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Well, the marathon gods are still having fun with me...They have been teasing me for 3 marathons now. This year, I even changed my hair color the week before the marathon
trying to fake them out, hoping to slip through their radar without them zapping me with their bonk sceptors. No, deal. I did get a PR. But, no one but me knows how nicely I was set up to finish well under four hours only to see it slowly slip away in the last
few miles.
I started loosing it about mile 18, aware that I was sucking down Powergel paks much quicker than I had planned. At that point, I discovered the true definition of trust. Trust is when you suck down your last pack of gel hoping like hell that your friend will be at mile 20 to hand you another one, as you have planned... That is real trust. Or is it desperation?!? At that point, it was sheer relief to see him there, thinking that one more pack would boost me. But, it seems I was too far down on the energy curve to get back up. That last 6.2 miles could have been even more painful without one more dose of gel and the mouthful of gummy bears I shoved in at Festival Beach. And it was mentally painful enough. I had no muscle aches or joint pains. In fact, regarding a hip issue I
had had in the long training runs, I was able to adjust my foot strike slightly and keep the issue at bay. Man, is that I nice thing to discover on race day! My muscles, joints and body, in general, felt great! It was just that damn fuel issue. By the way, I missed a part of the calculation on how much fuel you need for the actual race. I took the amount I used on the 22 miler and extrapolated to 26.2. And then had my friend there with an extra one at mile 20. I didn't realize that you needed to multiply by TWO to account for race day adrenaline and the extra energy necessary for the heat. Did I miss that lecture??!!?!
There was one consellation prize, though. At the end of the race, luckily my friend found me sitting on the ground, where I had plopped, too tired to look for him anymore. His first words were not, 'Way to go, Cindy!', 'Awesome race, babe!' or 'Atta girl!'.
His first words were, 'You beat Gov. Rick Perry!!!' And indeed, I was beating myself up for letting that magic 4 hour mark slip out of reach. His words made me smile. There was some consellation to the day. I had finished about a minute ahead of the Governor. :-)
And if we are taking a total count of AustinFit toenails lost, count me in for 2.
Cindy Burton, 9:15 Yellow Group
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