I felt good and took off running at a 7:40 pace. It became quickly apparent, however, that this race course was not going to be as easy as the previous 4 days. In fact, it turned out to be the toughest marathon race course I think I've ever run. It was held in a state park so the ground was a compolation of poorly maintained old pavement with cracks & potholes, gravel surfaces of varying rock sizes, bare rock, and dirt. Also, it was never flat, not just forward moving flat, but when I landed on my feet, they were at a slope. I was either going up or down, at varying inclines, the entire course. The course was 1.25 miles out one direction, then back to the aid station/start, then out the other direction 1.75 miles, the last 2 laps were on the 1st part of the course (1.25). So there were a total of 8 total, plus 2 extra minis.
At first, i didn't allow the course to factor into my performance. However, after about 1 mile into the race, I could see that the timing part of my run/walk wasn't going to work. I needed to start walking several of the hills, most were short and some were long. I tried to take advantage of the downhills and get good speed, but later that turned out to be an issue on my shins and possibly even a stress fracture. As the race progressed, I completely altered my run/walk to better coincide with the uphills which made predicting each miles time a challenge. I tried to keep as many miles at or under 9 minutes as I could, but the watch frequently read higher and this only added to my discouragement.
I didn't want to decide anything about the race until the 1st quarter was complete. At mile 6.6 I was at 57 minutes and was discouraged that I didn't have as big a buffer as I felt I needed for this course. I was operating at 110% and felt like I should have gone faster. Then everything became a mental and physical challenge. Others were passing me. The physical demands of the course made it hard to do well. Plus I had the added benefit of having run 104 miles in the previous 4 days. I was so determined to get sub-4 and at that point, I could see it was going to be an incredibly difficult goal.
I pushed through the next 6.6 miles to the halfway point as best I could, telling myself that if I could at least get a sub-2 hour first half, that would be an amazing accomplishment, but the reality was that my body was starting to give out in every area I had problems in before, plus new ones. My feet were sore from not landing flat and occasionally on a big rock that gave me a scare that I might roll my ankle, my hamstrings were stressed even though I was walking most of the hills, my shins were getting sore from running hard down the inclines, I had a blister I wrapped in moleskin 2 days ago that felt like it was throbbing, my knees started to hurt and I was concerned about my IT bands, planters fascia was feeling tighter, muscles starting to twinge in my calves, thighs, butt, shoulders, & neck. I had become hyper-aware of every component of my body and they were all complaining at me. Then it also dawned on me that since I hadn't been using a consistent run/walk routine that I hadn't been regular about my nutrition.
At that point, I started to over gel, over electrolyte, and drink as much water as I could hoping that I could do something to bring the misery to a manageable level and still perform at just enough. later on in the race, I think I sounded like a birthing elephant as I strove to breath while simultaneously keep myself from up-chucking everything I was throwing into my system. I was hoping the 5000 foot elevation wouldn't be a factor either, but i did wonder every once and awhile.
At the 75% mark, I had just crossed over the 3 hour mark which meant, I had no buffer at all left and the only way to get sub-4 was to perform better than 9:06 min/miles. To keep myself mentally occupied, I had been going over what I would post in my blog about why I wasn't able to go sub-4. I wanted to convey just how difficult this course was. Many runners would comment to each other about how grueling and difficult this course was. jeremy, who had beat me in 3 of the races and took 1st in 2, was way way back. i suppose that given how easy the 1st 4 courses were, I assumed this would be similar, but it wasn't even in the same ballpark.
I also wanted to have some respectable statement for my blog such as, I held on for the 1st half of the last race, and then just had to let it go. Or, 4 out of 5 ain't bad. Prior to this I had pretty much subscribed to the fact that I was going to get a 4:05 or 4:10. Getting a 4:02 would just suck, because everyone would have thought, "If you could have just run a couple of minutes faster." Anyone who would have thought that, I would have liked to just shove my finisher metal up their.... because they had no idea just how incredibly challenging this course was and just how bad my body hurt.
So, at the 3/4 point, I saw that I was at 3:01 and if I could run a 9:06 minute mile, I could go sub-4. Well, unbeknownst to the general public, I had a secret plan to stop by Moab, UT on the way home and run a 100 mile race, just because it seemed like a challenging thing to do. Besides, I was passing by anyhow? All week, I had been debating that if I felt physically well enough, I would attempt the 100 mile race because going sub-4 wasn't the reason I came down to do the 5 marathons anyhow. I wanted to check of 5 states on my 50 marathons in 50 states goal. Going sub-4 just became a goal once I heard the race director state, "we'll see how they feel by the end of the week. I don't think they can go sub-4." So I made a decision to abandoned the Moab 100 and put all my energy into the last 25% of this race. Besides, the Moab 100 could have seriously disrupted my Ironman training if something had gone wrong.
As challenging as it was, I decided to push past all of the aches and pains and push myself to go sub-9 minute miles for the last 6 miles. At each turnaround, I could see the people ahead of me fall farther back, I was progressively catching up to them. Jeremy at one time challenged me to "catch that guy" who was in the lead, but it felt like he had me my 1/3 mile (which is an eternity). After picking several off, I finally caught the leader with only 3 miles to finish. It helped that many of the runners were cheering me on by name and knew how many laps I had left before I finished. They cared about my performance! I felt bad, because I knew several runners wanted to go sub-4 and this just wasn't the course for it. I thought there were going to many dissappointed runners. I cheered them on and wanted them all to do the best they could.
Well, in the end, it turned out that a only a small handful of runners finished this incredibly difficult course in under 4 hours. And......I was the 1st.
Every participant got the round 5 days 5 states medal. Every runner who ran all 5 got the clear medal. Winners didn't any medals, but the loser of each event got a trophy.
Injury pictures.
After the event, some of us met down at the hotel for a final feast and to say our goodbyes.
Me, Jackie, Chad, Amber, Jeremy, and Jenna.
Once I hit the road, I was sore, tired, fed, and hot. I pulled of to a rest stop to sleep in the car in the baking hot sun. I neglected to put on sunscreen in the morning. I didn't think to because it was always so dark and cold when we started, but by the end of every race, I had a nice suntan.
One of my goals was to find the perfect nutrition formula for my endurance events. It was difficult this last time because I had been running out of gels. I wished I had more jet blackberry gu and roctanes to test out. On this last race, I went through 5 bottles of EFS electrolyte, 8 Salt Tabs, 4 lemon-lime gus, and 2 EFS gel flasks (my flask, not the one from the store) with a 1:5 gel:water ratio. My intake varies by how I feel, but I try to get something into my system, however small, every time I have a walk break. Just a small swig of EFS electrolyte is good enough. Then I take a small swig of gu gel and EFS gel every 10-15 minutes. AND a gulp or 2 of water every aid station.
Now I am just excited to get home and I switched the ankle brace from my right to the left foot for traveling. Not just a shin splint, but probably a minor stress fracture from going down the hills so hard.I know I'll recover quickly and in the end, it was all worth it.
Happy Trails!!!
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