My Almost 3rd Marathon - Boston Marathon Recap

I wouldn’t have done it for any other race, but I brought my banged-up body to the Hopkinton starting line Monday in hopes of experiencing the joy (and inevitable pain) of running the famed Boston Marathon.  However, the only heartbreak I experienced with heartbreak hill was that I never saw it.

Almost four weeks out from the marathon, I traded running shoes on my feet for needles in my butt and spent my evenings and early mornings painfully foam rolling my legs and strength training.  I was optimistic I would heal before race day (and so was the therapist), but the inside of my lower, right leg (a few inches above my previously sprained ankle) was still aching when I marched into my corral to wait the 45 minutes before the official start of the 118^th Boston Marathon.

From the moment my timing chip registered, I felt the discomfort in my lower, right leg.  However, I was hopeful that as my legs warmed up, my muscles would loosen and the pain would subside.

As suspected, despite the discomfort, my pace felt effortless in the beginning and I had to force myself to slow down several times.  The pack around me was so thick that I had some difficulty in gauging how fast I was running.  When there are bodies all around you moving in stride, it messes with your perception of speed – especially when you are not used to running in a group.  Thus, I was almost completely trusting in my Garmin watch to pace me.

However, I was unable to lock in to any consistent pace in the tight, mass pack of runners I was squeezed into on the narrow streets of Hopkinton.  In fact, I’m quite sure I have never been surrounded by so many boys in my life.  Still, I don’t think they noticed me – About a mile in to the run, one of the guys let out one of the loudest belches I have ever heard.  I laughed and thought to my self – Impressive.  But only a few minutes later he did it again, and I was like – How much Gatorade did this dude chug?

But I admit I wasn’t on my best manners either when I accidently verbally expressed how disgusted I was at the pace my Garmin displayed for the prior quarter mile when I got slowed down while grabbing water and sloshing it on my neck and wrists to help keep my temperature low in the heat of the blazing sun (Hopefully the guy running beside me didn’t think I was talking to him).  In fact, I struggled with maintaining my pace through each drink stop – I either got stuck behind people who literally braked for Gatorade or I wasted time weaving through runners as if I were cutting across three lanes of I-277 traffic so that I can take the exit for my neighborhood.

If only my problems had ended at slow drink service and belching boys, I would have been a happy runner on Monday, but the aching in my lower right leg wasn’t leaving even as I ticked off mile after mile.  Around mile 10, I started thinking that maybe I would drop out at the halfway point – I was just in too much discomfort with my bum leg to think about running another 16 miles.  But about a mile later, I realized it was not just uncomfortable – I was definitely in pain.  So, a little after mile marker 11, I stopped running and stepped off the course onto the sidewalk.   And given the fact that I was immediately limping as I made my way to the medic tent, I realized I did not stop a mile too soon.  In fact, I’m afraid if I would have kept running another couple of miles, I may not have been able to walk at all.

You may think that I was devastated by my inability to complete the Boston Marathon, but I knew going in that there was a very real possibility that I had a stress fracture or another serious injury that would put me back on the bus to Boston’s Back Bay.  So, I tried to make the best of my time hanging out at the medic tent (my nurse thought it was hilarious to snap the below photo of me and send it to my mother) and watching the runners who hadn’t dropped out pass by.  And when I boarded the medic van along with the other injured (No, I’m not sure what their stories were…I kinda felt like the dropout bus was like prison where I assume it would be rude to ask “So what are you in here for?”), my only question for the medics was “Have the elite women finished yet?”

Watching the Race from the Medic Tent

Still, I was a little bummed that I couldn’t go to dinner Monday night with a medal around my neck, and it stunk to have about 100 people after the race congratulate me as I hobbled back in to the hotel.  I couldn’t explain to every person on my route that I didn’t actually finish so I just said thanks.  When I finally entered my hotel room (after an elite woman, already showered and leaving her room, gave me a “Good Job”), I said to my parents – “I’ve told so many lies.” And even after showering and switching back in to regular clothes, I continued to have people praising my false achievement as I limped the short distance to our restaurant – “I know that walk…Congratulations!”

Still Deserved a Beer

But I did not shed a tear for my race.  I did, on the other hand, have to force back waterworks while watching the interview with Shalane Flanagan (Boston’s kickass sweetheart) moments after she crossed the finish line in a disappointing seventh place.  The poor girl was sobbing…so, so devastated.  It was painful to see, and I don’t know how anyone could not feel for her as she struggled with the impact of not claiming the victory that she had dreamed of.  “I love Boston so much.  I really wanted to do it for my city.” http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/04/21/shalane-flanagan-sets-personal-best-in-boston-marathon/

Despite the disappointment felt for both Shalane and myself, I still had an incredible experience in Boston.  It was awesome to feel the energy of the city and never before had I been in a place where there were so many runners!  After going downstairs to get coffee my first morning and seeing countless skinny, little men and women in athletic gear, I decided that I had found my people. 

