Race report - OBX Marathon

After a year and a half of running, I have made it to a milestone that I never thought I could reach. It took a lot of practice, a lot of trial and error with food, a lot of experimentation with cross training and weight training, and lots of emotional ups and downs.

I worked through Hal Higdon's Novice 2 program. I stuck to it pretty closely, although towards the end I missed 20 mile run, and had to cut some of the mid-week runs a little shorter. This is a mistake I don't want to repeat in the future. I think there are problems that I had throughout the race that would have been fine otherwise.

Originally, I had planned on running the Anthem Richmond Marathon on November 15. I started the training plan with the intent on finishing at that time. However, after I signed up, my fiancé and I were invited to a wedding that we absolutely wanted to attend. Because I didn't know how well my race would go, or how long it would take me, I didn't want to risk missing or being late for the special event.   When I talked to my fiancé about it, he said something to the effect of "You've been working so hard on this, you need to find another one to do." He's incredibly persuasive.

I went online and searched for marathons that occurred over a weekend either before or after the November 15th weekend. That left basically two choices - either the Philadelphia Marathon on November 22, or the Outer Banks Marathon on November 9. Both seem like pretty cool options. Honestly, I'm adding the Philadelphia Marathon to my bucket list. A combination of seafood cravings, the desire for peaceful beach time, and the fact that I was so excited and wanted it to happen RIGHT NOW made OBX the right decision for me. I booked my hotel the week before, very abruptly tapered (improperly, for sure), told my roommates where I was going the day before I left, kissed my fiancé goodbye and drove to the race expo on Saturday.

I was pretty antsy on Saturday night, for sure. Having the Ohio State vs Michigan State game on wasn't calming me down any (Go Bucks!). I called my parents, Facebook-chatted with my roommates, caught up on my blog reading, tried to do some work, but wasn't really able to focus. Around 10:45pm I got a phone call from my fiance. It didn't last very long, but hearing him say "Good luck" and "I'm proud of you" and "I love you" were exactly what I needed to hear. Even though he wasn't with me, I knew he was cheering me on.

OK - Sunday morning. I downed a banana and some Honey Stinger Waffles and a diet coke and headed to the parking lot where the marathon runners were meeting. I walked over there with a really sweet woman who was also there by herself (Shout out to Jessie!). She had run this once before, and gave me lots of tips on the subtleties of the course, and strategies to take to finish the race. Once we got to the start line, I double checked that I had my keys, that my water bottle was full, that I had all of my delicious salted-caramel Gu packets stashed away, and that I had my camera pulled up on my phone so that I could snap pictures along the course. I found corral C. I jogged a bit. I stretched.

Someone came over the speakers saying a prayer over the runners, and after that it felt like we took off very suddenly. I remember having a fleeting thought "Wow, I'm running now, and I'm probably not going to stop for another 4.5 hours", but it didn't seem terribly daunting at the time. Everything was so beautiful - the sky was beautiful and dark and overcast, the road was lined with tall soft pine trees, and the only sound I could hear was the sound of the feet hitting the pavement. It sounded like rain on the roof. We ran through Kitty Hawk, and were cheered on by lots of sleepy people drinking warm coffee.

We also ran through Kill Devil Hills, and ran around the Wright Brothers Memorial! Yay Ohioans! I apologize for the wacky sideways-ish photos. It's the best I could do.

A major 'plus' to this race, is that throughout the entire course, there was a lot of participation from the residents of the neighborhoods that were along the course. Many of them were out with signs and were playing music and high-fiving us as we ran by. Not once, but TWICE I passed a house that was passing out mimosas. As delicious as that sounded, I wasn't sure it would be a good idea for me to experiment with booze at this point in the race. Nevertheless - 10 points for house Kill Devil Hills.

