An Uphill Battle for an Important Cause

I ran the St. Jude Memphis marathon yesterday morning. The company that I work for is a gold sponsor of the race because St. Jude is our charity beneficiary. As the director of marketing, I was responsible for coordinating our sponsorship and our involvement in the race. The company is relatively small, so it was quite a "high" to see our logo on all the shirts and on the huge LED scoreboard in Autozone park at the finish line.

Tour of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
On Friday morning, my husband Greg and I got a private tour of St. Jude Children's hospital. This came as part of our sponsorship. We expected the tour to be depressing, but it was actually anything but. The hospital doesn't look, feel or smell like a hospital. The focus is on the quality of life for the children. They even continue to go to school while in the hospital. There is bright artwork all over the walls and ceilings and our tour guide told us how the hospital came to be. It's really a fascinating story of how Danny Thomas, a man who had almost no money, prayed to St. Jude (the St. of lost causes) and immediately things started to turn around for him. His vision for St. Jude would be a world-class facility to treat childhood diseases that would be funded strictly by donation. The operating costs of the hospital are $1.6 million per day, and that's all achieved through donations. Of course, they could choose to sell their research and become for-profit at anytime, but if they did that, then the research wouldn't be freely disseminated and there would be special interest groups controlling things. Greg and I were both so inspired by the hospital and the generosity of all the people and organizations who contribute money to make it all possible.

The Expo
Greg and I manned my company's booth on Friday and we got very little traffic. Even though there was no shortage of runners at the expo, no one was really interested in what our technology company did. Which is okay-- we were mainly there for awareness and to show support of St. Jude. The CEO of my company ran the half marathon with two of his sons, age 16 and 12. They all did very well, considering they didn't really train for the race. (Actually, the 12-year-old trained and he ran a 2:11:02).

Race Strategy & Goal
This was not a target race for me. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I would do the full marathon based on how torn up I felt after NYC just four weeks prior. But I felt strong enough to run the full, so I decided to go for it. I didn't have a goal in mind, but I felt like I was a shoe-in for a PR, given my recent half marathon and 10-mile times. Also, given the fact that I ran a 3:51 nearly three years ago, and I was in much better shape now, 3500 training miles later. I decided that I was not going to try and BQ, but go out at a pace of 8:40 (just 9 seconds per mile faster than my PR) and then speed up at the halfway point if I felt good. I figured I would end up with something around 3:45. I ran the half marathon last year, and I reviewed my half marathon splits, which were based on feel and the elevation profile. Miles 1-13 of the full marathon are the same as the half marathon so I knew what I was in for.

The Start
Unlike New York, where we had to wake up over five hours prior to race start, we only had four blocks to walk to the start line. We left the hotel at around 7:15 and ended up walking there with my company's CEO and his kids. The 5K race started at 7:15, so we were able to see our CFO and his wife participate in the walk.

The weather was 54 and overcast. I was really happy about the overcast, but 54 was about 10 degrees higher than I would have liked. Last year, it was 27 degrees at the start line and I was really happy about that. I thought that as long as the sun didn't come out, the weather shouldn't hold me back too much.

This race uses a self-corralling system. I think it works a lot better than the assigned corrals. Instead of assigning you a corral based on a predicted time from when you registered, runners could choose where to line up. This was also a wave start, and corrals were released every two minutes. Greg and I lined up in coral 4, which included the 3:40 and 3:45 pacers. He was going for a faster pace, but we lined up at the front of the corral so that he wouldn't have to weave through people. Very well organized, in my opinion.

Miles 1-7
These miles were relatively crowded, given that both the half and the full marathoners were on the same course. My strategy was to walk through the water stations, Galloway-style, so as to preserve my legs. I did this in my marathon back in March of 2008, so I figured it would work again. I really didn't want to bonk and I wanted to play it conservatively. For these miles I was running in the 8:30-8:45 range, depending on the hilliness. I hit the 10K at 53:37, which is an 8:39 pace. There seemed to be an equal amount of uphill and downhill, and I ran based on effort. It felt very easy, but I kept telling myself that it should feel really easy.

Miles 8-13

I remembered miles 8-10 being the toughest part of the course last year, so I slowed up quite a bit-- to about 8:55. This portion was run through the woods and it's where Greg lost me last year in the half. The 3:45 pace group got way ahead of me, but I was okay with this. These miles were all uphill and I did not want to overdo it early in the race. I also remembered that the elevation profile showed miles 11-13 being downhill, but this wasn't the case. It was a net downhill, but those last few miles are all long rolling hills. It wasn't as if I was "out of the woods" when I got out of the woods. I didn't make up any time during miles 11 and 12, because they were hilly. Mile 13, on the other hand, was all downhill. I crossed the halfway mark in 1:54:30, which is a pace of 8:45. During all of my previous BQ attempt bonks, I had reached the halfway point in 1:50 or faster. So I knew I had set myself up for a smart race.

