Nabbing a BQ, foray into marathon racing

Carmel Marathon, well Half Marathon, 2021

Marathoning is not my favorite thing. It’s a distance I had grown to love training for (as a glutton for volume), but the actual racing, at the paces I was targeting, felt vomit inducing to think about. These were my thoughts even before my race week, and wow they were foreshadowing. 

Still living in a pandemic world, races definitely were far and few between. A few friends and I had been lucky enough to race a tune-up half marathon in February in Greenville, SC, but really, most in person races were non-existent or very small local events. The Carmel marathon we were targeting seemed to have a good covid action plan in place, but it was constantly in my mind, and I know the mind of my teammates, that this race may get dusted like many of the other big marathons which had been cancelled. 

Training started for this marathon block in early January, and actually, it had gone fairly well. I love our Rocksport group, everyone is so supportive with similar goals and everyone running this marathon was really in it to put in the work and help each other. We bonded over 5am Saturday long runs, port-a-potty searches to avoid mid-run bathroom emergencies and just overall marathon training pain and suffering. It’s funny how in the moment you question your training and feel “unfit” or “not ready”, but my coach and friend Erin would always be there to remind me how wrong I was and how much better my workouts were this go around compared to last year’s marathon build. I had a few really solid workouts and long tempo runs, seeming to blow my goal marathon pace out of the water. My fueling was improving and I was feeling cautiously confident going into taper. 

Taper is a hard thing for me. I think it’s hard on everyone in endurance sports, but for me it’s definitely a huge challenge. Workouts are often my saving grace, my outlet for stress relief and mental clarity. Taking out huge chunks of workout time and taking more rest days I knew would be a challenge, but I did my best and was fairly successful in taper. I had a few niggles come up in taper which had bugged me throughout the build— a bit of hip bursitis from probably a bit of overtraining, some high hamstring tendinopathy again from probably overuse— but nothing was significantly worse. I did decide to take my bike outside during the gorgeous taper days (seriously why 75 and sunny occurs when I’m supposed to take time off I will never know), and was stupid enough to slightly twist my ankle while trying a track stand. Lesson learned, don’t try new tricks in a taper week, and I was lucky that my ankle was relatively good to go within a day or so. 

The week of the race came, we were all apprehensively stalking the weather while continuing the taper. I was working up until the day leaving of the race, and I had noticed I felt a bit off with just some fatigue and nausea. This was noticeable probably Wednesday onward of race week (Saturday race day). I noticed this definitely hit my appetite a bit, but I tried to continue fueling as best I could and just hope for the best at this point. Unfortunately symptoms continued, this definitely affected my pre-race intake (carb load non-existent), but as we left for the race on Friday I again was just hoping for the best. 

We arrived in Carmel and made it to the expo, it was a beautiful spring day in the high 50s that afternoon. Erin and I picked up our bibs and shirts and made it to the hotel prior to a chill dinner with a few other teammates at a really cool plant based restaurant. We had a solid and healthy dinner, but I was still feeling a bit off. We all went off to bed early, I felt like I slept only a few hours with all the tossing and turning and stomach cramps. Ready or not, here was race morning. It was a crisp 32 degrees waking up in Carmel, I’m a huge coffee snob so I made my way down to the nearest Starbucks early Saturday AM prior to caravanning with teammates to the start. I force fed myself a few bites of my Clif bar with coffee but was definitely feeling a bit off. I was second guessing everything from my outfit choice (after being outside in the freezing air), to the pace goals, to even running a marathon… At this point I just convinced myself these were normal pre-race feelings. 

Caroline, Erin, Shannon and myself all piled into my car and made our way to the start. It was a quick drive through roundabouts and we found a close-by church to park in. We got there around 7:30 for the 8:10 start, figuring that would give us plenty of time to find bag-check, warm up a few minutes and use the porta-potty. Boy we were wrong. While parking was easy, the race start was very crowded, with the porta-potties on the VERY FAR END. After finally finding the bathrooms, the lines were absolutely crazy and time was nearing on 8am. We made the executive decision to go back to the car, get all our stuff ready and pee behind a bush. A wise decision indeed as after finding a random dumpster to pee behind, we barely made it to the start on time. The starting line was packed, but everyone was wearing masks while anxiously awaiting the true start. Shannon and I were starting together, in the 3:25 pace group with intentions to try to work together. We found our pacer and before we knew it, we were off. 

