Word Perv

Friday I got this ecard from #9, wishing me luck on my marathon:

I’m not sure, but this must mean he likes me if he cares enough to send such a thoughtful card. Haha.

Driving down to Richmond took far longer than it should have, but that’s because 95 was, of course, backed up as people are morons and when a cop has already pulled someone over they still feel the need to slam on the brakes and drive 5 miles under the speed limit. Which backs up traffic and ultimately pisses me off.

I slept fairly well Friday night, which I’m not always able to do the night before a big race. I woke up several times to check the clock to ensure I hadn’t overslept or missed my alarm, but each time I was able to fall back asleep, resulting in me getting a solid 7 hours of sleep.

Saturday morning I ate the only thing I ever eat before a race - a banana. I also had the necessities ready to go - my watch and some delicious GU:

After packing up, I headed to Starbucks for my morning caffeine. Usually I’m able to drink coffee pre-race with no problem but this time it hit my system and my stomach immediately cramped. I managed to get in a few swallows (so I wouldn’t get that lack-of-caffeine headache) before deciding I’d had enough and letting my system calm back down.

Arriving at the race I found my corral and my pace group. While my over-arching goal was to break 4 hours, I also hoped to really push myself and get a time of 3:40, which would qualify me for Boston, the holy grail of marathons. It seemed attainable as my training runs put me just over that time. So joining up with the 3:40 pace group seemed the smartest thing to do.

Before the gun could go off, the National Anthem was sung. Here I am with my fellow runners:

A couple of minutes later the gun would sound and we would surge forward:

I clocked my first mile at 7:54. My second mile was at 8:15. I stayed with the pace group and felt comfortable for the first 10 miles as we settled into our desired pace of an 8:23-mile.

It was around mile 11 that I fell behind. I stopped to grab a water and after getting none in my mouth while running, I slowed to a fast walk to actually get some fluid in. Less than a mile later I would make my one and only stop at a port-a-john, but the damage was done. The pace group was too far ahead of me. It was around this time that I also started shivering. This is never a good sign for me because it means my body is crashing. I have no idea why this happened so early in the race, especially since I’d logged plenty of long training runs. The weather wasn’t ideal for racing, but it wasn’t terrible either. Warm (67 degrees when I started, it would peak at 76 during the race) and initially overcast (the sun would hit full force by mile 15), but this shouldn’t have affected me that much.

Just before the halfway mark my friend and cheerleader of the day caught up with me, jumping into the race and running beside me, passing off GU, Gatorade and gummy bears. “You’re not that far behind them,” he said, referring to the pace group, “step it up and you can catch them. I’ll see you at Mile 20.”

I nodded and kept going, trying to ignore the shivering, hoping the GU I had just downed would supplement my body enough to keep propelling me forward.

He caught me just before mile 20 and I was in some serious pain, but still pushing forward. My pace had slowed significantly and I knew at that point that qualifying was out of the question. At mile 20 my time was 2:58:40. In order to qualify I would have had to crank out the last 6.2 miles in just over 40 minutes, which is a sub-7 minute pace. There was no way I could do it, not at that point in the race.

Just after mile 21 a woman was on the sidelines, Vaseline in hand. I gladly scooped up a glob of it. Never before have I chaffed in a race or even on a training run -  I’ve run in the rain, the snow, the heat, the humidity and I’ve never had a problem. This race however, brought serious chaffing to my underarms and nipples. I thought this was something only guys suffered from but it would appear it can happen to women too, I guess this is just a part of the sacrifice often required of running. So the Vaseline was a blessing as I rubbed it on.

Between miles 22 and 23 was another blessing as I came across the Richmond H3’s Beer Check. Grabbing a cup and shouting “On-on!” as I ran past gave me a bit of encouragement and a push to keep going.

At mile 24 my friend caught me and once again jumped in to run beside me. I dropped back behind him a bit, using him to block the headwind I’d been battling for miles. “Let’s go, Courtney!” he shouted, “You haven’t done all this training to run a 4-hour race. You can do this, let’s go!” He would run with me the rest of the race, yelling at me to open up my stride as I went down the last hill, crossing the finish line with a time of 3:59:41. So I ran a sub-4 hour race, but just barely. I definitely credit my friend for pushing me in the end and ensuring I made this goal. Thanks baby, for being the cheerleader and support I needed that day, I love you and I really couldn’t have done it without you.

In the end I am happy with my time. I cut nearly 40 minutes off my last marathon time (the Marine Corps Marathon, which I ran in 2007), and I feel much better after this race. I’m sore, but I’m moving and after a couple of days, I’ll hit the road to run again.

And this time I’m serious when I say I’m not running another marathon… At least, not for a while…