Two days later and my legs are feeling it!

Marathon #6 is done and it was a brutal fight to the finish. It brought my fastest time and my worst pacing. In a quick summary, I’ll give the good, the bad and the ugly before getting into my recap. The good – I beat my half marathon PR by 2 minutes and my marathon PR by 6 minutes. I think I proved to myself that I’m capable of running at my BQ pace but more to come on that. The bad – my pacing needs work, I’m still the queen of positive splitting (hence beating my half marathon PR in the first 13.1 miles of this race.. whoops). And the ugly – the hills in the first half were killer, everything felt perfect until about mile 19 when my legs decided that they just couldn’t take anymore. But hey, I still managed to finish with a PR!

Events

• Full Marathon
• 5k

Expo

This expo is everything that you would expect an expo to be. A lot of vendors and a lot of runners. I went in with the expectation to take my time looking around but it was too overwhelming for me. I picked up my bib, took a few pictures and left pretty quickly.

Starting Line & Shuttles

I dreaded this part, mostly because it was 38 degrees outside but it actually wasn’t that bad. I woke up at 3:45am, got ready and then lined up for the shuttles between 4:45-5:00am. The shuttle ride was easy and I was quite comfortable in my sweats and jacket. Our shuttle arrived at the starting line around 6:00am, where they recommended that runners stay on the shuttles to keep warm. I left the bus at 6:00am to use the bathroom but I was able to get back on and wait on the bus until 6:30am. Our group used the bathrooms one more time before ditching our extra layers and lining up for the start.

Course

Hills, hills and more hills. Going into the race, I knew the course was rolling hills but I didn’t expect there to be so many and for them to take such a big toll on my legs. The truth is, the hills felt really easy and fast. So I went for it. My goal going into the race was 3:40 but by the halfway point, I started thinking that it was a BQ day for me (3:30). Everything was feeling really great until it wasn’t. By mile 19, my legs were done. My feet were hurting and the only thing that kept me going were the spectators. There were spectators along the course but there were so many in the last four miles – thank you to all of you for getting me to that finish line!

Takeaways

While I can’t say this race went well for me, I am definitely happy with the outcome and I can’t wait to try this race again in the future (maybe for a BQ?!).