At about mile 10 (I think), the course transitioned from being run on roads to a trail that went through a wooded area. Having my feet land on soft sandy trails was a nice change from the pavement. However, something I was not prepared for was how hilly some sections of the trail were. Around mile 11, I was passed by the 4:30 pace team, and I realized that my pace had dropped from about 10:10 minute miles, to close to 11:00 minute miles. Definitely discouraging. The harder I tried to run, the more it felt like I was running up a down escalator. Thankfully, there was a much needed much appreciated aid station run by Stack 'Em High that had oranges and bananas and banana bread. YUM. After scarfing down what I can only describe as the best orange I've ever tasted in my life, I kept moving out of the woods and past the half marathon mark.

Things started getting especially rough in Nags Head, around mile 17. I knew the big bridge was coming up, and I wanted to get to it and conquer it. The miles started going by slower, I was averaging closer to 11:30 minute miles. I was losing track of when I had eaten my Gu's, and became nervous about taking in too much or not enough. The crowds had thinned out, and I was running with people who looked like they were progressively in worse shape (not with respect with general fitness, but just with respect to fatigue). My feet were pretty sore, my legs were pretty sore, but the worst by far was my back. I felt like I had been kicked in the kidneys. The muscles between my shoulders were so tight. From the base of my neck down to the bottom of my spine just really really ached. Around that time, the course went back to the main highway going through OBX. Seeing a huge straight highway ahead of me was very psychologically overwhelming. After taking so many jogs around neighborhoods, beaches and trails, seeing only a straight patch of highway ahead of me felt insurmountable.

Eventually, I saw the bridge. I saw the bridge, and started my mantra (/prayer). "Dear God, give me the strength to beat this hill. Dear God, give me the strength to beat this hill" etc. I repeated that for about a mile leading up to the bridge. I repeated it as I was climbing up the bridge. Around the top of the bridge, I started saying "Thank you God for getting me here. Thank you God for getting me here", because I knew the hard part was over. At this point I was at mile 24, and the energy of the town of Manteo (home of the finish line) was bringing me back up. People in cars started waving and honking and cheering for me. Around mile 25.5, I started seeing people who had already finished the race walking back saying "You're so close! You can do it!"

At mile 26, I started running with a guy that I hadn't seen since the start of the race. We turned a corner, and he looked over at me and said "You got anything left? Come on let's sprint this! You and me let's go, we can do it!" I didn't think I had anything left in me, but with his encouragement I was able to tap into the last bit of energy I had and I powered to the finish. Thanks, Nelson. I didn't hear what your last name was when we got to the finish line, but thank you.

As soon as I could, I called my mom and my dad. I had a hard time talking, I was torn between wanting to move and wanting to crash. I was starving. I was having a hard time focusing on their questions and figuring out how to answer them. Even though I'm 25, it's still really cool hearing my parents say that they're proud of me. I was able to process that at least. I wandered over to the food line, and redeemed my free pulled pork sandwich and sweet potato fries at them in about 3 minutes, and chatted with a couple of other lone-wolves (Is it appropriate to pluralize 'wolf' when talking about more than one 'lone-wolfs'? I'm genuinely not sure).

I wandered back to the bus that took me back to the parking lot, I got into my car and started the drive home. Once I was actually coherent, I called my dude and told him aaaaaaaaalll about it. He promised me a massage (and totally delivered), told me again how proud he was, and I drove home basking in the glow of marathon-ness.

In conclusion....
1. Having good cheerleaders makes all the difference in the world.
2. I'm glad that I picked a race with lots of variety in the course. For the majority of the race, I was left trying to guess what was up around the corner, and what I'd get to see next.
3. Thanks to Jessie and Nelson for giving me a confidence boost at the start, and showing me what I'm made of at the end.
4. I'm STOKED for the next marathon. Bring it.

How I got to my first marathon

I started running in March of 2013, and on Sunday I completed my first full marathon.

