March 26, 2022 – I set a new marathon and half marathon PR. Woo hoo!

Training leading up to the race

Since I’m several weeks (ok, 2.5 months) behind on my weekly blog posts, I thought I’d briefly cover the long runs I have been doing leading up to this race (I will eventually catch up with the weekly and monthly blogs). I signed up for this marathon in late January, and I decided as long as I could get in two 16 mile runs and one 18 mile run in the next two months, “I would be fine”. (This is what I did before the Ohio River Road Runner’s Virtual Marathon in October 2020, which was my least prepared for marathon, where I ran one of my fastest marathon times, self supported.)

My long runs since January 1st have looked like this:

Janury 2, 2022 – 10 miles at 10:05 per mile

January 8, 2022 – 10 miles at 10:34 per mile

January 14, 2022 – 10.5 miles at 9:54 per mile

January 17, 2022 – 10 miles at 10:05 per mile

January 22, 2022 – 16 miles at 10:02 per mile

January 28, 2022 – 10 miles at 9:47 per mile

February 5, 2022 – 16 miles at 10:17 per mile

February 12, 2022 – 17 miles at 9:20 per mile

Somewhere between here and the next one, I “injured” my left tibia by running in new Skechers running shoes (twice) that were not good for me. So every run after this point is with varying levels of “mild” tibia pain. (And I clearly skipped a long run one week because of the tibia pain, which was probably moderate pain but I was in denial about it at the time.)

February 26, 2022 – 18 miles at 10:47 per mile

March 3, 2022 – 10 miles at 10:23 per mile

March 12, 2022 – 15 miles at 10:20 per mile

Including long run miles, I was probably averaging around 40-45 miles per week, which is considerably lower than a normal marathon training block for me, but I’m also working full time now (which is clearly more than a 40 hour work week for me). As you can see, there are no long runs over 18 miles, which is a risk that I won’t know what it feels like to go past that uncomfortable feeling. I felt “underprepared” going into this marathon, especially since I have not specifically trained for a hilly marathon. I’ve also been doing long runs at a much faster pace than any of my previous marathons, so this put pressure on me to try to beat my previous PR (of 5:02:20 official from Manchester 2012, or 4:56:33 unofficial from ORRRC Virtual Marathon in October 2020). In hindsight, I might benefit from following a marathon training plan instead of my current “do whatever I feel like and hope for the best” marathon training plan.

Pre-marathon freakout

In the long standing tradition of completely losing my mind in the the lead-up to the marathon (please see Fire Alarm in hotel before the Flying Pig Marathon in 2019 , Parking nightmare before the Air Force Marathon in 2019, and my GPS watch did not charge the night before the first virtual marathon of 2020) my pre-marathon jitters started on Thursday night (36 hours before the marathon), when my left and right calf muscles took turns cramping up. This was excruciatingly painful, and it is almost always caused by electrolyte deficiency for me, and I know this, and yet, I went to bed without taking any electrolytes (because I am an idiot?).

The day before the race, I left work early (2:30pm) because my parents were coming in to town for the race, and then I proceeded to have a massive headache which lasted until I gave in and took some tylenol at about 9:30 at night. This is probably because I was dehydrated on Thursday (calf cramp night) and still dehydrated on Friday (night before the marathon). I could barely eat dinner, and I forced myself to eat a bowl of cereal to “carbo” load. (I am not someone who shies away from taking medication when needed, but for some reason I haven’t taken any ibuprofen for the tibia pain or any tylenol in months. I don’t get headaches that frequently these days, and when I do, I start to worry about the worst possible causes and not the fact that I am probably just dehydrated, or stressed, or both.) I took in a massive quantity of electrolytes on Friday, knowing I have a race the next day and was quite possibly very dehydrated the night before. I do not know how or why I was so dehydrated/electrolytes were off, I take in water with electrolytes mixed in every single run I do, except for the very rare occasion where I forge to bring water (which has happened maybe twice so far in 2022.

The morning of the race, the headache was thankfully gone, and I was so relieved that I would be starting this race without my head feeling like it wanted to explode. I was feeling nauseous and I had to force down my normal bowl of oatmeal. The race started at 9 am, with bib number and t-shirt pickup from 7-8:30 am. There are only about 380 people total running the half and the full, so I left my apartment at 7:20 am, got to the race site at 7:45 am, and had my bib before 8 am. I sat in the car for the next 45 minutes, with one trip to the port-o-potty at 8:30am when I saw the line, which was snaking right behind my car, start to get long. Despite my stomach feeling off on my morning run 24 hours before this race, I assumed I would have zero bathroom problems during the run and I was right.

