November | 2014 | 48 peaks

Sunday November 23 was the day of the Philadelphia Marathon!

Let me just real quick get everyone up to speed about my weekend preceding said marathon.

Friday- I drove from Beantown to Meattown– from Boston to New Brunswick. I was very much on agenda to make a nice dinner and stay inside and watch a movie and hang out in sweatpants. Somehow.. SOMEHOW… I ended up pounding beers at the bar and puked that night at 2am. Not really productive premarathon preparation, but I had a good time and isn’t that what matters??

Anyway, on Saturday Davetard and I headed to Philly to pick up the race stuff. We know that center city/Arch street is a bonafide 100% organic shit show to drive/park in so we opted to park on Spring Garden/11th .. also not the nicest part of the city. As soon as we parked and got out of the car, I smelled poop AND we saw the following scene:

An empty DFH beer bottle next to a pill canister…

Then we needed more quarters to feed the meter and the only thing around was a chinese (or other asian language) live slaughter poultry house. We walked in and saw a bunch of asian butchers staring at us among cages and cages of live chickens and turkeys. I quietly asked for change, received said change, and walked out. That explained the poop smell!

So I picked up my bib! Green corral hurrah hurrah!

Who is “Teresa”?

So after that, we went to my aunt’s house in south Philly for the remainder of the evening. We got Pho and had a dinner with her and her friend and this is when I started to get nervous. See, I have this problem where I CAN NEVER F^#*ING SLEEP. I mean, I have such trouble and it’s becoming more a mental than a physical cripple. In Boston, I’ve mostly sorted out my sleeping and if I am not sleeping I can always think of some reading or some work that I could do, but the night before my marathon–yikes! So I went upstairs and tried to calm down. Naturally NOTHING worked. I think I slept maybe 2 hours that night and didn’t feel rested at all. Oh well. When the alarm went off at 5:30AM the next morning there was really nothing more that I could do about it.

So that morning the temperatures were fantastic. 33 already at 5:30am? Sun and forecasted 40 degrees to 55 degrees during the race! I could NOT have asked for better weather. So I didn’t sleep the night before? What else is new… I completed my 20 miler in Cape Cod without sleep (AND with heartburn). The day was beautiful, this was what I was looking forward to for so long, I put on my ‘fuck it’ attitude and ate a cookie for breakfast.

We got to the start line maybe 20 minutes before the gun. It took me a while to find the bag drop and then I corralled up and said bye bye to Dave. In the corral I just kinda chilled and we took off about 10 minutes after gun time.

I felt GREAT. I didn’t look at my watch, I didn’t worry about conserving energy. I didn’t think “hey you are going too fast now, you will CRASH HARD so slow the fuck down” which kept me feeling good. The first half of the race is through the downtown, which meant there were crowds of people cheering with great signs and it kept me interested in what was going on. Around mile 4, I saw my aunt waving at me from Washington and Front! That gave me a boost! At mile 6, Dave jumped in and ran with me for 2 and a half miles. Those 3 miles were my probably my fastest of the race, I was just so excited to see him and felt so good!

He left me by the zoo and I went another 5 by myself. Miles 9-14 were where my wall was in previous runs. It’s an early wall, it’s a mental wall, and it’s a new wall (never really experienced issue with that before). I knew that if I could get to 14 miles in under 2 hours I was in really good shape, I could spare some time later and still finish sub 4 hrs. I took a Gel around mile 9 and pushed forward.

I got to pick Dave up again around mile 14 and he was a good distraction to me until around mile 18. Then I started feeling pains. My right calf felt so angry and so tight in 2 places, the lower inside and the upper outside. Like being stabbed continuously! Ahh! I mentioned this to Dave and he, like a magical homeopathic wizard, materialized 2 capsules and said take them. They were salt pills. I was hesitant but open minded and it paid off! Cramps subsided, still had pain but didn’t feel like it was overwhelming so I was able to push through.

Around mile 19, we were entering Manayunk, nearing the turn around! I was still trying to keep smiling but was finding it harder and harder… Then, like the great people of Manayunk knew– there was a beer table! I grabbed a cup and took a chug and felt better immediately!

Now I was close! I felt good, I managed to hit mile 21 in just under 3 hours! I was going to do it. I slowed down and walked just a little but managed to finish in 3:50:23 officially!!!!

