The Next Big Race!

As I alluded to in my Catalina marathon recap, I'm running another full marathon! I've decided to run the Marathoning For Miracles race right here in Abilene. I'm looking forward to running a race where I can sleep in my own bed the night before and where I have some support from the husband. The race is on November 3rd and I spent the afternoon plotting out my training schedule. I will start officially training on July 1st but starting tomorrow I'll be doing some short runs and building back up. Here is a picture of my training calendar:

Each day has a small sticky note and the plan is to rip the sticky notes off each day as I do the run. The goal is to have no more sticky notes on the calendar by the time the marathon is done. I'm excited by this new system and will definitely let you know how it goes.

The Catalina Marathon

I guess that two months after the race it's about time I got down to writing about the marathon. Fist, let me start with the night before the race. The night before the race I got food poisoning and was puking up my guts. I couldn't even keep water down, needless to say, I knew the race wasn't going to be my best race and I knew that the chances of my finishing were pretty slim. I was excited though because I was running here:

That's Catalina island and Avalon Harbor. Sadly we got into Avalon too late to really see anything and we were up at 4am to get to the starting line so this picture is from after the race.

In the morning we got up early, my running buddy and I, and we caught a boat that would take us up to the starting line. There were about 700 participants for the marathon but it seemed like so few after having run the San Antonio marathon with tens of thousands of fellow runners.

The morning was nice and cool but we knew that it would warm up throughout the race. We started here:

we were at sea level and the first three miles were going to be uphill. I was so not prepared for the hills! My running buddy and I split up and she went ahead of me at about mile 2. At that point I was the last person in the race! I've always been close to last but I've never actually been the last person. It was a little disheartening and scary since I didn't know the course but the organizers had done a great job with the signs and water stations. I have to say that this race was one of the best organized races that I've run and the race fuel was awesome, M&M's, cookies, sour patch kids and gummy bears! It made the hills a little more bearable.

This picture to the right is from right around mile 3, still having fun!





There were fun signs along the way, like this one instructing me to watch for foxes and there were some signs for buffalo although I never did see any wildlife other than some birds.

At mile 9 I gave a thumbs up, I was feeling alright and I had actually caught up with some of the walkers that started the race early. I really should have started with those walkers since I found myself walking the majority of the race after this point.

Mile marker 13, halfway there! At this point I had made a friend and pretty much given up on running. I was drinking and eating but was beginning to feel a little light headed. I actually forgot at that point that I had food poisoning the night before and was having a hard time figuring out why I felt bad. Well, that sure explains it! The gal that I was with offered me some salty pumpkin seeds and some other snacks but we were in the "desert" a portion of the course with full sun and no breeze, it was hot and I was feeling awful! We got to the aid station at mile marker 17.3 and I made the call to stop there, I just didn't have another 9 miles in me! Thankfully I convinced the aid station crew that I didn't need an ambulance, just a ride to town! I hung out at that aid station for awhile and then rode with the communication crew to the next stop, we stopped at all of the aid stations and cheered for the last few walkers before heading to the next one. It was actually pretty fun and enjoyable. I'm looking forward to volunteering at some races this summer to be on that side of things a little more.

The nice guys who were driving me back dropped me off about .2 miles from the finish line and I ran it in. It was so amazing to have friends waiting for me at the end. It was so different from the San Antonio race where I felt defeated and like my finish had been taken from me! This time I stopped because I wanted to and not because someone else decided it for me. I knew going into this that I hadn't done the training the way that I should have and that I wasn't really ready for the race but since I'd bought the ticket and paid for the race I knew that I was going to just enjoy the scenery and it was going to be my race and not anyone else's! In that, I succeeded and I am not ashamed to wear my finisher's shirt and hang my medal on the wall.

After the race I put my legs in the nice cool pacific ocean and then we ate a hearty lunch before heading back to the mainland!

I thought that after this race I'd be done with marathons and I'd go back to shorter distances, but there is just something so appealing about finishing a marathon. It is such a feeling of accomplishment. For my next race I'm going to put my all into the training and see just what I can do on a flat course where I can sleep in my own bed and eat my own food the night before. Stay tuned for my next race recap sometime in November!

The Race!

 The big day finally arrived for the marathon. After three crazy weekends traveling I'm not sure that I was in the best mental or physical state for running a marathon but I did it anyway!

I drove down to San Antonio the day before the race and checked into my super cheap Days Inn. After checking in and unpacking I walked down to the expo to pick up my race packet. I got my number and my timing chip along with my shirt and a ton of advertisements. I wasn't overly impressed with the swag considering the cost to register for this race.

After picking up the packet I made my way down to the river walk and saw a little of San Antonio and ate some dinner. It was hard because I wanted to walk around and see the town but I knew I needed to take it easy and rest my legs. I went back to the hotel and got my car and headed to a local grocery store to get some supplies. I knew that I wouldn't want to go anywhere after the race so I got food for breakfast and bottled water and a bunch of post race food.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to relax and setting out all of my stuff for the morning. Thankfully my hotel was close enough to the starting line that I got to sleep until around 6:30. I got ready and headed out. I was way back in corral 28 which was so far from the start that we couldn't even see the starting line. They finally started releasing people to begin racing at 7:30 and we began to inch our way forward.

We crossed the starting line at about 8:30. That means that by the time I started the race I'd been standing in the cold not really moving for an hour, not the ideal way to start the race. Even worse, I had to go pee right as the race began. I managed to hold out until mile 3 where I saw some porta-potties with no line. They were gross and disgusting and if I could have avoided it I would have.

