I ran the Utah Valley Marathon this morning. I think I was in shape to run around 3 hours, so 3:12 was a disappointment.
Last night my 5 year old daughter started throwing up at 9:00 p.m. She threw up about every 30 or 40 min until 2:30 a.m. We had her on the floor in our room so we could help her and my husband got up with her, but I couldn't sleep. At 11:30 p.m. I went into her room, but still couldn't sleep. I could hear her from upstairs. At 1:30 a.m. he went to the store for medicine and I got back in my bed. Her last throw-up/dry heave was at 2:35 a.m. I was able to doze for about 20 min somewhere between then and 3:20 a.m. when I got out of bed.
I thought of my dad who had a difficult time sleeping before a marathon once and thought someone will ask him how the race went and he'd say, "I lost." He imagined them asking "when?" and his reponse would be, "In bed the night before!"
I seriously considered not running, but thought, "I'm not sleeping anyway so I might as well go run."
I wasn't breathing hard, but my body was so tired. At mile 13 I thought, "I'm running slower than my 20 mile training runs and I feel worse at mile 13 than I ever did at mile 20." At mile 15 I stopped to stretch and contemplated quitting when I saw my husband with my kids. But did I want to send a message to my kids that it's ok to quit? I was also in 6th place and who ever quits when they're in the top ten? My time wasn't that bad, it just wasn't what I wanted. At that point I had about a 7 min avg going, but it was just so painful!
Fortunately, at mile 16 or so, my friend Rebecca came by on her bike and stayed with me for about 5 miles. She talked to me and that really helped get my mind off the pain. I also saw my husband with my kids around mile 18 and again around mile 20. I stopped to say hi and stretch for a few seconds when I saw them. At this point I also walked pretty slowly and stretched at every water stop. Rebecca left me around mile 21 and my husband drove by again with the kids. At mile 22 my brother Mark jumped out of his car and ran with me for 2 miles. That really helped also. His wife drove down the street and picked him up. When I left him I had only 2 miles to go.
So I finished, but it wasn't pretty. I'm running St. George because I'm already registered and that might be it. I'll start and end my marathon days with St. George. It seems like I only enjoy 1 out of every 3 marathons and I'm just not sure the 1 I really like is worth the 2 I hate. When my kids want to run them, I'll rethink my position.
Splits: 7:13 (mile 1), 6:32 (mile 2), 6:32 (mile 3), 6:49 (mile 4), 6:47 (mile 5), 6:45 (mile 6), 6:44 (mile 7), 7:17 (mile 8), 7:18 (mile 9), 6:39 (mile 10), 6:51 (mile 11), 7:18 (mile 12), 7:02 (mile 13), 6:55 (mile 14), 6:50 (mile 15), 8:13 (mile 16 - stretch), 7:04 (mile 17), 7:00 (mile 18), 6:57 (mile 19), 7:43 (mile 20), 7:23 (mile 21), 8:20 (mile 22), 8:52 (mile 23), 8:45 (mile 24), 8:34 (mile 25), 7:43 (mile 26), 7:21 pace (last .33). | 