At about 8:50 am, I started to make my way to the start line – the pleasure of a very small race is that there aren’t long lines (except for the port-o-potties) and getting in line to run is not a problem. I brought 4 bottles of water with Gatorade electrolyte powder mixed in, one in my hand, the other three shoved into the back of my running vest which I decided to wear. (Each bottle has approximately 3X “servings” of Gatorade, which I think is something like 80 sugar calories in addition to electrolytes per serving. This is my fueling strategy for the race. Despite the added weight, this is possibly the smartest decision of the day for me. I had done my long runs carrying extra bottles like this in my running vest, and I know that having a ton of electrolytes during a long run has been very beneficial to my ability to continue running without cramping up. I’m also incredibly sensitive to electrolyte problems (see calf cramps and headaches from earlier in this blog post). (Also, please see ORRRC 2020 Virtual marathon for the previous time I’ve used this strategy.)

Savin Rock Marathon

Savin Rock, pronounced like “Havin’ ” and not like “Haven”, is in West Haven, Connecticut. The race goes along the Long Island Sound for about 1/3 of the course, and in residential and commercial streets of West Haven for 2/3 of the course. The loop is 13.1 miles long, so for the full marathon, I ran two loops. The middle 5 miles of the loop involve 5 large hills, which according to my Coros Pace 2 watchmadded up to 1,444 feet when repeated twice, which is pretty darn hilly for me for a marathon.

As per my normal reaction to running any race in person, I started out way too fast, at about a 9:20 minute per mile pace. I then proceeded to hold on to that pace for the first 13.1 miles, which is ridiculous, because I know this pace is not sustainable for a whole marathon, but clearly I was delusional from the start of this race. About 2 miles in, I realized I had my second T3 tablet still in my pocket (Active thyroid hormone, which I normally take around noon, but can take anytime throughout the day, it is short lived and I took the first dose at 6 am), so I took it. I’m not sure if it actually helped in any way, but I struggle to get my heart rate up even on hard efforts and I have a feeling this is hypothyroidism related, so I don’t think it hurt.

The first four miles were very flat and very fast for me, and around mile 5 things started to get hilly. I made the mistake of running up all but one of the hilly sections of the first loop, but while this was happening, I kept telling myself that it’s ok if I walk these hills on the second loop. In hindsight, I might have saved my legs if I had walked all the hills both loops.

I have no idea how I was able to maintain a blistering (for me) fast pace for the first half, but I ended up setting a new half marathon PR of 2:04:20, which beats my previous half PR of 2:06:26 from August 29, 2009, by over two minutes. This is a PR I have been trying to beat for years, and did not imagine it would fall today, but it did. I started to get emotional crossing the finish line for the first loop realizing I finally beat my half PR, but I pulled back my emotions because I had what was about to be an incredibly challenging second half of the run coming up.

I called my parents to let them know I had finished the half, and let them know I was about two miles away from the Bird Sanctuary they wanted to see me at on the second half. (They were still driving, but made it with about two minutes to spare). By the time I passed them at about mile 15, my pace had slowed down to a much more reasonable 10 minutes per mile, but even then I could tell the second half was about to be a very painful struggle to keep moving forward.

The second round of hills was grueling, and I quickly put into place a “walk up anything more than a very gradual uphill” plan. This is also when things started to heat up, temperature-wise. The race started cold and overcast and in the mid-40s, and I had on shorts and a long sleeve tee. By the second loop. the sun was out, it was in the 50s, and I wished I had on a t-shirt or tank, but I was stuck with long sleeves on (I could have run in a sports bra, but I only put sunscreen on half my arms and I wasn’t willing to risk the unprotected skin sun exposure). I was losing a lot of fluids in sweat, and while there were 4 fluid stops every loop. I tried the Gatorade at the stops and it tasted watered down. I’m not sure if that’s because I routinely add at least three servings of Gatorade powder to one 16.9 oz (500 ml) water bottle, or if it was actually watered down, but I’ve never been happier to have brought 4 bottles full of electrolytes with me on a run. I needed it so badly for this race, and had it with me.

Lots of walking in miles 17-22, and everyone around me seemed to be doing the same thing, walking up hills, so slogging the downhills and flat sections.

