Eat Drink Run Woman

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…

What can I say? It just wasn’t my day to BQ. But now that I’ve had my little pity party (and a few glasses of wine), I can see the day for what it was: an awesome experience, and a PR to boot! My official time was 4:15:19, which surprisingly puts me at 5th in my age group (let’s hear it for smaller races). Sure, I’m somewhat disappointed in the outcome, but I believe I ran the race as best I could. Perhaps I could have practiced better mind over matter and forced myself to run more in the end, but even then I would have only shaved off a couple of minutes at most. In fact, I’m glad I was so far off from my BQ time as I probably would be beating myself up more if it was within just a couple of minutes.

My respect for the marathon distance has intensified; you just can’t predict what will happen come race day. I know I have a BQ in me and believe I trained well, at least in terms of getting my body in shape for the rigors of 26.2 miles. I now have to figure out what’s causing the dizziness. It could be from dehydration, it could be from an impending cold, or — heaven forbid — it could be the symptom of something worse (I visited my doctor on Friday to have my Vitamin D level checked and my blood pressure is high. Hopefully it’s just from the stress I’ve been feeling over the race). I’ve learned many lessons from the experience and will train even smarter next time.

It’s clear I should have come up with a couple of goals for the race, rather than making a BQ the end all/be all. Although I’m thrilled with the PR, it’s not quite as fulfilling as I knew I hadn’t run the previous marathons to my full potential. If I hadn’t PR’d, it would have meant something went horribly wrong. However, PR’ing at Royal Victoria will be a good goal, and of course BQ’ing and possibly running a sub 4-hour marathon will be fantastic. If I had come up with a couple of secondary goals for North Olympic, perhaps I could have pushed myself just a tad more during the latter miles. But I’m not going to dwell on that!

So settle in for a long race report.

The day before
My darling inadvertently scheduled a photo shoot Saturday morning, leaving me to pace impatiently around the house. I forced him to pack the night before so that we could leave immediately upon his return from the shoot. The trip to Port Angeles would take us a little over 2 1/2 hours according to the NODM site, and I wanted to have time to check out the course before heading to the expo. Fortunately he was back by 12:30 and we were out the door 20 minutes later heading to the 1:30 Edmonds ferry.

Normally ferry traffic is quite heavy on the weekends, but given it was mid-day on a drizzly, cloudy day, we were able to get on. Once upstairs on the ferry I began to relax; we’d make it in plenty of time. We pulled in to Sequim about 3:30 and wound our way down to the trail to check out the mile 16 creek bed. We met up with another runner who was doing the same thing. Although it lived up to its reputation for being steep, it was very short (about a tenth of a mile at most). But I knew I’d feel different after running 16 miles. The mile 20 creek bed was longer and steeper, but not by much. I figured I would now sleep better knowing what to expect.

We checked in to the Red Lion and headed over to packet pick-up and the expo. The volunteers were fantastic — very friendly and helpful. Given it’s a tiny race, the expo had just a handful of vendors. I resisted the urge to check out the running apparel; I really don’t need to be spending any more money. The race shirt is one of the best I’ve ever seen: a long-sleeved pullover with a zipper-neck with the NODM logo on the front and a retro image of a runner on the back.

After picking up our race swag we headed over to the Elks Lodge for the Sons of Italy pasta feed. At $15 it was a steal of a deal: penne pasta with red sauce and meatballs and sausage on the side, a hearty green salad, garlic bread and spumoni ice cream for dessert. Members of the local Boy Scout troop were there to earn their service merit badges by bringing us our drinks (lemonade, ice tea, coffee and water) and clearing our plates. I was so glad I had signed us up.

Race morning
Although it took a while to get to sleep, I did sleep rather soundly. But once the alarm on my darling’s iPhone went off I bolted out of bed. Since I didn’t want to risk eating anything new on race day I had prepared a bowl of steelcut oats with berries and packed it in a cooler. There wasn’t a microwave in the room, so we decided to eat it cold. However, I forgot one critical element: utensils! But being the resourceful gal I am I unscrewed the bottom off of our plastic wine glasses (I remembered the important things!) and used that to scoop up the oatmeal. I also packed some of our good coffee as we needed our caffeine fix.

The weather was perfect for running: cloudy and cool. I had packed a long-sleeved shirt just in case, but decided I’d be fine with my new running outfit (besides, my long shirt didn’t have my name on it).

Since I didn’t want to pace around the room we caught an early shuttle bus, which put us at the start about 7:30. We started chatting with an elderly gentleman wearing a Yakima River Canyon Marathon shirt and turns out he’s one of the co-directors. This man is my new hero: he’s 78 years old and North Olympic was his 427th marathon! What’s even more remarkable is he ran his first marathon at age 51; that means he’s averaged more than 15 marathons a year for 27 years.

I was concerned about having to go potty during the race, so I stopped taking in fluids about an hour beforehand. Given what was to happen perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. I took a couple of warm-up laps (1 mile total) and stretched out my muscles. At quarter to nine they called us to the starting line.

