Race Report Sleeping Bear Marathon
Ok here we go. I’ll probably come back and edit this as I think of things. Long post ahead, so to start with
TLDR: completed my first FULL marathon! 6:11:16. (I paused my watch for all of the bathroom stops, and with those taken out my time was 5:59:10) Woohoo! Go me! Got last place and I do not care at all. My DopeyBadger plan did exactly what it was supposed to do, but I definitely have some things to figure out before MW.
Actual weather from a local station (but not the station where the race was because that one doesn’t have historical data.)
And now, a novel.
This is how the race went:
Let’s start with Friday when I was supposed to run 1.5mi EB + strides. I realized around 1am Saturday, when I woke up with major anxiety about the race, that it never happened. Friday went more like : clean, clean, clean, go to Costco for the first time ever, go to Meijer to finish the grocery shopping, come home and clean more. Organize rides and transportation for 3 kids for their sporting events, and fall asleep nervous and exhausted. DH worked football concessions with our cross country parents (I was adamant that I was not spending 5 hours standing on concrete the night before my race and didn’t help this time) and came home and says to me, “did you know Traci and Asa have both only run one marathon EVER? And Traci didn’t finish hers. She was done at mile 20. They said they’ll be praying for you tomorrow.” Which, they were D1 and D2 college distance/XC runners, and theyre Such reassuring information.
I slept like crap Friday night (aided by a toddler who knew something was up), which made me extra thankful that I had slept well on Thursday night.
Saturday: up at 5am. So so so nervous. Did all of the stuff I have done on race mornings so far, packed a lunch for after the race, and SIL and I were out the door at 7:00 and in the start chute by 7:20. It was soo humid at the start. And warmer than I wanted. The guy behind us was super friendly and was talking with us. It was his 10th marathon. And he says, “Just so you know, at some point it’s going to suck and you’ll feel awful. It will get a little bit worse. But you have done the training and you can do it.” We passed him (he was ahead of us, obviously) at around mile 11 and he gave us a lot of encouragement. Basically everyone did. The other runners were SO SUPPORTIVE.
SIL and I decided we would run continuous until the big hill/mile 4 and after that we would switch to intervals. I was ruthless in keeping our pace down. And the “big hill” wasn’t that bad, it was just looooong. 2 miles up uphill, but not overly steep.
I stopped to use the bathroom every 4 miles on the first half, and that ate up a lot of time, but it was necessary. There was an older man running intervals that we yo-yo-ed behind for most of the race. Checking the finish times, I found out that he is 74! So amazing!! But we were feeling GREAT. This was the longest run I (maybe both of us?) had ever done and I could not believe how well it was going.
And then—mile 16 happened. My hamstrings were getting really tight so I stopped briefly to stretch them and when I stood back up I got super light headed, and it took a few minutes to recover. We started to get back on track, but at around mile 19 we were both hurting.
My thinking switched away from “keep on pace” to, “just finish this thing however you have to.” We walked a lot more. We reminded ourselves that our legs are strong and that we have been training for this for 10 months. And we reminded ourselves often. We had passed another runner at around mile 15, so we knew we weren’t in last place, but the sweeper on his bike was passing us and then looping back quite a bit. We found out later that he (the runner) had withdrawn from the race at around mile 16. The “Sweeper” rode along side us for the last 3-4 miles. He assured us that as long as we were upright that we wouldn’t be pulled from the course and would absolutely get to finish. SIL took off on her own for the last 3 miles (she was in worse shape than she was letting on and needed to get in her own zone to finish) and I had a 45min conversation with the sweeper in to the finish line. He was so friendly, kept me distracted from how awful I felt, and brought me a beer after I crossed the finish line
DH met us at the finish and brought us Gatorade (because the hammer electrolyte drink I took one sip of on the course was SO GROSS) and SIL and I both took off our shoes and socks and stool in Lake Michigan for about 15 minutes while DH walked back up to the parking lot to get her car for us.
DH would not be a fan because I would [probably] be so sore I wouldn't be able to move at all by Sunday afternoon.
