Marathon Notes - Part 1

These are the first part of my notes from the marathon - mostly a reminder to myself of what I did and how planned - so I can go back a review them before the next full one - which will probably be Seattle Rock-n-Roll.

I’m not sure how much of doing a marathon is a mental thing, but surely a big part of it is how you think and staying positive. I was certainly in a weird place the week or so before the marathon. To say that concentrating was difficult is an understatement. All I could really keep my brain focused on was the foot pain and wondering how the lack of significant training was going to affect race day. I can’t tell you how many times Kay told us to trust our training, but that is so hard to really grasp, especially for me – the planning Nazi. I like order and I love plans, and when that goes wonky, it can really mess with my head.

Mentally – I was still wondering if I could do this. After the twenty miler, I had my doubts. That twenty mile training walk was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be. The self doubting part of me (unfortunately a big part of who I am) was playing games with my head. But again, Kay put me back on a positive trajectory, and by the time race weekend got here, I was really excited to get it underway.

I know that the train down period is there for a reason. I needed to give my body plenty of opportunity to feel strong for the actual event. That if you can’t go the distance two weeks before the race, training hard in the last two weeks is not going to get you there. Needless to say – my body was ready – my foot needed to get there, and trusting the training was all I needed to do. I was more than ready go the distance – but was my foot? YES! Today – the day after the race, I only have slight swelling from the injury. It only twinged a bit during the race. Nothing like the extreme pain during the Champoeg half. The rest of my lower body is sore – well very sore. My left ankle hurts quite a bit and I have sore leg muscles all over the place. I do not have any blisters – which I find rather amazing. I ended up wearing the pretty much brand new New Balance shoes, and they felt good the entire race. A new pair of socks, on the other hand, seems like a bad idea now. Next time I will wear something I know I feel comfortable in.

On Friday, I went ahead and went up to Portland in the morning to pick up my race number and to check out the vendor part of the event. I had a great time picking up a few marathon shirts and looking at the different shoes available. I did find my favorite Asics Gels in my size, but opted to not get them. I needed to mull that over a bit. I headed back home to start packing my gear and to prep my food and other walking necessities. I took four cut up Cliff bars and a bag of Luna moons. Breakfast on Sunday morning ended up being difficult to come by, so I ate one of the Cliff bars and a bag of apples for breakfast. It ended up being a pretty good meal. Plenty of protein and some good carbs to start out the race on.

Saturday morning, I was up early and packing things and double checking all my gear. I ended up using by full size Camelbak, and think this was a good thing. I used nearly all the water and had plenty of room for carrying the food, extra socks, tissues, and a few other things. I think I will eventually get a smaller pack for the water reservoir. Just to keep everything as compact as possible. I ended up using all but a few ounces of the water I carried. I did not use all the Luna moons, but did use all of my protein bars.