Carlsbad Marathon, #18

2012-01-24T19:59:00.001-07:00

Marathon race shirt taken with crappy phone camera

Marathon medal. I actually really like it, shiny! Yeah, same crappy phone camera

Back of shirt. And I still don't have a new phone

Well, I survived! That's a good thing, I think!

It's interesting to mehow each of us react to a race and how one can like it and yet another not somuch. When I was in California last summer climbing Mt. Whitney, I spent acouple days with my sweet blogger friend, Meg,and she hyped the Carlsbad Marathon, stating it was a great course and fairlyeasy except for a big hill at mile 9. I was looking for a winter race to makemy marathon come-back and I love California and the beach so sure, why not! I talked Tara and Marcia intorunning the half marathon and we began making plans for a fun-filled girls'weekend.

I, however, I actuallydidn't care for the course much. And flat? HA! At least inthe view of my current sucky fitness level, I don't think there was one flatspot on that entire course and it was anything but easy. But again,that's most likely coming from my lack of adequate training. Though I wasn'tthe only one who thought this.

Meg's husband drove usaround the course the day before the race when we hit the expo. Usually,I love to know what the course looks like and what to expect, this is a bigmental boost for me, but all I could think of was dread as we wandered thoughthe miles. It didn't help I was sitting in the backseat of his truck andsometimes get a little motion sickness in the spot. But all I could thinkof was how miserable the course appeared.

I won't dive into theevents of the whole weekend, race reports can get rather length just to coverthe details of the actual race, but suffice it to say, even on a not so stellarrace course (in my view :)), I had a fantastic weekend. So withoutfurther ado, here are some of the race details....

Meg was feeling prettysick leading up to the race but she gave it a the old girl scout try and herand I stood at the start line in total pitch darkness (6am start) as I wonderedwhat the heck I was really going to tackle. Meg's husband is awesome. AWESOME! He got up early with us and drove us to the start, stoodthere with us in the freezing cold and thus I was able to wear my sweats untilthe last minute and handed him my coat just before the gun went off. He'sseriously a great guy, despite having a truck which made me sick. :)

The marathon is arelatively small race - something I didn't fully realize going into it becausewhen I read on the website it had 12,000 runners, I wasn't aware that 10,500 ofthem were halfers (and they started an hour and a half later). So as Istood there waiting for the gun to go off, I was in awe that I wasn't smushedto death by a million runners. I had ample room to stretch, had I had theforesight to do so, which I didn't. I'm not a huge fan of smallermarathons, mostly because it can certainly get lonely out there in the secondhalf. Which this race did...and didn't. You'll understand more in abit.

National Anthem, hugsto Meg, and off we go. 6am start makes for some very dark first miles andI don't think it was until around mile 4 when it got light enough to seeanything. We've hit about 4 serious hills by this point and I was feelingevery single one of them. ugh. As the sun came up, though, theclouds turned a magnificent orange and the waves crashing along side the routemade this my most favorite section of the whole 26.2 miles. I was only feelingso-so, and could feel it.

At mile 6, the courseturns inland and away from the ocean, and I saw Meg's husband standing on thebridge, right where he said he'd be. It was starting to warm up so I ranoff to the side and handed him my short sleeved shirt and we chatted for a bit. He told me the course was now an out and back and I'd return back to thispoint at mile 13. I took off and at this point turned on my iPod todistract my so-so body from the hardest hills of the course to come at mile8.5.

Something happenedaround mile 7 and I suddenly felt fantastic. HUH? I have no ideawhy, but I rolled with it and I started attacking that beast of a hill and feltfairly strong. As I was going up, I heard Meg yell my name and saw her flyingdown the hill (um, yeah, she was about 2 miles ahead of me). I got to thetop of the hill and it goes back down before you turn around and head back upit again. Again, I felt really good and I just kept going with theflow. I refused to wear my Garmin but I was quasi keeping track of mymile splits with my reliable Nike watch and had been running in the mid-9's upto the big hill - which honestly, was a bit more ambitious than I hadplanned. I picked up the pace to the low 9's at the top of the hill andkeep that pretty consistent and wondered when I was going to falter. Remember, my longest long run in the past 3 months was about 12 miles. Yeah, fatigue was going to hit eventually.

And it did, about mile14.

At mile 13, I got tothe place where Meg's husband was earlier and he was not there. This toldme he either was on his way to see Meg further along the course, or Meg haddropped out due to her illness (unfortunately, it was the former). I waskinda of bummed to not see him, but onward I pressed. The part of thecourse which I thought was the worst was from mile 13 - 15 where you do thislittle finger out and back through an industrial park. Bleh. Halfway through this section, I just felt tired. And I knew the rest of therace was going to start becoming a mental game.

At mile 15ish, thefull marathon merges with the half marathon and where I was previously outthere running alone-ish for the most part, I suddenly found myself in a madcluster of thousands. I positioned myself on the far left hand side since mypace seemed to be a bit ahead of whatever waves of halfers I merged into.