Post-Race Dinner View

But on Monday, it didn’t matter if you were a runner or not.  The city truly came together as one, and I felt like every racer, spectator, tourist, and local was on the same team.  And speaking of teams, the Charlotte Running Club had a strong showing on Monday.  The girls certainly didn’t need my help in claiming a top ten spot – 8^th out of 72 teams!

I’m not sure if it will be next year or 10 years from now, but I know I will return to Boston (healthy!) and finish the race. For now though, I am just appreciative of the experience I had and being able to play a small part on such a historic day.

6 Weeks till Running!  Yup, that’s the promise I received from the docs.  I am on crutches at the moment but looks like plan is to put me in a boot for a couple of weeks followed by another few weeks of relative rest.  I am committed to doing everything I am supposed to in hopes that I really will be running again in 6 weeks.  Give me a rule and I will follow it.  I am counting down.

Doctor's Orders

This Week’s Beer Choice:  Samuel Adam’s 26.2 Brew (obviously!)

You Can Probably Guess Which One Is Mine

I Believe in Boston

I come from a family of die-hard East Carolina fans, and in fact, my parents have been members of the Pirate Club and holders of season football tickets since 1980.  We’ve had a few good seasons – for example the 1991 Peach Bowl “Dream Season” and the 1999 season (which I remember a little better – sitting in NC State stands watching David Garrard and the rest of our disaster-displaced team battle back from a 20-point deficit to defeat #9 Miami after Hurricane Floyd and his high waters had destroyed our part of the state).  But mostly growing up an ECU fan meant learning to deal with disappointment after disappointment – My mother calls it “character building.”  However, even though our beloved Pirates seemed to rarely catch a break, my family and countless other ECU fans would paint themselves purple game after game and chant the same mantra – We Believe.

My Parents (Yup-We are that family at the beach.)

Maybe I’m delusional or perhaps I have the confidence of a little punk kid before he gets his you-know-what handed to him, but despite the fact that I was out for almost three months with an injury, have gotten little training under my legs since returning to running, and have been unable to get all my nagging issues healed before race day, I still believe I can have a solid race in Boston.

Certainly the silver lining in all my struggles is the lack of pressure I have put on myself to perform.  I want to enjoy my trip to Boston – I earned this.  And not having put in months of hard training to achieve a certain time goal helps relieve the stress and allow myself to enjoy the experience.

Also, when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.  Runners go out too fast in races (especially Boston!) all the time, but you can also dig yourself in a hole by going out too slowly.  And in every race over a 10K that I have run, I have felt like I have gone out too slowly.  I don’t completely regret my slow beginning paces – running negative splits can give you a lot of confidence in future training and goal setting, but you can’t run the fastest race that you are capable of if you only start pushing yourself in the final mile.

Thus, Boston may be my first I-went-out-too-fast marathon, but if so I will probably be in the majority.  I certainly plan for my first couple of miles to be slow.  (I read somewhere once that you have to trick your body into thinking it will be an easy run in order to burn more fat than it would if it started kicking in to flight-or-fight mode.  I am not sure if that’s completely true, but I think it makes sense that you have to remain as calm as possible.)  But part of me is tempted to work down my pace sooner and run a more aggressive race than I attempted at the Marine Corps Marathon last fall. 

The other part of me says I should listen to the trigger point dry needling therapist and run at a slow, easy pace.  I agree that a marathon I didn’t train much for is definitely not worth trashing what little I have.  However, the therapist shook my confidence even more by planting a seed that I may need to have my lower right leg looked at after Boston to rule out a potential stress fracture.

Maybe I’m paranoid after being unable to walk for 3 weeks after finishing the Marine Corps Marathon or maybe I just didn’t like the therapist’s answers, but I went to see a sports physician that I will here on out fondly refer to as Dr. McDreamy.  I swear I was trying to get in to see the (older) owner of the practice but he happened to be out of the office on Good Friday.  I had no idea how handsome his younger counterpart was or that there were doctors who actually looked like that in real, non-Grey’s Anatomy life.

But I will spare you my ramblings (Dr. McDreamy was not so lucky) and share that after looking at my x-rays, the sports doc. believed that I do not have a stress fracture on my still-aching lower right leg.  He did see two stress lines above the ankle, but nothing that made him believe my discomfort is due to anything more than shin splints.  He also told me that he thought my pace on Monday shouldn’t matter as much as my cadence.  I can run as fast as I choose just as long as I focus on turning over those legs quickly.

Perhaps Dr. McDreamy was just telling me what I wanted to hear (If so, I’m sure I’m not the first girl), but he confirmed what I already believed and helped ease my mind.  According to McDreamy, if I do indeed have a stress fracture, I will be in enough pain on Monday to put myself on a dropout bus before doing any significant, additional damage.

