2022: New Training Approach, Dealing with Injury, and Two Marathons in Five Weeks

On January 1, I set my goal to run 1,500 miles and bike 1,500 miles in 2022. I was very excited at the prospect of doing more than I had ever done before by a pretty significant margin. I was already registered for the Chicago Marathon, with a desire to train for a time of 4 hours. I had just run the Dallas marathon on 12/12/21 so I was still kind of in recovery mode, and I wasn’t yet wanting to think about a plan to make this happen.

Something I don’t love to do is follow a specific training plan anyway. I genuinely love to run and bike, and usually a specific plan makes it feel like something I have to do instead of something I want to do. Instead, I tend to have a vague idea of what I need to do, like 30 miles per week for the year to hit 1500, and roughly target that, and go by feel where I push myself to do more if feeling good, and try to reign it in if feeling not-so-good.

So I started the year with a few low mileage weeks, in which I felt like garbage and could barely run under 10:30pace. I was really frustrated. I decided to take a few weeks off completely from running. This was fine because ski season had already picked up – I had already gone skiing 7 days by mid February. On February 18, I tried to run again. I ran 10k at 11:15pace. Now I was ready to quit. I didn’t understand why I had become so slow over the span of 2 months with seemingly adequate rest.

Instead of quitting, I figured if my current approach wasn’t working, then I should try something else. Training by heart rate had always been a vague concept to me … I was familiar with the fact that a heart rate strap is running gear for hardos. I became more familiar with it last summer when I went for a run with Mac on Labor Day Weekend, and we ran/walked to keep his heart rate in zone. I didn’t really think of it again until I was thinking about training differently in February. And when I looked into it, I immediately loved the sound of it

“It is a different way to be successful at running, it doesn’t have to be ‘no pain, no gain,’ or going as hard as you possibly can, and it allows for continued improvements over time.”

https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/beginners/a760176/heart-rate-training-the-basics/

I read up on polarized training, which is keeping your easy runs easy and making your hard runs hard (can use your heart rate as an indicator), instead of the junk medium intensity miles that were the only way I had been running in the past.

Most runners run too hard. We log the majority of our miles at moderate- and high-intensity speeds, barely deigning to hit the low-intensity paces that are so essential to building an aerobic base. Yes, running slow takes longer. Yes, you may not feel quite as accomplished postrun. But go too hard too often and instead of seeing performance benefits, you’re more likely to burn out. Take the case of two groups of recreational runners who were tested in a 2013 study published in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance: One group spent 77 percent of their time doing low-intensity workouts, 3 percent doing moderate-intensity workouts, and 20 percent doing high-intensity workouts, a method called polarized training. The other group spent 46 percent of their time doing low-intensity workouts, 35 percent doing moderate-intensity workouts, and 19 percent doing high-intensity workouts. After 10 weeks, both groups improved their 10K times, but the polarized training group improved by nearly double the amount of time, shaving about 41 seconds off the total time. And when endurance athletes followed high-volume training, threshold training, high-intensity interval training, or polarized training protocols, it was the last group who showed the most improvements in VO₂ max, time to exhaustion, and peak velocity and power, a 2014 study in the journal Frontiers in Physiology found.

https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20807243/polarized-training/

Two days after I was ready to quit due to my 11:15 pace, I was happily logging 17minute miles to maintain a ~125 beats per minute heart rate. It took some getting used to “run” at such a slow pace and stop to walk when HR got too high, but I was fully committed and excited to track my pace over a few months to monitor improvement. The first time I achieved sub-11 min pace at ~125bpm was on May 22. By the end of May I had stopped tracking my pace so closely because I had proved to myself that it worked to make me faster, given the same level of effort.

Not only did it work, but I was also having a much more enjoyable time running this way. It was so relaxing yet energizing. It became a lot easier to zone all the way out. And after every run I finished, I felt like I hadn’t done anything. It allowed me to run more frequently, pretty much every day, and sometimes twice a day when I was running to and from work.

