Ooops, I Did It Again - The Marine Corps Marathon

Remember that time I didn’t really want to sign up for the Marine Corps Marathon but did it anyway?

Yeah, that would be today.

Some of you may remember this statement I made on Facebook back in January, about an hour after my Disney Marathon was over:

Umm, I left out the comments under that status update in which every person I know called me a liar. Cause what do they know?

I hadn’t planned to sign up for the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) when I woke up this morning, although the MCM is great. It’s nick-named “The People’s Marathon” (because it’s open to all runners; requiring no qualifying times), is well-known for supportive crowds, and runs through the heart of our Nation’s Capital. Some gorgeous running scenery, that.

And last year registration for the race sold out online in about two hours.

But you may wonder how does one “accidentally” sign up for a marathon?  It’s not a pretty tale…

I see on Facebook that a good running buddy, Heather, had been trying register for the MCM for an hour with no success.

What’s that, Heather? You need someone to help you waste time doing something on a computer? I’m your gal.

So I, along with other of her friends, got online to hit refresh over and over at the overwhelmed race registration site, trying  to get to the screen that would allow us to register Heather for the race.  No luck for nearly an hour.  We were about to give up hope when one of us was able to get into the registration page and sign Heather up.

But… did I stop hitting refresh after Heather had been registered?

We all know the answer to that question.

Basically, I allowed a “please try again” message on a website to goad me into running another marathon. Because all I know is that somewhere between the 3,000 and 4,000^th time I hit refresh it became my life-long goal to run the MCM. My passion in life. The one-thing I was put on this earth to do.  And I knew my time was running out. The marathon would sell-out soon.

Refresh, refresh, refresh. I could not allow a computer registration system to stop me from my life's mission!

I didn’t let myself think about the 20+ mile training runs required for a marathon, or how I had just said to a good friend that I was done with training and competitive running, or that my husband was probably going to leave me when I told him I was running another marathon.

All I could think of was how important this Marine Corps Marathon was to me. Even though I hadn’t even known about it three hours before.

How the story ends: I got through (barely, it sold out just minutes afterwards). I got registered. I will be running another marathon in October. Plus the 500 training miles required in the months leading up to the race.

A day may come when I am not ridiculously stupid, but it is not this day.

Countdown is Over - Disney Marathon Reveiw -

Walt Disney World Marathon – January 13, 2013. All my training led up to this.

This was my second marathon. I also ran the WDW marathon in 2011. You can read about that here.  Basically, when I ran in 2011 my goal was just to finish. And I did in 5:18:44 (a 12:09 min/mile average). During that race I also stopped to take about 67 pictures, so that significantly added to my time.

But this year, I was running to run. I knew I would PR (I mean, for heaven’s sake how could I not PR??), the only question was by how much. I had trained, running my 20+ mile runs at a 10:30 min/mile pace.  So my marathon goal time was 4:35:00. But my secret goal time was 4:30:00.

And here begins my cautionary tale of how NOT to run a marathon.

"It is hot. You will die"

The weather at Disney was unseasonably warm – highs in the upper 80s.  There were signs all over the expo warning people to CALM THE HECK DOWN and NOT TRY TO PR coz you would PROBABLY DIE, (in those exact words).

So what did I decide to do right then and there?  PR in both the Half and the Full.   Also, in a fit of complete insanity, with a little egging-on from my hubby and running friends, I decided I would attempt to run the first half of the marathon in under 2 hours, a feat I had never accomplished, even when just running a half-marathon, and definitely not in the middle of a full.

Looking back now, I see it probably wasn’t the greatest plan ever.

I got up at 3:15am in order to be in my corral by the required 5:00am. I packed as many calories in my body as I could stand (Boost drink, cheerios, bagel, cup of coffee) and headed off to my corral (C) where I chatted with new friends until the giant fireworks announced it was time to go.

