Training in Montana

Meh. Likely my last road marathon where I try for a time. It's just not that important to me to suffer for that long. Not sure I'll ever get to Boston and I think I'm okay with that. 

Report:

Goal going into the race was to PR with a 3:24:xx by running average 7:40-45 miles. Got good sleep Thursday night, flew to Vegas Friday late morning with my non-runner wife, got to St. George by 4 pm and my Mom fixed us a nice meal of spaghetti and french bread. Yum. Chill evening, got to bed about 10 pm and slept well. Woke at 4:15 am, showered, Dad dropped me off about 4:45 and I got there in the nick of time. Line was a few hundred people deep when I got there (but still a straight line), way more full than 5 years ago, but I got there at 4:15 last year. A few minutes after showing up the line started snaking, and by the time our bus left the line was snaked all the way around the park and onto the sidewalk across the street. That's a lot of standing. Got to the start line and put on my warm gear, hung by a fire, hit the PoP, sat by another fire, and then wasted too much time because I was then hustling to get all my stuff together and put the drop bag in the van, take an anti-diarrhea pill, and find the 3:25 pacer. I did it, but was on the far edge of the pacer, not on the pavement. Next time I need to be sooner.

Horn went off and the pacer was in sight, but a ways in front. I kept the balloons in sight the next while which was helpful. Feeling pretty good, weaving through people (why do slow people start up front?), and avoiding the middle of the road divots where Butler got caught up. I'd forgotten to write down my paces on my arm or a pace band, so I just decided to run and hope the pacer would keep us honest but not "bank time". I think he did well, but I don't know their final time. I felt pretty good, and the temps were good, but too warm for starting temps and my body. I don't do heat well. Veyo came and I love that spot. I moved to the far right and gave high 5s all the way down the street as I knew I wouldn't feel like it later. Veyo hill was okay. I made it most of the way then walked a bit, then ran to the PoPs for my only stop, just a water stop thankfully. A lady I'd been following stopped as well, so we both were now way behind the pacer. I tagged along behind her (at a safe distance) for quite a few miles and we made some progress on the pace ballooons. Our speeds actually changed quite a bit, so we kept leapfrogging each other. Dameron Valley is a dam-long-hill valley. Wow, it just kept going and going. Finally crested the hill but I think there was one more to go. At this stage I was feeling pretty good, 3:25 was within my sights although I didn't know if I'd break it or just be close. Somewhere between 8-13 the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. That's probably what sapped my desire. I was doing fairly well, hitting decent paces (I think, although I missed hitting the mile marker on my watch a number of times) and my nutrition was clicking along as desired.

On the big downhill, sometime after mile 16, I became disillusioned with the marathon. I was tired of trying to run faster than my body really wanted, and just wanted to jog it in. Truth be told, if I had a ride, I might have just quit right there and rode to the end. I have other finishers medals. It was a sort of epiphany for me that I just don't have what it takes to do well in the marathon. And I think I'm okay with that. Karl Malone was not an NBA champion. He just didn't have it in him to do well in the NBA Finals. Stockton was the same. But they're both amazing players. They just didn't have it. I'm not Stockton or Malone, but I'm a 5-time marathon, 2-time 50K, and 1-time 52M finisher. And I'm okay with that.

After my great disillusionment I took it really easy and got passed by a lot of people. Just about every mile after that I walked when I got to the mile marker. Not for a certain distance, just until I wanted to run again. I earlier had told my family not to meet me on the course, but I didn't know what they'd decided so I still looked for them. It would've been nice to see them, but wouldn't have helped me at all. I was done. I kept running and drinking and encouraging where I could but I wanted to be finished. Finally came to the finisher's chute and I didn't put any more effort into it, just nonchalantly ran across the line and finished. I'm happy to have completed the race, but I don't know if I'll be back to a road marathon. Maybe I will, maybe when a 3:23 will actually get me to Boston I'll care more, but I think my Boston dream is gone too. And I'm okay with that right now.

Legs typical SGM soreness today. Went for a walk this morning with my wife and Dad on the river trail, did 3 miles or so. Drove to Las Vegas, then walked 4 more miles around the strip. She laughed at me as I walked backwards down the strip stairs and people looked at me funny. She heard someone say "There must be something wrong with him." Too funny.

It's always a big deal to me post-downhill race when I can walk down stairs without wincing. It happened last night. Ah...

I can't believe it's nearly been a month since the marathon. I took a long layoff, but then ran a couple times during the month but haven't recorded it. I realized my left achilles is still really sore, so I'm trying to get it healed before running again. It is still sore to the touch and was pretty bad before the marathon but I didn't put it in my writeups because I kept forgetting. After warming up it never gave me troubles. This isn't the first time that achilles has acted up during a long training cycle, but I've been ignoring my concentric heel drops so I never solved the problem. Hoping to fix it soon then get back to running. The itch is real.