting myself get so negative early on in the race was about 95% of it. Sure the wind and hills affected my time, but I was ready to quit way too early on.

I told Nic more than once on the course that I would never do this again. Another water stop conversation included the words "This is the worst Sunday of my life." After the race, walking back to the hotel, at lunch all I could talk about was how I would never do a marathon again. Nic and I decided that half marathons are my thing. Heck, I could put just as much training into a half marathon and actually be able to compete at races. Half marathons are fun. They are too short to even start to become a mental game. Yes - only half marathons for me from here on out.

I prefaced all these "no more marathons" conversations with "ask me again in two days..."  Well, less than two days later I was ready to register for another marathon. NOT because I liked running it, and NOT because I think it would be "fun," but gosh dammit - I CAN qualify for Boston and I NEED to prove it to myself. I don't know if I will register for another marathon.  Well that's a lie, I probably will because I need something like this to keep me dedicated to my running.  I am not sure when I will register for another marathon...but in the meantime, I think I will focus on training for halves and see what I can accomplish there.

Anyone still here?

PS - above I mentioned that at one of the water stops I told Nic that this is the worst Sunday of my life.  In hindsight, I wish I had never said that.  That Sunday was the worst Sunday in the lives of the family of the 27-year old Oklahoma native who died at mile 10 on the half marathon course.  I ran by that mile marker wondering what was going on with all the EMTs surrounding a runner, but those thoughts quickly left my mind as I fought to keep running into the wind.  Our thoughts are with the family and I really hope that young man died while doing what he loved most.