All right, well, I guess I better write this race up before I forget it all. The short recap: 3:03:59, 3rd place AG/10th overall. Mood: trying very hard to be happy about it, somewhat successfully.
Day before the race went fine, I did a short jog in the morning and spent the day in Phoenix with my parents, lazing around a local park and taking care of things like bib pick-up. I tried to eat plenty of carbs, not sure if everything I ate really worked for me because I had some stomach issues during the race. I did sleep pretty well which is unusual and great.
Race morning, I woke up at 3:15 a.m., ate some breakfast, and headed off to catch a bus to the start. I had an easy time finding my buddies which was awesome and really helped the pre-race hours go by fast. I ate a larger breakfast than usual, hoping to avoid dying in the late stages of the race (ha ha ha HA HAAAA you just wait).
Let me talk for a second about what my race plan was. I planned to divide the race mentally into 3 8-mile chunks and then give it all I had for the last 2.5 miles. I was going to start around 6:55-7:00 pace and get 5-10 seconds per mile faster with each 8-mile section, resulting in a sub 3-hour marathon. I mean, just so you know what the PLAN was, not that what happened was in any way related to this very smart and sensible plan.
Before I knew it we were off and running, and the weather was really nice. Overcast and not (YET) too windy. I felt kind of full already when we started, but I figured that was ok. I felt really great running at about a 6:45 pace. That was a bit faster than planned, but I figured that since the first 4 miles were the most downhill of the race, I was ok. I probably was ok, who knows....I will say that the 3:10 pacer was running at like a 6:40 pace, so if I took off too fast I certainly wasn't the only one. I really wonder if starting off slower might have resulted in a faster finish time.
I continued to feel great for quite awhile...I didn't even feel like I was running until the 6-mile mark, at the end of the only uphill of the race. A Tucson buddy was running with me, to my surprise since he had a slightly slower goal than me, but I really appreciated it. Around mile 8 or so the headwind kicked in, and there were some really tough stretches for the rest of the race. I seemed to find myself in no-mans-land each time there was a big wind, despite my plans to find a big galoot to draft off. In any case, we came through the half in just over 1:29 and I felt good, so I figured the early fast pace was all right. The second we crossed the halfway mark my buddy slowed down and I didn't see him again, which was a little mentally tough but I resolved to go for it.
Untillllllll......
Around mile 16, I started hurting. I needed to eat another Gu but couldn't get it down, which had never happened in training. Also about at this time I remembered my pre-race plan, which I hadn't yet thought about during the race. I had a little cushion of time, so I tried to just relax and mentally tune out until mile 22 or so, but that didn't quite happen...at mile 20 I really lost it and for the last 10k, my pace slowed to 7:30's that felt more like 12 minute miles. I even started to lose coordination in what was probably a pretty hilarious display, first throwing cups of water straight into my face, then knocking them to the ground instead of grasping them. I have never, ever ever ever felt worse in a race in my life, I honestly though I might walk and/or drop out. Well, in any case I held down the barfs and finished in a time that I am really pretty happy with. I'm disappointed in how badly I died at the end since I'd tried so hard to prevent it, but on the other hand I'm glad I went for a fast time. Also, a ~20-minute PR in the course of a year is a good accomplishment.
So let's see, what would I do differently next time? I might just try to chill out a little more in the week leading up to the race, by which I mean not obsessively monitor my every physical motion and bite of food. I think I was a bit overstuffed before the race, and I might back off on that a little bit so that I'm not full when I start to avoid problems eating during the race. Training-wise, I feel like I really did everything I could, so maybe with this training cycle under my belt I'll handle the higher mileage better next time (IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME). I'm sure there are lots of things I can do differently in training but I'm so burnt out on thinking about it right now that I'll worry about that later.
Also my streak is still unbroken, I got my sore and hungover (YEP) self out the the door the next morning for one mile in about 9.5 minutes, and I was very embarrassed by my robot shuffle.
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