Last non pain-filled smile of the day

I knew the 5:30am start time would give me a couple hours of running temps in the upper-60s, then the sun would come up and the world would burn to a crisp. So when I crossed that start line, I ran as fast as I absolutely could – which wasn’t always easy given the amount of people on the course.

My first 13.1 splits looked like this:

Mile 1 – 9:24 (get out of my way, people!)           

Mile 2 –  8:37                                                                      

Mile 3 –  8:40                                                                      

Mile 4 –  8:42                                                                      

Mile 5 –  8:52                                                                      

Mile 6 –  9: 12 (Magic Kingdom – crowds again)      

Mile 7 –  8:50

Mile 8 – 8:46

Mile 9 – 9:13

Mile 10 –8:59

Mile 11 – 9:08

Mile 12 – 9:28

Mile 13 – 8:57

So I basically kicked butt for the entire first half of the marathon. I ran faster than I ever had before. Seriously. I just kept thinking: keep it under 9:00, keep it under 9:00. I just wanted to make it to 13.1 under 2 hours.  And I did it! I left it all out there and I DID IT!!!

My half marathon time = 1:58:45 . Well under the 2 hours I was aiming for! It was awesome! It was wonderful! I was thrilled.

Then I realized I still had another 13.1 miles.

Laughing or sobbing? Hard to tell.

That was bad.

The sun had come up and the temperature was steadily climbing. I had already used up the greatest part of my mental and physical reserve.

Miles 14-18 were not pretty: 10:57, 10:14, 10:48, 11:17; 10:58

At Mile 19 I had total digestive system failure. I thank my lucky stars I was running through the Wide World of Sports complex at that time because I was able to duck into a *real* bathroom. But that mile ended up being 14:45.

Felt like death for Miles 20-25. Walk/ran the entire way: 11:20, 11:44, 11:11, 11:14, 12:15

At Mile 25, the craziest thing happened. Just when I felt sure I was doomed to walking the rest of the course and ending the race in utter failure, a guy ran by me, turned and saw my hat (my lucky cap from the Hampton Crawlin’ Crab Half)  and yelled to me, “C’mon Crawlin’ Crab, you’ve got one more mile in you! I’m not leaving anyone from Virginia behind. We’ll do it together!”

Sure enough, I picked up the pace and ran with him the entire last 1.2 miles at a 10:04 pace – a pace I hadn’t seen in 11 miles or more – with the guy yelling out encouragement and picking up stragglers the entire way.  We got separated near the end, and I looked for him after I crossed the finish line just to say thanks, but couldn’t find him. I’ll never forget him, though.  I hope I remember to pay that forward in a future race. Sometimes one sentence of encouragement can change someone's entire race.

Ice on calves after race

So my finish time was 4:31:25.  Didn’t quite break the 4:30, and I wonder if I had ran more conservatively in the first half if I would’ve been able to do it. I don’t know. Maybe next time. Although I swore there would not be a next time.  But we all knew I was lying.

Overall place: 3846/20679 (top 19%)
Gender place: 1275/10618 (top 12%)
Age Group (F 35-39): 261/1868 (top 14%)

Countdown to the Marathon - IT'S THIS SUNDAY!

This is it - the Disney Marathon I've been training for the last 22 weeks is this Sunday, January 13!

I was supposed to be in the midst of my tapering this past week, you know just running 2-3 miles here and there. But of course, I completely disregarded that.

Miles ran: 31 (3.5mi, 6.3mi, 7.8mi, 9.9mi, 3.1mi) Most of those were during the Ragnar Key West Relay race I participated in this past weekend.

Miles scheduled: 15 (Um...oooops)

Total miles run since training began: 520

Cross training: Does 8 hours of dancing on Duval Street in Key West count?

General notes: So this is it! I'm done with training. The only thing I can do to help myself now is make sure I remember to pack all my stuff as I head to Florida.

I'll definitely do a summary of the marathon, but for now I leave you with, all true stories:

THE TOP FIVE REASONS YOU SHOULD NEVER TRAIN FOR A MARATHON:

5) Your 80-something-year-old grandmother will post publicly on your Facebook wall that running is all fine and good but that "the Marathon was named after a Greek runner that dropped dead from running" and perhaps that should be a sign to you that it's not such a great idea...