Miles 14-19
Greg finished the half marathon in 1:42:47 (a 5-second PR). He came to watch me just after I crossed the halfway point. It was really a mental boost to have him cheering for me. He also got everyone around him calling out my name.

According to the elevation profile, miles 14-20 were uphill. I figured this was a net uphill and that there would be downhills as well. I was wrong. It was just a steady climb, all the way to mile 20. I even said to someone running next to me: "Is this entire race uphill?" This was very disheartening to me because I was hoping that after a conservative first half, I'd be able to speed up during the second half, but I was still running in the 8:50-8:55 range on these hills. And by mile 18, I felt like I was running out of gas.

I had walked through almost every water station, pouring water all over my head (I felt hot, and the sun did start to peak through the clouds) and I knew I was well hydrated. I had taken my honey gels at the appropriate time, but by mile 18, I just felt like I couldn't handle the constant uphill nature of the race.

I also had to pee. I've only stopped to pee at one marathon out of the 11 I had done, but there was no avoiding it this time. Luckily, there were plenty of porta potties on the course so I didn't have to wait too long. Having to stop really killed my time for that mile and it made me realize that I was tired. This is why I hate stopping during marathons (except for the controlled waterstop walks). I never realize how tired I am feeling until I stop, and then it's so hard to get going again. But I did get going again, and I was still hopeful that I could gain back some time during the last 10K with the downhills.

Miles 20-Finish
Mile 20 was a nice downhill and I started cruising again. Suddenly everything felt good and I thought I could still PR, despite the bathroom break the slowness of miles 14-19. But I began to feel nauseated all of a sudden, and my stomach really hurt. I've been fortunate to never have an upset stomach during a race before. It happens to me a lot during long training runs, but never during races. So, I guess it was my day to finally join the ranks of the many runners who've had stomach issues during an actual race. I had to go to the bathroom really bad, and I started looking for places along the side of the road I could go. I really just didn't think I could wait for a porta-potty or a restaurant of some sort.

We were running through a residential area, and I asked someone standing outside of a house if he lived there. He said no and I said I really needed a bathroom ASAP. He told me that there were some porta potties up to the left. It hurt so much to run, but I needed to get to those porta potties, or I was just going to explode. Finally I got inside a porta potty and had a diarrhea attack. Ugh. It felt really good to finally go to the bathroom, but I realized how bad the situation had gotten. This was at mile marker 22.

The last four miles were just awful. Even though I had gone to the bathroom, the pain moved to the right side of my belly button and felt like a cramp. Every time I ran it was a sharp pain so I had to walk. It actually didn't hurt when I walked, but the moment I started running, it would cramp up. And as I expected, miles 20-26 were all downhill. It wasn't rolling hills like miles 10-12, this was just nice consistent downhill to makes up for 14-19. It was so frustrating. My legs felt good and I had a lot of energy. I didn't feel at all like I had hit "the wall" and yet my stomach hurt so badly when I ran. Other runners and cheerers told me "I could do it" and that's what you hear when you bonk. So even though I ran a smart race, and even though I wasn't bonking, I still had that embarrassing "I am walking the last four miles of this marathon" experience.

I really wanted to drop out. But I didn't drop out because I was doing this for St. Jude children. And I was also representing my company, a gold sponsor of the race. It would have been bad PR and I think I would have regretted it. The people I work with don't care how fast I finish, they just care that I do finish. Even a 5-hour marathon would have been better than stopping. If I had been doing this race just for myself, then I probably would have dropped out. But I was strong for my company and for St. Jude. Seeing the hospital and understanding the cause really helped power me through.

I was able to run for about 20-30 seconds at a time, but then the pain would get really bad. When I got to the last mile, I realized that physically holding the side of my stomach helped to some extent, so I was able to run for a minute at a time. Slight improvement.

In all 12 marathons I've done, I've never walked during that last 0.2. No matter how badly I felt, I have always run that final 0.2. But not in this case. I was in so much pain! But as soon as I entered the stadium and I knew that my co-workers and husband would be cheering, I held onto my stomach and ran through the finish line.

I finished in 4:14:38, which is my 3rd slowest out of 12 marathons.
I placed 57 of 188 in my age group, which is still respectable.

