Well, my marathon is complete, finished, and done. This one was a definite learning experience for me. I had more issues in this race than my first marathon in April. I could go on and on with excuse after excuse of what went wrong, but the main point is that I finished and finished without injuring myself and for that I am happy. I felt I trained enough to do the race, but it all goes to show that on any given day, something unexpected can go wrong. That's just what happened, something unexpected happened.
For those of you who are interested in the details, I will be brief. I have a problem during long runs where about mile 17-19, I have some kind pain pulling on or near my groin muscle that feels like I am repeatedly getting hit in the family jewels. Well, I can usually stand the pain long enough to finish the remaining mileage, but on Sunday, I started to feel the pulling about mile 9. Anyway, I pushed through it, slowed down a little to decrease the pain, and carried on until cramping hit me at mile 25 (yes better than mile 24 last time!). I stretched until the cramping had left enough to run, and then ran the rest of the way into the finish. Anyway, it's just something I need to figure out how to get past, but I ended up finishing about 15 minutes slower than my last marathon at around 4 hours and 32 minutes. Although I was not happy with my time, I was certainly glad that I could to push through and finish strong.
When things go a little weird during a race, I have always been told to look back at my training. What were my long runs like, how fast were my tempo runs, did I do enough speedwork? Those are questions that I immediately started asking myself after I finished the race. During this training, due to time conflicts, I tended to break up a lot of my long runs into two seprate runs in the same day. Yes, I did a couple of long runs straight through, but obviously not enough. Also, maybe I needed to run longer tempo runs than what I did during training. Lastly, I could have probably done more speedwork during my training. There is always something to learn from any race, especially the ones that don't go so well.
So now, other than the Thanksgiving 5K race, I am officially done for the year 2012. I am excited that the fall/winter season is here so I can get more into the gym, the pool, and on my bike trainer so I can get stronger, faster, and most of all, just a little wiser than this year.
Like I always have said, I started doing this exercise thing because I had hoped to lose some weight, but I really found something I truly enjoy doing. I enjoy pushing and testing myself to see what else I can do. I am not an expert at weight loss, exercise, triathlons, running, biking or really anything, I just like doing it all.
With that said, if anyone has any advice they wish to share, please feel free. I am also looking to fill my racing schedule for next year, so if anyone has suggestions or would care to share their racing, weight loss, or exercise experiences, I would really enjoy hearing them!!
Starting to finish up 2012, getting ready for the off-season, but always, painfully or not, still running...
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