4) At some point you will be 18 miles into a 20 mile run, going straight into a 22 mph headwind, with a Ke$ha song blaring in your ears. And you will make peace with the fact that this is a fitting metaphor for your life.
 
3) Someone -- you know, that someone who knows everything and is deeply enlightened, who you generally try to avoid talking to at all costs -- will corner you in the hallway or at Starbucks or in the parking lot. This person will come up to you, put their hands on your shoulders, look you in the eyes and say, "No one runs as many miles as you do for no reason. Tell me, my friend, what are you really running from?" And it will take all your willpower not to respond, "Dumb ass questions like that."

2) You'll hear your kids giggling outside the bathroom door as you release a blood-curdling scream in the shower because of the chafing you just discovered after your 20+ mile run.

1) Because no matter how much you run, this is always going to be true:

So yeah, there are lots of reasons not to train for and run a marathon. But ultimately I latched on to the one reason why I should:  

"You're never gonna know, if you never even try."

26.2 miles. Possibly the hardest thing I've ever done. 

Bring it.

Countdown to the Marathon - T Minus 2 Weeks

Another week of training for the Disney Marathon coming up on January 13, 2013. My training log for T - 2 weeks (Dec 26-Jan 1):

Miles ran:  27 (3.5 mi, 20mi, 3.5 miles)

Miles scheduled: 28

Cross training:  Misc cross training

Total miles run since training began: 489

General Notes:  I say the race is two weeks out, but really it's 11 days.
11 days!!!!

The good news is I have completed all my long training runs. I totaled four runs over 20 miles. I must admit my last 20 mile run on Sunday, although my speed was fine and everything was okay, did not leave me feeling like I was ready to confidently tackle a full 26.2. But ready or not, it's going to happen.

This weekend I run the Ragnar relay from Miami to Key West. 200 miles split between me and 11 other friends. Going to be a blast. My total scheduled mileage is 14.6 for the race, but I might try to pick up a couple more miles.

If you've never heard of Ragnar, please allow me to show you why I love these races:

It is always a good time. In a full-on stupid sort of way. And in my opinion, the perfect way to end my marathon training.

Countdown to the Marathon - T Minus 10 Weeks

Another week of training for the Disney Marathon coming up on January 13, 2013. My training log for T Minus 10 weeks (Oct 31- Nov 6):

Miles ran:  23 (3.5mi, 3.5mi, 16mi)

Miles scheduled:24

Cross training: Pilates x 1

Total miles run since training began: 267

Audiobook: Still reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Okay, this book is obviously not great to listen to while running since it is taking me so long to get through it. I don't really have any desire to listen to it during a run -- it just doesn't draw me in.  I'm not sure if it's because it's fiction (all the other audiobooks I've read have been nonfiction -- most having to do with running), or if it is just too descriptive - not my normal type. Either way I won't be trying a book like this again.

General Notes:Got in a big ol' long run this week on Monday. Felt good to do some hefty miles. I'm going to try to keep upping my long runs by two miles every other week, then back to 15 miles on the weeks in between.

I also did a crazy race this weekend called the "Anything is Possible" 5k. It started in the middle of the night, just before Daylight Savings Time ended. So I actually started the race at 1:50am and ended at 1:17am -- earlier than I began. Was a cute race. More importantly, I ran at a 8:30 min/mile average for all three miles -- great speed work. I want to try to incorporate more speed in my runs -- at least once a week. I think they make me mentally tougher.

Leaving today to run the Ragnar Relay in Las Vegas -- 200 miles with a group of 12 friends. Team "Worlds Dumbest Road Trip" (follow the craziness on Twitter: #RagnarLV).  Not sure exactly how many miles I'll get in this weekend. Should be 15-20. Plus all the dancing.  :-)

The Perfect Storm of a Personal Best

Last Sunday I ran the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon in Hampton, VA. I went into the race with zero expectations -- basically, I was just considering it a training run for my marathon coming up in January.