So how am I planning on running Boston?  As of right now, your guess is as good as mine.  Whether I choose to push it and race the course or chill out and enjoy the ride will probably depend on how I feel on Marathon Monday.  I have been so focused on having a healthy body that I haven’t really thought much about my current ability, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if I realize my pace feels much harder than it should feel after a few miles into the race.  If that’s the case, then oh well – What did I expect when I barely trained and have run less than 20 miles in the past month?  I also have noted that I can get on a dropout bus at every mile along the course if I decide my body is just not strong enough to complete the race or if I do indeed have a stress fracture (I wanna be able to walk after this one!).  But despite all the setbacks and the lack of training and the possibility of a stress fracture, I’m not giving up hope now – I still believe in Boston.

Boston Experiment Week 15 of 16:  0

Boston Experiment Week 16 of 16:  7.5

Done running till race day!  I ran 1.5 miles on Tuesday morning and 6 miles Thursday morning.  I worked down my pace for about a mile on Thursday and felt really fast.  In fact, I literally giggled because it felt so easy.  I’m sure that grin will get slapped off my face Monday, but I’m just hoping it isn’t replaced with a grimace.

This Week’s Beer Choice: Evil Twin Brewing’s Falco IPA (In hopes that I fly)

Packed my first bag for Boston.  The essentials:  Energy Gels, Gatorade, and Beer.

The Road to Boston

On April 21^st, there will be over 35,000 runners lining up in Hopkinton, MA to run the 118^th Boston Marathon, and each will have traveled a different path to get to that starting line.  Everyone has a story.  Here’s mine.

My story began on June 30, 2012.  At that time I had no idea how much that day would completely change and shape the direction of my life.  The day started out ordinary enough – I was hanging with a couple of girlfriends at an apartment pool.  We were drinking beer, soaking up some rays, and gabbing about silly stuff like boys when offhandedly one of them mentioned that she needed to remember to sign up for a Charlotte half marathon that day because the prices were going up the following day.  Even though I had never run a half marathon, before I knew it, my friend had convinced me that I should sign up for the race as well. 

After six months or so of little to no physical activity, I was trying to get back out running a time or two each week.  And by running, I mean I would go run six miles on the greenway Saturday morning, come home, and make a huge omelet to reward myself for not walking up the hill on 3^rd street on the loop back to my apartment.  Thus, I thought, running a half marathon in the fall would be perfect motivation for me to keep putting on my running shoes and getting out the door once or twice a week.

That was the plan…until I came home a few IPAs later, googled “Thunder Road Half Marathon,” and discovered there was also a full marathon.  I’m quite sure I never had a desire to run a marathon before.  I certainly had never talked about it or put the race on my bucket list, but maybe it was the beers, or the hours in the sun, or maybe it was a balls-to-the-wall, I-just-quit-my-job-and-my-boyfriend attitude, but I signed up for the Thunder Road Marathon then and there with only a few seconds of consideration.

I’ve done some pretty dumb things while drinking and gotten myself in to some real doo-doo, but that was the first time I’ve ever woken up on a Sunday morning and remembered that I got myself into 26.2 miles (I had to google that too because I wasn’t exactly sure how far a marathon was) of doo-doo.  A 10K I knew I could wing.  Even a half marathon I may have been able to gut out with a little bit of a running base, but a marathon requires training – something I had never experienced and had no idea how to do…but I was going to learn.

Over the next few months, I studied marathon training and running with the same intensity as I had while crunching for the CPA exam back in the day.  At first, I got my training plan from marathonrookie.com, and a rookie I certainly was! (I still think I’m a rookie in fact.)  I wanted a simple training plan that told me just how many miles to run each day, none of this 8 x 400-meters crap.  I didn’t understand that stuff, and I was only concerned with completing the marathon without walking.  But then I started reading Hal Higdon’s Marathon: Ultimate Training Guide, and it seemed that page-after-page was Boston this, BQ that.  It seemed that everyone who runs marathons is after this coveted BQ (Boston Qualification).  And of course, after reading all about BQs, I wanted one too!

My first test was to see if I could run for an hour straight without stopping before I could even begin training!  I still remember running (very slowly) around Charlotte’s Dilworth neighborhood with a $5 WalMart watch strapped to my wrist as I sweated through a very long hour.  But I made it, and training was on! 

My hour-long conditioning test was only the first of many hard runs…Looking back on my Thunder Road training, I have several distinct memories of trying, training times – the 20-miler Labor Day weekend at the beach when I got dehydrated in the heat and it seemed there was more salt on my face then there was in the ocean, the would-be 20-miler if I hadn’t eaten rocky asphalt on an under-construction Charlotte street after tripping on a utility pole line (I was forced to limp back to my apartment bleeding and holding back tears), and a hard track workout later in the training period when it happened to be cold, raining, and dark outside and I so badly wanted to be back home in my warm apartment instead of all alone on a school track dogging through some repeats.