From March 14 through June 26, I had 15 consecutive weeks of 35 miles or more. On June 26, I noted the following on my run in Strava: “top 5 worst i’ve felt on a run. this caps off my 11th week in a row of running over 40 miles per week. 468 miles over 77 days (averages 6 miles every day). and throw in 350 miles on the bike over the same period. my body is feeling it.” So I took the following week completely off from running (although I did go for a solid solo no-break <3:30 50 mile ride on my new bike). There were only 2 other weeks after this where I ran less than 10 miles, and one of those I had the flu. I had to look up why I only ran 4 miles the week of November 14; it is because I ran the Manchester Marathon on November 13, and then went to visit Michigan 4 days later.

In these graphs, the horizontal lines are the average miles per week: 25 for running and 20 for biking.

During this time, I discovered the simplest but still effective way for me to track how I was doing relative to my goals. A default view on Strava graphs actual cumulative miles vs goal cumulative miles like the graphs below. I enjoyed watching the running one get closer to goal after each run every day, catching up on all the miles I missed in January and February.

After my week off, it was early July, which meant about 3 months until Chicago, so it seemed like good timing to start my actual marathon training, and add in speed workouts. My favorite workouts became mile repeats and Yasso 800s (Yasso 800s are 10 repeats of 800 meters, with recovery laps for an equal amount of time as your fast intervals.). My best workout of the year was on July 27th, 10×800 at net 7:29 mile pace (8:23, 7:26, 6:51, 7:22, 7:19). According to Yasso, this workout predicts your marathon time: your average 800m pace in minutes/seconds will be your marathon time in hours/minutes, which meant my marathon time would be 3:45. I put absolutely zero faith in that, but it was nice to see as an indicator that 4 hours was attainable for me. A couple of other highlights during this time of the year 1) I ran an on-my-own 5k in 26:09; sometimes when I’m running miles and miles and miles >12min pace I start to doubt myself. this made me feel fantastic. 2) When I went to Vancouver in July, I ran 10 miles around the city and seawall in 1:28. another confidence booster.

Around this time of adding in track workouts, I was also hitting my peak bike distances for the year. The top 4 memorable bike rides this season, in order of when they came to mind:

1) July 16. 106 miles. Biked to South Station, took the commuter rail to Providence, and biked back to Boston with the PMC team. I ended up ditching the team after we stopped for lunch (at Panera, my fave!) because a few newbies came with us and they were suuuuuuuuuper slow and I wasn’t sure if they could even finish. I am pretty sure one of them said their longest ride to date was 30 miles. RIP. I was also riding directly home, instead of back to South Station or elsewhere like the others. It took just a bit over 9 hours elapsed time and 6:58 of moving time to do this (14.6mph average). From mile 65 and on it was over 90 degrees. I remember sitting on the ground at a gas station, only 10 miles from home, trying to get some respite from the sun, sending pics of the ridiculous amount of salt from sweat that was covering my shorts. I wrote in my Strava notes: “words cannot accurately describe how much my quads cramped up for the last 5 miles; never felt anything like that”. We went right by Bryant on this ride, which was cool.

2) August 13. 100 miles. I came up with the idea/plan for this the night before I did it, which is very different than any other century I’ve done before which I’m usually planning and hyping up for at least a week. I wanted to check out some new areas that I haven’t biked before, so I decided on the North Shore, with a loop around Gloucester and Rockport. A brand new route is always super risky because it is hard to be fully confident that the entire route will be bikeable and allow me to feel comfortable with the car situation. To mitigate this a bit, I always go as early as I possibly can so that there’s less cars out there, and I use google streetview to spotcheck how the roads look when drawing the route on Strava, looking out for the size of the shoulder, and how well the road is maintained.

