Worst.Race.Ever.

Hey hey hey! Sorry that it’s been so long! December has been truly crazy for me and my family. My Christmas Cookie fundraising campaign was apparently a great idea, because I ended up making 20 dozen cookies, and made $800 for the Doug Flutie Foundation for Autism! I’ve now raised over $6500! Just $3500 away from my fundraising goal of $10K. Whoop whoop! I’ve been overwhelmed by everyone’s support for my cause. I can’t wait to see what the next 3.5 months hold!

The cookies - yes I made 20 dozen of these...

Oh, 3.5 months…only 3.5 months until the Boston Marathon! So far, the training side of things has also been going well. I’m feeling healthy and strong, and thanks to my cross training and track workouts, I’m running faster and longer every week!

In other news, my vegetarian diet is also going well, and I survived the holiday season sans wine and seasonal cocktails. Only three days until the GAC Fat Ass 50K! Getting to Saturday’s race on a vegetarian diet and sans alcohol, for the last six weeks, was my goal. But you know what? I like the vegetarian diet so much, I’m not planning on stopping. I’m going to run the Boston Marathon fueled by plant power! But, I WILL be drinking wine at dinner with the hubs Saturday night after the race. I mean, let’s be serious, I can only do so much.

In preparing for the 50K race, I decided to kick off a runathon. I’ve been asking friends, family, and you know, perfect strangers, to pledge a dollar amount per mile I can run on Saturday. This race is perfectly suited for such shenanigans, because it’s a 10K loop runners can complete anywhere from one to five times, so I can decide in the moment how many miles I will run! My goal is to raise $20 per mile, and I’m up to $12 as of today! 

In honor of the runathon, I thought it would be fun to reflect on my best race memories. But you know, when it comes to racing, you really can’t reflect without thinking of the worst memories too. Because those are the races you really learn from. And honestly, so far, I’ve had a LOT more bad memories in races than good memories. Until recently, I have been a runner who loved training and running on my own, and didn’t really thrive in a race environment. The reason for this really boils down to one thing: I care too much about what others think of me, and put too much pressure on myself to compete with others, instead of just running my own race, and reaching for my own goals. I’m hoping to continue to change this in the future.

Through my running, improving upon this weakness - strengthening my mind, my self confidence, and my self esteem as a woman sometimes feels more empowering than the improvement in my physical strength and my body that I see as a runner.

So in this post I will tell the story of my worst race experience. Don’t worry - next week I’ll tell you about the best race I’ve run, but let’s talk about the interesting stuff first, shall we? 

Ok so my worst race. Get ready for it. The Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vermont. Yep. My first marathon, and Boston 2019 will be my second. I really enjoyed training for Vermont City, as I enjoy training for all my races. I’m an introvert so I actually like the solitude of running alone. I do like running with groups sometimes, but not for every run. I love to have time alone to think, and the long runs gave me that. As a mother of two little kids, time alone isn’t something I have in abundance. 

Obligatory night before the race Instagram post. People like seeing your clothes before they look gross I guess...

But throughout the training, I was plagued with injuries. I was constantly trying to stave off another piriformis injury (it was originally injured while training for the Wicked Half in September 2018) by stretching and strengthening, but I could tell the muscle was about to yell uncle. I also developed achilles tendonitis. Luckily I was able to continue running, and did a regimen of reverse calf drops to strengthen the muscles and tendons, and the injury rehabbed. But about a month before the marathon, I developed a nagging calf injury in my left leg. I had been seeing a chiropractor throughout my training, and he recommended I see a physical therapist. He sent me to the fabulous Heather Burke (https://positiveoutcomept.com/), who definitely helped a lot and worked wonders on the injury. However, two weeks before the marathon, she recommended I stop running and rest the muscle. According to Heather, I’d put in all the miles for the last 18 weeks, and during my two week taper period, if I just rested I would still be able to run the 26.2 miles. So I rested. It was torture. I walked, and I swam. Heather also told me she felt I had been running too much during my training - I was running five days a week, which was too much for a beginner like myself. Before I started training for the marathon, I had always cross trained a great deal, but once I started logging so many miles, my cross training fell off, and my body actually felt weaker in some ways than before. I knew Heather was right - damned hind sight being 20/20 and all…

Finally race day arrived. I was very nervous, but tried to stay positive. Based on my most recent runs, I hoped that if I could just get through the first 3-5 miles and my calf warmed up, I would then be able to hit my stride and finish the race.

