Let it go, let it go!

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't woken up multiple times in the middle of the night thinking to myself, "Why didn't you choose right?!?" in regards to my wrong turn in the Bass Pro Marathon.  I have a hard time letting things go sometimes, and this has been one of those times.  It's also why I've been quiet this week about Bass Pro (no 6 blogs like after Prairie Fire!).

I've told myself that I need to be extremely thankful that Scott yelled at me until I turned back to the correct course and that I still ran a sub-3:00 (what I wouldn't have given for this whole scenario when I ran a 3:01?!).  I've told myself that I need to let this be a confidence boost for my next marathon, because I know I can go faster and finish strong like I did (9 of my final 12 miles were in the 6:30s).  I've told myself that no race is perfect, and really everything else about this race went off without a hitch.  I've told myself to be thankful that I can run, period, and that I had the opportunity to run two marathons in four weeks and to walk away from them healthy and feeling great.  I believe all of these things wholeheartedly, but I am really struggling with forgiving myself for the error.

My after the race struggle has been worse than mile 24!

The area where I made the wrong turn is right by the Missouri State parking lot I park in as an adjunct professor, so after class on Tuesday evening I decided I was going to drive by it and figure out how I went wrong.  Once I drove to the area it was very clear how I made the mistake, and I drew my husband the diagram below to explain it.  In my mile 20 focus, I didn't even realize that the road split before the park, and running on the left side of the road I just continued in the left lane when we ran past the tree-filled median.  The correct race direction arrows (which were bright green as shown in the photo above) were on the far other side of the median and not visible to me.  I knew I was following old arrows when I went left, but they were the only arrows I could see at all.

*Not to scale, haha!

So I understand what happened, and I'd now like a do-over.  Too bad life doesn't work like that, huh?  Since I can't re-decide my route at Bass Pro, I guess the next best thing is to try to better my marathon time in Phoenix on February 25.  Maybe a blessing from this will be increased motivation during winter training?  Maybe a blessing is the confidence boost of knowing that I closed with a 6:37 paced final 10K and ran within 11 seconds of my PR despite running at least 0.2 over the course distance?  After seeing my splits, my coach said sub-2:55 for Phoenix should be my goal.  For now I will try to take a lesson from Frozen and let it go...