my trip was absolutely awesome. exploring berlin on foot for a week was one of the most incredible adventures I have ever had. the city is so full of history and character that i could have buried myself in it for a month and not seen it all. but in the time i gave myself, i covered a lot of ground and i really got to see some incredible places. I feel so incredibly fortunate to have done this. truly this was an experience i will remember and treasure forever.
my race. well, i didn't make a new PR. i trained for so long and so hard, to the exclusion of so much else in my life, and i just couldn't do it. when my GPS said i hit 26.2 miles, I was already at 3:55:04 (3 and a half minutes longer than my PR), and then it took me until 3:59:38 to actually cross the finish line. I was very disappointed in myself. with all my incremental test races along my training plan, i constantly set new PRs. I have been running faster and stronger than i have ever run before, and i truly felt i was physically and mentally capable of setting a new PR in Berlin. i felt strong, and i felt good, but i guess my training couldn't overcome the situation. with over 40,000 registered runners, it was the most crowded clusterf*ck i have every taken part in. there were 8 start corrals, but they actually started the run in only 3 waves. 3 waves for over 40,000 runners. and as the race stretched out, when you would expect the field to open up and give you the opportunity to really start running, the course also narrowed down. oftentimes the course seemed to be narrowed down to a single lane of road. so i was stuck in a wave based on my previous PR, and i ended up finishing in a consistent manner. there was constant running video taken at multiple points during the whole marathon. they created a custom video link for each runner, based on their splits with relation to the mileage location of the camera. long story short, here is a screen capture of the 25k mark (15.5 miles), just to show you how crowded it was. you can see me just trapped, boxed in. seriously, thats more than halfway through the marathon, and it was still jam-packed around me.
that picture is what my entire run felt like. when you're tired and it hurts to keep going, it gets harder and harder to push your way through people and more difficult to try to go out of your way to circle around them. in fact, the last 3-5 miles were the worst. people were dropping out, just coming to a dead stop right in the middle of the lane. i full on physically ran into people that just stopped in front of me. at the last refreshment point, i was forced to slow down to a walk because of the choke point. so i grabbed a water, walked/pushed my through the crowd, and started running again. it was an awesome course, and it was a beautiful day for a run, but it was just hard.
but the big picture is my life, not one race. when i entered the lottery for Berlin, and won the right to register, i set 2 goals for myself. my bare minimum was to finish another full marathon staying at least sub 4 hours, and i set myself a strech goal of setting a new PR. i didn't reach my stretch goal, but i am calling myself a success. the only person i can't beat is myself. i have learned that running on 2 drastically different courses just can't be compared. a slightly downhill trail run in virgin PNW woods with a field of 200 runners can't be compared to a fairly level World Majors urban road run with 40,000 runners. i feel like a better athlete and a better person for having done this. win or lose, setting a goal for myself, creating and following a plan to get there, and dealing with the roadblocks and failures along the way just makes me a better and stronger person. it was hard for me not to hit a PR, especially with so many friends and fmaily watching and rooting for me. and if you don't know me well, i am my own worst critic. so when i felt like i failed, i decided to look back i what i have done in the last year. setting a true stretch goal, one that felt physically impossible, working so hard, and sacrificing so much. at least i f*cking tried, and I am proud of myself with this outcome. I am am better person for having done this, than if i was too have done nothing over the last 11 months. I'm 44 years old, and i'm healthier and fitter than i have ever been in my entire life. i have no reason to stop now.
so what's next? i don't feel like i need to run another World Marathon Majors event. I did it, and it was incredible, but I don't need to do it again. knowing that i just can't run faster, i guess whats left is to go farther? so a little rest and recovery. then back to the gym, maybe try to make up for some of my lost muscle mass. spend some time working out with my friends again. and next year? maybe 2015 will be the year of the 50K ultramarathon trail run. full on. thanks for following me.
Dude! I love Berlin. I'm only sad you couldn't take your family; I would like to take mine some time. (To live for a while, if at all possible.)
ReplyDeleteYour day could have gone differently. You could have done all the same training, and then come down with the flu on race day and been unable to compete. I still don't think that would invalidate what you have done in the past year. Its hard to get your heart and body to accept that when your goal has been the one race, though.
I'd love to see what you could do with Seattle or Sammamish, actually. I think they would be a truer test of your running, because the fields would open up and you wouldn't be artificially restricted. Seattle is quite hilly, so I still don't know if it would be a fair test for a PR, but in my experience it hasn't been anywhere near that crowded.
I hope you'll keep the blog going in some form - its been inspiring to watch.