On Saturday, May 16, I ran the Ogden Marathon in Ogden, UT. This was my second marathon ever, and also my second time at the Ogden Marathon. It has taken me a couple of weeks to decide to sit down and write about my experience, and to decide what to say. It was a rough day, and I needed a minute to process all of it and decide how I really felt about everything.
I set a goal this year to finish a marathon in 4 hours and some number of minutes. In all of my training leading up to the marathon, I knew it would be close whether I could come in under 5 hours, but I thought that the adrenaline of race day and having well rested legs would give me a little bit of an edge on race day. I felt confident in the training I had done, and I had managed to stay healthy all the way through my training cycle, which gave me a lot of confidence going into the marathon.
Everything went according to plan during race week, and Friday evening I headed up to Ogden to pick up my race packet. I got home, ate a healthy dinner, set out all my gear for the next morning, and went to bed. I didn't get to bed quite as early as I would have liked, but since I never sleep all that great the night before a race anyway, I wasn't hugely concerned about it. My alarm went off at 2:45 so I could get up, have breakfast and coffee, and go to meet my girlfriends who I was carpooling to the start with. We got to Ogden and parked near the bus loading area around 5am, and boarded a big yellow bus for the 26.2 mile drive up the canyon and into the mountains. I tried to eat most of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the bus ride up to the start line, but my stomach was a little uneasy, and I couldn't manage as much food as I would have liked. We milled around the start line for well over an hour prior to the start, used the honey buckets a couple of times, and right as we were about to start, some black clouds started rolling in. So we put on our trash bags. Ha! Then we were ready to run.
The gun went off, and thousands of runners funneled through the starting line. Seconds after starting, rain started falling, and it didn't quit for the entire race. If you've never run 26.2 miles in the rain, I don't recommend it. And if you have run 26.2 in the pouring rain, then you feel my pain. The combination of the cold and wet was probably the most disastrous combination I could have imagined. At least running in the snow, you can keep your body temperature warm, but running in the rain, not so much. Everything gets soaked through, and you are just soggily squishing along to the finish line. I had sore joints from the cold and wet, and by about mile 15, there were times when I was just shuffling along to try to keep moving forward.
At mile 17, my amazing friends, Ilya and Aubrey were waiting for me with smiles and hugs. And boy did I need that right then. It was so nice to see friendly faces who believed in me, and believed that I could finish this thing, even in the crappiest of conditions. I got a couple of hugs, and was on my way down the canyon for the remaining 9ish miles of the course.
At this point, the downhill was a huge help. A lot of people have a hard time with the downhill getting steeper at mile 17-18, but I train a lot of downhill (because it's fun and I like it), and that came in handy when my legs were still holding up for me in that section of the course. The most brutal part of the canyon was the wind I encountered. It was raining and blowing so hard that I had to put my head down so the bill of my hat could shield my face from the blowing rain. And my trash bag was plastered to the front of me, making arm movement nearly impossible. I was happy to reach the mouth of the canyon and get out of that wind.
Once I was out of the canyon, I only had a few miles to go, and I was able to get into a rhythm where my legs felt pretty good for the last part. I was beyond ecstatic when I turned the final corner and saw the finish arch in the distance. Granted, it was a lot further down that street than I would have liked, but knowing I was almost there made me want to cry tears of joy. As I approached the finish chute, I took off my trash bag so I could run through the finish in a more respectable fashion. And promptly dropped it. Stopping and bending over to pick that up hurt like hell, but I got moving again and crossed the finish with a smile on my face (although I'm not smiling in this picture).
As I mentioned earlier, I had a goal of 4:??:?? for this race. By the time I hit the half way point or so, I knew that goal had slipped away from me. It was so disappointing to have to run the second half of the race, knowing that my goal had already been missed. I tried not to beat myself up about it too badly since finishing a marathon is still quite an accomplishment, but I didn't succeed all that well. And I still haven't totally processed it and let go of the way it all ended up.
I guess this means that now I just have to do another marathon and prove to myself that I am capable of a 4-something finishing time. Maybe I'll let Ogden go and try a different downhill race like Big Cottonwood next year. I suppose time will tell.
I also have to give a huge shout out and thank you to my husband for all his support leading up to this year's marathon. He drove me up the canyon at all hours of the morning on the weekends, he put up with my early bedtimes, and afternoon naps when I was tired from long runs. And he listened to me complain about long runs when I needed an ear as well. And then he drove to the finish line and stood in the rain with more awesome people - Bethany and Weston - and cheered me through the finish and drove me home.
Congratulations to everyone who finished the Ogden Marathon and Half last month! You are all champions in my book.
