Race Report

Hi Everyone, thanks so much to those of you who sent such supportive words both before and after the race. Sorry for the delay on this, but I needed a few days. First, let me say that I am now a marathon finisher, which I am definitely happy about, but I didn't have the race I was hoping for and it's taken me a few days to get over the disappointment. Now, that several days have passed, I think I have some understanding as to what went wrong, so I am trying to stay positive and learn from this experience. Anyway, here is the race report:

The night before the race I had set all my clothing and equipment, so the morning of the race I just put everything on and ate (oatmeal). The race started at 9:30am, so we left the hotel at 8 and took the metro to the start. When we got there, we still had about an hour to kill so we stretched, used the bathroom and tried to keep our minds off what we were about to do. As we were waiting, the sun started peeking through the ominous looking clouds above (Nicky and her grade fours would recognize this right away as foreshadowing...). Finally it was time to strip off our warm-up clothes and head over to the start- the sun was still shining as I found the pace bunnies I was looking for and lined up (for those of you not familiar with marathon running, the marathon provides people who are guaranteed to finish the race at a certain time- these are called bunnies or pacers- usually they wear bunny ears with a sign saying their pace time or hold balloons with the target time printed on it- in this case, it was the latter). Based on my 10K and half marathon times, I figured it was reasonable that I could run the race in about 4 hours, but I wanted to start slow and speed up if I was feeling good (many people make the rookie mistake of starting out too fast) so I found the 4:15 bunny.

After a lot of announcements in Danish (including an address by the crown prince, who is also a marathon runner- again, in Danish, so no idea what he said) we were finally off- since there were 10,000 people in the race it took a few minutes to cross the start, but we were wearing chips, so it was no problem. At the race expo, Nike gives away bracelets that list your splits for certain finishing times (ie: what time you should be at for 5, 10, 15, 20, half, 25, 30, 35, 40K)- I wasn't sure how I would feel, so I took the bracelets for 3:45, 4 hours and 4:30- for the first 10K I was right in between the 4:00 and 4:30 one and the 4:15 bunny was just in front of me- at about 10K the sun disappeared and the first few drops of rain started falling, by about 15K it was seriously pouring but I was still feeling great and the crowds were so fun and encouraging- I thought that 4:00-4:15 would be totally doable- at the half marathon mark (21K) I remember being surprised at how good I still felt.

Then around 25 or 27K my hips were a bit sore, but nothing serious- I started walking through the water stations and this helped a bit- then by around 30K my hips and feet were bothering me- this time enough that I stopped to stretch a bit- by 35K my feet were so sore it felt like I wasn't wearing any shoes- each step was like I was walking on fire with bare feet- it was such a strange feeling, especially since I'd never had any problems like this in training. What made me most annoyed was the fact that I still had energy to run, I wasn't tired at all, it just hurt so much. By this point I was walking more than I was running and my knees were starting to hurt too, but the most pain was still in my feet. I kept thinking maybe I should stop, but then I remember thinking- I'm soaking wet and I have no money for food or a taxi- if I walk it's just going to take longer to get back to the start/finish line- by that time my watch was still running and the 4 hour and 4:15 mark had passed and the 4:30 one was fast approaching... I just wanted to lie down and cry, but I still had about about 7K to go... I don't remember how, but I managed to get to the 38K mark and saw a few people from our group who had come to support but weren't running the race.

Simone, the twin sister of one of our runners, was walking and must have seen my face- she sprinted over and grabbed my hand and basically pulled me from a walk to a run- she was so great, she told me how close we were and how I couldn't give up now, and got me bananas and water at the water stations- suddenly, before I knew it, we were at the 41K mark- we'd done this loop before and I remembered that there was a drum band playing in a tunnel that we had to run though and how cool it was the first time I did it (about 25KM's ago!)- I managed to get to the tunnel and the energy and cheering did help and then I saw a sign- '600m to the finish'- I looked at Simone and started sprinting. My feet hurt like crazy, but I knew it would all be over soon. Finally we crossed the finish line together- I looked at my watch- 4:45:39- about 45 minutes and 40 seconds slower than I had hoped, but at that point I was surprised to have finished at all. As soon as I was done, all I wanted to do was stop, but we had to keep moving to make room for the other finishers- someone put a medal on my neck, then someone else gave me a plastic blanket to keep warm, then someone else gave me a rose, then yogurt, then a granola bar, then hot chocolate- finally I just wandered away and dropped all the stuff on the ground and sat down (which was really hard actually and getting up was even harder). People from the group kept saying how great it was that I'd finished my first marathon etc but I was so mad and upset- I knew my body was capable of running much faster but I didn't know why I was in so much pain. 26 miles is a lot, but I'd run 20 in practice with no pain or problems at all. I don't like making excuses, but I do believe in learning from mistakes, so of course I analyzed everything and have come up with a few key factors that I think may have contributed to my downfall:

Temperature: Since January we'd been training in +20C temps in cairo, with the last few weeks being close to 40C. The 17C weather combined with the rain made me a lot more stiff than usual. Perhaps more stretching the days leading up to the race would have helped.

Too much pre-race activity: The day before the race, we walked to the expo and back then walked to the movie theatre and back- probably about 1.5 hours of walking in total. IF I ever decide to do another one, I will make sure to do nothing but sleep and sit on the couch the day before

Prescription drugs: The drug I was taking for my GI problem has been known to cause joint pain (Julie's husband Todd has taken it several times and said that was one of his complaints)- I didn't feel anything before hand and stopped taking the drugs the day before the race but maybe there was some residual drug in my system and the pain was brought on by the added stress of the race.

Obviously I can't say for sure if these factors were the reason I didn't do well, or if maybe my body just isn't made to go more than 30K- if you had asked me at the finish line, or even the night of the race whether I would do another one, the answer would be "never again!" But now that I've had a few days to think about it, I think I would like to try just one more marathon, just to see if I can improve.

One small issue has me worried though- over the last few days all the stiffness and pain has almost completley gone away except for one place in my right foot on the outside "edge) almost in the middle between my heel and my small toe. It's been so bad that I've been living on ibuprofen the last few days and can barely support any weight on that foot at all. Thankfully we have two physiotherapists in the group so they've been taping it for me, but if it's not better in a few days I might have to get an x-ray to see if it's a stress fracture. I'm really hoping it's not as it would mean I'd have to stop running for 2 months at least.

On the plus side, I think I finally got my nutrition down- I didn't have any stomach problems at all during the race!

Since the race I've been having fun exploring Copenhagen- I absolutely love this city- we've seen and done so many things and the people here are so nice and friendly (and good looking! Both the men and women are all really tall and thin and blonde) and it's such an active place- I think I'd fit right in here!

Okay, I should get to bed, I have to pack up and leave tomorrow (I'm NOT looking forward to going back to Cairo)

Hope you're all doing well! xoxo C