Nike Women's Marathon - October 19, 2008, San Francisco

My first marathon is over, and I'm a proud finisher. I did it!

My time was much slower than I was hoping for, but I offer no excuses. It was just not a fast day for me. All the same, I raced the best that I could, and finished just barely under 5 hours, at 4:59:49. I told Steve on the phone yesterday that I would be disappointed with this time, and in some ways I am, but in other ways I am not. I feel that I did the best race I could do today, and I managed to get under 5 hours despite some tough circumstances, pushing hard at the end to make it, and giving it my all throughout. Yes, I might have been faster on another day in another place, but today, this was a good race, and a good time for me.

And now, I am a MARATHONER!!!

So, now a blow-by-blow for those who are interested. Loren and I met my teammates in the hotel lobby at 5:45 am to walk to the race start. Once there, we took advantage of the plentiful port-a-potties and then had about 45 min to kill until race time. We gawked at the crowds, tried to stay warm (it was chilly when you weren't moving, at 52 degrees (11C)!), and chatted with each other and Coach Dave.

The gun went off, but we couldn't hear it w/the huge crowd. We were in the 10-12 minute/mile starting corral, and it took us 13 minutes to get to the start! That's a LOT of people. Once we crossed the start, we were up to speed amazingly quickly, though the sheer number of runners still prevented us from going more than an 11:15 mile for the first mile or so (which was a good thing since I wanted to start conservatively). My heart rate was surprisingly high for this pace (140-145), but I chalked it up to adrenaline. However, when we completed miles 2, 3, and 4 at the same pace with the same HR, I realized that I was possibly going to have a slowish race today. I'm not sure why, because I was very well-trained, and my training walks all went much faster at the same HR, and I also had the advantage of training at 4300 feet for a race at sea level. Weird. Mile 5 had a pretty good hill, and I was feeling a bit sluggish, so I took my first gel about 55 min into the race. That perked me up and I felt pretty good but miles 6-10 had hills. LOTS of big hills. UP a lot, down a little, UP a lot, down a little, and UP some more. Whew. Oh, and we had a 3 min potty stop at mile 6 or so (2 min waiting in line - women just are not too speedy, and the race was all women, so there were long lines until about mile 8 - I would have waited longer had I known that the lines got much shorter; oh well). My heart rate was very high for a lot of this part of the race (150s), and I probably should have taken it a little easier, but I was wanting to stay with my runner teammate (good company) and I was nervous about my slow pace. The sheer number of runners did slow the pace considerably in many places, especially going up the hills when the slower walkers did not move to the right (grrrr!).

After mile 10, things got easier, course-wise. Mile 10-11 was a nice big downhill to the Great Highway and then a left into Golden Gate Park. There was another hill in the park - very long, but relatively gentle, from miles 11-13.5 or so. Though it was gentle, it did challenge me mentally, so I told my iPod to play my power song. I had made a recording of myself reading my supporters' well-wishes from my TNT web page, and made that my power song. It REALLY helped SO much (in fact, I listened to this at least 3 times during the race, and each time it motivated me a lot). I thought of my dad a lot, and why I was doing this race, and each time it stirred me to dig deeper.

My half marathon split was in the neighborhood of 2:22 or 2:24, so I knew that making 4:45 for the whole race (my goal coming into today) might be tough. I knew that I had gone out a bit hard for miles 6-10, so negative splits would be very difficult to achieve, so I figured this was going to be a challenging finish. It was. The good side of this is that at least my GI system behaved itself - I had one minor cramp at about 2:38 into the race, and then no trouble at all for the rest of the time!

Loren and his mom and aunt were supposed to meet me at mile 11.25 or so, but their shuttle was slow and they didn't make it. He texted me that he couldn't be there and would see me at mile 16. At mile 16, I didn't see him, and got a bit stressed. I called him and the connection was terrible. I went to about 16.2 (or more?) and didn't see him and knew it wasn't good. Coach Dave was with me from about mile 15.8 to this point, and he asked me if I wanted him to talk to Loren (I was shouting at Loren because I couldn't hear and was distressed and stressed out); relieved, I handed him the phone and he sorted it out and told Loren and his mom that we'd come back a little but they should move toward us. I felt I really had to backtrack to see his mom & aunt because they had driven 3 hours to see me in the race and had missed me at mile 11. So I went back to mile 16, and no one was there. I stood by the sign and called Loren again, and Dave came up and told me he had found them, a little further on (about 16.1). I continued on and to my great relief, I found them! Yay! It was great to see all of them, even though I was dismayed at the loss of time (no excuses, though! I chose to go back!). I probably lost 5 min or so, but oh well. I was SO grateful to Coach Dave for his help - he went above and beyond the call of duty today.

I kept on going, and fortuitously, at mile 16.5 or so, I ran into my teammate Shawna. I was glad to see her, and it wouldn't have happened had I not backtracked, so it was good in a weird sort of way. Her knees were very painful (IT band problems) and I hope I encouraged her a little. It was good to see her, but about mile 17.5 she had to walk slowly because of her knees and we wished each other good luck and I continued on.