Not until I was physically on it, I discovered yet another paved trail that I had no idea was there (I guess I didn’t spotcheck this section). It is called the “Northern Strand Community Trail” and it is about 10 miles long, connecting Everett and Lynn. Great trail overall. Once I got to Lynn, the route was pretty much all along the coastline, and there were great views the whole way. I kept stopping to enjoy the views and take pics. In Beverly I encountered a group of 3 riders going the same way as me, and I kept up with them for about 20 minutes, really going all out, but then couldn’t hang anymore and gave up and slowed down. I stopped for a snack break at Stage Fort Park just before the bridge to Gloucester because there were nice views and lots of benches. This was really bad timing because as soon as I was ready to go, the bridge was moved to let some boats through, so I had to wait another 15 minutes. A teenager was waiting next to me on a bike, and we chatted about the area. Next I arrived at the Rockport downtown and it was really fun and bustling vibes. There was a farmers market and lots of people out. I really needed to pee, and I found a coffee shop, but it was PACKED. If I had had my old bike I may have left it in the entrance way while I went to the bathroom, but since I had my new bike, I carried it through the packed shop and into the bathroom with me. I was wanting to get something more substantial to eat, but the place was so packed, and I was getting stressed that I had already wasted too much time piddling around Rockport, so I didn’t want to wait. When I got back outside, I ran into the 3 bikers that I had been chasing in Beverly, as they had bought a snack from the same shop. I chatted with them for a bit, told them how super fast they are. I also saw some Roe v Wade-related protestors in Rockport.

After completing the loop on the Gloucster/Rockport peninsula, the original route that I planned was going to take me back a different way than I went out. But I called an audible and decided to take the same route back as the way I came, because it was so nice and the roads were good conditions, and it was more direct than the original route which I think was 120 miles. Several times when I stopped for breaks, views, pics, or downtown vibes, I forgot to put bike computer to sleep, so I had to race the battery for the last 30 miles and really pushed myself to get 100 miles before it died (for those unfamiliar, a bike computer is similar to a running watch, but you mount it on your handle bars, and it connects to all the gadgets on your bike to track power, speed, cadence, etc). I got to 100 about 4 miles from home by Broadway, and I was absolutely beat, so I sat on the ground for a while and ate the rest of my snacks. Then I walked one mile barefoot because my feet were hurting from the shoes, and then I finished up 3 miles nice and easy. All in all, it was a 10/10 day and I’m happy I decided to do this on a whim. The elapsed time was 8:28, moving time 6:50, pace 14.6mph.

3) July 9: 69.69 miles. I had plans with friends out in Bolton later in the day, so I thought it would be fun to use that as another opportunity to explore some places I had never been before on my bike. I created a loop route which started and ended kind of close to Bolton, at some school in Sudbury. The route was awesome because it included two 15+ mile rail trails, the Bruce Freeman and the Nashua River, which run kind of parallel to each other north to south, so I went up one and down the other. The trails were very well maintained, provided tons of shade, and were very scenic and peaceful. The non-trail road conditions were quite good in terms of car safety (wide shoulders) and potholes. It was also cool to bike into New Hampshire. I finished this in 5:06 elapsed time (4:44 moving time) for an average speed of 14.7mph.

4) April 9. 31.35 miles. This was the first group ride of the season. When we started it was cloudy and the forecast indicated that if it did rain, it would only be drizzle. We had split into 2 groups based on speed expectation. I went with the fast group of course, and there were only 6 of us. I think there were maybe 8 in the slow group. About 15 miles in (roughly an hour), the rain became heavy and steady. It was low 40s, so once everything became soaked through, it was incredibly cold and completely miserable. We tried to seek shelter under an awning at some random person’s house, but they came to their door about 5 minutes later and told us to get out of there, while it was still pouring. We all found that mean and unreasonable but obviously couldn’t really argue. We considered turning around to go directly back home, but we were basically 15 miles away from Mike’s house either way if we had continued on or if we had turned around, so we decided to just keep going. Eventually, our fast group of 6 had naturally split into 4 super fast people who got out of sight, and me and another girl who were lagging behind, but sticking together.