And here's where thesuckiest part of the whole race occurred (well, one of them anyway). Whenthe halfers turned around to go back about mile 6.5 (they had one long out andback course along the entire ocean front), I was on the far left side and Inever saw a sign telling the full marathoners to go straight so I turned withthe masses...but as I did so, something just didn't feel right because the milemarkers just weren't adding up in my head. Now, I'm not one to have goodmath skills during a marathon, especially one I'm very ill-prepared for, butsomething wasn't sitting right about turning here but I had no reason not tobelieve I shouldn't and onward I went. I ran about a half mile when I sawa group of people running backwards in the thick crowd and I thought to myselfI'd better join them because they all had white bibs on (white bib = fullmarathon, blue bibs = half marathoners). I asked the pack going against themob of people if the marathoners were suppose to go straight at the turn andthey said someone further up told them to turn around and go back...so I joinedthem and sure enough, when I got to the turn around point, there was an itty-bitty orangesign with an arrow for the full to go straight. Having been on the insideof the turn around, this was impossible for me to see. For the life ofme, I can't believe they didn't have a big overhang sign and someone with ablow horn shouting this out. Major bummer! I think I ran about anextra mile here, maybe a tiny bit less.

Now it's a 2mile gradual downhill with a dip up before we turn around at mile 19. This means, of course, a 2 mile gradual uphill. This gradual 2-mileincline was the absolutely worse section of the race for me, despite it being agorgeous view along the coast. I was tired, and my lack of endurance trainingwas shining bright. I wasn't even enjoying the beauty of the ocean. But I focused at the task at hand and finally got to the top of the hillat mile 21 with my pace resorting to a snail's somewhere in the 11's. Ofcourse, there were more and more hills, just for good measure, and by mile 23 Ijust decided it wasn't worth the pain anymore to keep shuffling through someridiculously slow miles, so I decided to walk some. This helped a lot asI had a bit more strength and resorted to the walk/run until mile 25 where Iwas able to hang on and run it in...slowly.

With about a half mileto go, I started getting extremely emotional. All those painful footyears prior started to flood my head. Boston 2010 where I had to hobblefor 24 miles in sheer heel agony. And here I was, running a wholemarathon with an entire new foot strike, and had absolutely NO pain. Icouldn't believe it, and I was starting to tear up (and thus, having problemsbreathing - ha). I saw my dear friend, Mary (TheRunning Green Girl), with about a quarter mile to go and she ranwith me to just before I turned off to shoot through the finish line. When I saw her, I entirely lost it and the tears were flowing. Yeah, I'mpretty sappy like that, such is life huh? Just before I crossed thefinish line, I saw Meg and her husband and she jumped out and gave me a hugehug and told me how proud she was. Oh man, if I wasn't a mess before thathappened, you should have seen me then!!!

I crossed the finishline in one of my slowest marathons ever.... with the biggest smile on my faceever!!

Post race smiles! Meg and her hubby hugging in the background - love that!! :)

The post-race food was lame, at best, and I grabbed my small bagof food but really all I wanted was to get my stuff from gear check, which wasone big cluster f*&# of people. Omg, what a complete utter failon any type of organization here. I apologize to all those in line behindme who I cut in front of!!! I'm sorry but I was so cold and that damnline was NOT moving.and my legs were just aching to stand and not move and Ihad to get my stuff NOW! (one guy in front of me said he waited an hour and 5minutes in the gear check line. WTH???) Meg and her husband foundme eventually and soon, the big group of bloggers united to became one happygroup of race finishers! (I had been anxious to hear how my swim and workoutbuddy Tara did, along with the others).


Meg, Irene, Me, Tara, Marcia (my medal is blue and the half marathoners is orange. Mine is also bigger, which might almost make up for the fact I had to suffer an extra mile (does that make me an ultra marathoner now??:)) due to lack of proper signage!! And for that crappy 2-mile hill at mile 19-21!.

With Mary, The Running Green Girl :)

Eventually, we made ourway back to Meg's house where warm pizza and a hot shower were waiting (thanks,Meg and BS!). I took a picture of these gorgeous flowers near Meg'shouse, and Mary managed to snap a lovely pic of my butt doing so....

What is this pink flower? Is looks like upside-down pink little trumpets. LOVE all the gorgeous flowers in California!

Tara and I had to catcha plane back home, but first post-race celebratory 7-11 Slurpees and a walk on thebeach ended the day......

Myself, Tara, Marcia

I thought about so manythings out there in the long time it took me to cross that finish line. Ithought about my daughter, who called me the night before with more sadness inher life....I thought surely I can suffer a few physically painful miles for allthe emotional pain she was currently suffering. I thought of Beth's cousin, who went out for a run and never camehome and how she'd never get to run again. I thought about losing my mom when I was 25 and how shenever got to see this part of me. I thought about how sometimes painfullyreserved me has been so lucky to have such special friendships formed throughthis blog....

I thought about how farI've come in the past year.

I am one HAPPY marathongirl again!! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be here a yearago. I'm not sure what strength my almost 49-year old body has left forthese marathons, but I do know I love them - absolutely love them - and I'mexcited to find out if I can get the old bod back into the condition it needsto to run them stronger. It's time to put the energy and effort back intothe moment and find out. I eagerly await...

Jill

Run With Jill

Carlsbad Marathon, #18