Chicago Marathon Reflections

To read my recap of the race, visit my previous post. Now that I have had a few days to recover both physically and mentally, I have really thought about my performance during the race. Clearly I have too much time on my hands being unemployed, but I think it is natural for anyone who commits to a goal for a long period of time to dissect things to understand what went wrong and celebrate what went well.


Warning: I am a perfectionist and it is hard for me to set goals and not achieve them. This in no way means I am not proud that I ran a freaking marathon or that somehow I feel I deserve a pity party. I have had my share of amazing and horrible races and I have learned from all of them.

Proud of:

• I took 6 minutes off my previous marathon time (which was $12 back to Team PAWS)
• I worked the past year to get faster and I did. I shaved 33 seconds off my average mile time for the marathon
• I did not go out too fast in the first part of the race. I held to an easy pace and focused on running my own race
• I raised over $1,700 for Team PAWS
• I kept running when my legs were very fatigued, especially in the final miles
• I enjoyed the course and the crowd and had fun most of the race
• I followed my fueling plan even when the thought of taking another gel made me sick
• I did not give up, even when I knew I would not meet my goal
• Trained seriously for 18 weeks using a very aggressive plan
• I did NOT GET INJURED!

Disappointments:

• My average pace was 13 seconds slower than my marathon goal pace
• I was 14 minutes slower than my goal time
• Mentally I gave in to the wall and allowed myself to feel defeated
• Dehydration
• Improper fueling and hydration pre-race

The look of defeat

Lessons Learned:

Based upon the list above, here are a few things that I would like to focus on for the future.

• Mental training: I have read all of Matt Fitzgerald's books and know the importance of mental strength. During my first marathon, I would say my mental strength was greater than my physical endurance. In this race, it was the other way around. Physically I was very strong, but mentally I faltered. I questioned my performance and let things like hydration and a wacky GPS mess with me. I let the stress of my job loss affect me for weeks whether I wanted to admit it or not. The marathon showed up in it's full glory and it showed me who's boss. I truly believe if I had been stronger mentally, I would have made my time goal. As Matt Fitzgerald writes, "how bad do you want it?". On race day, I clearly did not want it enough when it came down to it.
• Hydration: In reading more about dehydration, I am very certain I was extremely dehydrated. The fact that I drank at almost every aid station, sometimes twice, and never had sloshing in my stomach or felt satisfied are red flags. I also never felt like I needed to pee. While I am someone that drinks water all day and has never had an issue with hydration before, I do not think I drank enough in the days leading up to the race or on race morning. The fact that I woke up so early only to stand in the corral for another hour before the start did not help one bit. Going forward, I plan to make this a bigger focus and to bring water with me to the corral. While I do not drink Gatorade or like to carry hydration with me during races, I may consider this in the future.
• Fueling: I know I did not eat enough race morning and again, this was due to the early morning wake up time hours before the race. While I did eat something small right before the race, I was likely running on the gels I was consuming and not stored energy after a few miles. I believe I was also walking a fine line between carb loading and dropping weight. The scale did move down which was nice for a change, but I probably was not eating enough the day or two before. Because I have such a sensitive stomach I tend to avoid overeating or eating just to eat, so in the future I will need to explore new foods to help me carb load without feeling sick.

Hansons Review:

Clearly I have a lot to celebrate and little to be disappointed with. I am really happy that I decreased my overall time by several minutes even if it was not what I hoped for. I cannot help but feel disappointed, but I also know that I put in the training. I trained just as hard as someone who was going to Boston Qualify knowing that my time would still be considered slow by most. This is the most work I have ever put into training and I think the fact that I achieved such wonderful results with Hansons for my half marathon led me to expect huge results for the marathon. I do not blame my plan one bit and I alone put that pressure on myself. Some may say that the fact that I did not run an 18 or 20 miler may have contributed to my failure to meet my time goal. Others would say it was that I did not follow a traditional taper. I do not think it was any of these things. I believe the plan made me a better runner and prepared me to handle the marathon extremely well. I felt great the majority of the race. Physically I could have continued to run at my goal pace, but mentally I was not strong enough. I see my biggest failure in the race as a mental one and not due to a lack of training or too much training. I would absolutely follow the plan again. I really enjoy the structure of the workouts and schedule, and I do believe it has made me a better runner. 

So what's next for me? I have a vacation coming up in a few days where I can decompress from all things running for a bit. As much as part of me is aching to jump back into running and training, I know I need to physically recover as well as mentally. Training for so many weeks is really hard and exhausting. Marathon training consumes your life if you let it (in a mostly good way), and I am going to enjoy taking a break so that when I do run, it is because I love it and not because it is time to train for another race. Looking ahead I would like to do a winter race so that I can piggy back on all the training I have done this summer and keep my fitness up. I am also deciding what my 2017 fall marathon plans will be. What race will I choose? I am not sure, but it is a good sign that I am even considering taking this journey again.