Another thing that really sucks about riding in the rain is that potholes get filled in with water and you can’t tell that they are there or how deep they are. This was a key contributor to a terrible situation that happened towards the end of the ride, about 5 miles (20 minutes) from Mike’s house. The girl I was riding with was maybe 20 yards ahead of me as we went down a really steep hill. All of a sudden she goes flying off her bike and lands on her head (with helmet on) in the middle of the road. I did my best to stay calm and get her out of the road before any cars came down. Together we decided I should call 911 because she landed on her head and was concerned about concussion etc. I kind of started to panic because my phone was on like 3% battery and it was impossible to get the touch screen to work because everything was soaked. She had given her phone to one of the other 4 because they had something water proof to put it in, so it was all riding on my phone. This was my first time calling 911. I talked to 3 different operators as they routed me to the right place. It was crazy because when they asked me where I was, I didn’t really know; we had just been following the route map on my phone but I never know what town I’m in or street I’m on. Luckily they had my GPS from the call and asked me if I was in Weston on whatever street; that seemed right. They dispatched first responders to us, and even let us know that the fire truck would be there first, in 5 minutes. After that I called Mike to let him know what happened, and see if he could let the other 4 know what happened to us, because I don’t have any of their numbers. Turns out, Mike and the slow group had bailed much earlier and gotten a ride home from Mike’s girlfriend. Immediately, Mike was on his way to us. I also had trouble explaining to him where we were, but he knew the route, so he just backtracked in the car until he found us.

Mike and the firetruck got there almost at the same time, and the ambulance shortly after. By that point, more of our crew had gathered on scene. I think it was the speedy crew of 4, who backtracked to us after Mike contacted them. Otherwise some of the slow people came back in the car with Mike. They checked her out and loaded her up in the ambulance. We put her bike in Mike’s car, and some other people filled up the remaining space in the car. I assume someone rode the remaining 5 miles back to Mike’s house with me, but I blacked it out because those were up there for most miserable miles ever. The stopping and standing around with everything soaked led to being freakin FREEZING. I was shivering pretty intensely by the time we got back on the bike and for the rest of the time until I got back to Mike’s.

When I got back to Mike’s, some of the crew was there, already in dry clothes and sipping hot tea to warm up. Mike offered me some, but I was like sorry I just need to get home and in my bed ASAP. So I booked it out of there. When I got everything packed up into my car, I started to feel really nauseous and shaky and weak. The GPS told me it was a 17 minute drive home. From then on I was pleading with my body to please just make it home, while staring at the minutes remaining on the GPS begging it to get closer to zero. Well, I didn’t make it. I had to pull over to puke 3 separate times. After that, my stomach felt better but I was still freezing, shaky, miserable. When I got home, I had the best shower ever, scarfed down tons of food, and passed out in bed.

A couple days later I caught up with Steve O and he told me my pal who landed on her head was fine. I told him about my having to stop and puke on my drive home and he said I was probably “in shock” from what happened. Not sure about that, I thought it was more my body saying “please stop torturing me” from the entire day.

July through August I hit the track every week for hard workouts. I did mostly 8x800s or 4xmile, and I was having so much fun doing that. On my non-track days, I continued to run easy at 120-130 HR bpm. The last 2 weeks of August I started to get really really bad pain in the inside part of my lower shin, a couple inches above my ankle of my right leg. It was the worst when running hard and the day after. My only experience with “shin splints” in the past had been higher up in my shin more in the center of the shin. I actually had quite a bit of that as a high school athlete. So whenever I told anyone about the pain and they said “shin splints”, my reaction was “nah, I know what that feels like, and this ain’t it” . Only recently, like … in the course of writing this blog, did I discover there are actually two types of shin splints. One that I had experienced before, and one that I was experiencing this summer for the first time.