Utility Pole Line Left Evidence - A Black Streak Across My Brooks

Yes, I definitely learned that training can suck, but I also learned that it works miracles.  And I was certainly amazed to see the idea of getting a Boston Qualification, which meant breaking a 3:35 for women my age, go from being a dream, to a crazy shot-in-hell idea, to an actual possibility, and lastly to a I’m-going-to-get-this goal. 

On November 17^th, 2012, I completed my first marathon, the Thunder Road Marathon, in 3:16:11 and reached my goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon with almost 19 minutes to spare.  In less than two weeks, my once crazy dream will be realized when I lace up my racing flats to take on the historic course. 

Happiness

This year, the Boston Marathon will mean so many things to so many people, and I am so grateful to be a part of the race for countless reasons.  But one reason that I try not to forget – especially when I worry about what kind of race I will run – is that this race is a goal realized.  And setting a goal, working damn hard for it, and then reaching it – to me, that’s a beautiful thing. 

Boston Experiment Week 14 of 16:  No running this week other than some sprints in Athletic Conditioning class.  Cross-training included elliptical workouts, cycle classes, athletic conditioning class, ½ a Zumba class (that wasn’t a good idea), and some strengthening exercises.

I have replaced my Sunday Long Run with long over-due painting projects.  Bye bye builder's beige.

Painting My Guest Bedroom

This Week’s Beer Choice: Red Brick Brewery’s Hoplanta IPA at The Copper Penny in downtown Wilmington, NC

Red Brick's Hoplanta IPA

The Copper Penny

Training Is Over, But Boston Is On!

Last Thursday, I hit the wall.  I finally reached that breaking point in my Boston training where I felt like throwing my hands up in the air, plopping my bum on the floor, stuffing my face with a box of Girl Scout cookies, and drowning my sorrows with a bottle of wine.  (In actuality I only had one Thin Mint and only had one IPA, but I did feel defeated.)

I don’t know the exact time of death, but at some point that day I realized my Boston training is over.  I’m sure I sound like a broken record (I’m sick of hearing myself talk about it), but I just haven’t felt well at all during these past couple of months of getting back into running, and with the weeks till Boston dwindling away, I have feared if I would even be able to make it to the starting line.

So, I called it quits.  There should hopefully be a little bit of easy running and an extremely small sprinkle of running at marathon pace before the race, but I’m pretty much choosing to only cross-train and rest from now till Boston.  My mileage tally for the last 13 weeks came in at only 445 miles with two 20-milers (first being 16 easy, 4 moderate and the second 10 easy, 10 moderate), one fairly hard 18-miler in Week 5, one 17-miler with 3x1 miles at marathon pace (1 on, 1 off) in Week 12, a couple of sixteen milers with a bit of time at marathon pace, and a fifteen-mile run early in training with one mile uphill at marathon pace.  In summary, training or rather “training” seemed like a bigger piece of thrown-together crap than one of my Kindergarten Sunday School projects.     

But I knew before I started training that time was not on my side.  Three months is not a long time to both come back from an injury AND train for a marathon.  I have said from the beginning that I wanted to get to the Boston Marathon starting line healthy, and that is still my intention.  I just need a new plan.

Unless you are a wealthy celebrity, most people do not have the luxury of just giving up and checking out of life and in to a swanky rehab facility to rest their bodies and minds for a few weeks.  Thus, I’m moving on to a new strategy.  Let’s call it Plan BB since I am quite sure I probably have had enough plans to go through the alphabet at least once.  Before too long I may wind up with more training plans than there are rows in the Panthers’ Bank of America Stadium.

Plan BB consists of not only resting and cross-training but also getting trigger point dry needling to help release some of my muscle tension.  If you think lying on a table with your shorts pulled down and half your butt hanging out while a stranger sticks a needle in rear as you cling to a stuffed animal sounds weird, then well, I completely agree with you.  But this training period has been a time of experimentation and we have evidently gotten to the point of playing with needles.  But just to be clear, there is absolutely nothing being injected in to my body.  A shot of steroids could perhaps be more effective, but I will never go there.  Caffeine is my sole performance-enhancing drug.

I have felt like I have done nothing this training period but back off and then back off some more.  I have given and given until my back was up against a wall last week.  However, even though I may have felt like I gave up, I didn’t really…I like to just think of it as regrouping.  Giving up completely is just never an option.  Cause while training may be over, Boston is still on!

Boston Experiment Week 13 of 16:  13

This Week’s Beer Choice: Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA  (Almost Lake Time!)