Friday, October 8, 2021

Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon: The Back Half

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.

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.


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.

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...

See man I ran with during the monsoon with the
race medics in this photo





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