The pain was so bad that 6 weeks out from Chicago, I ran my 18 miler entirely at the track because I wasn’t sure I could endure 3+ hours of pain, so I was giving myself an easy way out if I had to quit. It was manageable but it kind of forced me to run incredibly slow, 11:12 pace. There was some entertainment from the soccer leagues playing on the field in the middle of the track, and it was nice to have a gallon of hydration and a box of nutrigrain bars for fuel available the entire time.

That run was incredibly demoralizing and from then on I had resigned myself to not being able to run the 4 hour marathon that I had been training for. I stopped going to the track and I eased up on my weekly mileage, just trying to manage the pain and be able to get it done.

I also started running a lot more on my treadmill so that I could easily stop if the pain got too bad. I ran almost 200 miles on my treadmill in 2022, watching pretty much every new weekly episode of Survivor and The Challenge, and whatever flavor-of-the-week streaming show that everyone is talking about, like Ozark, Better Call Saul, or House of the Dragon. It’s a great way for me to consume media, because otherwise I would not be able to focus on something for hours at a time without getting distracted or feeling like I need to be doing something productive. I’ve continued to do more running on the treadmill into 2023.

The following weekend was Labor Day Weekend at the cape. Saturday morning I ran 19.5 miles, out and back on the Cape Cod canal, at a pace of 12:26. So now I was looking at a 5+ hour marathon. Two weeks later after a down-week long run of 10 miles, I ran 20 miles at 11:20 pace, with the first 13.1 as the “Salem Wicked Half Marathon”. It was nice to run that with friends, have the race support along the way, and to know that I was hosting a pizza party later that day. My final double digit run was 13.1 two weeks out, which I ran in 2:19. At this point, I had pretty much no hope, and really thought my Chicago marathon was going to be over 5 hours. I was even telling people not to track me because I was going to be embarrassed.

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Chicago

I flew to Chicago on Friday evening before the Sunday race. When I landed in Chicago, I found a nice Louis Vuitton purse on a hook in a bathroom stall. I took it and looked around for a person outside the bathroom who seemed like they lost a purse. I stayed in the vicinity for about 15 minutes, waiting for someone to come looking for it. I considered giving it to security, but just didn’t feel good about the odds of it getting to the right person that way. Also, selfishly, I needed the closure of knowing that she got it back. Eventually I went through the bag to try to find some way to identify the person it belonged to. Inside, there was a license (from which I also learned that it was this girl’s 21st birthday weekend!!), a dead apple watch, a Florida State University keychain, and $100 cash, among other generic items. I figured with those 3 items, I’d be able to connect with her easy peasy, and worst case scenario, I could mail the purse to the address on the license, so I went on my way to my hotel, with the purse in hand.

I took the subway from O’hare to downtown. The ride was about 30 minutes, and I spent the whole time searching all social media and the internet for this person. I was SHOCKED that I could find absolutely no trace. I turned on the apple watch … and it WASN’T PAIRED with a phone, meaning it was pretty useless in terms of finding the owner. Another shocking and disappointing turn of events. Really not sure why you would travel with an unpaired apple watch. I was running out of ideas on how to find her, and as a last ditch effort, I posted on the FSU subreddit that I found a purse and if anyone knew this person (posted her name), let her know I found it. Within maybe 10 minutes, someone messaged me on reddit saying they don’t know her, but her email address would be xyz. I emailed that address and shortly thereafter she replied. We exchanged numbers and planned to meet up the next day.

I stayed at the Silversmith Hotel, which was about a 5 minute walk to the start and finish line. I shared the room with my friend Monica, who is a fast runner (like 3:30-3:45 I think). Monica was already checked in and hanging in the room. We chatted for a bit and then I went out for a walk through Grant Park and Millennium Park which is where the Start and Finish lines are for the Marathon.