Couch to 5k

When I started running, I was pretty flabby. I don't just mean that I had gained weight (I totally had), but I also frankly had no muscle tone of note to work off of. I started with a pretty good couch to 5k plan recommended to me by a friend. I found pretty quickly that rather than keeping track of time with a watch (run for 60 seconds, walk for 30 seconds, etc), it found myself keeping time with songs. Here's how that works: I broke songs down into units (1 unit usually consisted of a chorus, or bridge, or verse of a song). I would run for a unit, walk for a unit, run for a unit, walk for a unit, etc. For me, it helped being able to ride on the energy from the song for the running bursts. I eventually worked through the program, and even found myself getting impatient during the walking periods, and accelerating through the program faster than I had expected. I completed my first 5k on May 11, 2013 (http://www.montpelier5k.com)

5k to 10k

After the 5k, I just kept increasing my weekend long runs to get to 6 miles. Honestly the only thing I changed is that on the weekends I incrementally increased my long run mileage. I ran my first 10k in September 2013 (http://www.pepsi10krun.com).

10k to 13.1

My race registration/goal strategy can really only be described as impulsive. I'm not sure what happened, but I signed up for my first half with no real sense of whether or not it was something that I could accomplish. I signed up, printed off Hal Higdon's Novice 2 Half Marathon training program, and stuck to it (for the most part). As I had with the previous two training periods, I pushed my long run mileage farther than the training program had suggested. I finished my first half marathon on April 5, 2014 (http://www.charlottesvillemarathon.com). Fun fact: I registered for my second half, which took place 3 weeks after the first half (http://www.runthevalley.com/park-to-park-marathon/)

Half to Full

Remember what I said earlier about being impulsive? I registered for my full marathon as soon as I had finished my first half. Originally, I had planned to to the Anthem Richmond Marathon (http://www.richmondmarathon.com), but due to scheduling conflicts I needed to change my plans about 3 weeks before the race. I deferred my registration until 2015, and signed up for the Outer Banks marathon, which was one week earlier. I had been working through the Hal Higdon Novice 2 Marathon training program, and with that change in schedule, something had to give. In my case, it was the 20 mile long run.

I'll save the actual race report for another post, but I want to talk about how my training and how I feel about my preparation.

1. My long run peaked at 18 miles, that I did 4 weeks out from the race. I ran most of my long runs outside, but I actually managed to run one of my 14mi runs, and a couple of 12-13mi runs on the treadmill. Boring? yes. Tedious? yes. Invoking strange images from gym personnel? yes. However, it was kind of cool to mess with pace and incline in a way that I would not have been able to on the road. For example - it was fun to mimic hills once in a while by adding an incline. When I'd do this, I would keep the speed the same, forcing me to practice climbing faster than I would have otherwise.

2. Working up to my long runs, I would bring several gels (either Gu or Hammer gel), and a water bottle. After a few epic bonks on my 15, 16, and 17 mile runs, I finally figured out how many calories I needed and when. Turns out the magic formula for me is about 1 gel about every 4 miles. I really like Hammer Gels (chocolate and banana) and Gu (salted caramel) for during the run. Afterwards, however, I prefer to have peanut butter flavored Hammer gels for before and after. They tend to be a little thicker, and have some more protein than the other gels, it's just easier for me to eat and digest while I'm not running.

3. After my harder effort workouts (either long workouts or higher intensity workouts), I would drink shakes after the workout was over. After hard workouts (both hard running workouts and weight workouts), I would follow it with whey protein. I wanted to make sure that I was giving myself all of the amino acids I would need to help out my muscles. After long runs, however, I would drink a Recoverite shake (Hammer nutrition). Recoverite is more carb heavy in addition to having protein, so it helped me start to reset my glycogen stores. Once I started incorporating this into my post-workout routine, I felt much better the next day, and I was able to work better during the next workout.

4. Where I'm training is, in general, much hillier than the majority of the Outer Banks course. I think this was helpful for some portions of the race, but didn't get me as far as I had expected. When I got to the race there were hills, and they were very different than I had prepared for.  I think I need to prepare for my next marathon 'smarter' with respect to terrain, definitely.

First marathon - check! I cannot wait for the next....