Grandma's Marathon '09

This race was a very good learning experience for me. I made several big mistakes going into it, and I'm very fortunate and blessed that I not only finished with a PR (personal record), but that I finished injury-free.

In no particular order, I'll break 'em down...

Mistake #1: No long-distance training in sun and hot weather yet this season. I've been blessed to have some other great races (GIG 1/2, Stillwater 20-miler) this year with regard to my paces, but they've all been under near-ideal weather conditions. So far, I've only done distances of 4.5 - 5 miles when it's been hot and sunny. That's a big hole in my training!! So, I must incorporate some long-distance training runs when it's nasty like that out. The upcoming TCM in October could be brutally hot (like in '07), so I need to prepare for that option. When it's nice & cool or overcast out, that's a whole different game than when it's sunny, hot, and humid :)

Mistake #2: I went into the race with a questionable calf injury. Well, not so much an injury - but this lingering, nagging tightness in my lower calf/Achilles area I've had for the last several weeks. Two results from that: It's hampered my training (especially distance runs), and it was dumb to start a race like a marathon with a wildcard issue like that - I could have easily shredded up that calf or Achilles during the race and I'm very fortunate it feels good today. Actually, I'm a bit spooked right now - it feels perfectly normal today (is that good or bad?!? I expected it to be quite tight!). It didn't "hurt" per se during the race, but I definitely felt the tightness. Did it slow me down? Yes, but not from pain or anything like that - it was more from that stupid "Can I pick it up? Yes? No? What if I push too hard and blow it out? Go faster? Slow down?" loop-of-doubt that kept playing in my head. You shouldn't race if you know you are going to be distracted by such things - it just messes with your focus and clarity. And I knew darn well that loop would be playing, so I should've considered more carefully at the start whether this race was smart to do.

Mistake #3: Past results do not themselves equal future success. This ties in the previous two mistakes, but is a lesson I need to get real about - especially as I migrate into triathlon training! Just because my training so far this year has been ahead of schedule, I can see now that was had a lot to do with the great weather we've had so far (cool temps). My rigorous marathon training history is only about one year old now - I've certainly come a long way, but I can't get too far ahead of myself. As I continue to whittle my pace times down, I need to be much more patient and realistic than I have been. This race at Grandma's was a very good wake-up call - if I want to BQ at the TCM this year, I realize now that I have much more work to do than I previously thought! I was getting far too cocky in my training and goals this season, so Grandma's definitely helped knock me down a few levels...

Here's a breakdown of my Grandma's results. It's almost the complete opposite of my '08 TCM performance - instead of my pace slowly improving throughout the race like the TCM, my pace steadily degraded all through Grandma's. I started out too fast, and was thus behind the proverbial power curve when the temps ramped up, and it all went south quickly from there.

So - Grandma's '09 - definitely not my finest work. In fact, it was the worst race of my career so far. I guess that sounds odd for me to say when I PR'd, but this was only my 3rd marathon ;) It may have been a PR, but it's not one I'm particularly proud of - given my mistakes, I was very fortunate to just finish this race at all. Great lessons learned here for me, and I'm taking them all to heart!
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