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the 2016 San Francisco Marathon race report – DNS

the 2016 San Francisco Marathon race report – DNS

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I’ve been in the marathon training and racing world since 2007, and during that time, I can count on one hand the number of races I’ve DNSed (did not start). They all had good reasons, and typically, I’ve decided to DNS well in advance of the race.  A list, because lists are fun and make for easy reading on mobile devices:

  • a Bastille Day 5k (or 8k?) in Chicago. reason missed: I wanted to go see Salman Rushdie speak at Harold Washington Library. While I didn’t get to hear Rushdie because I didn’t get there in time, I scored some autographed books instead, so I still consider this a win in my book (slow clap for that horrible pun).
  • the Shamrock Shuffle 8k. reason missed: This was just a few weeks before my first Boston Marathon, and I took myself obnoxiously seriously and wanted to ensure that I was going into Boston as healthy as could be. The SS weather that year was for shit — we’re talking ankle- or calf-deep slushy, thick, nasty nonsense, with sideways snow and the whole shebang — and while I will gladly train in that before I get on a treadmill (true story … it’s not so much a pride thing as it is that I don’t like how treadmills make my body feel), I didn’t want to risk getting sick before my first Holy Grail of marathons.
  • the Lakefront 50/50 (50k option) in ’08. reason missed: overtrained and ITB issues. I’m lucky a few weeks of reduced volume did the trick because I was head-over-heels in overtraining and ITB maladies.
  • an 8k in Rockford, IL, over the summer just recently. reason missed: exhaustion. I lovingly blame my children, travelling, and humidity, that last one to which I have become wildly unaccustomed in the last three years.
  • and finally: the ’16 SF Marathon. reason missed: fucking stomach flu that showed up on Friday morning at 4am, on race eve eve.  boo hiss scorn
a great icon that I posted on my IG with the explanation of "well, not really." next year. next year.
a great icon that I posted on my IG with the explanation of “well, not really.” next year. next year.

 

The girls and I returned to California from our midwest sojourn on Wednesday, and in terms of the cross-country travel, everything went swimmingly. On Thursday, I spent most of the day getting our life back in order by doing the usual mundane things like cleaning, groceries, and laundry, and everything was fine. I opted to take a rest day on Thursday instead of Friday because of how G had slept Wednesday night-Thursday morning, but nothing seemed too out of the ordinary.

our last night in the midwest, hanging at my nephews' football camps. seems like a perfectly good thing to do on a summer night :)
our last night in the midwest, hanging at my nephews’ football camps. seems like a perfectly good thing to do on a summer night 🙂

 

Come Friday morning at 4am though, wow. I’m not one to shy away from TMI details about the gory details of anything, really, but suffice it to say that I had abdominal pain that literally took my breath away, and I spent the entirety of Friday daytime and evening in bed … or in the bathroom. For perspective: I don’t think I’ve ever called C at work and asked him to come home to watch the kids because I’ve felt so bad. It was ugly. I’m not a medical practitioner or a medical student, nor do I know the exact inner-workings of how our GI systems operate, but holy shit (bad pun, sorry, slow clap for that one for sure) I don’t think there was anything — anything — left in my system by Friday night.

In case you’re new to the marathoning scene, fully “emptying” your “system” 48 hours pre-race is basically the antithesis to how things are supposed to happen.

I was deliriously hopeful for things to turn around as quickly as possible because for as much as I love running TSFM — and as far as marathons go, it’s a hard course, and it’s hilly, but it’s beautiful, and SF in the summer is just unbeatable — I love the social stuff surrounding the weekend as well, the opportunities afforded to me by being a race ambassador and the opportunities I get to see SF friends I never get to see (hi, Erin!). Chicago-based friend Erica would be in town to race SF as an anniversary run of her first marathon, Portland-based Austin would also be in town … #yaddayaddayadda … I had a race to run and people to see! I knew in my heart of hearts, though, that even if I woke up on Saturday feeling like a million bucks, totally “free” of the gnarly-ass symptoms I had on Friday, that attempting to run, much less race, 26.2 challenging miles would be unwise. In fact, it would be idiotic. Thus, by 9am, I called it, told the people I needed to tell, and decided to DNS my first marathon, what should have been marathon #28, I think, and my three-peat of TSFM since 2010.

