This past weekend I completed my first marathon.

Truthfully, I was nowhere near ready to be on that starting line, but it didn't stop me from finishing. After completing the Love Run here in Philly, my body was just off. I wasn't eating right, I wasn't sleeping right, and I sure as hell wasn't training right. Then, one week before we headed down the shore for marathon weekend I had a terrible bike crash after my wheel got stuck in the unused trolley tracks. I flew head first over my handlebars, landed on my head, face, right shoulder, right hand, and both knees. I was able to make it home, but had serious knee swelling for days, shoulder pain (couldn't put on my backpack without wincing), and some gnarly deep burns on my hand and knees. I couldn't swim due to the open wounds, couldn't ride much thanks to the swollen knee, and couldn't do any weight training thanks to the shoulder. Somehow, I mustered up enough grit to get a 15 mile run in the week before, but not much else.

As far as my long runs go, preparing for a marathon in the winter was not easy for me. My long runs were cut to no more than three hours tops and those three hour spurts included me getting in the car and heading to the gym to use the treadmill and get home in time for my husband to go to work. My one outdoor run on Easter Sunday was a disaster ending in ten agonizing miles. I had made a bad decision after visiting the podiatrist for some nagging foot issues to grab a new brand of shoes with more arch support (at his recommendation) and it ended up being an utter disaster. Going from my beloved Newtons at a 3mm drop to a pair of Nikes with what ended up being a 12mm drop proved to add insult to injury. I ended up heading into the race with barely completing a long run of 15 miles. Needless to say that after I hit those 15 on Sunday, the wall was hard.

We headed down to Avalon, NJ Friday afternoon and set up our cabin at the campground for the weekend. I had, the previous week, entered into the Cape May Earth Day 5k to take place on Saturday morning and wanted to get some rest before the long weekend. I had done the run a few years prior and really enjoyed the course. There is a cute little fair, a nice playground for kids, and the zoo is wonderful.  Although they changed the course, I, to my surprise, placed third in the female overall field. This was my first top three overall ever. I had gone out hard on the course hoping to just have a PB (a sub 25 minute run). It was a chilly morning and at about 1.8 miles in I started having a little bit of an asthma attack and walked about 20 feet (never should have done that!), but still ended up making a PB with a time of 24:16 (clock time 24:20) for the 5K. The entire time I was chasing another girl who I thought was the third woman, but, in fact was only the second. I ended up taking home the 3rd place female finisher and the 2nd place female my age group. It was definitely the morale boost I needed walking up to the start line the next morning in the Ocean Drive Marathon.



Because I had never competed in such an event, the entire idea of nutrition and carb-loading and all of the other stuff was still over my head. I gorged myself on gnocchi the night before (probably not enough calories I needed though) and stuck with my favorite pre-event breakfast of two multigrain waffles with cashew and hazelnut butter, banana, and a drop of maple syrup. I had all of my race nutrition ready before heading away for the weekend, but that all went out the door...or should I say out of my pocket...once the race started.

The first ten miles of the event were glorious. I was on pace, on point with my nutrition, but there was one thing I always end up forgetting about runs at the shore: the sun. Running at 9am in 40 degree weather here in Philly means to wear layers, a hat, gloves, and maybe sunglasses. Starting at 40 degree weather at the shore means that you will be stripping down to your tank by mile 8 and burning up by the 13 mile mark, which is exactly what I did. Shore sun at 60 degrees can feel just as hot as the sun in the peak of summer.

Three miles into the run the arm warmers cam off and tossed at an aid station. Mile 13 the tech shirt came off, and it wasn't until mile 15 that I realized that the sunblock I haphazardly applied never made its way to my shoulders, or arms, or legs, or many other places. In addition to the heat and sun, somewhere at the turnaround point at mile 13 I lost my gel bottle from my holder in addition to all of my electrolyte tabs for my drink and back up shot blocks. I was toast. With a super sensitive stomach, I cannot do Gatorade. In fact, the last time I drank Gatorade during a run was during the Rock and Roll Half Marathon two years prior where a good bit of it came right back up. I just cannot tolerate the sugars in Gatorade or G2, but, after loosing all of my SIS products (and having no one yell up to me that things were falling out of my bag -- something we all know trail runners would do *wink *wink), I was at the mercy of the orange stuff for the rest of the miles on. I felt my hands swelling with dehydration and knew I would have to gut (get it?) it out. By mile 15 my pace was dropping and by mile 19 I felt so terrible that my pace dropped below a 12 minute mile, something I had never done before. I had hit the wall and hit it hard. Never getting to fit in a training run past 15 miles really affected me, and although I was nowhere near ready to finish this marathon, I did not quit. The tiredness and stomach pains (with the regurgitating of Gatorade) did not keep me from enjoying the beautiful scenery of the shore, the salty smell of the air, and the fact that I was actually going to be able to slap that 26.2 mile sticker on the back of my car!


My goal was under 5 hours and when we reached the flat stretch in Sea Isle with the finish line in sight, I said "fuck it" and just ran that last mile as fast as I could. Fifty feet from the finish line by husband and son were waiting for me and my little boy ran all the way down the chute to the finish line.

It was not the prettiest race I have ever done, but those 4 hours and 48 minutes were all heart and drive. I am so glad that I did it.

Next up: Broad Street Run!