Marathon Madness

Tuesday

Finally, the moment you have all been waiting for..... my RR! 

First off I was not training for this marathon specifically as you may know. i was supposed to run the previous week here in Madison but was indeed cancelled due to the heat.

my training was an 18/55 altered pfitz plan peaking at 70ish and average about 55. My goal was to hit sub 3:45 which would have been a PR by 7 minutes!

Night before race: ate waaayyy to much pasta and carrot cake too late=food baby

morning of race: woke up around 4 a.m. to get up and gather all my stuff strewn about the hotel room(Roger did the Tour De Cure 100 mile ride the day before so a bicycle to the shin in the middle of the night=not cool). Only had a banana and some berries because i was still so full from dinner 6 hours before. 

We were only 3 blocks from the start so we left the hotel at 5:45ish and met a lady in the elevator who was also supposed to run Madison and picked this one up last minute. We find the 8 minute/mile corral and stretch, warm up and use the john one last time before the lines got outrageous! Up until this point I was cool as a cucumber, now anxious as ever! i started at teh line with a long sleeve T, but took it off right before the gun went off to sport my kit!

time to line up and I'm eyeing the people around me(don't act like you don't do it), ready to go. my sister and Roger are there to see me start and he will be riding the course as my pack mule!

And we are off: I start right with the 8:01 pacer and i think to myself "this is too slow" so I go for the pace that feels good. I hook onto a rabbit right away and stay with her till about mile 8.

1 7:37

2 7:38

3 7:38

4 7:38

5 7:31

6 7:29

7 7:35

8 8:06

Pretty consistent with the rabbit, I have a habbit of not looking at my watch while running unless to look at the time elapsed for my gel gauge as to not psych myself out. I encounter some hills at this time and i was surprised because I thought the course was mostly flat, i love hills but when you are not expecting them it can suck. there was more downhill than up. the next few miles were a blur, I hit a zone that was good, but my goal was not to let the 8:01 pace group pass me no matter what. 

9 7:39

10 7:54

11 7:54

12 7:56

13 7:46

14 8:02

15 8:10

16 8:26

17 8:11

18 8:18

19 8:56

at the turn around point i see that the group is coming up on me and know they are gonna be here any time so i push just a little bit and then decide at mile 19 to let them catch me and hang with them(there were about 5 people in the group). Afterall there was less than 10 miles to go. my quads at this point were feeling the downhills and threatening to give out, but I had plenty of endurance to get me there.

20 8:24

21 8:17

22 8:04

23 8:07

24 8:13

25 8:15

26 8:10

.21 1:41

I am not one to run with others, but i will say that these last 6 miles weren't horrible and i needed that pace group to keep me in check with my pace. The pacer was very energetic and the crowd was amazing. This race was also a relay and the check points were very congested especially at the end where you had marathoners, relay marathoners and half all finishing at the same place at the same time. so trying to finish strong and not run anyone over was tough. I pushed at the end with the remaining other woman in the group, gave it my all and sprinted that s#*t!!!

official finish time of 3:30:39 PR by 22 minutes and 5th in my age bracket!

after the race was about 1.5 mile walk to the hotel and then in the car almost immediately for the 4.5 hour ride home. needless to say my legs are soo sore and i was drinking so much water on the way home we had to stop like 15 times so i could pee!

Without even trying I ended up qualifying for Boston by 5 minutes! So of course i have to go! I did a 1.45 mile run this afternoon to get my legs moving tomorrow i will try for 3!