Recap: Surf City Marathon (2.6.11)

Deep breath, deep breath, in and out, in and out. That's how my morning started. I woke up to the thought, "Oh crap. I'm running 26.2 miles!"

Dana was nice enough to pick me up at 5:15am and drive me to the race even though she didn't have to be there for an hour later. We head down Beach Blvd. to park in the "early bird" parking for an extra $10. That was well worth the reassurance of knowing I wouldn't be late to the start line.

We finally got into the parking lot at 6am and I decided to hop out and head down to the start line. After checking out the corrals and happily seeing them checking bibs, I wandered off to the porta-potties. I got to the start 7 minutes before race time and mentally prepared in a corral swirling with anxiety.

All I wanted to do was finish and it would have been a good day. I would have loved to run a sub-3:40, but I was pretty sure I wasn't capable of making it. Realistically, I hadn't trained and that was my goal for near perfect training. Knowing that if I set this as my priority and at mile 20 I realized I wasn't going to make it, that would have been detrimental to my psyche. So, I focused on a sub-4 race. This was attainable and would probably be the most devastating should I miss it. The third goal was to beat my first marathon time of 4:09.

I started out strong and maintained a good pace with the 3:40 pace group. The pace leader was cracking me up, so I was happy to stick it out with them for a bit. I'm usually a bit of a lone runner. At about mile 5, I started to break away from the group. I wonder now if I stayed at their pace the whole time if I would have been able to get a 3:40 finish? I don't really care, to be honest. Heading back down along Seapoint I started to follow this woman and man that looked strong. He looked really strong. Turns out it was this guy...

From It's Beans, yo!

{Navy SEAL, ultra endurance champion}
I felt good through mile 18 and then the games started. "Catch that guy"... "Okay, you can walk when you grab a water"... "If you stop to walk and stretch you can't stop after mile 25."

I did walk after mile 25, but only 5 steps before starting up again. Then I just kept going. Chanting "One foot in front of the other." The finish line seem to loom below the horizon once we got to the straightaway and I kept thinking, "WHERE IS IT!?" Then I crested PCH at Main Street, saw FINISH and it was game on.

3 hours and 56 minutes. A thirteen minute PR!

So... I did it. I PR'ed. I accomplished my second goal. My nutrition was spot on. I finished California Dreamin'. My toenails are all attached to my toe beds. I didn't bleed or chafe. I'm going to do it at Eugene in May.