By a quarter mile in, I was in real pain. I remember thinking, it’s only been a few minutes and I’m already going to have to quit! But I stopped and stretched, ran a little, stopped and stretched. It was a smart strategy, but I beat myself up about it every time I stopped, and worried about all the runners passing me. By half a mile, I couldn’t bend my left leg and was starting to semi-drag it along beside me as I ran. I remember the sound of my foot smacking the pavement in an odd rhythmic way. I couldn’t pick it up in my usual way and set it back down, so it just kind of smacked along. I kept going, hanging on to the hope that it would warm up and I’d be ok. And then, it did warm up, and it did start to feel ok. At about six miles, I started to feel great. I felt so grateful, and just happy to be running. I ran down the Vermont highway, all the way down and then back again, and then back into downtown Burlington. At eight miles I saw my family - my husband, little girl, son, and my sister Kimberley and her fiancé Mike. They were all so happy and cheering, and so was I!

The best part of the worst race - mile 8 in downtown Burlington, when I saw my family for the first time.

My app updated me regularly of my predicted finish time. I was very pleased to hear I was on pace for a four hour finish. I was feeling good, and really enjoying myself. But one thing I learned about marathons, is that it’s a journey. You can experience the highest of highs, and the lowest and lows. At 13.1 miles, the halfway mark, some of the runners veered to the left to pass the baton to their team mates, as Vermont City was also a relay race. I, however, had to veer right to do the whole damned thing over again. It was a significant hit to my psyche. 

I knew that mile 15 was a massive hill. The stuff of legend. A mile long uphill through downtown Burlington. Instead of using the beating drums and the roaring crowds to power my mind though the challenge, I let that hill beat me. I fixated on the physical aspect of it, instead of realizing it was a mental challenge. And by doing that, my mind was defeated. All I thought about was the runners passing me on that hill. Once I finished the physical torment of climbing it, I felt completely defeated. At that point, my race was done. If I wasn’t so terribly stubborn, I would have given up then. I remember turning left and into the neighborhoods of Burlington, and just feeling angry to still be running. Now, in hindsight, I know that it was all in my head. I really was more than capable of finishing the race. But instead of trying to think positively, I allowed myself to be drawn down into that dark place you can find yourself in on a long run. My pace began to get slower and slower, my predicted finish time stretching further and further away. 

After the neighborhoods, we hit the 20 mile mark on a bike trail through the woods outside Burlington, along Lake Champlain. It was beautiful. I remember seeing a labrador playing in the lake with its owner watching, and I was so mad at that dog. And I LOVE dogs. I was mad at everybody. It was bad. That bike path lasted for 6 miles. 6 miles of black pavement with a yellow line in the middle. Easily the longest six miles of my freaking life. I remember hitting 26 miles and feeling like the prospect of running another .2 was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. I saw my family at the finish, as if I was looking into a foggy mirror. Afterwards, Kimberley told me my eyes looked relieved, yet haunted. I did feel like I was in a hell. But now I know that it was a hell of my own mind’s making.

I crossed the finish line at 5:11, and someone gave me one of those cool silver capes. That made me feel a little better. Then there were a few women handing out medals. The first one said something to me. I could just see her mouth moving but couldn’t understand her. She repeated herself, and I heard “Are you whole?” I was confused, but looked down at my body, and was relieved to see I was. I said to her, “um, yeah.”  After the fact, I realized she had said “The whole?” as in the whole marathon as opposed to the half. At least I got the right damned medal… 

For days afterwards I was so sore and tired that all I could think about was recovering. Many people said to me, “well that’s a bucket list item you can check off.” But even then, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t feel that it was one and done for me. I think I knew I could do better, and I wanted the chance. Afterwards, I realized that I had overtrained. I spent too much time running and not enough time cross training. And, I had let my negative thoughts, my self consciousness, and my anxiety conquer me. I knew what I need to do. What the real bucket list item was. I needed to do better, and I needed to do it in Boston.