Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Paris Marathon 2013


I'm running a marathon this Sunday. April 7, 2013. While I've already signed up for my next marathon (insane!), this one will be my first.

Signing up for 1 is crazy enough. 2 is just plain psycho.

I'm comfortable running half marathons, but feel like this is the more intense sequel in an X-Men trilogy or something and this is the one where in the preview, they say something melodramatic, like This time, all bets are off, or, In the rules of trilogies, in the 3rd movie, there are no rules. Or coming soon, to an urban marathon course near you, April 7, You'll find out what you're made of.

I have been told to expect pain, tears and more pain. I plan to run with pain killers in addition to my shot bloks, just in case. I have been told it's a wild experience and just to tick off the Paris monuments that we pass and the miles will fly by. I've been told that in theory, it's easy-- right foot, left foot, repeat for 42.2 kilometers (26.2 miles), but obviously, in practice it's a little harder.

I'm running with a friend who has done marathons before and runs at my pace and was a lovely speed interval partner. I will also have brunch waiting for me afterwards thanks to tri team friends. My mother will be cheering for me at the finish line and so will Ironman (who is running it, too, and will no doubt do it in some impossibly fast time, like 2 hours). The closest thing I have to a race strategy (besides surviving and not stopping!) is just to focus on each 5K split and try to do each in half an hour. Easy and consistent.

I also don't want to alternate running and walking at the end.

I've heard that if half marathons really start at  the 10K mark, marathons really start at 30K. The last 10k are where the race is. Lots of people run-walk this part, you'll start to see people stop and stretch. This is where it happens. Trying to avoid time goals, other than around 4 hours-- would prefer closer to 4 than 5, but any time I run will be a personal best (the beauty of every new distance you race!), and my only other goal is to avoid walking. I'd like to run the whole thing, even if my pace becomes the slowest jog ever.

While this might be a slightly saccreligious comparison, marathon stratégies for first time marathoners are probably like birth plans-- you can have ideas about how you want it to go, but you should stay flexible since you don't know how the event will really happen and there will be factors beyond your control. Like the crowd, the weather, etc., (for the marathon, at least).

4 days away, I feel like I didn't train enough. I trained well in February, but couldn't really sustain it in March, mainly because of the social life and family visits (not that I am complaining about these things at all!) It just because harder to fit in. I also only did 1 run over 30k, and what now only seems like few around 30-- like a month of long runs at 26, 27 and 29K. My longest run ever was 32K and now I wish I'd done it twice, or even done a longer one...  

I did notice that I was at least getting used to long runs, though, when I did a little 16K last weekend and thought how luxurious it was to do a short run without having to carry water, shot bloks or gu chomps...

I think running is a little like writing a college thesis. In running, you've never trained enough. In the academic world, you've never researched enough. I once had a professor who told me that I just had to start writing and there was an infinite amount of research to be done.

I also wish I knew what to expect. Will my legs go numb? Will I hallucinate? Will I have to stop and pee in public? I think I'll probably cry at the end, just because I'm fairly emotional.

While I just want to survive the Paris marathon, someday I would like to qualify for Boston. That's what marathon number 2 is for! No, just kidding. My second marathon will probably still not be a Boston qualifier by any stretch, but I might be able to find some kind of intermediate goal that will put me on track for qualifying by the end of the year... And it should be the most breath-taking course ever-- Nice-Cannes marathon along the French Riviera.

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