I lined up with Marian, a woman I “met” through the Runner’s World online forum. This was also her third marathon, however, she had BQ’d in Wenatchee — her second — in April (she was hoping to beat that time at NODM). While my strategy was to start out slow, she was planning on going out a bit faster since she tends to slow down toward the end. I toyed with following that strategy since I knew the latter hills would slow me down, but decided to stick to my original plan.

Miles 1-9
After crossing the starting mat I immediately moved to the right since I knew a lot of people would be passing me. Quite a few commented on my shirt, asking what time I needed to qualify. I’m sure a few people questioned my sanity as I obviously wasn’t running a BQ pace at that point. But I kept telling myself I’d be passing THEM later in the race. In fact, at about mile 3 I was passed by a couple of gals in green who didn’t look like experienced marathoners. I decided they’d be a target.

The race starts with a 4-mile loop, then heads through downtown Sequim. There weren’t a lot of spectators, but the volunteers were fabulous. I drank at every fuel stop, alternating between water and Heed. While it seemed other runners were huffing and puffing, I felt really strong and ran at a relaxed, easy pace. I hit 9 miles about 2 minutes ahead of my goal, but I figured it wasn’t too much to be concerned about. Even better: I passed the gals in green!

Miles 10-20
At this point the course left the roads and started winding along the Discovery Trail.  For some reason my pace dipped back down to 9:18 for mile 10, however, that may have been the mile where I thought a rock had slipped into my shoe and I bent down a couple of times to shake it loose. I ran miles 11-16 rather fast (8:53, 8:58, 8:55, 9:09, 8:58 and 9:05) despite running into a slight head wind. Just before the halfway mark I started running with another gal who was trying for a 4-hour finish. We stayed together for a couple of miles, but she eventually pushed forward. I hit the halfway mark at about 2:01, which was still within my target (I was planning for a negative split). There was another creek bed just after the halfway point, but I was able to run the entire thing. However, that’s when the dizziness started to intensify.

I managed to run up the creek bed at mile 16 as well, but had to slow down considerably at the top to get my bearings. That’s when things started to turn. I had expected the route to be flat between the creek beds, but instead I was greeted with lots of rollers. Normally they wouldn’t bother me, but given the congestion in my head I wanted none of it. I think I stopped to walk briefly during that time, and I already made the decision to walk up the last creek bed. It seemed to take forever to reach that section and I welcomed the walk break. However, I knew I was dangerously close to missing my BQ attempt. I figured the latest I could reach mile 20 and still have a chance would be 3:06 into the race. But that would require me to run the last 10K at an 8:42 pace. Given my condition I doubted that would be possible.

Miles 21-finish
They say the race doesn’t truly start until mile 20, and that certainly was the case for me. Actually, that’s not true: the race ended for me at that point. Although I reached mile 20 just after 3:06, I knew I didn’t have it in me to push to the end. Even walking up the creek bed was difficult and I had to stop to walk again shortly thereafter. I ran mile 21 in 11:07. The next mile included a long downhill, and although I picked up the pace considerably (9:33), it still wasn’t enough. I resigned myself to not BQing and instead starting focusing on finishing with mind and body relatively intact. I ended up walking much of the way between miles 22 and 23 to clear my head (pace was 13:07).

When I reached the 23-mile mark I started playing some head games to get me through: “Okay, Betsy — you just have to run 2 minutes, then you can walk 1 minute,” or “Just run to that tree and you can walk again.” By then a lot of people were struggling and taking walk breaks as well. I kept leapfrogging one runner, but I eventually was able to pass him. With one mile to go I had hoped to run the rest of the way, but ended up needing one more walk break. Once I could see the finish line I was able to pick up the pace and ran the last half mile or so. I saw my darling standing with our good friend Mary and her 2-year-old son Giacomo (they both were wearing “Go Matt!” “Go Betsy!” shirts), so I blew them a kiss and sprinted toward the finish, where I was met by a volunteer with some electrolyte drink.

The aftermath
I wasn’t particularly hungry but forced myself to eat a bit of cookie and a half banana. I wasn’t quite ready to head back to our hotel room (we had to check out by 2 p.m. and it was almost 1:30), but felt much better after sitting for a few moments. Back in the room I dove under the covers as I was really chilled. Mary poured me a glass of wine and handed me some pita chips. My hands started shaking really bad and my darling noticed my lips were blue; not good! Mary immediately started a hot shower and forced me to get in.

Crisis averted, we packed up our things and bid Mary adieu. I found Marian at the finish line and was thrilled to hear she finished in under 3:45 (she got 3rd in our age group). By now my appetite had returned and I was thrilled to see they were handing out chicken noodle soup. We also had a little picnic in our car with cheese, salami, grapes and crackers.

We hit the road just after 3 p.m. It seemed to take forever to drive from Port Angeles back to Sequim, and to think we had just run that distance! When we arrived at the Kingston dock we realized we wouldn’t make the ferry that was being loaded, so we hobbled up the street to a martini bar. I hadn’t had a martini in well over a month and this one tasted like the elixir of the Gods.

Once on the ferry both my darling and I crashed on the couches for the half-hour trip.

Two days later, even though I can’t even think of running for a couple more days, I’m already planning my next adventure: