Sweet Dream (or a Beautiful Nightmare?)
GO! St. Louis Marathon, MO
April 11, 2010State #16
3hrs 43min 08sec
I had a long car ride to think of what to write about this marathon and where to start. I decided to cover it all (and might need to put chapters in this). It has been about 4 months since my last marathon (one day shy of 4 months to be exact). In those 4 months, a lot has happened/changed in my life, but the one thing that is always a constant is my running. With some hardships and anxiety, I dropped about 10lbs pretty quickly at the end of December. This affected my runs. I was in low mileage then, partly because I temporarily lost my motivation and partly because I had just finished up a busy 4 weeks of travel and 2 marathons. Next thing I knew, it was 2010 and I was ready to start the year right. Ultra Jen and I went for a 10 mile run in the snow, January 3rd. We ran a slower pace, but off the beaten path and more work in the snow. I struggled with those 10 miles, feeling weak and I knew I needed to eat more to give me the energy I needed. As much as I loved being 10lbs lighter (contrary to my Mom and Friends worries…I’m a girl, I can’t help but like shedding weight), I wanted to keep running and I knew I’d have to force the food in me. Though now I’m loving food as much as I did before (maybe more?), I think the realization of that 10 mile run being so weak is what helped me get back on track.I was really wishing it were the summer and I could run outside with my friends every day, but we were stuck in January Chicago cold weather, so I was only going to subject myself to the outdoor running on the weekends. Joe and I managed to get our schedules in sync so we would run on treadmills next to one another at the gym once a week. These were always our 8 mile runs, and it was fun as Joe would let me set our pace just like I were pace leading outside. We would say we wanted to do 7 miles in under 60 minutes, and I’d start us off slow and have negative splits where he never thought we would make it in under the 60 minutes (as we started at a 9:30) BUT, I’d get us there with strong ‘kick its’ at the end (though we never did our 8 in 60). Thanks Joe for the treadmill runs. Chicago is going to miss you…and you are going to miss my crazy stories! Also thanks to Rachel A, Rachel J, Alexis (and Ross), Sheila, Chanthana and already mentioned, Ultra Jen - for our winter runs. I look back at our winter and think- wow, we really had a mild one. I don’t know where it went, the weather is warming up and it makes me so happy, but I can’t believe I don’t have any blizzard training stories to share. I had a 16 mile run that was extremely windy. I think I ran a loop 3 times to get the 16 in just so I didn’t have to go in one direction for two long (and well, we meet at the totem pole). If anything, we just had big problems with ice this year. I blame city budget cuts for not clearing the paths. I fell 3 times (once in Denver) on ice.The last 4 months of training has some PR highlights, not just in the marathon (which I will get to). Though I continue to improve my marathon times (over 2 minutes per mile since my first marathon!), I never really focus on increasing my speed on shorter distances, that is, until this winter. I remember Nick telling me that I would get to an angry stage and when I get there, I would probably see it in my runs and he was right. I have never broken a 40 minute 5 mile run. I guess since I always am going longer distances and if I am running 5 miles it’s an easy run, I never have tried. But I was on the treadmill one day and I just had a series of “angry songs” that I kept increasing the speed. Though my first mile was a 9 minute, I ended up finishing in under 39 minutes and it felt great. I haven’t just been running, but now I’m more focused on my Triathlons as this year I’m completing a half Ironman. I don’t like to bike, especially on a stationary bike, but I know I need to do it to get the Half Ironman completed. With motivation from David, I’ve picked up my bike workouts. I really like biking and then running, though your legs feel a little wobbly at first on the run it’s like the bike activates your fast twitch fibers and once you work through the awkward transition, you can go faster …Or maybe it’s because I hate the bike so much that I’m just so happy to be on my feet and the freedom takes me away. As I digress, there was a day I biked for 2 hours, then got on the treadmill and decided to see what I could do with a 1 mile run. I managed to run it in 6:50 which started off on the slower end, I am pretty sure I can get that to a 6:30. I have taken a full page to get us through the highlights of the past 4 months (more to come on biking and swimming in a Tri write up…in two weeks), now what about State Number 16?After completing the New Orleans Marathon last year, Rachel J continued to run, with the thoughts and hopes that she would start working on the 50 states goal (4 down). Then, she was hit with a series of little injuries that kept slowing her down. Now I say this with the utmost respect for any of my friends who are doctors or working their way to be doctors: the majority of doctors just plain suck. With my mother’s health history and current health conditions, I think I have every right to make that statement. I fear Rachel J has the same luck as my mom does with doctors, and I hope the bad luck is over. She went back and forth between two doctors which who knows which one to trust but they kept on coming up with 'fixes’ to current injuries but causing other injuries until one of those injuries was a stress fracture in her hip joint (this sounds like I‘m just whining about doctors and not thinking it could have happened to anyone but that‘s because I‘m trying to not get too technical). What this meant? No running for what seemed like a lifetime. She also wasn’t even able to walk without crutches for a long time and her body had to start from scratch with the running. We had plans to run a marathon in Alabama in February 2010, which is postponed for 2011. Instead, Rachel asked me if I would go to St Louis with her and she would run the half while I ran the full. This was her comeback half marathon. Over the summer Alexis and I wanted to make sure Rachel got back on track, and stayed positive, so we managed to get Baby Jesus strategically placed in Rachel’s birthday cupcake.St Louis is about a 4 ½ hour drive from Chicago, we decided we would leave Saturday and come back Sunday. We left around 10am on Saturday, it was a beautiful day and as we drove south it got warmer. Matt is pretty good at chiming in on the girl talk (filling the car with laughter). About halfway we stopped and spent an hour at a Wal-mart. I was in sticker shock and loaded up on throw away shirts. We didn’t get into St Louis until about 3:30. Rachel and I made it to the expo to pick up our race packets. St Louis is filled with weird people, but is actually quite beautiful. The one thing we learned as we were driving to the expo, was it was helly. I was told that St. Louis is pretty flat. LIES all LIES! I think this got me a little nervous, but at least I have been doing hill workouts on the treadmill, and got my share of hill training in on a trip to Charlotte and then back in Wisconsin. Poor Rachel was just trying to retrain herself on the mileage, not thinking about hills.We went to the hotel to get Matt, and we all took a walk to the starting line to check that out, then we walked to a real cute part of St. Louis where the Old Spaghetti Factory is located for dinner. I was thinking we would have an hour wait given the fact the marathon is in town. The wait was going to be 2 hours (other marathoners, bachelorette parties, high school dances, and random large parties of obese people). There was no other decent place to eat around, it was pretty much just bar food joints. We decided to get our food ordered to go, and took it back to the hotel.I was exhausted, so once we finished eating I passed out and the next thing I knew it was 5:00am. We headed to the start around 6:00. It was 50 degrees at this time, which is much warmer than the last few marathons. As we started at 7:00am, the sun was bright and I knew it was going to hit the 70s soon enough. Rachel and I started together, though she didn’t want me to hold myself back for her, and I didn’t want to push her where she burned out too fast. I originally didn’t think this would be a PR state. When I started tapering I felt weak in my runs and got worried I wouldn’t have it in me to PR. However, I got the itch to go fast. Rachel and I ran until about mile 3 where we said “see you later.”I took off and though I had my watch, I wasn’t focusing on the times. I would look at it to see how fast I was going, and I was pleased with the speed, but I figured all the hills would get to me at one point and I’d slow down. I kind of took a new approach to the hills, I decided to charge them rather than slow down. The first 6 miles was beautiful through the downtown, then we managed to make our way towards the campus and through a park. The sun was shining bright and I knew I was working on a great tan. At the halfway mark, I was dead even to get a 3:40 marathon. BUT I wasn’t focusing on Boston, or a PR for that matter, the last 3 marathons were all in the 1:40s for the first half but the 2nd halves were slower. My “charge the hills” approach worked until mile 14. From mile 14 to 15 we had what started off as a steady and long incline followed by a steeper incline. Rachel can back me when I say the first half was pretty helly but it didn’t stop there. The fun continued almost nonstop for the whole time. I talked to some nice people, a lot of first timers. Every time I mentioned I was on marathon number 17 (or state number 16), I felt like I had a duty to show them how to do it right (and not burn out). So after chatting for awhile and me feeling like I was reenergized from our chats, I would tell them “have a nice run!” and take off. The goal here, or motivation, was, don’t let them pass you (meaning don’t slow down). I talked to these two guys, who lived in St Louis, they told me the final hill would be at this under pass, and we would have 4 miles of straight away to the finish. I was skeptical since I knew where we came from had a lot of ups and down, but I wanted to believe them. From mile 20.5 to 22.5 we had flat roads. In this time I met a Team DetermiNation runner (ACS), this was his 2nd marathon. When we hit the hill (that I was told was the final), I parted with him and charged the hill. At about mile 24.5 (on ANOTHER up), the ACS guy was behind me saying “come on 17th Marathon Girl, I’m doing this in 3:40 do it with me! I am doing my best to enjoy my marathons and NOT focus on time, but always in the back of my mind I want Boston. I figure Fargo is Flat, I would stress it there, but I wasn’t stressing it here. When he said those magic words, I thought, I COULD DO IT! He then told me he had 12 minutes to make it and though he passed, I kept him in eye shot- we had to finish at under an 8 minute mile, and though it seemed crazy- I thought, why not push and see how close I could get. As we got to the top of the final hill we were just past mile 25, someone shouted it was down hill from here, and I turned to give them a thumbs up when I tripped over my foot- and of course got a shooting cramp. Up until this moment I never stopped, but I had to take 2 steps to shake it out, and I was back on my way. With .1 mile left, I saw Rachel and Matt. I got another one of those bad cramps…Kathleen demonstrates how this looks in a video at Philly, I fought through the cramp and my last 30 seconds finished the marathon with a kick. Finishing in 3:43 gives me a new PR by 4 minutes, but knowing I just need 3:40:59 for Boston, well, it’s Bittersweet. It was a hot run, a helly run but a beautiful run, a strong run. When I finished, I kept my shades on as I started to cry. I can’t explain why I was crying- it was a stream of emotions, I don’t know if I was happy for the PR or disappointed for those 2 minutes (Was the finish a sweet dream? Or a beautiful nightmare?). My watch read 26.45 miles. I know I weaved through people and the satellites can be off, but the average minute per mile was 8:26 on my watch- Boston Qualifying time. Being so close is nerve wracking. I could get it in Fargo, but what if I’m not having an on day - I don’t want another Philly marathon where I’m beating myself up on the run so much I forget about my Love for running. Boston- my battle to win you over is to be continued - you are currently a beautiful nightmare.
GO! St. Louis Marathon, MO
April 11, 2010State #16
3hrs 43min 08sec
I had a long car ride to think of what to write about this marathon and where to start. I decided to cover it all (and might need to put chapters in this). It has been about 4 months since my last marathon (one day shy of 4 months to be exact). In those 4 months, a lot has happened/changed in my life, but the one thing that is always a constant is my running. With some hardships and anxiety, I dropped about 10lbs pretty quickly at the end of December. This affected my runs. I was in low mileage then, partly because I temporarily lost my motivation and partly because I had just finished up a busy 4 weeks of travel and 2 marathons. Next thing I knew, it was 2010 and I was ready to start the year right. Ultra Jen and I went for a 10 mile run in the snow, January 3rd. We ran a slower pace, but off the beaten path and more work in the snow. I struggled with those 10 miles, feeling weak and I knew I needed to eat more to give me the energy I needed. As much as I loved being 10lbs lighter (contrary to my Mom and Friends worries…I’m a girl, I can’t help but like shedding weight), I wanted to keep running and I knew I’d have to force the food in me. Though now I’m loving food as much as I did before (maybe more?), I think the realization of that 10 mile run being so weak is what helped me get back on track.I was really wishing it were the summer and I could run outside with my friends every day, but we were stuck in January Chicago cold weather, so I was only going to subject myself to the outdoor running on the weekends. Joe and I managed to get our schedules in sync so we would run on treadmills next to one another at the gym once a week. These were always our 8 mile runs, and it was fun as Joe would let me set our pace just like I were pace leading outside. We would say we wanted to do 7 miles in under 60 minutes, and I’d start us off slow and have negative splits where he never thought we would make it in under the 60 minutes (as we started at a 9:30) BUT, I’d get us there with strong ‘kick its’ at the end (though we never did our 8 in 60). Thanks Joe for the treadmill runs. Chicago is going to miss you…and you are going to miss my crazy stories! Also thanks to Rachel A, Rachel J, Alexis (and Ross), Sheila, Chanthana and already mentioned, Ultra Jen - for our winter runs. I look back at our winter and think- wow, we really had a mild one. I don’t know where it went, the weather is warming up and it makes me so happy, but I can’t believe I don’t have any blizzard training stories to share. I had a 16 mile run that was extremely windy. I think I ran a loop 3 times to get the 16 in just so I didn’t have to go in one direction for two long (and well, we meet at the totem pole). If anything, we just had big problems with ice this year. I blame city budget cuts for not clearing the paths. I fell 3 times (once in Denver) on ice.The last 4 months of training has some PR highlights, not just in the marathon (which I will get to). Though I continue to improve my marathon times (over 2 minutes per mile since my first marathon!), I never really focus on increasing my speed on shorter distances, that is, until this winter. I remember Nick telling me that I would get to an angry stage and when I get there, I would probably see it in my runs and he was right. I have never broken a 40 minute 5 mile run. I guess since I always am going longer distances and if I am running 5 miles it’s an easy run, I never have tried. But I was on the treadmill one day and I just had a series of “angry songs” that I kept increasing the speed. Though my first mile was a 9 minute, I ended up finishing in under 39 minutes and it felt great. I haven’t just been running, but now I’m more focused on my Triathlons as this year I’m completing a half Ironman. I don’t like to bike, especially on a stationary bike, but I know I need to do it to get the Half Ironman completed. With motivation from David, I’ve picked up my bike workouts. I really like biking and then running, though your legs feel a little wobbly at first on the run it’s like the bike activates your fast twitch fibers and once you work through the awkward transition, you can go faster …Or maybe it’s because I hate the bike so much that I’m just so happy to be on my feet and the freedom takes me away. As I digress, there was a day I biked for 2 hours, then got on the treadmill and decided to see what I could do with a 1 mile run. I managed to run it in 6:50 which started off on the slower end, I am pretty sure I can get that to a 6:30. I have taken a full page to get us through the highlights of the past 4 months (more to come on biking and swimming in a Tri write up…in two weeks), now what about State Number 16?After completing the New Orleans Marathon last year, Rachel J continued to run, with the thoughts and hopes that she would start working on the 50 states goal (4 down). Then, she was hit with a series of little injuries that kept slowing her down. Now I say this with the utmost respect for any of my friends who are doctors or working their way to be doctors: the majority of doctors just plain suck. With my mother’s health history and current health conditions, I think I have every right to make that statement. I fear Rachel J has the same luck as my mom does with doctors, and I hope the bad luck is over. She went back and forth between two doctors which who knows which one to trust but they kept on coming up with 'fixes’ to current injuries but causing other injuries until one of those injuries was a stress fracture in her hip joint (this sounds like I‘m just whining about doctors and not thinking it could have happened to anyone but that‘s because I‘m trying to not get too technical). What this meant? No running for what seemed like a lifetime. She also wasn’t even able to walk without crutches for a long time and her body had to start from scratch with the running. We had plans to run a marathon in Alabama in February 2010, which is postponed for 2011. Instead, Rachel asked me if I would go to St Louis with her and she would run the half while I ran the full. This was her comeback half marathon. Over the summer Alexis and I wanted to make sure Rachel got back on track, and stayed positive, so we managed to get Baby Jesus strategically placed in Rachel’s birthday cupcake.St Louis is about a 4 ½ hour drive from Chicago, we decided we would leave Saturday and come back Sunday. We left around 10am on Saturday, it was a beautiful day and as we drove south it got warmer. Matt is pretty good at chiming in on the girl talk (filling the car with laughter). About halfway we stopped and spent an hour at a Wal-mart. I was in sticker shock and loaded up on throw away shirts. We didn’t get into St Louis until about 3:30. Rachel and I made it to the expo to pick up our race packets. St Louis is filled with weird people, but is actually quite beautiful. The one thing we learned as we were driving to the expo, was it was helly. I was told that St. Louis is pretty flat. LIES all LIES! I think this got me a little nervous, but at least I have been doing hill workouts on the treadmill, and got my share of hill training in on a trip to Charlotte and then back in Wisconsin. Poor Rachel was just trying to retrain herself on the mileage, not thinking about hills.We went to the hotel to get Matt, and we all took a walk to the starting line to check that out, then we walked to a real cute part of St. Louis where the Old Spaghetti Factory is located for dinner. I was thinking we would have an hour wait given the fact the marathon is in town. The wait was going to be 2 hours (other marathoners, bachelorette parties, high school dances, and random large parties of obese people). There was no other decent place to eat around, it was pretty much just bar food joints. We decided to get our food ordered to go, and took it back to the hotel.I was exhausted, so once we finished eating I passed out and the next thing I knew it was 5:00am. We headed to the start around 6:00. It was 50 degrees at this time, which is much warmer than the last few marathons. As we started at 7:00am, the sun was bright and I knew it was going to hit the 70s soon enough. Rachel and I started together, though she didn’t want me to hold myself back for her, and I didn’t want to push her where she burned out too fast. I originally didn’t think this would be a PR state. When I started tapering I felt weak in my runs and got worried I wouldn’t have it in me to PR. However, I got the itch to go fast. Rachel and I ran until about mile 3 where we said “see you later.”I took off and though I had my watch, I wasn’t focusing on the times. I would look at it to see how fast I was going, and I was pleased with the speed, but I figured all the hills would get to me at one point and I’d slow down. I kind of took a new approach to the hills, I decided to charge them rather than slow down. The first 6 miles was beautiful through the downtown, then we managed to make our way towards the campus and through a park. The sun was shining bright and I knew I was working on a great tan. At the halfway mark, I was dead even to get a 3:40 marathon. BUT I wasn’t focusing on Boston, or a PR for that matter, the last 3 marathons were all in the 1:40s for the first half but the 2nd halves were slower. My “charge the hills” approach worked until mile 14. From mile 14 to 15 we had what started off as a steady and long incline followed by a steeper incline. Rachel can back me when I say the first half was pretty helly but it didn’t stop there. The fun continued almost nonstop for the whole time. I talked to some nice people, a lot of first timers. Every time I mentioned I was on marathon number 17 (or state number 16), I felt like I had a duty to show them how to do it right (and not burn out). So after chatting for awhile and me feeling like I was reenergized from our chats, I would tell them “have a nice run!” and take off. The goal here, or motivation, was, don’t let them pass you (meaning don’t slow down). I talked to these two guys, who lived in St Louis, they told me the final hill would be at this under pass, and we would have 4 miles of straight away to the finish. I was skeptical since I knew where we came from had a lot of ups and down, but I wanted to believe them. From mile 20.5 to 22.5 we had flat roads. In this time I met a Team DetermiNation runner (ACS), this was his 2nd marathon. When we hit the hill (that I was told was the final), I parted with him and charged the hill. At about mile 24.5 (on ANOTHER up), the ACS guy was behind me saying “come on 17th Marathon Girl, I’m doing this in 3:40 do it with me! I am doing my best to enjoy my marathons and NOT focus on time, but always in the back of my mind I want Boston. I figure Fargo is Flat, I would stress it there, but I wasn’t stressing it here. When he said those magic words, I thought, I COULD DO IT! He then told me he had 12 minutes to make it and though he passed, I kept him in eye shot- we had to finish at under an 8 minute mile, and though it seemed crazy- I thought, why not push and see how close I could get. As we got to the top of the final hill we were just past mile 25, someone shouted it was down hill from here, and I turned to give them a thumbs up when I tripped over my foot- and of course got a shooting cramp. Up until this moment I never stopped, but I had to take 2 steps to shake it out, and I was back on my way. With .1 mile left, I saw Rachel and Matt. I got another one of those bad cramps…Kathleen demonstrates how this looks in a video at Philly, I fought through the cramp and my last 30 seconds finished the marathon with a kick. Finishing in 3:43 gives me a new PR by 4 minutes, but knowing I just need 3:40:59 for Boston, well, it’s Bittersweet. It was a hot run, a helly run but a beautiful run, a strong run. When I finished, I kept my shades on as I started to cry. I can’t explain why I was crying- it was a stream of emotions, I don’t know if I was happy for the PR or disappointed for those 2 minutes (Was the finish a sweet dream? Or a beautiful nightmare?). My watch read 26.45 miles. I know I weaved through people and the satellites can be off, but the average minute per mile was 8:26 on my watch- Boston Qualifying time. Being so close is nerve wracking. I could get it in Fargo, but what if I’m not having an on day - I don’t want another Philly marathon where I’m beating myself up on the run so much I forget about my Love for running. Boston- my battle to win you over is to be continued - you are currently a beautiful nightmare.
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