Given what happened this week at work and what I put in my body since Wednesday (10 pints of beer, 2 glasses of wine, Long John Silvers, Taco Bell, Red, Hot & Blue, and Nachos) I was not prepared mentally and to a lesser degree physically for this marathon.
Last time I was not mentally prepared for a race was after my Grandmother's death back in Aug and I had my worst performance in a marathon.
It was a cold (upper 20s/low 30s) but sunny morning with temps expected to climb into the low 50 so I decided to run in shorts (which is very unusual for me because I like to be warm when I run).
I'll skip to mile 13.1 - 1:36:16 - three minutes off my First Light Marathon pace. At mile 17 I was 7 minutes off the previous pace - I lost a few minutes getting a rock out of my shoe and fighting the Clif Shot (couldn't get it open and had to stop and take off my gloves - but it was the first time that I didn't get my face covered in chocolate Clif Shot).
At mile 19 I was done. I just couldn't continue running so in essence I quit - that was the first time that has happened in a race. My legs felt fine - everything felt fine but my mind was so overwhelmed I think it just shut everything else down.
For the next 7 miles I did a combination of walk and painfully slow jogging. I'd say it was 70% shuffle, 30% walk. I was somewhere around 20th place when I "quit" and after that I lost count of the number of people who passed.
At mile 25.2 (approx) I said to myself lets try and run the last mile w/o stopping. I did and in the end I crossed the line (chip time) in less than 3:37. It is frustrating to know that 2nd place in my age was 3:17 and 3rd was 3:25. If I could have held on past 19 - I might have had another age award but today was just not my day.
Next few races: Cherry Blossom, Boston Marathon followed by Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon six days later.
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