I accomplished both my time goal and my pleasantry goal and I’m so very happy with the race! I felt good, ran almost all of it, and feel happy. I have to thank Dave for helping me through it and it was also great to see my Aunt as well as various running friends posted up around the course cheering me on. I am also grateful for my friends who sent me support messages the night before when I was still freaking out. 🙂

Hello! So here are a few updates.

My Philadelphia Marathon training has been going –ehh– well enough! A few weekends ago, I went to race the Cape Code Marathon as part of a relay team. Our team (Tequila Tuesday) consisted of 4 runners, plus 1 awesome driver, and one boyfriend (2 boyfriends if you count mine–which I do). I used this race as a chance to run a long training run. I ran the first two legs before tagging off to my relay team but then I slowed down and continued. My ankle was giving me tremendous pain this run, I was suffering heart burn, and to top it off, I didn’t sleep the night before (perhaps an hour at most). Given all the ugly there, I was able to complete 20 miles total (15 and then 5 more after sucking it up). Total running time was < 3 hrs which fits well into my training plan and I felt good about it when I finished.

Team Tequila Tuesday

The race itself started very beautiful, but then it became quite dangerous. The roads were not closed and there were many drivers (relaying their relay teams around) which meant a lot of cars zooming by during the race. I’m very thankful for Dave who met me around mile 12 and then continued to run with me throughout my run and also to my teammate Daniel who ran an extra 5 miles to run with me. Thanks dudes!

My next long training run came Wednesday. I took a pack and thought I’d run around Boston and didn’t want to rely on public drinking fountains. Carrying the pack isn’t totally new to me but it isn’t race normative either. For this last long run, I had a lot of mental issues. I tried to start out very slow and conservative and it felt very weird and ‘off’ to me and my stride. As a result, I felt weak and tired from around miles 10-15– did a lot of walking and a lot of resting. However, after hitting mile 15 and knowing I was still 5 miles away from home, I threw on my “fuck it” shirt and was able to crank the last 5 anywhere between 7:50-8:20 pace and felt good at the end. Overall, the 20 miles were slower than they were at Cape Cod, BUT– I think I have some mental stuff figured out.

I need to stop thinking so far ahead first of all. I know I can make it 26.2 miles, I know when it is race day that I will go all out and leave everything, so I really shouldn’t hold back as much as I was. I was forcing myself to start with 9s and hopes to get faster, maybe negative split. That doesn’t make sense to me. I haven’t been training that way so I shouldn’t necessarily implement that type of mindset during my race. Secondly, I was able to run much faster and with less inhibition after letting the mental stuff go, so I should really try to start that way. I think, if I can keep this mentality during the race, I will be very successful, however if I let the other stuff creep in and maybe “over strategize” then I may have a poor race.

I hope that knowing all that and having faith in what I have already done helps me.

Anyway– that is not really why I wanted to write a post. I ran today, this morning at the Middlesex Fells again and completed what is my 100th mile since my last bad fall! I am so thrilled with myself. Falling once and getting up is not big deal. Falling 4x in a year resulting in 2 open gashes in my knees, a very bad infection, stitches, and multiple weeks of blood and terribly weak skin is kind of a bigger deal. Since falling, I have changed how I run in the following ways:

Eyes on the ground– sorry beautiful trees and landscape! I can only check you out when I stop because otherwise I will eat dirt.
Higher steps– this may be problematic for me later down the line. It does require using more energy but I’ve been high stepping more just to be extra sure I don’t wipe out. If I ever train for a longer race, I will probably try to work on this to use that energy elsewhere.
Slower in general– I used to run much faster on trails. As a result, when I would snag my toe on a root or rock, I would fall with much more force, equating often to more pain/danger. I’ve slowed down out of fear. This is another thing that I hope to change in the future, I want to get my confidence back 100% and fly again. Winter will be helpful for this, maybe due to the soft snow on the trails. We’ll see!

Anyway, I decided to treat myself to a few beers at Night Shift Brewery (only about 6 miles from the Fells) to celebrate. I am content with reaching this milestone and as a result, I plan on starting my taper and watching TONS of netflix tonight (and maybe doing some graduate school work, who knows).