Saturday morning, Monica and I went out for breakfast. Every restaurant was overflowing with people, so we had to walk quite a bit to find a place to eat. We sat at the bar of a diner, and chatted with fellow runners from all over the world. Then we took the subway to the Expo. My two experiences with the Chicago subway system were great (airport to hotel and hotel to expo) – really quick and clean. The expo was crazy busy, which was expected, with 40,000 runners. I got a couple hats, couple shirts, throwaway gloves for the run, a pair of sunglasses, and a sweatband which was become my favorite. The one thing I COULD NOT find was chewable salt tablets; every shop only had the pills that you swallow whole. I really hate taking those kind during a run.

After the expo, I split up with Monica because I wanted to go to Soldier Field and the “Field Museum of Natural History” next to it, and I had to meet up with purse girl. I met up with purse girl right in front of Soldier Field, and then had a nice afternoon to myself. In the museum I looked at a mineral exhibit and an exhibit on the Hawaiian islands and other geological formations similar to that and how they are formed with volcanos and plate movements. Next, I walked all over town trying to find those salt tabs- I went to a cycling shop, a running shop, and a GNC. None of them had any, so I was stuck with the swallowables. I also stopped at a dispensary for a pack of gummies to help me sleep, and a Target for Pedialyte and a banana. By that point I had walked so far that I needed to take an Uber back to the hotel. Both me and the Uber driver (a young black woman) were chatty and friendly and we talked about Chicago and Boston, which was so pleasant and fun.

The last thing to do before going to hang in the room for the evening was go to the nearest Subway for my pre-race meal ritual. There were two Subways, each within two blocks of my hotel. I felt like I had not eaten enough throughout the day, so I got a footlong and a 6 inch. As I finished all that food, I thought to myself, “wow I should not have gotten that extra 6 inch; this is really going to mess with my stomach tomorrow during the run”. Shortly after that, I took three gummies all at once, which was a lot even for me, and then thought to myself “wow I should not have taken so much; this is going to mess with me tomorrow since I might wake up still feeling it a little”. As you can tell, I was really sticking to a strict night-before-the-race-plan-for-success. I got all my stuff organized for the run, and took a picture with all the stuff I got at the expo. I don’t remember what time we went to bed, but the edibles kicked in and I was having fun getting hyped for tomorrow. I woke up several times in the night, and on one of the wake ups, I had an email about an account of mine having its email address changed, so I stressed and dealt with that for a while.

I wore shorts, a tank, a long sleeve throw away shirt, and throwaway gloves. In the hotel lobby, I ate 2 muffins that were slightly smaller than cupcakes, and half a banana, and then walked over to the corral area. I really wish I had worn more layers. It was 40 degrees at 7am, and walking over to the corral was perfectly fine, but once in the corral, standing there and waiting was completely miserable. I legit couldn’t stop my body from pretty aggressively shivering. Thankfully, some people were ditching their outer layers really early on the fence, and I grabbed a pair of pants to use as a blanket and a nice hoodie to wear for the rest of the wait and the first few miles, although I was still miserably cold even with those extras.

As things started to get really packed in the corral, and the corrals ahead of us were beginning to officially start, I started to really have to pee, which was the cherry on top of my extreme discomfort of being so cold. Starting the race could not have come fast enough … I just wanted to get going. Finally we did, and I really can’t remember a time of being SO UNCOMFORTABLE during a run. My legs were completely frozen and I could barely feel them. My feet were totally numb. I had to pee SO BAD. I wanted to cry at the thought of feeling like this for the next 5 hours. The course went under an underpass within the first half mile, and SO MANY guys stopped to pee against the wall. I had previously heard about this being a thing, but now I totally got it, and I was extremely jealous. Right after the mile 1 marker, there was a woman on the side of the road on an elevated platform kinda like a lifeguard chair, yelling “toilets” in her French accent into a megaphone over and over. I thought about how she would have to be doing that for like 2 hours. But phew, what a life saver to be able to pee so soon. I was expecting a huge line, but there was none, so I got right in.

