Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon - RunMarathon

As the start approached I felt very relaxed and confident. Based on my training I was very confident that a PR was within my grasp, as long as I didn't do anything stupid. With my coach as my running partner, I had confidence that he would not let me do anything stupid.

The first lesson I have learned the hard way a few times is to not go out too fast at the beginning. We had talked about going out around 9 min pace the first few miles and then work down from there. That seemed a bit slow, but coach knows best. Soooo, I was a little surprised when the first few miles were all in the 8:30's range. Now if I had been out there by myself, I would have imagined Dave's voice in my head scolding me for going out too fast, but in real life, there was no scolding. The truth is, there was no need for scolding, as this pace felt very, very comfortable and relaxed. I really did not feel like I was pushing it at all. So I trusted. I trusted that Dave would keep me at a pace that would get me me to my goals and I trusted in my body that it would get me there and tell me if I needed to adjust. As relaxed as I had ever been for a race, the miles flew by. We talked and joked and enjoyed the views, both of nature and 'otherwise.' It was like a training run with spectators and others around us. I have to say racing with Dave was an interesting experience. He talks and engages with everybody: spectators, volunteers and other racers, some of which he knows and some of which he doesn't (yet). It just added to a really fun experience. Another part of the fun was having my family out there. The first time we saw them was about mile 10, at that point I was feeling good, looking good and all was right with the world. In fact as the race wore on, this continued to be true. Every mile was between 8:25 and 8:40. Nutrition was happening like clock work. I had 4 bottles on the fuel belt (3 waters and a gatoraid. I thought I was pretty good at drinking either from bottles or from aid stations (foreshadowing alert!) As we hit mile 15 or so we started passing more people who had gone out too fast. As I did the math, I realized the more miles I did at this pace, the more realistic that a very good PR was within my grasp. As we hit mile 20, I made a joke about the lack of the wall. For the first time in the day, Dave scolded me for taunting the wall. Sure enough, about mile 22, something changed. Saw my family again and they would later tell me I wasn't looking as good. My daughter yelled out to me "the faster you run, the faster you are done!" This is advice I have given her and it made me smile. Things were getting tougher, but mile 22 was my fastest at 8:14 pace. Then things got bad, in a hurry. I was getting really light-headed and stomach got really sour. I kept trying to figure out if I was going to pass out, throw up or both. I eased back the pace to about 8:50 at mile 23 and hoped to regroup. Somewhere in here I spotted an aid station with bananas and grabbed one. Also somewhere in here Dave got me a pretzel and gave it to me. These both seemed to help and I felt a little less light-headed and mile 24 was a bit less painful. Maybe I would be ok. Wrong. Miles 25 and 26 were an epic struggle. I never walked and was never tempted to walk, not because I'm tough, but because I realized that if I did, I would be done running for day. Somewhere in this area Dave told me that I could 'run' 11 min miles and still PR. This actually sparked me a bit because I didn't want to 'just' PR. During the last two miles I felt like I was inside a plastic bubble and everything around me was muffled. I also felt like I was viewing everything happening from outside myself, almost like a dream. What I saw was Dave willing me to keep running and telling me to focus on my form and my goals and not the pain. I saw Dave encouraging the crowd to cheer and clap for me, knowing I would feed off that energy, even if I didn't realize it at the time. The pace had slowed for the last few miles, but not nearly as bad as it could have been (9:15, 9:17). Then came the glorious sight of the finisher's chute, with Dave egging on the crowd to cheer. I crossed the finish line with very unsteady legs and a foggy mind, but joy soon took over when I realized I had PR'ed by 11 minutes!!

Really not a whole lot. I think my troubles near the end where not about lack of training or miles or going out too fast, I think I was dehydrated. I had thought I drank enough, but on a cool day, I don't think I had enough. Even after much liquids post race, I did not pee until about 5pm that night. There is always a lesson.

Getting sugars and liquid in me and not pass out. High-fives from Dave and my family and limp off to the car with a huge grin on my salt-covered face.


hydration.


Well if you can't tell from this report, I owe a lot of my success in this race and coming back from a bum year last year to Dave. I know, I know your thinking, geez Jim easy on the compliments or it will all go to his head. Yes, I see your point, and while I'm pretty proud of the effort I put forth, I couldn't have got to this point in my journey without the guy. So for today, somebody else will have to make the short joke, because all I can say is thank you.