As I waited in the starting corral, I saw a running buddy and fellow Ragnarian and began to chat with him. We both agreed we were just planning to take it easy in this race -- him, because he had a marathon seven days later, me because I'm just lazy.  Both of us were looking for a 2:15-2:20 finish time.

But a bit more than two hours after that conversation I had finished the race, and had an awesome new PR (Personal Record) in my half marathon race time.  My previous Half Marathon PR had been 2:09:45 (set at the Shamrock Half Marathon in March 2011).  My new PR: 2:01:27 -- a full eight minutes off my previous best!

PRing in a race is always great, for obvious reasons. It means you've done something to make yourself stronger, faster, tougher than you've ever been before.  And although runners may set a PR for themselves in regular runs all the time, it only really counts if it is recorded in a race.

So PRing was great. But PRing by eight minutes? That's more than I thought I was capable of. Seriously. If you had asked me this time last week if I would PR in the race, I would've scoffed.

And coming close to a sub-2 hour half marathon? Not a chance.

I have toyed with setting a sub-2 hour half marathon goal for myself, but it seemed so far out of my reach that I never wanted to make the goal public.

Okay, yeah, I have fear of failure issues.  Cut me some slack.

To run a half marathon in under 2 hours means you have to run at a pace of 9:09 minute/miles.  Just to be clear, I regularly run 10:00 minute miles. A perfectly respectable pace for a 39-year-old woman.  But definitely not fast.

And definitely not close to 9:09. 

But I just ran a race with a 9:15 average. So evidently closer than I thought.

I'm not sure how I PRed and came so close breaking that elusive 2 hour half. It was a "Perfect Storm" combination  that included the following factors:

1. The course itself. It was mostly flat with no bottle-necking areas. Well organized with lots of support volunteers. And it wasn't too crowded
2. The weather.  Cloudy, in the upper 50s. A little cold standing around at the start, but awesome once the run started.  Steady drizzle at about mile 10 but honestly that didn't bother me.
3. The conversation hubby & I had the night before about a 9:09 pace. He suggested seeing how long I could hold that pace and then build from there to eventually reach my sub 2 hour goal.
4. All the Pilates and Yoga classes I've been doing lately. Okay, maybe I haven't been to that many, but I still feel like they are helping me significantly by improving my core strength.
5. The cold that had been bugging me for a few days. It wasn't a factor much during the race itself, but it had kept me off the pavement for a few days before. My legs were fresh and not-at-all tired.
6. An 8:00am start time meant I was able to get a little extra sleep and able to get more calories in my system before starting the race. Pre-race meal: donut, bagel chips, whole banana with peanut butter.  Oh, and a Red Bull chugged 30 minutes prior to start.

I leapt my first hurdle just moments into the race: no bottle-necking at the start. I'm usually in a mid-range corral with all the other somewhat slow people and it can cause a pretty slow first mile. But not this time. There was a gap, I shot through it, and never hit crowds again.

Once I saw that my first mile was a 9:10 pace, I decided I was use this race to test my husband's question about how long I could hold a pace like this. I would run as long as I could at this pace and then I would know how far from a 2 hour half I really was.  Since I had no goal for the race, I figured even if I bonked at mile 6 and had to walk a couple of miles, it was no big deal.  At least I would know how long I could hold around a 9:09.

At mile 3 I was still going strong at that pace. Mile 5, still good. Mile 8 - I was surprised but still keeping around a 9:10ish pace.

At mile 10 I was still running that pace. I realized I was going to PR. Even more, I realized I was actually within the reach of a sub 2:00. I ran harder, but at that point  harder just meant not slowing down, not getting any faster.

At mile 11 I was officially tired of running that pace. But heck, at that point, I only had 2 MILES LEFT. So I kept going, keeping the pace as best I could, although it slipped a couple of seconds per mile.

When I crossed the finish line, my Garmin told me I had run 13.27 miles in 2:01:45 – a 9:10 pace. The official clock said I ran 13.1 miles in 2:01:27 – a 9:15 pace. Although I tried, I wasn’t able to grab that elusive sub-2 hour time.

I ran as hard and as fast as I could that day. By far, it was the most significant effort I've ever put into a half marathon race. In the end, my pace averaged out to 9:15 min/mile. Close to that 9:09, but not quite enough.

But enough to get me to a big ol' honkin' PR. And to make me realize I am closer to what I thought was an unattainable goal than I ever thought possible.

Next time: 9:09.

Countdown to the Marathon - T Minus 17 Weeks

Training at T Minus 17 weeks (Sept 12-17)

Another week of training for the Disney Marathon coming up on January 13, 2013. My training log for T Minus 17 weeks (Sept 12-17):

Miles ran:  22 (11mi, 6mi, 5mi)

Miles scheduled: 25

Cross training: Pilates x 2, Yoga x 1

My weight:  X-1 (up 2 lbs from last week, 1 lbs lost overall since training began)

Total miles run since training began: 122.44

Running song o’ the week:  Midnight Blue by Lou Gramm. Gotta love old school, 80s pop/rock.

Audiobook: Still on Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Marathon Greatness by Scott Jurek.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through it. I like the shorter chapters (10-15 minutes rather than 45 minutes like in 7 Habits), and I’ve been switching back and forth between music and audiobook on my runs. A lot so far has been about Jurek’s childhood which is not quite as interesting to me as the races and nutrition, but I think it’s about out of that now.

General Notes: Dreams of a running a marathon can be halted my many things: an injury, changes in life that make training impossible, lack of funds to get to the marathon you want to run. My marathon dream was almost completely derailed by something the running books don’t tend to discuss: Seventh grade math.

It’s become apparent, after only a few weeks in her math class, that we are not going to be able to take Kid #1 out of school for an entire week in January as we had planned – a family trip to Disney centered around the marathon. It’s just a terrible week – she would return to school just a few days before the semester finals, and would be hard-pressed to successfully catch up in time for the quarter to end.

So hubby and I looked at options. Should I go by myself, flying into Orlando on Saturday and out on Sunday? Could we work it out where both he and I go for a short weekend?  Should we try to take the family Disney trip the week before the marathon rather than the week after, giving our daughter more time to turn in work when she returns?

Should I bow out altogether?

Honestly, even after the paying the huge, non-refundable Disney race fee, that would still be the least expensive option overall.

No answers yet; still weighing all the options. We’ll see.

Countdown to the Marathon – T Minus 22 Weeks

I originally planned for this blog to chronicle my running exploits.  Discussing stuff like how I became a runner at the ripe young age of 37, the joys of running with your children in tow, what it means to be a runner in the midst of a mid-life crisis, etc. Thus, this blog’s web address:  run-janie-run.   But by the time I got around to actually blogging, I decided to impart all my vast wisdom about everything, not just running. 

You’re welcome.  :-)

2013 Disney Marathon Medal

I have written about running from time to time: my Racer’s Serenity Prayer, the Mile 2 Suckfest, and Running Like a Mother, but nothing about running too regularly. But since last week I signed up to run the Disney Marathon on January 13, 2013 and I’m going to try to keep track of some of my training here.

Training for a marathon can get pretty tedious.  If I follow my current training plan, I’ll run over 500 miles between now and January. I figure if I’m going to run all those miles I might as well keep some sort of public record. Maybe it will help keep me honest.  But I doubt it.

Training at T Minus 22 weeks (Aug 7-14)

Miles ran:  21.44 (12 mi, 5 mi, 4 mi)

Miles scheduled: 18

Cross training: None

My weight:  X (yeah, no need for us to get that intimate. I’ll just call it X and then hopefully subtract from there every week)

Running song o’ the week: “Sweeter” by Gavin DeGraw

Audiobook: You Are An Ironman by Jacques Steinberg

General Notes: First, let me say that even though I ran a marathon in 2011, 26.2 miles seems impossibly beyond what I am capable of running now. Of course, that is why it's called training.