It took me 3 to 4 miles to fully feel warmed up and rid of the numbness /discomfort from the cold. The actual temperature was also picking up by then, and it turned into the perfect day for a marathon. Sunshine, clear skies, and high 50s / low 60s for a majority of my running time (8am-12pm ish) and it even warmed up to high 60s in the afternoon for the afterparty.

My plan for the run ended up being “just run 10 minute miles until you can’t anymore, and just see what happens”. My shin splint pain held off – I could feel it, but it was only about a 2 on the pain scale, so miles 4-10 flew by closer to 9:45pace. A new problem pretty quickly popped up (pun intended) – I could feel a large blister on the bottom of my big toe. It felt like when you dip your finger in melted wax and then let it cool… like the whole top layer of skin was detached from my toe. In a weird way it was nice to have a specific pain to focus on that I knew wasn’t going to turn into a long-term injury like other running pains can. I don’t think it slowed me down at all, but it was hard not to think about. I wore Altra’s Vanish Carbon model: “carbon fiber half-plate speed shoe is designed for your fastest, long distance runs. Lightweight, high-cushion and ready for race day.” I had worn them on all of my long runs over the last 2 months of training, so they were plenty broken in and my feet were used to them. My mistake was wearing socks that were too new. I only ever run in Balega “Blister Resist” (the irony … ) but I hadn’t worn this particular pair enough yet to prevent them from causing the blister.

When I hit half at 2:09, my mindset changed to “ok just maintain this pace until the next 5k checkpoint, and then you’re allowed to crash and burn if you must”. When I was still holding the sub-10 pace through 25k, I started to crunch the numbers … I didn’t want to get ahead of myself but I knew PR was within reach.

I kept chugging along as I constantly recalculated the numbers. The positive energy from the crowd the entire way was amazing. Having my name on the front of my shirt was awesome, and I must have heard my name called out from spectators 100 times. One vivid memory I have is, at some point during the “I will eat any food any spectator hands me” phase towards the end, I saw someone offering chocolate chip cookies, and I was really excited to grab one. I took a big bite and immediately had to spit it all out because my mouth and the cookie were both so dry, I had no alternative other than choking. That was really disappointing.

The thing that I remember most from this run was how positive my self-talk was, especially during the last 10 miles. The weather and the crowds made it an incredible experience, but the positivity going on in my head really kicked it up to indescribable. Whenever I’m doing something athletically challenging, I often draw on my prior most-challenging-experiences and tell myself “if you did THAT, surely you can do THIS”. In the past, these have always been running or cycling experiences. For whatever reason, during this run, my mind kept drifting to bench pressing, and the feeling of completing one more 145 pound rep after thinking that I’ve maxed out … taking 10 full seconds to get the bar up, but still completing that extra rep with every last ounce of effort in my body. Sometimes I’m literally growling “you fkin got it!!!!” out loud at myself mid rep in the gym and I swear that helps. That feeling of getting that last rep up when you felt like you were maxed is so bad ass. That’s what I felt like I was doing on this run. I felt like I had completely burnt myself out in my training, and just using everything I had to go for that PR, and telling myself “you fkin got it!!!!”.

My pace gradually crept up across miles 19 to 23, and my only 11+ minute mile was mile 23. I think that’s when the calculations became easier and I knew that if I could really commit, I could hit that PR of 4:24. It was a really, really, really cool feeling that I negative split the last 3 miles (mile splits are shown below), and that mile 26 pace was almost exactly equal my overall pace (10:06 vs 10:04). I kept waiting to hit the wall, but I never did. The last 0.2 miles were horribly potholed and it seemed like there were so many people just in the way because they were struggling to finish strong.

When I crossed the finish the finish line under 4:24, I legit started crying. I was so unbelievably proud of myself for doing something that I really didn’t think I could do when the day started, but maintaining the focus and positivity for that long to actually do it.

