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| loving the downhill in the canyon |
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| beautiful course right? |
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| the finish line - I look like I want to die because I did |
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| mile 18 - look how happy I am - feeling great - little did I know... |
Ok, its probably not the last marathon ever. But I, Laura, solemnly swear that I will not do a marathon in 2014. So there. One year off of marathons. It will be good for me because I am officially burnt out.
You might remember that I trained super hard for the Ogden Marathon in May. And it didn't go so well. Not well at all. I was super bummed after that race, so of course I decided to sign up for another marathon. Yes, I was high on drugs. Why did no one stop me? Ok, probably because I'm kind of stubborn. Anyway, because of the two marathons I feel like I've been training for a marathon for 9 months. Oh wait, I have. Needless to say, I was more than ready to be done with this marathon. But I still trained hard because I wanted to have a good race. I was hoping for a PR, but my main goal was just to keep going and not stop when I hit the wall. I say when because the wall always comes. Always. I am, however, starting to realize that sometimes the wall is thin drywall and sometimes its a four foot thick concrete wall. Those concrete walls kick my trash every time.
Anyway, I did the Big Cottonwood Marathon last week. Loved the race. We started at Guardsman Pass right above my house (that's right, no buses to the start line = awesomeness). We ran down Big Cottonwood Canyon, wound through Holladay, and finished at Cottonwood High. It was a beautiful course. 19 miles of pure downhill. That's a lot of downhill. So I trained on lots of downhill. Or so I thought. My quads started hurting at mile 14. Just in case you're wondering, its not a good sign when your legs start hurting during a race. This means lots and lots of pain later. So I was cruising along on the downhill. Faster than I would normally go, but believe me, tons of people took off way faster than me. I wanted to take advantage of the downhill, but I also knew it might hurt me later in the race. And it did. We came out of the canyon and I hit mile 18 and 19 and felt great. I mean great. I thought I was for sure going to qualify for Boston, get a PR, everything. And then at mile 20 I took a step, and ran right into a four foot thick concrete wall. It hurt. It hurt bad. And I died the last 6 miles. And now I am so mad at myself for dying the last 6 miles. I thought I had prepared mentally (Jake would disagree with this). I had music, quotes, everything I could think of to keep me going when I hit the wall. And then I hit the wall and it all went out the window. It makes me so mad. MAD!! WHY!!! Why didn't I push through it? It was only 6 miles. 45-50 minutes of running. I should have been able to push through, and I didn't. I don't know how to describe it if you haven't done a marathon or something like it. When you hit the wall, even one mile seems like an eternity. Its so painful. But its also a mental game. And I know that. Your body can keep going if your mind can just override all of the pain signals its sending. I thought I was prepared to do that, but apparently I wasn't.
I finished in 3:59. I know that's not an awful time. But I could have, and should have, finished faster. The agony. This time though, I'm at least smart enough to not turn around and sign up for another marathon. I need a break and I know it. But I really wish I was taking a break after a great race. Oh well. Its a learning experience right? I learn something from every race I do. This time I learned that I need to train my mental strength as much as I train physically. The end.
PS - there are lots of pics because they gave us free race pics so I might as well use them right?
