25 Days to Boston // Cary Half Marathon Recap

Photo: Coach Shawna

Boston Incoming

I had excitement when the new year turned. There was something about 2022 that felt exciting and new, and potentially an opportunity for us to see the end of this pandemic. (Hopeful thinking.)

I was excited and hopeful that the new year would bring a sense of pace and speed, as if I were to be slingshot into a new era and I’d wave COVID behind in the rear view. Instead days decided to take their sweet time, crawling to the speed of a tortoise rolling in peanut butter. (Odd visual, but please don't question it.) This isn’t what I wanted. More excitement and progress, less slog. Not much different than we are used to, I guess.

Late last year, I was shocked with excitement when I found out I was accepted into the Boston marathon. This was a milestone I had been trying to achieve for the past five years. My running career, while exciting and enjoyable, had plenty moments where I fell short of my goals and missed qualifying. In 2018, I experienced two injuries in both of my attempts at the Illinois Marathon and the Twin Cities Marathon. In 2019, I was heartbroken by being one minute short of qualifying at the Berlin marathon.

Who knew that two years later, in the fall of 2021, I would have redemption. Thanks to postponed races, extended sign up windows, and also turning 35 (which meant going up an entire time bracket due to my age) I was accepted into the Boston Marathon with my 2019 time from Berlin.

So cool, I got in. Yay. However, the problem with me is that I hate waiting. It was November and the race was in April. I was ready to get training started and get closer to race day. But I had to wait six whole months for the race, which is basically torture to me. It was as if I was given this incredible gift on Christmas, but was not allowed to open it.

So while January moved like a sloth in outer space (crushing the analogies I know) , the next two months were complete opposites. In the blink of an eye, February passed and now March is almost over. It’s like that sloth decided to, all of sudden, not be a sloth anymore and turn into a meerkat on coffee laced with Adderall (another one.) The good news is that I feel like I’ve had a good training cycle. I’ve been nailing my workouts and building up my fitness. But something is off.

It’s been over a month and a half since my last post, and if I’m being honest, it’s been nearly impossible to put down the time in the energy to write another post. I had gone into launching running in circles with big intentions, where I wanted to be consistent with my constant creation and continue to fuel this new avenue that I found to connect with my running community. However, as I dig further into training for the Boston Marathon, I quickly found myself losing the precious time that I had. Work has gotten more intense, with new and exciting projects making way, which in conjunction has given me new opportunities to grow in my current professional role. It’s all very exciting stuff, but also very mentally draining. At the same time, the precious time that I once had in spending with my family was starting to dwindle. In conjunction with the hours that I was dedicated into training for the Boston Marathon, it was becoming more and more difficult to invest in family time. To make matters worse, I was starting to feel unusually fatigued at the end of workdays, with my brain feeling like it’s been rattled in a million different directions and feeling like I had zero ability to focus on anything.

Having a cup of coffee at 5:30 PM started to become a new normal, the lifeline that would give me energy just so that I could be merely present with my children. Watching them grow up is such a beautiful thing, and to be around each of those moments that contribute to that is something that I must not take for granted.

So all in all, I was finding time to focus on my family, train for my marathon, and work a full-time job. Great. Many don’t even have the time to do all three of those and I should count my blessings that I am able to pull that off. But something that I was blatantly not investing in was time for reflection. I wasn’t taking moments to look back on my improvements with work, wonderful moments with my children, quality time with Michelle, and the progress I was building with my fitness. To add onto this, I was not investing time into my faith, where I felt like I was staying distant from my church community and my friends.

I’m beyond grateful that I was able to do all of these things, and invest the time during the day to meet my accomplishments. But when we treat the important things like business transactions, and we will miss out on the bigger picture and the holistic reason why we do them in the first place. In retrospect, I’m confident that I could have done just slightly less and maybe chose one or two things on my to do list to not complete, and by not doing those tasks I would have won back much needed time to reflect. I would have additional time to cherish the moments that I have built.

On my training block was running the March Madness half marathon in Cary, IL. While I was definitely excited, there was absolutely a factor of feeling worn out. Word on the street is that this race is an ideal step for Boston training and the hills there are no joke. They’re challenging to the point that they called the last hill to get over near the end of the race “lung buster hill. “ That’s some pretty sadistic stuff right there.

My coach's assignment was simple: use this race as a prep for Boston and get used to the incline/declines of the hills while engaging my marathon race pace. I needed to know how to utilize the skills to not shred my legs on the hills, and this race was going to be a great test of that. There was no room for full sending this thing, as I was also on fatigued legs and did not taper at all in prep for this.

But I’d be lying to you if I said that the anxiety of racing again didn’t get to me. I ran a pretty good half earlier in the year at the F^3 half, but was far from my goal pace considering the temperatures were well below freezing. I had to come to terms of the possibility of many of my peers going for faster times and had plans to full send this race, but I needed to stay focused on what I needed to accomplish first and foremost. Positive steps forward in my training were more important than attempting to summon a command performance in a race that was not the end goal. I had to zoom out and reflect on where I was, and what I needed to do in this moment. So, you could say that this was good practice for me doing more of the “reflection” that I needed to accomplish. How convenient!

So it was time for me to be a well behaved athlete end execute against the plan my coach helped me build. But you know I'm going to dance that fine line at least a little...

Race recap

Cary, IL is rural. No big buildings. Plenty of GPS reception. And fields. Lots and lots of fields. This meant an additional factor for which I had to prepare. Being lonely. It wasn’t going to be anything like the shamrock shuffle, so I had to be mentally ready to spend some quality time with… myself. Nothing like running at effort and then having just yourself to commiserate with.