At mile 20, I noticed my shoes were feeling tighter, which happened to me in the Flying Pig Marathon around mile 17, and is a sure sign my feet are swelling. I decided not to stop and loosen the laces because I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to get myself moving again after stopping.

Mile 24 onwards, it was mostly flat (partly slight incline), running along the water. I was struggling after slowing way down and barely surviving the hilly section for the second time, but I ended up doing the last three miles at about a 10:19 minute per mile of faster pace. I passed a bunch of people do a run-walk strategy in the last three miles, and from my race results online, I went from 70 overall at the start of lap two to 67 overall at 19.6 miles (halfway through lap two, halfway through the second hilly section) to 61 overall by the end, out of about 129 people total.

It’s hard to put into words just how grueling the second half of this run was. Maybe because I knew what was about to come. Maybe because the first round of hills took so much out of my legs and I was struggling. I was comforted by the fact that almost everyone running near me, at my pace, which is much faster than any marathon pace I’ve ever run before, everyone else was also struggling just as much as me, if not more. A hilly marathon, especially with two rounds of big hills, is not easy. Mentally knowing those hills were still to come, was not easy. Getting up and over the hills for a second time around, was not easy. Nothing about running marathons is easy, and part of the nerves before the race comes from knowing this and still choosing to show up at the start line.

I attribute my ability to keep running towards the end while many around me were struggling with a run walk strategy, to the fact that I brought a ton of electrolytes with me and I was consuming them throughout the race. I felt my right calf start to cramp up on the last mile but I managed to keep it from going into an all out spasm. I’ve cramped up on many a marathon, and I’m so very proud of myself for using my instincts and knowing what my body needs and making sure I had that with me, strapped to my back, for this marathon.

I knew I have a very good chance of beating my marathon PR on this run, since most of my training runs had been faster than my previous marathon PR pace, but that also put pressure on me to try to beat that time and probably made me more anxious than when I go in with zero expectations. It is still a daunting distance, and I absolutely wanted to quit running from about mile 17 onwards. I could already tell the second half would be a struggle by about 13.2 miles.

I’m very proud of myself that I kept going, even when things got very tough. Running marathons is probably the second hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It’s not for bragging rights, it’s not for anyone else, it is something I do for me, to continue to convince myself that I can do hard things. That I am capable of more than what I think I am. That I am strong and tough and keep going even when every fiber in my being tells me to stop. It is also 100% the reason why I had the courage to apply for the job that I have now. Returning to work, and very specifically applying for a job in a field that I love and never wanted to leave in the first place, that is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. Running pushes me to continue to do hard things in other parts of my life.

I must have passed three or four people in the last mile, and by that point I was running on adrenaline alone, just to get over the finish line. With such a small race, there wasn’t much fanfare at the finish, but I was immediately handed a pilsner glass for coming in third in my age group (3/6 for females 40-44 – I will take it). Supposedly there were bananas and bagels, but I didn’t see any, and I got in my car with my mom and drove back to my apartment, hoping my ability to drive was unaffected by running a marathon and wanting to get home and shower and put my legs up.

I set a 40 minute PR, and I’m extremely happy with this time, but I also see room for improvement. Maybe if I had done more weekly mileage, more long runs at marathon pace, started out a little slower, maybe I could have hung on at a faster pace for longer (although, thinking about it, 10:08 per mile is still a very fast marathon pace for me, especially on a hilly course).

I struggled to get up off the couch for several hours after the race, but managed to go to an Indian restaurant for dinner with my parents and some of their Connecticut friends.

During this race, I thought about maybe not doing a second marathon this year, a marathon takes so much out of me and it is so difficult, especially the very long stretch where I always want to quit and lie down somewhere, but my parents’ friends suggested I do another Connecticut marathon in October, which is tempting, since that is a long ways off right now, and I fully intent to maintain an endurance base.

Final thoughts

I set a new marathon and half marathon PR on this race today, which is fantastic. I’m 3/4 of the way done with my New Year, New Running Goals 2022 goal 1 of setting new PRs in the 5K, 10K, half, and marathon distances. I have not found any 10Ks to sign up for, and while I can always try to do a 10K PR on a training run, I would like an official 10K PR.

I’m over the moon thrilled with how well I did in this race, but I am hungry for more. I want to continue to work on improving my speed. I want to work at getting faster at shorter distances. I want to work at getting faster at longer distances. My motivation is back, both for running and for everything else in my life, which makes me so happy to see my old self coming back, piece by piece.