I had some grand ambitions way back in April of 2016, when I registered for the Tunnel Light Marathon. This is known to be a pretty fast course, so I figured it was my best shot at that sub-4 hour time that’s eluded me so far. And since it’s only five minutes faster, I had the top secret wish of coming in under 3:55 for a BQ. (PS I am old.) But, as they say, training is the opposite of wishing! *
So, not sure why this didn’t occur to me ahead of time, but a September marathon means training in the summer. Even though I love summer, the one thing I don’t love about it is training runs in hot weather. I still ran regularly all summer, and did Ragnar in July, but with travel, the heat, and the kids being out of school, I didn’t have the time or inclination to be doing 18-20 mile training runs. I think the longest run I did all summer was maybe seven miles. Then I panicked and tried to do a 14 mile run at the end of August. It did not go well.
Rudely enough, race weekend still came along even though I hadn’t trained for it. Not cool! I decided to do it anyway and just see how it went. It did not turn out great but it wasn’t terrible. I managed the first ~16 miles fairly well despite minimal training and these stupid plantar warts that I may have mentioned once or twice. But then,
I spent the next ten miles doing a run/walk combo that gradually became mostly walk. I picked up the pace a bit towards the end, mostly because by then I was just kind of sick of being on the trail, and I wanted to be home in time for the Seahawks game. The course was pretty but my performance, not so much. Lesson learned: training matters.
Registration for the June race opened yesterday and I’m excited to have a second chance. June is a much better time for me as far as training goes, and after a visit to a podiatrist, my feet are finally starting to feel better. This time I have the much more modest goal of simply beating September’s finish time of 4:42, and since I’m planning to actually train for this one, that should be doable. Apparently there’s some behind the scenes drama going on among the race organizers, so if I miss my goal this time around, I can blame it on them. Kidding! (Sort of.) But seriously, I hope they get it together.
*IDK if people really say that but I did see it on a t-shirt once.