As I finished, the medical people swarmed around me, as they had seen me holding my stomach, I assured them I was okay. I felt nauseated and tired, but I knew I would be fine once I sat down for awhile. I made my way up to the suite that my company had in the stadium where everyone was waiting for me (I was the only one doing the full marathon). They were all very supportive and understanding. I was so happy I finished and didn't bail out.

Reflections
Even though I am in the best shape I've ever been in (well, maybe I was in better shape in the weeks leading up to NYC) I ran my third slowest marathon ever. I went into this race with no expectations and I ran it conservatively, based on feel, and I still had a bad experience. I wonder when things are finally going to line up for me in and when I'll be able to run a marathon that truly reflects all the training I've been doing. The last time I ran a good marathon was in March 2008-- nearly three years ago. I only trained for 7 weeks, and I averaged about 35-40 MPW. For over two years now, I've been consistently running in the 40's and 50's, and my race times at other distances have dropped dramatically. Half marathon is down from 1:50 to 1:41. The 5K is down from 23:30 to 22:21.

After my experience with Bob Potts last may, I changed my perspective and I decided I wasn't going to use a BQ as a motivator. I was obsessing over it and it wasn't healthy. Since then, I've just wanted to run strong and put in good training miles. I feel wonderful about everything I've accomplished over the past two years, both in terms of my actual race times, and in terms of where I am mentally. I am much more relaxed about it now, although still as focused on training and racing to the best of my ability. So, I'm not really upset about this experience from yesterday. I'm not disheartened like I was after Bob Potts in May. I'm just wondering when I get to run a marathon when I say "Wow- I rocked it!" instead of "Oh, that was miserable." I remember how it feels to run a strong marathon. My first six were awesome. All of them PRs. The next six were plagued by injury, illness or bad weather.

I am just going to continue training and doing what I love to do-- run. My legs don't feel like I ran a marathon yesterday, because I didn't run a marathon. I walked most of the last four miles. I'm hoping to be back running by Tuesday.

If I can offer one piece of advice to marathon runners, it's that you need to love the training for the sake of the training and for the sake of it making you a stronger person. Your race might not reflect your hard work and dedication, but the important thing is that you know you've made yourself stronger.

Runnin' for the Kids

Background: Running for a Cause
I am the Director of Marketing for a software company called InfinityQS. It's a smallish company with a family-like atmosphere, privately held and with no venture capital funding. As such, we have the freedom to donate as much as we would like to charity. A few years ago, the company decided to make St. Jude Children's Research Hospital it's charity partner. The company pledged to donate $1 million.

As the Director of Marketing and an avid runner, I had the idea of sponsoring the marathon. Since we had already committed to donating $1 million, I figured that $10,000 of that could go to the marathon as a way to involve our employees. I assembled a team of co-workers, including the CEO himself. My fiance also ran on the team as well as my running partner who had moved to Atlanta last spring.

As a sponsor of the race, we were able to exhibit at the expo. My fiance and I flew down on Thursday morning and set up the exhibit. We weren't really marketing to the runners, but we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity to get our name out to the community. Surprisingly, two users of InfinityQS software approached the booth and told me how great the software was and how much it was helping their company. There were a few other people who were really interested in learning about the software, which was nice.

On Friday, the other team members arrived. Our team raised over $3,000 in addition to the sponsorship money, so there was a lot to be proud of. This includes $500 from one of my Runner's World friends, who raised this money in less than 24 hours!!!! I personally raised $485. The CEO came with his son, his sister, and his brother-in-law. He was excited to be there and to see that we had the exhibit set up.

The Race
The race itself was awesome. The forecast was for low 30's and sunny, so I wore tights, a long-sleeved shirt, gloves and a hat. I probably could have done without the hat, but it turned out to be ideal racing weather. At the start line, my fiance (Greg), my running partner (Lindsay) and I lined up in the coral for the 8:00 pace. The rest of the InfinityQS team was far back as they hadn't really trained and had never run more than a few miles at a time.

Given the fact that I only had 8 weeks to train for this (due to the injury) and that my longest run was only 14 miles, I was not expecting a PR. My 1:44:04 was set after weeks in the 50's and a few 20-milers. Plus, that race was flat and this was hilly. I thought I would be lucky to pull of a 1:46. Lindsay and Greg said that they were going to let me be their pacer and try to keep up as long as possible. I thought that I would probably be the LAST one to finish, given Greg's recent 10K time and Lindsay's training on the hills. But I am good at pacing, so I agreed. My strategy was to start out at 8:05 and try to hold on.

