On Saturday, May 5, 2018 I ran my second full marathon...26.2 miles! I remember my very first full marathon just 8 months ago back in September and I remember telling myself that I was never going to do another one. That that distance wasn't cut out for me. Here I am in 2018 and I signed up for two, Wisconsin and Chicago.
I was excited and nervous to be doing another marathon since I knew exactly how miserable I was during my first one. I was ready to redeem myself and put forth more effort in training. I was a little nervous to be doing a spring marathon because that means most of my training would be done on the treadmill, which I am not a huge fan of! The marathon was in a small city about an hour north of Chicago right along Lake Michigan, called Kenosha.
Training this time around went much better! I added in speed and tempo workouts and hit nearly every run for about 12 weeks! I also incorporated Fitbody Bootcamp sessions into my schedule! Right before my half marathon in March, my leg started hurting after my long run. I knew I was in trouble. Long story short, it made my training extremely painful the next month and I had to miss a lot of runs. I wasn't so sure I was going to be running my marathon. But since I am so stubborn, I had to make sure I made it to the start line.
Since the race was on a Saturday, I decided to take Friday off of work and head up early with my best friend, Mary. We brought both of our little girls and took the 4 hour road trip together. It was so much fun to catch up and the girls loved chatting away too. Our husbands came up later that night around 10:00pm. When we got to Kenosha, we checked into our hotel and decided to walk to the Museum to grab our bibs. Since it is a smaller race, there wasn't an expo. After we picked up our bibs, we grabbed some Italian food at a cute little restaurant across the street from our hotel. I loved how everything was walking distance and the weather was beautiful!
Mary and I put the girls to bed and we had to go get all of our things together in the bathroom for the race so we could see! We checked out the weather and it was supposed to warm, high 70s and 75% humidity. I had to plan to bring a lot of fuel to keep me moving!
We woke up race morning around 5am, got ready and headed down to grab some breakfast. As most of you know, I have have been struggling with a pretty painful injury, so I didn't exactly know how this race would go since my training went downhill 3-4 weeks prior to race day. I didn't even think I was going to make it to the starting line. My husband put KT all over my leg and I took some Ibuprofen. I was feeling great and ready to go!
We walked down to the start, hit up the porta potty, and went to the start line. My friend Mary insisted on running with me so I let her, but truly wanted her to go ahead and run her race! I didn't want to slow her down. Once we started the race, I was feeling good. Miles 1-6 I was averaging around a 9:30 pace. That was PERFECT. The only problem was, it was getting hot and it was getting hot fast. At mile 7, yes I said 7, I was already struggling with the heat, bad. It was like I just ran into a sauna and shut down. I was only at mile 7 and I had hit the wall. I don't even know if that was possible. My legs were feeling fine, it was the heat, the no clouds, the no shade, and the humidity that got to me. I told my friend Mary to go ahead because I needed to slow down.
Miles 7-26.2...were miserable. I quite honestly don't even know how I made it. I saw my husband at mile 10 and told him I was going to stop at the half marathon finish because I couldn't do it, I was so hot and my hands were so swollen. I got to the halfway point and decided to keep going because I knew I would never forgive myself if I quit. My pace was literally a walk/run for the remainder of the marathon. I was struggling so bad. I was fueling every 4 miles, taking water and Gaterade at EVERY aid station so I really don't know what happened. I was so upset with myself, discouraged, and felt like a complete failure. I had trained for a 4 hour marathon and I was no where near finishing that. To make things even better at mile 15 I literally got shit on by a bird! I was mad at first, but then had to just laugh about it because well, why not?? When we got to mile oh say maybe 17, it was DIRT ROADS until around mile 23! This I did not know was a part of the race. I literally felt like I was walking on the Sahara Desert, and I didn't know when it was going to end.
FINALLY, I somehow managed to make it to the finish line and I have never in my life been more excited and upset all at the same time. This race was supposed to be the race that I got a HUGE PR. I got 4 minutes of a PR. Yes, I'm excited I finished and it's such a huge accomplishment, but I had set high goals for myself, and I was no where near it. I was a mess very early on. I think many factors played into why I fell apart so early; hot weather, no shade, humidity, dirt roads, no cloud, injured leg for weeks, etc. The good news is, I WILL BE BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER for my next marathon in October!
So you might be asking what's next for me? Well, I am still recovering from the many blisters and sore legs. I am hoping in the next few days I can start running again. I have a 10k at the end of May, many half marathons lined up, and Chicago training starts on June 3. I have more big goals for my third marathon and hoping that with a new training schedule and talking to many runners on Instagram, that I can have a more successful marathon in Chicago!
