The First Half story is here.
From when I lost the third female cyclist before the half, I had a hope in my mind that I'd get a cyclist back. This came to fruition around mile 15-16 when one of the ladies who'd been leading came back to me real quick (she was walking). Moving from 4th to 3rd gave me a boost.
Just after this, the sky opened a torrential downpour on us, which did not give me a boost! At least it wasn't windy, but running in heavy rain was not the best. I commiserated with a man I was running by, and kept pushing onward. He joked that now that I was in third I couldn't call it in, but no one cared if he walked (he didn't, and actually finished just in front of me). The rain lasted 2-3 miles, and needless to say I was drenched. My friend Amy wrote a blog post about her Milwaukee race, and so much of what she said resonated with me! My race went downhill after the monsoon too.
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| The man on the right is the one I commiserated the monsoon with |
After the rain cleared, the sun came out. Although the first 15 miles of the race were warm, it was cloudy, which was a saving grace, but the end was mostly sunny. I was feeling average, but I was excited about being in 3rd and blissfully unaware of my gradual slow down. Around mile 20, my cyclist escort told me that I had a 100-200 meter lead on 4th, which made me a bit nervous because I wasn't feeling fantastic. I knew I'd fight for it if she came up on me, but I didn't feel super confident about holding anyone off at that point.
However, the miles continued to pass pretty quickly and I continued to pick off men during the final 10k. According to the race stats, I passed 7 men from 20 to the finish (and 1 passed me, which occurred in the final mile), which now I think is kind of crazy considering how much I was slowing down, but at the time I took as a sign I was finishing strong, haha! Later when I looked at other runners' results that Strava linked to mine, I saw my positive split (1:23:55/1:29:51) was less than any of the guys around me, which made me feel a little better about it. The fly and die method is generally a more painful way to run a marathon, and when I see significant positive splits I think "that must have been soooo miserable", but I didn't suffer any more than any other marathon. Maybe my high mileage training conditioned me to tolerate it better, or maybe since it was weather-related it was differently painful.
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| I think these two shots were around 20 |
In the final miles, I was ready to be finished like the end of every marathon, but nothing unusual. I counted down the miles and pushed with what I had. At mile 25, the cyclist told me I had nothing to worry about, which I don't think was accurate since 4th finished only 23 seconds behind me! But because of that and since I knew I wasn't going to move up, I relaxed in the last mile instead of pushing, and made sure to smile the whole way. It was my slowest mile (7:05) and my only mile in the 7's, but I expected it to be because I did ease up and enjoy instead of push.
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| Finishing stretch |
As I neared the finish, I crossed a timing mat and then heard the announcer say my name and that I was the third female finisher. My smile likely got even larger, and I ended up with the best set of professional race pictures that I've ever had (even without wearing sunglasses, gasp!)! I wasn't sure how to celebrate since I didn't win, so a thumbs up was what happened.
The story continues here...
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| See man I ran with during the monsoon with the race medics in this photo |
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