Another attempt come, gone and opportunity missed. I won't recap the whole Air Force Marathon, but simply say the race felt off beginning with mile 7, confirmed with heavy quads by mile 9 and sealed by mile 17, when I dropped off pace. Simply put, I was not fueled despite my best efforts in the 3 days before, the morning of, and during the race. I firmly believe it has everything to do with nerves and very little, if anything to do with training. I would not go back and change a thing about the way I trained. I was ready.
The good news is I am not injured and nothing catastrophic came from me running the full marathon. That is huge. Nothing worse than missing the mark and then coming away with a full blown injury that has you out for 4 months. I am surprisingly not nearly as sore as I figured I would be from practically using my muscles as a fuel source for part of that race. This is good and bad. Good because I feel like I simply just ran a hard long run and with just a few easy days I can continue prepping for the Marine Corp Marathon, which is in 6 weeks. Bad because it leaves questions of: Did I give up too early? Did it get harder than I expected and so mentally I shut the whole race down? Had I really pushed and tried I'd be so depleted and sore I couldn't get down stairs anyway but sideways for a few days. These are the mind tricks that come with reflecting on such an event. I will say that once I realized that I could not get my time, and by could not, I mean COULD NOT GET IT no matter how hard I pushed, I switched to "survival mode". By that I mean, in order for me not to walk off the course at around mile 17, where pushing was not getting me the splits I needed, I had to put myself in another place.... namely, the mental long/hard run place. I once again had to take the horrible feeling of defeat and regroup... or it would have been over. Regrouping meant just running through the discomfort the best way I could. I have done that countless times with long runs and so I knew if I switched my thinking, I could finish with a respectable time. That thinking probably saved me from crashing hard and crawling in with a time well over 4 hours had I tried to maintain marathon pace as long as I could. I was able to maintain a pace of about 9:15-9:30 min/miles with walks at every mile... sometimes 2 walks. I'm telling ya, walking saves your ASS when you have bitten it. The final mile I couldn't squeak out anything faster than a 10:06. I was getting super emotional as I dreaded crossing the mat and seeing John. He'd been tracking me and once again, had nearly the same amount of anxiety over this as I did. Last week, we were both so certain this was in the bag (as a matter of fact, I dreaded crossing the 35k mat, where he was going to see I was off pace. I actually considered going AROUND it!)
The beauty of the race, however, was shown through my sweet friend, Suttan, who I ran the race with. We were aiming for the same time goal. Suttan's qualifying time is a 3:55, but her PR was a 3:48. Her goal was a PR, thus the perfect running/race partner since our time goals were similar. We'd done many training runs together and were in agreement to the race strategy. I am lucky she even wanted to race with me since I told her not to talk to me, look at me or think about me (I get nasty when I don't feel good... I wanted to prepare her:) She pretty much said "No problem, I'll ignore your nasty self, but we will keep each other on pace." It was a fool-proof plan. We agreed that if the other fell off pace, we would just continue racing and not go down with that person. Suttan has had her share of injuries like I have. The last marathon she was able to race was the 2010 Air Force, where she got her then PR. After that, she battled problems with her achilles and calf that made it very hard for her to be ready to race anything. She and I were both healthy and ready for this. We really didn't believe either of us would have a problem.
When I told Suttan at mile 16 or 17 that I needed to switch things up because I was feeling bad, she slowed down. "I'm going to stay with you", she said. I replied, "No way! Please don't, Suttan. You are running strong and able to get your time." I continued to tell her I was fine and I really would be ok. That I could not longer run at pace and I needed to break the race down bit by bit. And so Suttan picked it up again, per my request.
Here is the thing, although we had agreed to go for our time, Suttan was willing to stay with me. To have trained so hard and so cautiously and to be in such prime shape for the race of her life and to offer to stay with me, and mean it, was a glimpse of an incredible kind and giving heart. Suttan wasn't bullshitting... she would have stayed if I asked her to. In fact, the mile she did stay with me, I believe put her just enough off pace to NOT get that 3:44:59 she wanted. Evidenced by her 3:46 finish, she stayed strong and true to race pace for the duration (and if you have ever run the Air Force Marathon, you are familiar with the nice two climbs after mile 21. That race is def not an easy finish). There is no way in HELL I was going to allow her to go down with me. That would have been selfish and unfair of me.
So Suttan, thank you SO MUCH for being such a sweet and funny soul. We are sure to have other races that will be super fun and awesome. I am learning to realize they won't all be that way, but many of them will be.
As for the future? I am sticking to what I wrote many months ago. This was my last marathon where I go into it with BQ as a goal. I am not changing my mind about that. Is that quitting or giving up? I don't think so. My mother was talking a couple of weeks ago about aging gracefully and learning to accept the things that you can't change and being ok with them. I mean REALLY being ok with them. That being able to say "I am not able to do this and that is ok" is letting go of the need to fight internally all the time. I loved that. This is not saying I am not able to qualify or can't run fast enough to qualify. I can. I am capable of that time. But I do know that no matter the months and years spent trying to work on a strong racing mind, racing marathons for a BQ will always yield negative anxiety and that will work against me every time. Probably more so with each failed attempt. So to continue the process of attempting and falling short and feeling bad is just not good for me and ruins the joy of running. I will still run marathons and I will still run them as fast as I can based on how I am feeling
that day. But they will always be fun from now on.
I know many people don't get it. It seems really so silly and dumb that I allow this to take over when the physical capability is there. It will never make sense to a mentally strong marathon racer. But perhaps looking at it in the context of this might help. Think of your greatest weakness and trying to overcome it. Maybe it's how you judge or view other people. Maybe it's the habit of yelling at your kids. And you hate it and you want to change it. And to the calm, peaceful mom or dad it simply makes no sense why you can't just stop. But to you, it's the hardest thing and you are a continual work in progress. You are constantly trying and trying, yet constantly falling short (oh gee, that describes me again!). This is the best comparison I can make. The difference is that with children, you can never stop trying to be a better parent. With marathoning, you can stop beating yourself up for having such a "character flaw". And so that is what I am choosing to do... accepting how I approach a BQ is something I don't want to work at changing anymore. I've made huge advances in mental strength in regard to running over the past 4 years. And quite frankly, I am at peace with exactly where I am.
Time will tell where it gets me.
