Wow what an experience. The marathon is a tough course especially because when you are training for it. I wanted more out of my body but couldn’t. I didn’t want to go too hard in the beginning and I may have. I was going at a 9 minute pace and I wanted to stay around the 4 hour pace guy. I eventually got ahead but was easily caught at the end along with the 4:15 pace and the 4:30 pace guy. Once I saw the 4:45 pace guy I had to push it. I was at the last quarter mile and saw one of the coaches and he helped me push it till the end.
I would say that the first half of the marathon was what I wanted out of it. The hill at mile 8 took a lot out of me. I was taking it easy there. Once I got down from there I took it easy also. It was good though because around mile 12 I had to go to the bathroom bad. I was busting the farts and I had to go pee. So I found the nearest porta potty and released all that I had and I was back on the road in 2 minutes. I knew I lost some time but I was ok. I felt the pain in the foot and I could deal with it. I think I have been running with shoes that have been tied to loosely. I tried to tie them later on around mile 14 and it helped. I think the damage was already done though and it was not too bad. I felt my left calf was tightening up and kept me from going as fast as I liked.
I think around mile 18 was where I hit the wall. I wanted to finish already. I kept at it and I didn’t stop. I knew a lot about this course and I wanted to go more at it. The run to La Costa Ave was tough. It was a long stretch and running with the half marathoners helped a little bit till we had to separate and I had to go farther down. It was a lonely race at this point with only the marathoners there. I remember before the turnaround the 4:00 pace guy passed me up. I couldn’t keep up with them.
The race support and people were awesome. I couldn’t get enough people to yell my name and yell for Team in Training. They were along the way throughout the course and I couldn’t be more thankful for their help and support.
Nutrition for me was hard to manage. I brought myself some GU and it helped. I think I needed more salt though. I don’t even know if I hydrated well throughout the course. I think my nutrition was a yo-yo. I think I need to look at some of those things for the next one if I choose to. I felt like the first half was good but the second half I was almost reaching for everything that they could throw at me. If they hadn’t had the GU there to use on the course, I think my marathon experience would have suffered more throughout. I need to take a chance and do a sweat rate test to see my sweat rate is to determine my hydration needs and I should have done that before this race.
I think I felt bad inside as some of my team mates passed me around the 23 mile marker. I was going so slow and couldn’t keep the pace I wanted. In the end I was glad to finish and now I know what I need to do to get a better time.
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Hi there,
Nice website you have here. love the charts! You definitely have your goals set for you. I wish you the best on accomplishing them all. I read that you’ll be doing the Rock and Roll half marathon. Planning on doing the La Jolla half?
not sure about the half. i have done la jolla half 2 times already. i might be looking at long distance this year!