Sunday, October 10, 2010

10-10-10


I woke up at 4AM to eat a bagel with peanut butter (it's best to eat 3-4 hours before the marathon so you don't have digestive issues). My friend Beth picked Kelly and I up at 6AM. I was in the elite development tent which made for a less stressful pre-race because you are in the tent with your teammates and they take good care of you and lead you to the start when it is time to go. I felt good on the warm-up. We only went for 10 minutes because it was warm out so there wasn't much need to "warm-up". When the gun went off everyone was flying by me. I thought I was starting conservative but my first mile was 6:07 oops! I tried to settle in but the crowd support was so amazing that I couldn't seem to run slow enough. Every 2 seconds someone would yell my name and I would be so excited and start to speed up! Well after a bit the heat started to creep up and my times started to slow...until instead of hitting 6:20's I was running 6:40. After the half way mark it just wasn't looking like I was going to get the standard of 2:46. I had to make a decision- do I want to run a slower marathon and have that be the end of the season or do I want to be able to give it another try. I decided around mile 15 that I didn't want to just finish- I wanted a chance to reach the goal that I was going for. At that point I stopped but I was pretty far west so I had to cut over a street in order to get back (this cut about a mile off)..therefore when people saw me next I looked like I was doing amazing! Jeff hopped in and started running with me and I said I was going to stop at mile 18 where I knew I had some friends. Jeff was so confused saying- what? You are running so well! I explained that I had stopped and hopped back in the race. Anyway- it was a terrible feeling to drop out. I haven't ever done that and I had no idea it would feel so bad to stop before the finish line. I know that I did the right thing though and my Coach was very happy with me. It still doesn't feel so great though. It was fun to hang out with a LOT of Calvin people after the race. Many of my friends had a great first marathon experience!

4 comments:

  1. C, this sentence is the most important one: "I decided around mile 15 that I didn't want to just finish- I wanted a chance to reach the goal that I was going for." Remember what your goal is. I know you've never dropped out before but you've never had such a major goal like qualifying for the Trials before. It's a whole new ballgame and sometimes you need to do whatever it takes to reach your goal. You've made a mature decision. Now you'll have fresh legs and run another marathon soon :)

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  2. ...and I've typed the word "goal" four times in the above post. LOL!

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  3. Mary Jeffers SchroderOctober 14, 2010 at 5:32 PM

    Good decision Christina. The ultimate goal is most important.

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  4. agree with above comments. where will you be running now? best of luck to you.

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