Admittedly, deciding to bag it was a tough decision.  Aside from all the stuff I just elaborated on above, in the running world, it seems like social media has aggravated this bullshit notion of “no pain, no gain” or “doing it for the insta” (gag me) or whatever. I very much wanted to cover SF by foot, and I knew that I’d probably physically be able to, but for what? What do I have to prove — or to whom do I have to prove it — by running a marathon two days out from a nasty stomach bug that left me in bed and basically fasting all day long? A marathon is just that — a marathon — a distance you just can’t “gut out,” especially when said guts have been seemingly “gutted out” (I’ll be here all night) in the preceding days by a (probable) virus. This is all to say that I very well could have just sucked it up and slogged through the race, posted a pic on IG about how I had stomach flu 48 hours before the race and look at me! I have a marathon finisher’s medal around my neck! I am so badass and tough that I can go run a marathon feeling sub-par just for the hell of it! People do this shit every weekend on social media, and every weekend, other people applaud these people’s efforts and commend them for how much “stronger” they must be than they actually realize.

To this — to this seemingly unending cycle of “being badass” or “tough” or “having guts” and racing when you’re not well — when you’re physically unwell (having a virus or some other sickness) or FOR FUCK’S SAKE WHEN YOU’RE INJURED (“I’m pretty sure I have the beginnings of a stress fx. Doc, do you think I’m okay to race a marathon next weekend?” … the answer is unequivocally nooooooooo) — to all of this nonsense that no doubt feeds into the apparent reality that all runners get injured and that if you run, you will surely suffer from a running-related injury (or three) during your lifetime — I call bullshit. Please. Make it stop. Stop perpetuating this crap.

I’m probably being a bit crass about it, but I tend to think that runners self-divide into two camps — those who tend to think of their running in the long-term and those who tend to think of their running in the immediate — and more often than not, I feel like we in the running community are doing ourselves an enormous disservice by running (or by continuing to run) when we’re sub-par because for whatever reason, the immediate present matters more than the long-term. This isn’t to say that I think I’m higher and mightier for choosing to sit-out SF this year — see the paragraph above when I mention that it was a tough call for me; instead, I feel like if I want to continue to run at the volume I do (or higher), for as long as possible, it’s nothing short of imperative to think long-term. If we live and run solely in the here and now, we’re not being smart, gang, especially if you want to be doing this stuff for a long time. For me anyway, immediate gains absolutely pale in comparison to the long-term benefits I get from running and the goals that I have yet to realize. Perhaps you can relate.

giving your eyes a break here. (from a run in Akron in July). all the pretty mosquito-infested woods!
giving your eyes a break here. (from a run in Akron in July). all the pretty mosquito-infested woods!

 

Basically, if you take nothing else from this diatribe, take this. If you’re about to toe the line at a major running event, particularly those that are of the extremely strenuous and endurance variety (halfs, marathons, ultras), and you’re toeing the line not feeling 100%, ask yourself why you’re still there.

To whom are you proving?

Further, what are you proving, exactly?

If your BRF told you that she/he was suffering from the same thing that you are carrying at the starting line, would you advise him/her to still do the race?

And finally, how much are you willing to give up by completing this race?

If you’re running while injured or sick, how willing are you to take some possibly-significant steps backwards in training — due to further injury and/or compounded sickness — so you can complete (semantics here — complete, surely not compete in) this race?

Again, I wanted to share my experience here because I’m a normal gal who likes to run and race with the rest of us, and seeing my friends’ pics and hearing how fun race weekend was left me feeling a little deflated and gutted …

… until I realized that there’s always next year at SF and that there will surely be other marathons to run (I live in freaking CA, FFS. It’s like a veritable landmine for marathoning year-round). I totally get the sting that can come with money lost on race registrations, travel, and the like, but surely your long-term health, not to mention your ability to do this type of stuff in the first place, also matters. Like I admitted earlier, it can be a tough call.

Hopefully, you won’t get injured in advance of your race or contract a nasty bug that leaves you belly-up in the hours preceding your race, but if you do, please, for the love, have a chat with yourself (not weird, promise) about the race. I’m not a coach or a medical professional, but I will wager that chances are high that if you’re about to step into an endurance event feeling less-than, you will give yourself a hearty dose of humble pie during the race, if not also a hefty serving of totally-preventable-setbacks afterward. Maybe none of your friends want you to consider this reality, so let me. It’s probably not worth it. It wasn’t for me, anyway.