Even though headphones were allowed during this race, I didn't use them. I wanted to be able to communicate with Lindsay and Greg and hear everyone cheering them. This ended up working out great and I think I will continue to race without headphones in races where there is a lot of crowd support.

Miles 1-4
I knew that the first mile had a net uphill elevation and the second mile would be a major loss in elevation. So I ran accordingly. My plan was to maintain an even level of effort, which meant slower on the uphills and faster on the downhills. I think that Lindsay was more comfortable with the hills, so she did not slow down on the uphills. She maintained an even pace. Every time we reached a hill, she would get ahead of me, and then I would typically catch her on the downhill.

Mile 1: 8:07
Mile 2: 7:51
Mile 3: 8:02
Mile 4: 7:48

Miles 5-8
At mile 5, I took a "honey stinger" engery gel. This was my first time using the honey in a race, although I had used it in training. I thought it would be easier and quicker than the sports beans. That was true, but some honey might have gone down the wrong pipe, so I was coughing and having a really tough time. Lindsay and Greg went ahead as I drank some water and re-grouped. I caught back up about 30 seconds later.

Everything was feeling surprisingly good and I started to think that maybe I would get a 1:45. There was a 10K timing mat and I crossed it in 49:36. My 10K PR is not too far off from that. I thought how odd it was that I felt so great at that point, but in a 10K race, I would be dying at that pace. I need to figure out why that is. In the results, they "rank" you at the 10K split. I was ranked 16th in my age group at that point. Lindsay crossed it just ahead of me and was ranked 15th. My fiance Greg was somewhere behind me and I wasn't sure how far. He removed his long sleeved shirt at mile 5 and that slowed him down. He later told me that he had me in sight all the way through mile 9. I thought I had lost him at around the 10K mark.

After crossing the 10K, the was a downhill and I sped down it passing Lindsay. I figured she would catch up but I never saw her again. Surprisingly, I was leading the two of them, which I did not think would be the case. My paces continued to surprise me, but everything felt great.

Mile 5: 7:48
Mile 6: 7:58
Mile 7: 7:52
Mile 8: 7:52

Miles 9-Finish
At this point, I was starting to feel a bit worn out. I knew that miles 8-10 were a net uphill. I told myself to hang in there and once I hit mile 10, the elevation would start to decrease. I decided to eat my sports beans at mile 8, which was earlier than planned. It was a challenge to eat them because when you are breathing so heavily, trying to chew something hard like that and swallow is difficult. I said to myself "eating these beans is crucial to your performance. You need them to get through the rest of the race. Just focus on chewing them and not choking them." I ended up shoving about 8 of them in my mouth at once and throwing out the rest of the pack. Once I was done, I was able to focus more on the race.

There was a huge hill at mile 10. It took a lot of positive self talk. "Maintain an even effort. Don't worry about pace here. You will be able to make it up on the downhills. Stay confident, don't overdo it here. Just focus on getting to the top of the hill and maintaining the effort level." I did have to push a little bit harder because the hill was long and somewhat steep, but once I made it to the top, I knew that I had the race "in the bag". Mile 10 ended up being the slowest mile of the race, but I made up for it in the last mile. I knew I had run a great race strategy because I was able to maintain my pace but I was definitely feeling it. The last two miles were brutal, but I maintained my focused and stayed positive. The last mile of the race ended up being my fastest mile. I thought I might be able to get a PR so I gave it all I had.

Mile 9: 7:54
Mile 10: 8:14
Mile 11: 7:52
Mile 12: 8:04
Mile 13: 7:44
Last 0.21: (7:15 pace)

The Finish

I crossed the finish line knowing that I didn't PR, but I was happy at how close I came. I honestly didn't expect to run the race so quickly. Considering how much hillier this course was than Shamrock, I think this is my strongest half marathon. I could have definitely PRed on a flat course.

Greg crossed the finish line soon after me, and I learned that he had me in his sight up until mile 9. Lindsay followed about a minute later.

My finish time was a 1:44:30 which is a pace of 7:59. This is 26 seconds slower than my PR. My Garmin indicated 13.21 miles at an average pace of 7:55, due to all the weaving.

I was ranked as the 16th woman in my age group at the 10K mark, but at the finish, I was ranked 11th. This means that I passed 5 women in my age group after the 10K mark.

I placed 11 of 762 in my age group, beating 98.6% of them.
I placed 82 out of 4278 women, beating 98.1% of them.

I will definitely be doing this race again, and my company will continue to be a sponsor.