KDF Marathon

Marathon Attempt #1

The Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon is run in celebratory preparation for the biggest horse race in the world. I knew that this would be the perfect race for my first marathon because I was so familiar with the course. I signed up in early March and committed to increasing my mileage more than I had thus far this year. Before this point, I had a training goal of being able to run a 50k or 50 miler by the end of 2016. I figured I should be able to run a marathon to do so. My mileage eventually reached a max of about 62 miles a week with a longest long run of 20 miles. I was so confident by the end of March. There was only one thing standing in my way of the marathon. I had already scheduled and paid for a trip to Costa Rica that was to take place three weeks out from the race and last ten days. On this trip, I did not run at all (other than a three mile jog on the beach) and came down with some vicious food poisoning that hospitalized me for an afternoon. When I got home, the race was just under three weeks away, and I couldn't run at all. My knees and bones ached from being relatively inactive for so long. On top of that, my stomach really couldn't handle any physical activity. My mileage per week in April maxed out at a whopping 30.

Throughout this process, I was coaching myself. This was difficult considering I've never ran a marathon. I would like to thank Sage Canaday for providing excellent training advice to me and so many others!

The morning of race day, I woke up at 4:30 to eat a bagel, dry cereal, and fruit with lots of water, of course. I had decided to put the bad month of training behind me and go race with reckless abandon. Before the race, I laced up my new Hoka OneOne Clifton 2s and ate a Stinger waffle. I was feeling great! My goal time was 2:45. This was quite an ambitious goal as I would soon learn.

The race got off to a good, but shaky, start. My first few miles were around 6:20. At 3.5 miles, I had to stop to use a port-a-potty - something I never even considered doing. I hopped out and got back on the road. I picked a few people to pace with and stuck with them for quite a while. I hung with one guy until mile 17! This man was from Virginia. He had just ran Boston ten days prior and said he was definitely feeling it. We maintained a 6:30 average together until mile 17. Until this point, I was enjoying myself; it felt great to have a buddy to push through the race with. We were in 15th and 16th place coming out of the hardest part of the course - Iroquois Park - which is said to put Heartbreak Hill to shame.

Before the race, I had done away with the idea of ever hitting the wall. I was admittedly too proud to accept this as a possibility; I had trained too hard to break down in the race.

I did. I hit the wall...hard.

At 17.5 miles, I stopped, walked, and realized that the next 9  miles would be the hardest miles of my life. Mile 18 was the beginning of the downfall. 7:14, 9:40, 9:55, 9:22, 9:30, 9:35, 9:10, 8:57, 8:57. I was walking within every quarter mile. I had never been so disheartened in my life. I hated seeing each of my mile times. I eventually stopped looking at my watch, only listening to the miles slowly tick away. I also watched 73 people pass me in nine miles. This sucked. I was supposed to beat all of these people. I have never had to swallow my pride like I did.

Luckily, around the point of the wall hitting, my old cross country coach, who was running the mini, saw me and gave me some advice for moving forward. He told me that I needed to eat and drink, and that I would feel better shortly. I took a gel (against my original plan) and felt a little better. I will say that my cardio was absolutely fine; my breathing was perfect, no cramping. My legs hurt with an amount of pain I can't really describe. They just wouldn't work! Not to mention the immense blistering I had contracted as a result of the rain.

Long story short, I made it to about mile 25.5. At this point, I had unfortunately/fortunately (for them and for me, respectively) caught back up to two of the guys that I had stuck with earlier, including the guy with whom I ran 17 miles with. He looked to be in a lot of pain. I ran past and offered what encouragement I could. I finished at a decent effort, and legitimately almost cried when I saw the finish line. My watch time (the time I will claim) was 3:15:20. My end average pace was 7:30, but I'm holding on to the fact that I ran over 17 miles at 6:30 pace. I finished 88th overall, 2nd in my age division. Not too bad. My original goal was 2:45 (missed completely), but I also had the goal of qualifying for Boston. I missed this by ten minutes. There's always next year (or another shot this year???)

After I stopped across the finish line, my right leg stopped working. It was really weird. I though about going to a medical tent, but I then wondered what they would think if I went in and was like, "yeah, my leg hurts." I tried to walk/limp it out back to the car and could not. I was freezing and my body was not operating the way I wanted it to.

When I got home, I took a long hot bath and relaxed. Still not able to move my leg, I figured the best remedy would be to go to Cracker Barrel and eat a nice steak with lots of other foods. I was correct. This was mentally and physically restoring in so many ways.

Lessons Learned:
Use the restroom before the race
Have a nutrition plan during the race
Don't start too fast
Wear anti-chafing in sensitive areas (swallow your pride)
Don't hit the wall
Try to negative split if necessary
Don't be upset by failure
Eat more after the race (stretch immediately)
Figure out how to prevent blisters
Run more miles in training
Find a friend on the course
Don't get caught up in place