Second, thank goodness for Audible.com and that you can play books a 1.5 (or faster) speeds which has made audiobooks bearable to me. Discovering I can run to audiobooks has honestly given me a new interest in running. Now I can multitask while hitting the pavement, something I’ve never been able to do before, and makes it seem more worthwhile.  I’ll be interested to see if it is just this type of motivational book about overcoming physical barriers that keeps my interest while running, or if I can listen to other types also. I have about 4.5 hours of this book left. Thinking about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey for my next book.

Run Like a Mother Not A Jogger

This weekend a friend of mine in her mid-30s finished in the top 5% of women runners in a 5k race. Which is awesome, in and of itself. But she did it one month, to the day, after giving birth to her second child.

Just so we’re clear: this was pretty much me a month after my second child was born:  

Running a race? Oh hell no. Top 5%? Not in this lifetime. So yes, I pretty much am in awe of my friend, as everyone should be. That’s what I call running like a mother.

I will never forget Mother’s Day 2010. It was the first time I ever ran double digits mileage in a single run.  On that fateful day in May, I ran around and around a local lake and playground until I hit 10 miles. Ten miles exactly. Not a bit more.

I even did the last tenth of a mile in laps around my car so I could collapse into it as soon as I hit 10.0. And collapse I did – the entire run took me over two hours and I was exhausted when I finished.  But thrilled too. I’m sure I posted all over Facebook how fabulous I was.  The fact that I was running 12 minute miles did not alter my self-ascribed awesomeness.  

Since then, I’ve run my share of 10+ milers.  And thank goodness they became quicker than 12:00 minutes/mile.  For a while I was up to about 9:00 minute miles – which for me is lightening fast. (Like I said, top 5% in a race? – not in this lifetime.)

But about three months ago my hips and lower back really started giving me problems.  Running, the activity that had been such a joy to me for two years, became downright painful.  Pain while I was running and pain after.  Don’t get me wrong – running had always hurt in that hurts so good, I both love and hate this sort of way. But this was different. Real pain.

So, trying to be wise, I first significantly lowered my mileage, and slowed my pace. When that didn’t work, I forced myself to take a six-week sabbatical  from running. I switched to just using an elliptical – which I hate.  I also upped my yoga classes – which I now love (and will post about soon).

Lo and behold, when I went back out for a run about three weeks ago after my sabbatical, nothing hurt! Yay for me. I was truly relieved.

Since then I have been able to run without real pain, but I have been significantly slower.  Where I was once running 9:00-9:30minute/miles, I am now closer to 10:15 or even slower. And I can't seem to get any faster.

Pace this slow after running for so long was discouraging, even embarrassing.  And having friends running at breakneck speeds two hours after giving birth wasn’t helping me feel better.

Heaven help me, I worried that I was becoming a jogger. You know, someone who… jogs.  Putz-ing along… no real running effort, no real running purpose.

But then I found something I wrote a year or so ago, about the difference between a runner and a jogger.

From the very beginning I have termed myself a runner, not a jogger. On Daily Mile, one of the runner websites on which I regularly participate (think: Facebook for Runners), we once spent an entire day discussing the difference between runners and joggers. Some people said it was a specific speed that made you a runner, others said it was a certain distance.

This was my definition of a runner vs. a jogger:

If you ever done any of these: 1) kept going despite your body telling you to stop, 2) drank out of a garden hose of a complete stranger’s house during a run, 3) felt your heart leap with joy at the sight of a port-a-potty during a run, because you were prepared to duck behind some bushes, 4) completed a distance you never thought you’d be capable of… then you’re a RUNNER, not a jogger, no matter what your speed.

I’ve done all those, and am sure I will do them all again. It was all I needed to remind me that I am a runner not a jogger.

I run like a mother. No matter what my speed.