One Last Marathon

loving the downhill in the canyon

beautiful course right?

the finish line - I look like I want to die because I did

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?