I chugged along just fine, my pace was a little slower than I had originally planned but I was on target to finish with about an hour to spare. I found a little old lady who was walk/jogging at about my pace. I'd pass her and then she would speed up and pass me and then she would take a walk break and I'd pass her again. We talked a little and that was a nice distraction. She was doing the half-marathon though so I said goodbye at the 12 mile mark. Once we split from the half folks it got sparse. Before the split it was pretty crowded but after the split I felt like I was on my own. I ran steady until the 13.1 mile mark at which time I began to take short walk breaks. I kept track of my time wanting to make sure that I was keeping a proper pace for finishing.

I found another gal who was going my pace and we settled into a nice walk/jog with chit chat. Turned out that she's a breast cancer survivor and this was her first marathon as well. We were doing great and were at mile 20 when we began to see a lot of buses around us. When we looked behind we could see the sweeper van getting close. We were both confused because by my watch and hers we still had 2 1/2 hours to finish the last 6 miles. We shouldn't have been seeing a sweeper van.

Then came the worst image of my running career. A road block ahead of us with race organizers pulling everyone off the course. They told us that due to extreme weather conditions they were pulling us. We could continue on but there would be no support and the finish line would not be open. The only other option was to get in the bus and ride to the finish line. I've never been so disappointed and also humiliated. It was horrible. They let us out of the bus around mile 26 and we ran the last .2 miles in and I got my medal but it felt like a hollow victory. The clock was turned off and everyone was gone. It was quite possibly the worst race finish I've ever had. What was worse was that I felt strong, I really felt like I had the energy to finish the race and I know that I would have done it within the 7 1/2 hour time limit posted on the organizers website.

Looking back on the race I'm trying to find the positives and lessons to take away from this race. One thing I've realized is that I should choose smaller races where I'm not sitting at the starting line for an hour waiting to get started. I'm taking what I learned about training and nutrition and gearing up for my next marathon, the Catalina Island marathon on March 10th!

I must be out of my mind!

I just paid $125 to run 26.2 miles. That sounds ridiculous, why do I need to pay someone so that I can run? Crazy right? Well, I did it. I put my money where my mouth is and now I'm really doing it. I've been talking about it all year, I even posted a nifty little running plan on this here blog but now it's real.

You may have noticed that many of my runs have been red lately, I've not been keeping up with my training schedule. Oh, I've been working out, Zumba, Step, boot camp, I just haven't been running. Well, the excuses stop here. I'm going to get back on track this week starting tonight with a run before bed and then I'll keep the momentum going until the big day, November 13th.

Let the Marathon Training Begin!

Today, after running errands and playing with 5 year olds all morning, I decided to take a look at the dates for the San Antonio Marathon that I've been telling people I'm going to run. I was very excited when I went to their website and saw that the charity is the Susan G. Komen foundation which funds breast cancer research. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer back in the fall of 2005 and is now a 5 year survivor thanks in large part to the advances in treatment and diagnosis funded by groups like Komen.

I got on the website and saw that the date is November 13th and that the registration price jumps up at the end of July so I'll be officially signing up after the next pay day :) After surfing their site and reading about the course and looking at hotels in the area I decided to begin working on a training plan. I got out the calender and as I began to count backwards I realized that we are only 20 weeks out from the race! Ack! That snuck up on me. I haven't been running as much as I should and I've been slacking in the healthy eating department. After googling some different training programs I've put together the following schedule that I'm going to try and stick with for the next 20 weeks. You can see that I have tried to take into account the weeks when we will be moving and on the road and I'll be unable to run. I'll be cross training those weeks by lifting heavy boxes and walking back and forth to the moving van.

Week	S	M	T	W	TH	F	S	Special notes for the week
June 26-2							6
July 3-9	Rest	5	4	3	Rest	4	7	Travel to Portland
July 10-16	Rest	5	4	4	Rest	4	8
July 17-23	Rest	5	5	3	Rest	4	9
July 24-30	Rest				Rest			Moving to Abilene
July 31-6	Rest				Rest	4	10	Finish the move
Aug 7-13	Rest	4	5	3	Rest	4	10
Aug 14-20	Rest	4	5	4	Rest	4	11
Aug 21-27	Rest	5	6	3	Rest	4	12
Aug 28-3	Rest	4	6	4	Rest	4	13
Sept 4-10	Rest	5	7	4	Rest	4	14
Sept 11-17	Rest	5	7	5	Rest	4	15
Sept 18-24	Rest	4	8	4	Rest	4	17
Sept 25-1	Rest	4	8	5	Rest	4	18
Oct 2-8	Rest	5	5	4	Rest	4	20
Oct 9-15	Rest	4	8	5	Rest	4	22
Oct 16-22	Rest	4	5	4	Rest	4	12
Oct 23-29	Rest	3	8	5	Rest	4	10
Oct 30-5	Rest	5	6	4	Rest	4	5
Nov 6-12	Rest	Rest	5	Rest	3 mi	Rest	Rest
Nov 13-19	26.2

It's an ambitious schedule with my longest pre-race run at 22 miles.

During all of my research today I also saw that the new exercise center at ACU opens at the beginning of September and has an indoor track where I can potentially do some training so I'm not limited to super early runs when it's hot out. Unfortunately this does leave me with several months of training during the dog days of summer but I'm more excited than scared about the race!