Loaves + Fishes Feed the Need 5k race report

Loaves + Fishes Feed the Need 5k race report

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I don’t race nearly as often as I used to, and these days, when I do race, it’s almost always the long stuff – typically marathons. In fact, if I am registering for a race, about 99% of the time, I will sign-up for the longest distance offered for that day because I figure it’s more bang for my buck (since the longer distances are usually only a few dollars more) and because more often than not, I’m training for some marathon somewhere and I figure that the longer distance race offering jibes better with my training.

Well, as I wrote not long ago, I’m kinda sucking it up a bit and going after some short stuff as part of my marathon training at least for the summer, if not also for the rest of the year. It has been nearly a year since I last ran a 5k – and even then, that was at 9 months/36 weeks pregnant and thus, doesn’t really count – so suffice it to say that it has been years since I last truly raced a 5k. Without looking at Athlinks, I don’t even know when my last 5k race attempt was. Anyway, I registered for SJ’s inaugural Loaves and Fishes Feed the Need 5k so I could get an assessment of how my speed is faring, 8 or so weeks out from SF, and because, like I said, it has been a while since I’ve raced this distance, and if I’m going to do a 3-4 mile tempo run anyway as part of marathon training, why not also stick a bib on and see how the speed plays out in a race environment.

L+F’s inaugural race benefited the same-named non-profit organization that helps Bay Area residents overcome food security issues, so I felt like this was a cause I could gladly get behind. SJ (really, the entire Bay Area) is an extremely expensive place to live – for perspective, a “starter home” here (typically, a townhouse-style condo that’s not much beyond 1,300 sq. foot) will set you back $600k, and the median price for single-family homes here now tops $1 mil. – and as you can imagine, it’s pretty hard for a sizable portion of this population to make rent each month and still get food. Enter L+F and my willingness to support this organization.

In the days leading up to the race, I took things fairly easy and decided not to run long on Saturday so that I could go into the race on pretty fresh legs. Because this was an inaugural race, and a small one at that (about 200 runners between the 10k and 5k, with about 160 of them in the latter), I correctly assumed that there wouldn’t be chip timing and that the race distance would be a dubious 5k. Even still, I was excited to try to run fast and be finished in about 20 minutes, as opposed to the usual 3 hours and 20 minutes-ish.

A 5k warmup on the Guadalupe River Trail, where the race was held, allowed me to run most of the course (by following the directional arrows on the ground), and I soon realized that for a 5k race, there’d be a fair amount of sharp turns and back-and-forth on the GRT. I planned to start right on the line and hopefully have people to chase, who’d be closely following the arrows, and just see what happened. My strategy was fairly non-existent; this was like being tested on something that you know you’ve learned at some point but haven’t really needed to employ in a while… muscle memory at its finest.

L+F 2016 race
at the starting line of the race [PC: L+F]
There weren’t many other women on the starting line, just a couple dudes and a young boy, and soon enough, we were off. A quick glance at my watch showed a sub-6, so I quickly reeled that in and tried to run comfortably hard, reminding myself that I had 3.1 fast miles to run and that taking a balls-out approach early wouldn’t be in my best interest. I haven’t been a very good 5k racer in the past – my strategy usually amounts to “go out and slowly die” – so I tried my best to employ all the strategies that Pete mentioned to me recently and pace myself accordingly. I soon caught up to the young boy who had sprinted out at a sub-6 pace, and the only people before me were two guys, about a 30-60 seconds ahead, and a woman whom I tucked in behind. It was hard not to try to pass her early – ego, much? – but I stayed right behind her, pressing the pace, and when she joyfully said something like this is great! A 6:45 pace!, I just smiled and remarked yea, good job!, or something along those lines. I hope I didn’t sound too curt; I appreciated her enthusiasm but for once in my life, wasn’t really interested in making conversation mid-race. I passed her around mile 1, with more cheerful support from her, and for the rest of the race, I concentrated on chasing the two guys in front of me. Mile 1: 6:31

