The Pre
First, I have to go back to my last post where I mentioned that my next run would be a 22 miler. It was. And it was awful. Kind of. What I was supposed to do was a 5 mile warm-up, 12 miles at an 8:30 pace, and a 5 mile cool-down. What I actually did was just run. And then try to go faster sometime part way through. It was a terrible idea. I ended up going too slow in the beginning, then running too fast in the middle (8:30 was probably too lofty a goal to begin with), and then hitting the wall at the end. I'm sure there are many different kinds of "walls". The bricks of my wall are made up of knee and hip pain. Apparently my bricks are 80 year olds. Anyway, this will all come back up in the "during" section.
OK, so back to the "pre".
The expo was neat and ridiculously efficient. I was impressed. I met Dean Karnazes and was impressed again. He was someone who genuinely wanted to have a conversation with every person in line and seemed like he actually cared about what they were saying.
We had a pasta dinner the night before with lots of family. It was awesome. I say "we", but really "we" all just ate the food and my mom did everything else. She is a master at food/party efficiency. I never actually see her cooking in the kitchen, but food magically appears when it's time to eat. I did not inherit this ability.
*Sidenote. We got all the way to expo and had the car parked before I realized I left my id back at the house. It wasn't really a big deal, I just feel the need to admit that I did that.
The During
Eek! The during, the actual race, the big kahuna, the accumulation of 4 months of training. Here's the low-down. I slept fine. I woke up wide awake. The morning was good- not too rushed, not too early. Perfect timing. Perfect weather. The morning was super efficient. I wondered how it would go with all the security, but it was completely smooth. It was pretty much like what I think herding cattle would be like. "Red through gate, blue down the street. Corral E here, corral C up the road". Pretty simple.
The start was great. The speakers kept going out when the lady was singing the national anthem and once the runners realized what was happening, everyone started singing. It was a neat moment in my history that I won't forget.
The crowds were amazing. I mean, it is Chicago after all. You almost don't even need headphones. Almost. I mean, for 26.2 miles there are people lining the streets. It's unreal and it's awesome. I think I smiled like a creep-o the whole time.
I felt great the whole time. I wanted to go faster, but all I could think about was that last 22 mile training run I did. During that run, I felt great around 18ish miles and busted out 8:30ish miles. And then I got hit by the 80 year old bricks a couple miles later. I was terrified that would happen again so I ran on the conservative side.
The last 8 miles played out differently than I would have guessed. Surprisingly, the second most difficult part of the whole marathon was trying to maneuver around everyone for the last 8 miles. The hardest part was the last 200 meters. By the time I passed the 26 mile marker, I was done. More mentally than physically I think, but done nonetheless.
I ran negative splits which I'm super happy about. My first 13 miles was 2:05 and the last was 2:00. I'm really looking forward to Philly and seeing if I can break 4:00. I really want to push myself on this one and see what happens.
The whole race really was awesome. I'm stoked with my time. I'm beyond grateful that I was given the opportunity to run. I'm super blessed to have a badass family that cooks pasta dinners, runs all over the great city of Chicago to cheer me on, and throws super awesome birthday/marathon/celebration parties.
The After
Recovery has been just fine. My joints hurt if I stand up after sitting too long. I'm super super tired at night which is unusual for me. I'm pretty sure I went to bed at 8:30 last night.
I've decided that signing up for 2 marathons is a good idea. You work so hard and train for so long for 1 run..... what if something goes wrong? All that work for less than desired results? I like the idea of a "practice" marathon. We'll see if I'm singing the same song in 5 weeks after Philly :)
<------------------ Almost done!!
1 less than happy child, 1 happy momma, 1 confused child------------------>
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