This is where the race started to get a bit painful. It was chilly with a headwind, and though my body, arms, and legs were OK, my hands were pretty cold. I had given Coach Diane my gloves because she didn't have hers (not sure why now) and I didn't think I'd need them (the race weather, overcast and low to upper 50s, with a light-moderate wind, was actually great and not a factor for me overall). I didn't miss the gloves much, until this point, and had I had them, I would have given them to Loren at mile 16 anyway. The real problem, though, was that I was getting tired. My legs were fatiguing, but I kept pushing on, though not too hard since I knew I still had 9 miles to go. My heart rate for this flat part was about 145 most of the time. The ocean view was nicer than I thought & I was able to see it a lot of the time despite the sand dunes between the road and the beach. That was motivating, but it was still kind of a dull stretch of the race from here to the finish.

Going around Lake Merced was tough. When I got to mile 20, I knew I only had 10k to go and tried to pick the pace up a bit. I passed some teammates who were early start (slower) walkers, and that encouraged me to see them. I was pretty uncomfortable but knew I could push it a bit. I had to focus a lot and it was hard to think and grit it out through the discomfort. I paid attention to every milestone and just kept going, relentlessly. Loren texted me two encouraging messages during this part of the race, and that helped to keep me going. About mile 23 I knew there was just a little over 5k to go, so I kept thinking "only 5K - you can do this", and I sped up to where my heart rate was in the mid-150s. It was a little discouraging to see the clock, though - it was at 4:38 when I reached mile 23 (which minus the 13 minutes it took me to get to the start was 4:25). I knew it would be tough to do that last 5k in 35 minutes. Normally an easy 5K takes me about 32:30 w/HR of 135-140, but at the end of the marathon, at HR of 155ish, I figured that 35 min was pushing it. This was a little bit of a surprise, because in my 22-miler I finished very strong, with the last 5k pretty fast (not sure how fast, but I know it was lots faster than 35 min).

But today it was not meant to be. I had several other problems during the race: 1) starting at mile 11 I had pain in the back of my R knee when fully extended; I've had this before but not usually until the very end of my longer walks, and 2) surprisingly, I had some exercise-induced asthma. I have experienced the latter a few times (maybe 3-4?) in my life, but never while racewalking. I'm not sure why this happened today. Maybe the humidity here? Maybe the anxiety about the race (but I've been more anxious about other races!)? I have no idea, but starting about mile 16 or so, I had some trouble. When I took it easier from miles 16-20ish, it wasn't so bad, but at the finish (miles 24-26.2) when I was really pushing to finish under 5 hours, it got pretty bad.

Continuing my story, miles 23-24 were tough. I was pushing hard, my R knee hurt, and my legs were quite fatigued. I knew I could do it, though, so I just kept going. The asthma really started kicking in and I had to back off a little, but I saw Coach Diane about mile 25 and she ran alongside me. She listened to me tell her how I was (tired, wheezy, and pushing to get under 5 hrs) and she just accompanied me, mostly in silence. It was SO good to have her company, even though she didn't say much. I truly appreciated her presence with me. At one point, I got very wheezy and she told me to breathe from my abdomen. I couldn't. It just would NOT work that way. I had to slow a bit, but when it eased, I continued pushing for the finish. She left me in sight of the finish (0.3 miles?) and within 0.1 mile, Coach Dave saw me and ran in with me; he was very encouraging as well. I drove so hard to that finish, and I really gave it my all. I don't really see how I could have given more this race. I'm not even sure I would change things if I had to do it again - I know I pushed too hard in the early-middle miles, but even in hindsight it seems like that was necessary in some ways.

I digress. The finish was beautiful. Even though the clock said 5:13:11 or something like that (which minus 13:00 is still a bit over 5 hrs, which disappointed me) I was SO GLAD TO BE DONE. After crossing the finish, the tuxedo-clad firemen extended Tiffany boxes at me - in fact about 3 of them. I had to pick which one to take the box from! They were all very attractive so it was quite fun to have them "fighting" for the honor of handing me the box :). After choosing a box, I had the chip cut off my shoe, got a warming foil blanket thingy, got my T-shirt, and picked up a Jamba Juice smoothie (the only thing that really looked good to me!). I checked in at the TNT tent, got my 26.2 pin from them, and then found Loren and his mom & aunt. We had fun opening the Tiffany box, catching up on the day's happenings, and enjoying the post-race atmosphere.

I then caught sight of the results tent, and decided to see if I could find out my chip time. I got on the computer there, and was delighted to see that it was 4:59:49!!! I had made it! All that pushing had paid off!

I didn't get very emotional at the finish, even though I thought I might. I was just relieved to have done it, even though I was a bit disappointed in my speed. All the same, I was proud of the way I conquered some adverse conditions by mental toughness, and of the way I pushed at the end and finished under 5 hrs.

Thank you to all my supporters for your encouraging words on the TNT web page that got me through the tough patches, and thanks for the many e-mails and prayers and other forms of support. I feel very loved!

P.S. The rest of the day was fun, too - Loren's mom and aunt took us to a late lunch/early dinner at Fisherman's Wharf. Yum! Since then I've been relaxing and working on my photos and this blog.

P.P.S. There are pictures of the race on the next few posts - if you click "Tammy's Tidbits" at the top and scroll down you can see them.