Carlsbad Marathon Recap

WORKOUT – (total) 15.35 miles/2:10

Ran outside ~ 4.15 miles/40 mins with Katie

Ran on TM ~ 11.2 miles/1:30 1. incline

I was sore yesterday but woke up feeling good and ready for a few miles with Katie. Then I took it inside to the gym where I borrowed my husband’s ipod and ran to some old school Prodigy and Rage Against the Machine… a nice change from Britney and Katy Perry.

THE RECAP

Instead of me recapping yesterday, Dave already did and it’s much better worded so check out the whole recap here. He talks about everything from how I was feeling after RnRAZ (confidence shaken) to how I yelled at him around mile 20 to “Stop running in front of me!” (Hopefully I said it nicer than that)

A couple things I will mention:

***Thanks to everyone who said Hi or came up and introduced themselves. (And said such nice things on the blog and twitter) If it’s possible, my head’s even bigger now. it sorta needs its’ own zip code.

***I didn’t look at my Garmin ONCE during the race. It was accidentally set to a pace screen with a 9:15 pace and Dave said that I might run faster without knowing the pace so I never looked at it.

During the last 6 miles I started doing the “Are we there yet?” crap that I bet pacers love. Am I on pace? How much further? Am I gonna make it?

***Dave’s recap makes it sound like I’m amazing, but it was really hard. The last 5 miles were brutal. Like he said, I’m used to the “pleasurable zone of pain” where I run the first 20 miles easy enough to run the last 6 hard. (At the LA Marathon, I ran the last few miles at 6:22 pace)

Yesterday I just tried to survive the last 6 without slowing down too much. They were so miserably hard and that’s the only way I can describe it.

***For those of you who asked about nutrition, I ate a PickyBar about 35 minutes before the start and 4 GU gels at miles 9, 14, 18, and 22 which is pretty much standard for me. I don’t think I drank any of the course energy drink in the first half (just had water) but did in the second half.

**I’ll do a complete race review but it was a perfect day for running: beautiful weather and a hard but very scenic course. There were tons of volunteers, everyone was friendly, it was a really well-managed race that I’d tell anyone else to sign up for. Just do some hill training!

***What was different from RnRAZ last weekend to yesterday?

Having a pacer changed the whole game; I would never run that fast by myself. You know that feeling where you’re so overwhelmed with what you have to do that you could almost start panicking if you let yourself? Yeah, I felt that way yesterday at mile 1, mile 14 big time and mile 20.

Mile 1 – I can’t do this. I’m not ready. There’s so much farther to go and I can’t hold 7:37s for that long.

Mile 14 – I can’t do 12 more mile this fast. I’m gonna burn out because I won’t have the energy. I just can’t keep up.

Mile 20 – I can’t keep this pace; I’m too tired. I’m slowing down. I can’t keep going. I need to stop.

But with someone else there, there’s this sense of “Shut up and put up; get out of your own head and just do it.” how very Nike of me.

***What’s next?

As soon as the race was over, I told Dave I’d never run that fast again and should just quit then. I really love running marathons, but running that hard isn’t fun at all; it’s actually miserable (while you’re doing it). But now it’s got me thinking, what could I do? Could I run closer to a 3:10 than a 3:15? I don’t know. I think I’d like to get into the Ultra thing maybe like this girl. I don’t know.

***Official numbers and crap:

3:14:31, 2nd in my age group, 9th woman and 52nd overall. (it was a smaller race – 1500 marathoners)

Some splits:

Mile 1 – 7:47

Mile 5 – 7:33

Mile 10 – 7:17

Mile 15 – 7:21

Mile 20 – 7:18

Mile 25 – 7:17

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***The winners of the Sweat Pink tank tops are:

#202 Heather at Bake, Run, Live