I thought I would be freezing at the start as I elected to go with shorts, tank, throw away gloves and arm sleeves. The forecasted temperature was 33 at the start with temperature rising to ultimately 50-ish at projected finish. The day however, also featured 20mph wind gusts, making a pack mindset much more important. Even in my minimal clothes, I warmed up quick and stayed with the pack. I felt very comfortable with the pacer and actually remarkably good. I was excited based on this to possibly have a good day. So far, no GI issues. Miles 2-6 scooted by, and while my heart rate shot up a few times (mainly when sprinting to try to get water and stay on pace), I still felt ok. I was hanging with the pacer well and all the miles so far were going to plan. Shannon looked strong as well. Around mile 7 is where I started to encounter problems. I knew I needed to take a gel at about this time, my plan was to do this every 6-7 miles. I pulled a chocolate GU out of my pocket, it was slightly warm due to being next to body heat. I waited until I had a bit of water at the water stop and took about half the gel down. No immediate effects other than it just being generally unpleasant, I’m not a fan of gels at baseline. I kept running along, but as mile 8-9 happened, I knew the gel had not sat well as I experienced major stomach cramps, significant nausea. I knew things were not going well when I could taste warm chocolate GU mixed with yellow gatorade and acid in the back of my throat. My next sprint effort was finding a suitable place to dispose of the impending chocolate/gatorade vomit. That was unpleasant, and a first for me in a stand alone running race. Despite this, I actually felt somewhat better following the vomit. My stomach was very unsettled, but I thought, hey, maybe I can rally and figure this out, after all I’ve only made lost a minute or two. 

By now, the pace group was long gone. I rallied a few miles around 815-830 before feeling the stomach cramps and nausea again. This was probably around mile 11-12. The course was a 2-loop event, and I knew and conceded in my head I probably needed to call this at the half. There was no doubt about the fact that I was dealing with some kind of GI bug, and why the timing decided to peak itself during the marathon I won’t know, but I wasn’t winning this day. Even though it was a very difficult decision to make in the moment, I knew based on the fact that I was walking up hills and not keeping any nutrition down that I needed to call this at the half. I came into the finish line and struggled to make the half finish. Finish time 1:48, 8:15 pace. Not terrible considering what had happened. 

I think I walked off the finish in shock. My dreams of BQ, my dreams of a fast marathon, shattered. My initial feelings once I put aside the terribleness of my GI tract- shock, sadness, failure, disappointment. I went through various stages of feelings, as I had now over an hour to wait for my friends to come in from the marathon. Luckily my car was there so I could grab my warm clothes and just take a walk along the course to clear my head. It definitely lifted my spirits to see all my friends and teammates finish so strong- Erin, Caroline, Wendy and Shannon all crushing a PR while Austin also got a PR finishing his first marathon. I definitely felt sadness in seeing them finish while on the sidelines, but it was so good to see them so happy and achieve those accomplishments.

The ride home was hard, bless Erin for consoling my tears and emotions in the heat of disappointment. I purposely took a couple days to process things before writing this as I was not in the best head space initially. Saturday immediately post race I viewed this as something of failure, viewed myself as weak, but my perspective has shifted with time. Here’s a few lessons I have learned and will take with me moving forward. 

1- Race nutrition is not something to be taken lightly, nor is it something to “wing” on race day. As a coach I preach this to my athletes all the time, as my coach Erin has to me as well. The idea behind practicing is to teach the gut to accept carbs while performing a hard effort, and to find out what you can and cannot tolerate. I have had my battles with fueling, and this is one area I have skimped on more than others. I’m not sure why I thought I was immune, but I hope this is something I will be diligent about in the future. There was more at play this race day than not tolerating the gels, but it was no one’s fault but my own not to trial this better in training.

2- Vomiting during a race is always time to pull the plug in a long distance event and is not a sign of weakness or failure. My immediate view of this was failure, that of not trying hard enough or being gutsy enough to finish. With time, I’ve realized this is a very narrow way of looking at things. There are real ramifications in endurance events including real medical complications (dehydration, rhabdo etc) from not being able to tolerate hydration/fuel. Not being able to fuel and hydrate with vomiting in a multi-hour event is absolutely time to pull the plug unless you wish to risk spending time in a medical tent or hospital (death and longstanding medical complications are also real possibilities). 

3- One race does not define self worth or fitness or your identity as an athlete. I struggled with this one hard post-race. As endurance athletes we spend A LOT of time training. It to some degree becomes part of our identity given how much time we spend. We build and build to just one race, and if we don’t hit our goals, or even worse, don’t finish, it can feel like the end of the world. But let’s take a step back and remember, this is a hobby. We all have many other defining qualities and things in our lives that define us, much more than one race. And that’s just it too, it’s one race. There will always be another one. And guess what? your friends and training partners will probably still like you even if your race didn’t go as planned, I know mine thankfully still did. 

4- We are all just lucky to be doing this at all. Racing and running in general is a privilege. To be able to go out and run for fun and use our bodies to that capacity, truly is a gift. Sure we work for it and we train hard, but we are definitely privileged to be able to race and to be able to compete in endurance sports.

So while this wasn’t the race I wanted, I’m keeping my head up and looking toward the next one. I’ll switch my focus for a while onto triathlon training/getting back on a mountain bike, and hope that races continue to be offered amidst an ongoing pandemic. Sometimes hard things make you realize how much you have going for you in terms of health, fitness, and most importantly an amazing group of support and friends in Rocksport training. All things considered, this weekend has taught me I am blessed and extremely lucky to do this.