There was a really fun band playing in the park for the afterparty, so I laid down on the grass and enjoyed the beautiful day and the band for a bit. Zack was spectating the marathon for his friend’s dad, and I had shared my location with him the day before in case he wanted to try to find me. I totally forgot about that until he came over and sat with me in the park. Eventually Zack had to go meet his people, and I had to go shower and eat. When I got back to the room I investigated my blister. It was awful. The blister started on the bottom but the liquid had no where to go so it traveled up the side of my toe and the blister formed on the top and side. After showering, we went out to eat. I had more time now, so I went to check just how much I had beaten my Philadelphia marathon time by. Turns out, I hadn’t beaten it, but instead exactly tied it. 4:23:42. Crazy. I thought about all the times I stopped for 5 seconds to drink a cup of gatorade at every water table instead of spilling it all over myself trying to run and drink at the same time. Every time I probably slowed down to take a snap video. I wasn’t upset at all, just super interesting how any tiny thing like that over the 4+ hours would have impacted the result. And really crazy how extremely different the two experiences were, but still had the same result. [Philadelphia was freezing rain/snow the entire time, and I hit the wall at mile 20] So now I’ll always have this fun fact that 2 out of 3 marathons I ran in exactly the same time.

After we ate pizza, Monica and I went back to our hotel room because we were both exhausted. I think we napped, but I can’t really remember. I do remember we each ordered our own excessive desserts for delivery at like 10pm. I got 8 cookies for myself from Insomnia Cookies and they were insanely good. Monica’s flight was super early Monday morning, but I again got to sleep in a bit. I learned my lesson from Dallas not to fly home the same day. I walked to the bean and took some pics and then went to the airport and went home.

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Manchester

I had such a fantastic experience running Chicago, that I immediately wanted to do another as soon as possible. I lucked out that the Manchester NH marathon was only 5 weeks later, so I signed up.

Such a different experience in so many ways: 1) being able to drive to and from there and sleeping in my own bed the night before and the night of 2) 1,500 runners vs 40,000 runners 3) zero crowds vs every inch packed with people 4) hills: the elevation gain was 1200 feet compared to 200 in Chicago 5) most significantly the weather … it. was. AWFUL. It was 40 degrees and POURING RAIN the majority of the time.

I think with the weather factor, this slots in as #2 of my most mentally challenging events, just below day 2 of PMC last year when my body had nothing left after Day 1. The thing that got me through this one was that I made a friend at the start line who was aiming to run a similar pace as me. He had a larger goal of running 12 marathons in 12 months. We ran the entire way together. We started off with light chatter about our running experiences and our jobs. He told me he had a running coach and was giving me some tips, but told me that I had really good form which was nice to hear.

As the miles went on and the rain would not let up, we stopped talking very much, but we kept checking in on each other and telling the other person it was OK if you want to leave me behind and run your own pace. I’m certain that neither one of us would have finished as fast as we did if we didn’t have the other person, which was yet another very cool thing to experience. I’d say the worst feeling was the freezing cold hands and feet which were impossible to warm up because everything was soaked.

The course itself was also pretty bad … The last 10ish miles were an out and back on unpaved trails which were full of mud and unavoidable ankle deep puddles. There was one cool section of the course which went in and around a minor baseball field in Manchester. To top off the misery of the day, the last 1.2 miles were a steady uphill slog. It’s like it would never end. Eventually it did and I’ve never been happier to have been able to park so close to the start/finish line and have brought a fresh change of clothes.

It wasn’t until I got home and got in the shower and the incredible pain hit me, did I realize how badly the skin under my bra was chafed all the way around. It was super painful to touch anything, and would stick to everything because it was healing and scabbing.

I feel equally proud of this run as I do Chicago, because of how tough everything about it was, and I still had a kickass time of 4:35.