5k races start and end so quickly that it’s hard to capture the rest of the race. Again, I was glad that I ran most of the course during my warm-up because there was so much back-and-forth, hairpin-turn action on the GRT and the little side routes off the main path. A happy group of teenage volunteers was handing out water at around 1.5, right at one of the sharp turns that would deliver us back to where we began, but I didn’t grab anything. By now, the leader was out of my sight (or pretty far away), while the second guy/second place was still about 30 seconds or so ahead, still within sight. I was feeling pretty good and strong and was feeling satisfied with my pacing – the usual ohmygod I’m going to die here come some 20-minute-mile feelings that arise with my shitty 5k pacing hadn’t yet surfaced – and thanks to some hairpin turns and the teeniest of undulations (I don’t dare call them hills) on the side routes of the GRT, as well as still probably going out a little too fast, mile 2 came and went fairly uneventfully. Mile 2: 6:40

During the last bit of the race, the second-place guy and then I both ran with another guy for a few minutes, but I couldn’t tell where he had come from. I initially thought that he was one of the fast 10k guys, whose race had started 20 minutes before ours, but since I hadn’t seen him at any other point on the course, I didn’t think that was possible. At any rate, he threw some encouraging c’mon, you got this! Go get ’em! remarks my way, and I left him feeling fairly energized to finish the race strong. My forever-old 5k PR is a 20:31, and I thought that it’d be possible to maaaaybe notch a PR and maaaaaybe maaaaybe break 20 for the first time. I wasn’t really clock-watching during the race, but when I noticed how far off my watch was from the 3 mile marker, I knew that the course would probably be even shorter than I had anticipated. Plus, right after one of our final hairpin turns in our final ~.2 mile, I came thiiiiiiiis close to accidentally clipping the course (making it even shorter!) because I thought I saw arrows on the ground. Mid-run delusion, much? Fortunately, I corrected myself quickly and proceeded on the correct path, made one more hairpin turn, and finished through the old-school finish chute, where a volunteer was waiting to tear my timing tab off the bottom of my bib. Final .93: 6:10 (6:36 pace) = 19:21 for 2.93. 1st F, 1st AG, 3rd OA

After the race, I chatted with the other two guys who had finished 1-2, and I learned the the second place guy belongs to the same South Bay-based pacing group as me and will be pacing the 1:40 group at TSFM, which was pretty cool. We chatted for a while, I tried to recruit him to Wolfpack, he told me about his sub-3 training plans this year, so it made for a nice little morning while we waited to collect our awards, which included gift cards to Athletic Performance, a local running specialty store. I was pleased with how the race went, even though I’m fairly certain it was short – a 19:21 time for a 5k would result in significantly faster splits than I posted – because I got some good feedback with what my speed looks like right now. I think if I extrapolate the time, it’d get me pretty close to my existing 5k PR time, which, hey, I’m alright with that. It wasn’t the hard-and-fast goal for the day, but that’s as good feedback as any, and especially when I’m at about 10 months postpartum.

L+F 2016 - 2
the results board (told you it was old school! kinda love it). [PC: F+L]
The thing that I haven’t been able to shake about this race is my cadence. I use a Garmin FR 220, which has an accelerometer built in, and typically on my day-to-day GA runs, including my runs with the single stroller, I routinely post around 178-183, usually about 181 on average. During the marathons that I’ve run since having this watch, I post the same, usually about 181. What’s weird to me is that on my tempo runs, when I’m running almost two minutes faster than my day-to-day pace, my cadence drops significantly, often down to the 140-150 range. In this race, it went 183-122-120 for the 2.93 miles, which leaves me wondering how, if my feet are moving faster than usual, they’re making fewer steps per minute. Have you experienced this as well? I mean, how is it that I can hit 180+ steps per minute, running 8:xx minute miles, pushing a stroller, yet also run mid-6-minute miles with nearly forty fewer steps per minute? That seems really odd to me.

Anyway – tangent – I enjoyed the race. 5Ks aren’t marathons, but they sure are fun and a nice way to spice things up. I should have run a cooldown but didn’t, in favor of talking to my new-found friend, and there really is something to be said for going out and running hard and being done in about twenty minutes’ time. I can totally understand how and why people do 5ks each weekend. I have a handful more of these short races coming up as my family and I go see our family in the midwest this summer, so now I’ll have the added benefit of racing in heat and humidity for a change. Dare I say I’m looking forward to it? I might be.