Monday, April 2, 2012

Trailbreaker Marathon 2012

Marathon number one for the Year is over. The week before the race training went good. We had a great Saturday morning 15 Mile run - starting at my house, and going into Sandwich and looping back into Plano down river road. 9 of use met at my house at 5:30am because Debi had to work early. Pretty good turn out for such a early Saturday run. Everyone had a really good run, the weather was good... Pretty much felt good the whole time. Loved having such a big group. On Thursday I started eating lots
 of carbs. I got this HUGE to go thing of pancakes from a place down the street from work - that was lunch Thursday and and Friday. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday AND Saturday I had some sort of pasta for dinner. I'm sick of pasta and pancakes. On Friday we headed out from my house around 5pm. We had to stop and Drop off Matilda with my parents - The drive went well, Gas is so expensive these days, makes this marathon a lot more expensive. My boyfriend Judah generously let us use his car because our cars have been acting funny and we didn't want to get stranded. It's a manual transition - I liked manual transmissions at this point in the trip. We stopped for dinner around 7 at a creepy truck stop and got to the hotel around 8:30. I slept pretty good and got up at 6am, had some coffee and the PB&J I packed the day before. I was feeling really tired and sluggish. SO MANY CARBS. UGG. My plan for the race was to just drink sports drink from my camel back and maybe try eating a "Stinger" wafer that my sister got me. Turns out I forgot that, so I just had my sports drink. I filled the camel back up to 1.5 liters, and it did not feel heavy like it did when I first started using it.... Guess I have adjusted to it. I love how nice and balanced it is on my back.

In the Hotel ready to head out
At the Top of the tower
The start was only 4 miles down the road, we parked and headed inside. It was cold, I was tired... We got our numbers and chips and I decided to wear the long sleeved shirt in my packet for the race, since the one I had packed was the "Cold Gear" type, and I thought I would be to warm. The race started at 8am - 146 people finished the marathon, three of those people had run the race since the beginning - 2012 was the 20th Trailbreaker marathon. The national anthem was sung, and off we went. I was looking forward to getting warm. going into the race I decided that I didn't want my watch to EVER show me a mile faster then 9:00 - I was trying to run it as a training run and I did NOT want to ruin the run because I started off too fast. So, we didn't. We stuck with right around 9:00 miles. The first part of the run was just in the town, going down to the river, and eventually joined up with a trail that was along a rail road track, so it was nice and flat for the most part. It was actually pavement sadly, but it was a pretty trail, and it was fun to be somewhere new with new people. at about mile 5 I started feeling really good - lots of energy and really enjoying the race, my pancakes and pasta was paying off. All the water stops had sports drinks and oranges. I started eating a orange slice every stop, I think it helped. I also ended up having 2 of Debi's gummys, half of a Gel pack and half of her stinger. Glad someone was prepared... At about mile 11 or so the path turned into the Ice Age trail. It was fun, roots and rocks, some pretty steep hills, I was wishing I had trail shoes on. at mile 14 we got to the turn around point, at the top of some stairs, was a look out tower, I didn't know they were serious when they said you were supposed to climb it, but they were. So up we went.
The top had a really cool view - defiantly something different for a marathon. 


My hands swelled up, why?
Then back down we went - the trails were defiantly more taxing on my energy, but we made out out around mile 17 or so. I was pretty tired for a bit, but got a second wind. we picked up the pace around mile 20 - I figured I could handle some 8:30's knowing we only had 6.2 left. At mile 22 I was feeling pretty tired, but I knew I could make it. We kept up the pace and ran 8:30-9:00 miles till the end. Debi defiantly kept me going I don't know how she does it, she just gets in this zone....I was way too focused on my pain. The finish line photoes are horid, but so horid that they are actually pretty funny. I look about like I felt. Stopping was bad. VERY bad. I forgot what the pain after a marathon felt like - honestly though it was not as bad as the last one - I felt MUCH better during the race and even though we had to climb stairs and a tower in the middle of it. I really loved having my camel back on me, it was nice to have plenty of liquid to drink during the whole race.I finished in 4:08:57 - 2 minutes better than the last marathon, with less training, trails, and a tower to climb in the middle. I was really happy with the time. 64th over all 14th Female to cross the line. We choked down  a protein bar and limped back to the car to stretch. After stretching I got back in the car and no longer liked manual transmissions. Ouch. My fingers also got really swollen for some reason, I even had to loosen my watch.



in the car after the race
We go tot the hotel and had to climb the stairs to the second story - it was painfully funny. The shower was kinda awful too.
Some how I managed to get 2 really raw rub marks under my left arm pit kinda on my rib cage. I forgot about it till the water hit and about screamed. It's amazing how much those things can hurt. My fingers also turned blue for a while, i'm thinking I should have listened to Runners World "what to wear" it said I should wear gloves. We headed back around 1:30pm - and stopped at pizza hut and got a large stuffed crust pizza - it was delicious.
Delicious grilled Sunday dinner
I felt pretty good that night, and the next day after staying up a little too late the night before and maybe having a long island ice tea too many, I went on a 6 mile run with Judah on The Great Western Trail. It was nice packed lime stone, and pretty flat. It was tough starting off, but I warmed up really well and ended up feeling just fine. Later that day I was starving of course and we grilled some awesome food. That night I got really sore - today I am sore as well but plan on running in the morning. I feel good about this first marathon - it gives me hope for the 3 other 26 mile runs we have coming up as well as the 22 mile race and the 2 ultras. I think I can do this.

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