Oh I warmed up with my teammates from EDGE, got an a picture with them, did my warm-up routine, then proceeded to the start line. I found Dan Tun and Magaly. A real blessing was finding an old friend and previous coworker, Ian De La Rosa, whom had talked about this race many times in the past and told me that he was running mess. It was a joy to see him.

Before I knew it, the race was on. I didn’t really hear any sort of horn, I just noticed that a bunch of people started running fast. So the hunt was on. As soon as I stepped over the start line, I clicked my watch. It was a beautiful sunny morning, with temperatures hovering around 35° at the start and did not feel a draft of wind whatsoever. It was without a doubt a good day for running.

My mission for miles one through five was to target marathon pace, so around 6:47 per mile. There was going to be a few baby hills along with some longer downhills to handle (net downhill.) A great opportunity to get the hang of my cadence and handling of hills, and find ways to make my landings as easy as possible while also taking advantage of the free speed. It’s the perfect description for a balancing act.

Through the first few miles, paces felt like they were on point. While I was planning to race on my own, I found myself running side-by-side with Dan, which was pretty awesome. We chatted back-and-forth about strategy for the early miles and how we were going to tackle the hills. One hill after another, we encouraged each other to stay focused and concentrate on the ascents. The company with him was a good distraction, and we collectively were pulling a 6:35/mile pace on average through the first six miles. This was quite faster than what I was planning, and I was feeling pretty fresh.

The major hill that we had kept our eyes on was the one coming up between miles seven and eight. This one was colossal, but we also knew that there was a major descent right after that, similar to the other rolling hills at the start. This hill would bring us very close to our peak elevation for the entire race, and the downhill was very harsh and would bring us to our lowest elevation. This was an important part of the race. If I kept it together and didn’t blow anything out here, I knew I’d be in a good position to take on the nasty hills in the latter third.

Dan reached the Apex of the first major hill before me, with me tailing 3 to 4 seconds behind him. Up to this point, I usually catch up to him on the descents. However, this time Dan hit a groove and really started to separate away from me. I wanted to catch up to him, but I knew it wasn’t wise for me to do so. The company was nice to have, but at the end of the day, we each had our own races to run. We are all on our own separate missions, and letting us individually chase down our unique goals is one of the best things that helps us support one another. I yelled toward him with encouragement, and was happy to see him take off.

I did notice that there was a malfunction at the water stop at the apex, and he missed grabbing a cup to hydrate. Nobody was there passing them out which was a real bummer. I decided to grab water for him, which meant grabbing two cups. Not sure how I fulled that off. I downed one quickly and ditched it, and pinched the top of the cup so it wouldn’t spill while continued to charge ahead. I yelled up to him “I’VE GOT YOUR WATER.” However, the bastard didn’t slow down and after a 10th of a mile, I lost my patience and drank the water for myself and ditched it. It was his choice to go fast, so that’s on him.

At mile 10 came the real test. Dan is about 100 meters ahead of me. Unfocused on the separation between us, it was time to take on the three hills that make this race tough. The first hill was a wake up call. Thankfully, I came out of it ok, but did slow my pace down to 7:05/mile on the uphill. This helped me focus on my footing, without overtaxing myself. Immediately after that was an equally tough hill, where I stuck around a 7:05/mile pace, and felt surprisingly better. I was no doubt gasping for air once I got over the hill, and the thought of quitting and eating a pizza crossed my mind multiple times. But I wasn’t falling apart. The final hill is the sadistic one, and started at 7:05-7:10/mile on the way up. It felt like it wouldn’t end. Time came to a crawl and I continued to suck air while I climbed and climbed. This one was rough.

Finally I made it to the top, and took a moment to allow myself to gain my composure. I had just over 1.5 miles left and needed to keep going. Just another 10 minutes of work, I told myself. At this point, I’ve already pocketed a decent amount of time throughout the morning, and I’m running under my projected race plan. If I maintain my current pace, it was looking like I would finish at 1:26:45-1:27, a time that given the planning would be an awesome achievement.

I’m having a hard time remembering what I thought about during the last mile of the race. Normally I think about some thing that encourages me, or angers me which then motivates me to keep pushing. Or I think about math. I’m a strange one. The only thought I had was putting one foot in front of the other and continuing to test what else I could give. I continued to scream ahead at Dan, which my hope was that he would get so pissed off at hearing me yell at him that he would run even faster away from me.

Then I saw it. The finish line. All I had to do was keep the pace and soon I’d be done. I kept moving. No thinking, just move. And try to move faster. And faster. Before I knew it, I crossed the finish. It was over. I looked down at my watch. 1:26:20. 15 seconds away from my PR, which far exceeded my expectations and plans for this race. This was a win, and one that I desperately needed. Ha, so much for being a well-behaved athlete.

Closing

The March Madness half marathon helped me remember the importance of reflection, and looking back on the important things in life and cherish them. I felt like I gained greater clarity on not only the importance of that reflection, but knew how I was going to put that into practice in multiple facets of my life. For the next month, I am going to say no to a couple extra things each day to make time for much needed reflection, and therefore capture and hang onto the important moments in life.

Looking ahead, race day in Boston is fast approaching. For the rest of the way, my focus will be to enjoy the ride and not take anything for granted. I’m going to enjoy the last bit of this fun ride leading up to the most important race of my life to date. It would be a shame if I didn’t soak in as much as I could.