In general, I had a pretty clear race plan all laid out. I knew what I wanted for a pace, how often I wanted to eat, how I was going to stay hydrated, etc. That all went out the window pretty quick, mostly because of the weather. My plan for my pace stayed the same, but that was about it. I planned on a 12 minute per mile pace to start, and I would try to maintain that for as long as I could. There were a few small hills (that I swear looked bigger driving them than when I was running them—I suppose that’s better than the other way around) that I planned to walk whether I felt I needed to or not, just to conserve energy for later on. I wasn’t going to break any records at that pace, but it isn’t as if I was ever going to do that anyway. The race website said that course support would end at 2 p.m., 6 hours and 15 minutes after the starting gun, and as my pace got slower and slower as I increased my mileage during training, I started to wonder whether I could make that. For those who expected to be slower than that, they recommended the 6 a.m. start, and I never wanted to do that. For one thing, I’d need to be up at like 4 in the morning and that’s just not going to happen, but more than that I wanted to be in the big crowd of over 3,000 at the start. That was a big part of the experience. Plus, while I don’t have any problem watching the faster runners run away from me at the start (I’m used to that), having them all come flying by me (even though I had started almost two hours ahead of them) would just be too damned depressing to take. The pace I had set for myself would get me to the finish in plenty of time, but only if I could sustain it. I knew that I would slow throughout the day, and that was fine, but if I crashed late in the race and ended up walking a lot, then I might be in later than 2 p.m. In the end, though, I was fine. I did slow over the course of 26 miles, and I took a few short walk breaks on purpose on a handful of the hills, but I never “had” to walk like I would sometimes have to at the end of longer training runs. In the last few miles of the race I went by several people who would run 15 or 20 seconds and then have to stop and walk for awhile. I’ve been there, and it sucks, but that never happened to me during the race. I wasn’t exactly sprinting by people, but I was running the whole way.
But, largely because of the weather, everything else changed. I figured I’d be eating every 3 miles to keep my energy up. It’s a little more often than the “every 45 minutes” that most of the running books recommend, but at my size I figured I burned calories a little faster, so eating more often couldn’t hurt. The problem was that it was so wet and so cold I didn’t want to bother. I didn’t want to take the gloves off to dig in my pouch for food and my fingers were too cold to work the way they were supposed to anyways. I finally forced myself to eat after about 5 miles, and then about every 4 after that, nowheres near as often as I had intended. Late in the race I had to make myself eat because my stomach was grumbling. I was a little worried I might run out of gas, but luckily I didn’t. (Note: For a long time, my running fuel of choice was Fig Newtons, but I got pretty sick of those so now it’s Pop Tarts. Not the healthiest of choices, but oh well. Gu makes me gag every time I try to choke one down. Besides, I like Pop Tarts, even if Nancy claims they aren’t really “food.”)
The other plan that went completely out the window was what and how much I was drinking. For runs more than 5 miles, I always run with a Camelbak. I even recently got a nice new Octane LR that has the lumbar reservoir, just for this race (I did get to try it out at the MDI Half, though). The water reservoir sits down on your hips instead of riding up between your shoulders and it’s so much more comfortable on really long runs. The plan was to run without it for the first 6 miles and when I saw Nancy at the first good spectator area I would get it from her. But as I got closer to the 6 mile mark I just wasn’t needing it. The rain and the cold was making it so I just wasn’t sweating, so as I went by Nancy and grabbed a Gatorade, I told her I would get it when I saw her again in 4 miles. 4 miles later, I told her not to bother. I never ended up needing it, so that was a good 5 pounds that I didn’t need to lug around all day. So I guess the lesson that comes out of all this for me is that it’s great to have a solid plan for the race, but when the race starts and circumstances change, be willing to keep what works and drop what doesn’t.
As for Nancy, she was great and I wouldn’t have had the day I did if it wasn’t for her support all through the race. We had it all marked out where she would meet me (and what I wanted from her at each spot). She saw me off at the start (I caught a glimpse of her running along just after the starting line snapping pictures), met me 6 miles in, and again at 10. Then she stayed where she was until I came back around a little after mile 16 and the hopped back to the first location where she met me a little after mile 20. Then it was back to the start where she parked, put on her running shoes and came up the course to meet me at mile 25 and run the last mile in with me. She had food, Gatorade, the Camelbak I didn’t end up needing, and much needed support all along the way.
She also acted as “race reporter,” sending text messages to the kids (and our parents) back home at each checkpoint to let them know how I was doing. And while she didn’t have to run all day, in some ways standing around in the rain was even worse because she could never get warm. She’d go back to the van after I went running by, spend just enough time in it to start to dry off, then it was back out into the rain again. She was a trooper.
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| have Gatorade, will travel |
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| self-portrait between sightings (watercolor) |
Her being at each of those stops did more than just give me stuff, though. It helped me to chunk the run into smaller pieces so it wouldn’t seem overwhelming. I didn’t have to run 26 miles. I only had to run 6. And then 4. And so on. More than that, though, it was nice to have some moral support throughout the day. When I run I tend to get in a little bubble with my headphones on and I ignore most of what is going on around me. Nancy is completely different when she runs. She likes to chat with people along the way, both runners and spectators. She gets a big boost out of the crowd support. I’m generally not like that, but I’ve discovered that running a marathon is different for me when it comes to that. I even managed to smile and wave at a lot of the spectators. What really helped, though, wasn’t just having a bunch of strangers shout encouragement to me while I was running, but having someone who actually knew me, telling me I was doing well and spurring me on. It made a big difference.
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