2009 Frederick Marathon

The day prior:

I find myself up in Frederick the day before the marathon with the sole task of picking up my and Emaad's race packets.  I get up there early and have about 20 minutes before the expo officially opens.   It's really hard to resist the urge to drive the race course, but after listening to Ken and Mark's story about the Wineglass Marathon, and after George and I drove Riley's Rumble last year (big mistake!), I succeed in resisting.  I'll leave it to be a surprise for tomorrow!  20 minutes later, it's Mission Successful - race packets have been picked up and I head home for my favorite pre-marathon (note, I've only run one marathon before, haha) meal - chicken fried rice!

Race day:

I'm up early with anticipation, and all I can think about is coffee, haha.  It's 4:00 AM and I'm driving to McDonalds for an extremely large cup of java.  Emaad is set to pick me up in about an hour because the race starts at the crazy early hour of 6:30 AM.  I'm all excited - I'm feeling good this morning, and the air is brisk - 55 degrees.  Given that it's May 3rd in Maryland, this is an absolutely perfect marathoning temperature!  It's dark when we're driving up to the race, but we both know the forecast is threatening rain.  And that shouldn't be much of a surprise ... It's been raining every day for a week at this point!

I'm ambitious and on a mission today - the goal: break 4:30.  I start the race telling myself to stay relaxed.  But everything feels good, and at the first mile, my watch reads 9:34.  I try to temper myself, but at mile 2, I split a 9:15.  I decide to go with it.... The mantra slowly changes from "Stay relaxed" to "Fast but relaxed."  The first 13 miles go quickly.  I hardly notice that the rain has started (around Mile 8), and before I know it, my 9:15(ish) pace has brought me to the half-marathon split ... with a 2:03.  That's a half-marathon PR for me by 10 minutes.  I had just violated Marathon Rule #2: Never take out the marathon with a half-marathon PR.  I have a flash of self-doubt and after a few seconds of "What the heck was I thinking?!," I recall that Mark and I also took out the George Washington's Birthday Marathon quickly, and that one turned out absolutely fine!  The self-doubt fades and I turn the corner to start the second half.

Miles 13-16 were my favorite of the race.  The course loops us down by the waterfront in Frederick and then back towards the Fairgrounds.  It was a little lonely after losing all of the half-marathon runners, but this part of the marathon was by far the prettiest.  I'm totally drenched at this point, and I take off my glasses and end up holding them during the rest of the race.  For the first time in a race, I actually SEE the photographer!  I wave to him and I'm smiling and a few days later, I order the photo.  It's always nice to have a photo where you don't like you're dying or ready to kill someone, haha.  During this little loop, I'm also was distracted by looking for Emaad, but I never did manage to see him!

At Mile 16, I notice that I'm way under my 4:30 goal pace, and 4:15 is looking more like a reality than a distant goal.  I can hang onto this for another 10 miles, right?  

And then the hills start.  There was a long, gradual hill at Mile 17.  I decide to cut my losses on this one, and alternate walking and running to conserve some energy.  To quote Emaad, it really was "Mount holy hell this sucks".  :)  Another short, but steep hill brings us into some of the Frederick neighborhoods, where I'm now starting to feel my overly ambitious pace getting to my legs.  It's raining like crazy now, and I get the feeling that I would never be dry again.  I'm soaked through and through, and chafing is starting to happen in some unanticipated places.  

The miles seem like they're taking forever at this point, and I stop looking at my splits - for a few reasons - I feel like I've slowed down significantly and I really don't want to look, and it's raining too hard to actually see them.  I'm counting down the miles and I really want to be done.  We loop out of the Frederick neighborhoods, up a hill at mile 23, back onto the highway, and towards the finish.  Miles 19-24 were really tough for me.  I was basically running alone and didn't really see more than 1 or 2 people, since more than 70% of the runners in this race were half-marathoners, and everything (yes, Mark, even my eyebrows!) was hurting.  And being drenched and cold didn't really help either.

At Mile 24, I glance at my watch and manage to make out the numbers in between raindrops. 4:15 is still a reality!  I crank it up as much as I can, which was difficult at this point.  Somehow I manage to find a sub-10 minute mile and I finish the race, hit the "stop" on my watch (FINALLY!).  When I finished, I could honestly say that I left everything out on that race course.  

But despite being cold, wet, and sore ... I couldn't have been happier or asked for a better outcome.  Official time: 4:12:33.  Another Mission Successful!  Now for the hardest tasks of the day (just kidding!) - finding George in a sea of wet, disoriented people, and finding Emaad who had my stuff in his car.  

The splits:

(1) 9:34  (10) 9:15 (19) 11:19

(2) 9:16 (11) 9:13 (20) 10:33

(3) 9:14 (12) 8:54  (21) 9:32

(4) 9:13 (13) 9:13 (22) 9:20

(5) 9:13 (14) 9:07  (23) 10:27

(6) 9:26  (15) 9:14 (24) 10:57

(7) 9:03  (16) 9:07  (25) 9:39

(8) 9:16  (17) 9:25 (26) 10:24

(9) 9:03  (18) 9:35 Finish: 4:12:33 (9:38 average)

The couple days after

Mark's prediction turns out to be true.  I was sore and felt like I ran a marathon, but no walking down the stairs backwards for this girl, this time!  I was sore for a few days, and then back out running (ok, well run/walking) by Wednesday.  I think the most troublesome parts of recovery were the crazy blisters on my feet (from my shoes and socks being drenched, I suspect) and chafing in a lot of places where I'm not used to having it.  Both of those things took about a week to go away completely, and now 2 weeks later, I'm back focused and ready to go.

Hmm... Now I need a new goal.  I think I like the marathon, so let's go with that.  How about Marine Corp Marathon: 3:59:59?